The Golden Years

It's kind of crazy that I've now been a stay at home mom (again) for a year now and I've literally never had a moment to blog. How does that even happen? "What do moms do all day at home?" (eyes rollin so hard)

Truthfully, I'm sure I did have moments where I could have found the time. I probably used that time to be lazy and catch up on Netflix binging or wasted time on my phone. AH WELLZ to that, but here I am now. And while I may not have been writing about it, my headspace for the past few months has been all about this topic; The Golden Years.

We (as in me and family) are in this amazing spot right now. We are finally past that stage of raising babies, although we still call them babies, our kids are now grown actual people who are (nearly) out of diapers walking and talking being their own selves demanding less of our time/energy. Yet at the same time, they aren't fully grown either. They haven't (totally) begun that stage of being sassy, smart mouthed know it all adolescents yet either. They still need us to prepare their meals, drive them to activities and actively want to spend time with us. I like to see it as though we have this small window where life is still busy as it always is, but it's easy too. Everyone is still eager and excited for family road trips, the kids are old enough to have their own sibling jokes, but not too old yet where they prefer their own time over family time. It's probably a tiny window of 5-7 years while we have this to make all the memories we can. So, how can I not call this the golden years?

For everyone who's still a step behind me rest assured this day will come for you too. I know you're living in survival mode right now, I was there for a (VERY) long time too. I too felt like it was never going to end and my sleep hating children had doomed my life forever. That look I see now on the faces of moms who have infants and toddlers is still too fresh from my own experience. (And we still get the occasional tantrum/meltdown to keep our feet on the ground too, don't wanna get too carried away there.) But I'm now in that stage where I can also recognize the glimmer in the eyes of moms who wish their kids in college would check in more often. I'm beginning to understand what it could feel like to no longer be needed as much as I have been for so long. And it's crazy, because all while you're in it you want it to pass quickly but once it's gone you wish it back. That's just how life works.

I see it now in my 4 and 7 year old's words. 'When I'm 10 then I'll be tall enough so I can...."  or "When I'm a teenager (its ALL about the teens right now apparently) I'm not going to have to do..." A lot of us grow up waiting anxiously to experience all that there is to see and do in life. I spoke about this to my husband and at first he didn't get it. He thought I was being depressive, but what I'm getting at is being mindfully in this moment.

All my life from childhood til marriage, then having children there was always something to look forward to. I've always been someone slightly dealing with anxiety because I couldn't stop focusing on the future. How would it all pan out, what could go wrong what could go right. But for the first time I'm at a plateau, I guess you can call it. I've done and seen everything on my life list. (MAJOR alhumdulillah to that.) The career, marriage, kids, vacations it's all ticked off (of course iA we will have more vacations because who ever says we're done to that?! But my bucket list ones are done.). All moments leading up to this was what made today possible. Maybe all my perfectionism helped make me check off everything sooner than others have. Who knows? What I do realize is that now I need to sit and bask in its glory, because it really truly is glorious this life. This life we've been given its here and happening now. For the first time I am actually NOT looking forward to the future. I know there's lots of exciting things still on that horizon too, like the milestones and achievements of my children; their colleges/marriages/careers. I'm not discounting any of that, but it's as though age has made me wiser.

I know now that the upcoming turn of life for me will also mean seeing my parents age and one day leave us too. That's not a stage I look forward to, at all. I do wish I had learned sooner to live in the present, to be content with whatever stage I'm at now. I don't regret how I lived, but I do think I would've been happier living in the present rather than the future. Even without things checked off on my list, life was still always amazing. We forget that when we're so forward focused.  I would've held those tiny babies longer, I would've been more carefree in college. I could have been more present in the conversations and relationships I had rather than unfocused and detached. Still, I do remind myself not to get depressive reflecting on the past, but I say all this to hopefully spark something in you my reader. This past year has been so great, and only so because I changed my focus. I prioritized the now. I made that shift that said I will be mindfully present here right now and nowhere else. It changes everything. Your relationships, your experiences. I hope reading this makes you reflect on whatever stage of life you're in right now and reminds you to be as present as you possibly can be.

Don't let your mind fly off into what else you should be doing or where else you need to be going. Life may be crazy, but life will always be crazy. It will always be awesome too. The chaos of today will be tomorrow's memories.  The things you're so hopelessly praying for today WILL be a reality and you won't even realize how easily that happen. Be as you are and be it confidently, happily and gratefully. Now you might ask HOW to do this shift? That'll have to wait for another post. Because I have to go live the NOW. 

