G is for Guns

When I was sixteen, my sisters and I went shopping a few days before Eid (the one we celebrate after fasting). I was tired and cranky, and decided to wait with the trolley near the exit while they ran into one last store. I sat down on a bench facing the store and suddenly I heard screaming and gunfire. It was a good few seconds before I realised that I was in the middle of the crossfire, and ducked behind my trolley. I managed to sprint into the store when the firing stopped, and thankfully, none of us were hit. But when I got home, I went to my room and burst into tears.

Ever since that day, I’ve had an issue with weapons. Even if I saw a police officer (trained and licensed to carry a firearm) with his weapon, it caused a mild anxiety attack.

My phobia was cured eighteen months ago. My younger sister decided on a very unconventional “Cowgirls and Indians” bridal shower. There were the usual games and food (but of course) and her fiancé had sent along an assortment of handguns and rifles (these all fired pellets, not live ammunition) and set up targets in our back yard for archery and shooting. I became acquainted with a rifle called Buttons, who helped me get over my fear of weapons.

Last year, for my new brother-in-law’s birthday, we arranged a paintball shooting party and there was a section of the park with metal plates placed at various distances for target shooting. My bro-in-law is anally safety conscious and is a patient shooting instructor, and that day, I discovered that shooting is, within a controlled environment, a great way to relive stress, and that I have quite a skill with a rifle.

I had to wait a few months, but finally managed to purchase my own one.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Loki.

F is for Friendship

I don’t have many friends, true friends, and I am quite okay with it.

Friendship is, in my opinion, the most difficult relationship to successfully maintain – as with all kinds of relationships, there is always the risk of an imbalance, and you don’t have a contract binding you, like a marriage, but there is a level of emotional intimacy; you are privy to another’s best and worst, and there’s really nothing to stop you from saying ‘screw this shit’ and walking away when there is difficulty or conflict.

Being someone’s friend, in the truest essence of the word, takes a lot of effort, and the challenge for us all is to find that person or persons who are worth the effort and who think that you are worth the effort.

I read a beautiful quote on Twitter the other day, which says: “Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest. It’s about who walked into your life, said ‘I’m here for you’ and proved it.” It resonated with me because it is something that I have experienced most acutely over the last few years.

I have drifted so far from some of my oldest friends…but I have been caught by a person, who has been there for me (and continues to be) through some of my darkest hours. And if my lot in life is to only be able to call this one person my friend, I would be more than contented and happy.

E is for Envy

“Envy is the ulcer of the soul.” – Socrates

“Blowing out the other person’s candle will not make yours shine brighter…”

I’m one of those mental characters who celebrates others’ good fortune more than those persons themselves, and what grates on me is when people cannot be happy for the success of another.

Envy is an emotion which is natural in everyone. Wikipedia describe it as occurring “when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement or possession and either desires it or wishes the other lacked it”.

I do not have a problem with desiring to possess good that I see in others for myself, be it in qualities, achievements or possessions. A moderate dose of envy could be a motivating factor or catalyst to achieving your goals. Those who have achieved more than me inspire me to be more than I am. But I am not going to injure another in order to gain, nor am I going to wish misfortune on those who have what I want or desire.

It is absolutely exhausting to be envious of another person.

At the end of it all, the envier is more affected by it than the one envied.  

D is for Dreams

I cannot wait to go to bed at night. Not only for the “dear repose for limbs with travel tired” but for the “journey in my head, to work my mind when body’s work’s expired”.

The title of this post does not refer to aspirations or goals, but refers to the journeys my thoughts take when I close my eyes at the end of every day. I’m not sure whether everyone experiences dreams the same way, but mine are very sensory and real, as though I were transported into another reality. I feel every touch, I smell every smell, and I feel…every single emotion, amplified times ten. Some things I have yet to experience in life, I have had a taste of through my dreams.

Dreams have been the inspiration for most of my attempts at fiction. And I suppose if I want to become better at my craft, I need to progress to drawing my inspiration from real life and actual experiences.

But this is a process, and not one that should be rushed. And while I amble through it, I happily welcome Nature’s soft nurse, to weigh my eyelids down and steep my senses in dreamy bliss.

