When ma goes away for a few days, the rest of the family starts living like housemates. Everyone is free to have their own plans, eat and drink whatever they want, keep things as messy or as clean as they'd like - we don't really care all that much. I suppose its awesome when its only for two days. But if we have to live like this for months, I don't think we'd survive. Ma keeps this family glued together.
I remember this time last year - I was knee deep in other people's dramas. Its funny - the dramas have all left my life right now, or maybe those people left? Or maybe I left? I'm not quite sure, but I am definitely quite far from drama nowadays. A few days later from today last year, I would have crashed my parents' car. At that time, we had two cars in our family of seven working adults. One of the cars were mostly used by ma and baba. So, I, along with the other kids of the family, drove the other car. I drove it for about 3 weeks after getting my red Ps. In those three weeks - I drove it to work at night with the radio playing high, exercised road rage, missed collisions by inches, remained lazy (driving to work meant that it cut down my travel time to about 15 mins instead of 45 mins, but I can't remember a day that I used that extra half an hour productively).
The night that I crashed the car - I was listening to the radio - Brokenhearted by Karmin was playing. It was either raining, or the road was wet from the rain from before. I was on my way back from tutoring a year 12 student. She was a new student, so I didn't know my way back from her house completely. I crossed the road, got inside the car, turned it on, turned the volume up, began driving, reached for my phone and started setting the GPS. I turned around at the end of the very short road, looked down at my GPS- and then it happened. My face was on the wheel, the music stopped and I had that tight feeling inside me. All I wanted to do was to back out and drive away. It never occurred to my arrogant self that I could possibly crash that badly. I got out of the car feeling very lost. People from the houses nearby came out. I can't remember whether I called my dad or he called me - or was it my brother? But I remember not wanting to call my mother and tell her about it, ever. I crashed it into a tree in front of an old couple's house. They came out and asked me what happened. The man called me a 'stupid girl' (very rightly so!), the woman gave me a glass of water, I realised my nose was bleeding. The woman dropped me home. I was feeling shaken, embarrassed, stupid and very, very regretful. I don't think I've ever felt that much regret in my life.
My parents took me to the hospital in the middle of the night. Nothing happened alhamdulillah, but something could have definitely happened. I didn't even take a good look at the car, but my student later told me about its condition. I was also told that the battery could have blown up, because the engine was squashed by the tree - I could have died. The next day, I tried to arrange for the car to be picked up by a car dealer my dad knows. The day after, the police came knocking on my door. They told me that someone called up and reported about the car, charged me for wreckless driving and told me that if I don't get it picked up soon, the police will do so. I kept chasing up the guy we know, but he didn't end up doing his job on time, so I got charged double by the police. Another stab of regret.
I think this happened after my first exam. I still had three left. I couldn't study, I felt numb, guilty. I didn't know how to make it up to my family. My grandma was here at that time, and Z was born a week or two before the crash. B was supposed to take the car with him a few weeks after that, because he moved out a few weeks before - moved out for the first time. I didn't really tell any of my friends about the crash in so much detail, because I hadn't yet processed it in my mind. I did not attempt one of the exams, and scraped past the other two. I kind of stopped caring about university at that point - my friends were going through horrible changes, I had to somehow pay off everything to do with the car, work was getting bad, my sleeping was all over the place, I got physically sick, and nanu was still over at our place - so I still needed to make sure I smiled. I know people who have gone through much worse, so, alhamdulillah that that was one of the lowest points in my life.
I quit ABA therapy a few months after that. The progress of the kids plateaued and I had no idea how to fix it. I wasn't sure if I was doing everything right and I constantly felt like the parents were wasting their money by paying me. All the money that I had saved had gone behind the car. I had to start over. I can't remember much of university from my second semester, except for psychopathology classes. I started the semester by caring about things, and ended it by giving up. I began to avoid the people I used to do group studying with, because I never did much of my part. That was the time that I went through a lot of changes about my world view as well. I did a lot of thinking about my thinking and changed the way I thought. That happens all throughout your life, and I record mine in this blog, yes, but, during that time, big changes were quite condensed into a few months or so.
So, what have I learnt by reminiscing?
- To be more forgiving and merciful to others. I don't know what they are going through, I can try to understand, but I can never fully put myself in their shoes. I have made several wrong decisions during those months, but I needed to sort through them myself. Being judged by someone else would have never helped.
- To remember that I can die at any time, but Allah has given me a chance, and is still giving me that chance. I will get that second chance till my last breath. But I don't know when my last breath will come. I need to plan for the future and work on the present.
- To stop going hard and soft on myself and just stick to neutrality. If I make a mistake, I need to come up with a strategy to bounce back and move forward. Balance.
- To stop wasting my life by complaining, watching stupid TV shows or feeling sorry for myself.
