- in the name of Allah -

Alhamdulillah. It's been a year since that day I looked outside at sunlight shining whitely. mA things have come so far in so little time. It never ceases to amaze me how cyclic and circuituitous life had been for me. What I sought I couldn't have, what I didn't want to seek was the way to go ahead. The layering of paradoxes in this is staggering. If I was me a year or two back, it would have only been something to add to the torment. 

But with that first glance, and following steps after it, alhamdulillah things are brighter. Of the deepest ironies, in what I swear is a ever-growing list of them as I get older, the reason I could go look ahead was because of what had partly rooted me backwards in the first place. The transformation of the "past folly" into my "end-goal hope" sums it up entirely. How do I truly express gratitude for that nudge forward, for the ability to let go of the past in a way so complete I'd never felt lighter in my life? Alhamdulillah is the obvious answer, and it has been said and will continue to be said for long as I remain iA, but what about to the one who played her part, said what came to her though it came in pieces? No 'thank you' is enough (thank you, anyway), not even 'jazakAllah khair' approaches (jazakAllah khair, still) the depth of what it meant to me. 

Though words fail, I guess I won't stop trying: When I reach for a star, I don't want to ever stop reaching, so long as I'm alive, so long as I'm breathing, it's a place I'm heading or a vision I'm seeing. Stay shining, always.