#1

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb,

Most of my posts are going in a general direction. But sometimes, I just want to have a chat and there's no one around to chat with, so I might just blather. Or rant. Depending on how lucky you are.

So this is the first of my blatherings.

- I miss my daddy driving with me to work in the mornings. He's so funny and cute and the more I talk to him, the more I realise what an extraordinary life he's had. Like Jamie Callum says, "When I look back on my ordinary life, there's so much magic though I missed it at the time." But I can't sort of sit him down and say, "Tell me the story of your life." It doesn't happen that way. Conversations are how it happens. Lots and lots of them.

But I cut him loose because it was time. It's time for me to find a way to be at least semi-without him. I will not be COMPLETELY without him. That's just not the way Asian families work and that's not the way I want to be anyway. But I do need to be something outside of here, outside of him and us and Mom and my brothers, at least some of the time. Because sometimes I feel stifled. Sometimes I need space and Asian families are not good at space.

- I posted this on HitRECord today:

"Bismillah.

The last time I left my office for work, I almost had a major panic attack. I staved it off and managed to carry on. The results, in terms of output, were not great. But I'm proud of myself. I really am. I managed to calm down without the drugs.

Without the drugs. Without the drugs. Without the drugs. That's so huge for me. Using the methods that I was taught in therapy, I managed to calm down. I learned something and I put it to good use. I'm really proud of myself Alhamdulillah.

Let my boss yell at me. I can't tell her I'm battling social anxiety. I won't tell her. It's none of her business. It doesn't matter what she thinks anyway.

Can you tell that I'm both scared of getting yelled at and proud of my strength at the same time? I feel like Jack in Fight Club smiling with a split lip and a mouth full of blood."

- I've been wondering about pain and why people give each other pain. I guess it's about power. I've been thinking about my abusive ex and now - just now, in fact…the tears are still fresh on my cheeks – I was thinking of my brother and all the awful things he said about Islam some years back. He was picking a fight. He was pushing a button. He was trying to hurt me, trying to make me cry. That's all it was. I didn't know anything. Why would he ask me if he really wanted to know the answers? I didn't know the answers and he didn't want to know them anyway. He just wanted power.

I'm proud to say that most of my life, I have never felt that corrupting power and I don't ever want to feel it. Alhamdulillah. God protect me. Aoudhubillah.

I guess human-on-human crime on all scales has always been about power and politics. No? Yes? I'll find out Insha Allah. As the prophet (SAWS) said, "Gain knowledge from the cradle to the grave."

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,
Zed.