#universe/life/god(s)/whatever/whoever is out there please don’t let it be the case for anyone (specially Lewis bc wtf father)

[islamicrays]

Assalamu aleikum ♡ Could you please recommend me some hadith (or Qur'an verses) about times such as this, like the plague, and about dealing with emotions such as fear, anxiety and all the negativity that follows such challenging times? Thank you very much and may Allah bless you for all you're doing here!

Walaikum Assalaam

Don't be anxious. Whatever is meant to happen; it will happen. If we are written to be tested then we will be tested. We cannot change the circumstances but it's in our control how we respond to it.

“No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself for the outcome of all affairs is determined by Allah’s Decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come on your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from it, you cannot flee.”

-Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him)

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala won't burden us with something that we can't handle. Read these quotes it will help you in shaa Allah

"The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘There isn’t a man who stays in his house during a time when the plague occurs with patience, hoping for reward and knowing that nothing will afflict him other than that which has been written for him - except that he will have reward similar to the reward of a martyr.’ (Ahmad)

Ibn Hajar said whoever does the following three things will have the reward of a martyr whether he lives or he dies. Look at the beauty of this religion! The reward of a martyr for sitting at home. La ilaha ila Allah Muhammad Rasulallah ﷺ"

-Via Shaykh Mohammed Aslam

"If you’re feeling panicked, find a mushaf in your home. Even if you haven’t opened the Quran in such a long time- pick it up, hold it to your heart, and hug it. If you aren’t ready to start reading it, then just hold it and allow your heart to seek comfort from the Divine Words of the Most Merciful. And keep doing that until you start to open His Book.

Remember Who is in control. We are allowed to feel all of our emotions and it is valid to be so anxious you can’t sleep. In those moments, know you don’t have to be scared alone. Make istighfar- ask for His forgiveness. The Quran talks about this as a form of bringing so many different blessings into your life.

And when you’re overwhelmed at home trying to juggle your children’s needs and work, start saying Alhamdulilah- thanking Him. Because if you’re reading this on your smartphone, you might also be living in security with enough food in your fridge. There are people everywhere facing the virus without these basic necessities.

Many of you have empathized with oppressed populations, but not actively remembered their plight. This is our opportunity to remember the fear which they have lived with for decades in our daily prayers and call out to Him with a sincerity for them that we may have lacked when we simply didn’t know.

This is a time to process our emotions through our relationship with God. With the closing of masajid, the quarantining at home, the sudden unexpected rates of death and disease and the impact on that on our economies and daily lives an entire globe - isn’t it time to turn back to Him? The fact that you still have time to do so and are considering it- that’s a sign He has already turned to you. So turn back to Him."

-Ustadha Maryam Amir

"DO NOT squander this time. This is a windfall if you actually think about it.

The one thing that everyone regrets the most when they die is the time they wasted.

Life is a precious gift. No matter what your situation is right now, don’t forget that you were given EXISTENCE by the Creator of the Heavens and the Universe.

He WILLED for *you* to be here.

He CREATED *you* with intent.

He CREATED *you* to experience all the beauty and wonders of the world…to KNOW…to FEEL…to WITNESS…to HEAR….to TASTE…to LOVE…but perhaps you’ve forgotten what that really means and this is all to remind you!

Maybe you’re spared this illness so that you can actually take inventory of your life and get back in touch with who you are and what you’ve forgotten all these years distracted by work, responsibility, commutes, bills, taxes, school, family, friends, community service, etc…

Maybe you’re forced into spending time with your family because you’ve forgotten just how important they are to you or vice versa.

Maybe you’re supposed to have those long moments of panic and anxiety so that you move away from looking at the pantry shelves to looking at your children’s faces and realizing how much time has passed since you once held them in your arms and how the future is uncertain for you and them, but what matters is NOW and alhamdulillah you are with them and they are with you; healthy and together.

Maybe you’re supposed to scroll through pages of news and newsfeeds about this virus so that your neck begins to crane and you finally look up to see your spouse; the one whom, whether you’ve intended to or not, have taken for granted. You each have your roles to play and like ships passing each other in the night, you’ve found a rhythm, an efficient system to keep the family together…but what about you two? When is the last time you actually looked at one another with the loving gaze of someone who feels the value of the person in front of them upon their chest like a heavy weight? When is the last time you looked at your partner as if you weren’t guaranteed to see them tomorrow? Perhaps you’ll learn to do that now…and perhaps as a result, you’ll always see them that way and will never talk down to them, hurt them with insults, ignore them when they are in need, slight them in front of others, or treat them as though you are entitled to everything they do for you.

Maybe you’re supposed to wake up in the middle of the night sweating and unable to go back to sleep, so that you surrender to the solitude of the night and draw closer to the One who sends His angels looking for the ones who are looking for Him.

Maybe all of this started because of a dangerous virus with the potential to kill, but it will end by renewing life and light into hearts that died long ago; victims drowned by the turbulent waters of this dunya.

May Allah ﷻ guide us through these times to not squander the opportunities before us and to live and love fully, with presence, sincerity, transparency, and wholeheartedness. Amin."

-Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi

"In the midst of all this uncertainty and panic, I know things look bleak today…

-I personally had to cancel travel plans for the next two months.

-Some of my dear friends had to cancel a major event they’ve been planning for almost a year.

-Some of my friends who are immunocompromised are worried.

-Some friends reached out to me because they don’t know what to do about their children attending school.

-Some friends are worried about their elderly parents.

-Some friends are worried about their livelihood and businesses not being able to survive.

Whatever the case may be, let us keep perspective that as Muslims our Shariah compels us to preserve five things:

1. Faith

2. Life

3. Sanity/Mind

4. Lineage

5. Property

Our utmost concern right now should be to protect our faith, our lives, and our mental wellbeing.

This virus is on this planet and doing what it’s doing SOLELY by the permission of its Creator.

Our response should be to SUBMIT to our Creator, prioritize our faith, and beseech Him for protection.

We must also act responsibly to preserve our own safety as well as the safety of everyone else (family, friend, or stranger) that we come in contact with.

Thus, we must “tie our camel” and put our trust in Allah ﷻ to protect us from any and all harm.

