Ramadan in the Time of Corona

I have not written in four months. I intended to write more frequently, but the now infamous detour-causing virus became the sole focus of my existence, just like everyone else on the planet.

I remember January, haha. I remember how it started out at work with calls for flights destined to China being cancelled. I remember it was a bit busy for a few weeks into February. I felt, as many did, that poor China was having a hard time and the rest of our lives will go on.

Of course it wasn’t long before the virus spread to Europe, and people started to get antsy. We in Egypt, however, could not worry about that- we had monumental floods going on that were of more importance. At that time, Ramadan seemed still far out into the future. I myself was busy trying to move out of my overpriced apartment into something more affordable, and starting to panic that I was not going to find anything before my son would be coming to live with me in mid-May.

But then March came along, and it was as though all the gears of destiny started to turn at once. A dear friend of mine from work, Yasin, secured me a flat in his family building, with the rent set at a quarter of what I had been paying before. Unexpectedly I was accepted into his entire family, as though I had been adopted. Then the virus continued to escalate in USA, and travel plans were cancelled- mine as well as the rest of the world’s. Suddenly, work became nothing but endless calls to cancel flights from customers who had been waiting an average of 6 hours on hold to get through. Suddenly, Egypt instituted a curfew that shifted everyone’s work schedule and sent hundreds of employees to work from home. Suddenly, the little bit of luck I thought my new flat was bringing me turned out to be the oasis of safety Allah knew I would need during a time like this.

And so April began as an afterthought, a thought after face masks and hand sanitizer stations became a new normal, after “I  want a refund, not a travel voucher” demands by Canadians with renewed hostility came by the hundreds, after predictions of collapsed economies led by the ever-aspiring USA became impossible to re-frame, after a population of under-tested, under-resourced but still happy-go-lucky Egyptians remembered, hey, Ramadan is like, next week!

And that was a week ago. Ramadan now is already a week down, three to go. And though this is my fifth consecutive Ramadan in Egypt, it is definitely carving a meaning in my soul that only these unprecedented times could’ve lent space for. Between the beautiful things Allah has sent me, and the unbelievable world events unfolding because of the virus, I am pretty sure the only way to describe my feeling of reality is that it is a dream.

My Ramadan began during a week when I was off work. I had swapped schedules with a coworker who had been forced to take the week as a vacation. I was tired from sitting at my station for 11 hours a shot, with nothing really to do but sleep between the 5 calls that were coming through each night. Eventually the volume died down to almost nonexistence when there were no flights left to cancel, and no one rebooking of course.

So last week I sat on my balcony and watched on the first night of Ramadan as the men of the neighborhood decorated the streets.

The finished view

I was invited to break fast with Yasin’s wife, a dear girl named Shaima who is becoming a friend as well. She and I sat on the floor of her flat talking and alternatively doing dhikr. She was kind enough to make my favorite dish, masaq3ah, with ma7shy and chicken. We watched a show on TV hosted by Ramez Galal, which looked like he was torturing his friends for the fun of it. I was a bit shocked by it, actually.

…But the hospitality didn’t stop there. Ramadan, Night Two was even better. Yasin’s mother had invited me to join the entire family for iftar. I sat with Om Yasin, his sister Farha, and Shaima in a separate room (as per Islamic manners) to eat the dinner she had prepared of molochaya, chicken, macarona beshamel, red sauce and home-made bread. After dinner, Yasin and his brothers joined us one by one, and we spent the rest of the evening joking, drinking tea and conversing about life in Egypt and America. And yes, I did all this (as much as I am capable) in Arabic.

On the third night of Ramadan, as I had just finished making iftar for myself, I heard a knock at my door. A girl named “Bosey”, the cousin of Yasin who lives in the flat beneath mine, had brought me a tray which contained beef and chicken, molochaya, rice, potatoes in red sauce, and salad. This was a complete surprise, Alhamdulillah.

As it happened, my job assigned me an unrequested vacation this week also. So I have now been off work two weeks. A couple nights ago Shaima also surprised me by coming to have iftar with me in my flat, bringing pasta, chicken cutlets and cucumber slices with her. I am really grateful to Allah for the beautiful shared breakfasts I am having with my new neighbors and family.

However, the best part of Ramadan in Manshayat Nasr is at every night, around 1 AM, when a man comes drumming through the streets calling the names of the children who live in the buildings nearby.

