So life often can surprise you. I had sworn off the hubby hunt for an undetermined amount of time – possibly leaning towards forever and Allah decides to put a wonderful person in my path. I admit to being completely dense when it comes to knowing when a guy is interested in me plus I never did get that email that was SUPPOSED to alert me to a message in my Half My Deen.com inbox.
Good thing this wonderful person decided to man up and ask me if I had got it. Poor guy thought he had been snubbed which – I will say Alhumdualillah for him – he wasn’t. Especially not after I read his wonderful letter to me.
See below.
” Asalaamu alaikum (insert my name) ,
I wanted to express my sincere interest in you. You were the first Muslima I met and I’ve been astounded by your compassion, intelligence, and dedication to your faith. You’re not just some drone gliding through the world–you’re aware of it and trying to change it. I think that’s incredible.
I realize there may be gaps you might not wish to hurdle. If that’s the case, I understand.
All the same, I would’ve kicked myself for not at least telling you I find you to be a most remarkable woman, compellingly attractive on many levels.
Ma’asalama.”
What I admired and continue to admire even MORE was the amount of effort this brother went through to A. Follow the blog B. Hunt me down on Half Our Deen C. Be gutsy enough to write a letter expressing his interest and then D. REEXPRESS his interest upon the failure of Half Our Deen’s email notification system.
Of course it totally helped that A. I had been following his blog B. Been wondering if he was single too C. if he could possibly be interested in me. 🙂
Oh Allah what a great planner you are. Alhumdualillah.
So there is where it all started- so now I am introduced to the Word Camp world by my friend from the AMILA retreat and I am so excited I begin looking for one happening in the near future that isn’t to expensive to get too. Not that I wouldn’t mind going to visit another country.. its just not in the budget currently. Plus I had a secondary consideration – meeting the wonderful person – who happens to be located in Seattle.
And what do you know? Word Camp Portland was the next Word Camp located near the wonderful new person. Hmm.. now to see if the wonderful person would be interested. Surprise surprise the answer was … YES.
So now worst case scenario we would met, hate each other and at least have the Word Camp to enjoy while avoiding each other. Best case scenario we fall madly into like – someone pops the question and we end up married with kids on a boat.
In the mean time.. I had to do a little C & D to make the trip and meet the WNP – so as far as some of my friends knew.. I was just going to PDX for Word Camp. Which I thought was the same with my family but some how the gossip bug got the better of my mother – so now EVERYBODY in the whole freakin world knows – at least those who are related to me. Which in my mind was a BAD idea – why? Because if it doesn’t work out or someone dumps someone or turns out to get cold feet.. everyone’s high expectations will be crushed.
Alhumdualillah 99% of my friends had no clue – even with FB status updates. Only one friend put the dots together.
So once I flew in and was picked up by my friend about 10 minutes from the airport my phone rings. Its the WP.. giving me a call to see if I have landed and was alright.. and was I interested in meeting up for dinner? Prior to this point I wasn’t nervous at all then suddenly mass panic set in. I was glad I had my wing woman with me as I didn’t speak as much as I am prone to naturally during the whole meal. I did stare a lot.
When the meal was over and my wing woman and I left.. I was happy. It felt comfortable even with all the butterflies that found a home in my tummy.
The next day.. didn’t start out a good one. I was late, sat in a puddle that made me look like I urinated on myself.. and poor WP thought I stood him up. I was just running on MST. He was so nice.. saved me a seat and brought me water that was “untouched by man,” at least according to the packaging.
We then hung out during two of the workshops before ditching out to go to Powell’s and then sitting at Starbucks talking and sharing photos etc while being watched by 2 different shifts of PDX’s finest.
We then went to Sushi and talked more. I know I am a big talker – so I did my best to shut up and let the WP aka Quiet Man do the talking. I also was supportive during the stressful one way street driving and the parking spot hunt.
The next day we ditched the whole morning session of the conference and hand breakfast and talked some more before WP had to leave to drop off the car and was ever the gentleman getting me back to the conference – where I was even more bored until the Apture workshop. Once the conference ended I got on the tram and headed out to PDX and awaited my flight to leave.
I am horrible at reading people -so I did put WP on the spot about our status and time line. To which he replied, “January would be good for me.”
The next day after getting home and beginning to enjoy the crazy week and a half of travels.. the Midwest Time Zone hoping caught up with me and I got cold feet. I freaked – I started thinking of everything I needed to do and I was thinking to myself, “By January?” OMG! How am I going to plan anything?! Finally on Monday or was it Tuesday night? I brought up somethings that were worrisome to me.
1. January.. seriously? Its doable but I prefer not to stress out over a move and a wedding at the same time.
2. No wedding celebrations at all? No dress? No guests? no food? You just basically want to elope and tell everyone afterwards? No way that was going to fly with my family.. me being the only child of my motherAND the oldest grandchild of my family. I am not saying the thing will be a blow out but expect some pom and circumstance.
3. Wanting the parents to meet at the wedding for the first time. Who does that?
4. He needed to come out of the prayer rug closet by himself to his parents. Not the “oh by the way.. the woman I am going to marry is Muslim and I just happen to be Muslim now too.” It would make it seem like I was the cause for his conversion rather than his own choice. The family could be quick to go on the resentment and hatred war path against me. Killing the messenger and all that jazz.
5. I was also worried that although we agreed to the joint goal of living and traveling the world on a boat as a family inshaAllah that there seemed to be no backup plan on what happens if that goal doesn’t?
6. I was also worried that because the main goal was the boat- anything that might detour or not directly relate to the boat goal was an automatic veto.
So we talked and he was surprised given I had been thinking, listening and not verbalizing much the whole weekend. In telling him these things – I felt like relief and no longer worried or in a panic. My cold feet were gone and I was ready to get the marriage show on the road.
To be continued….
American Muslimahs Musings 