This Feels Right!

When I first created my blog, I used it mostly as a place to vent my frustrations. Although I often shared my joys and interesting ideas with the world, my blog was the place I went to when I was stricken with emotional pain, anger, horror, confusion and myriad of other emotions. Somehow, I creatively managed to convey it with a sense of humour.

However, writing about my feelings sometimes made me feel guilty, I felt like I was sharing every aspect of my personal life and showing little or no regard for the feelings or right to privacy of my loved ones (whom I often wrote about). That thought and guilt made me stop blogging early last year.

Even though I felt that hurling my thoughts headlong into the unknown for all to read was cathartic, in hindsight I realized it was also a path strewn with landmines. Therefore, I eventually stopped because I was stricken with fear at the thought of the pain I could inflict on myself and those around me.

But as I’ve said two or three times over the year, I have missed writting so much. Writing is all I’ve ever wanted to do besides reading. Writing out in the open and having people read what I have to write makes me feel so intoxicatingly alive. And that is exactly what I need to feel some days “Alive”!

Today, after I left the doctors office for a regular check up, I was itching to log into wordpress. As I sat in the waiting area, I was spinning a web of words in my mind and feeling so impatient to commit them to my blog while my emotions were so raw and fresh and new. But instead, I stood immobile waiting for the giddy exhilaration to leave my body so I can continue with the day.

By the time I got home, I had forgotten what exactly it was I wanted to write about but yet I was compelled to write. And that is how this tiny bit haywire and random post was born.

Nevertheless I am glad I wrote today. Even though I am still struggling to divine the source of my great desire to write today, I am happy that I managed to atleast convey some of my feelings.

And it feels so very right, so very natural.

N.B: I think everybody is born with a purpose. We’re all meant to do something in this world. Some people spend years to find out how to make the air around us cleaner, to save energy, to empower women in impoverished countries, to bring down a monarchy, to build an aeroplane out of tissue paper (okay I made that one up) whatever it may be , everyone in this world, I believe has a purpose. No purpose is too small or less than another.

I think my purpose is to write. I might not be the next literary heroine,sell a billion books or inspire a million souls, but along the road I will eventually discover what it is my writing can do to help make this world a better place.

Bloggers Block

There is a trough of despair that most bloggers fall into at some stage. I’m in it now. I feel dull and uncreative. I feel depressed that I haven’t been able to pen my thoughts (or rather key my thoughts!)

I guess it’s a writers thing. Once you start, you can’t stop.And once you stop, you can’t seem to get things started again!

When I can’t produce writing worthy of reading, I end up lying awake at night worrying about it! It’s a sad sight, really!

So, as I have (many times before this past month) to sit by my computer and write. I can’t seem too! There isn’t anything wrong with my computer or my keyboard or my hands…but there also isn’t a single creative thought in my head!

I have suddenly become self conscious about writing and I’ve trouble getting started! I am too preoccupied with the idea that I have to write something that now I am unable to express my most original thoughts! *Big Sigh*

This self consciousness (in writing) has brought me on the verge of writing phobia ! By this I mean that – I just cannot stand to write down anything until it is perfectly worded! I cannot bare to leave a string of poorly strung words! It is beyond my crazy capabilities!

I guess, I storred my literary lioness away for too long, that I now can’t seem to figure out how to get my “roar” back.

Dear readers, my writing panache is running away from me!  It’s drifting away and I desperately need it to come back.

Help!

Happy New Year

Over the past year, I underestimated the power of writing. Finding the redemptive possibilities of love, marrying my highschool sweetheart and juggling work and study usurped my favourite hobby.

But now, I am ready to write again and I am very glad to be back writing. Because, over the years, writing has meant a lot to me and done a lot for me. It wasnt always the easiest way for me to communicate as writing can sometimes be fraught with great obstacles, but I do know for sure, that it’s been the best way for me to communicate.

When I am able to construct my thoughts, ideas, feelings and opinions into a sentence, a paragraph or an essay it makes me feel superbly confident. I imagine it’s like going to the moon and planting your flag.

So here I am, back on my domain. My space, my book, my way of communicating to myself and to you.

So, besides my obvious new years resolution; to write more frequently…the only other thing I plan to do this year, is to find and see the beauty in every minute of every day in a bid to communicate that to the world and hopefully change some lives.

God bless

First Things First

When I got into a serious commitment early last year I wasn’t at all keen to blog about it. Even though, it was a new thing for me  (commitment not blogging) I wasn’t overcomed by an overwhelming desire to share the new chapter of my life with the world.

