It’s been sometime since I wrote my last blog post. A post filled with hope, pain, and the stubborn kind of resilience you hold onto when you're too afraid to let yourself break. I wish I could come back here with a happy ending — the kind that ties every loose end neatly, the kind that makes all the waiting feel worth it. But life, in its own quiet and often cruel ways, had different lessons prepared for me.
On the surface, not much has changed. I gained weight, my exercise schedule is still messy. My days moved forward, one after another, carrying the same routines, the same unanswered prayers. But deep underneath all of that, something shifted.
I started to see myself more clearly — the way I manage my emotions, the way I flare up when triggered, the way I quietly crumble when I feel unseen. And maybe the hardest truth to face: how deeply I was tied to external validation. It’s not a pretty thing to admit. It's shallow, even embarrassing, for someone in their thirties. But it's the kind of truth you find when you dig through enough layers of disappointment and realize — part of the pain came from chasing other people’s expectations more than my own hopes.
Something inside me broke. But maybe — just maybe — it also began, ever so quietly, to rebuild itself.
Quiet Storm
This past year wasn’t just about waiting for a child. It was about navigating storms in places I never expected—my marriage, my faith, my own sense of self. And those quiet storms, not the loud, crashing kind that tears through walls, the ones that you can’t quite put into words, have been the hardest to face. It wasn’t about giving up, but realizing that I couldn’t keep carrying everything on my own.
There were days when the distance between us felt heavier than words could bridge. Not because we stopped loving each other. But because we were tired — just in different ways. Somewhere along the line, the weight became too much. Not just the weight of trying and waiting, but the weight of carrying too many things that were never meant to be carried alone.
Dreams. Expectations. Silent fears we never knew how to say out loud.
Last year, I felt it deep in my bones: I needed to stop. Not because I had given up. But because I knew if I kept forcing myself to keep running this alone, there would be nothing left of me at the finish line. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do isn’t to keep fighting. Sometimes, it's learning when to stand still, when to protect what little hope you have left before it quietly withers.
It wasn’t that I stopped wanting a child.
It wasn’t that I loved him any less.
It was that I was afraid — truly afraid — of what might happen to me if I kept trying to carry everything alone.
And then, one night, a conversation changed quite everything. My husband asked me, “Do you still want to have a child?” That question hit harder than I ever imagined. It wasn’t just a question——it was a mirror, reflecting all the unspoken pain, the fragile hope, the heavy silence we had carried. It took me back to a moment just months before when the heaviness of it all felt unbearable.
It was a cruel thing to feel hope and grief all together—hoping for something so deeply, and yet wondering if I had the strength to want it alone.
Weeks passed by, the comparisons started creeping in. A friend’s story is in the back of my mind. Ten years of waiting for children. Ten years of heartbreak. But through it all, her husband stood beside her, unwavering. She once told me what her husband said: “Even if it’s just you and me until the end, I would still be the happiest man on earth.”
I was genuinely happy for her, of course. But, now I start wondering why did it feel so hard for me to find that same support? Why did the weight of it all feel so much heavier on my shoulders?
This season has been a quiet kind of grief. I’ve spent so much time mourning, not just for what I’ve lost, but for the ways I’ve felt unseen, unsupported, misunderstood. I know, deep down, I should surrender to Allah’s plan. I know I need to stop comparing my journey to someone else’s. But the reality is, surrender is harder than it sounds. The comparisons sting. The grief lingers. And I’m still struggling to let go.
I keep praying, even when I’m unsure what to pray anymore. I know healing isn’t a straight line, that it’s messy and nonlinear. But sometimes, it feels impossible. Surrender feels impossible when the wounds are fresh, when the comparisons feel like an anchor pulling me down.
Tending to Fragile Things
This season became less about chasing milestones and more about learning how to tend to fragile things. Hope. Faith. Love. My own battered sense of worth.
Tending, not fixing. Whispering prayers, not shouting demands. Holding things gently, even when my hands were shaking.
I am learning that love isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it’s silent. Sometimes, it’s standing still in the middle of a storm, holding onto whatever you can — even when it doesn’t look like progress to anyone else.
Healing doesn’t always look like getting stronger. Sometimes it looks like feeling everything all at once: the anger, the grief, the tenderness, the fear. Sometimes it looks like pausing on a road you once thought you could sprint through.
Surrender
These days, my prayers sound different.
Not loud. Not desperate.
Just quieter — softer — like a tired child finally finding her way home.
I no longer come to Allah clutching long lists of wishes.
I come with empty hands, a heart still bruised but beating, and a soul whispering, "Ya Allah, I guess this is it. Aku letakkan semua harap dan tangisku di hadapan-Mu. Engkaulah sebaik-baiknya perencana, Yang Maha Tahu apa yang tersembunyi dalam hatiku. Jika ini baik untukku, maka dekatkanlah, maka mudahkanlah jalanku. Namun jika tidak, palingkanlah aku dari keinginan dengan kelembutan-Mu, dan kuatkanlah hatiku untuk ridha dan ikhlas kepada takdir-Mu"
For so long, I thought if I tried hard enough, prayed hard enough, stayed strong enough — life would eventually give me what I asked for. But some things, I have learned, are simply too sacred, too delicate to be forced.
"Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear." (QS. Al-Baqarah: 286)
And maybe that’s why I found myself here — not because I lost hope, but because I needed something more than hope. I needed a home to return to. When the world felt too heavy, when even love felt like a battlefield, I needed a place where my heart could be cradled by something bigger, something eternal.
I didn’t come back to Allah from a place of victory. I came back because I was exhausted. Because I finally realized no amount of running, no amount of striving, could fill the aching hollow inside me.
Only Allah could. Only He ever could.
"Indeed, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (QS. Ar-Ra’d: 28)
The pain from my past hasn’t vanished, and I’m still not sure where the future will lead. There’s a part of me that wants to forgive — that knows forgiveness is part of healing — but it’s not easy. The hurt still lingers, the disappointment still sharp. Yet I also understand that healing isn’t linear.
Maybe forgiveness will come one day, but for now, I’ll hold the tension of this decision. I’ll hold the space for what could be, trusting that Allah’s wisdom will guide me through it — no matter which path I take.
So here I am — not with a perfect ending, not with all my prayers answered the way I once imagined —
but with something far more precious: a softer heart, a quieter soul, and a faith that dares to believe that every tear, every heartbreak, every silent surrender was always seen by the One who holds the pen of my story, the One who wrote every chapter of my life in Lauh al-Mahfuz.
Maybe healing doesn't always look like a win.
Maybe healing looks like surrender.
Maybe healing looks like standing in the rubble of all your plans and still whispering, "Alhamdulillah."
I don't know what the future holds.
But I know who holds it.
And for the first time in a long time, that's enough.
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