A Place Where I Belong

On my way to town to catch the bus to another city, the rider who took me there commented about me having many homes in different cities. So I felt that I needed to correct her about that. Because in reality I have no home that I can say belong to me. Those homes that I visit aren't mine. They're someone else's house. They're my mother's, my friend's, my boss's and anyone else.

Because I know they're not mine, in a way I treat those houses like a hotel to me. It means that it become a place for me to rest before making another journey. To enjoy the moment and feel at home, I consciously try to present my whole self wherever I am.

And one time I question myself about how to have the feeling of belonging, for it seemed that feeling is getting more and more alien to me.

Hug is a healer to reconnect the soul

Last time when my mother was around, I could always say that if I was going away I had always had someone that I could return to. I would return home to her. For she was the heart and the home that I knew I belonged to her. But then after she died, I felt like a kite with a broken thread that fly freely in the sky. The only hands that control my motion is the hands of Allah. Certainly it is the most steady hands I can always rely on.

However, I don't know why the question of the feeling of belonging come back to me again. Like the other night. As I waited for my staff to pick me up in the bus station after two hours flight from another island up west of Indonesia, a wish flashed in my mind that there would be someone who would worry and care about me being on the roads late at night going somewhere, someone that would stop my recklessness in ignoring my personal needs and care for my welfare and safety even though everything is alright, someone that would give me hug - lots of big bear hugs that will envelop me with humanly love and care for me. Someone that would be a brake to my restless motion because he is given the authority by Allah when he take me as his wife.

For that someone who can give me that, I know I will find my feeling of belonging. Because even the great prophet Muhammad SAW needed assurance that he was loved and had that place and feeling of belonging. And he had that from his wife, Khadijah bint Khuwailid RA. The history said that after he SAW received the first revelation, he was in such a state of shocked that he returned home from the cave of Hira' immediately. He was shaking so hard that his wife covered him with blanket and assured him that he was alright. And as he told his experience to his wife, she again assured him that it wasn't madness, for he was a good man and that she believed him and trust his words for he was incapable of lying much that he'd known as al-amiin, the trust-worthy. All that is a sign of compassion given by Allah - The Most Compassionate through the compassion and loving one, Khadijah bint Khuwailid RA to her beloved husband, Muhammad SAW.

If he SAW as a man needed that assurance from someone else and received it from his loving wife, I think I -as a woman- certainly need that and deserve to receive that from someone entitled as husband. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. After all, that feeling exist isn't from my mind. As I pushed away the thought that flashed through my mind for the sake of pride and false argument that said it was a sign of weakness, the feeling keeps coming back. It comes to surface from somewhere deep within. So I figure that it is from Allah, to lead me and guide me to the person that can fulfill it.

While preparing myself to welcome that someone into my life, I shall be and I am grateful for what is given to me now. I have no complain of this life. It's only a wish and I think anyone is alright to make a wish.

O Allah, innaka laa tuflihul mii aad.