Inevitable tears

Today as I played with my latest widget, Google Street view adding a view of my house back home I realised just how much I miss home. Just looking at the porch and the pool where we spend many happy moments with kids running all over the place, it made me miss my family, my home and the comforts of "taken for granted" love. 

Mama, I miss you especially more than anyone else - Kissing me off every morning and making me breakfast even though I insist I will pick up something at Woolies. I miss coming home each day, as I drive in and still parking the car, you already outside waiting for me, while you try hard to watch your soapies, I tell you endlessly about my day. 







After finally getting the message, I walk of to my room where my Ben10 (my eldest nephew), takes a seat on my comfy red sofa and talks to me...we have a good laugh while he questions me about his latest discovery. "Lali, why do rhino's have horns?" (lol)  and I admittedly try hard to answer these questions but sometimes even I am not sure what to say (his questions get more complicated the more you tell him) - giving him his treat for the day is normally a success. I normally get him smarties or astros (I get all the blue ones if he is happy with me otherwise nothing). 





Every week, I have to arrive at home with his National geographic magazine and after happily examining it (for about an hour), he comes back to have a discussion with me post reading him every single article in that magazine including the advertisments. Sometimes, I am reading all this while trying to finish up work and he gets frustrated because I am not paying attention.





Ben10's mum, used to be my campus friend, who later married my elder brother - she will always come and show me her latest purchase or sometimes just buys something because I like it.



Over the years I have watched our dining table that seats 8 become smaller with the now 13 members. Its funny how our original places at the table have been shuffled around and soon to change again with no.14 entering the family as a new daughter-in-law shortly. I am sure my seat will be more than comfy for her, until I return for visits:) Ps: I am normally seated to mum's left, with Ben10's mum to my left. (Princess Arial will almost always end up on my lap).





I miss sitting down to dinner with everyone around the table while cracking up over our sillies of the day. Its never about whats on the table or the weather - the fact that every one of us is there, smiling & laughing, is all that matters.



I miss Thursday, our family Quran evening where everyone sits down in the prayer room. Mind you, the last time I was at home (in May), Ben10, now 6, was busy thanking Allah for noodles in his dua (quiet loud) - he got everybody laughing (while they were busy praying).



Enter our little mr, Spiderman, I like to call him Turkey cause he is cute and pumpkinish - his main interest revolves around driving cars. Spiderman loves making sajdah on his little musalla with his dad. What a sweetheart, always smiling and when he is busy driving his toy car, he has no time for Princess Arial, his sister who keeps telling him shooh when everyone is praying.



I miss going home for Jumu'ah on Friday and making my Thuhr Salaat with my mother, enjoying lunch with her before going back to work for the afternoon. Last Friday, when I spoke to my mum, she told me, these days all the boys and dad come home for lunch after Jum'uah salaat - she sweetly said, "I miss you here".



I miss taking my Ben10 dvd shopping - our regular weekend trip to Look and Listen always meant he and I both walked out of that shop smiling. ( I cannot express what a monster I have bred in Ben10 who now boasts the biggest kid dvd collection - he has every animated movie released since "Find nemo" as well as documentaries relating to animals).



I miss my dad taking me with him on errands - his way of spending quality time with me. I miss my brothers, the elder one always stopping at my room every day after work to see how I am. I miss my second's brother crazy take on life always telling me about his latest investment business case.  I miss my younger brothers company, playing PSP challenges while sitting in our own rooms. I miss my niece, Princess Arial...my cute pumpkin who always has an excuse why she needs to camp with me over night. 





I love my family - my mother raised us up with so much love that every time I am with them (having been away for a while) I realise what a beautiful treasure she gave us.



She is my wonder woman - may Allah bless her innocent beautiful heart, Inshallah.

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No one ever claimed that happiness is sweet

"No one ever claimed that happiness is sweet". In fact some years ago, my day dreams took me on round tour of this very statement and helped me to find a ground breaking change in my life.







I could never find a single reason why I should be unhappy considering I had a colossal energy draining few months. The incidents in the those months however could not be the reason for my unhappiness because even prior to their existence, I had felt a blank space in me. It was like I was an alien in my own life and so questioning myself made me realise that I am not unhappy. The next obvious question, then, is "Why do I worry so much?". As if the worries and the blatant inability to down nutrition had lost me and prompted me to question this more, I could not help but realise the power of my mind or the gift of communication.



