Here I am again, doing this and nervous like it’s my first time.

It’s 2017, I’m saying this to myself – and it feels like déjà vu. 2016 was good, it wasn’t great – but good and honestly, I’m grateful. I remember starting last year with so much enthusiasm but I plan, we plan but Allah is the best of planners.

I had a series of small victories – but for me, small victories aren’t good enough. I guess when you’ve wanted something for so long and you’ve waited for it, and so much time has passed, you lose your patience. Your mind begins to play tricks on you and self-doubt begins to creep it one day at a time…

I found myself constantly asking ‘Is this it?’, ‘Is this my purpose?’ I pondered so much that I wrote about it here.

Finding my purpose
Guiding my wandering soul
To a peaceful place

Faith… I lost ALL of it last year. I’ve always had moments of doubt about a higher being, about our existence as humans, on whether there truly exists a life after death. It got to a point I actually stopped praying. It felt like all I knew was all I had been told not what I had learned. I had done things based on expectations of me and not really what His word meant to me as a person. I want to find my faith this year.

“Know me, search for knowledge about me before you serve me”

– Hadith Qudsi

I want to know Him, to understand what He expects of me… totally give myself whole in faith and truly believe that in Him, all is well & all is perfect. I want to serve Him wholeheartedly without doubt… to truly believe in His words

Believe without doubt
Embracing what He represents
Find my inner peace

Write. Towards the end of last year, I stopped writing totally! I refused to blog. Most of what I write is directly connected to how I feel – to post some things will be to show my vulnerability. To show my vulnerability is to admit that I have weakness. To admit that I have weakness will expose my fears. Eventually, I learned that we can’t be strong all of the time and it’s ok to be afraid.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes also’… “

– Eleanor Roosevelt

I want to write more this year … without limitations… without being trapped by my emotions. I want to express my words freely without hesitation.

Accepting myself
Showing that which is hidden
In my confused soul

Freedom…

What does it feel like to be truly free? To find yourself and be content with who you are. To be truly selfless without feeling that you’re giving too much of yourself away.

I want to find myself this year. I love being a wife and even more I love being a mum, but on some days I get extremely overwhelmed with being both of those things and still having to deal with every other thing in my life – work, studying, maintaining friendships. In those moments, I have come to truly admire my mother and the sacrifices she made. I’m glad I have a good support system surrounding me – friendships and relationships where we are bound by a common goal, no matter how small it is. Our lives intertwined despite the distance…

I want to find that balance between what I can give and what is truly mine without feeling sad or exposed. I’m not even sure I’m making sense at this point. I want to find that part of myself that is mine in every sense without being judged whatever my actions are. In a way, I have realised that I am flawed if I am not free…

I want to soar high
Let my freedom emulate
The boundless grey skies

I guess all I’m saying is I’m taking full control of myself this year, to find happiness that is not attached to someone else or something…

Of what use is fear
If it paralyses you?
So much that you lose

You forget to live
You stay within the boundaries
Your mind created

You see others free
Living beyond enclosure
The world’s not a box!

Spread those gorgeous wings
Let the wind show you the way
To ataraxia…

 Like India Arie said, you never know where life is going to take you and you can’t change where you’ve been… but today, now, this year – I have the opportunity to choose and I choose freedom.

Cheers to 2017… I do hope all our dreams for this year come true.