I Am HOW Old?!

This picture does not belong to me.

The Woes of Growing Older

 

I’m 25 years old.

No, wait! I’m 2-.

Umm…hold on. 88, 89…2012. Ok, yea I’m 2-.

I don’t know if this is a subconscious effort to appear young or my brain is finally giving into the sleep deprivation I’ve suffered from due to my little monkey.  Whenever someone asks my age, my go-to response has been 25, for the past two years! If I have to tell someone my real age, I actually have to think about it.

My nephews, 5 and 2 years old, start reminding people months in advance that their birthdays are coming up and how old they will be (along with a list of birthday presents they are expecting).  Whatever happened to those months of excitement leading up to our birthdays? Why do we start dreading the glorious day we were brought into this world? Is it because we dread growing old and weak? Or is it our fear of running out of time yet not having done anything worthwhile?

At every job I’ve held ever since high school, I’ve had the coincidence of being the youngest person in the office by at least 10 years. Some people didn’t care that I was young while others had issues with my age and brought up the fact that I’m “so young” at every opportunity they could find. I never understood their obsession (and yes, sometimes jealousy) because if you think about it, they were once where I am now. Nobody is born old. We all have to travel a long road to get there so why were these individuals jealous of the fact that I’m just starting out on my journey? 

The root of the issue, in my opinion, was that my being there, being their equal, and in some cases, their superior confirmed that they are now “old”. That because I was born when they were graduating college or having children meant that their time was coming to an end. Or so they thought.

I’m a firm believer that you are only as old as you think you are. What is age but a number to group us together and give us another category to compare ourselves. Instead of wasting out energy keeping up with the Kardashians, we should be focusing on keeping up with our inner self.  We should take the word “impossible” out of our vocabulary and test our limits so when we are old, and a 20 something becomes our co-worker, we won’t sulk in a corner about how young they are but rather have them gush over how “cool” we are (if cool is still cool in 30 years!).   

So here is to me embracing the fact that I am getting older and will only get older!

The Story of Quetta*

Dead Alongside the Living

Imagine yourself sitting outside, on the street, next to the dead body of your loved one. It is 29^o F, drizzling rain soaking your clothes and the cold wind chilling you to the bone.  Yet, you sit there clutching a picture of the one whose body lies in front of you.  You are not alone. You are surrounded by 80 other dead bodies and their loved ones. 

Alamdar Road. Quetta, Pakistan 

You sit there in protest for the lives that were lost. You sit and wait for someone to notice, someone to act, someone to tell you that this will not happen again. Not to you or to anyone else. You want protection for your family. You want your children to grow up in the light of the family of the Prophet of Islam. You want the freedom to cry for Imam Husain** a.s. You just want to be left alone.

Yet you sit there, third day in a row, with your dead loved one. The world notices but your government is ever silent. They want you to bury your dead and move on. But you will not move. You will not budge until you are promised that tomorrow you will not have to bury your brother, who went out for a stroll after dinner only to be caught in the blood thirsty hands of terrorists. 

You want peace. You want protection. You want life.

*Quetta is a northern city in Pakistan. On January 10, 2013, twin suicide bombings took place on the busy Alamdar Road, located in majority Shia neighborhood, killing 102 people and wounding 200 others.  The victims’ families are protesting the senseless killing and the lack of government response by a peaceful sit-in which has grown to a 100,000 participants in Quetta alone.  The families are refusing to bury the dead until their demands for protection are met. 

Following Quetta’s lead, 100 other cities in Pakistan and 10 cities outside are holding sit-in protests to show solidarity with their Quetta brothers.

**Imam Husain (a.s.) was the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.). He was martyred in Karbala, Iraq along with 72 of his companions while defending Islam.  During the first two months and 8 days of the Islamic New Year, Shias commemorate the tragedy of Karbala and grieve for the sufferings of Imam Husain (a.s.).

For more information on this and how to get involved, check out the links below:

• Join the twitter movement to protest the #ShiaGenocide.
• Protest in Downtown Chicago.
• Information on protests worldwide.
• Sign the official White House Petition to Condemn the Shia Genocide in Pakistan.
• News article about the third day of the Sit-in in Quetta.
• News article about protests in other cities.
• Google “Quetta Dharna” to read more about this event as it unfolds. (Dharna means sit-in protest in Urdu)

Mahreen

And So It Begins!

Good Bye 2012 and Welcome 2013!

Every year at this threshold, we all celebrate the closing of one chapter and the start of a new one. We all vow to do better and live harder yet we soon find ourselves standing again at this very same juncture wondering how another year slipped past us. It seems there is never enough time to do all that we hoped. We promise ourselves we will try again, next year.

Well, the next year is here. I had been planning on starting my own blog for some years now but there never seemed to be enough time. Since I just quit my (very) comfortable job to be a full-time mom, between diaper changes and scream fests, I will have enough time to keep a regular blog! 

New posts will be published weekly on topics of my choosing. As the title suggests, the blog will be about my thoughts and feelings on current events and life in general.

If you wish to keep up, please subscribe!

May the new year bring you peace, health, wealth and happiness. Amen

Mahreen