This balance of submitting to God FIRST and then preparing and being responsible for the worst will protect our sanity so that we do not become paranoid and unreasonably afraid.

We must also remember that whatever opportunities or sustenance we have lost was never ours to begin with, and the Most Generous will either replace it with something better in this life or the next, IF we remain patient and accept His decree.

So let us not fall into despair, sadness, fear, and anxiety. Let us be wise, patient, and use the time of imposed isolation to reconnect with our faith and our Lord, as well as with our families.

Sometimes it takes calamities like this to recalibrate our hearts and remind us what our priorities should really be.

May Allah ﷻ protect and guide us all. Amin."

-Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi

Recite Astaghfirullah as much you can. As narrated in hadith

If anyone continually asks pardon, Allah will appoint for him a way out of every distress, and a relief from every anxiety, and will provide for him from where he did not reckon.(Abu Dawud)

Following are some dua that you can recite:

1.“Verily, distress has seized me, and You are the Most Merciful of all who show mercy.”

(Aayah No. 83, Surah Al-Ambiya, Chapter No. 21, Holy Qur’an).

2. Recite “Hasbunallahu wa Ni’mal Wakeel” when you feel restless

“Allah is Sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs.”

Ibn ‘Abbas (May Allah be pleased with them) said: When (Prophet) Ibraheem(عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّم) was thrown into the fire, he said: “Allah (Alone) is sufficient for us, and, He is the Best Disposer of affairs.” So did Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (ﷺ), when he was told: “A great army of the pagans had gathered against him, so fear them”. But this (warning) only increased him and the Muslims in Faith and they said: “Allah (Alone) is sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposer of affairs (for us)”. [Al-Bukhari].

3. O Ever Living, O Self-Subsisting and Supporter of all, by Your mercy I seek assistance, rectify for me all of my affairs and do not leave me to myself, even for the blink of an eye.’    [صحيح الترغيب والترهيب 1/273]

4.It was reported from Anas (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to say, when something upset him:

“Yaa Hayyu yaa Qayyoom, bi Rahmatika astagheeth (O Ever-Living One, O Everlasting One, by Your mercy I seek help).”

5. Allahumma inni a’oodhoo bika minal-hammi walhuzni, wal-’ajzi wal-kasali wal-bukhli wal-jubni, wa dal’id-dayni wa ghalabatir- rajaal

"O Allah! I seek refuge in You from anxiety and sorrow, weakness and laziness, miserliness and cowardice, the burden of debts and from being oppressed by men."

I hope it will be helpful. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala forgive us and guide us to the straight path.

Ameen

[rotzaprachim]

the closest to heaven that i'll ever be (Kanej Guardian Angel AU)

From @elorcaning‘s prompt of Kaz just being an idiotic human getting in trouble all the time and inej is his guardian angel just trying to keep him from dying while doing stupid shit, which I thought was a BRILLIANT idea and kinda ran with. At 1 AM while on jetlag so I Apologise. 

Props to @kettvrdams for not killing me when i sent an incomprehensible WIP for her to beta. All accidentally unfinished sentences and spelling errors are entirely My Own Fault 

On AO3 - 1816 words, Teen

In her illustrious career as a guardian angel, Inej has learned several things. The first is to believe in the fundamental good of all people- well, almost all people. Almost. But really, she likes to think the best.

The second thing is that no matter how hard she tries- and damn, she really tries hard- humans will still find ways to screw their own lives over, and even if her role is supposed to be more hypothetical or spiritual than anything, she always finds herself getting involved in more practical ways.

But still she thinks, as the poor Dutch farm kid tries to eat fertiliser from the container for the third time, only to be shooed away by his older brother, that this is going to be a challenge.

--o0o--

“Organised crime? Really?” sneers a figure in the corner of the precinct station with their dark hood pulled down low. Kaz glances around. There isn’t anyone else around aside from the beat cop who’s just let him out of the holding shell with a glare and a kick to his good shin.

The figure pulls their hood down. It’s a girl about his own age. Looks like a university student, with a purple jacket and a rain slicker.

She holds out a plastic Albert Hejn bag. Ah. So this is what it’s about. Per Haskell, Pekka Rollins, whoever the fuck it is this time, want him to move something. Cash, drugs, fucking tulip bulbs for all he knows. He doesn’t really care, as long as he’s alive on the other side of it.

But it isn’t really heavy enough to be either of those things.

“You haven’t eaten anything in over twenty four hours.”

He doesn’t know how she could possibly know that, but when he looks inside, what he finds is a cheese sandwich and a bottle of orange juice. Sealed, so it would have been goddamn hard to hide a USB or whatever it is Pekka wants out of the country inside.

“Who sent you? Pekka? Ferry Bouman? Sonny Castillo?”

“Are those the only things your mind goes to?” Now the girl just sounds annoyed.

“I’m not in the habit of beautiful girls meeting me in police precincts without having some other angle they’re working. So what is it? Who do you work for?”

Beautiful girl. He didn’t mean to say that. He’s a lot of things, but a flirt isn’t one of them. Yet even in the yellowy light of the precinct, he can tell that's what she is, with her heart-shaped face and the fan of her oil-dark hair.

“Eat your damn sandwich” she says, and is gone before he can say anything else.

--o0o--

“Don’t get too involved,” says Zoya.

“The job description is guardian angel, ergo, I guard.”

--o0o--

Organised crime. Really. Perhaps not in the highest echelons, and it’s fucking Amerstedam, but still, organised crime.

Sometimes she really doesn’t think he’s organised enough to get mixed up in organised crime.

--o0o--

“Genuine Givenchy. Also got Rolex watches, Hugo Boss shirts-” he offers the middle-class housewives out on a girl’s trip to Amsterdam. The back of the florist’s he’s operating out of is packed with genuinely decent-looking fakes. It’s also on Sonny Castillo’s territory.

“Best space brownies in Amsterdam,” he promises a group of tipsy Erasmus students from Manchester with a smile that’s the image of sincerity. The coffee shop is on Ferry Bouman’s territory.

“Now this is a real Vermeer,” he tells the new-money-oil-don looking for a bit of old-school, Cultured, flash for his new penthouses in Dubai and London. The art gallery is on Pekka Rollins’ territory.

