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The Unglamorous Truth of Going Back to Fitness
Why My Journey Restarted with Workouts for Seniors When we talk about women reclaiming their health, the modern world loves to sell us an inspiring image of transformation. Join a gym. Buy new workout clothes. Commit to a challenge. Push harder. Push through the pain. Become the best version of yourself. But for a body that has spent nearly two decades occupied by pregnancies, interrupted sleep, caregiving, chronic conditions, and motherhood, that narrative feels strangely disconnected from reality. After years of carrying everyone else, you cannot always return to fitness in the same way you left it. You begin exactly where your body allows you to begin. And for me,…
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I See Myself in Her
On Overwhelmed Mothers, Changing Bodies, and the Bridge We Still Need to Build I do not write this because I am ungrateful. Alhamdulillah, Allah has blessed me far beyond what I deserve. A husband. Children. A home. Food on the table. Decades of memories. The immense privilege of motherhood itself. Naturally, I know these are blessings, and I am fully aware that many people long for exactly what I have. Yet, I also know that Allah says: لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ فِي كَبَدٍ “Indeed, We have created humankind in toil and hardship.” Surah Al-Balad 90:4 Ultimately, hardship is not the opposite of gratitude; it is simply part of being human. Consequently,…
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The Neurodivergent Tax
There is a particular kind of expense that rarely appears in family budgets. No one plans for it. No one talks about it. Yet, some of us pay it every single day. I have heard it called the ADHD tax. Perhaps, for me, it is more accurate to call it the neurodivergent tax. Though I have never been formally diagnosed, these experiences resonate with me at a cellular level. It is the literal cost of existing in a world that expects certain kinds of minds to function effortlessly. It looks like the quiet accumulation of minor replacements: Sometimes it looks like buying groceries when I already have ingredients at home.…
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The Inner Thoughts of a Perimenopausal Woman
On Household Management, Overgiving, and Running Out of Bandwidth There should probably be an official translator for the inner thoughts of a perimenopausal woman. Not because we are irrational. Not because we are angry all the time. But because there seems to come a point in midlife where the part of us that spent decades smoothing things over quietly packs up its bags and leaves. For years, our default response to everything was simple: It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. I’ll just do it. I’ll just clean it. I’ll just buy it. I’ll just absorb it. And then one day, somewhere between fluctuating hormones, interrupted sleep, chronic fatigue, decades…
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Evidence
Some days I thinkI have done nothing. The house still breathes clutter.The laundry waits patiently.There are dishes somewhere.Something is always misplaced.Something is always unfinished. And yet— Today I created. I designed small signs for small hands,hoping they might rememberwhat I can no longer holdall at once in my mind. I printed, laminated, and hung them—tiny promisesthat tomorrowmay ask a little less of me. I packed away thoughts.Sorted worries.Built systemsfor a life that requiresmore rememberingthan one personwas ever meant to carry. I baked.I nourished. I drank waterin a bodythat is often tired. I searched for wordsto explainthe shape of my own mind,revisiting old wounds—not to reopen them,but to understandwhy they still…
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The Eid Al-Adha 2026 Allah Chose for Me
The Unexpected First Day of Eid There is an Eid we imagine. The one where everyone wakes up healthy. The children are dressed beautifully. The prayer goes smoothly. The food is ready on time. The family photo turns out perfectly. And then there is the Eid Allah chooses for us. This year, the two were not quite the same. On the morning of Eid al-Adha, the sound of takbir drifted through the humid air in Sharjah while I sat curled up on the downstairs sofa. A sudden stomach pain arrived unexpectedly when I woke up for Fajr, bringing my plans to a sudden halt. I had planned to be at…
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Nobody Claps for the Mother Who Remembered Everything
Nobody claps for the mother who remembered everything. Usually, they only notice the one thing she forgot. It’s the child suddenly announcing at 9 PM that they need green cardboard for school tomorrow. It’s the “Mama, did you sign this?” paper appearing exactly when everyone is already wearing shoes. But beneath those frantic moments is a vast, silent ocean of things that did happen because you remembered them: the favorite snack you bought, the way everyone’s different food preferences live permanently inside your brain, and the small emotional tensions you noticed before they ever became arguments. I don’t think most families do this maliciously. Invisible labor becomes invisible precisely because…
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Faith Is Also Built on Ordinary Tuesdays
I think when I was younger, I imagined faith would feel more cinematic than it actually does. I imagined spiritually strong people as calm and refreshed all the time. People who prayed every salah with perfect focus. People who read Quran peacefully for long stretches without interruption. People who woke up for tahajjud with glowing skin and emotional stability. I thought closeness to Allah would feel quiet and uninterrupted. But adulthood, especially motherhood, feels very different from that. On a Tuesday morning in Sharjah, faith sometimes looks like searching frantically for one specific white school sock while the clock is ticking and we should have left the house five minutes…
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Ordinary Mondays Feel Like Mercy
Today I opened WhatsApp to do one thing. I still do not know what that thing was. Somewhere between replying to a cousin, checking a message from another mother, and opening Telegram for a school update, my original reason for picking up the phone disappeared completely. For the past couple of weeks, the sky had been quiet. No interceptions. No sudden sounds overhead. Just stillness—the kind of stillness that slowly tricks you into believing life has returned to its normal rhythm again. Then last Monday, there were a few interceptions again. Suddenly, the Telegram school groups became alive all over again. The groups themselves are actually very organized; alhamdulillah, only…
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An Example of My Jumbled Mind (The Forty-Tab Brain)
I talk a lot about having “forty tabs open,” but let’s be real—it isn’t just about being busy. It’s a survival mission that lives entirely inside my head. And look, I’m not trying to make myself sound like the center of the universe. I know, deep down, that life would go on even without me. The world doesn’t stop because a mom takes a break. I also don’t want to belittle the massive part my husband and kids play in keeping this family moving—they are the ones spinning the wheels every day. But even when the wheels are rotating perfectly, the mental load is just… there. It’s the invisible architecture.…
