A Work in Progress

Z. Muslim. Pakistani. M, early 20's. I slip. I get up again, repeat.

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why do people have to start the most serious possible conversations that trigger immense anxiety, adrenaline, and contemplation in me right before I’m trying to sleep lol I can literally feel my heart rate increase. 

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Those who have never despaired have neither lived nor loved. Hope is inseparable from despair. Those of us who truly hope make despair a constant companion whom we out-wrestle every day owing to our commitment to justice, love, and hope.

Cornel West 

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I had a dream we spent time together. We were driving somewhere in the middle of the night to a party where so many of our loved ones were waiting for us. It was nice. It’s the happiest I’ve been this whole wretched week. 

I pray some dreams come true. 

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It didn't. What's strange is that we only really seem to meet in dreams anymore. You didn't want to say a word to me the other day. I kind of wish you'd stop visiting. Seeing/hearing from you in realms both physical or spiritual doesnt really help.

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God, 

what a gutting and debilitating feeling this is.  I hate this entire thing. Practically everything about it, its so hard.  Like is it even worth it? Is it even sustainable for people who really do feel so deeply? How do you even make it through unscathed? And for what and to what end? 

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anytime I just get deeply sad I feel compelled to come back here? 

Well, here I am. 

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Man you can sure feel like such a loser sometimes.

Immense emptiness.

Deep loneliness.

Sadness. Alhamdulilah.

Nothing to do but feel those feelings and move on.

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one consistent and pernicious behavior muslim couples partake in is that they only try to hang out with other couples. 

so the single friends that they’ve actually been friends with for quite some time are kinda thrown to the wayside or dropped like woody when andy doesnt want to play with him anymore because they aren’t hitched or dont have kids. 

it turns into some unspoken prerequisite and you need to “fit” with what they want, or I guess suddenly you’re no longer socially useful to them. 

bunch of awful nonsense and devoid of any worthwhile reasoning but its clearly a commonly observed phenomenon. 

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I'm just so tired of being told I'm good but never good enough.

With no additional feedback on what I could do to get better. Because they feel there's nothing else I can do. And they could help if they really wanted to. The decision ultimately is in their hands. But they don't want to. But they'll just be fake about it that they're this earnest person looking out for you.

So I'm just perennially stuck? This is just such a shitty place to be in and I just...

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its a particularly unique form of tortuous existence when the people closest to you understand you the least and in doing so are a major source of much of the inner turmoil you experience on an everyday basis. 

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Wow. 

I so deeply do not care for any of the things right now. 

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I'm just tired man.

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Please ya Allah. 

I really need this one. 

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Its particularly painful when you connect some of the things you love most to shared experiences you had with people that aren't really in your life anymore.

And you revisit those things that once brought you unrelenting joy.

But now that thing is always colored in shades of heartbreak. So anytime you're listening to that song, or reading that book/passage/watching that movie, or taking that stroll, or drive where you once spent a brief time together, it's more bitter than sweet. Because you think of them. And what really isn't anymore.

It makes me deeply sad. It changes you. You're suddenly more recluse to share those parts of you, of whatever remains, with another again.

C'est la vie.

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friend to all 

more to none

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yknow sometimes I feel like I bend over backwards for people who wouldnt give two shits about doing the same in return. 

in friendships that really leaves a sour taste. 

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tell me who I have to be to gain some reciprocity 

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2/15

There’s the tactical, the material, the things you plan for, the decisions and strategies made as a result of the work you consistently put in to work towards a certain thing. That’s one half of the equation or it may seem. Maybe the math’s off. Carry the 5. 

Then there’s a comprehensively metaphysical element to it all. There’s your heart. There’s Allah. There’s surrendering to the unseen, knowing very well it’s there though it does indeed transcend palpability. Outcomes tend to be decided here. 

You need to make peace with both. One can be easier than the other depending on who and where and what kind of state you’re in. I’d like to think I struggle with both a lot of times. One actually leads to the other. The two complement one another.

A lot of things havent gone in accordance to the expectations I’d have if only the former existed. Maybe I didnt make the right decisions, the right reads. Maybe my indecisions were the errors that resulted in whatever distress. Maybe I didnt try hard or smart enough. Maybe I didnt know how to try. Maybe I still dont.  Maybe my knowledge of myself has been too nebulous or vast, that the lack of specificity in answering tough question’s have left me at an impasse or station with no train route on its way out. There’s no ticket to punch. You just have to sit there in the discomfort. 

Or maybe I really need to make peace with taqdeer. 

Clarity will come. Purpose will come. Contentment will come. Answers will come. Ease and comfort will come. Fulfillment will come. Health will come. Opportunity will come. Money will come. Peace will come. Joy will come. Love. Love, will come. 

When it needs to. When He wills it to be. Maybe it won’t even come in this life. Maybe it’ll come when you least expect it. Maybe it’ll come after you’ve seen it arrive for every single person around you, and you begin to wonder what’s wrong with you. Maybe it’ll come when you’ve stopped searching for it. Maybe it’ll come tomorrow. Maybe it wont.  

You just cultivate the contentment and ethic to do what’s required of you. And you do it with moral excellence. 

May it arrive sooner than later ya Rab.