Finding Me.

One of the personal goals I had set for myself recently was to get more in touch with my inner self. Marriage, motherhood, a job; they all sort of cloud us with daily responsibilities and as much as that self defines our being so does the self that existed prior to all those roles/duties.

Back at the end of June, in my attempt to rid our place of unnecessary items, I convinced my mom to also empty out her attic so we could do a joint garage sale.The best thing to come out of the sale was that we found many old items brimmed with precious memories.

I felt like a treasure hunter who had uncovered a goldmine in those boxes and boxes of old pictures, flooding back memories of my cheerful childhood. I found old scrapbooks and slam books from middle school, stirring up memories of 7th grade where my best friends and I would pass back and forth a composition book filled with our daily woes. Woes that seem so silly now. The irony will never escape me of how we came upon that past which so quietly sat up in the attic for years, just in time for me to say goodbye. All owed to that useless garage sale, how I owe it so much.

My sister also found my old school agenda books and told me I had a creepy obsession with documenting every single day of my life. Literally, I would write down what we did everyday throughout the summer. I had been doing this on and off since I probably learned how to write in 1st-2nd grade.

It made me realize that I'm someone who truly cherishes memories a lot. I love writing them down, even the daily mundane things we did as a way to capture it. To me, the 'now' was so special I was certain I would come back to it one day in the future and be thankful for everything I wrote down. We all love to glorify the past, in our mind it becomes nothing short of rosy. Memories of high school days, college life and those early years of marriage pre-parenthood; thinking back to those times we're left with a glazed look and a nostalgic grin. What I'm realizing now is that my past, these past 18 years of life in this town has truly been a memory that I will not over glorify, it is a memory I cannot cherish enough!

It's time to say goodbye to a massive chapter in my Life book. Our apartment has been emptied, keys turned over.  Meanwhile, mail has already started arriving at our new address and boxes have been moved in eagerly awaiting their owners. For the past two months I haven't allowed myself to be consumed with the reality of how quickly this chapter was ending. I couldn't deal with it, I had an apartment to pack up, full time job to perform, movers to contact, and a two year old to appease among all these changes. Now, with my IPhone reminder telling me we have 5 days 7 hours and 45 mins until we officially leave NJ I have decided to allow myself to feel reality. 

I'm leaving behind not just my family and close friends who I will severely struggle to live without, I'm leaving behind everything I've ever known. Everything that made me who I am. I'm grateful to have had the past few months to appreciate these 'good old times', to be given the opportunity for closure and experience immense love from so many of the amazing people I am fortunate to call my own. As I  wonder what this next chapter has in store for us, my heart aches for all that I leave behind.

 I know I will march on and so will this place without me. While we will go on living and doing what we do,  I also know both of us will never be the same. Our past is forever intertwined, and so are we.

All images via Google

Who am I?

I have been suggested by many friends that I should blog about how I juggle everything in life between working, parenting, hosting and so much more.

Thank you, kind friends, for acknowledging that life is tough and the roles we take on with age are tougher. I truly appreciate moments where you say things like ‘I don’t know how you do it, I come home from sitting at work all day and I’m too pooped from just that. How you have the energy to cook up all those things you post on Instagram?!’ 

As enthralling as hearing about my life might be, I think most of the stuff I go through is really no different from so many of my friends also experience. We all can relate to many of the same moments in life, so I’m really hoping you all nod and agree that you share likeness of me in any of the below situations (so I don’t feel like a complete moron). 

Here in no particular order is my attempt at laughing at life.

You know you’re an American born working Muslim-Pakistani mom/wife/daughter/sister when:

-       Your child’s teacher chuckles when you groan as she gives you the note Jilly’s mom for you. Because you both know it’s yet another birthday party invite. Another event where your kid comes home with too much sugar for his pint sized body to handle. Another event for which you have to go buy a gift and a card and a gift bag. No you aren’t lazy (much), and you probably should hoard these things in bulk like all those crafty moms do, but having a full time job means no time to remember those time saving moves. (You have no time to save time, the humor is not lost on you)

-       The moment when your mom gushed compliments over your goat biryani and the look of pride on her face is forever etched in your mind. Your mom doesn’t do false compliments, this is huge and it probably ranks up higher than getting your Masters/CPA as ‘Moments I’ll never forget’.

-       You fall asleep on the couch after 2 episodes of Game of Thrones, only to be awaken at 1:30am when your 2 yr old is crying in the bedroom. And you realize you forgot to pray Isha namaaz and really mean to do it now but fall back asleep after putting your child to bed. You totally promise God you won’t do it again, yet you have so many Isha prayers to make up even God ain’t falling for it anymore.

