In the name of Allah, the All-Compassionate, the All-Merciful.
Ramadhan.
To most, it is a time of reflection. To me, it is a time of guilt.
I feel guilty for not being a better Muslim.
I feel guilty for not being a better fiancée.
I feel guilty for not being a better daughter.
I feel guilty for not being a better sister.
I feel guilty for not being a better friend.
I feel guilty for not being a better fan.
I feel guilty for not being a better Nurul Huda.
Hais. There are so many things I am guilty for and I am not quite sure how to make amends.
Tomorrow is June and what have I achieved? I realise that working in one goal at a time ironically does not help me much. I was better off last year at this point of time, achieving many goals I set for myself. I think I need to change things already. Clearly my style is ‘go for everything in order to get at least something’ rather than ‘go for something in order to get everything’. It is very important for all of us to not only realise our strengths and weaknesses but to find out methods and systems that work for us because clearly some of us cannot work in an affixed way.
Tonight, I admit, I slipped. I caved in. I sinned. I tried to make myself feel better beforehand by applying for a couple of jobs and by watching some videos but those methods didn’t help me much. I then tried to make myself feel better afterwards by snacking and watching the repeat telecast of the FA Cup final 2017.
That was when I realised I once loved a lot and right now, it feels like I have lost a lot.
Things have happened. I have made my decisions. While it is important to take a step back when trying to move forwards, it is more imperative to disallow ourselves from taking more than one step bakwards. Unfortunately, I took many steps backwards and have been living in constant worry and fear and stress.
I thank God for the amazing people in my life. I have hit a huge snag in my life but I am surrounded by people who practiced a lot of mindfulness. I am ashamed of having to lean on them so much, for example Nora, but there are circumstances which are simply beyond my control and I’m just doing my best to face everything head on. I think the problem was I was trying so hard to keep control that the more I did so, the more I lost it. It was like trying to contain water in a sieve. If the water was bound to flow through, it was definitely going to and no amount of effort to cover the base of the sieve with my bare hands was going to do it any good. Some things just happened because they had to happen but that does not mean we do not walk away from it completely empty-handed. I couldn’t walk away with quantifiable amount of water but at least my hands got wet. A taste of sweetness on top of bitter disappointment holds more weight than quick full satisfaction. We do not know what we have until we have lost it. Yet we do not know what we have lost precisely because we think we already have it.
Hahaha, maybe all of that is just mindless rambling in the middle of the night. I don’t know. I really don’t know how to explain what I feel right now. I only know that for once in my life, I need to stop feeling if I want to overcome this mid-year crisis. Not every difficulty requires sentiment. Sometimes you just have to grind and plough through.
After tomorrow, the next 48 days will be all about survival in this stone island called Singapore.
I have to make it.
I’m really sorry, readers, but it looks like you will be getting a lot of personal posts from me. Writing is therapeutic for me and I somewhat find comfort in saying a lot of things to no one in particular. Ironic, huh?
Perhaps I am a paradoxical Pandora.
So let’s regroup and reset our goals. Think about the progress you have made so far this year and the improvements you can make. What about planning for a longer term than just this year? Where do you want to be at in your life the next five years? I’ll be thinking about such things later in the morning and examining my life holistically once more.
Yes, despite the meltdowns, the anxiety attacks, the emotional breakdowns,
I still choose to live.
And Allah is Ar-Rahim, the All-Merciful. Dear Allah, please have mercy on me and on my soul. Please widen the doors of my prosperity. Please help me in my efforts and make my affairs easier for me. Amin. – MM
Metropolitan Muslimah 