I miss being a bride. But I love being a wife. 

It's been a long minute. Quite possibly the longest time I've gone AWOL. But my life changed, dramatically, on the day I wrote my last post. It feels fitting to now write this post as we drift into a new year that, for me, will be new in strange and wonderful ways. 

My life has suddenly welcomed the man I call best friend, fiancé, soulmate. It has made space for the man I am now planning a future with, a significant other without whom life now makes no sense, my person who I cannot imagine a lifetime without. I have a ring on my finger, a wedding to plan, a human to love until the end of time. I have someone who makes me believe in things long-forgotten, who believes in my dreams as if they are his own, who is the manifestation of every silent and spoken prayer. He is the miracle I have been praying on for an incredibly long time. Who showed up just when I'd given up on finding it at all. Who showed up right on time. Which, by his standards, is a whole other miracle of its own.

If I'd caught a glimpse of my future seven months ago, I would have seen all things good and golden that I'd only ever dreamed of being mine but never dared to believe could belong to me at all. And yet. Here I am, writing to you again, this time with a ring on my finger, a wedding to plan, a human to love until the end of time. I would say that he came out of nowhere, but, the truth is that he was always there all along. The someone I never saw coming, but should have. My beginning, middle, end. Past, present, future. The answer to every prayer, the answer to every unasked question, the answer to every how why when. He was inevitable. He and I have always been inevitable.

It is a story that still, to me, feels quite surreal. It is one that could make an irreligious man believe in a higher order. Or at the very least believe in destiny. Or something close to it. It's also not one I'm willing to put out into a public space. I am Cloud Nine happy - and it is so very tempting to shout from the rooftops about it, especially when this has always been my space to share every high and every low  - but this is one I want to keep to myself. It is an incredibly personal high. He is special. In ways that I could never do justice with words. My heart carries him with so much happiness, pride and gratitude. He is the most precious thing that belongs to me. And I want to keep him close to my heart.

2022 will be our year. It is a year that I hope will inspire new writings. It is a year that I pray is only the beginning of something beautiful. We never know what life brings. It is messy, confusing, complicated...but, once in a while, it has a way of surprising you in ways you never imagined. And this, a love story to call my own, is a surprise that I want to cherish and hold on to for as long as I live.

Hello readers,

It's been a while. Wishing you all - a slightly belated but nonetheless whole-hearted - Eid Mubarak. I hope you all had a blessed month of Ramadan and a wonderful day of celebrating its spiritual gains with heavy tables of delicious food and dessert. And through it all, that we didn't forget how lucky we are to have that luxury.

It would be wrong to write this and not acknowledge the current chaos destroying the Holy land of Palestine. This is by no means a political page or a debate of religious affairs, but what is important to me will always find its way into my writing and the decades-long illegal occupation of Palestine is a heartbreak that sits deep with me and so many others reading this. To stand with Palestine is to stand with humanity.

It is with a heavy heart that I reflect on how we got here. How the human race knows nothing but destruction. How we are good at nothing but destroying hope, life, love. Perhaps it is a bleak way to see the world but I see the wide-scale oppression of scores of people across the Middle East, China, India - and so many other countries - and the silence of the international community that allows religious genocide and ethnic cleansing to go unpunished, and I am at a loss for words. World powers fund said oppression and turn a blind eye to heavy war crimes for which innocent civilians pay the price, their blood that spills into the streets not even stirring a flicker of emotion. I see the state of our own country, witness the racism, bigotry and xenophobia so widely expressed here at home, and genuinely believe that we are capable of nothing but hate.

Ramadan is the month of mercy that focuses not just on spiritual self-development but also emphasises unity and collective strength of faith. It makes me painfully sad that my loudest prayers were not for myself but for a better world. For our kids and the next generation to be better than us. To not be driven by hate. To live in a world that is more peaceful and compassionate, to see social and economic justice, to not see history repeat itself.

