- in the name of Allah -



As I get older, certainties in life become fewer and fewer. Things I thought I knew, things I took for granted in adolescence, all of it's changed. People, friends, perspectives, outlooks on where I (want to) belong and where I can see myself fitting. 

The short of it is, I don't think such a place exists, not while I'm in this mortal life. Life and I, we are such a dichotomous pair, contrasting, contradicting, counteracting poles on the same magnet of being. To live in it, one has to embrace its chaos, accept the inherent futility of choice that appears before each person, deciding on something based on a design long since programmed and hardwired into the human psyche. It's summed up by the partial phrase, "can't live with, can't live without". This is the paradox of humanity. 

Where do I fit, where does my cog belong? I see the nature of the swan, hear the beauty of its song, but it's a fool's errand to stay and listen at all. I miss the innocence of my youth, God I was so naive, thinking I could simply waltz into a fairy tale without first paying the piper his due. If the only torch I carry is but a pile of once-flamed embers, I would be fine with that. I'd rather the light have burnt at least once, brightly and blinding, than never at all. 

I'll take this moment and apologize to any and all of the ones I've somehow hurt over the years. Friends, some family too no doubt, people who I just didn't know how to reach, how to talk with. To this day, I'm still not sure what I could say to some of them. I'm sorry my good intents were ill-conceived, that I wasn't smarter and wiser back then, to stop me from ruining friendships with good folk. I can't go back and rebuild those bridges, time and space and circumstance has passed us all by for that. And to think, I used to believe I had no regrets. Alas, no, no I didn't, for those regrets(people) had long since left me and parted ways to their own destiny. I still care about all of them, all of those connections I've lost, their memory lingers with me forever. I suppose that will have to suffice, for now. Ya Rabb, forgive them and me, guide us on our way to you, and leave us not even should we leave ourselves, ameen.