-       Some days your child eats nutella on toast for dinner. It’s better than food being forced in while you try to pry his mouth open. Mostly you manage to squeeze in somewhat of a healthy meal, but some days Nutella toast wins the battle.

-       You ponder over your chances at becoming a fashion blogging success. These hijab fashionistas seem to really have found their niche, too bad you don’t wear a scarf and probably wearing one just to blog about it isn’t such a great reason to start. And also, you will probably never pose regularly for pictures in pretty outfits, because even if you do somehow find the time your son will most likely also be pictured tugging at your pants in every pose.

-       You think a freshly cooked meal two times a week is pretty commendable and if you manage to find time in your weekend packed with birthdays/bridal showers/weddings/baby showers/couple’s get together/girl’s night to cook a meal ahead of time it’s definitely worth bragging about.

-       Either you or your husband (or both) are serious addicts to websites like slickdeals, and due to this your once fairly large apartment/home is now filled with tons of unnecessary merchandise.

-       You show up to work wearing one earring, because your child woke up crying before you got to the second one and due to Mommy brain you plum forgot you had just one in!

-       Your child watches Sim Sim Humara (Pakistani Sesame Street) so he can learn some culture and it warms your heart to hear him shout words like ‘Himmat’ and “Yakeeeeeen’ even though he probably has no idea what they mean yet.

-       When your 2 year old son says ‘bless you’ upon hearing you sneeze and you’re not sure to be happy that he’s learning manners at daycare or ashamed that you’re not doing a good enough job at home on emphasizing ‘Alhumdulillah’. Which then leads you to yet again fall into depression/guilt that he spends 10 hours at daycare and only 2 hours at home with you so of course he’ll learn ‘Bless you’ before he learns ‘Alhumdulillah’. And all of this just ends up in more chocolate being eaten. (this time by you)

-       Your sister and you promise each other that you won’t baby your 30+ year old son like your mother in law does your husband. Both of you swear to never end up this way unconsciously knowing you probably will.

-       You would be better off buying stock in your local gym instead of having a membership, because at least that way your monthly contributions would give you some form of long-term profit. I’m a proud member of WoW since Dec 2009, now don’t ask me how many times I’ve been in the past year. I tend to take 2-3 month long vacations from exercise. 

-       You fervently worked out to Youtube videos of Zumba routines the day you finally accepted you will not be going to the gym any time soon. That was the last time Youtube was used in your home for anything other than Sim Sim Humara or ABC Phonics.

-       Getting out of the car and into the house without toppling over is a mini feat, because you managed to carry: your child (who is usually trying to run free), purse, lunch bag, child’s school bag, numerous artworks/toys, and sometimes groceries all in your two tiny hands while climbed up 12 steps sometimes in snow, ice and rain whilst having to go pee so badly. Mini Feat indeed. (I suppose you could probably make two trips, but do you really trust your toddler alone in the house? Man that’s one good toddler, can we switch? Also, this saves time, you really just don’t want to go back out in the cold dammit)

-       You spend quite a bit of time on websites like Realtor.com waiting for the day your husband gets over his ‘I don’t want to pay interest’ phase so you can call a lovely ‘4 bedroom 2.5 bath’ home. You don’t want to pay interest either, but dreaming of being homeowners is so lovely. And you both know this phase is more about your husband’s excuse to be the cheap Desi he is at heart.

-       You are quite thrilled to have a ‘wellness room’ (real purpose is for breast pumping mothers to use) in the office so you can make wudu and pray namaz at work without your coworkers having to know or deal with that awkward moment in the bathroom when someone walks in to see you washing your hands til your elbows.

-       Seeing the only other Muslim coworker walk out of the wellness room around Maghrib time and realizing he was probably using it for the same reason as you (I sure hope he isn’t breast pumping in there!) makes you super proud that handsome single moderate Muslim boys do exist! You immediately start plotting schemes on how to introduce yourself and eventually get him to marry one of your single friends.

-       Even though you try not to be vain and judge people solely based on looks you follow Faryal Makhdoom on Instagram. Let’s be honest she’s a pretty girl of Pakistani descent and famous by association, that’s reason enough to follow her. She may end up having her own reality show one day and then you can say you liked her before the rest of the world did. Jay Sean style.