--o0o--

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Inej tells her boss.

--o0o--

“You think I can’t smell a rat, Brekker? You don’t fucking think I can’t tell when some bastard ratfuck tries to fuck me over?”

There have been many points during which Kaz thought his ass to be well and truly cooked. Almost drowning in the harbour in Rotterdam when he was twelve was certainly one of them, but it was also far from the last.

But now he’s got a gun to his temple and there’s no more talking he can do, not one more trick more trick up his sleeve or one more secret he can leverage into five more minutes, ten more minutes, another day to make things right.

There’s just him and a dark alley at the edge of the city and the freezing rain, pelting down and soaking him to the bone. And the angry hands slamming his face into the alley wall, over and over again, until blood runs down his face and chest and the rainwater tastes salty.

“Please. A week. No, a day, I’ll make it up-”

“Like last time you promise me, huh? Promise me twenty thousand? And then I find out you shelling out ten thousand Euros to Ferry Bouman to keep selling on Pekka Rollin’s turf. He ain’t gonna forget this, boy-”

“Ten thousand. I can get you ten thousand, you know I can-”

He sees the flash of a gun being raised, can almost feel the air change as the man pulls back the trigger, and then-

Like a flash of lightning, the moment after the fireworks go off. Light everywhere, the snap of sound of thunder, condensed, and then-

In the moment after the light, Kaz can’t see a thing. And then he can: the three grunts Pekka sent after him, lying in an alley, and the remains of several guns, incinerated to crisps. And the flash of something, a person maybe, going around the corner.

“THE FUCK ARE YOU?” He screams into the pouring rain, but no response comes back.

--o0o--

Sometimes, Inej wants to scream at him so loud he can hear it.

“And what were you expecting, exactly? Why can’t you just. . . .” she thinks of the words she hears people using, these days, “stay in your darn lane? You waste your mathematics scores dealing. You waste your German scores on conning tourists. You just . .. you waste your life.”

He’s had the pinched face of a businessman, and an older man, since his parents died. Since his brother died, and he spent his youth pinballing between foster homes and getting increasingly involved in things that the Korps Nationale Politie tend to take a rather dim view of. In all that time, though, she’s rarely seen fear on his face like this. She almost wants to reach out, across the train, tuck the edges of his carefully slicked-back hair back behind his ear, but she doesn’t.

“Why couldn’t you have just . . . stuck to selling overpriced marijuana to tourists or designer knockoffs from behind a tulip stand? Forging Vermeers? Stealing actual Vermeers?”

--o0o--

It’s only when he gets off at Utrecht Centraal that he notices an unfamiliar weight to his jacket pocket.

A neatly folded wad of cash. He flips through it gingerly. Twelve thousand euros.

--o0o--

“You can’t save his ass every time. Otherwise, he’ll never learn, and he’ll go beyond the point where you can save him.”

“But if I don’t save his ass now, he’ll die before he can learn.”

“Ah. That’s the eternal conundrum, isn’t it? Of the teacher and of the guardian angel.”

--o0o--

It’s not a particularly big country, but every time the train ride seems to last all day, and stretch into the night. Inej, at least, doesn’t need to buy a ticket. He buys flowers at Amsterdam Centraal. Changes trains at Maastricht and then again to a rural line, until he gets off at a station that’s nothing more than a strip of concrete alongside the track in a rain-soaked wheat field. There’s no taxis, no buses, only a long road through the countryside and the remainders of a life he’s tried to forget about at the end of it. He unfolds his walking cane and gets a move on.

On a hill, on a farm where the apple orchards have gone to seed and the roof of the house fallen in:

Annemarie and Jawad Rietveld. And a scratched out stone for Jordaan Rietveld.

He leaves the flowers, not particularly giving a fuck about the fact that he could be shot, right here and now, by Pekka Rollins, because this is Pekka Rollins’ land, even if it was Jawad Rietveld’s land first, and then Albert Rietveld’s land before that, even if, on a day so far removed from Kaz’s present life that it feels like someone else’s life entirely, Kaz thought that it would be Jordaan Rietveld’s land in the future.

He feels, in a way, her presence before he can see her.

“I know you’re there.”

She sighs and makes herself visible.

“It’s you. The girl on the train.”

“I don’t think so-” she says, taking on a heavy Flemish accent just in case he remembers her from the police precinct in Groningen. “I’m from Ant-”

“You. Your face.” I could never forget you face, he thinks. The police precinct, and then the train to Utrecht Centraal. A rare sunny day in this pit of gloom and rain, and the way that the sunlight hit her lashes, the curve of her cheeks, the splash of her dark hair, made him think that it was impossible there wasn’t something divine and benevolent in this life, and this world. “Police precinct up North. Gronigen. Train. Amsterdam. Everywhere i go you’re always-” He thinks about pulling the shiv from his pocket. Anyone so interested in following him certainly has ulterior motives, and yet-

“What are you? Why are you always- there?”

“I don’t think, Mr. Brekker, that your . . . theological opinions would permit you to believe me when I tell you what, exactly, I am.”

He shrugs. “Grandson of lapsed NHK’ers and Javanese Sunnis. No god helped them a whit. I don’t think God, if they ever existed, ever looked at this drowning spit of dirt.”

“I think there are many who wouldn’t disagree with you. Some of them, like myself, being of a divine persuasion.”

“Why are you here?”

She doesn’t answer, just turns towards the graves. A light rain has started to fall.

“Do you think you’re following the path they’d be proud of?”

--o0o--

“You know I count as a fucking mature student? Mature.”

Even she has to laugh.

“I’m fucking twenty three. Twenty three. I got carded trying to buy a beer yesterday.”

“But now a student.”

He flashes his new, shiny plastic student card at her. The photo on it still looks like a mugshot.

“What are you studying?”

“Politics. International Relations. How different can the European Council be from the mob, really? Common Agricultural Policy, pay off Europol, work some backroom deals to get shit done.”

Inej resists the urge to burrow her forehead in her jacket sleeves. There are, it turns out, many, many ways for a human to get themselves killed, on this world.