C is for Challenge

Every child experiences a period where they want to hide from things that are challenging – whether it is school related, or peer related, or whatever – of which the time and duration is different for everyone.

For me this lasted very long, into a time where a person should have developed some kind of common sense but still be brave enough to take on new challenges.

My resistance to challenges was amplified, I believe, by a combination of things – growing up in a very sheltered existence, an unhealthy attitude towards failure, not really having to struggle for things, not wanting to attract negative attention, not wanting to be ridiculed. Despite normal adolescent issues, I’ve never really had to (or wanted to) fight for anything, and I kind of floated through those years, contented to be content and under the radar.

While this kind of approach may protect you from extreme disappointment, it also deprives you from experiencing overwhelming happiness and a great sense of achievement. It took a long time for me to realize that the most difficult and challenging experiences, more so than easy successes, have made me discover my strengths and abilities (some that I never thought possible for me to possess).

This may have come at an unusually late stage in my life, but I am happy to at last be in a space where I am not afraid to say, “Bring it on!”

B is for Bride

I spent four days with the family of a very good friend of mine who got married two Saturdays ago.

My connection to this family is not through the Bride though – I have been friends with one of her older sisters for seventeen years, and almost immediately from the start of my friendship with her, I was welcomed into their home like another daughter.

The Bride was thirteen years old, when her sister and I became friends, and after her sister got married and had children, myself and said Bride became closer as friends too.

Those of you who are Indian and who have friends who are Indian will know that an Indian wedding is a marathon, not a sprint. There are many little functions and events that happen during the week leading up to the wedding. Lots of fun, as all the family gathers to celebrate, but also a fertile breeding ground for petty squabbles and unnecessary drama.

Something that has always been a bitter pill for me swallow is my community’s tendency to measure a woman’s worth by her marital status. This is actually something that the Bride and I have lamented to each other many times. Every achievement you have ever earned gets overlooked when they hear you are a certain age and unmarried. The evening before the wedding, I managed to get the Bride alone (with her best friend) and it gave me an opportunity to tell her how proud I was of her, for all that she has achieved professionally (passed the bar exam at 22 and at 30, she is an associate at her law firm), for the way in which she has looked after and preserved herself (her virtue and, more importantly, reputation and dignity is beyond question), and mostly for not succumbing to her family or society’s pressure to marry before she was ready and before she had found the right person for her.

The morning of her wedding, we all gathered at the local mosque to bear witness to the marriage ceremony (called nikāh in Arabic).

I watched her as we heard her fiancé utter the words that would make her his wife…the happiness brimming over her eyelids outshone the breath taking bridal dress she was wearing, and I lost the battle against my tears. As the groom gazed upon her for the first time as his wife, I was absolutely certain my ribcage would shatter trying to contain the happiness that welled up in me.

Those looks remained on their faces for the rest of the day. And my prayer is that in the face of all the challenges they will undoubtedly face, that they would still be able to look upon each other as they did that day.

A – Aunt

Inspired by my Twuddie, @HiddlestonedZelda, I have decided to try the A-Z Blogger's Challenge for the month of April. I've been in a bit of a funk as regards my writing, so thank you Z, for this - hopefully it will help to unblock.

I have 21 nieces and nephews. Yep, you read that correctly. Twenty one. Three times seven. Yes, they are the children of my brothers and sisters (not cousins). And yes, I know all of their names, birthdays and ages.

I became an aunt for the first time one month before my fifth birthday. Even though I was so little, I still have memories of my sister’s pregnancy. The next came two years later, and the rest of them came almost every year after that. Our family’s eldest grandchild is 27 years old, and a doctor, and our youngest is 5, just starting school.

I have a different relationship with each of them. Some are like younger siblings, because of the close proximity of our ages or because of my youthful personality (the teens come to mind here). The little ones regard me in a parental light.

One of my nieces was my guinea pig – I learnt how to look after babies and children with her, and even though I am only fifteen years older than her, she calls me her other mom. She is the only one whom I’ve had a very active hand in raising, and even though she is 17 now, I still regard her as my baby. A title she now has to share with our youngest, who, along with his sister, stayed with us two years ago while their parents were on pilgrimage. He was 3 years old at the time, and it was the first time ever that he was away from his parents, so naturally, it was going to be a struggle. And we had to come up with creative ideas to get him in a compliant frame of mind – as a result, I had to memorise the Pitch Perfect soundtrack so I could sing it to him at bath time and read Cat in the Hat every night for 6 weeks. All the things I learnt with the 17 year old came in handy with the 3 year old.

