Friday, August 04, 2006


Mengingati kisah silam.

Assalamualaikum wrh. wbt.

I cannot seem to listen to NowSeeHeart's Selamat Tinggal Silamku. Because to me, it simply brings back too many memories. Of some things I'd like to forget. Things that something as simply as the strumming of a guitar would remind me of.

I admit, that as far as the whole topic of tarbiyyah goes, I have a long way to go. Sure, I may have stopped listening to all those songs that couldn't seem to stop harping on about love and how it makes them sick/dying/tortured/sangap/happy/angsty/sad/all-clenched-up-inside out of my own accord, but that doesn't mean that I'm fully done. I still have far to go. It's difficult, when you have lived as I have, to suddenly drop all the things I am so used to. Not because people are pressuring me to, but because my own conscience is.

I still cannot live completely fillah (for Allah). Although I owe every breath and every second of every day of my entire life and the one after it to Him.

Which makes it a shame.

Just when I thought I was past some parts of my life, little things prop up, reminding me of them.

For instance, I used to be a horrible crush-er. Meaning I used to have amazing crushes on people, and it would agonize me. I would feel pained. That crunching feeling in the middle of my ribcage (the one not associated to 'angin') would intensify whenever I saw the person I 'liked'. I would create scenarios in my head and cringe again and again. I would replay my encounters and slap my forehead in plain amazement at my stupidity. I put myself down over and over again. I dreamt of fairy-tale like endings over and over again. And I would promptly kill them down with doses of realism, but in a fatalistic way.

As Ecah says, I am a hopeless romantic. :) At least she says it in a laughing manner.

But the more I discovered about the Love Allah has for me (and you and you and you, too), the more I came to see that nothing is worth as much as that. And that the human affection I was seeking was pointless. I prefer to call it 'crushing', although it is very juvenile a term. Because that's what it was. Having a 'crush' on people started crushing me - my sense of self-worth and my relationships with people and my view on life.

I was unfortunately, very obvious when I 'liked' someone. More often than not, my friends would notice, and start to tease. Then the noise would catch up to the person I liked, and he would tense up and distance himself, which in turn made me more miserable than ever.

Looking back, I would laugh, if the value of the time and energy lost wasn't so pathetic. Imagine, I once had a crush on someone for around five years, on and off, and now, I don't know what he's doing, and I frankly don't quite care. Even though I still kept in touch with him (on my part - maybe he was still scared of me :)) up till the middle of last year, I've lost all means now. I wonder if he even knows that I've left Malaysia, and that I - the person least expected to survive so many miles away from home - has succeeded in resisting the winds of conformity and boring for nearly six months now. Alhamdulillah.

I imagined that he would be a little amused. Or marvelled. Not at me, but at how God created someone like me to be able to survive like this. It's unexpected, really.

Why am I ranting on like this? I am not sure why.

But I have learnt that even having crushes is not encouraged in Islam (bukan aku kata, ustaz yang kata!). Or rather, you can have a crush, but it's important to act upon it i.e. get married quickly. It prevents much heartache and misunderstandings.

That makes sense, if you think about it.

But no one is like that anymore. People have lived up to the Western standard of life, and that cuts into relationships as well. Women (and feminists) still marvel at the fact that Siti Khadijah, the prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) wife, a wealthy merchant of 40 years, was the one who proposed to him.

And they marvel ever the more in that he accepted.

Which shows that he had no ego.
Which shows the respect Khadijah had for Muhammad (she used a middle-person to propose).
Which shows that even though those were the days of the jahiliyah, women were still respected, and certain boundaries, especially that of contact between men and women, were still observed.

Men nowadays have egos the size of mountains.
Women and men nowadays have scarce respect for each other (I don't, anyway - at least I'm being honest).
What boundaries??

I have never had a boyfriend before, and as I've told my friend Erin, it wasn't due to lack of trying. But masyaAllah, I have never been able to have a relationship. Surely there is something bigger and better in that that Allah knows. Allahu'alam bissawab.

But I do know that even liking someone was painful enough for me. When I look back, I feel foolish, definitely.

Because I was a fool to spend so much time agonizing over the feelings of a person who might never be the one for me. Even if it was only a crush, and even if it never went further than that, into the truly forbidden areas. It still took my mind and my focus off the more important things in life.

Haha. Now I can laugh. If only virtually.

You know, actually, I think I know why I am ranting like this:

It's because I was inexplicably reminded of it when I saw my Chem classmate this morning. I will admit, he has caught my eye more than once (I try to tundukkan pandangan, but it is hard, when you're co-ed). First of all, because of his resemblance to Harry Potter. You know, sharp nose and glasses and dark hair. I was a fan, after all :)

Secondly, I noticed that he was probably half-Chinese. His surname was Chinese (so emblazoned a jersey he wore). Which meant his father was Chinese. Just like mine is. I feel a certain kinship for people of mixed parentage, honestly. Especially when one of their parents is Chinese. Because you get the sense of not really wanting to belong to any one group.

Thirdly, there are not that many people in (Advanced) Chemistry B (610-122). There are less people this semester, in fact. As I said to Tori (a former Chem classmate), they are the smart ones.

So. You tend to observe the same people time and time again, 3 hours a week, every other week day, for 12 weeks. If you like observing people. Which I do, very much.

Anyway, this guy was dressed formally today. And I admit, observing the guy like this reminds me a lot of my old crush/stalker days in secondary school. So it only begs comparison. Today, he was dressed to the nines in a tux and tie (very different from the general, class-wide regulation same-sweater-and-jeans combo, so he probably had a function or a funeral to attend after class), and well, so was I, sort of (I was wearing a baju kurung which should only really be worn during special occasions, but I am in the midst of laundry-week).

He was dressed in black and red, and so was I.

And back when I was still jahil, so to speak, I used to smile and think of little coincidences like these, between the person I 'liked' and me, as signs from above: that this was IT.

And I couldn't help but wince as I remembered my past. And how dangerously I could be treading upon the path towards repeating that part of my past I would much rather forget. Maybe without my even noticing.

Ever onwards. We can still glimpse back and learn from our mistakes. InsyaAllah, may we never repeat them.

Amin.

this has been a rant by Syazwina Saw at 11:18 pm

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