KK writes

[kkwritr]

30 things I learnt at 30, and a note to my younger self

I wrote this during the lead up to my 30th at the beginning of the year but had a few things to accomplish before I could publish. Finally, I’m there and with full confidence and conviction...

the thirty things I learnt at 30! This is an ode especially to my sisters and things I wish I could tell a younger me. And things I’m glad I have come to internalise, live and breathe in preparation for someday raising a daughter iA

Life and time pass either way, do that thing you’re nervous or afraid to do. There is never too old, there is never too late, there is now and there is this limited time we are given, the time will pass regardless, so spend your time, or at least moments of that time, doing what you want.

Our lifetimes aren’t especially long, you’ll blink and the years fly by, but, it is still a long time so don’t settle with how you spend that time, or who you spend that time with.

You don’t have to settle for lukewarm, or the bare minimum. You deserve bubbling joy, softness, safety and warmth to look forward to everyday. Yes, there is a comfortability in the familiar, but don’t be a martyr in the own narrative of your life. Accept and embrace the joy you deserve. I promise there is SO much better out there.

The one person guaranteed to stay with you your entire life, is you. Love yourself, learn who you are, what you like and dislike, what brings you ease, what disturbs this ease. Work on yourself, support yourself, carry yourself, love yourself. You have to stay with yourself until your last breath. Your relationship with yourself (After God) is the single most important relationship of your life. Nurture it.

It’s never to late to walk away. From a job, a path, an attachment, a person.

Your body knows a thing before your brain catches up sometimes. Listen to it. That uneasiness in your stomach is telling you something. The sooner you listen, the sooner you can act on it. (I’m not talking about your lactose intolerance, but it could also be that!)

Be the person you needed when you were younger. Whether it’s a big sibling, a maternal figure, a mentor, a confidant, a listener, an encourager, a scalder, be that person you wished you had when you were younger.

Master the art of listening and listen more than you speak. And in the moments you’re quiet, question am I simply waiting to speak or am I really listening?

Everything always makes sense in hindsight. I PROMISE.

Work work work on your growth and emotional maturity and intelligence. If you have done zero work on yourself, you have zero business thinking the world and its people owe you anything. Do not disturb the peace of another when you yourself aren’t at peace with yourself.

Curate the life you want and deserve. From the things you wear, eat, consume, the people you surround yourself with, the spaces you occupy. Decide who you want to be, and be them.

Your body is entrusted to you from God. Don’t be lazy. Look after it. It’s going to carry you throughout your life until your very last moments. Take care of your body. Pump your lungs with air, push your heart to race, stretch all the muscles, dance, run, jump, spin, twirl, rest, jump some more. Your body isn’t designed not to be used.

Being in love is one of life’s greatest joys and blessings. Enjoy it. but protect yourself and heart, please.

Humans are not created to be individualistic. Find your tribe. There is a community for everyone. Sometimes it’s not the one we are born into. But you will eventually find one and feel at home. Until then, keep your heart open.

To my sisters, be weary of men. Even the Muslim ones.

Even the married ones.

But know that there will also be men who remind us this scary and sad world for women has hope. There is warmth and kindness and gentleness and protection and commitment and trust and joy and love, so much love, to be found. And we will have a handful we get to enjoy and spend time with, bicker with and belly laugh with. Remember this. Welcome them when they come.

Communication is everything. Master the art of communicating. Communicate effectively, and most challenges can be overcome. Fail at this, and it will be hard.

Don’t lash out on your loved ones in anger. If you do, be quick to apologise.

Things always seem better in the morning than they did the night before. When sad, go to sleep and rest your tired eyes, I promise things will be better in the morning and you can tackle last nights problems with a clearer head. 

Rediscover the joys of your youth and revel in them as an adult. The nostalgia is an added bonus.

Learn basic life skills, how to sew a button, cook a handful of staple dishes, drive, assemble things, how to test the smoke alarm, being self sufficient is important and sexy. Do it!

Make to do lists. I don’t know how or why but they make productivity fun and satisfying.

Don’t eat in bed, change your sheets, no outside clothes, and bags on the bedding, make your bed a sanctuary and cosy home for you to rest your tired eyes, body and soul in.

Invest in your health. invest your focus, your time, your efforts. Once health is compromised, we will miss times we were in good health. our bodies are everything.

Enjoy the ease and peace that comes with walking away from dysfunctional situations, mindless debates, places, people etc. Choosing peace isn’t always easy, but I promise, you will love the ease that follows and wish you’d done it sooner.

Love your people hard. Let them love you hard too. Just love. It’s a verb, a doing word, so do it. This is what makes the world go round. Truly.

Read up on boundary setting, narcissistic abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, bread crumbing, orbiting, love being used as a tool for abuse, tell others when in situations linked to the mentioned. Abusers tend to want to isolate you, it’s your loved ones/sisterhood/community who will hold your hand out of this shit.

Study hard, get your bag up, have a support network outside of your partner/family, get your finances in order, travel and live pre marriage, you deserve it, and you want to create stories to look back on and tell your kids so they too can live a fulfilled life!

Most importantly, remain close to your Lord always. You’re nothing without Him and He is your forever. Nothing else matters. Wallah. If anything takes you away from Him, drop it and run back to your Lord, again and again and again. He is always waiting for us and loves us more than we can fathom.

[kkwritr]

‘what is grief but love persevering’.

