Nostalgia

This is my first post this year, and my first in over a year. Life changes, doesn't it? You get busy and sometimes, it feels like time is dragging by, and at other times, it feels like it's rushing by. That's what life is supposed to be. I don't experience that anymore. Everything is rushing by in a blur. Minutes feel like seconds. The last few hours and weeks have gone by too fast. How do you stop to enjoy life? Gravity hasn't changed, so the theory of relativity doesn't apply here. Time hasn't changed. My life has, but that shouldn't change how time goes by. Einstein said "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." Maybe getting married means that hours really feel like minutes. I wonder if taking the pretty girl to a hot stove and standing there for a minute cancels out the theory of relativity. I'll ask my wife to try that with me. She's my pretty girl, Alhamdullilah. Yes, I got married in August last year, Alhamdullilah. Haven't had a chance to write a blog post. Minutes did turn into seconds, after all. And just to make sure that I've made it clear-getting married was a blessing. I'm not complaining about life speeding up. I want to enjoy every second of it.

That leads to me to two thoughts. Firstly, I've changed. It has been a year, after all. I'm never depressed or sad anymore, Alhamdullilah. I can thank my wife for that. And secondly, there's not enough time in the world to do everything I want to do. I want to go backpacking across South America, Europe, maybe even go to Australia again. I have a list of places I'd like to visit. And I'd absolutely love to go back to Karachi, too. I thought I wouldn't be able to go back, but life is short. I'd like to go base jumping, skydiving, scuba diving, whatever else you can do for fun too. I want to go to Mars once they figure that out and probably come back, too.

Speaking of Karachi, I've been feeling nostalgic. I'm not a sentimental person. Well.. I used to be a sentimental person. I'm not a sentimental person anymore. But I do feel nostalgic for my birthplace. The food. Driving under the late night lights. Sitting in the shade while reading a book. The humidity, the feeling of going to an air conditioned room from the heat outside. I don't normally even feel nostalgic. But I was thinking of food and now I've been thinking of places like Hanifia, Red Apple, Hot n Spicy, Nandos, Jeddah Biryani, and none of those are 'fancy' restaurants or anything like that. They're my favorite food in my favorite place. I even miss Nimco and the parathas I got from the small tea shop in the mornings on the way to school. There's the potato burgers from the Aga Khan University Hospital gift shop, not the cafeteria-tells you how often I went there, the kebab paratha place that I only remember how to drive to, not the name, the pani puri in Bahadurabad, the katakat from Delhi Colony, the kebab rolls from Lyceum, I could go on forever. Of course, food isn't everything that there is in the world. I have enough friends and family there that I'd be busy seeing them all again. It's the feeling of being home that I really miss. Sometimes I feel homesick enough to be nauseous.

I've talked a lot about the food. It's not the food that I miss the most. Food is just what reminds me of home. I can't move back. That's not realistic. I can visit, and though a week or two won't be enough, I'll do that someday. Or maybe I'll use my mechanical engineering degree to build a place or space shuttle that can get me to Karachi for a weekend... every week. Nothing is impossible, right?

Let's see. What else have I missed? I have five cats. They're smarter than normal cats, they're not boring. I work as an engineer now. If you'd have told me ten years ago, when I was graduating high school, that I'd be living in America, that I'd be an engineer and not an environmentalist, and I'd have five cats, I'd have asked if you were mental. I grew up with German Shepherds, after all. But hey, anything can happen. Including loving dogs and cats. And moving to America. I was looking at my old blog posts and how I had written about saying Dua that whoever I married would love Allah more and I'd be able to pray namaz beside her. And that we'd help each other become better Muslims, and Alhamdullilah, Allah made that happen. Life is a blessing, Alhamdullilah. Oh, and... Plan B to visiting Karachi every weekend is moving to West Virginia. That's where my wife is from, and it's home away from home.

I'll be back on this blog in a few weeks.

One foot, in front of the other

I know it's all you've got to just, be strong,
And it's a fight just to keep it together, together,
I know you think, that you are too far gone,
But hope is never lost,
Hope is never lost.

