Musfira- aka Tiny Toes- has a new nickname. Tiny Teef. Because she has two. teeny. tiny. teef. And they are the cutest. teef. ever.
MashaAllah, SubhanAllah. Alhamdulillah. 
Also, in the last month alone, she’s been to Manila, Doha, and Ras Al Khaimah. Her stroller should be getting frequent flier miles or something.
Is it possible to be both over and underwhelmed simultaneously? Because I think I am. Work is overwhelming. Life is underwhelming. The daily grind is… grinding. The kids are beautiful. Life is busy. Feed the baby. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m having the thirty-one year itch. I perform meaningful roles out of duty and habit. I’m not jealous of anyone else’s life, I’m just not sure what to make of mine at the moment. I live from the fulfillment of one person’s needs to next, never succeeding in the impossible quest to fulfill them all, constantly being reminded of the 20% I fail and never being credited for the 80% where I don’t.
I want to simplify, downsize, and prune it all back to the essentials. I want to throw away everything in my storage room. I want to throw out the clothes in my closet that are twenty pounds too small and stop feeling guilty for not being the same size I was before three kids. I want to launch the pretty shoes I bought that hurt my feet over the boundary wall of the house, because it’s not like keeping them around will remove some of the guilt I feel for not being a better kept wife for my husband.
I’m not sure if I live in my pajamas or sleep in my clothes anymore.
I only have two hairstyles, up or asleep.
I’m too tired to socialize and too busy to want to.
I heard once that the best way to tell if someone is depressed is to spend an hour talking to them, and if, after that hour, you feel depressed, then they’re depressed.
I doubt if this post is making anyone happy. Least of all myself, and now I’m annoyed at myself for being annoyed with things that perhaps should not be found annoying. I need to scream into a cave, but my cave is full of people and the baby is sleeping and I don’t want to disturb anyone.
I’m not a good mother, a good wife, or a good director. My house is disorganized, my children are bored, and my business is sloppy. I’m a barely passable Muslim, and that is probably what’s bugging me the most. When my Iman is high (my faith, not my three year old) I feel alive, I feel free, I feel empowered, I feel humbled, I feel real. When it’s low, I feel worthless, useless, and failed. My heart withers and verges on death until I pour the life-giving water of zhikr on it- and it comes back to life briefly but then I get busy and forget to water it again, and the cycle of chronic spiritual deprivation versus occasional resuscitation continues, but it continues unevenly. I had an African Violet once. A friend left it for me when she moved away from the UAE. I was only supposed to water it with one teaspoon every two weeks. I would forget for six weeks and then inundate it out of guilt. Naturally, it died. Naturally, I feel guilty.
Am I complaining? No, there are two reasons why I’m not complaining. 1.) I have no reason to complain. Allah has blessed me with more mercies and gifts than I could ever count, let alone thank Him for, even in an eternity.
2.) If I say I’m tired then they say I don’t have enough energy. If I say I’m overwhelmed they say I’m in over my head. If I say I’m stressed they say it’s my own fault. If I say I feel anxious then they say I’m always panicking. The problem with sharing your feelings is that sometimes they’re held against you. Complaining is shooting myself in the foot, because then people think I am an incompetent idiot versus an overwhelmed idiot. So I’m not complaining.
So there.
Blah.
Ok, I don’t really want to drive people away. I guess I just want to lose the mental barriers that have gone up since my blog has become a public place, and is therefore not always the best way of sharing private thoughts.
Hmm, I could be deluding myself here, assuming that anywhere on the internet is a private place. But humor me for the sake of argument.
Also, the L key on my computer might have banana milkshake in it. Thank you Khalid. It took me five attempts to spell your name because of the sticky L.
What am I trying to say here…I used to freely complain on my blog with the desired outcome of catharsis. Now I’m afraid of offending people if I do. I used to talk through my own weaknesses on my blog, now I’m afraid of mixing my human frailties with my public responsibilities. I’m a dag-nabbit director, dag-nabbit. I’m supposed to be on the ball, in the know, up the eyeballs in managerial competence or something. I shouldn’t be complaining about the banana milkshake in the L key and how lately Musfira has been so nocturnal that my daily waking time is noon and I seldom, if ever, leave the house during daylight hours. I shouldn’t complain about how my Ramadan felt like an utter waste because I got a kidney infection on day five and missed fasting for the next 25 days. I shouldn’t talk about the overwhelming sadness I felt when Eid was announced because another Ramadan had ended and I was no better off than I was before and not at all looking forward to reintroducing waswassa to the darkness of my own thoughts. When the sun set for the last Iftar I actually cried.
