Muslim Break

Ramadan is coming and I am preparing my return,insha'Allah. So many things have happened this year that I feel religiously I have been nonexistent. I realize that Islam has changed my life in many ways and due to that I cannot return to who I was before. While I am still not practicing in form, I am mentally preparing myself to do so again. I know it sounds weird, but I think I needed this "break" to ensure that I am Muslim for God and not for some man. I also believe that my ideas of religion have been solidified this year. I don't need to question every little aspect of Islam because I'm afraid to take the next step so to speak. My biggest fear, honestly, was that I didn't want to lose my culture for someone else's. I felt like to be the perfect Muslimah I had to be someone else (i.e. become Arab). While I love Arab culture, and learning about MENA, I have realized that I cannot abandon the core of who I am and who I was raised to be. Through my love of culture, history, and language, I have adopted aspects of those cultures into my life, but I refuse to those myself entirely to pretend to be someone else.

I was talking to a friend once about being a convert. (Both her parents were converts as well.) When you are a convert you are in a constant negotiation of identity between how you were raised and Islam. (While I make this simple and show it as a dyadic relationship, it can and probably is more complicated than this.) I feel like this past year was a definite example of this. I married a man who was a born Muslim and because of this I thought he was better than me. He constantly wanted to change me to follow his cultural norms saying that since he was Arab this was the RIGHT way. Well, we all know how that turned out... I became depressed after a while and thought it was everything else but my relationship. When I came to talk to him about this, he said it was all in my head. I went to religion for answers, but now I realized I was too much in denial to truly comprehend what God wanted me to learn. This year has been very hard, and it continues to be trying emotionally. However, I believe this year has shown me how strong I am inside and how amazing some of my friends have been!

While the first 5 years of my twenties have shown me what paths I should take, I believe the second 5 years will be the adventure of actually taking them. al-7umdulilah for the strength that God (swt) has given me. al-7umdulilah for the lessons He (swt) has taught me. al-7umdulilah for the people God (swt) has brought into my life and al-7umdulilah for the journey.

I know that I haven't been blogging much, but just in case there isn't a post for a while, I hope you all take this time before Ramadan to reflect and prepare for this holy month. And if I'm super MIA: Ramadan Kareem and Eid Mubarak!