This is a blip.

This is what I tell myself: this is a blip. This can’t possibly be permanent.

There is no way that my professional career is over, kaput, at the age of twenty-five. Being out of work is temporary; it must be. I’m too well-educated, too smart, too young for it to be otherwise. It can’t possibly be that studying abroad in a non-degree program, followed by six months of unemployment, will be prohibitive to my gainful employment forever. There simply is no way. This doesn’t happen now. I can’t be pigeon-holed into obscurity and idleness yet. Right?

Loneliness. This too is something I will laugh at later. The convert, especially the late one, has the special privilege of feeling out-of-place and different in every situation. I am an outsider, an unknown, a minority, a mystery, to the people I grew up with, the people with whom I have all but one thing in common. And among born Muslims, there is so much running just under the bridge of my spoken words, a whole world of experience that is unknown, a whole landscape full of my regrets, my hopes, that is simply untouchable. They talk about things they dream of, new things, pure, untouched, unknown, and I’m thinking: I miss that. Or: It’s not worth it. You think you want that, but you don’t. More trouble than it’s worth. The recollection, the extra conversation I have with myself, is sweet, it is bitter, and I’m looking around for someone who knows, and there are no knowing eyes to meet mine. Alone in a crowded room.

It takes time to enter fully into a new community, and really there is no complete knowing another person. Does my mother wish that she could introduce me to her own twenty-five-year old self? Does it fill her with melancholy that at twenty-five, she still hadn’t met my father? Is it strange that most of the people in her life then are gone from it now? I doubt these are things that plague her – and yet, I don’t really know. Perhaps this happens to everyone, and the extremities of my own experience only give me the illusion that I’m the only one. I’m not the only one with a past. I’m not the only one whose social circle has shifted completely in her twenties. So what makes me think I’m so different? That I have more extravagant stories? That makes me feel older than I actually am – like there are two generations encompassed in my life. Two lives lived. I can say things like: In my wilder days…and I don’t say it often, but the fact that I can, and it would make sense for me to, sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a grandmother. You wouldn’t believe it of me, kids, but when I was your age I used to…

And then there is my constant affliction of underachievement. My brother, who is nearly two years my junior, is fluent in a foreign tongue, is on a Fulbright scholarship, and is nearly halfway through a Master’s degree. And is happily married (may God increase their happiness!). And there is me…the family diletante and court jester, theater-dance-biology-literature-politics-Islam-journalism enthusiast [note: scholar of none of the aforementioned fields]. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll do something. I’ll accomplish something. I’ll do my father proud. These are the things I tell myself in my day-to-day incompetence. Someday. Someday soon, too. I sit and watch people, people with fields of study and cultivated interests, people who have not only chosen but taken a path, and my skin prickles a little with jealousy. Just a little. I tell myself my ship has yet to sail. It’s not that there isn’t a ship. I’m just doing extra polishing. I’m thorough. I’m preparing. I’m cocooned. In just a moment I’ll emerge as a gorgeous butterfly, and then I won’t care that anyone else did it before me…

And I am hopelessly underfaithful. This is my biggest and most pressing problem. No one is promised tomorrow. I live and pray in fear of never achieving life’s only worthwhile accomplishment: closeness to my Creator. Thankfulness for my blessings. Sincere worship. I know – in my head, I know that nothing else will matter to me in my grave. I know it, but my heart has yet to ingest and implement this knowledge. Bowing in prayer, I attempt to be aware of the fact that, God willing, come the Day of Rising, I’ll be bowing before the Magnificent, the One I have worshiped lovingly all my life. I try to imagine how real that bow will be, how deep and meaningful – how fulfilling…and the same feeling I’m imagining – of urgency, of I spent my life preparing for this, I am afraid to say, does not permeate my prayer. I hope and pray that these things will get better…I imagine myself a better person, a better daughter and friend, a better sister and aunt, a better Muslim. There’s hope for me. I’ll get there. I go about doing dishes, feeding my cat, ironing and pinning my scarves, dimly aware of the fact that saints have tread this earth, and every moment was thankfulness, nothing was petulant, that in reality, they were in love – with God. They looked at their families and the people they loved, at their homes and jobs and property, at themselves, and instead of wanting more and more, instead of being laterally in the space of love, they took it up. They upped the ante. They were aware of the blessing and its Bestower all at once. And that was enough – it was more than enough – their lives inspired real devotion. I am only scraping the surface. I am thankful, but it is far too easy for me to forget that my life was given to me. I forget that I, too, am a creation, and have no claim on my Creator. It’s as though someone has handed me the keys to a shiny new Prius for no reason at all, just because, just out of love, and I’m upset because it’s not a Jaguar. I mean, who cares? Who do I think I am? Was there ever a perfect life?

Today’s lesson (and thank God for it, too): I went out to dinner with a couple of good friends, and the hostess at the restaurant was lovely, warm and nice. But her face, which was not unattractive, was completely lopsided. One side was scarred with obvious surgery, and it looked slightly pinched – as though her features had emanated from a point by her right ear. But she was friendly and completely unafraid, and quite beautiful because of it. I marveled at her. Here I sit – how many moments have I wasted fussing over every pimple, every slight imperfection – how much time have I spent searching for things on myself that didn’t meet my approval? How much time? God forgive me for every second I didn’t praise Him for every touch of beauty He gave me. What was I thinking? What did I want? What more could I have asked for? What would have been enough? Really. Insecurity is a bottomless pit. Nothing would have satisfied me. What foolishness.