I’ve been reluctant to post for a while now, not fearing public disapproval, but rather of opening myself up to too many people who actually know me as a person. I’m not sure what it’s called when you have an easier time sharing your deepest, darkest thoughts with a stranger on an airplane than your own family or long-time friends, but I have that. I’ll open my inner recesses of my mind to strangers (and sell tickets to the event on a decorated marquis!) but keep it tightly locked to the people around me. But now a certain element of mixing has occurred, and I don’t know whether I should tell the strangers on my blog that I feel useless, overwhelmed and frustrated, or whether I should tell the friends and family on my blog that I’m a little busy but perfectly fine, thank you.
And thanks to the magic of RSS feeds (thanks for the reminders, guys) my ingenious plan of not updating for a long ole time is not likely to work. Which is such a pity, because I spent all of five minutes devising it, and now I want those five minutes back.
Meh.
I have no choice but to be myself, because I don’t know how to be anyone else. I just don’t know how much of myself I can be here anymore. Let’s see.
If I leave this blog un-updated long enough, will people stop coming, and if people stop coming, will I get my anonymity back? Just wondering.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/osama-bin-laden-marijuana-crop_n_858301.html
I’m not usually a political or news-related blogger, but this had me laughing so hard I had to say something- Marijuana has been found growing near Osama Bin Laden’s hide-out in Abbottabad. Now speculation has been flying wild and free about whether or not he was a joker, smoker, or midnight toker- or maybe just a dealer to make money on the side, who knows.
I’m sorry, I lived in Pakistan for eight years, and in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and almost the ENTIRE NORTHERN AREAS (like Abottabad) marijuana is a pernicious, giant weed. It grows knee-high by the road-side, it invades the common garden, it crops up in farm fields and the goats eat it and get all giggly. I’m serious. It’s like crab grass. Or dandelions. Except if you make pakoras out of it (which the villagers sometimes do) you tend to feel a bit mellow later. It’s an indigenous plant in Northern Pakistan, which is why so many unwashed westerners with backpacks and vacant stares disembark at the Islamabad airport and then wander aimlessly north. It’s a free drug destination. Pick it, roll it, smoke it. It grows everywhere. What are you doing to do, burn it?
Heh.
Lil Grey Crayon and her three lovelies are here, and we ‘ve had a great time today despite Khalid being up all night w/a cough, Iman being up since 6:30 am, and HF being all the way over in OMAN of all countries. (He’s no good at helping w/the kids when he’s in another country. pffft!) Also, Joy was off today. But we did it. We’re still alive. We’ve had a long and fun day and both of the kids are asleep and it’s 7:45 in the evening. Alhamdulillah.
I even managed to send a few work emails this morning, and tomorrow I have an autism parents meetup to attend. On the plus side, Joy will be back tomorrow, and InshaAllah, InshaAllah, I’m hoping I get more than just a few hours of sleep tonight. Last night Khalid woke up around midnight and fell asleep shortly before Fajr. Then, when I got out of bed to do wudu, he woke up, panicked, and ran after me half-asleep, thinking I was leaving. I told him I was praying, so he got back into bed.
Then, a few minutes later, my alarm went off again while I was already praying (I must’ve hit snooze before and not realized it) and because I couldn’t do anything about it, it went off with its brazen ‘red alert’ sound until Iman sat up, climbed over to my side-table, and expertly slid the ‘slide to stop alarm’ bar. I wouldn’t have believed it unless I had seen it.
“There,” she said, climbing her 2 years and 10 months old self back into bed. ”Iss finished. I did it.”
But she was awake then. And maybe Khalid hadn’t been back to sleep yet. But the kids were both up. So we had omelettes with a few slices of turkey and peppermint tea for breakfast. And eventually we woke and fed everyone else, and Lil Grey and her crew walked to the masjid for Friday prayer while Owl watched my lil savages so I could take a desperately needed nap.
