Those of you who interact with me on other social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter will already know this, but I’ve been super big on mindfulness and accountability in recent years, and so I choose a new thing to commit myself to each year that will be good for my mental health. This year (technically since last year), it was 30 minutes of writing a day. This was the only requirement for the commitment – no topics, no themes, no genres, no pressure, just 30 minutes of whatever free writing the brain can go with – and it has been working out incredibly. Admittedly, I miss a few days/weeks here and there when I draw blanks or feel too frustrated for the brain to pull together even a single coherent sentence, but the most important thing is that I don’t beat myself up about it. I pick up where I left off each time I remember and go on as though nothing has changed at all.
In order to give you guys a small glimpse of the kinds of things I spend my time writing, I’ll be sharing my favourite phrase/sentence here under their respective headlines.
Dear Daughter
They say that deep and true love always finds its way back together, so naturally, you and I have found our way to each other.
From Faith to Faithlessness and Back Again
God’s mercy will always be far greater than His wrath, and it would be naive to think or convince yourself otherwise.
Self-Care and Healing
The act of taking the time out to care for ourselves every so often in a bid to create better versions of us to serve humanity is in itself feminist in nature.
Last Night’s Dream
May God give you and your children the best naseeb, and may He make this period of darkness one that you look back on with great love and light for the lessons learned.
Life as a Pessimistic Realist
I am at that stage of life where I can no longer establish where the hopes and dreams of my parents end and where I begin. […] The person they want me to be and the person that I am are like two sides of two very different coins.
Questions to Ask a Potential Spouse: Answered
A marriage, I hope, will be the breeding ground for hope, and love, and immeasurable kindness. Our marriage will inspire goodness in each other.
The Need to Reinvent the Mosque
We are always talking about how children are our leaders of tomorrow and how they will carry our legacy forward, but what are we doing in our local communities to inspire them?
People are Replaceable
Just because someone was important to you once upon a time, does not meant that they always will be. It is okay to move on from relationships that do not force and challenge you to think about the world differently.
The Problem with Human Reverence
You are worth more than a few unkind words spoken without thought. You are worth do much more. Stand firm and take what is your right for no other but yourself will intercede on your behalf.
Sometimes Love Ain’t Enough
The truth is, nobody knows love like you do. Nobody knows where your limits for love lie and so it is important to talk about it. Because you can love, and love, and love, and receive nothing in return.
Friendship Breakups
I must remind myself that people are put in our paths for a limited time, and it is up to us to make the most of the time we have and move on when our souls are no longer at peace with each other. There are better things written for us than each other.
Daily Reminder
You are the perfect combination of dust and light, put on this earth to be the best kind of good you possibly can. God chose to put life in you, and you are incredibly special.
Honesty is the Best Policy
May all of our lives be filled with an eternal softness, and may this be your gentle reminder that life is shorter than we know. Seize what bit of life that you can and live in such a way that even the earth speaks kindly of the way you stepped upon it.
The Importance of Maturity
But I guess it all boils down to this: you can only fight for and keep a relationship if you are mature enough to care for the other person before the requirements of the label given to your relationship.
Friendsgiving
Your friends are the family you choose to have, and so it is absolutely necessary that you choose to surround yourself with people you love and trust. […] Because at the end of the day, friendship is a choice. You must be able to wake up each morning and choose these people as a part of your heart.
I Don’t Know: The Art of Living
I guess what I have learned from all of my sadness is that I really don’t know anything, but that is okay, because that is what you call living.
Dear Son
I will help guide your growth in every way I know how to become a human so filled with love, light, and eternal kindness. You will never have to be ‘man enough’ for anybody, and I will make sure that you alway live a life that is true to who you are as a person.
The Problem with Sadness
There are some days the sadness will consume you whole, but this is where you come in. Do you want to throw in the towel, or will you continue to fight the good fight that is life?
More Words than Actions?
I hope that my words, be they big or small, leave a little light in the hearts of all those whom I love and they are able to carry me with them in all that they do.
