Torn

 

Ever since I was a tween, I'd heard of this word "torn"— to feel like you're straddling a shaky line between two feelings or things, to feel utterly helpless as if there can never be any resolution. During my own angry phases (yes, plural) as a younger person, I thought I knew what feeling torn meant. But I really didn't. And now I do. I'm part of two incredibly different worlds, my identity is split. I am here and there, my heart is always here and there, and when I'm at one place, I worry for the other and vice versa. What should be a blessing feels like a big misfortune at times. I ask god for ease and end up feeling more lost if I dwell on it. I've been saying this a lot, even on here, it is what it is.

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At the end of each long day, we inadvertently end up in bed, scrolling through photos and videos of our child. What a miraculous little creature. Dozens of mashallahs exchanged. The joy multiplies with each passing year. I thought I would look back and miss my baby with the very round face and very chubby cheeks but I am, instead, in awe of the little person she is becoming. "The days are long but the years are short" doesn't exonerate the grueling journey however, it puts things into perspective every day. Parenthood has been a revelation if anything, and if you have had a difficult, or say, complicated, childhood, it can really dredge up some crusty old mud time and time again.

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What a thing it is to be back once again, somehow in the past but also the future. The past being more and more blurry each year and still something I long for even deeply. How I wish I could be a child again in my parents' home, our old home, them being young and healthy, us being just kids. The most major problems being exams coinciding with Eid or some such. Our grandparents still alive and holding the larger family together. All this longing that has nowhere to go, no end in sight, no respite. We're all just growing older together and the heart aches and aches but we laugh and brave through, we hold onto the Unseen, faith wavering and unwavering, and such is life.