Update

Salaam,

it's been a while.

It seems that there are some potential rishtas on the horizon. One is from a matchmaking site, and seems ok so far - I don't know a huge amount about him, but he seems like a normal person with religious views etc in alignment with my own, and planning to meet in the holidays. Plus my mum has been in contact with a new matchmaking lady, and one of my Dad's old friends has suggested someone for me too.

Recently though, on one of the matchmaking sites, I encountered a string of creeps and weirdos, their antics including sending lots of selfies, insistenly and repeatedly asking for full length pictures of me and asking my weight :/

I recently was talking to an 'auntie' (ie woman older than me that's not a relative) around the same age as my mum, just about general things, then the topic came round to her looking for a job at the moment, which then turned to her telling me she is currently going through a divorce, (partly) because she found out after 25 years of marriage that her husband secretly had another wife in Pakistan. The auntie is now a single mother on benefits :(. I just can't stop thinking about her, which is good in a way because it makes me pray for her. It was her calm demeanour, and her 'no, no, it's alright' when I said I was sorry to hear of it that struck me. I think part of the reason for her being able to put such a brave face on it is that she has dedicated her life to other people, and learning and teaching her faith, and isn't stopping despite what she's going through. I pray that Allah swt heals her heart and makes her children the coolness of her eyes and a source of sadaqa jaariya (continuous reward) for her, and rewards her abundantly for her patience and all that she's gone through (ameen). Please make dua for her too.

Weird morning

Salaam,

I took the battery out of my phone for something last night, put it back in and set my alarm. This morning I woke up feeling like it was really dark and I'd woken up too early. I got ready and came downstairs ready to leave the house, and noticed that the clock on the oven said it was only 6.30 (my phone said 7.30). Confused, thinking somebody must have set it wrong, I checked the news channel on TV - which confirmed that I had woken up an hour early - gah!

Anyway, it made me think, there's a gold standard of rules set for us to check what's right and wrong (the Quran and Sunnah, and in this case, the news channel on TV), so it's never good to judge whether things are right or not according to other people (in this case, the time on the oven), as it can end up making you question yourself and get confused, especially when you can feel something isn't right (here, feeling uber tired and seeing it was dark). Hmmm.

I parked in a slanted ceilinged part of the car park and was really scared I'd scrape the top of the car. I reversed really slowly and heard a horrible thump. Having visions of a big tend in the top of the car, I checked: it was just the fin of the little 'Nemo' character on the aerial had been bumped off! Alhumdulillah, was so grateful!

Musing on....random things

Salaam,

I keep meaning to write another post, but have been really busy - the last few weeks have just been a blur.

A few things I've realised

• The blessing of having people close to you who tell you when the way you are acting is out of order. It's actually really difficult to see when your own behaviour has changed 

• Random acts of kindness make me really, really happy. I still remember a few years ago, standing at a bus stop on a freezing winter night, the bus arrived and the man behind me in the queue said 'Excuse me', shuffle-stepped in front of me and paid my bus fare. Well I decided to try and do something random and nice too. I left a couple of chocolates (wrapped ones!) at the study desks of the uni library. However, I hope they weren't melty, or the people who found them didn't think they were poisoned or anything lol

• The stages of how I have come to accept my being single have been like the stages of loss 

1. Denial and isolation: pretending there wasn't an issue and everything was fine
2. Anger: 'I hate men' 'this isn't fair' etc
3. Bargaining 'if only I was taller/fairer/a highly paid professional, it would happen'
4. Depression 'it's never going to happen - I'm going to die alooooooone'
5. Acceptance 'if it happens, it happens - it's all written into God's plan for my fate. I can't control others' behaviour or actions, only my own attitude and actions. Make the best of being single and try and create good habits and leave a positive legacy behind inshaAllah "Is there any reward for good other than good?" [Quran - Surah Rahman: 60]

• It's highly likely though, that I'll end up visiting one of the first 4 stages at some point (especially with how things are going on matchmaking sites, and with nothing happening with networking), but I'm prepared to work through it, so it's all good inshaAllah

• Getting old(er) isn't so bad - I can feel comfortable that the way I look and my personality are God-given to a point, so don't feel that I 'have to be' some way or another - it's really liberating alhumdulillah. I broadly know what I like, what I'm good at, the type of people I want to be around (and avoid!) and my limits in general - there's so much less stress about things and more acceptance, more ability to cope with things and be there for others, yet so much scope for improvement inshaAllah. I just need to see where it leads now......

Amusing conversation

My Dad told me a friend of his was talking to someone about the criteria was for a rishta for his son. The man said that his son wanted someone born and brought up here, a working professional and a long list of other qualities; the mother-in-law to be wanted the girl to be very beautiful and fair-skinned and family oriented, and to stay home and take care of the family, but be a working professional etc etc

My Dad's friend turned to the guy and asked how many women his son wanted to marry because it would be impossible to have aaaaaaaaaaaall of that in one woman.