As I have gotten older, I have also appreciated the heaviness that weighs on the soul with the departure of Ramadan. The last few months have been difficult for many personal reasons and I haven't been in the right head space to write (hence the blog silence); the emotional down spiral can be, and was, damaging in so many respects and I feel like I have been struggling for a time much longer than that but have only just felt the weight of it all barrel into me. I had to acknowledge I was mentally in a bad place with my faith feeling low. I came into Ramadan wanting, needing, searching for internal peace that has evaded me for the better part of a year. I am grateful to say that I found it. For me, this Ramadan felt like coming home. Like I have managed to glue back together the fractured pieces that I was struggling to hold together. But with its farewell comes the very real fear of losing what one has gained. The longing for permanent change is perhaps not feasible - we are only human after all - but we can only do our best and hope that God takes care of the rest. 

It is that knowledge that keeps us going. That the heaviness will lift. Whatever you're battling in your personal life, whatever you feel when you look at the disarray of the world we live in, God will lift the weight. The true test of faith lies in when there is little faith to be found.

Keep Palestine in your prayers. Your one prayer, it may not erase political unrest overnight, but it could save the life of a Palestinian family. Your one prayer, it could save a child from becoming an orphan, a brother from losing his sister, a parent from losing their only child. Pray and know that there is strength in solidarity, hope in the fight for justice, light in the darkness. Know that truth prevails. That Palestine will, one day, be free. I pray we are around to see it. I pray that we find inspiration in their resilience, in their fierce loyalty to the Holy land on which they walk, in their unquestionable willingness to give their life to protect Masjid-ul-Aqsa. I pray for the Almighty to protect them as they protect His blessed ground. I pray for their spirit to never be broken and to be freed from the shackles of oppression. I pray for justice and for humankind to always stand up for what is right...to protect every human life equally and to re-write history. 

Maybe we can re-write the narrative. It feels different this time...this time, Palestine will be heard. Your prayers, donations, shared social media posts...they are screaming and shouting the irrefutable truth that cannot be smothered by those trying to hide it. Don't be silenced. The little we can do - and are trying to do - they are all tiny pieces of a bigger picture. We are the change. 

The double-tap. The mindless scroll. The subconscious comparison.

The inability to stop. 

The subliminal need to tap-tap-comment has somehow wound itself tight around our thumbs hovering like a magnet over brightly lit screens and has become an inescapable way of life.

Every twenty-something year old knows the limbo of figuring life out...of feeling like an outsider-looking-in as everyone else your age seems to be doing just that but you don't seem to have quite grasped the unwritten rules, yet. It is the uncertain, stomach-bottoming-out feeling of being in free-fall...but everyone else is landing - smoothly - and you're still flailing in mid-air trying to stifle the wild panic that your feet may never touch ground.

In a world deeply and widely connected across oceans and time zones, it's impossible to miss what you once may have never known. X from uni was promoted in a new job while Y from school is expecting her third child and Z from down the road has moved halfway across the world. K is engaged after a whirlwind romance and S went backpacking across Europe and M started up her own business. Announcement - celebration - announcement. Tap-tap-comment. You are running out of ways to say "congratulations" and finding new ways to mute your inner voice that insists your life is not enough. 

Comparison is, truly, the thief of joy. Social media, the cruel, cutting hand that slowly steals it and we allow it until we are left with nothing but a hollow space that echoes with the heavy loss of not having what someone else has. Though I'm not quite sure why "liking" cherry-picked and filtered moments, makes us feel like a failure. Because not all moments that matter are given their due weight. Because polaroids don't capture the blood, sweat and tears that went into building a steady career that you don't take for granted. Nor do they capture your parents' tired smiles over dinner when they ask how your day was, or the voice of your best friend over the phone when she tells you she misses you, or the head-to-toe warmth when you're watching the football with your brother, sharing strawberry sweets and laughing at something he said. 

And yet. And yet. There it is. The bone-deep ache that you are not doing enough because your milestones are somewhat delayed. We are entangled in a race we didn't even know we were running and we stretch ourselves thin to nourish our career, relationship, family life, friendships, personal development...and we are burning out and we still feel like it is not enough. I don't even know why I'm so desperate to cross the finish line (what, exactly, is the finish line anyway?) but I know that it feels like I am falling behind while everyone else is sprinting ahead and I am tripping and falling in the madness of it all. 