I love to listen to the children calling their names to him from their upstairs windows so they can be included. Sometimes they crowd him and walk with him from lane to lane. 

I know that many Muslims are experiencing Ramadan in a difficult way because of the quarantines and curfews. I know that this may not be the best Ramadan they will remember, but it certainly will be one no one will forget. As for me, this year I will remember it being a year of being immersed in love, generosity, miracles, and even ibadah. Alhamdulillah, the most priceless thing I am getting out of this Ramadan is that I am trying to pray my tarawih regularly, learning the complete recitations of my salat (yes I know that should’ve been done long ago), and memorizing new surahs of Qu’ran.

None of us know what will happen in the coming weeks, months and years. But I personally hold on to hope, because Allah has given beautiful things to cling to during a time of uncertainty. That faith, and all its real expressions that I am living now, is what I will always remember when I think back to this Ramadan during the time of Corona.

2020

I began my new year running -literally running- at midnight away from my computer at work. I had just ended a call, perhaps the 63rd call of the same sort that day, and the only thing I wanted was to get as far away from the phone as possible. All day long customers had been calling us because their online account was showing their bonus points were missing, and they all thought they had been stolen. It was simply a glitch on the website, but if it had not been for that, the shift of 31 December would’ve been relatively quiet. I was tired of explaining the same thing over and over.

So when my manager released us at midnight to go watch the fireworks display being shot from our company rooftop, I threw my headset down after the call finished and ran off the floor. I ran, like the microbus drivers drive here, weaving through walkers and standers, down halls and down escalators, down steps, up steps, through the turnstile, through the main foyer, and out to the front of the building where the music was blaring as the fireworks exploded overhead.

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like running. But somehow, as I was racing through the building, I felt free. Free and hopeful. It was a thing, to be running in Egypt, because running women are jiggly women, and jiggly women are eye-catching, and being eye-catching if you’re a decent, modest woman (like me) is a bit scandalous. But I wasn’t jiggly, because I was wearing a thick wool coat that covered me from shoulder to ankle. It was actually the first time I ever ran here, in public. And that, that felt like getting away with a trick, just like leaving the phones outside of a scheduled break felt like getting away with a trick.

So as I stood outside, catching my breath, watching the sizzling collapse of countless points of light, I smiled at myself, and all I was “getting away with”. I relished the odd pleasure of even living in a place where doing something innocent like that, feels like a reward I sneaked away like a stolen cookie.

Yesterday, the first day of the year, and today, I am off from work. And unlike that night of the New Year’s Eve, I am feeling less enthusiastic about my sneaking. In fact, I am feeling convicted about other things I am permitting myself, that I know are wrong. Small things. Things that, in my old land of America, would not even be considered incriminating. Things I won’t list here, but things I must change. I must change, and I must stop doing.

I am washing clothes. I will hang the first load on the laundry lines outside, to dry in the cold air, under the constant sun. I will pray the afternoon prayer, and I will start to cook. I will fry potatoes, I will saute chicken, I will stew vegetables and bake yams. I will some eat of what I made, and store the rest for the upcoming week. I will clean up the kitchen, finish the laundry, and sweep my room.

Then I will try to focus on letting go of what I have been sneaking for myself. For leaving those cookies alone- they are not mine. For being patient for whatever Allah really has for me, and knowing that I don’t have to accept it with shame when it comes, because I will have done what is right in the end, in shaa Allah.

 

To Be, or Not To Be….Connected

Woot woot! My wifi is back on! Here’s something to add to the list of things to learn about Egypt: The landline bill is paid separately from the monthly internet bill. I learned this how? Well, a few weeks ago, the DSL light on my wifi router was not on. It was not getting a connection. (Yes, all the internet here is, at best, DSL. No cable internet, sorry). So, I did the logical thing and unplugged and replugged and reset the modem 323 times over 4 days. Nothing changed.

Then I think, yeah, I should call TE data. I prompt through for English. It asks for a “TP code” and the landline number. I don’t know what is a “TP code”,  nor does anyone I know. It doesn’t accept me just putting in the landline number. “This number is not valid”, it tells me. It’s valid, dammit. I had service just the week before!

Nothing left to do but break out my crappy mobile and shoot them an email. They are kind enough to reply in English to inform me that the landline hasn’t been paid, and had been disconnected until that account is brought current. I mention this to my room-mate and she says, “yeah, the landline here is separate from the internet each month. You pay the landline every 3 months.” Wow. Ok, that’s new.

