Well, mom caught me smoking just now.
Its 434am. She said instead of doing this, pray. Go to Allah.
I said yeah, I will. And I in all seriousness plan to. Since yesterday, I have been thinking how ungrateful I am that he saved me from so much, gave me so much, and I am again and again turning a blind eye towards the argument of being a Muslim by choice v by birth. I had pushed that under the rug Tess, for quite 3/4 years now. And I was thinking yesterday I should reopen it. What if one day I get money enough to go to Umrah or Hajj and I still haven’t figured out the nature of my relationship with Allah yet? That would be a loss, I need to get a move on that now.
And minutes before she saw me, I had promised myself I will pray atleast once today.
And I will.
And then she said, I will tell dad.
And I told her I already had told dad 2 months back. She could not believe it. She said let me talk with him as well. I obviously haven’t told dad I smoke, in the direct sense of the meaning. I had told him back in Feb start, a week or two after that happened, that I smoked and that it felt light. He laughed, driving the rickshaw, saying “So you do have smoked …”. I said yeah, and the conversation moved on.
I am the son of a rickshaw driver. There’s very less, or no dignity attached to that profession. And I don’t say it out loud now that he used to retired from Army after 25 years or so of service because even though that’s dignified, he’s a retired person now. And well, he travels on the rickshaw to go to the shop in the village. The loader is a mean of taking stuff for the shop in bulk along with him instead of having to outsource it every other week but hey, shopkeeper? Sure.
Tess, this is what I mean when I say I am very fortunate. I am very lucky. And still, yet, to this day, I have been nothing but a selfish inward looking fool who made his comfort zone his classes, his life, his love and now the job. Money. I need to do better. I must do better now that I have realized, crystal clear, that Allah is helping me so much. I must swiftly move to clear the doubts I have and start praying. I decided yesterday to start praying even if I have doubts because hy, if I am wrong, the only harm that would have happened is I prayed. How’s that harmful? And if I am right, then these prayers done in the time of doubt, while I investigated the questions of my mind (maybe shetan, who knows), might come in handy on the day of judgment.
This was today Tess.
And I did not go to meet AB. It was cloudy, so I did not risk going 20kms on the bike to meet him. I postponed it to next weekend but I am thinking that might be impossible too, as next weekend I am planning on doing the first solo trip after 4 years. A night stay near where I did my 2nd grade, in Murree. So maybe the weekend after the next one.
Tess … if all goes well, I will be happy. If shit hits the fan and I lose my job after losing this person, I will still emerge strong, content and hopefully a bit late, but happy. I will be alright. I will be alright.
Bye. Gotta listen to dad now when I wake up today! That’s going to be hard. I will manage.
Bye.
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