happy new year people

to all of my friends here, may 2009 be a better year for all of us!!!

anonymous thoughts for the new year.

I Am the New Year.

I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.
I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.
All that you sought and didn’t find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it but with more determination.
All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.
All that you dreamed but didn’t dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have—these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.
I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new."

signed sealed and delivered.

i dont check my mail daily. i check it every 2-3 days. today was one of those days. a lovely stack of bills i had and...........my annulment papers from the imam complete with all required signatures. the only thing missing is my own signature.

i opened it with trembling fingers and peeked inside though i knew already what it was. i read through it immediately and looked at the signatures. everything was there. everything needed to end the disaster of a marriage.

how did i feel? well, how did i feel? im not even sure really. its what i wanted, what i waited for, those papers. but now that they were actually in my hands a myriad of emotions swept over me. confusion, fear, elation, hope, disappointment, sadness, happiness. did i leave out anything?

i called Elji first and told him the papers were here . my oldest daughter, britt, was with me. i asked her if i should sign them and she said its up to me. i said what would you do if you were in my shoes. she said, "i would sign them".

maybe you think im weak and maybe i am. but its such a confusing, treacherous decision to make - to divorce or not. i just needed some reinforcement. i needed the troops. the cavalry to march in and assist me.

i sat thinking with the papers in my hand when in a sudden gush of memory, i remembered back to the day before we married. when we were in our flat in egypt and that phone call came to him on his cell phone. he was speaking in english. i said something to him and he excitedly signaled for me to hush - which i did. he walked away to another bedroom in the flat and talked for about 15 minutes. when he finished, i asked who had called that he was speaking in english to since all of his phone conversations were in arabic. he mentioned her name and said it was his uncles italian wife. i wish i could actually mention her name here because it is a name that would come to haunt me for the duration of our years together but i wont. your uncle's italian wife? why the english, you speak alot of italian. what was she calling for? the age old answer (i have learned over time that "she is studying islam and thinking of becoming a muslim" has led to many co wife situations) was that she was studying islam and needed some answers. ok so, your muslim uncle that she lives with cant answer these questions? and why did i have to be quiet. he gave some lame excuse of how she would spread gossip about us to the rest of the family. WTH? gossip about us? but i know your family. and what gossip could she spread? that your soon to be wife was in egypt? and we were in the flat? why does she give a flip. at the time i had a lot of questions about this "uncles italian wife". i even asked his sister about her with my husband doing the translation...mistake #1. he probably told her i was asking for some recipe.

oh yes, my husband does have several family members in italy and indeed they do have wives, but, as you may have already guessed, this caller was not one of them. she was the woman in seattle, placing a call from the states to my betrothed. god i was an naive. no no, lets change that to a bloody idiot.

why did my mind go back to that point in time? whats the significance of that day and the papers in my hand? that day was the beginning of a hell that i wasnt even aware of. that day was the first of many that she wormed her way into my life. that day should have been a real eye opener for me....had i been more observant. had i been more keen. that day i should have said " HELL no i wont marry you!!!" i wish now i had listened to that conversation, paid attention to what was said and how things were said. but i didnt because i trusted him. thought he was a great guy. when i think of it now, i want to kick my own arse!! me.. he told me to be quiet instead of not accepting her call. how very telling isnt it. in my mind, that day surpasses every crappy thing he did to me during our marriage.

had i paid attention that day i wouldnt be holding divorce papers today. i could have saved myself a world of trouble.

my husband called soon after that and i told him the papers are here. he was very quiet. he again said im too hasty and why am i doing that, etc blah etc blah. you know, i reminded him of this day when he told me to be quiet so she wouldnt hear me. and what a liar he has always been. he couldnt say anything. he asked, "wasnt there any good point to our marriage?" yes, yes there were great moments. honest there were. as a matter of fact, prior to the day you left? we were actually having the time of our lives!!! we were having fun, we had money to spare. we laughed alot. we traveled. went to dinner. cooked huge meals together in our kitchen. we had just celebrated our anniversary a few days earlier and you took me on a huge shopping spree!!! but what did any of it mean? you were plotting to return to "the other woman" on april first, no matter what was going on between us. he left me in despair and financial ruin. he left his job which in turn lost the insurance. just a mess.