The truth is, I don’t need for anything. I’m independent and mobile and self-determining. I’m free to pursue my interests as I wish. I have youth, and health, and faith, and a working mind, literacy and bookshelves of books, and more love and admiration for my friends than I could hope for. My parents love me and are in good health. I have three lovely siblings, the best sister-in-law in the world, and a cat that chirps like a velociraptor.

Meow.

I want things from life. Sure. That’s human. There is a beauty to wanting, to hope. But my fault is in allowing that to distract me from what’s there. How stupid I would feel if tomorrow I were paralyzed, or diagnosed with a serious illness. I would have missed the opportunity to recognize my blessings while I could still enjoy them. Would I feel cheated? I hope not. I hope that I can want things – a proper job, to be known, to become accomplished in some field, to feel close to God and thankful for my blessings – without feeling entitled to them. I feel that is missing the point. I don’t deserve any more than the next person. Who am I to claim a larger share of employment, of wealth, of health, of beauty, or faith, knowing that we are both creations, and that our bodies, personalities, abilities and hearts have been bestowed upon us just as our external circumstances and material possessions have? Have I a greater claim to anything? Surely not. But I forget. Again and again, I forget.

Remind me, forgive me. Mostly forgive me.

(for Nuha.)

An official introduction

Hi/salaam. I’m a recent(ish) college graduate and recent(ish) convert to Islam. Hence the name of the blog. By all accounts, I should be considered a “yuppie” at this point in my life: twenty-five, capped-and-gowned, reasonably intelligent….ah, if only it were that simple. The reality is that the term “muppie” applies to me only in the loosest sense. I’m Muslim, sure, but technically I’m not exactly employed. Not gainfully. Not like I imagined, in days of textbook-laden yore.

Hitting my mid-twenties like a stuffed bunny against a brick wall has made me realize several things…and wish, above all, that someone had told me the inevitability of postgraduate letdown.

I can’t help but think, “If I had only known….” But then again, known what? What would I have done differently? I’ve spent most of my life charging ahead at whatever it is that I want without much regard for wisdom, prudence, or patience. There’s not much reason to believe that my 18-22-year-old self would have really taken it to heart if someone had pulled me out of Chem 11 and whispered: Just fyi, life is going to be a black hole of confusion and poverty after you graduate. After all, my fancy-pants liberal arts college gave me every reason to believe that I would be shoulders and heads above the other struggling post-grads. In short, I thought the world would hand itself to me on a platter. Oh, how foolish I was.

If I’d known….if I’d really known, I’m not sure what I would have done. Since graduating, my life has been fairly eventful. I’ve driven across the country twice. I’ve adopted a cat. I’ve become Muslim, to everyone’s stupefaction (including my own). I’ve worked in a lab, taken the MCAT, and flirted with the idea of going to medical school more than once. I’ve been to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. I’ve seen the Kabba. I’ve been a full-time student of classical Arabic. I’ve sat and had tea with one of America’s foremost scholars of Islam. I’ve interviewed for roughly one billion jobs. I’ve rewritten my resume about five hundred times. I’ve been engaged, married, and divorced. And lastly, but certainly not least, I’ve decided to abandon my scientific career for my own version of a little girl’s princess dream: becoming a writer. I don’t know if I would trade all of these experiences (which, I’m told, will build character in time) for a nice, shiny law degree, or a few cushy, predictable years in grad school. I’ve been in the grad school of life, baby. Now, if I can only make something of myself, I’ll be glad for the school of hard knocks.

In the meantime, I’ll be stumbling: towards faith, towards a temp agency that will take me (take that, ego), towards becoming a better person, towards explaining my transformation from a postmodern-feminist/superliberal/secularist to a practicing Sunni Muslim. [note: I wouldn't consider myself to be not a feminist, or a liberal, at this point. I'm only a former secularist. But we'll get into that later, I'm sure.]

I recently visited my alma mater, and met some professors and friends who haven’t seen me since before I converted. It’s funny; I can see the enigma running circles in their pupils. I come from a small, small school in the middle of rural New England (not exactly a bastion of diversity). Islam, Muslims, converts….these things are sometimes more ideas than real things. It’s easy to forget this in a city, where I can ride the T and see other women covering there hair and exchange “salaam” without the other riders blinking an eye. Back home – back at school, I am so much more of an oddity than I am here. Perhaps it’s because I’m white, and my scarf just doesn’t suit me. Perhaps it’s because I leaped into the deep end of faith and abandoned my “common-sense”, intellectually-responsible, secular roots. Perhaps it’s because I’m simply an articulation of an unfamiliar phenomenon. Perhaps my professors look at me the way a parent looks at a misbehaving child: this is not the way you were raised. Honestly, I’m clueless. In reality, they are as inscrutable to me as I am to them.

Still, I think it’s important to bridge these gaps. There’s no reason to think that this isn’t exactly what my education prepared me for…after all, haven’t I thought for myself, choosing a path I knew they would deprecate?

So this is the story of me. Struggling, like so many of my peers, to find a way to pay the rent, feed my cat, and maybe buy a new pair of shoes every once in a while. I happen to be doing it with one foot in my past of achievement, normalcy, and secularism, and the other in the present of unemployment, its accompanying humility, and faith. Do check in from time to time.

I’ll try to be as interesting as I can.