I want to be a good Muslim.

Astaghfirullah. I cannot do it alone.

Perhaps I am back...

Then again, perhaps not.
For more consistent updates on my current status, please visit my channel on youtube:  AuthorEWestlund

Haven't Posted in Forever....

I've given up on trying to be a Muslim. I just couldn't keep holding back in this life to ensure that the "next life" (which might not even actually exist) is good, but reserved in the same way. If the next life is still going to be filled with prohibitions, which I imagine any heaven would be, then I may as well get my sins out now.
Coincidentally, my reversion to my old life was two weeks after my mom died. Make what you will of that.
I have decided to stop covering for a while. I just don't have the heart to do it.

Thoughts on religion and social anxiety, or why I'm still not all that fond of big religion

You may notice that when I speak of religion, I tend to say "Big Religion" much in the same way one would say "Big Tobacco". There's a reason for that.
I'm all for people believing what they believe in, and I'm all for the community that religion creates, but I for one am not fond of the way we treat each other, especially if we follow different paths. For example. I have a friend who is a hardcore Atheist. They stress the fact that they are Atheist and they make a point of letting their friends know that they don't believe in God. Cool. Hey, to each their own. But then I say I do believe in God and they get all hyper-defensive, "Uh, Emma, you know there's no god, right?" Um, Dear, if I "Knew there's no God," why did I just take time out of my day to pray to Allah(swt)? Why do I wear my hijab?
But I see the same thing happening from Muslims around me. From Christians. Even from so-called Buddhists. Satanists. Pagans. Nobody seems to want to say "Hey, I have a religion. You have a religion, we're both religious in our own right, and that just makes us AWESOME." Well here it is. I'm saying it. I have my beliefs. You have yours. We're all awesome. It's just a fact of life.

On the other major topic of this blogpost: Religion and Community. Hey, I'm all for it. Just please. Please. PLEASE. BISMILLAH stop giving me phone numbers. It was cool the first few times, and yes I do text a few Sisters, but my phone is full. Full of people I don't know and probably will never know because I have SEVERE phone anxiety. Hell, I have severe "do I know you? Oh god why are you talking to me why are you talking to me please stop" anxiety. I am generally a friendly person, and yes I will hold a conversation with you, I have no problem with that. But what irks me a TON about a lot of the Sisters' phone numbers I get is the fact that they are people who wouldn't likely give me the time of day if I wasn't in hijab and hadn't converted. I'm not even saying that they are people I wouldn't approach, because that's a given, as I don't approach people of any race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, or star sign. My ideal world would be me in my room on my computer for the rest of my life and that's not a joke! What gets me is that these are people who I have seen at work, in the laundromat, at the mall, and who have either looked down on me or completely ignored me. But suddenly I'm in full hijab and everyone's like OH SISTER WELCOME ALHAMDULILAH HERE'S MY PHONE NUMBER CALL ME TEXT ME I'LL HELP YOU LEARN QURAN/TO PRAY/WHERE THE MASJID IS/ARABIC/SCARVES/FIND A HUSBAND! And I'm like hold the phone- Hey hey hey whoa whoa whoa! It's a sensory overload. I'm probably not explaining it the best I could but that is how it feels.
I want to reiterate that none of this is me being intentionally racist. I don't just give people of middle eastern descent the WTF WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME YOUR NUMBER I'LL ONLY DISAPPOINT. I do that to white folks, native americans, indians, asians, people of color, and would do it to space aliens too. I am not, will never be, and refuse to pretend to be a people person. It takes all my willpower to go to work five days a week when I'm stuck dealing with people there.
And then there's the Christians who see me in public and take this as a personal invitation to badger me about accepting Christ as my personal savior because, and I quote from someone who followed me around Target for more than an hour (EVEN INTO THE LADIES ROOM. WTF.) "Jesus died just for you, just to save you from your sins. Jesus loves you. Why don't you love Jesus? He's up there on that cross, all alone, wondering why you won't accept him. Why won't you accept him?"


tl;dr Religious folks, PLEASE, TONE IT DOWN. Both on the "OH YOU'RE _________, I'M _________ TOO! CALL ME I'LL HELP YOU ___________." and the "MY RELIGION IS BETTER THAN YOURS!!!!!!"

tl;dr #2  Please, please don't take my hijab as a personal, glittery, embossed invitation to come over and strike up a conversation with me, no matter who you are, unless I honestly look like I want to talk. If I'm at the laundromat and I'm not on my computer, sure, have at me. I'll talk your ear off. But if I'm shopping or waiting at the doctor's office or DRIVING, please leave me alone. Is that too much to ask?

