...just to make things more awkward.

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

Alhamdulillah. fuh2. *sambil buat gaya Faizah Datuk K* :)

Keep calm and just blog.

If I were brave, I would express my love my better. Let's be brave for just the next 30 seconds. Surely it can't harm you a lifetime.

Daddy, pusing jap..nak cium daddy. Dah lama saya tak cium daddy. Daddy pon dah lama tak cium saya (sambil tepuk bahu daddy dengan manja just to make things more awkward) *sengih* (aaaa..biar betul aku ni. I was ready to be laughed at).

Mommy dan daddy gelak sambil daddy hulurkan forehead ke luar cermin kereta. Pheww. That's wasn't so bad. Alhamdulillah...

Ateeqa Nasha always finds a way to make things awkward. In the moment of silent, they'd be thinking to themselves "Why Ateeqa, why" or "Whatever did I do wrong to you?" and I'd be breaking the silent dgn muka yang sepuas2nya cuba control macho daripada malu, demanding, "Why not...".

As I climbed up the stairs of my apartment after paying my family fairwell, I had an Aha moment.

It's all culture. It's is all social construction. In terms of communication, truth is mediated by social and cultural values. My free will says, I know I want to do this. I know need to do this. But something is stopping me. In this case, having been brought up in a certain culture with certain social expectations and behaviors (in this case, familial practices exercised in a household), the norms get piled up and yield something called habit. When habits rule, I find myself not even knowing what I do what I do (and not do!). I just do (or just do not do). The norm of not doing something equates a habitual behavior with no behavioral intention. I've ignored the motivation behind holding mama's hand while walking and kissing her before bedtime because it's a habit. A good habit, that is. But why don't I impose the same behavior towards my other significant other? Sure...interpersonal relationship is a give and take one, i.e. the theory of reward and cost. But once in a blue moon, scratch theories...and go with your instinct. Life is lighter and happier that way. When a habit suppresses you from doing what you want to do and what you know is right doing, aren't you letting the norm or the habit go against your will? Like addiction, habits override free will. As grown ups, we're still chained to the social norm. But doesn't it eventually come down to you, as an individual with a healthy, independent mind to reform the culture.
What's funny is that, you know it's just culture!

Alhamdulillah, Allah my rabb, thank you for letting us explore different people, cultures and places.

For example, taking out some good insights from learning about a certain cultural group, once I was given the chance to visit one of the biggest Armish villages in the USA at Sevannah, Indiana. Alhamdulillah sangat2, Allah shed some light on how I think their lifestyle operate. While they are looked at as backwards and ketinggalan zaman, aren't they living as close and as "clean" as the suggested prophetic way? They're still living as horticulturalists, whose income and source of food come directly from the plough of their lands and from their two hands. No much of syubhah or was-was there. And the simple life they are living is the life lived within their means. To generalize at the face value, that is...

Being the usual odd one out yang takde keje, suka cari keje pelik-untuk-dibuat-dgn-sesuka-hati, I find that the structure of my familial culture is malleable It's open for new practices as there's always a room for improvement. Blue toothbrush used to be for along, green is for anip and mine, pink. But green is now the new pink for me and I hope that anip doesn't use my toothbrush by accident just because it's green (of course, inshallah he doesn't. Otherwise, eww).

So wait, what is my point again? Oh ye.

1. Everyone's attitude, behavior and needs of attention evolve with time and space. I'm talking about orang-orang tua kita..........sayang mereka erat2 :') mamaku, syurgaku. ayah, penjaga syurgaku selama ini.

2. Identify what's the culture, norm, and what's more pleasing and bringing you close to Allah. At the end of the day, whose standards do we strive to live up to?

3. Moga apa yang dibuat pelik, diluar conformiti budaya kita, tetapi menetapi dan mendekati apa yg Allah cinta, diredhai (setelah much paksaan revolusi ke atas nafsumu dan hatimu yang sentiasa berbolak balik).

4. Ateeq Nasha cakap banyak, resulting her in a debt of actions. Therefore if you still want this blog to be operated, it's a pretty please that you doa traffic her with Allah's forgiveness in your prayers. Please doakan bahawa dia mampu utk walk the talk.

For the sake of expressing love towards our family, if expressing it makes us feel as weird as alien, then, let's never aim to be a perfectly normal human being. You're strange and proud to be.

Memang sometimes Ateeqa Nasha ni over sket cara dia ekspress diri..but hey, dah alang kepalang tu, to put a cherry on top, let me finish with a hadith, "Islam began as a stranger and shall return as a stranger. So give glad tidings to the strangers. (Muslim)"- as reminded by a friend from iftar last night :)