 You see many people spend years trying to find happiness yet it has always been there. For example, I could decide that, to be happy, I have got to eat an ice cream and in doing so, it does present that happiness however shortly thereafter the feeling is gone and yet another is needed to satisfy me. That need for happiness will constantly come up until I can tender to it no more and depression sets in. For goodness sake, how many ice creams can I possibly eat in a day. Following on, even though my marker was set on ice creams it did not secure happiness in its entirety but certainly presented two known points, "temporary happiness" and "my amazing mind". Yes that’s right, the latter is the genius! So if I tricked my mind well enough, I could make it believe things it would never ordinarily believe but how do I do this without allowing the thought of what I was conjuring up, to play my conscious like a cheat.



And so I found the prolonged art of the mind that requires you to let go, be patient and be persistent. It meant that I would have to believe in what I wanted and just let go, let go in order to calm myself, be patient and create a sanctuary up in my very own mind. My conscious will always play games but belief always screws that challenge right back to where it came from. That would mean letting go of my hates, letting go of my "normal human behaviour", letting go of my follower attitude, letting go of my old habits, letting go of the past and just be a different person.



 And so I decided to put my theory to the test...It’s a challenge to let go and resistance in letting go was an even bigger problem. As my friends went about their normal lifestyles stacking up on couture, fine luxury, chaotic lifestyles, weighty arguments, irrational venting sessions and their need to steal the corporate limelight, I was trying to move away from it all. Irrevocably the question did come up, "Am I doing the right thing?".



Time certainly answered that question. Over the months, as I watched all this staging around me, I un-noticeably was becoming a lot more acceptable of my different approach to life - seeing my friends delight in their modern day entertainment whilst my pleasure contained meditation time (with God) and separation from peer pressure, I found myself absorbed in nature, its beauty and the amazing creatures in my garden that I almost forgot about. An ant in my path was a friend and no longer an enemy. I had seen birds in my garden that I never saw before and flowers, their scents and beauty encapsulating me like a Sunday afternoon fling.

But I could not hide out in the garden all my life nor in the comforts of my room, I had to have discussions with others, I had to be a person, I had to live within the laws of this world. And so I acquired this challenge working on communication and talking about the present, the past, emotions and disparities. In my conversations with God, it seems so easy and that’s because it’s always one way traffic. That was the marvel technique that, "one way traffic" that got me started on my next journey. Communicating – it involved listening and giving feedback and in arguments, a silent patient approach and a heart of a rock. As I uncovered, we all vent in different ways and so I should leave the person to say what’s on their mind. The flip side of conversations is that they can go bad and often it becomes pointed and normally when it is pointed, it pushes you into a defensive spot. You see the trick was to ignore the normal human behaviour for a start. In acquiring the patience though it was not easy and the only way I secured this patience, was through prayer. My belief in God and his destiny for me (on a daily basis) forces me to be patient and know that everything happens for a reason. This point even holds firm in the things that happen in our lives.

Today I can tell you, in tears still, I can be patient. Regardless of where and how, conversations can be good or bad. In the good, I need to listen and talk about my life in meaningful ways. If I have no meaningful words or good advice, I should not speak. I can share an experience and I can make someone smile or laugh but I should always conduct myself in a positive manner; and in the bad, the ability to defend my point of view is a given but I reversed that action and adopted a silent approach to curing that case forcing the future. I never want to squabble but being human, these things stumble on you and in its appearance, holding patience showed its beauty. Of course it takes masses amounts of persistency because not everyone reacts the way you hope but the persistency is key to bringing back calm. In the relevance of our state of happiness, we don’t all need to be the same, we don’t need everything, we don’t need much actually and we don’t all have the same thoughts and opinions - we just need to be happy in our own world, to delight in what we have.

No one said happiness would come without some tears but even in tears we have some delight of the past or the future.

I have created a monster in my head that is destined to be happy no matter the circumstance. God gave us beautiful gifts in nature all inclusive of ourselves and yet often we neglect our biology’s - the very key to our self-accomplished fame. No one ever said happiness was sweet but rather a state of contentment that only we ourselves can give ourselves. It is also a thought, that everything we hear is not what we want to hear but rather a lesson that, those words are the echo of another’s happiness and acceptance of their happiness is a beauty in its own regard…

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Life is beautiful - Don't spend it unhappy no matter how sad your circumstances are. Smile even if you are sad - it really makes a world of difference. I am not a Valentine's fan and rather believe that everyday should be a day of love and happiness but I find it sweet to share loving thoughts on this day. Agree?

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Weekly Poetry

 BluePearl(c) 2010

This poetry is owned by Bluepearl

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Poetry of the week

BluePearl(c) 2010

This poetry is owned by Bluepearl

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