In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.
I couldn’t blog for the past how-many-donkey years as I had been occupied with events, socials, business, and work.
I do feel extremely knackered. I’m not going to lie. It’s taking a little toll on my body. But as long as I can catch a little breather in between, I’m good to go. I’m actually training myself to be less lazy but it does get very hard to keep the energy level up.
And it’s weirdly much harder to be a Muslim.
I think it’s pretty useless for me to aspire towards just worldly things. At this age, I really ought to make preparations for the afterlife. I want to leave this world without any worries and baggages. Just wrapped in a piece of white cloth and buried six feet under peacefully, without even having to go through post-mortem.
As long as I can’t say to myself, “I am ready to die”, I will have to continue to work hard to impress my Maker.
I have been trying to cope with a lot of emotions lately, with some of those emotions I couldn’t quite comprehend. But at the end of the day, when you can’t figure things out, you just gotta stay true to yourself and stick to your principles. I’m really glad I groomed myself to have a strong centre, thanks to self-help books, really. I learnt that if you centre your life on a person, when that person leaves, your whole world crumbles. But if you centre your life on your principles and values, no matter what happens, no matter who leaves, and no matter how much your world is shaken, it never crumbles.
Now that I’m thinking more deeply about things, I think it’s not that I don’t understand and it’s not that I don’t acknowledge but it’s just that I am not able to do anything simply because I’m not in a position to do so.
It sounds like cryptic bullshit, I know, so do you have an idea on how I feel now? Hahaha!
Anyway, let’s just push all that aside. I have photos to share!
The following were taken last Sunday. My younger sister Hazwanni got engaged. Yay! But the way my husband and I dressed, it’s almost as though we’re the ones getting engaged on that day. Hahaha!
Me thinking of food be like…
Me wanting someone to feed me be like…
Me after being fed be like…
Me in a food coma be like…
Hahahaha! I hope that made you laugh! Below is a picture of my husband, my family, my grandma, and my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and of course the engaged couple and I.
I didn’t realise how good I looked that day. My scarf looks well draped in that picture!
Maybe I should really stop wearing the instant scarf. Stop looking like a makcik. Haha! But I really cannot be arsed to put in effort sometimes. Should I change that about me? Be less lazy in that aspect as well?
Also, mask-friendly lipstick, my ass! I looked like The Joker by the time we met didi and G Hustler for dinner that evening!
I must say I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who cannot be bothered by my appearance. Hahaha!
My husband thoroughly enjoyed himself that evening. He was asked to participate in an impromptu blues guitar duet by G Hustler. I’m telling you, the two of them together on guitars is just a beaut. Sonically pleasing and entertaining. On nights like that, I feel really happy that I get to be with the people I love and enjoying things I love. I feel so so blessed.
By the end of that night though, I was feeling quite beat from helping out at the engagement party; decluttering, vacuuming, and serving. Even my husband had to cut the loaves of bread to serve to the guests. Hahaha! Umi wanted to pack food for us but we were hesitant since we were meeting the two boys for dinner. As a resolution, I asked her to pack for G Hustler instead. I’ve been wanting to let him try her cooking anyway, since I kept raving it to him.
I got to witness (and hear) his reaction to her cooking in person the next day when we met at the office for some business that day. But the poor chap had to stop eating every now and then to serve our patrons.
Such is the life of a hustler. Want to eat peacefully also challenging sometimes. Hahaha!
I’m just glad we managed to put some smiles on people’s faces and make new friends. Well, he made more new friends than I did because he reached out to them personally. I’m just happy to help.
It also made me feel more appreciative of our friendship. Sometimes, the people with the most friends, are the ones who are more guarded. They don’t just allow anyone into their lives.
To be honest, even after he has complimented me so many times, I still can’t fathom why I’m different in his eyes. He has definitely met more people than I have and interacted with more people than I have, that to me, it feels rather impossible for myself to be able to stand out from the crowd, from the thousands of people he has encountered in his entire lifetime.
I mean, I’m always pissing him off with little things such as not closing the door behind me, not thinking of safety by leaving his swiss army knife out, and taking too long to do something he can do in half the time I will take.
Damn. Now I feel really sorry for crashing into his life and causing so much chaos! Hahaha!
I think what makes our friendship special is that it is centred on principles and values, just as how I centred my life on those.
I have seen for myself how someone I thought I knew could swing from telling me that he thinks I could be a great mother to shaming me publicly that I’m just a lowly motherfucker.
Clearly, attraction is fleeting. That lesson has taught me, between affection and respect, to choose respect from a man instead. The affection that comes from respect is more valuable and timeless than the affection that comes with plain attraction. I see it for myself in how my husband treats me, forgiving me for all the little things that annoy him as well. We’ve been through quite a bit of hell and high water together, stemming from even before we got married, which gave me many opportunities to cement the respect he has for me now. It shows in the affection he gives to me. I can totally cook up an insta-worthy quote that goes along the lines of, “A man’s level of affection for you reflects his level of respect for you.” But I’m too lazy. But if you do see it floating on the web one day, you’d know it came from here first! Hahaha!
I think yesterday makes a cute example of our business relationship. I watched him clean the office while I lepak at his computer. In person, I told him he looks like a Bangla, hard at work. What I didn’t tell him was he looked like and felt like Superman to me in his blue AirForce shirt and bright red shorts, muscling through the chores all day. I, on the other hand, looked like and felt like Batman in my black cardigan, doing the nerdy computer stuff in my little batcave of a desk. Macam Justice League! I was simply trying to set up a printer. But oh, my God, I really hate Windows 10. It’s so annoying! Windows 7 will forever be the best to me. I don’t care what y’all say about that. Hmph!
One of the most prominent recollection of our friendship, if not the most important piece of memory, occured one night on the drive back after we were done with work.
There was something indescribable in the air that night as we journeyed on the roads less travelled. The music was left turned off so the silence filled the car when no one spoke. The silence itself, I found to be very powerful. It wasn’t the awkward silence that made you want to break it with needless chatter. It was a comfortable silence that you could only share with very few. It was a silence that should only be broken if there was anything meaningful to be said. The weight of each word we did speak, was heavier than it usually would be. There was something steadily rhythmic about the way he described going on each bend on his bike as the car swerved with each turn. I couldn’t resist asking him for permission to roll down the windows as we passed by the sight of Johor over water. The rush of the night wind penetrated through our silence. It was a deafening but not devastating sound. All too soon it ended as we find ourselves journeying back into civilisation, back into reality. With neither of us wanting to leave behind the respite, the music was left turned off so that the steady silence that accompanied us on the journey could follow us back home.
I mentioned earlier that that piece of memory is very important. That’s because I feel like I have been given a key, entrusted with a responsibility to hold and use it wisely.
I don’t know how little old me could end up with something so important.
I can only do my best.
And Allah knows best. – MM
Metropolitan Muslimah 