For a long time I had written about practically everything, sharing my heart ; broken or otherwise and expressing my feelings in the form of lenghty blog posts. I shared every aspect of my personal life, showing little or no regard for the feelings or right to privacy of my life and the lives of others(which I relied heavily on for material)

Although I have a strong conscience and sense of sensitivity, none of what I wrote left a nasty taste in my mouth. I honestly felt that blogging was cathartic and I needed to do it each time I felt my life was in a pivotal period.

Needless to say, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. It’s one thing to tell a story and it’s another to tell your life story.  So, to cut a long story short, I stopped blogging the day I felt it was mighty silly to tell the “whole story”.

So while there have been many moments when I’ve had the urge to blog about something (I’ve just discovered) or a brand new emotion (I’m feeling). I try not to entertain that familiar strong restless desire, which is , to write before I even understand what it is I’m feeling.

So even when I had possibly the best birthday of a lifetime last year, even when I got engaged to my first love, even when I became an Aunt to two gorgeous babies, even when I got the engagement ring of my dreams, even when I won the excellence award in teaching, even when I fixed my wedding date, even when I enrolled for my final year at university, even when my fiance surprised me with the best gifts and his handsome smile, I wasn’t at all keen to blog.

But I’ve missed writing and so I come to the (long awaited)conclusion that I will write but  nothing more. 

In other words, I won’t associate writing or rather blogging with my famous  “lets tell the whole world how I feel and how someone has made me feel” concept (unless ofcourse it’s a great amazing feeling) 

So, although I promised you since 2002 a blog “All About Alia” and welcomed you many times before to join me in my literary journey of life…I am afraid I’ve turned the page and as such cannot fulfill that promise any longer.

I don’t rant anymore or crack jokes about people. I’ve stopped wanting to teach people how to live and not to dig their nose on buses ( I don’t even take the bus anymore). I just talk about grown up things like furniture and mushy things like being inlove and girly things like tulle and satin and how the longer the veil the more romantic the gown!

So if you’re not thrilled to read about such things,  it’s time you looked somewhere else because I’m not turning back. I guess, I’ve gone and done the most unimaginable thing….the one thing I thought I’d never do.

I’ve grown up!

What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger!

I’m not the kind of person who yearns to go to an ashram for a week, take yoga classes & meditate. I don’t believe sitting in a temple, humming and gazing at your navel will help you understand life. I think you learn about life through experience, as many of them as you can manage. When you go through the stages of life- when you commit to your studies, your career, your religion,  your relationship, face a breakup,  have children, relate to your family or friends, deal with illnesses, death and help people, that’s when you learn about yourself and begin to understand life. I think, a few ”aha” moments come from just sitting down waiting for wisdom to strike!

Most important , I think you gain empathy and become more altruistic through experience. I believe I’ve been successful as a shoulder to cry on or a pair of ears. Like most people , I’ve agonized, I’ve been excited, nervous, terrified, dissapointed, lost, exhausted & lonely. I know how others feel when they experience those things. But that doesn’t mean I know everything about life. I’ve been lucky too. Some people are born into circumstances which are beyond me. Poverty or physical dissability that present such great challenges. Some people have faced accidents or illnesses that are no fault of their own. I have no clue what that feels like. I’ll admit I am horrible when it comes to dealing with such matters. It pains me so much to know that one in five people in this world live on less than a dollar a day which means 800 million people go hungry e-ve-ry-day! Knowing this, I thank God  that I have my health and my capacities.I try not to complain about life. The curveballs life throws me are nothing compared to what most people grapple with.  Yet many successful people; athletes, entrepreneurs, celebrities got out of poverty, educated themselves , dealt with their dissabilities and fought illnesses. These are the people that  got out and faced their challenges and in turn they’ve turn out to be some of thee most powerful, influential and inspiring people. Experience truly is thee most potent weapon!

As my wise mother says ” three things make a person successful; education, exposure & experience”

No Tolerance

I cannot tolerate Muslims who claim to be moderate muslims, modern muslims, fair muslims, open minded muslims. I cannot tolerate it when these Muslims say ” my religion is no better than your religion. My God is no greater than your God”. I don’t get it ?. Why are people so afraid to say that the God they believe in is superior to the God they don’t believe in. WHY? Doesn’t one religion’s gospel logically prelude the others? (Except ofcourse where they overlap with universal precepts such as not murdering, raping or torturing people , that even nonbelievers can wrap their heads around)

 I know that by “pretending” that my religion is no better than your religion may make for fewer religious wars, but it seems contrary to the very idea of religion? I don’t go around wearing a t-shirt that says “MY RELIGION is better than yours”. But when in discussion and when questioned. I will not hesitate to say ” As a Muslim, I believe that there is no God but Allah and that Mohamed is his messenger” Theres no other way Muslims should look at it . You might think that it’s the people like me, that are causing all these unecessary religious feuds. But! (and that’s a but with an exclamation mark) ,  I don’t care!

