Highlander & 2009

2009 was a very special year to me despite the Eid Al Adha fiasco which we will revisit soon but not today…

Last year witnessed some major changes on a personal scale, for the first time in decades New Year resolutions formulated at the start of the year have been fulfilled and are ongoing.


How many of you have stuck to your new year resolutions?

Out of five resolutions, I have undertaken four and have started planning the fifth. I succeeded in three and though the fourth was a failure, I count it as successful also because I broke the ice and did it. This means there is nothing to stop me trying again now. Number 5 is the path to the spirit …

I think that’s why regardless of the bad moments I still feel great and elated. Yes I do…. I am fitter and healthier than I have been for a long time.

2009 began sadly with the loss of our wonderful cat ; but shortly after I’ve met with my best friend in London and we enjoyed every minute; a visit that will be forever engraved in my memory. I met another great friend in Libya and it was such fun seeing him again.

This is the year were more friendships were hatched but others were lost, but this is the first time I no longer feel sad about lost friends because if they were friends they would not be gone. In fact what brought it home was a status message on Facebook “ I have trimmed my list of friends today” and one comment said “ I guess I made it”, well I made it too obviously because I was reading the message and the comments but it opened my eyes that I needed to do a major inventory in my own life. My address book was overflowing and sometimes I could no longer put a face to a name. So there has been an overhaul in that area too, and you know what ? It did not hurt one bit !!!! guess it gets easier with age or is it with maturity?

Did you revise your friendship database ?

This is the year I bought my own house, I don’t live in it but it’s still mine !

How many of you own your own house without being in debt?

I visited unexplored lands and revisited some old favourites.

Did you travel in 2009 and where ?

This is the year Highlander has stopped being starry eyed at work and is now very much office politics savvy. There is no stopping me and the sky’s the limit….

What are your feelings about your job ?

2009 brought a lot of blessings, parents and siblings and nieces and nephews are good despite a close call at a certain period. Hamdillah I am satisfied and grateful!

The year literally ended beautifully! Though the ONE is not yet here, it came as a surprise to be asked in marriage by someone who was born when I was in high school.

Did I accept the offer? Read on to find out .. He is Libyan, young, handsome, smart and has a good job, he has a house and a farm (Libyans will know what I mean), and his mum actually likes me. No he does not speak English and I never met him before but apparently he has been watching me and following me for a couple of months and he just thought I was full life and so cute (his words!). Then he spoke to a common friend of the family who told my mum. My mum told me and I agreed to see him. Then his mother made the first visit to us at home. The second visit he came with her and the common family friend to speak with me. He did not believe me when I told him my age, yet decided to still go ahead with the proposal. For a Libyan man this is surprising but also flattering to me. Because knowing Libyan guys they always go for the youthful pretty face. Even a 25 year old would want his wife to be a minimum of 5 years younger, while guys in their 40s were marrying girls straight from high school. The only exception would be if she was rich and loved him then it would be a marriage of convenience for him.

But I told him, I don’t think it’s a good idea, maybe your immediate family won’t mind but the society would not leave you alone. He told me the Prophet PBUH married Lady Khadija and she was way older than him? Yes that’s true but I would not want something that started so sweetly to end as another statistic. You like me now and think I would probably be a great wife for you. But at some point I will grow old and will stop looking like this and you will still be young. Also we do not share the same interest that would bond us, our pasts are different, I could relate to your things, but you will not be able to relate to mine. Everything is kismet and nasseeb and yours and mine will come someday!

Do you feel and act your ‘supposed’ age?

My friends of course think I blew a good catch, but I don’t think so, you know why?

My ego was over the moon, it meant that right now I looked as I did back in high school, I know that’s narcissist but I would indeed be a hypocrite if I did not say I enjoyed the attention. It was also lovely that he still wanted me after knowing my real biological earth age.

That was God’s masterstroke, a grand finale to an interesting year. God has indeed mysterious ways but he sure knows how to get his message across!
His message was beautiful and full of mercy. It has shown me that if I had for any moment lost confidence in anything, He was watching out for me. I realised that what I thought were wrongs were merely thorns that prickled because I allowed them. What do you do with thorns, you remove them and throw them away and that was that. The little graze is not even worth a second look !

Welcome 2010! This is the year where I hope to visit God’s House, this is the year where I don’t have any resolutions because I have achieved them all. As for wishes we all have them but I won’t tell you mine those are secret and only the Most Merciful knows them.

Happy New Year
Love
Highlander