Nadiah Alwi

I agree that you can’t push someone to love another one. Love has to flow, just like that. It’s the fruit of your heart, not your mind.

But, there were times when I used my mind to create love. Weird, isn’t it? But, it worked. Using my mind, I set boundaries on how to love and who to love.

Not easy, I have to admit. But, I could.

Being married for seven years now, I am more sure that love can be created using logical thought.

Somehow, men do it, I guess. In Indonesia, people say that love comes from eyes and goes down to your eyes. What do your eyes see? Beauty. And, your mind starts to say, “Hey, she’s pretty. I like her.” So, it’s a work of mind, isn’t it?

My parents’ marriage, to be honest, was set. It was my parents’ parents who made the decision. Yet, they survive up until now. Also some people I know. It’s not that they don’t have love in their beautiful marriage. But, they started it without love. Love grew after the wedding.

I, thankfully, started my marriage with love. But, during these 7 years, I also have to recharge it again and again to survive. So, my point is, with or without love, it depends on how much you want to make it work.

And, most people depending their marriage simply on love didn’t make it. But, those depending on something else did. For example, those depending on the commitment, not only to their spouse but also to God, to Allah. And, from the way I see it, marriage is not only a commitment with another human being, but also with your creature. If it were only with another person, why don’t you just live together, there is no big difference anyway — in terms of what your heart says, if you know what I mean.

To be honest, the boundaries I talked about previously had been set by my family. At first, I felt burdened. But, after thinking about them all carefully, I understood their points. And, I didn’t want to lose them by ignoring those boundaries — yes, there were chances that I might lose them if I did. It was a win-win solution for both them and me that I decided to go with those boundaries. Thankfully, I met someone that I could fall in love with. Someone within the boundaries. I guess, to fall in love, you have to let yourself fall in love.

And, let’s just admit it, sometimes, marriage — especially  in my country, it’s not only between two persons. It takes a whole bunch of big family — although now it not as big as some years ago, which included some extended family, now mostly only your nuclear family. So, I wouldn’t be happy if I couldn’t include my family on my happiest day a.k.a wedding day. So, yes, I wanted my family, too.

Why suddenly do I talk about love and marriage? I just feel like it. Hm…ok, I admit it. I have just seen a possibility that someone I know might be ignoring boundaries set by his/her family. She/he looks happy. But, I was wondering how her/his parents would react if they knew it.

I know, it’s none of my business. That’s why I didn’t say a thing to either of them and decided to just let go of my agony on that matter here, at my own blog a.k.a home.

Normally, writing would heal. Let’s see if this one does.

Totally missing it. Blogging.

I used to blog to let go of my tense. And, now, I am tensed. So, I blog.

What to write? Honestly, I still don’t know. Have some ideas in mind but none of them seems to be good enough. And, to be honest, that’s why I don’t blog much these days — plus, of course, the facebook thing, you know…

So, now, I want to go back to my blogging life. Here and the other blogs I have. Now, at least, I have like 4 of them — my daughter has 3, so…my having 4 blogs is nothing compared to hers.

Blogging — or writing — is a part of me I can never get rid of  — bcoz, of course, I don’t want to and I love it. Every time I write, I feel this certain feeling which is both fulfilling and relieving. It’s like I fly to the moon doing it — it’s too much, isn’t it?

Mostly, I write fiction. I even blog some of my fiction work. Yet, I actually love both, fiction and non-fiction. However, I am a bit picky when it comes to non-fiction — both while writing and reading it.

By the way, I love reading, too. As much as I love books. I guess, I love books more than reading ‘coz I have so many books, yet about 2 out of 5 of them are still on the waiting list. I just don’t have enough time to read them all.

I used to have an online book store — it still exists now, I just don’t have time to take care of it the proper way. Do you think I just sell those books there? I used to sell second hand books. It was lovely providing people with books they love. Bcoz I know exactly how they feel. I feel it, too, whenever I have new books.

Hm…seems like my talking here is not about missing my blog anymore — which is the title of this post. But, hey…it’s my blog, it’s up to me how I express myself. Plus, not many read this blog anyway. If you happen to be one of those not many people, hope you don’t mind all my brag here. If you do mind it, well…sorry — I was about to say ‘I didn’t ask you to come over, you came here on your own call,’ but then I thought about it and it wasn’t polite enough, so sorry seems to be a better choice.

Anyway, gotta go. I have a 6 years old who needs help to get ready for bed. See you on the next blogging session — if there was a you.

PS: The pic doesn’t say anything about my missing the blog, but it shows how my daughter and I love to be on the same frame.

I remember when I was little, I could imagine anything. Just like Barney always says:

Just imagine all the things that we could be / Imagine all the places we could go and see / Imagination’s fun for you and me…

I like all Barney songs. I sing them with my daughter. Too bad, they make me forget that I’m no longer a kid. Kids can imagine anything. Their imagination is limitless. While, as a big girl, my imagination has too many limitations.

Kids still have hopes on what they will find when they grow up. And, I’m a grown up, and I think I know what I won’t find now.

No regret though, simply a silly envy — so silly coz when I was little, I envied grown ups.

It hurts so bad, I would cry all day long. But, crying can’t change anything — although it does make me feel a lot better. I simply have to keep on living, forgetting it, pretending that it never existed.

When I was younger, I dared to dream. I had lots of it. And, most came true. Lucky, aren’t I?

But now, life seems to give me a chance to understand itself better. As if it wanted to say that what you went through was too easy. Let’s got to the real part.

I can’t tell how I deal with it. How I go through it all, what I learn from it all. I simply still don’t know.

It’ a process. And, it includes forgetting a dream — or at least not to think of when it will finally come true, if it will.

So, I’m letting go of this particular dream. And, maybe also other dreams. Don’t know yet.

Yet, don’t let it control you. Fight as hard as possible. Don’t just give up.

But, to be honest, somehow I wish I could control it. Stop things. Or, stop the time, just like a sitcom I used to watch when I was a teenager.

You know what, I even feel like I can’t control my own self — and I wish to control the world?!

Maybe, it’s because I was raised to always do things the right way, the way it’s supposed to be.

“You shouldn’t have done it like that. You must do this. It’s supposed to be done like this, not the way you did it. Etc.”

And, I wish I could have controled things today. Avoid something from happening, push one to do something. Yet, I couldn’t. So,  how did I fight all those? Simply by forgetting it — or try my best to forget it, to be exact.

There is no better way. If you can’t control the world, just let it be, let if flow. Then, forget it. Save your energy for something else, or to make your own self happy.