Ramadhan Kareem: Taking It For Granted

I always found Ramadhan as an opportunity or the time of the year where I could catch up with some old friends I wasn't even close with in high school for an iftar session. And its funny that over the years, this perspective has shifted without even realising it myself.

I'd take you back to a year ago when I did my internship outside my hometown. For the first time in my life I did a whole month of Ramadhan by myself. Preparing for Sahoor by myself and Iftar, too, by myself. It was a very exciting moment though, since that was the first time I got to have freedom on everything, I could just cook or go outside or order food, didn't really matter, it was all up to me. 

Up until this year's Ramadhan. It came into my realisation. It is a privilege to be able to spend Ramadhan with my family. It is a gift I had unconsciously been ignoring for the past years. I realised that I had been taking this for granted for 24 years of my life. I used to hate it when my parents say that "please make time to have your iftar at home", I could still remember how I annoyed I would be when I heard that speech every time I asked for permission to go out for iftar.

I may get a job outside my hometown next year and I may have to work extra hard, passes miles and miles of packed road just to get to home and have iftar with my family. Now that I have that chance without even trying, I am making the most out of it. I have actively been declining many iftar invitations, for the sake of this reason. This could be my last year of being able to sit down in my kitchen waiting for the food to come out, laughing with my Mom and having early dinner with her. God knows at the exact moment next year, I will still be working at my office, trying to sip a cup of coffee or tea for iftar, or if I'm lucky enough to be at home at iftar time, I will still have to find out what to eat, by myself.

Sometimes we always take small things like this for granted. We don't realise how precious this small moment until we arrive at the stage where we need to work hard to get it, until we realise that we miss it. I have been missing this moment and literally tossing it away.