Day 14
Legacy
All around me people are having children. I am approaching 30 this year and frankly, very excited to leave my twenties. Not because anything was wrong with them or that anyone who is in their 20s has something wrong with them – simply, I am excited. For years, I thought I would not make it to 25 years old – I had no vision for what 25 years old in my family and culture could look like and so I had no future in store for myself. I remember telling my best friend in college, Julia, that I wouldn’t be alive. It’s sad how with no vision, no role models, there is no possibility for us and our lives. I did NOT want to be living if I would be married off to some man after college – I would rather be dead.
And so, like I said, people around me from college, friendships, former relationships are making babies. Its crazy to me! Bringing in a new life to this world and leaving a mark with a new life.
Last night I went to see Clybourne Park on Broadway. Generally, I think people would tell you it is a show about gentrification and picks up where A Raisin in the Sun ends… but I do believe it is more than. It is about tragedy, change and legacy. It is about that ways we carry the stories of our families, their resilience and their struggle… how we fight to remember the good and bad stories that make up the backgrounds of our lives no matter how elaborate, sexy, mundane or otherwise.
To me, legacies are the memories we leave behind. Memories on their own are what we remember for ourselves – how we remember ourselves and the people who made up our lives.
There are babies being born around me left and right; The Olympics are happening right now in London – teams of individual or just pairs of resilient people fighting to do their best and to win; My ancestors, living their life at some point in time right now – in this moment but 50, 100, 200 years ago. Each one: new parent, hopeful Olympian, great, great, great grandparent creating memories to leave a legacy. A mark. A small bit of cleavage in the bosom of life and humanity.
This blog, my facebook, my instagram account, even the paper journal I keep is an account of the life I lead… but it’s simply the MODIFIED version of the story of me, the life I choose to tell, the pictures I want people around me to see and it’s what I can control. I am afraid of children and making a family because what if it is a narrative I CAN’T CONTROL?! What if my life spirals in directions I cannot control, I cannot impact – that I cannot leave in the way that I would like to? What if I fail? What if I feel helpless and hopeless the way I think my parents feel?
I know that as a Muslim, my task in this life – simply THIS LIFE, is to live in a way that ONLY impresses Allah. The purpose of my life is towards the eternal life that is offered to me after I die: heaven or hell. I fear though, that the legacy I might leave is one that may not grant me access to goodness in my afterlife.
… I’m just being as honest as possible.
According to Islam, I must examine my life through alllllll of the tests and exams I experience… in my doing, in my striving and of the context around me. In my effort to pass the tests of life and the ones that Allah puts forth, I try: I work to contribute to efforts related to Islam, my Afghan culture and queerness, I work on efforts related to education, the school to prison pipeline, to justice, to equality because I can make a deliberate and intentional difference. My purpose in this world is Allah’s goodness which I work to express in my actions.
I just hope that the legacy I leave is one that He accepts.
