Homesick

Assalamualaikum everyone, and good day.

I haven't written a post in quite some time, with the new semester starting and all that, my head has gotten a bit confused, mixed up and the sorts.

I just came back from Malaysia, after 2 months of holidays. Most of my friends also just came back from their holidays, and mostly everyone misses Malaysia.

I would like to take you guys back 2 months before today, just right after I flew from South Korea to Malaysia. There was one week before I flew back, and in that one week, I wanted to do everything.

I wanted to climb mountains, have picnics, go swimming in clear, cool streams, go shopping, go water rafting, bike rides along Han River, and while most of them I did do, I didn't get to do all of them. After one week, it was finally time for me and my friends to return to Malaysia to spend our summer holidays there, bear in mind that we haven't seen our home nation in nearly one and a half year and we were so excited to meet our families and our friends back in our hometown.

I can't really say on behalf of my friends, but after landing safely in Malaysia, chatting with my family, eating out, and at 8PM, I laid in bed and thought,

"I miss Korea. I want to go back."


Koreasick?

It struck me as weird, to feel homesick, for a country that isn't my home, a nation that isn't my own, a country that the language is so foreign to me that I can't speak it properly, a culture that is so different from the culture I grew up in, that I couldn't possibly call South Korea, my home, let alone, claim that I am homesick.

But I was.

I was deep in thought the next day, since I had nothing better to do, and it was so weird, to be back in the comfort of my house, my big house with my big bed, with my big kitchen with everything so big and spacious when in Korea, my bedroom was my kitchen, and also my closet and also my study room and doubles as my dining room.

The next thing I knew, I was walking around the house, finding something to do, since mom and dad were working, my little sister was in school and I had the house alone. I tried watching television, played some games, read a book, but something was missing. I felt so useless, I wasn't going anywhere or doing anything that needed to be done, bills are always paid for, I don't have to worry about my meals, it truly was a culture shock for me.

After a week, I planned to go back to my high school, but it was so far away, 2 hours by car in fact, and here I was, totally clueless on how to get there, and at that moment I missed South Korea so much more it hurts. I wanted to hang out with my friends in the heart of the city, but I had no transport, and again, I missed South Korea. I wanted to go here and there, but the horrible possibility of being lost, or even worse, getting into a mishap, always discouraged me to go out.

I was detained and contained in the safety of my home, and whenever I wanted to go out, I had to ask permission, I had to bother someone else into taking me to places, and that made me miss Korea more.

2 months later, and here I am, in Korea.

When I arrived at my so called house, I nearly broke down. I forgot how small it was, I sleep next to a washing machine for crying out loud, not to mention no bed. I fought back the tears, and unpacked my luggage, cleaned the room to an acceptable degree, and then slept for the rest of the evening.

The homesick I got was unbearable. How do I adapt to this all over again? To make matters worse, I had a horrible allergic reaction to something, I don't even know, and ultimately fever and cold. In these times, I would think, "If I was at home, dad would take me to the clinic, mom would make me some porridge and tell me to eat my medicine, and I would sleep all day and mom would change the damp cloth on my forehead."

I wouldn't have to be eating instant noodles when I can't get up, or go on the subway even when I'm ridden with horrible itchy red blotches on my face and my whole body. I realized that, as a human, we rarely take drastic changes positively.

Broken Routine

Once you get used to a routine, it is really hard to break it, it is even harder when circumstances break your routine. At one time, you are fast paced, always busy, always on the go, there's always someone to meet, something to do. And then in one day, it changes, and all you do is sit back and relax and do nothing. It takes a long time for you to develop into a new routine, but it takes only one day, or even shorter than that, to change that routine, and you have to start developing a whole new other routine.

Days pass by really fast because you are always in the same routine, then you start getting comfortable with a routine, that once you are tossed outside of it, you automatically become wary, somewhat a bit annoyed. Then the cycle continues, and really, nobody escapes from it.

So homesick.

The other thing though, is that we tend to take things for granted, when we feel like we have an immense amount of time. I took my time in Malaysia for granted, and even then I knew that I only had two months.

One of my seniors said, "You'll start wanting to do everything when you are in your final year studying in Korea. Then after you graduate, you start regretting all the things you didn't do because you thought you had time to do later."

Yet, amazingly, I still took my time when I was in Malaysia, when I specifically vowed in my heart "I'm going to do this and that once I get back to Malaysia," and those vows, were only empty vows. I had a whole two month to make those vows of mine become reality, some were realized, but some were just words.

During your studying time, you have approximately 4 years, and in that time, you draw a bucket list of things to do before you graduate, especially those that have the privilege to study overseas. Even if you study local, one of the most common things-to-do-before-I-graduate is travel to another country. Then what? All of them bite the dust. Because? Because you made up excuses.