Lol.

Amusing - book review

For the past week or so, I have been getting up between 5.30 and 6am to try and catch up with reading and creative pursuits so I actually achieve something before the mundane chores of the day take up my time, motivation and enthusiasm for them!

One of the books I've made some headway in reading because of this is The Penguin History of the World: 6th edition (2013). It's good for understanding themes, and the gist of the changes that evolved over time, but I am going to read it concurrently with another book that highlights discrete dates and events. Hopefully I'll update this once I've read it all. One of the reviews of the previous edition really made me chuckle. Here it is, copied and pasted from Amazon UK.

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful

 Warning: No penguins, 13 Sep 2011

By 

Daniel Owen

This review is from: The New Penguin History of the World (Paperback)

This is an excellent book - thorough, detailed, well researched and well written. If you want to know about the history of the world, this book delivers. However, I have one gripe: despite the title, this book is, in fact, a history exclusively of humans in the world. When I got about six chapters in, I started to wonder when penguins would arrive on the scene. By about halfway through, I realised that the title is just false advertising - a cheap effort to hook you in, make you buy the book thinking it's about penguins, and then hope you won't notice because it is, otherwise, really good.

If you're looking for a penguin history of the world, look elsewhere. There are no penguins here. No discussion of significant penguins in world history, penguin culture or religion, or any analysis of a penguincentric historical timeline. I think this book should be renamed The New Human History of the World, to avoid this confusion. I can't be the only one disappointed at the lack of penguins.

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Advice from my Dad

Because it has been wedding season, and holiday season, I've been spending a lot more time with family. Alhumdulillah, I have been blessed with a lot of family, and we all keep in touch - even the ones who live abroad. One of my cousins who was visiting from abroad was saying how much it meant to him that the family threw him a surprise birthday party at a time when things weren't going so well for him. He was talking about how you can be the flavour of the month with certain people for a very short time, and when things don't go well for you, they'll all ditch you at the drop of a hat, but to your family, you're always beloved, so we should appreciate them. It just really brought my priorities home to me, and the importance of the Islamic emphasis o keeping family ties strong

Also, recently I was travelling on a 10 hour journey with my Dad in Ramadan to help one of my relatives move to another city. My Dad finished work, had a couple of hours sleep, then we packed stuff up into a van and travelled from midnight to about 10am, got there, went to sort out their rental agreement with the estate agent, came back, unpacked the van, helped them set up and did the journey back the next morning! I honestly don't know how he does it mashaAllah.

Anyway, I helped!

We ended up having proper heart to heart conversations and he gave me some advice I didn't expect. InshaAllah by sharing it, he'll be rewarded from any benefit others take from it too.

"...continue to be generous - with your time, money and everything else, but never to the point that it will ruin you - financially, emotionally, or otherwise. Don't give more than you'd be able to write off and never expect that if you do something for someone, they'd do the same for you. The people who you love - the people who you would drop everything for to help them - they are the ones who can - and probably will hurt you the most at some point, so be careful."

"Your family and sibling links are strong just now, and that's very good, but when your parents pass away, people will behave in ways you would never have expected. Just be aware of that."

To be honest, I was quite taken aback, but it's one of those conversations that will probably come back to me at an important time later in life

Musing on......results

This life wasn't meant to be perfect. If we got everything we wanted exactly when we wanted it, it would be paradise. There are some things in life we will have to wait for to have fulfilled - either later than we wanted them, or in the next life - it will be worth it inshaAllah. All we can really do to get the things we want is work for them, pray for them, and trust in Allah.  Real satisfaction, success and happiness in this life comes from working hard, doing the right thing and knowing you've done your best, not necessarily results. It's the next life that's about permanent results.

The first time it really sank in that being fantastically skilled at something is not a prerequisite for enjoying it was when I did literacy tutoring with an elderly lady with a learning disability. Every week, we would go through the same process of going over the alphabet and some simple words - and she struggled, but every week, she enjoyed the task, and her smile was genuine and almost constant. She enjoyed learning and she enjoyed the company - one time she even started clapping with happiness when I came into the room!

The thing is, we tend to idealise the end products, the 'results' of our dreams - even though, once we have them, because of a variety of reasons, they're not usually as wonderful as we expected - maybe they don't last, or we change and don't want them any more, or they weren't something that was good for us (the list could go on indefinitely)

It's so easy to miss out on life and its opportunities by wishing it away. It's easier said than done, but I think it's become more and more important for me to realise that I need to focus on the things in my control and appreciate and make the most of what I have, and not put things on hold on the off chance that it will interfere with something that might happen.