2019: Year Of Epiphanies

When I was a kid, we used to sing this song called "Wawasan 2020". Part of the lyric that still replays in my head whenever I think of the upcoming year goes like this;

Wawasan 2020

Satu pandangan jauh

Bukan impian malah kenyataan

Bersama kita jayakan.

It's now a few more days to the, probably, most anticipated year of the past three decades for Malaysians especially as many of us probably grew up singing this song every week during school assembly or what we like to call 'perhimpunan', or if we didn't sing it during perhimpunan, we probably heard it quite often on TV1 and TV2.

*I can't help but remember the Doraemon show that played on one of these channels every night at 7pm* 

The year 2020 has so much in store for all of us (I hope), but today what I'd like to do is to share my lessons learned from the events that have occurred in my life from the start of this year and well, try to summarise it in not too long a word (mind you, I have a penchant for writing really long posts).

2019 has been the most challenging year for me. I lost hope, I found hope. I started the year as a married woman, ended it as a divorcee; started it feeling hopeless, ended it feeling grateful; started the year with no clear aim of where I was headed, ended it with an objective I know I have to achieve.

I am Shaza. A woman who is a mother, daughter, sister, and friend. These titles bestowed upon me bring so much meaning to my life. I am alive and happy despite the adversity, animosity, and obstacles I've faced. 

This year I lost two grandmothers within the span of a few months. I cried a bit, yes. But the thing that befuddled me was how empty I felt during those times. It's like I lost the ability to feel deeply and it scared me. I was mentally repressing how I felt and was instead telling, no, instructing myself (for the lack of a better word), to react accordingly. I didn't want to get hurt anymore and I didn't want to feel hurt anymore. 

This and all the other things that were concurrently happening in my life at the same time woke me on many mornings and I would curl myself into a fetus position and cry silently. I knew I had to get out of this unhealthy and unbecoming routine that was soon to make me a very miserable person if I didn't let it out and let it go. 

Letting go; this is actually by far the most difficult thing I've had to do in my life. Letting go of all the things/people that hurt me. Letting go of words unspoken but that echoed through the halls of my mind. Letting go of the haunting things that could be and would be for those if-only regrets in my life.

I let it all go and I opened myself up to feel, and for the first time in so many years, I started feeling the things that I would normally shut out. I found meaning beyond my existence. I still don't know my purpose here in this world but I'll work with what I have now in front of me. My children, my writing, my ambition - this should be enough to keep me busy for many years to come.

I was always afraid of going through life alone without a partner by my side but now that I am, alone per se, I find that I'm not really alone after all. I have children who will always be apart of every decision that I make. I have sisters who act like archangels that descend upon me to lift me up when I'm in a rough patch. I have a father who would sit down and talk to me about my crazy ideas and who would imbue that craziness with more craziness. I was just talking to my dad about the book I'm writing and he gave me all sorts of insights. It struck me then that my old man has always been the one person who encouraged me to grow my imagination without any sort of boundaries. My mother, the one who keeps me grounded and who has always been there to hold my hand during my darkest hours (which includes being in the labour room when I was giving birth to my eldest child...we actually got high on Entonox together. Haha.).

My 2019 experience has also taught me a valuable lesson about loving unselfishly. I realise that I can love someone from far. I can be happy just seeing and knowing that he's doing well and happy. Even if it hurts at first, I learned that love is not something you can force anyone to feel. It just happens and sometimes, it's reciprocated and sometimes, it's not. So my new motto when it comes to love is if it's meant to be, then it will be. One day, or another, if it's supposed to happen then it will happen, and you'll always find your way back to each other even when you try to push it away. From my previous marriage, I can safely assume that forcing things will never work.

That about sums up my lessons of the year. I wish all of you a very happy new year, no matter how and in whatever form that happiness may come, I wish you all happiness. At the end of the day, that's everything that we want from life, no? To be simply happy. 

Still The Most Stubborn Woman Who Is Simply Happy,

SFK