Then we went out for lunch and Lil Grey took her lil shorties for indoor skydiving. (Welcome to Dubai. We ski in the mall, too.) Khalid and Iman got to run amok in the indoor play area, but having been poorly slept, they both started to break down by 5:00. Beebs, Lil Grey’s sweet and helpful eldest, helped me take the kids home and bathed Iman and even washed off most of the lipgloss that Iman adorned herself with while I was busy bathing Khalid. Then I put the kids to bed, one kid at a time, and now here I am, trying to remember my day in chronological order but also remembering the laundry that’s still in the machine as well as the assortment of dishes waiting for me in the sink. Which reminds me, there’s a half-made pot of daal on the stove too. Hmm. I should probably stop blogging now. :)
One of HF’s coworkers came over for lunch today, and as per tradition, Iman decided that the new person in the house must absolutely be her new best friend forever in the entire world. So she climbed in his lap, fawned over him told him everything that she knew about everything, which is something she does to newly introduced people all the time. Iman doesn’t require any warm-up time for new people. In fact, the newer the person the better- she’ll adore them all the more.
So, as Uncle BFF was getting his own son ready to go by helping him with his socks, Iman decided that was the perfect time to plop down into his lap (between his busy hands) and poke him in the nose. And then she poked herself in the nose and initiated the following conversation. And I quote:
Iman: I bonked my nose! I got it an ow!
Uncle BFF: Oh, you bonked your nose? Did it hurt?
Iman: Iss pain-fo. I go to the doctor.
Uncle BFF: You took your nose to the doctor? What did the doctor say?
Iman: No more monkeys jumping on the bed.
End quote.
Salad is healthy, right? *nodnodnod*
It’s sneaking up on me again- low Iman. And I don’t mean my novelty-sized daughter. I mean my levels of faith, how alive my heart feels, how easily I wake up for Fajr and how hard I work to keep my mental jukebox clean and my thoughts of other people charitable. It’s predictable, really. In my case the smooth, downhill path takes some routine turns.
First, I stop making dua consciously. I figure I need to be quick and so I make it short, sweet, and mentally absent.
Rabbana aatina fiddunia hasanatuawn wa fil aakhirati hasanatauwn wa aqina ‘azhaban-naar. Ameen.
Our Lord, grant for us in this world Good and in the next world Good, and protect us from the fire of hell. Ameen. I make dua on auto-pilot and rush off to do something “more urgent” and soon, the loss of concentration in my prayers follows. It starts with a bit of mental wandering and gets so bad that I raise my hands for takbeer and greet the angels for tasleem and wander off knowing I’ve prayed only because my head is covered and I left my chair in the middle of the floor.
And then the time-wasting starts- crappy internet sites with top ten lists of information that add zero value to my existence as a human being. (Seventy years of TV catch-phrases, anyone?)
And then the video games sneak in and I turn my eyeballs to glue pitting the tiny forces of my massive army against the pathetic forces of some other tiny army waging epic battles that lead to nothing gained and hours lost.
And if you ask me when I find the time to do this, it’s now- when the kids and even HF are sleeping- when I should be asleep too, or at least working to clear the backlog of email that’s threatening me with a virtual avalanche. I stay up late for no reason, delay my salah until I no longer feel like skirmishing, pray late, wake up groggy, and every day find myself an few inches deeper into mental muck and a few inches farther away from wanting to get out of it. Because the farther I let myself wander from Ihsan and Taqwa, the harder my heart becomes and the harder it is to come back to it.
Other things follow too – hate.
Yep. Hate. I could be soft on myself and call it negative sentiment override, which is defined as seeing what someone else does in a primarily negative light even when it is neutral or even positive. But whatever you call it, it’s the jaundiced, shaitaan-powered frame of mind that tells you when a person doesn’t call, it’s not because they forgot to, but because they don’t care to because the entire history of your relationship is all take and no give. If they seem busy it’s because they don’t care to make time for you even when they have time for everyone else in the entire world. If they stepped on your toes and said sorry, they would only be apologizing because they were rubbing it in. That’s negative sentiment override, and it’s pure poison. The only way to get rid of it is to beg Allah for help, because allowing it to remain kills your heart.
I think it was Marx who called religion an opiate for the masses- an addictive drug to stifle the brain and drowse your way through the harsh realities of life without having to open your eyes to see them through. Other people have called religion a crutch for those too weak to handle reality. I tell you- religion is an antibiotic, a vaccine, a super-vitamin, and the only way to ensure good heart health. Without Islam on my compass, I would be wandering hell-bent on time wasting, hating my fellow man, playing video games all night and snapping at my children all day. You don’t want to see me without Islam. I never even want to be me without Islam. I go off course pretty regularly, but I still have a compass and Islam is still true North and Allah is my destination, whether I go to Him willingly or not. I just need a bit of help getting back on track.
So here, dear everybodies, for me moreso than you- is my list of things to help soften my heart and put my Iman back on track.