[sun-summoning]

Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering what happened to the fic the grad fad? I loved it but I can't seem to find it on FF. Thank you! :)

you know what i read this and had a moment of “wtf is the grad fad” followed by “it sounds SO FAMILIAR” then i looked through stuff on my computer and found a doc with that title that was last updated in 2013 and thought “oh god that’s when i graduated university wtf was this fic about???” i assume i deleted it off ffn back in the day bc i knew i’d never finish it.

anyway here’s all that i found:

-

Note: This is my last year of university and I’m actually quite sad, so this is mostly for my lawlz. But I promise I will have a plot.Warning(s): AU, going by my own university’s calendar Pairings: SasuSaku, NaruInoDisclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

-

SEPTEMBERi need a place to live

-

“Can I live with you?”

Sakura needed a home.

She was luckier than most people with her parents living just an hour and a half’s commute away from Konoha University, but she would rather pay rent every month than go through the two trains and two buses and twenty minute walk she spent her entire freshman year dealing with. She spent her second and third years living with Tenten, but that recently-graduated, totally lame, Judas loser decided to take the Next Step in her Relationship and Move In with her boyfriend, hence Sakura’s problem.

Sakura was homeless. Sort of.

Karin only raised an eyebrow at her before eyeing her one-bedroom apartment. There was a solarium, yes, but those doors were see-through and offered no privacy. “Seriously?”

But Sakura would not be moved. She nodded eagerly. “Honestly, I’d be down for a closet. Please? Lend me that room?”

“Fine.”

And so that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

It worked well enough, Sakura supposed. At the beginning, that is, when Sakura was still enjoying the remaining bits of frosh week and the constant keggers going on. On the first week of class—when all that happened was syllabi-reading and maybe an introductory lab or two that Sakura didn’t need—there were Mojito Mondays and Because I Freaking Feel Like it Tuesdays to go along with the traditional Thirsty Thursdays. For the first week of class, Sakura mostly came home to her glass room at Karin’s home in a lovely state of drunk or delirious.

But then she started coming home sober.

Second week struck and so did its readings upon readings upon readings. Sakura scrambled from the KU Bookstore to the shop for cheaper used books a few blocks away from the university where all the hipsters lived. She would then go to the printing press on the other side of the city for that course pack, and then to another printing press on the other side of the city for another course pack. Then she would settle down in the library with a chai tea latte and lemon poppy seed muffin and shut off her phone and get her readings done.

(Not that anyone was texting her, of course. Ino was basically ignoring the world and Naruto still felt like it was move-in time and Sakura knew for a fact he had a keg at his house and Sasuke and her basically didn’t talk unless they were forced to.)

In her second week of September, Sakura would come home extremely late, with aching shoulders and arms full of books.

In her second week of September, all Sakura would want to come home to was a cozy bed and ugly bunny slippers and Netflix. Instead, she came home to Karin’s bra on the sneakers Sakura left by the door and the beautifully permanent sight of Karin and Shikamaru doing the deed on the couch.

Sakura just sighed. “Guys, like, I eat my breakfast on that couch!”

They barely noticed her before Karin let out a squeak and they casually moved their canoodling over to her bedroom.

“Seriously?!” Sakura yelled, dropping her book bag and mourning the sight of the beloved Lazy Boy, forever tainted by Shikamaru’s naked ass, cute as it may have been.

Sakura plopped down on the carpet, sitting right in front of the recliner.

This wasn’t going to work.

-

“Can I live with you?”

Sakura twitched when she got no response. Ino had been like this all summer. She was in I’m-taking-my-LSAT-therefore-nothing-exists-but-these-LSAT-notes mode and essentially drowning everyone and everything. There was no time for double fisting the red sangria and the white sangria at Red Room after a long day of class, nor was there time to listen to Sakura propose potential research paper topics. Ino had quit her job and her social life in favour of studying, studying, studying.

“Ino?”

Ino had a pretty swanky place, actually – for a studio apartment, that is. But it was surprisingly large for a kitchen-living-room-bedroom hybrid monster. It even had a balcony!

“Yo! Blondie!”

Finally, Ino looked up. “What was that, Sakura?”

Sakura pouted.

They were at the coffee shop near the Bio labs on the west end of campus. Ino had only agreed to Sakura’s invitation when Sakura offered to buy her sleepless friend some coffee. Apparently the implied “you’ll have to listen to me when I speak” part of that deal went unnoticed, however. Great.

“Can I live with you?” Sakura repeated.

Ino didn’t miss a beat. “No.”

“What?” Sakura couldn’t help it. Her jaw literally dropped. She was ready to prepare some grand speech about friendship and bonds and love and all that jazz that Naruto would have been super proud of, but Ino waved her hand – granted, she looked more like she was trying to swat away some irritating bug.

“Sakura,” she said flatly, “consider the size of my apartment.”

“It’s fun-sized,” Sakura reasoned. “Super fun-sized.”

“No.”

“But I’m homeless!”

“You live like an hour away—”

“AND A HALF.”

“—you’ll manage.”

“But I’m homeless!” Sakura repeated pathetically, hoping that if she pouted Ino might have been moved.

But that was not the case. Ino’s eyes were already back on her binder of notes for her LSAT studying. “Nope.”

“You’re a heartless, wretched beast,” Sakura said. She gathered her things and made sure to grab the caramel macchiato she spent a grand four dollars on for some traitor. She stuck her tongue out when Ino let out an indignant cry for having her coffee stolen. “Sorry, I don’t buy drinks for jerks!”

“Just commute, you lazy baby!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

-

“Can I live with you?”

Naruto didn’t look even remotely surprised to see Sakura on his front porch with a bright pink gym bag full of her clothes and a backpack that looked ready to burst at the seams. And he didn’t even want to think about how heavy that other bag pulling at her left arm was, considering all the textbooks sticking out of it.

Like the good friend he was, Naruto grabbed the bag of books and the bag of clothes.

“Come on,” he said, moving to the side so she could enter the house.

“You’re the best, Naruto!”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Sakura had been to Naruto’s place many times. It was a house in the so-called “student ghetto” just off of campus with an open-concept main floor and a fair number of bedrooms. If Sakura remembered correctly, Naruto had the big room in the basement, Suigetsu called dibs on the attic, and Sasuke and Shikamaru had rooms on the second-level. But now that Neji had moved in with Tenten—

“Am I getting Neji’s old room?” Sakura asked.