So I head on over to my local WE store to pay the bill. There is a man sitting at a desk in front of the doors manning a machine that gives ticket numbers based on the inquiry of the customer. I told him, “I just need someone who knows English”.

“No English,” he replies.

“I don’t speak Arabic. I need someone who can speak English because I need to get my service back on!” I urge emphatically (because here nothing gets done unless you urge emphatically or shout).

A woman comes from the seating area and offers her help (so reliable in Egypt!!!!) She asks me what I need to do, and she translates my answer in Arabic to the machine man. He prints up M020 for me, and I go sit down to wait my turn.

Fortunately the girl at the counter where my number was called spoke English. She found the account and confirmed the landline was past due for 77 LE. She said their payment system was down at that time, but I could go to any Fawry and pay it. By then I was exhausted and just went home to sleep.

Tonight was the night I stopped by Fawry after finishing my shift to bring the account current. I didn’t see any change in the modem lights when I got home, but just now, when I took my empty dinner plates back to the kitchen, the router was all aglow with green lights as though it had just been proposed to by the refrigerator not far from it.

I shared all this because this is exactly how things go here in Egypt. Tasks and errands take place over many attempts/days/efforts. Their accomplishment feels like a reward well earned, brutally fought for.

 

A Long Summer

….Apparently too long to have time to write. And now, between sneezes and with the lights off, I am not sure what to say. All I can think about is how humans are so complex. And how I am so complex. And how complexity makes problems, and no one wants problems.

I gained a room-mate over the summer. She brought with her two cats, the boy named Azarina and the girl named Sonya. Sonya was pregnant, and gave birth just over a month ago. This past week, her three kittens started walking and exploring the flat. I call them collectively “babies”. When I say, “hey babies!” They all look to me. Egyptian cats are smart, and engaging. Dexter, by comparison, is lazy and quasi-anti-social. All my American cats were like that.

We all envy the domestic house-cat because they don’t have problems. They have an easy life, one where every need is met and time is all theirs to do as they wish. And in a daily routine, they get loved and petted.

I have no “home” to go back to. No mother to retreat to, and she will cook me dinner while I sort out my life. No father to give advice while we drive to the hardware store. No home in the states, period. But I don’t want to go back to the states, anyway.

It makes me think about how I wish I could go back to Banha, sometimes. Stay in my ex’s old room as though it were mine, and eat Taita’s bamya. Just for a few days. Would it be the same without Shukurah? Without her begging Amu Mohammed for chipsies and a ride on his motorbike? Probably not.

Then I wish for my kids. I wish to have Jed visit Egypt for the first time, and see what he thinks of it. I wish for Eden sleeping in the other room, sharing his rap songs with me and showing me dances. I wish for Jabiyr playing piano songs over and over until he gets them perfectly, and sharing with me funny stories he wrote. I wish for Shukurah changing her clothes too many times a day and trying to sleep with Dexter in her arms.

She wants one of the kittens, by the way. She said she will name it Shukurah, because that’s her name. And I should shut it in a room until she can come here so it won’t escape.

The one monumental thing that happened this summer is that I finally accepted that I AM an orphan. Not was…AM. Orphans don’t live typical lives, normal lives. There is only so much they can do to compensate what challenges they were given. I have been putting pressure on myself lifelong trying to create something without ever having the complete array of things needed to create it. I took that pressure off of me. I am accepting that what I did create was actually pretty darn good, considering what odds were against me and what I should’ve “statistically” wound up with.

Another complex thing, and the passing traffic hums, “why bother to worry about it now? You’re sick, and tomorrow you will go back to work. Just recover. Life keeps going, so keep going with it.”

The traffic is right. And my longing soul is right. And the wishes are right. And that’s why, dear ones, I am too complex.

 

 

Not the Greatest Day

The microbuses these days are full when they pass by me. I have to wait longer to catch one on my way to the work collection point. Today I worried that I might be delayed, and not make it to work. Alhamdulillah, that didn’t happen.

But other delays did. I ate iftar an hour late due to a long hold time transferring a call. I also got off work an hour late for the same reason, and what made it worse is after all that waiting, the department I was transferring to didn’t even take the call. They said the customer will have to call the airline. That didn’t go well with the customer, or with me. But at least I get paid for the extra time.

