23/11
Today has marked the end of many things, and as with most endings is bitter-sweet. Al-hamdoulillah.
I sat my last exam today – on the proviso that I have passed both my exams for this semester, I am officially done with uni (for now)…
I have been longing for this moment for so long, to see the back of my studies, to move onto the next phase of my life. But I realize that those things I so desperately wanted to move onto are further away than I can imagine.
I’m on holiday (well for the weekend anyway) and there is a canvas on my bedroom wall. There is a fisherman, standing with his back to my eye, casting his line out into a cold, dark sea under the gray heavens. He stands, csting his line, all that appears is a small boat on the horizon and his blurred reflection at his feet in shades of gray. But he stands, staring out at the unknown, waiting, hoping. Dawn or dusk I can’t tell. Is it a beginning or an ending – or neither, just a transitory moment in time, like all others to be lost, to have never existed, except in memory.
I am the fisherman. What I was hoping for is now way out on the horizon, unattainable – or so it seems. Too far to swim to, to far to reel in. At my feet I am blurred, there lies the shadow of myself that I want to shed, to rid myself of the darkness, the disease it contains. I cast my line; I want so desperately to move towards my boat out on the horizon. I wait. And wait. Maybe the tide will bring it into shore, maybe my line will tug and I’ll find myself dragging up what I always wanted from the bottom of the sea – or maybe it will be an illusion. My overactive imagination willing me to read something into nothing. With the cold undertow dragging at my ankles, I wander if I really know how to swim. What if it takes me, drags me away, down, under… What if? Will I be able to hold on? To keep my head up? To swim against the current and onto something? Anything? Happiness? Does it exist? Or is it only a fleeting joy of this world to make the pain it holds more vehement? To remind that this is the test, the trial, and that my boat does not contain all that I thought that it would, but something else. Will I be content?
I wish I had answers. I feel a great relief with the end of my studies, but also an emptiness. I have plans, I have things I want to go onto, those that are near and those I cannot see. But there is a gap, a hole – what to fill it with I don’t know. I feel that the busyness is missing – that which was my distraction over the last few months is gone and I’m left to confront myself. You can’t act to yourself, its unfortunate. Maybe that is the pitfall of my profession – everyday, everything is an act. It becomes a reality of sorts. Dangerous.
Subhan’allah. The one ayat that has been hammered in my head for the last week (no joke, I love its sound, the rhythm, the way it rolls) has been this:
Bal tu’thiroonal-hayatad-dunya.
Subhan’allah.
Ya Allah swt protect me from myself. I am living for the wrong things, I am asking for the wrong things. My heart knows it and it hurts, breaks with every breath. Have mercy on me, guide me, protect me, forgive me. Cleanse my heart ya Rabb and fill it only with desire for the akhirah, love for the Prophet saaws, and devotion to Your word. Amin.
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