My article for the Muslimah Bloggers.

It’s not just your name; a lot of things, if not everything, change when you get married. Sometimes even as much as your whole outlook on life, your idea about yourself, your priorities, your dreams, your goals, your career aspirations in addition to the change in relationships and circumstances and homes and lifestyles! Allah o Akbar.

And in the pursuits of settling in a new home, learning to live life with a new human being, even giving birth and nurturing more human beings, and all the mayhem marrying and the consequences of marrying bring, us women, somehow forget that once upon a time, we used to be our own idiosyncratic individuals ourselves. We used to don our own colors with pride and carried a soul wild with our passions and desires.

In raising families, many women often neglect the most important thing – taking care of themselves and pursing their own interests. Even if they had hobbies before, they think that now that they are married, they don’t have the time, the energy, the desire or even the need to have a hobby. Continue reading →