Ramadhan MCO Style 2020

Alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah :)

In my undergrad years, I learned to love Ramadhan because of the positive change of lifestyle it had brought into my routine life at least for a month in the entire year. But after getting married, becoming pregnant, and the rest is history, my body started to change, developed this and that and became intolerable to certain things such as fasting and not enough sleep. 

I’ve seen Ramadhan being called an intensive training month, penghulu segala bulan, a month of forgiveness and a month of where satans are locked up. How I see my Ramadhan this year personally is as a Reset Button. Where do I begin…

I don’t know where to start panjat my syukur…as too many things are gushing through my mind right now.

Ramadhan - Reset Button, Making Ateeqa Nasha Great Again (although things will never ever be the same again!)

1. It’s the year when I’m finally either not pregnant or breastfeeding. What difference has it made to my body! These few past years, I used to dread Ramadhan knowing it was going to be extra challenging and painful, physically, emotionally and spiritually. My body just wouldn’t cooperate. Fasting in the morning with sahur, by afternoon, I would get a splitting headache, my body crippled and succumbed to migraine where as before, I used to fast a lot and love it, even before Ramadhan. To be honest, I’m still a bit traumatised by the effect of fasting that every day I fast, I constantly make dua for Allah to help me go through it with ease. I’m paying extra attention to my body, looking out for signs of migraine. I can feel when it’s coming. For 5 years I’ve not fasted full Ramadhan. Is this what they call aging? Yikes. 


2. We’re celebrating Ramadhan with my Mommy & Daddy (my in-laws)! Since MCO, we moved in with my in-laws to keep them company. It feels close to home having your old folks around, cooking and eating all kinds of traditional kampung food. I mean, I already looked forward to sahur with cereals but this is even better! 


3. Staying with extended family during MCO also means doing jemaah tarawih prayer everyday, with them. It feels like just like the time when I was still under Mama and Ayah puny ketiak when we used to do this every Ramadhan, with Ayah being the imam. 


4. Having Ramadhan during MCO is nice but with the kids around all the time, can still be challenging and sometimes even depressing for not being able to reach daily KPIs. Nevertheless, I’m grateful that they are around and get to learn about Ramadhan as a family. We did Ramadhan decoration in our bedroom aka our home (since we’re staying with in-laws for a while).


5. This is a sacrifice we have to make, foreseeing Syawal not being with our family. I truly want Malaysia to be the exemplary country that defeats Covid and becomes the hero of its nation and others. A lot of thoughts and work have been put into place, frontliners being called for duty and money being poured in with the hope that they don’t go in vain. So, let’s do what it takes even if it means the right to balik kampung being stripped from us. It’s just a matter of time now. This is a reset button for me because it means I’ve to reset my niat, my intention - to do the right thing even when it hurts, even when my heart wavers and even when I feel like rebelling! Ironically, this is what Ramadhan is trying to teach us - to fight against our nafs. 


6. I want to talk about Abe….
or not! lol (<--- he plugged himself there)