those great times, the memories that we had in egypt and here are what make it hard to sign the papers. but apparently im the only one that had the genuine concern and interest in our welfare. and for that? i will sign the papers. for the despair and financial ruin? i will sign the papers. for the infidelity and heartbreak? i will sign the papers. and lastly the disappearance of love and lack of respect for him? i will sign the papers.

even before the ink dries..........i am a single woman again.

and i never thought that would be.

ive crashed.

ive crashed, burned, folded, sunk.

im tearing up at the slightest thing. everything is depressing me and i fear that im falling into a pit that will envelope me.

my whole life has changed over the last year and nothing is right. i dont pity myself....i just keep trudging.

but i seem to live in silence. im wrapped up in a human that is jana. i hear her talking to people, i hear her laughing, i hear her talking to her children.

but thats the "outside" jana. she's an actress.

im the "inside" jana. the frail one, the one who is struggling.

im like the accountant huddled at his desk with one tiny light, struggling late in the night to get the numbers right and cant stop til its all resolved.

thing is, i cant seem to get it resolved and lately, i've not a soul to talk to about anything. i dont trust people with my most intimate details. Elji yeah, but he is away at his parents home and we dont talk as we usually do while he is there.

when the final draft of my islamic divorce arrive, it takes one signature to end that part of my life that was my marriage.

its the icing on the cake....the cherry on top for all that has happened in 2008.

and i suck. i feel like walking off the face of the earth.

its what ive waited for...so why am i scared?

this post will be short. and as i talk too much as it is, that will be a miracle in itself.


my islamic divorce papers came in my email today for printing.


thats what ive been waiting for, so why now am i scared as heck?

anyone?

is that the light at the end of the tunnel....or just a really shiny roadblock?

divorce.

is not easy.

well, its easier when the party youre divorcing is across the country and you dont have to be around them.

divorce in islam.

is not easy.

no matter where the party youre divorcing is located.

so, yes ill have a civil divorce too but its necessary for me to have an islamic divorce also since we married under sharia law. sharia are the laws that muslims abide by that were derived from the Qur'an and teachings of the prophet, Mohamed, pbuh. so...we married under sharia law, we will divorce under sharia law.

it sounds simple. go to the imam (religious leader of the mosque), present your case, the papers drafted, divorce granted.

ROADBLOCK #1

not so simple....most imams are male oriented (lol not to mention they are ALL males). i was often told to "work on your marriage"even though there was no marriage left to work on. i would give the details of the downfall and still be told that God doesnt like divorce and to seek counseling.

ok one would say just go to a court of law and get a divorce and forget the imam. well..i cant do that. i have to free myself both ways. i take the laws of islam seriously as does my husband. if i dont divorce him islamically then he can still come back into our home anytime he feels like it and re stake his claim to me. and thats the last thing i want to happen. not after all the crap he's done to me.

anyway, the imam im working with now has listened to my plea and is drafting the divorce papers for me. ill actually be receiving an anulment since my husband totally disregarded our marriage contract and abandoned me for another (though he denies it to this day).

ROADBLOCK #2

my husband himself. he knew for a while that i was seeking divorce though he didnt know that i was having a hard time finding an imam to take my case seriously.

let me explain something as briefly as i can. there are 3 types of divorce in islam.

1. talaq...which is divorce that is intiated by the man only.

2. khula...which is divorce initiated by the woman but still needs to be agreed upon by the man.

3. faskh....which is an anulment initiated by the woman on grounds of abuse, abandonment, unislamic behaviour, infidelity, etc etc.

my husband never would offer me talaq though i asked for it many times. khula? he would still have to agree at the end of the day and he still would never do that. i had no idea about faskh. i think very few women know about faskh. in the male dominated world of islam, they dont WANT us to know about faskh. they dont want us to know that if our marriage is complete crap that we CAN walk away without having to wait for the husband to agree.

anyway, once my husband realized , yesterday, that i had discovered faskh, he nearly fell apart. he knew i could have my divorce. til that moment, he was sure he could stroll back in at whim. he cried, he begged, he said he misses me and our daughter. please be patient and kind with him. please..please..please.

i reminded him that he wasnt patient or kind with me when i cried when he left me and that i never wanted to share a life with him again after all of this misery.

