Angel

 Today my kids received presents (actually just chocolates, apples and oranges) from St.Nikolaus at school. My 4 year old son was so excited, when he got home he ran upstairs and wanted to share it with her sister (my 7 year old daughter). But only to find the house empty. It was not until another two hours that she would be back from school. He took something to bite while watching an episode of Ninjago. He got bored and started playing with his Legos. He doesn’t like to watch TV that much. As soon as he heard the door bell rang, he ran towards the door to greet his sister. It was such a heartwarming feeling to see them together, so close knitted. Despite the pandemic situation, 2020 brought them closer. 

He excitedly told her that he had saved something for her. “LL loves Oranges, so this one is for her” he had told me earlier, his eyes gleaming. LL took out something from her bag and showed him that she also received something from St. Nikolaus. Both of them laughed and there was a genuine moment of happiness that I saw in both of them. Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah I said to myself. LL divided her chocolates with AQ and they both had an equal amount. She didn’t have to. But I am glad that she did. She had also saved one for me and one for Dada. As she was busy throwing the plastic packaging, AQ followed her from behind like he always does, like a shadow in the dark. What he said next broke my heart.. “This small one is for baby.”.. LL asked, “which baby?” He answered “our baby.” I heart LL paused before replying, “baby is no longer with us”. He then said, “I know. Baby is in heaven. When he comes down, I will give it to him”.. 

My heart sank and broke. 

He remembers.

Not many people know this, but I went through natural miscarriage last year. I wish no one would ever have to go through it because it was a traumatic experience. I was depressed and was constantly finding ways to make myself feel better. I needed to be fit and healthy for my family. But there are times that I would just lay there and cry, blaming myself for what had happened, thinking about the what ifs. 

“It’s not your fault”, the doctor said as I was about to leave the consultation room after she scanned my belly to confirm it was empty. Just a few weeks before I heard a heartbeat. But that day, I left with an empty sac and I could feel a part of myself was gone. 

I slowly accepted the fact that not all pregnancies end with a full term baby in your hands. I am thankful to Allah for the offsprings He has bestowed upon us, a pair of lovely and healthy daughter and son, and one Angel at the gates of Heavens. I am thankful to be born a Muslim and I believe in Allah’s plans for us. 

I think about it sometimes but I am better Alhamdulillah. Sometimes when we sit together as a family, I wonder if he/she was with us in spirits. My little angel would be about seven months today. 

It’s been more than a year. My kids were too young to understand miscarriages, still born or death. My daughter was in first grade, my son was not even three years old. But he still remembers, so does she. 

Al- Fatihah to our little angel. 

Wait for us at the gates of Heaven, InshaAllah . 

Disconnected

I feel so disconnected with myself. There’s a Pandemic going on right now and at the point that I am writing this I feel like I kinda hate everything. This does not happen often. I am by default a very positive person. But what is up with myself lately? Period? hormones? The big D word? DEPRESSION. I don’t know. Maybe I do have it, maybe I don’t. I try not to think about it that much. But one thing for sure is that I have lost all the positive energy. I decided to deactivate my Instagram account for a while because I hate myself. I hate looking at all those positive quotes and writing, it’s like I don’t even know who that person is. I just wanna stay like this, for a while. Till I return to my old self.

Until then, I just need to be like this.

uncomfortable thoughts

Ever since the death of Kobe Bryant, I have been thinking about death more often than before. It’s an uncomfortable thought. But I heard Ustaz Suhaib Webb said on his podcast, and also Imam Omar Sulaiman on his Friday Khutbah, both mentioned that we should think about death everyday. But I guess it’s not to scare us, more of a reminder. When you think about your own death, you will try your best to say things nicely, thinking that If I die the next second, I wouldn’t want that bad word to be the last word that I say.

It’s really unfortunate that it takes a death of someone so prolific as Kobe Bryant, to shake the world. All of the sudden, everyone is telling everyone else that they love them, apologizing to people. Allah works in mysterious ways. But in Allah we trust.

Be kind. Show love. Apologize and forgive people.

my fitbitpic

I thought this blog could use some pictures, so that is me, writing and trying to write slowly my novel, I don't really know where it is heading, i just keep on swimming, and inshaAllah I will get there somehow.. please pray for me..

the 2016 feeling

It kinda feels like I am back in 2016. About 12 years ago (omg has  it been that long?), I pursued my Msc in Statistics and I am almost everynight on my laptop doing work, my thesis, research, sometimes online chatting with my long distant boyfriend (right now husband), while listening to music (Snow Patrol was a hit back then) and blogging. I would do this almost every night before I go to bed. And I blogged a lot. Tapi idak le glemer macam vivy yusof (hahaha).