There's No Place Like Home

Even in the given time, even in a duration that we know the end, we can't keep our promises to ourselves. In a bigger scope? In the span of our lifetime?

We are all travelers in this world. Our eternal home, where we came from and where we will eventually go back to insyaAllah, is in the Hereafter. Before any of us were born, we made a promise to Allah to live, glorify and spread his Deen.

Thus we were born, and we cry. Sometimes I wonder why babies cry. They must be homesick. They must miss Heaven. They must miss being with Allah. Then one grows up, and one adapts a routine, and 'forgets' our home.

Yasmin Mogahed describes this perfectly in her book, Reclaim Your Heart. She wrote and I quote,

"We're Home. And then we aren't, Torn away from our origin, we came across time and space to another world. A lesser world....So we came down. We were torn from Him. And in that pain and separation, we bled. For the first time, we bled. And that tearing apart from our Creator left a gash. A deep wound that we are all born with. And as we grew, so did the agony of the wound; it grew deeper and deeper. But as time went on, we moved further and further away from the antidote, already in our nature: to be near Him, heart, soul and mind."

I have a tendency to keep comparing Malaysia and Korea, it's either Korea is better than Malaysia or Malaysia is better than Korea. For example, food is better in Malaysia, because halal food is easily accessible, it's yummy and mom cooks, that's just a winning argument. But transport is better in Korea. I was always complaining that I couldn't go anywhere easily when I'm in Malaysia, because I have to trouble my parents into taking me, or that I was always paranoid that Malaysia wasn't safe enough, but the moment I fell sick until I was unable to get up, I thought, "If I was in Malaysia, dad would drive me to the clinic." Begrudgingly, and still sick, I rode the subway, about 30 minutes until I reached the hospital. And no matter how wonderful Korea is, Malaysia is still home, still gives me comfort.

Most don't realize that we do the same thing each and every day in life itself. Heaven is our home, whilst this World is just a place where we spend some time to do a specific duty given to us. We always feel like this world is unjust, imperfect, with death, hunger, poverty, and we are so unsatisfied by all this negativity. In my opinion, since Heaven is our home, we subconsciously 'compare life in Heaven and in this World.' Just imagine, we have had the best of the best before we were born, and then we were given so far lower than that. Naturally, we would be unsatisfied. But some, like Yasmin Mogahed says, this emptiness is filled with useless things, things of the World.

Umm, wow, this entry is getting kinda long.

Procrastinate and DIE!

Okay, so the other thing I talked about was how I wanted to do all these things in 2 months. Yet, even with the given time, I still procrastinated and eventually, didn't do half of the things on the list that I had.

Life in itself, Allah gave us a duration, which is our lifetime, to do the thing we were supposed to do, which is, be a khalifah and worship Him. Ask anyone whether they want to be an excellent student, all would say yes. Ask anyone whether they want to enter Heaven, all would say yes. Simple. Easy.

But, like a student, in 4/5/6 years that is given to us, do we really study to be that excellent student? Or do we procrastinate, and eventually become a mediocre? The thing is, the real deal, which is whether we go to heaven or hell, there is no mediocre. You either book a ticket to heaven or hell, no in between. Do we really use the lifetime that Allah gives us to do what we're suppose to do which is worship Him and be a khalifah?

pretty much no most of the time.

Hah! Even with a given time, we procrastinate, this is Death. Only Allah knows when we die, and the thing is we can die anytime! Shouldn't we be more prepared for death that can come anytime in comparison to graduation which we approximately know when?

"Ah, I can always repent when I'm older." or "Ah I'm still young, let me live it out." or "You only live once a.k.a YOLO."

Hate to break your bubble but you live twice, and the second time, there isn't a death or a deadline. Forever. FOREVER. In heaven, or in hell FOREVER.

Long time huh?

The thing is, even if you graduate just barely making it out, you can still go "Oh, what a stupid thing I did, now I must work really hard so that I can prove to everyone I can still be successful without honors," for instance. And then after that, you can work your butt off, and still come out on top, give food and clothing and shelter to those you love.

But life doesn't get a second chance to redeem yourself. You made mistakes, never repented, then you die, and inside the grave you can't go, "Oh I messed up, what a stupid thing I did, Ya Allah, can you give me another chance to redeem myself?"

No can do.

And that's what's so scary about it. Life is short. Repent now, don't think that you have 60 years more, like I thought that I had 2 months more in Malaysia (well technically I did and even then I didn't use my time properly sobs) which is all the more reason for you and me and everyone else to get down and repent, then do good deeds. You mess up again? Repent some more! Because messing up is human. But repenting is Muslim.

"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." [Surah Az-Zariyat:56]

Wallahu'alam.

Assalamualaikum.