he spoke to our daughter and started asking her if she wanted to live with him. that it was snowing and that they could build a snowman and that he was alone and had no one to play in the snow with him, etc etc etc,. now i would never discourage the relationship between those two. of course i wouldnt. i dont even talk badly about him to my daughter. but i didnt appreciate the guilt trip he was putting on her because then she was sad and said she needed to go live with her father because he is alone now.

he said he was trying so hard to get home. get home? after 9 months, NOW youre trying because you know i want to divorce? no , he knew i wanted a divorce but now he realized that i knew about faskh. that it was within my hands to obtain it without him being involved.

his cell phone battery died, but i spent the better part of the day thinking and feeling guilty. i started to question myself..am i being hasty? am i doing the right thing? am i doing all of this for the right reasons? am i making him miserable and alone?

his roadblock made of guilt trips seemed to be working. it slowed me down.

i spent the better part of the deep night talking to elji about all of this. he is so understanding and patient. he could have gotten irritated and felt threatened because i let my husband make me feel guilty. but no. he never gets irritated with me. i dont even think i deserve that patience sometimes. i irritate myself.

i dont like to make anyone feel bad. this is just part of my fiber. but i have to remind myself of all my husband has done since we married and probably before we married also. he created this entire situation by himself.

i just need strength. no one else can do this for me. Allah and me.

but prayers are accepted anytime!!

update

my sister lives approx 400 miles from her daughter and she had to take that agonizing trip by car with her husband. her son was trailing with his new wife behind her in his car.

im sure that was the longest trip she ever made in her life.

she was approximately 45 minutes from the hospital when she received the call.

"you need to get here in a hurry"

i was on the phone with her. i was working at the time. she sounded so tiny. frail.

she got there and saw her daughter on the vent.

there was nothing left.

she had talked to jessica the day before and jessica had just gotten home from having her brows and legs waxed.

susan looked at all of this. her brows were perfect. legs beautiful.

they were waiting now for the transplant team to harvest her organs.

i told her to go back in and sit with her. hold her hand and talk to her until the last minute.

jessica's dad couldnt get there in time. so susan put the phone to her ear so he could tell his daughter goodbye.

how do you do that. tell your child goodbye. and how does it feel to have to say goodbye over the phone.

anyway, the transplant team came. they turned off the ventilator.

and that was it. instantly her body ceased to function.

her husband is past devastation. her little girls are clueless. susan is heart broken.

i wish there was something i could do for susan.

jessica wants to be cremated and her wishes will be met.

i just cant write anymore about it.

my sisters red haired daughter

my sister...susan. her daughter is dying today.

her raven haired, blue eyed child.

jessica.

what a beauty she is.

she is married to a handsome guy.

together they made two absolutely beautiful children. one is 6 the other 2.

this past year, jessica had a couple of seizures. so antiepileptic meds were added on top of her other meds.

while she and her family slept last night, she suffered cardiac arrest as a result of side effects from the meds.

they performed cpr on her twice between the house and the hospital and revived her enough to put her on life support in ICU.

but she was already dead really. nonresponsive. pupils nonreactive.no gag relex.

at this particular moment...she is still alive. but artificially. the life support machines keeping her alive until the transplant team arrives to remove her organs. i wonder how many people will live because jessica will die.

my sister. ive talked to her many times today. there is no word to describe a mothers grief and agony when she is losing a child. she said she wants to take her baby home.

i wish i could take my sister home...back to the days when we were children and had no cares.

im sorry susan.

what is that nagging me?

oh yeah....that picture i found of my husband with another woman draped possessively around him. darned near forgot it.

lets go back a few hours shall we to last night.

i was bored...and i do mean bored. i did something i havent done in years!!! i went to yahoo chat. i went to one of the islam rooms, but as soon as i got there i remembered how dreadful it is. i opened more windows and started doing other things but soon got a ding! that i had gotten email. i went to see what it was. spam.

but something started nagging me. out of the blue, an email account that my husband and i opened together sprang to mind. my husband had told me about 3 months ago to go and look at that email for some insurance information that was in there but i never did.

but something kept telling me to sign in to that account....so i did.

at first glance it looked okay.

i clicked on the "sent" box and what to my wondering eyes did appear? no not the miniature sleigh or the eight tiny reindeer.

there were pictures...pictures of my husband that he had emailed home. innocent pictures but i started to shake. that nagging sensation turned into a feeling of dread as i clicked on each one.