I had the work bus drop me off at a mobile shop instead of home. It is the 4th night that I have gone there to check to see if my mobile battery (which had swollen and died) had been replaced yet. It hasn’t. Come back tomorrow night at 10, he said. Typical Egypt.

I took a microbus home and didn’t have to pass under the broken light that pulses like a strobe on the way to my building. When I get in the house, I see it’s too late to do much. I have to get up early tomorrow to try to extend my visa, so I decide to eat suhoor in the dark instead of skipping it like I have been for the past few days. I always eat in the dark because it’s too hot to close the windows, and having the lights on while I am inside without hijab with open windows means everyone will see me uncovered. I don’t mind. Being in the dark feels cooler.

I was thankful for the two hard-boiled eggs, small piece of ‘eish balady with apricot jam and “sandwich” cheese, and authentic yogurt mixed with honey and two digestive biscuits (I am still not sure why they are called “digestive”). I made myself a glass of lemonade with three fresh lemons and sugar. I have been refilling my water bottles at the water coolers at work to save money, so to conserve that to drink I made the lemonade with tap water. Somehow I think the water is less risky to drink from the tap when it’s mixed with something else or heated. Or maybe that’s just a nice idea when the real truth is I don’t have to taste the flavor difference from it being unfiltered.

There are different kinds of loneliness. Sometimes you are lonely for a deep connection, though shallow ones may be abundant. Sometimes you are lonely for any connection, when there is none. Sometimes you’re lonely for someone in particular. Me, I seem to get lonely for someone who really knows me. Not for company, not for love, just the feeling of knowing that someone knows me right now, in my truest self. Yeah, I’ve been lonely for that. But alhamdulillah, it’s not as bad as the kind of loneliness I used to suffer in America. Somehow being here is like being carried on top of the sea, floating. Not drowning in its darkness with no way to get above the surface.  Both can be very cold, however. Cold doesn’t always change.

 

My New Life in Madinat Nasr

It’s been about three and a half weeks since I moved into my own apartment in Nasr City, locally called Madinat Nasr. It’s about 90 square meters with two bedrooms, although the second bedroom was technically a part of the reception area that had been walled in. My bedroom has a small balcona where the washing machine is (because that’s the only place there was room for it). It’s my washing machine, I paid for it. Just knowing that makes me happy.

I like this apartment because the natural light is fantastic. Both the reception and the second bedroom have wall-to-wall windows that catch the sunlight after fajr. Soon, in shaa Allah, I will hang the curtains I brought from the old October business apartment and have them re-fitted to fit the reception window. I also like this apartment because it has a bathtub, something I had been missing since my ex and I gave up the lease on the old October business apartment in January 2018. Since then, every place I’ve lived only had showers.

But what means more to me is the small things that remind me of places I’ve lived, particularly Banha. In the kitchen, the window is to the left of the sink, and the buildings next to mine are approximately the same distance away from the buildings across the street from Tita’s kitchen window. I hear similar noises as I heard there, while washing dishes, when I do mine here. Kids outside playing, vendors calling for selling watermelon, workers banging on natural gas tanks for exchange. Sometimes it feels like I am still there, as the surrounding area is very rural feeling even though it’s in a suburb of Cairo. The closest market, which happens to be in the “neighborhood”, is just a local grocery with laundry detergent, eggs, gibna tallaga, and other dry goods and snacks.

Every building, of which there are about 7 or so, seems to be inhabited by ballady families on the ground floor. A woman who goes by Om Rabiya lives at the bottom of mine, with her son Ahmad. I don’t know where “Rabiya” is, so I presume she’s been married off. Om Rabiya always wants to know where I am going or know what I am bringing back in my bags. She watches everything like a hawk, which is why it would be impossible for me to do something immoral like bring a man up to my flat.

At night the kids play football in the parking areas, while teen boys banter and water the “garden”. The masjid is close by and the adhan is loud. All of this feels like Banha, and in a strange way it comforts me. At the same time, I hear the rush of cars on the street (Shara Nasr) so close, and I know I’m not caged in to a small place like I was in Banha, and that comforts me as well.

I keep the sugar in the freezer because otherwise the ants will find a way to get into it. The fridge itself is in the reception (aka living room) because there is no room for it in the kitchen. For some reason this is very common in Egypt. But again, it’s my fridge, and I’m happy that I finally have a sense of my own space here.

