The Joke About The New Year

You know that joke about how January has been a ‘trial month’ and you get to do this whole “New Year, New Me” thing properly again by February? Well, Happy New Year, guys. I’m slowly rediscovering my usual routine again after what seemed like a “pause” the entire January. I have learned some things though this year despite the ‘pause’: 1.) Moving house while taking care of young kids is crazy business, and is a surefire way to rip off pages from our calendar without mercy. 2.) It’s not exactly a good thing to put a “pause” on healthy routines just so we can focus on certain bigger life events. I recently chanced upon an article that mentioned how self-care routines need to be a constant thing. It got me thinking how Islam has covered that beautifully through our solat, for example. We’ve got five opportunities each day to just drop everything else and simply commune with Allah SWT. That’s self-care at its best. 3.) Maybe, having my kids to slow down my tidying process after moving house recently really is just a reminder to breathe in the moment, and to learn time and again that perfection lies only in Allah SWT. If we go by my ‘perfectionist’ standards, our new home is far from “ready”. But what is “ready” anyway? And is anything ever “perfect”? We’ll always want new things after reaching our own definition of “perfect”. So perhaps, instead of beating myself up over how some items don’t have their designated areas and shelves for example, I should rejoice in this moment where the sunlight touches the rattan chair that has been perfectly flawed with cat scratches. Maybe I should let the sun touch my skin, and maybe...I could write poems here.

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