As a young child, I lived in Pakistan and also in Saudi Arabia. Most of my life was spent in the US. I belong nowhere and somehow I manage to fit in everywhere.
My father was an officer in the Pakistani Airforce which meant we moved alot growing up. Since I've gotten married we have continued the tradition and moved almost every year.
I have sweet memories I can look back to from my middle school and high school years. Fast foward to college. That's when I realized I needed to practice Islam consciously.
It all started when I wasn't very happy with the company I had and randomly one summer I started praying and asking Allah for good freinds. Well lo and behold, I met two amazing 'sisters', one Iraqi, one Algerian. One of my hangups about becoming religious used to be that I thought of religious people as boring.
Well these girls knew how to have good clean fun. We became very close and I was so impressed by their lifestyle. They actually applied Islam in their life. That was really something. So far, I had grown up with this idea that knowing about Islam was THE THING.
So I changed slowly slowly. My family alhamdulillah also changed.
Almost a decade later, it seems surreal that we lived such a different life before. Its not like we are completely different people. We're not. But at the same time we are indeed very different from before. Islam is a real focal point in our lives.
My college years were awesome. I had close friends. Understanding parents. A major (computer science) I was really passionate about. I had my own car, my own room, my own bla bla bla ...life was goood :-)
After college, I got married and had a child and then another. Almost five years later, my husband and I have moved to live in Egypt with our children. Living in Egypt and getting used to the people and life here been quite an experience. Some weird but mostly good.
Egypt definitely has its quirks and it is definitely not a super Muslim country but we have alhamdulillah been able by the grace of Allah to carve out a life here that can take advantage of the good that Egypt has to offer.
Alhamdulillah we live in an area of Egypt, a suburb actually which is what I like to call the best of both worlds and it really is in so many ways subhanallah. Maybe I can write a post on what makes it so ideal for us.
UmmBudiMary