When I look back, my life was pretty simple. Still is though. But whatever I have, I am thankful. I guess I it doesn't take much to make me happy.

alhamdulillah I feel like slowly I am getting thing together. I try my best to keep up with the routine, try my best to be consistent, although not everyday that I achieve my target, there are days that are average, but I guess sometimes it's ok not to reach you target. As long as you keep on moving, and keep moving forward.

I am still with my block everything for 20 minutes rule. And I can only do this after everyone is asleep. If not, I cannot even get 10 seconds by myself hahaha

so enough of muscle flexing. Time to get down to the real stuff.. writing.. wish me luck!

the spring cleaning

Not everyday is a great day. As much as you want it to be, it just isn't. That's real life. I am not saying I had a bad day. In fact, I'd have to really think hard and long to remember if I ever had any in a while.

But saying everyday is a great day is just a bit too far fetched for me. Today was an OK day. It's been 8 days without any social network activity, today I logged into Instagram via website and not through the app (because I uninstalled it), not because of gian on anything, it was only because I wanted to message a friend and I don't have her phone number, so I had to message her via IG.

I would say I did a lot of work done since I logged myself out of IG. I managed to do some filing today, I gave away some old clothes of the kids, I am slowly doing my annual Spring cleaning, since spring really is coming, so we need to change to old boring winter clothes and bring out the bright colored clothes out.

At times, I do picture myself having completed my novel, even though sometimes I feel like omg are you for real. Well, whatever it is, just keep swimming.

This is me, flexing my brain muscles. (I am gonna try to spend 15 mins blogging before I do my actual writing.)

till then. (She said to no one is reading)

the blessing in disguise

hah! my last post was almost a year ago! how pathetic is that. I knew it. whenever March comes, I will be all, ok shit is getting down for realsies. for years it has been like that. I bought my laptop in March 2016, full swing semangat to write a book. And I did write, still am writing now. But then I got pregnant so I had to put writing at the back burner. Then March 2017, I was still getting used to having two kids. Writing was a sometimes or whenever I have the time, which is no time, kinda thing. And now March 2018. I decided like omg quit making excuses! I am not getting any younger, if I ever want to have this book deal a real deal, I have to up my game.

I started to think really hard what was wrong with me. what is my problem? I am a housewife, I can soo do this. Then it hit me slowly and surely. I spent too much time on social media i.e Instagram whenever I am not spending time with my kids. I spend time with them a lot so I felt like I deserve some break at times. Social media or mostly instagram was kinda like my me-time. It was easy, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to go out. I just scroll scroll or post somepictures or Ig stories.  now that i think of it, I was wasting too much time. So I thought, ok, I need to do something about it. But it was just not happening. I still curi curi tengok jugak. Until something happened and that was it. I decided to take myself out of this social media deal and just live in the real world, #ITRW.

Starting end of February, I archived most of my pictures and slowly decrease my time spent on IG. Then, started 1.3.2018, uninstalled my Instagram. I don't have FB app and I seldom log on to facebook so that was not so much of a big deal. It felt empty for the first two days, like whenever I pick up my phone to check my instagram feed, it wasn't there and I had to say to myself, 'deal with it'

After a few days I got used to not having instagram on my phone. In fact, I was starting to feel free. I was starting my social media cleansing. I felt no longer toxic to the social media world and my mind became so free. I managed to read more and I started writing again. I have the 20minutes block rule. I block everything and write for a whole 20 minutes. It feels great! Bam! ideas came flowing and I was and still am typing! my laptop was on fire! and with fitbit monitoring my activities, and now that I am slowly tengah ganti puasa. It feels so great alhamdulillah. I managed to get so many things done. like so many! today I didn't even look at my phone. Ikhwan called me a few times just to check if I was ok.

All I am saying is that, thanks to that thing happened, now I feel so free and relaxed and I can get more things done. I finally transferred the pictures from my phone to my hard disc, managed to organize my kitchen, the kids's closet, rearranged stuff in the house, and it's only been six days. Alhamdulillah. I am so thankful for this blessing in disguise. I am not sure who will be reading this but if anyone who reads this, if you are trying to get off social media, I'd say, just do it. you will not regret it :) I am trying to see how long this can last. wish me luck!!