Busted. I'm not by the river of Nile right now. Although I wish I were.
The truth is, here I am, sitting in front of my lappy, alone. Farhanah got a party that she needs to attend, and Irna, ran away to asrama with her newly called BFF. Not that I'm jealous or whatsoever. Technically I'm not really alone now that we have our newly adopted daughter, Miki Minah.
She just woke up and begging me for food. Which then, forcing me to play with her. And I was like, "Miki, Ummi's trying to study here". Btw, we agreed that Farhanah is Mama, Irna is Ibu, and I can't think of any motherly title, so Ummi it is.
Miki went away, as if she understood me and it turns out that, nope, I'm not studying and writing this post instead which I have no idea what I'm going to write about at this moment.
So, here it goes for nothing.
I recently read the latest post written by a famous blogger who I used to read when I was in first or second year. I stopped reading her blog because well, reading famous blogger's posts is not really in my interest. From what I remember, she's this sempoi lady, the kind of woman who doesn't give a crap about what others think of her. She's bold & honest indeed and that's just probably why she has so many people following her blog. I, myself think she's very mature and very rational, straight forward and not an emotional blogger. *which is a rare sight in blogger's world especially if you're a lady. I'm not being sexist towards my own kind.*
The last time I checked, she's a happily married woman, a working mom with one daughter.
After a few years of me, not reading her blog, she got herself her second daughter and it turns out that she may be going through a divorce based on her latest post. I was shocked. Like literally shocked! I didn't expect her marriage life to turn out like this. I know she's not someone that I know personally, and I'm not one of her loyal followers but somehow, I didn't expect that from her.
I remember how she was so happy when she got married with a guy that she knows for quite sometime. *probably from her college years*. She acted so macho and cold as if getting married to her long time sweetheart is nothing, but obviously she can't hide her happiness & excitement. The post when she first finds out that she was pregnant and one when she's basically trying to struggle juggling things between her job & being a mom. Many times, her husband's name was mentioned in most of the posts and yeah like any other readers, I thought her life is just like any other typical woman, simple & sweet with some obstacles in between which is realistic, but still it's a happy life.
Knowing this, it just changes my whole perspective on marriage. Not that this is my first encounter. I've met & had known people who went through divorce before. I understand that when these things happened, it doesn't defines you as a person. It just that things are meant to happen and there's always reasons behind it. *I know, sounds cliche, but yet, it's a bitter truth*
Marriage is a serious matter. That one, I know, longggg time ago. Well, not that long honestly. But seriously, marriage is not like a house that you can rent and when the walls started to crack, or when the annoying neighbors bother you or worst case scenario, when the rats started to invade in, you can easily move out.
You've got to really think it through. One takes time to decide to jump into marriage *i know, i make it sounds like a suicide. But no, that's not my intention*. For some people, it takes days or month. For some, it takes yearrssss.
Me myself, I avoid this topic all the time, especially when my parents are the one who brings the subject up. It's not that I don't want to get married. Come on lah, kahwin kot. Sapa tak nak. No matter how independent you are, how introvert you are, you would want to get married eventually. Not for all, but yeah, it's applicable for most of the earth population unless you're living in a country where homosexual marriage is illegal, and yeah you're a homosexual of course, Naudzubillah.
It's not a matter of wanting or not. It's not a matter of whether you can commit your whole life with this one person or not. Though that sounds scary enough. It's about not knowing how things might turn out to be. A couple may be all lovey dovey at the beginning of the marriage, like semoga kekal sehingga jannah and all, but the marriage can't last even a decade in this life.
I'm not saying that divorce is a bad thing. Yes, but it is permissible. Although He hates this most, but it's permitted, and by that, we know that if it's something bad, Allah won't allow it. But He did, because He knows that in certain cases, divorce is necessary, in fact it might be a source of one's happiness. In cases like abusing spouses or when things just don't work out anymore no matter how hard you try and et cetera. It's not like when someone is divorced, they can't gain his/her happiness anymore. You move on. Just like when you face any other difficulties in this life.
In my opinion, marriage is like an architect building her/his own retirement house. Imagine you're an architect and you're ready to settle down. You've been saving all your lifetime salaries & savings for this. A house that you imagine would lasts forever, that you can pass from generation to generation. So you did the plan of this house for quite sometime. You go through your plan everyday. And from time to time, you always change/modify something from your plan. You think double story is more comfortable. But single story is more than enough. You want to have this kind of view, but it will take some space. You changed your mind almost every time you look at the plan. The planning itself may take months, or even years. Because you want this house to be perfect. At least perfect for you & your family. You then realised that this planning is taking too much time, so you decided that no matter what, the construction should start as soon as possible despite of all your fear of the house might not turn out like what you imagine to be a perfect house.
So you sat down, by the river of Chengkau, and think of how you are going to finalise this home's plan. As you were looking far of the horizon at the view of Gunung Datuk that you can see from the river you noticed that, you can just stick with the plans that you worked so hard all this time. You acknowledge that it's not that perfect but then that's the very best plan that you can think of. But not's the end. Because when the house is finished, and you stayed there for awhile, a few years maybe, when things started to fall apart little by little, the pipes started to worn out, the room is not enough, now that there's new addition in your family, you can always repair here and there. Modifying the house according to your need when the problems come.
You realised that you'll never have a perfect home's plan. But you can come out with the best that you can think of according to your financial situation and your need now, and be flexible near future when the house has some problems because realistically, you'll have problem sooner or later with the house. The house can't be like what it is when you first build it. It will change. By time, it will wears out by the weather & other factors. It will get tired. But when the problem come, worry not, you & your family can deal with it, because you already expect this.
However, Nauzubillah min dzallik, the house might not lasts that long. It falls apart a few years after it's finished. Maybe not because of it's weak structure or bad plan that you'd designed. It's not even your fault at all. It's something beyond your control. Like an earthquake for example. When this happen, you need to remember that it's not your fault. The house is not meant to lasts. Due to reasons that only Allah knows.
And so is marriage. You can't expect that the marriage that you're going into would be perfect. No matter how long you plan or how many books you read, or how many people that you consult, marriage is not predictable. It differs from one individual to another. When you meet the right person, you just got to prepared as best as you can *you've got to be prepared even before you met the right person*, and go through it. Now and then, problem will come, but you deal with it accordingly together. And when things didn't work out anymore no matter what you do to repair your marriage, then you just got to accept that this marriage has comes to an end. Like the ruined house, most probably it's not your fault or anyone's fault. Things happen, and Allah always has the reasons.
At the end of the day, my point is marriage is not all rainbows & butterflies & unicorns. It's a mean towards Jannah, so it won't be that easy. But it won't be so difficult too. Nak dapat tiket ke syurga kot. Tiket mesti la mahal kan.
I can coolly wrote this as if it's nothing when I really have no idea on what these things are like. Just my single premarital thought.
What I know is, I'm really not planning on marriage at this time, because no matter what I just said, I'm afraid, big time! I guess, I just need a Mr Right who can miraculously talk me into marriage with lots of istakharahs & duas of course. Yep. Maybe that's it.
K. bai.
*sambung buka buku*
Give me back my book, Miki!