12 Feet Down

Dearest Beloved, I wish you all the best and love you dearly still.  I am sorry for the large gap between this post and last. I meant to write on 12/12/24 because of the numerical significance, but I decided against because I didn't want to make it a weird thing. I would've asked you to make a wish, but I don't think it's appropriate of me to make requests of you. I made mine; we shall see.  I miss you dearly, it's been a rough couple weeks (okay, years is probably more accurate). There's so much I want to talk with you about, so many things I want to share with you, so much I'd like to hear from you about etc. In summation-- at the risk of invoking Mariah Carey-- there is just one thing I want.  The "holidays" are here and it's especially cold literally and figuratively. A time when families come together and make memories around the table and share love and joy. So, an incredibly acute feeling of emptiness has fueled a desire to write to you ...

Assalamu Alaikum dearest beloved, I love you and I miss you. I hope you are doing well and surrounded by loving people who cherish you and lift you up. There's nothing I want more than for you to be happy again.  Consider the following as an extended meditation on Sura 13:11: "God never changes a people's state until they change what is in themselves." I'm thinking about passivity, and how for a large part of my life I felt like everything was passing me by. I remember you saying how passive I was. I am so sorry for not listening, for not realizing, for not accepting, and all the hurt that came from that. What I find really pathetic about it is how I would characterize it as me being "nonchalant" or "chill." Sure, in a way it may have been true, but in a much more real sense it was just a thin patina over a mountain of chalant and not-chill. It makes me so sad, especially when I think about how I didn't take an active role in Islam; I would...