Naruto nodded, guiding her up the stairs even though she already knew where to go. “Yeah, I figured you’d be here eventually.”

“What?” Sakura felt tears spring in her eyes. She couldn’t help it. She was tired and stressed and her shoulders were killing her. “You saved a room for me?” She was in awe of how sweet he was.

But Naruto just shrugged and looked away. Sakura saw the way his cheeks reddened though. “It’s not a big deal. We just didn’t bother looking for another guy. I had a feeling things wouldn’t work out at Karin’s when Shikamaru basically stopped coming home all of first week…”

Sakura still tackled him into a hug, forcing him to drop her bags. She pulled away and smiled. “You are literally the best, did you know that?”

He grinned back. “Obviously.” But a thought came to mind and his smile waned. “Um… there’s just one thing…”

“Yeah?” Sakura was too busy marvelling at the fact that her new room came with walls (and a bed and drawers and a closet and even a calendar) to notice his frown. “Don’t worry about rent. I got my job at the registrar’s office again so I’m good.”

“It’s not that.”

Sakura finally looked at him. “What is it?” She suddenly looked equally as frantic. “Oh.”

“Are you okay with living with your ex?”

“Obvously.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“I figured.”

“Meh.” Sakura shrugged. She took her bag from Naruto and opened it up to beginning the process of moving in all over again. “I’m kind of homeless, so I’ll make due. And you know how I am during school. I basically just live at campus during the year.”

Naruto laughed and ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “we just have one more year of this crap, right?”

Sakura glanced at the calendar and nodded.

“Just one more year.”

-

OCTOBERi need reference letters

-

So it was October.

October came to mean a lot of things to Naruto: midterms, essays, Thanksgiving a.k.a. Turkey Day, pumpkin spice everything, breaking out the awesome orange scarf Sakura knitted for him years ago, pretty leaves, and so much more.

Now the boys didn’t usually maintain their house unless someone was coming to visit. Fine, the tiny front lawn would see a mowing every other week or so, and the backyard was only managed if there was going to be a party. And then the inside was divided that every man would take care of his own place, the kitchen would always be cleaned by whoever made whatever mess, and the bathroom would go through a weekly cycle of sorts. But things like the broom and the vacuum were only broken out for special occasions.

“Guys!”

In the living room, Sakura was sketching silly outfits on the bare bodies in her anatomy textbook in lieu of studying, while Naruto made his own efforts to procrastinate pretty obvious as he made a tower of all the novels and plays and poetry anthologies he had to read for the semester. So far, his stack was balancing at a rather noteworthy twenty-two. Shikamaru, on the other hand, was making paper balls with his notes and throwing them at Naruto’s tower.

They all looked up at Suigetsu’s frantic shout.

“What is it?” Sakura asked. She had the grace to look annoyed by the interruption to her ‘hard work.’

“Sasuke’s mom is here!”

Immediately, Naruto and Shikamaru rose, their eyes wide and their arms near flailing. Sakura raised an eyebrow when Naruto shrieked. His book tower had fallen over when he stood up so fast.

“Clean that up!” Suigetsu yelled, pointing.

Naruto anxiously did so by pushing all of the books under the couch. At the same time, Shikamaru was taking all the randomly strewn about mugs and plates and – oh god – beer bottles and hiding them in the video game drawer. Suigetsu was keeping a careful eye on the driveway from the window by the stairs.

Sakura could only frown. “What are you guys doing?”

“Sasuke’s mom is here,” Shikamaru pointed out.

Sakura looked at the boys like they were idiots and, for the most part, they returned the look. Suigetsu finally sighed. “Sakura, have you ever seen Sasuke’s mom?”

“Yes,” she said. “In fact, I—”

Naruto shushed her. “Sakura, haven’t you heard? Sasuke’s mom has got it going on!”

Sakura did not look amused, but that didn’t stop Naruto and the other boys from opening the door and yelling their hellos. They all ignored Sasuke’s knowing glare as they took his bags from him and all warmly greeted the lovely Mikoto Uchiha. They exchanged pleasantries and thanked Mikoto wholeheartedly when she graced them with a whole turkey for the house – her little Thanksgiving present to them.

“Oh, Mrs. Uchiha, you didn’t have to do that,” Suigetsu told her sweetly.

But the older woman just smiled and waved the matter off. “Oh, but you boys need to be properly fed!”

Sakura could only pray she had that kind of decency when she was older and sending her son off to live with his fellow cavemen. Sakura eyed Mikoto Uchiha’s beautiful cashmere sweater and her form fitting skirt and could actually kind of understand why her friends were all salivating like dogs. She suddenly felt incredibly insecure in her yoga pants and the sweater she ninety percent belonged to Shikamaru. God, she was such a mess, Sakura realized. At least she wasn’t wearing her UGGs…

Dammit.

“Sakura Haruno, is that you!”

Sakura blinked. “Huh?”

Finally, the boys got out of the way and Mikoto rushed over and hugged her. “Oh, darling!” Mikoto let go enough to look Sakura over and frown disapprovingly. “You’ve lost weight!” she pointed out gravely. “Why haven’t you been eating, missy? This better not be over some stupid boy, because let me tell you—”

Sakura flushed. “Nope!” she interrupted. “I just…” Sakura laughed awkwardly and took a step away from Mikoto. “I just, um, have been busy and haven’t really been sleeping properly…”

Mikoto immediately turned around to face the boys. “And why haven’t you all been making sure Sakura is eating correctly? Hm? Shikamaru? You’re the responsible one!”

Shikamaru froze for a moment with the attention on him. “Um.” He chuckled. “Well, I haven’t really been around either, Mrs. Uchiha. But I’ll definitely make sure our little Sakura eats three square meals a day.”

“Yes, you better!” Mikoto took her turkey out of Naruto’s hands and deposited it into Sakura’s despite the blond’s protests. She winked at Sakura. “Eat up, sweetie.”

Sakura smiled. “Thank you.”