The countryside becomes a blur as the highway turns into a road. Ohio isn't like West Virginia. West Virginia is scenic, beautiful, it even smells good. Ohio is just boring. Oh, hey, there's a farm, oh hey, building, oh hey, steep road, have to drive safe. And it just started raining again. The remoteness of some of these places is amazing and scary to imagine. Can you imagine living in a small town with just two stores and one main road, and everything else is at least an hour's drive away? It's a really, really terrifying thought, and it's nice to be out of that little town and closer to the destination.

Hold on, don't let go
Hold on, don't let go

The data connection cuts out in some areas. It takes the music with it, leaving the quiet patter of the rain on the windshield and the wipers swishing behind it.

Just take, one step, closer,
Put one foot in front of the other
You'll get through this
Just follow the light in the darkness
You're gonna be ok.

The road finally turns back into a proper, big highway. A minute, there's a sign: Welcome to West Virginia. It feels good to be back. West Virginia, almost Heaven. Shouldn't it count as almost Heaven if the one person you love most in the world is there? Shouldn't it count as almost Heaven and the biggest blessing to love someone so much, and be loved back too? Shouldn't it count as almost Heaven when it feels like you're home? It should, shouldn't it. It is almost Heaven. Remember to listen to Belinda Carlisle's Heaven is a Place on Earth at some point.

I know your heart is heavy from those nights
Just remember that you are a fighter, a fighter
You never know just what tomorrow holds
And you're stronger than you know
Stronger than you know.

The song keeps replaying, it's soothing and relaxing. You really are stronger than you know. You can do this. One step, closer, by putting one foot in front of the other.

And when the night, is closing in,
Don't give up and don't give in,
This won't last, it's not the end, it's not the end
You're gonna be ok
When the night, is closing in,
Don't give up and don't give in,
This won't last, it's not the end, it's not the end,
You're gonna be ok.

Priorities

What a difference a year makes.
Having a girlfriend who converted to Islam, Alhamdullilah. Who brought me closer to Allah and taught me some stuff I didn't even know.
Going to West Virginia for a few days and having the time of my life there. Alhamdullilah.
Being closer than ever to finally graduating. InshaAllah.
Being hospitalized twice and slowly getting better, Alhamdullilah.
Changing as a person and learning, actually appreciating and enjoying while learning.

I wouldn't recognize myself a year ago. Life really does change everything.

Change

Coming back here is like walking around an old house that you grew up in. You can look around and see what you did when you were younger and what life was like back then. It's a reflection on how things are so different now.

I'm feeling homesick. I don't normally have time to think about life, or reflect on the past-I changed my life to being much more busy so there would never be a chance for me to just think or become depressed. I'm taking my first vacation in about three years, so I actually have the time for once.

I was reading an article about Karachi & the situation there & politics, and the memories that stand out the most for me are ones I can almost feel.
I can feel myself sitting on the prayer mat, at around midnight, the day before my mid-term exams, all those years ago, texting, feeling like the world was collapsing around me.
I can feel myself looking out over the city, and it's night again, seeing the lights, and feeling the cold breeze.
I can feel myself sitting in the balcony, without electricity, letting the breeze help against the heat of the day.
I remember waking up early in the morning and sitting outside to read, the most relaxing feeling in the world.

It's always been my city, the one place I've loved and always intended on going back to. I always told myself that I would graduate and move back there. Instead, I can't stand the thought of walking around there. I've had OCD for the last two years, and the thought of walking around where the streets aren't as clean as they are here is hard to comprehend. I know I'd go crazy, and it's hard to even think about it for more than a few seconds.

I've changed so much. I used to be so much nicer. I used to actually go out of my way to help others. I still do, but on a much lower scale-it isn't as high of a priority as it used to be. I used to love volunteering, meeting people, making friends, talking to people, seeing the smiles on their faces. Instead, I'm avoiding people. I get tired of dealing with crazy people at work-I work in retail-and it's just exhausting. I prefer not to socialize now-and I was the one who always talked to more people in a day than anyone else I know!
I've become someone I never thought I'd be. And even though I try my best to stay true to me, I don't know if I'm happy with who I am now. Probably not, to be honest.