NOT SURFING THE INTERNET- This is in caps. This is important. Using the internet is one thing, but surfing is a matter of aimlessly clicking from one stupid black hole of time-loss to another. Surfing is the devil. You know what I mean.
Making dua with my eyes open and my brain on- I always thought it was funny how the major phone service provider in the UAE was called Etisalat- it shares the same root word as Salah- prayer- why? Because they are both words that imply connection. I need to make my dua a connection, a one-on-one conversation with God where I call upon Him in humility, hope, fear, and sincerity enough to say what I mean and mean what I say. That’s always a powerful heart-softener for me, because once I get started, it’s like the levy breaks and all the pent-up fear, frustration and need just pours out. It’s hard to describe how wonderful it feels to really pray- to break down before your Lord and ask to be built again. It’s humbling and calming and exhilarating and it makes me feel alive after having a half-dead heart for so long.
Paying attention to Salah: The wonderful thing about actually paying attention to Salah is that it becomes some sort of… religious experience. Irony intended. How many of us could call our Salah a religious experience, and how many other things do we call religious experiences instead? One thing that helps for me is not using the short surahs from the very end of the Qur’an that we’re all taught as kids. I know that Surah Ikhlas represents something as immense as the Oneness of Allah and His right to be worshipped, but I start from the first Qul and stop at the last Ahad without ever feeling the weight of those verses. For me, the verses that have the most meaning and hold my attention best are those I learned as an adult because my understanding and appreciation of their message is more mature. I recite lines that are close to my heart, that I learned during times of difficulty and stress, that bring me relief and when I repeat them, I remember what a comfort and what a blessing it was just to read them.
(Verily, We have created man in toil. Surah Balad 90:4)
(There is no soul but that it has over it a protector. Surah At-Tariq 86:4)
Reading Quran: It’s sad, but when my Iman is low I find this the hardest thing to do. Why? Because I still struggle with reading the Arabic, but I recognize that much of the experience is lost if I only read the English. So doing the right thing is too hard but doing the next best thing is no fun, so I end up doing nothing. What I ought to do is recognize that one of shaitaan’s most powerful tool is laziness, and hit myself over the head with the Qur’an (reverently, of course) and then just start reading. Once I start, I love it. It’s getting started that’s hard.
Using YouTube: There are some people for whom YouTube is a huge Fitna. Alhamdulillah, I’m not one of them. It is a relief and blessing and an immense kindness from Allah that I, who can get addicted to anything and distracted by reading about bacon-flavored mouthwash- find no such allure in YouTube, and my playlist is filled with things that comfort and inspire me, my ultimate favorite being this beautiful recitation of Surah Mutaffifin by Mishary Rashid Al Afasy:
And then this one,
Because I love the last part of the Surah that describes how, when the call is sounded on the Day of Judgment, man will flee from his brother, and his father and his mother, and his wife and children out of fear of his own account. It gives me the God-fearing goosebumps, it does. What can I say, Haq ka khauf ajab ghum hay. I don’t know much in Urdu, but I know this line from my Arabic teacher, who taught Owl and I years ago one sentence to separate the Letters of the Sun (Haroof Shams) from the Letters of the Moon (Haruf Qamar), and it’s composed of only Letters of the Moon. Loosely (and badly) translated, it means that Fear of Truth/God/Justice is an amazing/wonderful sadness. So yeah, YouTube, heh.
Write Something: It’s fairly obvious that I use my blog for catharsis, but I also really need it for reinforcing my Iman. It’s said that the best way to learn something is to try and teach it to someone else, and in my case, the best way of remembering something is for me to tell someone else about it. Plus, I like to write/do/create/color/sew/Photoshop- arts and crafts was my favorite activity in summer camp and when Khalid and Iman and I sit down to color, I’m looking forward to 96 crayons and some glitter as much as they are. I just like to make things. So when I feel down and dead, I like doing things that are creative. And blogging is easier than writing a poem, so hence, this blog entry. :p
See? I’m sounding more positive already. Alhamdulillah. My Iman may be low (and my daughter is short, too) but I have control over which direction I let it go in. And recognizing that shaitaan has tons of seemingly harmless distractions can help me avoid them. I don’t really ever *need* video games. If my head is full of steam then I need to vent to Allah or work on solving my problems instead of inflicting destruction upon fake civilizations. No one really needs to know about bacon flavored mouthwash or seventy years of TV tag lines, and if I’m stressed out and need to unwind, I have a thousand ways of doing so that don’t look like banana peels on the gravelly path to perdition. So take that, Sid Meyer. :p
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