Story of a life

  A bit numb. A bit exhilarated. A bit in pain. That’s me right now.  One is supposed to feel one’s pain. That’s what the Dave Ramsey article said. To let your heart experience it. Well, I did. Here I am. Three hours after I sent in the final email to the court lady and my lawyer with a settlement offer. The hardest part, the one I was the most sad about, still...was that I want this to be the finalizing of everything. No loose strings so to speak.  I don’t want to. My heart can’t even imagine not being his wife. Even now. But mind says it’s time to move on. Move on to what, I do not know. On one hand I want to take that part out. Perhaps, still hoping somehow that it’d work out. Mind is baffled how that can be? Heart is willing to forgive and forget, to beg for forgiveness, longing to find solace in his arms but mind remembers how limp and awkward those arms were, how stone-cold that chest, how icy the eyes and words towards the end. There were the occasional sparks but ...

 I turned 30 this year. 2020, 1990 kid. Amazing year this has been.  In these thirty years, I have witnessed miracles, so many miracles yet there is so much still that I haven't and probably never will. I know a lot, much more than I did when I turned twenty. Yet there is so much I do not know and with every day that passes, I realize it more and more.  Tonight, or tomorrow night, Saturn and Jupiter are supposed to be in conjunction, an event that may not happen again for 800 years. Definitely not in my lifetime. However, I cannot go see it even though I want to. I have got two little stars at home sleeping and even if I managed to venture outside for a quick peek, I wouldn't know where to look and will definitely not be able to see from the place I can venture out to, the covered parking lot outside :) I sat talking with my mother about things I haven't achieved and the sense of loss over a 'wasted' decade. She began listing things that I have accomplished and I r...

 Tonight I posted about baby number two. He entered the world (early) less than ten days after I wrote my last post.  I wrote (more than I usually do) about the name I chose for him and the meaning of the name. All of it is true. But it isn’t the whole truth. I didn’t write about one, perhaps the most important reason. I have loved the name since I was 11, yes, but I also truly believe God must’ve sent this little one for a reason that only He understands at the moment. His timing and wisdom are perfect and we do not always know.  When I found out I was pregnant, I was homeless with a toddler, living off of charity, fighting to survive by applying for government benefits, and my husband who had left us in a different continent had been AWOL for over a week. I didn’t even know if he was alive.  I was scared and abandoned. And yet, when I first saw those strips say pregnant, a ray of joy burst inside my heart. Impractical to the core but this pregnancy was very very wa...

 I am pregnant with my second child. The journey is almost to an end. Almost 37 weeks. I don’t know what is at the other side of it. Hopefully a happy and healthy mom and baby and big brother. In sha Allah khair. But in my heart, I am already mourning the loss of my pregnant state. I love being pregnant. I loved being pregnant with my first and would love to keep this second one inside me if I wasn’t afraid it will get too difficult to actually birth this child. I don’t like the nausea, the smell sensitivity, the back pain but I sure love the feeling of growing a tiny human inside me. Labor and delivery aren’t dreams either but, to me, breastfeeding is harder than that.  I love this baby. As I do the older one. And I can’t wait to meet the masterpiece God has created in my womb this time but in a way, as long as I can keep the baby in my womb, I can protect and keep safe. When out in the world, I cannot. And the world can be cruel. Without regards to one’s age or ability. And ...

 I gave you my life. My heart, my body, my soul. All of me. Whole, pure, and untainted. I carried your child. I am carrying your child. I made you a home. I gave you a home in my heart. I left my career for you. I preferred you over myself in every way I could. Unwillingly at times and with all my heart more so than anything else.  You gave me grey hair. I love you. Still. Always. Forever. 

 I miss Busboys and poets. I miss Community forklift. I miss watching local theater plays at the Silver Spring theater. Except I was no more lost now than I was then. That sentence sounds ominous. I am almost 31 weeks pregnant. Or perhaps 32 based on what the measurements were at my last exam. I finally had an exam after months. Yesterday was the glucose test. Weeks after it was supposed to be. Supposed to be's, should be's, could've been...yada yada yada. I miss DC. Home of my heart. I even miss Maryland. I miss me. The carefree me. I mean, I wouldn't describe life before marriage to be that, but there was a glow in the days before I tethered myself to a man, supposedly for life. Life. Married for life. That's what I thought I was. Guess I thought wrong.  I don't miss it. Or him. Alhumdulillah that's a blessing. I don't think I never will. I am afraid it'll hit me in one large wave once the nastiness of this divorce is over. Like a complete washout....

I think of the love I felt for him. Fiery, passionate love. Love that lights up the soul, brightens the eyes, makes the heart sing, colors all seasons. All-consuming, all-forgiving. And then I remember, people are like seasons in our lives. They must pass. And that...I deserve that love too. Everyone does. Someday. Somewhere. Someone. Somehow.

I saw a picture of my high school this morning. An old classmate had posted it on Instagram stories. We do not talk much, or at all, beyond reacting to each other's posted pictures once in a while if they mention a milestone reached. I worked hard to get into that school. The best place you could go to in the city if you wanted to go to Harvard. I wanted to go to Harvard. I had wanted to go to Harvard since I was 11. I had heard that one of my American cousins had earned a scholarship to go to Harvard Summer School that summer. I didn't know what Harvard was. We had internet at the house by then and I knew how to connect the dial-up. In some of the many stolen hours of browsing, I found out it was only the best university in the world. Of course, I wanted to go there. What I would do there, I had no idea, but to Harvard, I was going. I graduated from high school in 2009. It was a tough year. Like the year before had been. And all the years of my life leading up to it. Howe...

I just watched the movie/ documentary "A Prince Among Slaves". I am thinking a lot of things but the chief among them is the thought or idea of all the Muslims who came before me in this country to make it possible for me to breathe free and hold my head up high now as a person who wasn't born here and has no connection to this land. A foreigner. An immigrant. A person who left her roots and settled halfway across the world in a place where no one knew of her existence before they met her. Here, she has found love, hospitality, generosity, a place in hearts and minds, a place to breathe, spread her wings and broaden her horizons, mental and physical. None of this was my right. None of it a God-given right in the land where I was born. For my son, perhaps. But for me, no. For I was not born here. I did not come here of my own accord. And I did not adopt this land as mine of my complete unadulterated free will. Who I am, where I am from and to where and whom I belong i...