Mikoto gave her son one last kiss on the cheek before saying her goodbyes to everyone. When she was finally gone, Naruto let out a low whistle and made some flattering but inappropriate comment that led to Sasuke punching him in the stomach and stomping away. Still wincing, Naruto hurriedly stole the turkey away from Sakura and brought it to the kitchen.

That was one last thing October meant to Naruto: Mikoto Uchiha sending over a whole turkey for their little house of broke students.

.

.

But the gesture of turkey-giving didn’t arouse the same happy feelings in Sakura. As Suigetsu thoughtfully took a bag of Sasuke’s on his way upstairs, Shikamaru volunteered to walk Mikoto to her car, and Naruto took the turkey for some “alone time,” Sakura went back to her anatomy textbook and suddenly felt incredibly lonely.

Sakura had spent Thanksgiving dinner with the Uchiha family once, back when she and Sasuke were still together. She got along with them all to the point that Mikoto would literally text Sakura at least every other day just to make sure she was okay or to talk. Ino thought that was weird, but Sakura justified things with that Ino had never been in a real relationship – not one that included bonding with your partner’s parent. And when Sasuke dumped Sakura, Mikoto immediately asked Sakura if she was okay. But Sakura soon began to distance herself from the woman, mostly out of propriety, and seeing her in person today made her feel horrible.

Sighing, Sakura picked up her mug of sangria and whined when she realized it was empty. She grudgingly went to the kitchen and took the bottle out of the fridge. After a moment of consideration, she decided to learn from past mistakes and drink from the bottle and skip the mug.

“Well done,” she told herself after a sip.

“Sakura, it’s ten in the morning.”

She joked and spun around. Sasuke was leaning against the counter with a cup of tea and judgemental frown.

“Um.” Sakura lowered the bottle and reconsidered her mug. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

He then took an economics textbook out of his backpack and went over to the couch, sitting beside her scrawled dresses and flower hats. She cringed, but he didn’t seem to notice her doodles. Sakura slowly made her way back to her book and sat as close to the edge as she could, at this point gulping down the sangria.

Seriously? Sakura thought. That was how he wanted to go about things? He wanted to ignore what happened three weeks ago that essentially set the shroud of awkward that hung over them whenever they saw each other in the kitchen or the hall or the living room?! What the actual fu—

Ugh.

When the silence became too much for her to concentrate in, she turned to Sasuke and found him already looking at her.

“How was your break?” she asked. Granted, KU didn’t really offer a “break” so much as one single day.

“Good.”

“What did you do?”

“Helped my mom cook,” Sasuke said.

Sakura grinned. “Since when do you cook?”

“Excuse you, but if I recall correctly, I’m not the one who set off the smoke alarm from boiling water.” Her eyes widened and he smirked.

“THAT WAS ONE TIME!” Still blushing, she kicked him, but he only grabbed her ankle to steady her. “Hmph. Well, what did you cook?”

“Mashed potatoes.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and that’s just such a feat. Look at you Top Chef Wonder.” She giggled at her own not particularly funny joke and told herself it was way too early in the day to already be tipsy. But from what she could remember, Sasuke actually was a great cook. “Is that all you made?” she continued.

“I made a pie, too, actually,” he said. Then he pushed her leg off his lap and went back to the kitchen. The bounce of her foot on the cushion was what made her realize the Sasuke had actually been drawing nonsensical things on her calf andandand—

No. No, she told herself. This. Is not. Allowed.

Finally, he came back with a Tupperware and a fork, handing them to her.

“What is this?” she asked, drawing her legs in and sitting up straight.

“Pie.”

“Huh?”

“Pie,” he repeated. “I made pumpkin pie. It’s Itachi’s favourite and I remembered that it’s yours too so I brought a slice back for you.” Sasuke shrugged and all but buried himself in his economics textbook.

Sakura smiled at the gesture. “Thank you,” she mumbled, poking at the pie.

He glanced at her but saw her focused on the dessert. “You’re welcome,” he replied into his book.

And after finishing the slice, Sakura picked up her own book. The two sat on the couch for a few hours simply reading in a comfortable silence.

.

.

October also came to mean sucking up. October meant heading over to office hours (even the ones that started at 9AM) and making an impression and getting on your professor’s good side so that at the end of the semester, when they were determining Naruto’s participation grade, they would remember his bright hair and bright clothes at each and every lecture.

But this year, their final year, meant going to office hours would no longer just be about proposing separate essay topics or clarifying anything said in class.

This year meant reference letters.

Reference letters for grad school.

But those also meant office hours, which, with Naruto’s luck, meant 9AM with Dr. Kakashi Hatake – which actually kind of sort of meant 10AM considering the man was always late…

Still, that was early considering said hours were on a Friday.

“Let’s move, lazyass!”

“But I’m tired,” Naruto whined, lagging behind Sakura. “Can’t we just be death eaters?”

“No!”

“Or we can just be homeless,” he pointed out. They were on their way to the Humanities Building where Sakura was going solely as Naruto’s moral support while he asked for letters of recommendation. Naruto Uzumaki was going to graduate school, but… well, he was sort of too much of a wimp to approach his favourite professors alone. Likewise, Naruto may or may not have treated her to slash bribed her with a delicious lemon poppy seed muffin and chai tea latte for breakfast.

“I have worked too hard all these years to be homeless,” Sakura said between sips of her drink.

“Fine, not homeless, per se.” Nevertheless, Naruto continued along to the Humanities Building. He stopped the oblivious Sakura from walking into the doors, knowing that for whatever annoying reason, the automatic doors weren’t so automatic. He knew. He may or may not have walked into said doors before…

“Oh?”

“We can live in a box,” Naruto told her with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. “Just ask for your letters, Naruto.”

“I don’t know what to say!” But they were already in the elevator.

“You say ‘Hey, Kakashi, I really want to come back to KU for another year to do more readings and write more papers and lead more seminars yada yada yada.’ He’ll love it.” The sad thing was that Sakura wasn’t joking. She’d had Dr. Hatake in her first-year “Literature for our Time” course with Naruto and from her own visits and talks with the man, she’d come to know what he was like.

And well… Naruto looked like he was considering.

