"Two Birthdays, Two Lives"

It was my religious birthday a couple of weekends ago. My religion follows a lunar calender which pulls each annual event 11 days back from its Gregorian date. That gives me "two" birthdays every year, for the rest of my life. Two days for cake, for wishing, for copious amounts of phone-calls. Two days for celebrating and family dinners. This dichotomy between my religious life and my life in the outside world has always created this constantly shifting barrier that I haven't really gotten to understand. Its this deep method of role play that forces me to take two instead of one before every choice I make in life- looking through two totally different points of view at any time. I know what's expected of me in terms of my religious point of view. I know what conservative ideals I'm supposed to follow every day, and I do follow what I grew up learning- I pray every day, I attend events, I look to God for understanding. But the enticement of the open world reels me in with questions like "why am I doing this?" or "what does this do for me?" But then the tight cables of the religious world keep me grounded to the comfort of the old school ideas. Then again, the curious tendrils of the human world are always there giving me food for thought mysteries to figure out, among other dilemmas. Its that push and pull that I'm caught between; its that middle ground I'm searching for.

- AliAkbar M. Hassonjee