-       You’ve got the best Worst Mom Incident out of all your friends. It involves dinner with a couple you never met before, a baby bag forgotten at home, a wailing child stuck in a high chair with you then your husband struggling to get him out, numerous restaurant diners staring, and the story ends with your child going home wearing a receiving blanket wrapped like a sumo wrestler’s underwear. And the couple still wants to be your friend. Yay for Happy endings!

-       The advent of Pinterest has caused you and your husband to gain some serious weight in the past two years because you can’t stop pinning all these amazing recipes! 

-       Despite stockpiling spare Paci/Binky’s, you feel like you spend half your life searching for lost ones. God damn the day you decided to hook your child onto this creation.

-       Sometimes you look around at your living room/kitchen/bathroom/bedroom and secretly thank God that your mom can’t see what a slob you have turned into. You’ve contemplated a cleaning/cooking schedule (pinned some cute ideas on Pinterest too!) but only wonder how long people actually stick to those.

-       You see an adorable newborn/infant girl and make a mental note to keep her in mind as a future daughter in law one day. Yes it’s totally disturbing since your son is not even potty trained, but hey finding love is hard and you just want to help your little sweet pea out!

-       You have a whole slew of fasting days missed during your pregnancy that two years later you still are making up. And sadly your reasoning for not doing make ups during December (when the days were shortest and the fasts were easiest) was that the office had too much free food and holiday parties you didn’t want to miss. Clearly your priorities of putting food before everything else have got to change. (She says while eating a midafternoon snack)

I think I’ll stop now, not because I don’t have more delightful anecdotes to share with you, but because I’m afraid you probably think I’m the laziest, weirdest, most unorganized, disheveled mother/employee/wife/everything else. I promise I do have some great accomplishments and strong attributes too. When I’m not totally exhausted from all the things I’m involved in, I can be quite a pleasant person to be around (hah!). Mostly, I am thankful for my life, albeit it is not always perfect. Sometimes life hands me a challenge and sometimes I just make senseless mistakes, but mostly I’ve learned that if I can walk away from an experience and laugh about it, it’s been a good life.

So I’m trying hard to smile with each struggle and be thankful for the times that we get a full night’s rest to tackle the next hurdle!

Advice to my son

"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway." - Mother Teresa

It's a long quote, but highly worth reading in its entirety. There is so much advice I want to share with my son and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to communicate it all to him.

Today on my way to work I decided to listen to the am news radio. I rarely ever do that, normally I use z100 to get my mornings started. Anyway, two stories out of all the 'top news weather and traffic' caught my attention. One was about a driver who was killed when something flew off the top of a truck in front of him and smashed into his windshield and the other was about a young woman shot and killed in Boonton, NJ. Her husband was also shot and is in critical condition, leaving behind two small sons. All I could think of was how sad it is and my heart really went out to that small child who will only have vague memories of his mother. These are the kind of stories you hear on the daily news all the time so I felt bad, but didn't think much further into it. But when I found out that the woman was a Pakistani Muslim relative of someone I knew it changed things. Now, the woman could have been anyone and it'd still be a tragic event, but I guess when you somehow have a link to the person it just makes it that much more tragic and hits home that much harder.

It made me reflect on how much I worry about raising my child right now. My daily worries entail : Why is he's not eating right? Is it due to teething pain or does he just not like veggies? And why is he still not sleeping well through the night? When will this stop? Will it ever?? When will he start walking and talking? He's so hyper now, I don't want him to grow up to be an ADD child, how can I control that now?

That last one..How can I control that...Those two stories from today's headline showed one thing. Not much is in my control. I can't control a tire flying off the back of a truck hitting my car or a bullet shot at my family while we go for a walk. We get so caught up in the micro worries of the daily routine, that we sometimes forget to reflect upon the greater picture. I can't even control the daily things that hurt him like teething pain so what good will I be able to do if I'm gone and he's left an orphan? But, there are things that you can control. Things that will help him when you aren't around anymore. Like how you behave around him, how tightly you hug him, how you sing to him and rock him to sleep, how you teach him life lessons not always verbally but mainly through your actions.

I hope to teach Ali to be a good person, to be humble and loving, to have strong morals and values, and understand the greatness of God. To make mistakes as that is a part of life, but to learn from the examples of his mother mistakes also. I may not be able to take great bold steps to change the entire world. But if I can change the world of this one child, my life was well spent. Focusing on that concept, makes the rest of the worldly woes seem so trivial.

I know that if I'm gone tomorrow he'll still get by. He'll still have clothes on his body, food in his belly and a roof above his head. I know that, because I know that God is the one who defines destiny and He'll take care of my son's needs..even when I am alive, it's not me but Him who provides all that..for all of us...

