10/11/2007

the final fast

Today marks the 30th day of Ramadan by the Fatimid calendar, and as such is the very last day of fasting. It brings both a sense of relief and of anxiety. Relief in that I will get more sleep and actually eat a hamburger (mmm, Culver's!) tomorrow. But anxiety, in that another entire Ramadan has passed and I fell far, far short of my own expectations in terms of what I wanted to achieve. It's the procrastinator's curse that all the interstices of time that were yours to waste are revealed clearly in hindsight alone.

Still, it was a good Ramadan. Today's fast will be the easiest of all because even the discomfort it entails - to which we have long since acclimated - is a reminder of how much control over ourselves we have exerted to achieve. And regardless of my ambitions with regards to hifz-ul-Qur'an, completing 30 fasts in a row is something to take (humble) pride in.

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