I haven’t written in maybe two years and approach writing for catharsis again with a careful caution. I contemplated a lot where I write this, and whether I share it. Writing and hosting it on Tumblr, a place I grew up and enjoyed some of the most wholesome, care-free years of my early adult life feels fitting as we talk about grief. Reason being, I’ve recently been grieving the loss of who I was before my late twenties. And whilst navigating the grief of a former happier, less fatigued and traumatised me, I lost my grandmother.

A few months ago, Vision said in Marvel’s WandaVision: ‘What is grief but love persevering’, and the quote stuck with me. It’s been one I’ve thought about often this past week. To grieve is to be sad, to mourn the loss of something or someone you love, it leaves a void of the former and an empty hollowness. But that love perseveres. And feeling this sadness just means that there was love to begin with, so much love, and here you are holding onto it. There’s kindness and warmth in this.

Hey Shona

My Grandma battled a series of aches in life, beyond sickness and ailments, she was a woman who stood graciously in the face of immense adversity, hurt and pain. In her final years, as she began deteriorating in front of us, during her last visit to London, I sat with her and asked if I could ask her about her life and record it. She agreed and I recorded hours of conversations. We laughed, we sat solemnly, I teased her, she scolded me, we didn’t cry, but it was cathartic and my cloud now holds this tender moment memorialised for her family and future great-grandchildren to enjoy.

She told me in said interview that her husband, my grandad, a young man from a neighbouring bari had declared to her pre marriage, ‘Hey Shona, did you hear? I want to marry you’. I swooned, and asked her whether that made her heart race, or whether she felt funny in her stomach (I couldn’t translate the feeling of butterflies in Bangla) and she told me off saying ‘you don’t need to know, go and find your own man instead of asking me such personal questions about mine’. I laughed because she is exactly where I get my sass from.  

We worried that she would pass earlier this year during a sudden bout of sickness and hospitalisation. I remember frantically driving to her, a few hours away from London. I was fortunate enough to spend the night sat by her, just the two of us. Our last real Nani/Khadijah moment. She was coherent enough for us to stay up talking. We wrote and drew a family tree together, she remembered the names of her family, distant and close, and told me stories about all of them. I wrote everything down and she asked me to turn it into a small book and share it with the others so we could look at it from time to time after she passes and remember her. I told her I would. (She also pushed me to get my nose pierced, I told her I’d think about it as I have a nose insecurity. I now think I may do it in her memory, although I’m sad she won’t be able to see and enjoy it and also compliment me lol).

Fast forward to a few days ago, my entire family got to spend a few hours with her before the burial. She lay in the middle of the room looking like she was asleep. Cosy almost, shrouded in white. Her face quite literally was illuminated with noor. I never understood what was meant by the deceased having noor until I saw it. The months leading up to her death, she kept saying she was ready to meet Allah SWT. And whilst we can’t say for sure, I have a resounding calmness and confidence in knowing she is happy with her Lord and surrounded by the Angels iA.

Adulting in death

I’ve described navigating a sudden bereavement as something that forces you to grow up. I’ve emerged from this week a more grown up and mature me. You’re forced to deal with life (and death) administration, to manage others’ grief whilst trying to manage your own, you juggle your responsibilities and figure out how to pause them, all the while, you try to maintain a spiritual high. Being strong for my mum who was rendered a child who just wanted her mum, calling my aunty to tell her her mother had died, and then having to break the news to tiny children who won’t get to see grandma again, these are conversations we are never ready to have, and there is no way to do it without feeling like you completely messed it up.

There are hundreds of other moments in the days that follow that you are met with, and each feels like you fumbled it, or as if you are emotionally drained and have nothing to give to all your loved ones who are grieving too. And then…

A full tank

… your tank is filled.

My heart this week has been a tank; empty, drained, tired, hollow, numb – and then, the outpour of love from every single friend, family member, loved one, acquaintance, mutual, colleague, sister and brother fills it up. Ounce by ounce, some litre by litre, others in the galleons to the point it over spills.

The ‘how many Juz’s do you need me to read’, the ‘I’ll have one khatam completed for you by tomorrow’, the ‘I’ll sort out your car’, the ‘this is how you apply for an assignment extension’, the ‘do you need me to bring food’, the ‘I’m praying for your mum’, the ‘what do you need from me’, the ‘don’t hesitate, please tell me’, the ‘I love you’s’, ‘please stay hydrated’, ‘I’m supporting and adore you’, ‘I’m holding you’. All of it. Every single text, every (missed) call, voice note, every ‘I’m just checking in’, every ‘no pressure to reply but I’m here and I’m praying for you all’ – they filled up the tank. In turn, this allowed me to be present for my family the way I needed to be, because I was being held up elsewhere.

Throughout this grief, I haven’t been able to sleep, and yesterday was my first day back home, away from my family - my friend stayed with me on the phone until five, discussing this grief and life and death, love and healing and we shared stories of our grandmothers until finally I was tired enough to fall asleep without getting lost in my head.

The way we love, comes back to us. Wholly, fully, completely - It always comes back. The same way my Grandma was loved and her face shone with noor, I’ve been glowing in the love of others this week. And thus, my navigating this grief was bearable. Cripplingly sad, (I honestly have no more tears left to cry) but bearable.

Life resumes

Such is life that the world goes on after death and loss. Inevitably our loved ones are left behind but stay in our memories and hearts and we go on. In the moving forward, may the love always remain. May we remain soft, thoughtful and kind, and remember this life is short and this world isn’t it. This world is a number of days, every whim, every desire, every hope that fails, every struggle we get lost in, every ache we are convinced will finish us, it’s all but a matter of days. Forever is promised, but this isn’t it. But here’s to the forever and getting there, with everyone we love. Until then, bittersweetly, life resumes.