When I look at families who have lost small children or at families who've lost parents..they all still go on living..but the quality of their life is greatly affected. So, if I look at each interaction; and not only with just my son but with everyone, as an opportunity to affect their life for the better, to leave a mark so that when I am not around they remember me for all good reasons, that in my mind is the best goal for my existence.

Mostly, I hope Ali absorbs even a tidbit of information that his mom wants to convey to him.

Love Drunk...can you handle your liquor?

"The promise of paradise is not enough. The mystic will not wait until he is cold in his grave to be with God. He wants to be with God in this life. He wants the immediate experience of the sacred. He is thirstier than other men."

http://www.theabodeofpeace.com/wine.html

A very interesting article about the presence of wine in mysticism using both Islam and Christianity as the main belief systems. Especially note the section where the liver is compared to the eye. It is described as the inner eye providing vision for our dreams and true reality; while the real eye is is our outer eye, providing vision for this illusion of a world. It further goes to indicate the tendency of Islamic culture to portray alcohol as a vile drink of those who are wayward and misguided. Yet many mystics used it in their pathway to enlightenment, they derive from the Quranic revelation regarding the rivers of wine flowing in Paradise to mean that those who are nearest to God are given this pure wine to drink from. Their indulgence in the drunkenness of alcohol is not to enjoy the taste of the drink but to quench the thirst they feel for the love and remembrance of God.

Ironically, in Christian culture, alcohol is widely accepted and only the mystics abstain from it as they say they will not drink wine until they drink it in the Kingdom of God.

Both of these mainstream monotheistic beliefs are in agreement with the fact that there will be wine in the paradise of God..it's just a matter of how it should be dealt with in this life.

I think the point is that the masses aren't ready for it. The masses see alcohol for all its worldly luxury, IE: getting wasted, forgetting about the woes of this life, doing sexual or other mischievous deeds that will be well forgotten by the morning. Exactly how us humans use our dreams on a regular basis, as a means to escape our reality for 7 to 8 hours of the night, to be lost in the world of the subconscious before we must return again. But, the masses aren't able to utilize it for what it's worth, because too much of any thing can turn into a bad things..... and in the case of alcohol, even a little of it may be too much for a person to handle when they aren't ready for it. Same goes for all things that give you an altered state of mind. They place you at the threshold of a world unimaginable. Most of us would not know how to behave or contain ourselves upon reaching that point. The mystic wants nothing more than to lose himself there and perhaps would have difficulty ever returning back into this realm of reality because after seeing true reality who ever would want to return to illusion? The test of a believer is to be aware of that place, of that reality, of the methods used to enter there, yet also to have an awareness that everything is meant for a reason and behave according to that understanding. We must not lose ourselves..no matter how deeply we may want to leave behind the 'truth' of this world we know, it is just as essential to our being as the unseen is. A true mystic, the one who is blessed enough to handle it; for him the pleasure of those short trips, occasional visits to the unseen are so divine..

Our dreams, this wine, all sorts of mind altering substances...they all take you there..but they are just means...just the mode of transportation....if you can't handle the journey, and especially not the destination, then you have no business getting on this ride.

Good things come to those who wait

"If things happen the way you desire, it is good. If not, it is better. For then they happen according to the will of the Almighty. And He shall always think and do what is better for you."

I got that quote from Amitab Bachchan's blog LOL. I can't help but read these blogs people have.  Peeking into the mind of another has always been of interest to me.  it shows that no matter how different we are on the outside we are all very much the same at our core. How we feel, think, hurt, ponder. Beneath the superficial variances we all are concerned with much of the same issues. Our stresses our happiness our aspirations, we may be different religions races genders or ages, but as humans we are all pretty much the same. Now with Facebook, twitter, and whatever else we are able to peek into the lives and minds of many people. We are able to connect with celebrities, entertainers, politicians. What intrigued me the most when reading someone's blog was the ability to connect with them. 

Going back to the quote, I do believe that it's good when you don't get what you want right away, because having your way too often makes you selfish greedy and over the long term ungrateful. But, sometimes it becomes difficult to not feel as though you are constantly thrown off track every time you just begin to stabilize the bike. If you could just get a little more experience and gain a smidge more confidence in riding, perhaps the bumps and curves would be easier to bare, but again what can you really do? The happenings of life are really inevitable in many regards. albeit some are controllable, largely most are in the hands of a higher existence....leaving our hands tied. Accepting and succumbing to that realization is monumental, but once it is done the mind can be at ease.