finally they opened.. a few pictures of him and an asian hijabi chick. arms loaded with gold bangles and rings.

you know that moment when you discover something that you suspected all along slaps you in the face....ohhh im sorry, did i say slaps in the face? i meant SLUGS you in the gut. the two minutes i was frozen felt like a month.

there it was...in all of its glory. my husband whom i really did adore at one time posing with the "other woman"....more than likely a second wife.

but hey!! lets flip that coin. i could be the second wife. who the hell knows?

ohh how this lady had tortured and harrassed me throughout the past few years. sending emails to me, writing fake emails from my husband, hacking into our accounts, trying to hack into our cell phone account.

you know i called my husbands cell phone immediately....no answer. no answer. no answer. no answer.

so in the meanwhile, i changed the passwords and personal information so that he couldnt change it back and forwarded the pics of the lovely couple to my main account....just in case you know.

this will provide as lovely evidence in my request for khula amongst a few other tidbits i have. the part that disturbs me the most is that he was sending them to my sister in law whom i love dearly who claimed to know nothing of this whole affair. such disappointment. she still may be innocent in all of this though.

he did call this morning. i very calmly told him that he can tell the lovely woman that she can reimburse me for the visa/immigration fees or else he can be deported and they can start from scratch...and if all else fails? she can go to egypt with him.

im freaking struggling financially and she's dripping in gold?

dude thats awesome.


then to make matters worse, Elji (whom i would ordinarily have turned to at this moment) is away and i havent a way to reach him nor have i heard from him....eid with the folks you know.

then lets top all of that with a big dollop of "blast from the past" AGAIN. the one that made me nearly have nervous breakdown in october. ohhh yeah. nice little msg awaiting me from him. but you know what? i just talked. i needed someone to talk to so i talked to him. and it actually chilled me alot.

oh yes indeed...eid mubarak!!! alhamdulillah. and i mean that.

cause you know what? ive decided that i have sacrificed my sanity for others way too much. for others to feel comfortable. im about to wash my hands of anyone that gives me bad vibes. if it doesnt feel good? out you go. i know its Eid al Adha....festival of sacrifice, but im not giving myself away anymore.

salam

Eid mubarak!!

eid al adha. its one of the two holidays of islam. i dont think its as well known (for non muslims) as ramadan and eid al fitr but its equally as important. the origins of eid al adha are from a very familiar story. the story of a prophet. the prophet who has formed the three major religions...Ibrahim (abraham), pbuh. remember the story? remember how ibrahim's faith was tested over and over but the final test was that of sacrifice. God ordered Ibrahim to sacrifice his own son for the sake of Allah and Ibrahim agreed to do it. just as ibrahim was about to kill his son, God ordered him to stop. he had proven his love for Allah. this sacrifice is what is remembered during eid al adha but of course we dont sacrifice our children, we offer a sacrifice or a lamb or goat instead. we keep a portion of that meat for ourselves but we sacrifice most of it to others who are in need. we also thank Allah for what we have and make our own personal sacrifices to show God that we love Him.

EID MUBARAK FRIENDS!!

flapping gums

what do you do when you tell someone something so secret. perhaps youve never even told anyone at all, and as soon as you tell it....you regret it. you want to turn back time. you wish you had just zipped your lip.



what do you do?



especially if what you divulge can change how the other person thinks of you?

Am I it?

i know im not the only one that is feeling alone.

i know im not....where are the rest of you people?

the holidays are making it even worse.

i think of my life a year ago and it was bustling and i was content. holidays were totally fantastic!

this year, i wasnt looking forward to thanksgiving because i didnt think it would go well and it was okay at best.

eid al adha is in a few days. its a muslim holiday. the festival of sacrifice.

then christmas.

3 festive times and ive succeeded in making myself feel more alone somehow. i know alot of people feel alone during holidays but ive just not really been there myself.

i think seeing families together, husbands and wives out shopping makes me feel this way. my new "semi-impoverished" lifestyle makes me feel this way. im robbing peter to pay paul.

the holiday im dreading the most is eid al adha because i have no other muslim around me to even have a meal with except kylee and of course i do what i can for her. i dont even SEE any muslims around me doing anything that would even suggest there is a holiday. they are all in their homes and with other muslim families.

who knows what my husband is doing....i dont care.

again, not feeling self pity. as hard as it is to admit...i am just lonely.