Mariana Missakian

Mariana Missakian, originally Armenian, was born in Lebanon and lived there until she fell head over heels in love with a boy, got married and moved to Dubai at the age of 18.

For 18 years she lived and worked in Dubai. She was a corporate superstar, career-driven, city-approved, power-thirsty woman, a super achiever in stilettos. Every day she would go to work to close the next big deal, negotiate the next big contract, and see her name in shining lights. Until the day she became a full-time mom, quit her job, and moved to Suburbia, where she desperately tried and failed, to navigate a latex world she never knew existed before.

She lost her identity.

Who she was so tightly interlocked with her job that she didn’t know who she was anymore without a job, a title, and a pigeon-holed work status. And so, she became the lady in spandex wearing her hair in a messy bun in a perfectly manicured gated society who tries, and fails on most days, to figure out how to best answer the question: “So, what do you do?”

To cope with her new social status and living in one of the most vibrant places in Dubai, Mariana started to write personal essays documenting all the crazy, silly happy and disappointing that goes on in her new gated community, debunking the idealized version of motherhood and what life in Suburbia is supposed to be.