When I was young girl I use to want the normal things girls want, dolls, dresses, colour pens and a loving home. Apart from my traumatizing childhood I would say I wanted only very normal things sometimes even I wanted to just run away.
Becoming older I realised how much wants faded from my mind, I was living on the streets at 12 upward to 14. I slept in the rain and cold on the floor at soccer stadiums, I ate from the rubbish bins and washed in the train station toilets.
I remember at night I would watch all the people returning from work walking through the train station gates I would see my mother pass through sometimes looking at her phone as her high heels clanked on the floor she would scurry through without even noticing me. After the last train would depart, the station would become quite and night time has truly set in to what would feel like an eternity until the morning.
I would walk to the place I had chose to sleep and lay there watching the lights of high-rise apartments as they slowly turned off one after another. I would lay there thinking how those people are getting into a nice, warm, clean bed. I would think about what they ate or what they watched on tv until I would fall asleep.
Many people asked me what it was like to be so young and rejected by my family, what I thought about and how I felt. To be honest I never really felt sadness after my mother had truly gotten rid of me I cried, felt rejected and abandoned but then I realised I had to be strong and survive. I was hurt by my mothers rejection of me and lack of consideration but I don’t recall ever being in a state of wanting anythingn not even to return to that disfunctional emotionally abusive home of hers.
Fast forward to when I was 17 and a single mother of a young girl I was homeless once again sleeping in my car I was so scared the government would find out and take my little girl away. My mother had threatened to call child services on me as a retaliation on me during an argument so I kept my struggles to myself once again but this time my mind only felt concern for my little girl. I knew what I needed to do and focused on getting it done to put a roof over our heads.
Weeks pass and we secure a place to stay of our own once again, I had no furniture and no food sometimes for days. I would remain hungry until dizziness would set in and tingling of my body as I had to ensure my little girl was able to eat. strangely enough I never recall wanting anything, I mean truly wanting anything. I saw my daughters bright eyes and giggles as she would play dancing around or running in the park grabbing at my hands to run with her. Happiness was truly there from the heart without dependancy on any object.
I would walk past restaurants and families, I would see how others lived and spent money yet I wasn’t concerned by any of this, I was content to be struggling with my little girl and with what Allah had given me.
Now I’m very much a grown woman, I have seen life in many countries and cities I have lived in a war-torn country, a broken society and even resided with elites and royals but I have never been in a state of wanting until recently I realised that I wanted things that are out of reach. why was it when I could have wanted the basic things and even luxuries in life I had no desire for them or anything else not even a thought of why me.
Why does a person start to want? what happened that made me want something so far-fetched and away from me that it consumes my mind knowing I can’t and wont ever have it but yet I insist to think about it.
Once you cave in on yourself not just once but maybe twice or more, who knows maybe once is enough and maybe you didn’t even realise until it’s too late that you destroyed your own natural ability and have now a struggle ahead of you for months, years or an eternity of wanting that causes a longing that wont ever be met.
Maybe its a punishment that is decreed, maybe its just something I must pass to be purified from my sins, maybe I will see the result of this on Yawmil Qiyamah, maybe I will awaken myself and move forward from this wanting and be able to return to my former state of contentment and be free of a long, longing that has no end or comfort but a burning pain and destructive touch.
Ajnabiyah 