When I go to work, I take a microbus to the pickup point for my company bus. It costs 2 pounds, but requires crossing a very busy street. By now I’ve become an expert at this. If I get off after 11, the company bus will take me directly to my building. Sometimes I’ve taken a local taxi (not uber) to get places, only because my phone battery is broken and my phone dies within 30 minutes of a full charge. I have managed to take the taxis without being overcharged or otherwise messed with, and this feels like a real accomplishment in my Egyptian assimilation.

Despite this peaceful time of reflection and appreciation for the life I have the life I worked hard for and made difficult sacrifices for, I feel an ache that my ex can’t be a meaningful part of it. He was such an integral part of my adaptation here, and helped me develop the foundation I built what I have now upon. But he hates me, and wants nothing to do with me. No matter what he says or how he has treated me, I still feel a strong sense of appreciation for who he was in my life and what I wished we could’ve had for a post-marital friendship. I never wanted nor expected that any part of my life after our divorce would not include him being proud of me, or me supporting him in some way. But that’s what is the reality now, and not a day goes by that I feel it less painful.

What I have learned about life so far includes the fact that we can never have all of the things we want at once. Allah gives us some here, some there, and sometimes they all overlap temporarily. I do the best I can to remain grateful that most of the things I needed and wanted are within my reach or being lived now. Alhamdulillah, it’s not that I forgot how much I suffered just months ago, desperate for a change. I haven’t forgotten the pains I could barely tolerate and the wish to just try to do something to counter them. I’ve made great strides since then, I’ve accomplished a lot by Allah’s leave. And I am surrounded by many people who genuinely care about me and whose presence in my life fulfills me.

Just the same, I will keep praying for my ex, for his happiness, for his peace, and for Allah to perhaps rebuild some sort of healthy brotherhood/sisterhood between us. The amount of benefit I gained from knowing him, I feel it deserves that much. Allah knows best.

 

 

 

Taking Real Responsibility

I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring the idea of responsibility lately. The idea of responsibility is one that I felt was being drained away from me in vital ways, right before my divorce. As such, it was something that I wanted to strongly re-establish in my own life, but in a healthy, stable way.

As I explore this thing, responsibility, I notice that there are not many people living it the way it is meant to be lived. I see people taking on responsibility for others who are unwell, to make them well, even though they do not have the power to do so. I see others taking on responsibility for those in their care, but assuming they know best, and trying to create a life plan for someone else, disempowering the one they are responsible for. I see people neglecting their own power of responsibility, choosing instead to rely on someone else for sustenance or fulfilment.

The understanding many people have about this subject is complicated by some things, in my view. For the Muslim believer, it is complicated by the knowledge that Allah has created roles in relationships where there is indeed a responsibility one individual has over another. For example, husbands have responsibilities over wives, parents have responsibilities over children, children have responsibilities over parents, and so on. Every believer will surely be held accountable to Allah for their management of these responsibilities.

Many believers, unfortunately, resort to their own wisdom, their own wishes, their own needs in creating the dynamic of carrying out that responsibility. In actuality, Allah has a plan for each person that is already perfect and already sufficient. If parents, spouses, and children were trying to be responsible to keeping the person they are responsible for in alignment with Allah’s plan for them, then it’s being done right. But if parents, spouses, and children are keeping the person they are responsible for in alignment with a plan based on their own needs and ideas, then they are failing and will answer to Allah for that.

For non-believers, it’s a different dilemma. In that world, many people see themselves as the source of everything. They see themselves as able to make people change, as able to secure outcomes, as able to control variables. They do not see themselves or the people in their lives as ultimately under Allah’s control, or that their role is to submit to a plan other than whatever they imagine. So they take free license to judge what is best for others, to decide what others are or are not capable of, to determine what is healthy or not, and to require everyone to submit to whatever “the best course of action” is. Responsibility is not seen as something ultimately designated to them by something greater, but something they hold as a their own greatest power to use when interacting with others they see are failing in any way.

Sometimes Muslims have been infected with this non-Islamic orientation. They filter their own understandings of their Islamic relationships with standards defined and lived by non-muslims. When that error in thinking is backed up by the conviction that they must live up to the responsible role Allah endowed them with, very untenable situations are created, causing many people to suffer.

The solution, for Muslims, is to keep going back to seek what Allah wants. When someone in a responsible position gets into a situation where there is conflict or uncertainty about how that responsibility should be lived and carried out, Allah is the only one who can clarify it. In many cases, He has already outlined how to manage affairs in the Quran and sunnah. For situations that are exceptional or complex, fatwas can be sought if immediate guidance is needed. And for everything else, perhaps it must be questioned whether it is actually under someone else’s responsibility, or under the person’s own right to choose.