“Do you honestly think that would work?”

“I have full faith.”

She genuinely did.

Sakura herself had been going with the more formal approach of: “Dr. Whatever, would you be willing to write me a positive letter recommendation for X Med School?” Most of her professors were very familiar with her and her study habits and her amazing work, so Sakura didn’t actually need to put the operative “positive” in her requests, but it didn’t hurt to stay safe.

But with a professor like Kakashi, things would work out fine for Naruto.

They stood outside of Kakashi’s office and Sakura gave Naruto a pat on the back. “Do you have any idea what you’d want to research though?”

Naruto nodded. “Gothic literature!” he told her eagerly, looking ready to actually tell her more. “I’d like to look at the late eighteenth century and then maybe at the revival of Gothic literature in contemporary times. I mean, Gothic work is just so prevalent nowadays and—”

“Don’t tell me this stuff,” Sakura interrupted. She pointed to Kakashi’s open door. “Tell him!”

“Oh, right…” Naruto laughed awkwardly. “Okay. I can do this.”

“You can do this.”

“I can!”

“You can!”

“…I CAN’T.”

Fed up, Sakura pushed him into Kakashi’s office.

.

.

“Okay, so that went better than expected.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “I told you.”

“Yeah, I know…” Naruto shrugged. “The entire asking-thing is just… nerve-wracking, I suppose.”

The two were at one of their favourite off campus haunts that served Sakura’s favourite sangria and made some of the greatest ramen Naruto had ever tasted. Sure, it was only noon, but it was never to early for wine and whining – at least, that was Sakura’s philosophy. And well, it had served her well for the past three years so…

Besides, it was Friday. Why not get nice and day drunk?

“So what schools are you applying to?” she asked Naruto.

“KU, of course,” Naruto listed through a grimace. “But… I don’t think I’ll get in. KU is so evil, Sakura-chan!”

She nodded. “Oh, I know.” While completing an undergraduate degree at KU was a magical feat in their humble opinions, to complete one and be accepted into the university’s graduate programs would be hard considering the CGPAs most KU students usually escaped with. While Sakura knew she wouldn’t have any problems, she did know that Naruto might. “Where else?”

“Not sure.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “What? Naruto, don’t just apply to one grad school if you’re set on doing your Master’s!”

“You don’t think I can get in?”

Sakura sighed. ���It’s not like that,” she said, “it’s just that these are competitive programs. You should at least apply to more than one. I mean, what would you do if you didn’t get into KU?”

“…become a death eater?”

“You are so—so—” She sighed again and finished off her sangria. She poured another glass and sipped on that. “You’re like Ino.”

“What? I don’t like Ino!”

“Huh?” Sakura laughed. “No, I said you’re like her, not that you like her. That’d be weird.” In her semi-drunken state that was starting to become Sakura’s default state, she missed the red on Naruto’s cheeks.

“Well, how is Ino, anyway? I haven’t seen we had that kegger in September.” Both of them cringed, remembering their own personal awkward mistakes from that night. Naruto made a face. “Yeah. Ino.”

But Sakura snorted. “Who’s Ino? Oh! Did you mean Ino, the girl who’s apparently my bestie?” Sakura looked a little bit bitter. Maybe she was. Maybe she’s been in dire need of a girlfriend for the past two months but Ino hasn’t really been that great of a friend. “Yeah, she’s studying. She basically won’t have any human contact aside from lectures until she takes her LSATs in December.”

“I see.” Naruto noticed the sad look on Sakura’s face and wasn’t sure if she wanted a serious attempt at comfort or some kind of joke. “Well…” Naruto shrugged. “At least she has plans?”

“Yeah,” Sakura said with a nod. “I guess I just miss her.”

“What law schools will she apply to?”

“I DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT!” Sakura yelled. Her face crumpled and she took a long swig of her drink. “I miss her, Naruto. I know I’m being irrational and that my period is probably coming—”

“Thank you.”

“—but I mean it’s like she just doesn’t care about anyone right now!” Sakura refilled her glass and finished that in one go. Naruto subtly ordered another pitcher and Sakura continued: “I mean, I’m not trying to be clingy. I get it. She has stuff to do. But like, I’m living with Sasuke! HOW HAS SHE NOT EVEN ASKED ME IF THAT IS REMOTELY OKAY?!”

“Huh?” Naruto blinked. “I thought you said that you were okay with that… Sort of.”

“I am!”

“What?” God. Why were women so confusing?!

“I don’t care about Sasuke, Naruto!” Sakura looked at him like he was the one acting crazy. “What I’m saying is that Ino—my Ino—would have texted me the first night asking if I reacquainted myself with Sasuke, followed by an unnecessary amount of wink-faces! Current Ino responds to my text messages days late and never wants to hang out. Like I’m not even allowed to go to the library with her because she thinks I’ll distract her!”

“…you kind of are a huge distraction.” Which she was. As surprising as it was, Sakura was actually the one between the two of them that could be found not working (but still, unfairly enough, maintaining a 4.0 CGPA, so like what the hell).

“NOT THE POINT.”

Their next pitcher arrived and Sakura’s face lit up. “I’m just sad, I guess,” she admitted forlornly. “Or tired. A bit of both.” She sighed and suddenly looked a bit bashful. “I’m sorry. I’ve been ranting all this time. How are you and Sasuke doing?”

Naruto levelled her with a flat stare. “You make us sound like a couple.”

“Aren’t you?”

“SAKURA-CHAN!”

She giggled and Naruto let her. Mocking his “bromance” with Sasuke was always something that could make Sakura smile so he let it go. But suddenly the smile fell and she adopted a serious look. A bad serious look.

“Hey!” she yelled, grabbing his hand on the table. “Are you single?”

Naruto felt very, very uncomfortable with her hand on his. “What?”

“I have this friend,” she clarified. “She’s seen you in a lot of my photos and has probably stalked you on every possible social network. She thinks you’re really good-looking. She’s a super sweet girl and I think the two of you would hit it off really well.”

“Are you…” The words felt weird coming out of his mouth. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“No. Maybe. Yes.”

“What?” Naruto laughed at the mere idea. “What’s her name?”

