Friday, December 10, 2010

Angstless

As salaam alaikum,

Since the advent of B, I haven't been writing as much on here. It's weird. Between being in a relationship (though oddly so) and being done with RMD, there's not a lot for me to talk about anymore. Admittedly, a whole lot of the reason why I felt like I needed to have a blog was because of the angst that I felt being a black American Muslimah, the realization of the near impossibility of marriage for me, and the difficulty in finding a place to identify.

None of these dilemmas have gone away. I'm still a black American Muslimah, the issue of marriage is a tough one, and I don't exactly fit anywhere because of how I identify.

It's just that I've gone angstless.

It's like going wireless, but no, I've gone agnstless.

I have what I've always wanted, essentially. I'm in a relationship with a man who believes in one God. A path for my future is opening up for me, slowly. I have challenges in front of me in terms of how this is all going to work out, but they're essentially the challenges that I've been waiting for, with bated breath, my entire adulthood. Yes, that's only 7 years worth of waiting, but 7 years is a long time when you're living them, a long time when you see people meet and marry in 5 of those years and less and you're still in the same place.

But here I am. A lot of what I write here is me reacting to being a Muslim at the fringes, a Muslimah at the margins, with no defined pathway. I felt like I was ambling through life. I moved to Boston for medical school on a whim, because I liked my classmates. My next plan was to move to the Bay Area to experience the Muslim community there as a resident, hopefully to find someone to marry.

That's still possible. I could find myself there in a year and a half's time. That's a long time. I still can't know for sure. But at least for now, I have another path to take, my own decisions to take, my own lines to draw and my own rules to script.

No, these aren't Mickey Mouse decisions. You know the straight way we pray to follow so much every day? I feel like that straight way is a three lane expressway, and I'm kicking up dust in the shoulder right now.

I've always been at the fringes, like, right-laning it, slowing around as people speed past me, but now I'm precariously at the edge, passing on the right, speeding toward the goal that I've always wanted, marriage. I'm on the shoulder, trying to keep on the straight path without taking too much of an detour or alternative path to get to the same ends so that Allah (swt) will still be pleased with me, recognizing that I could mess up and end up nose-first in the ditch.

I'm kicking up dirt, but I go prayerfully forward.

It could be that if I trust Allah (swt) more and patiently preserved and turned even B away, something even better could have been out there for me.

But I feel like I'm trusting God right now in what I'm doing...I can't explain it (though I've obviously tried to for the last few entries). I don't think I'm deluding myself...

It'd only be the third time.

1 comment:

  1. If there isn't a feeling gnawing away at you that something is wrong then it is probably right

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