For example, many Muslim parents feel it is their responsibility to choose a career path for their children. In actuality, this is outside the scope of their responsibility, Islamically. At these times the truly responsible person will relinquish the need to manage that situation, and try to find peace letting the individual manage it themselves. Any person who wants to support another as they journey their own path to Allah, will find it just by making dua. Allah is reliable to guide everyone to a balanced course of action that neither assumes too much responsibility, nor too little support and care.

A Hard Pattern to Break

This is something I need to write about. It’s something I feel very vulnerable to share. In fact, I spent most of the day yesterday just trying to think how to share this thing I am about to describe. It’s not easy, and I never came up with any ideas on that. So I am expecting this post to be disorganized and maybe obscure.

Perhaps being blunt will help: I waste my time loving other people.

At first that may sound harsh, or uncaring. But I have to explain what I mean. I am not talking about general love for humanity, or for children, family, and close friends. I am not talking about love in its proper context. I am talking about love with no context.

I am, by nature, extremely affectionate. I am devoted, passionate, and thoughtful. I love to give, and I love to think of ways to give more and more to those I care about. I don’t want to change those things about me, in essence. Those attributes are what work together to create the way I “love” someone else.

I have begun to realize that sometimes my love, as noble as it looks like existing on its own, doesn’t have a point. For some reason I often find myself throwing this highly dedicated “love” to people who aren’t really interested in making the most of it.

I have loved guys that didn’t love me back. That never wanted to be closer to me than whatever way they already were. And even though I was brutally clear on their stance, I spent hours, weeks and months -even years- loving them anyway.

I have loved the men I married. I threw myself into my marriages with frenzied adoration. In each case, the marriage was not in a suitable shape to survive. Many years in each of those marriages was characterized by me bleeding my love for my husband, while he only received (for various reasons) a fraction of what I had to give.

And then, I loved the men I left. Whether by divorce or breakup, I still loved them. Even though the reality was that it was better to move on, I stayed loving, thinking somehow that my great love could do something more magical after a relationship, than it had within it.

And that very bit of truth right there is what I woke up to yesterday morning. If my love was never enough to change a crush into a romance, an unhealthy marriage into a healthy one, or a collapse of a bond into its resurrection, then why do I keep letting it thrive within me?

And the answer is, I don’t know.

I have, in essence, invested in things with no return. And even while a casual observer could see the foolishness in that, even that it kept going and going against all sense, I have not been able to stop myself from this dynamic.

Yesterday, when all this was coming clearly in front of my eyes, I wondered to myself: when would it be worthwhile to love like that? When wouldn’t it be a waste? I did come up with some answers, but I am not sure what good they are to me now. I have already loved and loved and loved. I don’t feel like conjuring it all back together, just to throw it in the right direction. At least, not right now.

Besides that, I need to stop loving as I am right now. The love I am having, as far as I can tell, is not wanted. So why not kill it? This is what I ask myself. But somehow, I don’t have the heart to kill it….yet.

I don’t know what it will take to reach that point. I don’t know when I will feel ready to make that choice. I just know that I am worth more than wasting my heart and its beating on someone who isn’t even thinking of it, let alone cherishing it.

 

A Needed Epiphany

I was talking to a friend yesterday about managing emotions. One of the things I confided was that no matter how well I might be able to control the expression of my emotions on the outside, I have never been able to figure out how to influence the way I experience them on the inside. What that usually means is, if I am in pain, though I may be able to relate to others well in spite of it, inside I am carrying it at its full intensity until it eventually subsides on its own.

When I got home later I wondered what the reason would be for such a situation to be a part of human experience. I had a hard time being convinced that we only have that so we can practice how outwardly self-controlled we can be over that state. What bothered me even more was the fact that I know such consistent self-control is difficult, and many cannot stick to it. In the end, the expression of intense emotion tends to be viewed negatively and often felt hurtfully by others.

But I believe Allah in His wisdom created emotions for a purpose, one that includes more than just mastery over them. I thought about it more and I realized that every time a strong emotion is being displayed, underneath it you can find one common truth no matter what the emotion is: something attached to that emotion is important.