- Life is too short to care about what I think what other people are thinking. But life can possibly be too long to take spontaneous decisions that will affect me/someone else negatively for a very long time.
I remember this time last year - I was knee deep in other people's dramas. Its funny - the dramas have all left my life right now, or maybe those people left? Or maybe I left? I'm not quite sure, but I am definitely quite far from drama nowadays. A few days later from today last year, I would have crashed my parents' car. At that time, we had two cars in our family of seven working adults. One of the cars were mostly used by ma and baba. So, I, along with the other kids of the family, drove the other car. I drove it for about 3 weeks after getting my red Ps. In those three weeks - I drove it to work at night with the radio playing high, exercised road rage, missed collisions by inches, remained lazy (driving to work meant that it cut down my travel time to about 15 mins instead of 45 mins, but I can't remember a day that I used that extra half an hour productively).
The night that I crashed the car - I was listening to the radio - Brokenhearted by Karmin was playing. It was either raining, or the road was wet from the rain from before. I was on my way back from tutoring a year 12 student. She was a new student, so I didn't know my way back from her house completely. I crossed the road, got inside the car, turned it on, turned the volume up, began driving, reached for my phone and started setting the GPS. I turned around at the end of the very short road, looked down at my GPS- and then it happened. My face was on the wheel, the music stopped and I had that tight feeling inside me. All I wanted to do was to back out and drive away. It never occurred to my arrogant self that I could possibly crash that badly. I got out of the car feeling very lost. People from the houses nearby came out. I can't remember whether I called my dad or he called me - or was it my brother? But I remember not wanting to call my mother and tell her about it, ever. I crashed it into a tree in front of an old couple's house. They came out and asked me what happened. The man called me a 'stupid girl' (very rightly so!), the woman gave me a glass of water, I realised my nose was bleeding. The woman dropped me home. I was feeling shaken, embarrassed, stupid and very, very regretful. I don't think I've ever felt that much regret in my life.
My parents took me to the hospital in the middle of the night. Nothing happened alhamdulillah, but something could have definitely happened. I didn't even take a good look at the car, but my student later told me about its condition. I was also told that the battery could have blown up, because the engine was squashed by the tree - I could have died. The next day, I tried to arrange for the car to be picked up by a car dealer my dad knows. The day after, the police came knocking on my door. They told me that someone called up and reported about the car, charged me for wreckless driving and told me that if I don't get it picked up soon, the police will do so. I kept chasing up the guy we know, but he didn't end up doing his job on time, so I got charged double by the police. Another stab of regret.
I think this happened after my first exam. I still had three left. I couldn't study, I felt numb, guilty. I didn't know how to make it up to my family. My grandma was here at that time, and Z was born a week or two before the crash. B was supposed to take the car with him a few weeks after that, because he moved out a few weeks before - moved out for the first time. I didn't really tell any of my friends about the crash in so much detail, because I hadn't yet processed it in my mind. I did not attempt one of the exams, and scraped past the other two. I kind of stopped caring about university at that point - my friends were going through horrible changes, I had to somehow pay off everything to do with the car, work was getting bad, my sleeping was all over the place, I got physically sick, and nanu was still over at our place - so I still needed to make sure I smiled. I know people who have gone through much worse, so, alhamdulillah that that was one of the lowest points in my life.
I quit ABA therapy a few months after that. The progress of the kids plateaued and I had no idea how to fix it. I wasn't sure if I was doing everything right and I constantly felt like the parents were wasting their money by paying me. All the money that I had saved had gone behind the car. I had to start over. I can't remember much of university from my second semester, except for psychopathology classes. I started the semester by caring about things, and ended it by giving up. I began to avoid the people I used to do group studying with, because I never did much of my part. That was the time that I went through a lot of changes about my world view as well. I did a lot of thinking about my thinking and changed the way I thought. That happens all throughout your life, and I record mine in this blog, yes, but, during that time, big changes were quite condensed into a few months or so.
So, what have I learnt by reminiscing?
- To be more forgiving and merciful to others. I don't know what they are going through, I can try to understand, but I can never fully put myself in their shoes. I have made several wrong decisions during those months, but I needed to sort through them myself. Being judged by someone else would have never helped.
- To remember that I can die at any time, but Allah has given me a chance, and is still giving me that chance. I will get that second chance till my last breath. But I don't know when my last breath will come. I need to plan for the future and work on the present.
- To stop going hard and soft on myself and just stick to neutrality. If I make a mistake, I need to come up with a strategy to bounce back and move forward. Balance.
- To stop wasting my life by complaining, watching stupid TV shows or feeling sorry for myself.
- Life is too short to care about what I think what other people are thinking. But life can possibly be too long to take spontaneous decisions that will affect me/someone else negatively for a very long time.
high time to escape from music iA.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDelete1. <3
2. You should be a writer.
FG.