A curious twist of fate

Well, the title and url of this blog may no longer be completely valid, but I still will maintain much of the same content and all that.
I converted to Islam a few hours ago. InshaAllah, I will be able to continue to update this blog with some regularity.
This blog will now be more about my experiences and what I learn as I grow as a Muslim.

Salaam

Strange, but probably a good thing

So I've worn my hijab enough lately that when I went to work today without it on I felt completely naked. It probably didn't help that Tuesday has to be laundry day and I therefore have a very limited and rather revealing selection of shirts right now.  It feels like I'm slapping the face of the people who have encouraged me to cover, and it feels like everyone is ogling me, even if they aren't.  I like my hijab. It's like a super social anxiety blankie. It calms me.
But I have come to a decision, because it's easier than having to hide my food and drink while the sun is up: until the end of Ramadhan, I am not going to wear it, at least not at work. Yes, if I were Muslim I would likely have an out on the fasting thing seeing as my blood sugar has a funny habit of hitting the floor at random, but it feels really disrespectful, especially when the muslim customers come in and see me in my hijab drinking a soda at noon on a friday during Ramadhan. Unfortunately, this decision will likely leave me very anxious and probably stressed.  The beginning of September cannot come fast enough for this very reason. I want very much to wear my hijab at work and be safe and covered.
I have some pictures of my recent styles I will be uploading soon, so keep an eye on the blog, peeps!

Some People Piss Me Off…

Hello, hello, I know it has been a long long time since my last post, my last real post. I kind of abandoned this blog for a while but I’m back and I’m planning to update it DAILY!  YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT: DAILY. D A I L Y.

But anyway the reason I am writing this today is to address something that right flat out pisses me off. Now I understand everybody is allowed to have their own opinion and that I’m likely not going to agree with everybody, but to have people scream their opinions at me and shove it down my throat without even pausing to consider my view is not my cup of tea. I have recently deleted a bunch of people from my facebook and twitter for doing this same thing a lot. It seems I’m facing it more when I am at work than anywhere else, however.

I started wearing my head-scarf again on Thursday of last week (though I was experimenting prior to that), and I have gotten some pretty rave reviews. But for every rave review, it seems I get three people flat-out bashing me for wearing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are some aversions to hijabis in western society, and yes, I get it, people are prejudiced and scared because of misinformation that has circulated post-9/11/01, but that isn’t an excuse for some of the people I have encountered in my day to day life. I went shopping a few days ago, doing my errands and just basically keeping to myself. I wore hijab, my sparkly-sort-of rainbow colored one that I bought at Target in December.

I was walking through the aisles with my cart and just minding my own business when these idiots I passed started mumbling shit once I passed them. Now it wouldn’t bother me if it hadn’t been completely apparent that they were talking about me. One of them straight up called me a Sand-N****r. Now, I don’t know about you, but I take serious offense to that, partially because I’m, oh, I don’t know, about as white as an albino? So I did what a lot of people probably wouldn’t and I turned around and I called these idiots on it.

I said, approximately, “Sand-N****r, huh? I suppose you say that because I’m covered? Because I’m not parading around wearing twelve pounds of makeup and not much else? Because I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t wearing my hijab right now, you’d be able to see, quite clearly, that I’m entirely caucasian. I’m half-bloody-scandinavian. And if it was just a dig at me being Muslim, you’re wrong on that count, too. I don’t technically have a religion. If I hear you talking shit again, you’re going to have problems.” And I glared at them and dared them to try shit. They were so shocked I’m pretty sure that one of them pissed himself.  It was a younger guy and a younger woman, probably about my age or younger.

And then to top that off I went to work the other day and someone literally asked me if I was “a terrorist or an islamic (sic) or somethin?”

Um, America?

What.

The.

FUCK.

Are you smoking?

What are you teaching your children?

Is there something in the water?

Peace out.