It became clear to me that part of the purpose of emotional expression is to signal that fact to others. It starts at birth, when an infant signals to its parents that it is important to be fed, changed, and cuddled. Another very innate part of our fitra is that we expect those who care for us to see as important the same things we do. It’s clear when any child shows off a drawing, an accomplishment, or asks a question. They expect the response to show the same importance as what they experience in those things.

So naturally, a lot of discord is created when that reciprocation is absent. In children it creates dysfunctional patterns, often (why should this be surprising now) with increased emotional disturbance.

With adults, it happens during conflict, because conflict is highly emotional. Many times we get caught up into the issues, or the way each person is expressing themselves with hostility or drama, that we miss the core thing being communicated: “this is important to me, and I need to feel it’s important to you, too”.

One of the things I’ve had lifelong difficulties with is the expression of anger by others. When people are depressed, I can relate to that and respond compassionately. But when people are angry, I feel threatened, I feel vulnerable, and I end up focusing on de-escalating the anger in the other person above anything else. And no matter how calmly or cleverly I tried to do that, it rarely succeeded.

I see now why. Because I was not seeing the real thing going on, that the anger was happening because something was important to that person. Therefore I could not respond in a meaningful way or show that thing was also important to me.

As an aside, I am talking about the strict emotion of anger. I am not talking about devaluing expressions of it, like abuse of any kind- even verbal. Those expressions are clearly haraam, and halal conduct while emotional is important, too.

I have suffered for decades being afraid of non-abusive anger. When I realized that anger, by itself, is simply a cue to this fact of something being important to that person, it completely disarmed the threat I always saw and ended up responding to. For the first time in my life, I feel free to stand in a different space with the angry person, and to respond to them in a more meaningful way than just automatically trying to get them to calm down for my sake.

Equally, I know that many times people find my intense emotional expressions overwhelming. And it’s clear to me that when I get very upset or engaged into something, it’s because something in there is important to me. So I intend, from this point, to be more vocal about that core truth. I want to tell others clearly what’s important to me at that sensitive time, and tell them what I need to feel that sense of it being important to them as well.

In shaa Allah this will become a healing path for me starting today, leading to healthier relationships with everyone.

A Different Kind of Loneliness

I get lonely at times. But it’s not the same type of loneliness I was overwhelmed with before. Sometimes I try to think about the reasons that may be so. Perhaps I want to be clear so I can avoid it becoming that old way again. Perhaps it’s just to understand what has already seemed to change.

I am 42. My oldest son will be 19 next month. My daughter is 5. The other two are solidly teenagers, and one of them is about to start his own last year of that before the almighty 18 strikes him. I will not have any more children. The grandchildren could come any time from now, technically, but I hope they won’t for a few years yet.

I’ve been married 3 times. The first undertaken at age 21, then ended at 26. The second starting at that same age, and lasted until I was 37. My 38th year brought my third marriage and now it too is over. I am too old to think about weddings for myself. My kids will be having weddings of their own soon enough.

It’s as though I have accepted that I’ve lived my love life, I’ve had my share of these experiences, and my turn is over. I don’t feel bitter or even upset about it. I accept it much the same way I would accept (as I imagine) if I were 82 and told I had terminal cancer. At 82, how could I say I felt cheated out of life? It’s a natural age to die at for any reason.

So I find myself, in lonely times, telling myself (without effort) “this is how this is supposed to go”. I don’t feel like it should be some other way. I don’t feel I’ve missed out on something. Regardless of what destructive elements my previous marriages held, and regardless of the reasons I felt they needed to end (and I have to take responsibility that rightly or wrongly, I chose to initiate their ending….not my exes), I have lived love. I have been euphoric, I’ve been passionate, and I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve bonded with a man in an amazing way. I’ve made a difference in lives through sharing life with someone, and being the real person I am. I had what Allah wrote for me, I took my share, and even after all that, I can say Alhamdulillah Rab alamin.

I know that doesn’t necessarily mean I couldn’t be married again. But I don’t think of it. When I am lonely, it’s not the solution that presents itself to my aching heart. When I am lonely I just sit and reflect on the times of companionship I enjoyed, and relive those meaningful scenes. Speaking of those, when you’re young, you haven’t had them and all you can do is imagine. Well, now I’ve lived them….some of them were phenomenal. And I don’t feel like the future is a place to try to compete with what I already treasure.

Is all that enough to carry me through years of singleness? How could I know? It’s been enough for today, and it will likely be enough for tomorrow. And since I can live only one day at a time, I am perfectly fine with that.