Because, when it comes to religion, I do not mask or trade my beliefs. When it comes to my religion, I take a leap of faith!

Bohoo Bacteria

Alia gets sick a couple times a year, but usually it’s nothing major: just a migraine or the common cold accompanied by a weekend of weariness. Once every two or three years, though, she gets knocked on by some bug or other. Now is one of those times.

I have been sick for over seven days now. It started last Wednesday. The normal throat infection, I guiltlessly blamed on teaching. Despite body aches, sneezing sporadically and a bad mood, I still went to work.

 I felt , it was now or never. “Now”  I said to myself in a Russian accent “ I am going to let my mind work over my body”

 Obviously, I am not Russian and if I had any way of knowing that things were –as Lily Tomlin once said- going to get a whole lot worse before they got really worse, the hypochondriac in me would’ve gone straight to the emergency room.

 Armed with my dramatic skills,  I will tell the nurses and doctors that I have a “sore throat” the same way a pregnant woman would scream “ My water broke”

 But I didn’t know I was going to feel this terrible after seven days, two visits to the doctor and 4 massage sessions.

 I can’t say I’ve never felt this sick…but this has got to be one of the worst.

 Every part of my body pains  me, I feel like an ikea chair, placed under a spring loaded machine, pressed over and over again, with far more tension that it had ever been built to sustain.

 Everytime I cough or blow my nose, I imagine my body parts flying off my torso and landing on the floor. It hurts so much.

 But nothing hurts more than my throat, which really is the volcanic core of annoyance. I cannot swallow, I feel like my swollen lymph nodes are three little fat men, cleaning my throat with sandpaper.

 My whole body feels like a bacterial sponge marinating in germs. But the bacteria I imagine in my head are like those cartoon ones they use in TV advertisements. Green, slimy things; some are chewing my bones, some are hammering my bones and others are just inflicting pain by happily bouncing on my bones.  

Imagination aside,  I hate the way I look.  I have the eyes of a refugee; weary , tired and hopeless. My cheeks have sunk and my complexion is dull.

I’ve tried showering, I’ve tried exfoliating, I’ve tried putting on makeup and combing my hair…but I still look like a multi vehicle accident on the Abu Dhabi highway. A sickening mess that only time can neaten up.

I’ve spent the past hour sitting at the computer, surfing aimlessly, waiting to become tired, or for my sinuses to clear, or, especially, for my chest to clear. I can’t concentrate, though, so mostly I sit here, staring into space, listening to the silence …wishing over all indulgent wishes; just to get better.

Love, laugh and learn.

Everyone has a hobby and mine is writing. I’ve always loved writing. I write almost as much as I talk. I have shoe boxes filled with journals, articles, fragments of my thoughts and unfinished stories. I love how writing gives me the ability to chronicle life lessons and emotions. I write about anything that strikes my fancy and more often than not about life, love and loss. I personally feel writing is one of the few luxuries of life.

A great deal of my stories derive from suffering. I hope you don’t think that I am perpetually suffering.  I do have happy days, in fact many happy days. I just think that writing about my happy moments, moments when I’m in love or happy with myself and my career isn’t as interesting as writing about the moments when I feel like the whole world is about to crumble. It’s as Tolstoy said : happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. Ultimately, I write in a bid to reflect my life and ‘find myself’.

I began my previous blog, The Miss Valentine Collection when I was seventeen. I wrote about repatriating,friendships, my first job, and all that teenage jazz. Basically, I was growing up, making mistakes and confessing.

I am now 22. I feel old and wise. I feel as if, I now know all about the harsh realities of life. Yet, I am unable to come to terms with it. As such, I am still enraptured by committing mistakes and then writing about it…(in a bid to reflect my life and ‘find myself’)

In this collection, my stories will be arranged chronologically. By doing this, I hope to better illustrate and illuminate the moments in my life. In this collection, I plan to write more about family, about secrets, forgiveness, friendships and the redemptive possibilities of love.

I welcome you to love, laugh and learn (a little ) with me in my literary journey of dreams and memories from lessons learned through mistakes made.