Currently Playing: From Autumn to Ashes-Autumn’s Monologue.
At this juncture, the last thing I want to do is to churn out yet another woe-is-me piece from the writing mill. I think the depressed department’s been a bit overworked lately, and I’d hate to come across as a troubled and discontented person in constant need of lightening up. I’m generally a happy person, and I love a good laugh as much as the next Lizzie Bennet.
Some things though, you just need to get off your chest.
Like this semester, for instance.
I have lost all interest in putting any proper effort into the coursework this semester. Indifference, apathy, complete lack of concern–that would pretty much sum things up. I just can’t seem to be bothered with getting through to the next level, to getting closer to clinching that law degree. I just can’t seem to care about a scroll right now.
I wake up most days already wanting it to end. I participate in class discussions to try and spark some of the interest I had as a freshman, but even then, I always feel like I’m stretching my patience level. What’s the point of being actively involved if your heart’s just not in it? The most I do is to at least try and make sure the lecturers don’t feel like they’re wasting their time.
I’d very much like a sabbatical, but we don’t always get what we want.
A couple of weeks back, I reached a point where I didn’t even want to crawl out of bed. After the Fajr prayers, I’d just sit and stare out the window at my Kuliyyah, pondering on how I was going to make it through yet another spiritually-gruelling day. I haven’t missed any classes so far, but that’s not to say I haven’t been tempted.
I had a bad spell that particular week. Pressure was mounting and I was certain that whatever could go wrong would go wrong. Murphy’s Law. It’s a funny thing, being down and sad. At that instant, all the things you thought you put behind you starts creeping back, and suddenly not being able to go on the merry-go-round when you were 5 or failing to make the grade on an Add Math exam jumps back at your face. At that time, you go through so many bad memories that before you know it you’ve held your breath for a whole couple of minutes without realising it.
I usually take long strolls to walk the stress off. To a certain extent, it helps. But like I said, it was a particularly busy week so any walking I could get done would only be the ones I made to classes or the library. Speaking of, is it just me or has the noise level in the law level spiked new heights in recent times? I drop in for a few reading materials and all the ruckus that goes on in there literally forces me up to another floor. I don’t think I was that loud during my first year. I’m not saying I wasn’t, but you know. There’s a limit to how far you can break the rules.
Back to that week.
I went through the entire period with little recollection of what actually transpired, and that alone can stand as a credible testimony as to the degree of stress I was undergoing. It made me want to forget I had to ever face such days anytime soon. After it all ended however, I made myself go over the 4 day timeline and tried to squeeze out some good from it. Guess what? I found some.
I found that no matter how angry or frustrated I could be at how things are or turn out, there’s always some form of hikmah behind it. I could be so pissed at everyone and everything when suddenly Allah SWT starts planting little surprises here and there to cheer me up. He’d show me how things weren’t really all that bad, and would prove me wrong in all my naive presumptions of how disastrous things would turn out. It’s downright embarassing, but in a very good way.
For instance, one morning I was stomping off to an 8am class in a particularly bad mood when I came across this beautiful sunrise peeking from the clouds, as though trying to cajole me into smiling. And it did.
I met and made a new friend from the talk the Al-Aqsa Society organised, and that was another.
I began remembering the little things, like the conversations had, the jokes shared, the stories told. Nothing earth-shattering, true, but it pulled me through.
Some of the amusing snippets I remember either having, witnessing or overhearing:
From a sibling to another:
"I love you!"
"What do you want, or what did you do?"
With a friend:
"That weirdo was just staring. He was wearing a baju Melayu."
"Hot giler."
"No, not really."
"Oh come on. Its a general rule that guys who wear baju Melayu will look good no matter what."
Pause. She thinks it over.
"Actually, that’s quite true. He wasn’t that bad-looking. So I guess not-so-good-looking guys will always have something to fall back on."
"Exactly. All hail the baju Melayu, Saviour of the Ugly!"
With another friend:
"I don’t get why people just don’t get that religious is hot? A guy who prays is hot!"
And probably the best one of all, which comes from my mother:
"There was this Malaysian student in America who boarded a bus. After he sat down, he noticed a rather large American man lumbering up the aisle. The man was your typical average all-American Caucasian who was finding a seat. Being a cheeky one, the Malaysian student yells out in Malay, "Wei korang semua!Jaga-jaga! Ada badak nak lalu!"
The American suddenly halts, struts up to the student red-faced and yells back, "Ko ingat aku tak paham ke?!!"
Haha.
A real winner. =)
Enough said here.
But I agree with your point absolutely–because it’s no good repressing. If you do, there’s no telling when the past is going to catch up with you. We need to feel what we need to feel when we feel–there’s never a right time. So yes. Cry, yell, scream, even in the middle of a traffic jam, just as long as that’s what you’re feeling then.
