Assalamualaikum 💖

First of all, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, MALAYSIA! 🎆

Second of all, I'm bored. I just thought of writing. Maybe it can unleash all the hidden emotions within me.

I actually met up with my form 1 - 3 classmates a week or two ago. It took a lot of courage for me to attend the reunion because I hadn't seen most of them ever since school ended. I was nervous and afraid if I would end up wanting to go home as soon as I arrived. The thought of meeting strangers was more appealing to me. But deep in my heart, I did want to go because it's been soooo long and I knew that if I didn't go this time, I might end up not joining them forever haha. So I did. With my friends' encouragements.

There's another reunion for my SPM classmates this weekend but I'm still not sure if I want to come or not... Now I understand why in some movies, the lead actors always refuse to go to their school reunions. I couldn't understand before this like just go and meet up with your old friends it's not that hard. Well, I guess it's easier said than done.

In another news, I just deleted about 10 albums in my phone dedicated to K-Pop. I've been wanting to do that for a while now but it wasn't easy at all. I've been a K-Pop fan for more than half of my life now. Hold up, I'm not saying that I'm going to quit liking K-Pop. That's just... impossible at the moment. It'd be like I'm letting go of half of my source of happiness that has stayed with me for more than a decade now.

This would be hard to understand for non-Kpop fans. It's not only about the music. It's about how some of the artists would give out words of wisdom, encouragement, advice, etc. to the fans when we need them most. It's about the inspiration they give us to keep going and improving ourselves to do better. It's about how some of them share their experiences and deepest emotions, making sure that we know we're not alone in this, or if not, that we are aware about these kinds of situations. Yes, I'm talking about Jae, and the rest of DAY6.

It's less about the aegyo and all kinds of concepts they can pull. Less about the pleasant personalities that they choose to show us. But it's more about the fact that they choose to show that they, the idols, are imperfect humans too. Making us feel belonged. It's these things that make it hard for me to let go.

This has been going through my head for weeks now. Ever since I had troubles balancing these two worlds. I considered abandoning K-Pop for me to focus more on my ibadah. But then I wondered if K-Pop really strayed me away from Islam? I admit that sometimes it does, like when I prayed in a rush because of a concert, and so on. It happens whenever I'm active on my stan Twitter account. There, everyone is like super updated and I didn't want to miss out on anything. But the thing is, K-Pop is not the sole reason that I became distracted in my ibadah. It happened whenever I prioritized the worldly matters more than anything, forgetting that Allah is the owner of time. The One who owns this world. Who am I to neglect my ibadah when I'm the one who needs Him, and not the other way around?

What finally made me decide to delete those albums was a video by Ustaz Adnin. I just felt like googling "Is kpop haram" and that video came out. Some lectures would just straight up say, yes it's haram, but he's unbiased. I like that he doesn't specify his answers towards K-Pop, but instead he discussed the issue generally on all forms of entertainment. That immediately made me want to continue listening. When he talked about obsession to the point of saving the photos of the artists in one's phone, I was like 'whoa hold up I'm going to delete these RIGHT NOW' haha. To be very honest, I rarely even looked at the photos I saved (except for memes) but I keep them saved in my phone anyway. Thousands of pictures only for birthday purposes hshshds. I thought I wouldn't feel anything when I deleted them but bruh it felt like I was breaking up with someone haha. But I'm absolutely fine as I've been wanting to delete them anyways.

So, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to log out of that stan Twitter account that created that pressure in me to stay updated with everything. Probably not going to delete it (yet). I think I'll be better then. With less fangirling and obsession over K-Pop :')

I think this all the time but I miss the 2015 me.

Pray for me, everyone. I'm trying to change but slowly so I don't get shocked.

Till the next post!