Hajj Reflections: One Year Later

So it has been just about an entire year since my journey to that beautiful place. Where the light never dies, your heart skips a beat and your breath gets absolutely taken away. Nothing else matters--here is you and The Almighty and suddenly everything is placed into perspective...existence-what does it really mean anyways?

Hajj, which translates to the pilgrimage in and of itself is a journey. The physical rigor alone could rip someone apart (had they not come adequately prepared) but it is the spiritual journey that takes you away. I would try to attempt to articulate how one feels upon being one of the blessed invited into the house...His House..but to even pretend that any articulation on my part accurately depicts those emotions would be unfair and completely downplaying it.

In the past few weeks as I watch the new hajjis to be prep for their own journey, observing the same anticipation I had just a year ago and feeling the same rush I had. Only this time, its a yearning to go back-but this is not my year of invitation and we are no longer the hajjis of the year--our time has come and gone and perhaps, just perhaps we may be blessed enough to go again...or never again. As I look back on the past year I can't help but think that the real journey only began once I got back. They say you know your Hajj is accepted when you've changed as a person. I remember coming home looking for every possible sign that I was changing...that my du3a would be granted...that I was a true hajji. A year later, I'm still questioning how much I really have changed. I look at all the du3a I made and see how many of them have been answered...oftentimes manifested in a form completely unexpected yet exactly what I wished for-subhanAllah. And a true hajji--I can only pray I got that clean slate...or work endlessly to keep it that way. Perhaps...the real change is the effort involved in maintaining that sinless state rather than what immediately occurs thereafter.

To pray for patience and not expect to be tested in what I fear the most would be silly...to not recognize it and accept it would be even sillier. Alhamdulilah for the opportunity for another journey...this one of self-discovery and a chance to become comfortable with my own skin.

May Allah SWT grant all the soon to be hajjis tawfiq in their journeys, inshaAllah.