The Female Form
The generations of women before me are wrong. I will not choose to shame myself into shrinking in order to make room for a man in my life. I will never let myself be less than myself for anyone.
Plan
Take the world as it comes. You are not obliged to know all the answers.
2017: In Review
The 3 lessons I learned this year:
- No matter how deeply you love someone, you will never really know how they feel until it is the end.
- Sometimes joint trauma can bring people closer together far better than anything else.
- You are the only willing to put yourself first.
Things I Learnt as a Nanny
There are a million and one ways of getting something done; your way isn’t necessarily the best way.
New Year’s Resolution(s)
Even if this is not my year, I will make the good moments last a lifetime.
The Best Friends
It is in the way he talks about the warmth of her smile and her passion for the things that she loves that I hear the depth of his love for her. It is in the way he understands the dynamic of our relationship and the importance of independence and agency in her life that I see just how long he has loved her. It is in the simplicity of their love that I find peace of mind.
The Crash After the High
I have come a very long way from who I once was, and it is nothing if but proof of my growth as a person.
That Dream
Nothing has shaken me so deep within as an old soul walking back into our life and reducing our love for one another to a numbers game that they will always win.
You Are Deserving
On most days, I feel undeserving of the good things and the good people that exist in my life, and that is no way to live. I need to remind myself that I am not the failures that have been projected onto me. […] I am my own person made up of light upon light, and I am deserving of goodness.
Drastic Life Changes
You will make mistakes. Fall in love with the wrong people. Do a job you hate. Lose friends. All of these things will happen, but there is only one thing that will get you through, and that is yourself.
The Dream
I want to promise to take care of you for as long as we both live. I want to promise that I will always try and be your best friend before I am your wife. I want to promise that if you ever forget how beautiful you are, I will always be there to remind you. I want to promise that I will wake up every morning to laugh with you. I want to promise that I will wait for you to get home in the evenings so we can pray and eat dinner together. I want to promise you that I will always try and make you laugh – even if it is at my expense. I want to promise that I will never let you face hardships alone. I want to promise that I won’t be mad if you forget little things like birthdays and anniversaries, so long as you are there with me. I want to promise that I will always love you. I want to promise that I will take care of you not because I have to, but because I want to. I want to promise that I will watch every goofy movie that you like. I want to promise that on days my own words fall short in describing my love for you, I will borrow them from my favourite writers and perform them to you. I want to promise that if ever you fall into sickness – be it physical, mental, or spiritual – I will stand by you. I want to promise that I will love your soul far harder than I could ever love your body. But most importantly, let me make this final promise to both myself and to you, to only find you lost in the love for our Lord.
One Month In
I felt a wave of calm being swept over me. A moment of stillness to wash away all the fear and the worry that had settled into my bones. For the first time, I was stepping into the unknown without the fear of chaos.
The Balancing Act
There is no better person than Gibran to describe the type of love I strive for in all of my relations:
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness […] Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
A Promise to Myself
Sometimes I am filled with a reckless abandon for love and life and want to throw the noose I hold around my own neck out to sea.
My Body and I
It is my body that carries me through all the storms of life, and it is only I who should get a say in what I choose to do with it.
Go Big or Go Home
So I propose this: we live the life we want to, with the people who we actually care about. We do the things that bring us peace and we don’t shrink ourselves for anyone anymore. We shoot our shot. And most importantly, we either go big or give up entirely and go home.
Toxicity
More often than not, people bring their own toxic behaviours into relationships without checking themselves and we end up watching these people blow themselves into smithereens in the name of love.
The Day After the Night Before
Taking a night to choose yourself for once in your life is nothing short of a miracle. It is after nights like these that it feels as though everything has changed and yet, nothing has changed at all.
And that’s it for now, folks! I hope you all enjoyed reading these as much as I enjoyed going back over this journal. It really has been such a great habit to develop because it lets me take some time to myself and feel the things I feel without having to hide.