A yearly trip

I am inviting you to join me in a very short trip , Interested to come along? Then, Hop on board, I promise , it wont take you long. Okay, Now you are a bit back in time, not too much, say, two months back, why two months? no specific reason, we can make them three, you can actually pick the time you want and the day you want, but we are not looking for "any" day, I need you to go back with me to that day, when you were in your office, everything around was noisy and chaotic , and the main street outside was adding to your agony and your brains are about to explode . Oh! you have a very calm office , okay then , you can choose your venue , it can be a party with loud annoying music , speakers just behind your head and music adding to your throbbing headache , it can be your house , but in a very tensed day , it can be any place and anytime , but where you have this discomfort with the atmosphere around you , your thoughts are all mixed up , and you simply cannot focus on anything , too much outside jam of noises and clatter to the limit you cannot hear yourself thinking , and all you wish for is simply an hour of peacefulness , so that you can gather your thoughts and clear up your mind . Been there before ?

Okay , now I want you to apply the above on a bit wider time scheme , say a whole year , where you are lost in the track of days , you are living this discomfort over and over , not necessarily on daily basis , but lets say , a great deal of it , you know your life is a mess one way or another , you look back to that year , and you see your soul lost in your life's knotted traffic .

Your prayers are short and abrupt , your promised nights of reading those versus of Quran are never kept , your schemes for spending more time on looking up the real needy in this world and try to reach them with some backup and reinforcement have never left your brain's blueprint to the real ground . In short, you feel guilt and you are not satisfied if not ashamed of your whole religious performance for the past year , and you need a break , actually you need more than that , you need a beginning .

Time passes fast, and Ramadan is right behind the corner, you think. You can smell it in the air before it starts, and you long for it, a whole month where you can wash your sins, where you can strengthen your relation with your creator, and with your inner soul , and renew your acquaintance with those small bits that you seem to forget.

The holy month begins, and your demons are trapped. It’s the moment of truth, its you and your inner self to demonstrate and rule, and you realize few changes , you seem to keep the dawn prayer more than before, your tongue seems to love reciting the versus of Quran , your heart aches and soften for those touchy prayers you hear . You stay sleepless and teary at nights, revising your past year, you pray to Allah to pick you from your astray-ness and lost-ness .You sense the change and you wish to maintain until after the holy month breaks.

For some, the New Years Eve stands for the beginning of a new life where new resolutions are made, and new promises are taken to keep, but for others, Ramadan, the whole month of it , represents all of that in addition to a soul vacation from the chaotic world behind , offering a decent space to review and hear self thoughts loud as well as having another chance of a new fresh beginning.

Ramadan Kareem , and Allah's Bless.