In some way, shape or form, I have been a parent to 21, and I am happy for the roles I have played and get to play in their lives (baker, tutor, potty-trainer, financial adviser, career counsellor, hairdresser, stylist, chef, nurse…the list is endless).

I have yet to experience motherhood for myself. But if it so happens that I leave this world without experiencing it, I won’t be too disappointed.

And I am extremely excited, because soon I’ll be able to be all of this for number 22.

Sorry, Tom

Last night, Tom Hiddleston tweeted for the first time in almost four months.

Again, Twitter almost broke, because of the response of his fans. Now, most of us try and keep it respectful, but we are an enthusiastic bunch. And I remarked to a few of my Tweeps, "I wonder if he ever sees how we carry on, and whether he laughs or is frightened by it".

A joke, perhaps, but seriously, I wonder sometimes whether he doesn't cringe at some of our shenanigans.

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to you, Tom, if we make you feel uncomfortable or frighten you in any way.

We admire and respect you, and yes, sometimes we get carried away when we objectify you...

But I hope you will remember that it comes from a place of love :)

Intolerance

I read a very interesting post on intolerance (https://musingsfromameanderingmind.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/intolerance-and-the-imitation-game/).

The author makes very valid statements on the level of intolerance prevalent in our world today. It seems to me that as we progress materially, we regress in terms of our humanity. And in this particular post, the sentence that resonated most with me was, "I'm human. And so is the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean we can't take a step back, put our shortsightedness, stupidity and cruelty in perspective and allow folks to live their lives without our values being imposed on them, or theirs imposed on us".

The whole piece, and the above quote in particular, for me, nails the major problem we face in the world today.
But from my standpoint, what the world has become intolerant of disturbs me.

If I take myself as an example: I am an adult female, born into a Muslim family. I did not always conduct my life in perfect accordance to my faith, but have reached a point where I decided that I want to be a Muslim, and that I was going to make a bigger effort to be a better Muslim.

I do not date, because courtship is prohibited in my faith.
I dress very modestly and wear my headscarf.
I do not drink, do drugs, fornicate with strangers outside of marriage and I will never entertain even the thought of homosexuality.

Now, people are going to read this and probably want to pitch me off the nearest building, because it goes against societal norms (these days, at least).
They will probably fail to see that these are my choices. They probably won't ask me why I made those choices. And they probably won't see that while I live my life a certain way, I don't publicly persecute or ridicule people who have chosen a different lifestyle. I am not about to abuse someone because they have a girlfriend/boyfriend, dress provocatively or because they're gay. And I'm not going to force them to live the way that I live.

I cannot speak for all who share my kind of lifestyle, but I can speak for myself.
My life choices are for my own peace of mind, for the contentment of my heart, for my protection and for the protection of society from mistakes that I may make.
I am healthy. I am happy. I am safe and I haven't endangered anyone in the 32 years I've walked this earth...and I hope that this will make you a little more tolerant of me.

Things I wish I'd heeded earlier

My sister once said, "I don't have regrets. Regret means that you're doubting the plan that God has for you." Words I have tried to live by, since the day she spoke them. Yes, you make choices in your life...but so many things have happened in my life that leaves me with no doubt that it is guided by a Supreme Hand.

However, I am human.
I err, and try to make amends, and err again. And sometimes, just when I think I have a good handle on some difficult thing I've had to learn, I mess up again.
When you're a child, you forget and bounce back quickly. When you're a teenager, you don't forget - you do, ignore advice and repeat. As an adult, your mistakes affect you, sometimes for longer than they should. And with this comes lots of introspection.

The following are things I wish I'd listened to and heeded much earlier in my life (and some I wish someone would have warned me about at all)...

1. Growing pains is 10% physical and 90% emotional.

2. Guys and girls can never just be friends.

3. Having tact and a filter is very beneficial to your health.

4. Silence is not always golden.