And it's only when I break away from social media that I can catch a breath and get back up. To remind myself that while instagram feeds are celebrating new chapters, I'm not quite there yet. I still have this chapter to finish and it has so many good parts in it that I want to savour for a little while longer. There are so many moments that I am yet to experience - and yet there are so many that already feel like a gift - and I realise that thank you are words I don't say nearly enough. I am, often, overwhelmed at how much my little life holds and though my blessings may be different to others', they are blessings nonetheless. 

Looking back, I'm not where I thought I would be at sixteen, ten years later. I don't have so much of what I thought I would have. But I also have things I never dreamed of having. I have had prayers that I didn't even know I was making, answered. I have said yes to many choices to which I always thought I would say no. I have met wonderful people with whom I never imagined my path would cross. I have friends-who-feel-like-soulmates, met in places I never thought I belonged.

To every other twenty-something year old who is competing in this race of our own design; there is no finish line. Enjoy this place you're in. You have achieved all you have achieved despite societal pressure feeling like a brick wall to which we concede defeat. It's okay if you've not reached the landmarks of the twenties we have been conditioned to have had photographed by a certain birthday. It's even okay if you don't want the things society expects you to want. Your life, as it is, is enough. There are so many things to be grateful for, to appreciate and cherish. Anything else you are blessed with is bonus. 

Find your happy place - it is not in fanciful vogue-esque photo feeds nor is it measured by the number of likes you can gather in your fist. But it's where you are, now. Peace, I realise, is not to be found in the perpetual search and insatiable need for more. It is in sleeping with a heart that is full simply because of what it already has. In living in the moment and appreciating it. In embracing the messiness of the twenties and not worrying about just how messy it is. In not being attached to things that may not be written, or may be written at a later date. But, for now, I'm right where I am and it is enough. 

I am at my happiest when I am not double-tapping, mindlessly scrolling, subconsciously comparing. 

Loving you is like 

hanging upside down in a quaint confectioner's shop

blood-rush-sugar-rush

dizzy from the sugar high

guilty pleasure like 

the toxic tingle of sweet-and-sours

making my mouth pucker

i n v o l u n t a r i l y

it is tumbling confusion and dazzled reverence

and the stomach-churning gravitational thrill 

of roller coaster adrenaline

when it

d

it is being blinded

by skies of exotic colour

inhaling 

with the desperation of a dying soldier

the air, a riot of candied sugar fragrances

all clamouring for attention

your promises 

when you wrap your pinkie finger tightly round mine

taste like strawberry kisses

dusted with icing sugar to make them pretty

subtly seductive and saccharine sweet

your compliments

when you call me beautiful

are toffee caramel 

- G O L D E N -

melt-in-the mouth smooth

butterscotch lingering on the edges of your lips

that quirk into a flirtatious smirk

when my rising blush blooms to rosy apples 

your dark humour and dark eyes 

are black licorice - acquired taste, slightly addictive,

when your rough laugh scrapes across my skin

raising goosebumps in its wake

your husky voice excoriates the soft flesh of my ear

when you confess your dangerous secrets into existence

frosted lips against my cheek

ice-cool

twisting my veins

much like the red-and-white twisting 

of peppermint candy canes

that - S - N - A - P - my teeth 

much like my heart 

S - N - A - P - S

in two

when someone asks if I am yours 

and you laugh with easy nonchalance

and say that we're just friends.

my eyes catch

on the faded red imprint just beneath your jaw line

and tell-tale teeth marks in your neck

they fall

on your open collar and messy hair

rumpled clothes and shoes on the wrong feet

and I want to scream 

sweet jars crashing and collapsing

obliterating my heart

burying it under sheets of shredded glass

but you are blind-drunk at 3am 

and while I am stumbling on carpets of broken glass

you are stumbling through the door I left open 

D E V A S T A T I N G

way.