“Hinata Hyuuga. Really smart, really sweet, really pretty. You’d like her.” Sakura pulled out her phone and logged into her Facebook to find the girl’s profile. She was about to show Naruto a picture but he covered the phone and placed it face-down on the table. “What?”

“I trust your judgement.”

Sakura blinked, utterly astonished. “So… you’ll go on a date with her?”

Musing over all the nothing that had been going on his life as of late, Naruto nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go on a date with her.”

-

NOVEMBERi need to go to sleep

-

November was the worst. November was when you got back your midterms or assignments, cried, rechecked said midterms or assignments, cried again, and then drowned your sorrows in your alcoholic beverage of choice.

For Naruto that was beer.

And as Naruto whined over the grade he got on the paper he wrote the morning it was due, Sakura rubbed his back with one hand and scrolled through the Recently Added section of Netflix.

“It could be worse,” Sakura said.

“How could it have been worse?” Naruto asked her, his eyes still trained on the bolded 72 at the bottom of the page.

“Naruto, a 72 by KU standards is actually pretty damn good!”

“Oh, shut up Miss 4.0. Leave me alone. Leave me to wallow in my sorrow and beer. There is nothing left for me. Alas, woe is me!”

Sasuke, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as comforting. “Listen, dumbass. You passed. Passing is good, remember? You’re fine.”

“PASSING ISN’T ENOUGH FOR GRAD SCHOOL, SASUKE.”

He sat down beside Sakura, leaving her between the two boys. He handed her a mug of sangria and passed a brand new beer over to Naruto, letting him drink it between awkward whining noises that mimicked some sort of dying animal. Sakura looked ready to say some more words of consolation but Sasuke shook his head, signalling for her to stop. “Leave him be,” Sasuke said. “He’s always like this when he gets back a grade.”

“I know but…” Sakura glanced at Naruto. “He looks so pitiful.”

“I AM LITERALLY RIGHT BESIDE YOU, SAKURA-CHAN.” Naruto sat up straight, letting the blanket he’d wrapped himself in fall back a little. He stole the remote away from her and began to look through the files of movies and shows from Suigetsu’s hard drive that they had connected to the television. “My life is over.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Your life isn’t over.”

“It is.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“Listen, Princess,” Naruto hissed, now glaring at Sasuke. “Not all of us have names that all but grant entry into programs and internships and all those other pretty things.”

Sasuke took offence to that. “I still need to maintain a good GPA to get in, Naruto. My name isn’t everything.”

Naruto didn’t seem to have any proper response to go with that so he simply stood up, tightened his burrito of a blanket, and waddled away. He came back a few seconds later to grab his beer, but still gave Sasuke and Sakura one last look of contempt before leaving.

“Such a baby,” Sakura mumbled when he was gone.

---

ALRIGHT AND THAT IS WHERE IT ENDED. i did find this though. i assume it was supposed to be part of the november chapter, which i never finished:

“Oh,” she said, understanding his look of awkwardness. She rolled her eyes. “No, this isn’t a gift with some meaning behind it, Sasuke. I mean, you made me pie, remember? It’s not like it had some implied Sakura-you-goddess-please-take-my-unworthy-self-back between the bites, right?” When he failed to reply, Sakura only frowned before shrugging the matter off. “The point is, this is a gift for you from me, Sakura the Friend.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Friend?”

She nodded. “Well we are friends, aren’t we?” She preferred ‘friends’ to ‘two people stuck being around each other despite lingering awkwardness simply because they had way too many mutual friends.’ “Sasuke?”

“Yeah,” he eventually replied. “We’re friends.”

Sakura grinned and patted the tablet. “Then accept my gift, friend.” She winked, emphasizing the word weirdly.

“Okay, don’t ever do that again.”

and then this the outline:

December: i need to study

Go sledding at the university 

Have a snowball fight on the field 

Everyone goes out to celebrate after Ino’s LSAT and get unbelievably drunk 

Sasuke and Sakura have gotten back together, which Naruto knows but doesn’t call them on 

Goes to his house for Christmas because her parents are travelling

Ino and Naruto hang out 

NYE party at the house 

Ends with Sakura checking her KU email and realizing there is a problem with her potential graduation

January: i need another vacation

Sakura ends up being in a Jane Austen course with Naruto because she was told she needed a humanities credit

February: i need to fix my habits

Go on a road trip for Reading Week

Come home Sunday night and scramble

March: i just need to graduate

Naruto and Sakura discuss their Big Boy/Girl jobs and the likeliness of them 

Naruto reveals that he’s seriously dating Ino 

Sakura is happy for him and tells him about Sasuke 

“I know. It’s not hard to tell. Why do you think rent isn’t so bad in that house? The walls are paper thin, you bitch.”

Dread paying back student loans 

Sakura tells him she’s nervous because Sasuke is studying abroad next year whereas Sakura’s dream school is KU’s med school – will they break up again 

Doesn’t tell him she plans to backpack for the year

“Do you realize this is like… the last time?”

April: i need to get in

Acceptance letters

May: i need my damn grades

Go on another road trip to unwind

June: i need to go back

Convocation

and i found this, which i think is meant to be in the january chapter:

“There is something very, very wrong with a situation if you are taking a class to bum notes off of Naruto.”

Sakura merely laughed as she spread out some sheets of paper and pretended to read them. She still had another two hours of work and she wasn’t particularly inclined to, well, work, and Tenten—the girl she shared the front desk with—didn’t really care whether she did anything or not.

“I know that sounded really bad,” Sakura said, “but I just need a Humanities credit.”

“Still!” Tenten urged, not even looking away from her computer screen. “Naruto.”

“He’s not as dumb as everyone thinks he is, you know.”

Tenten considered this before shrugging. “I suppose. He has been at KU for the past four years and is even graduating on time.”

“Exactly.” Sakura moved onto the mug of pens on her desk, testing each one to see which still had ink. “And he’s actually really good at Lit courses.”

“He should be,” Tenten replied with a snort. “I mean, that is what he’s specializing in.” Her chair squeaked when she leaned back and pushed away from her desk to roll over near Sakura. Their desk was L-shaped with each of them on one side. “What course is it again?” she asked. But being the fidgety person that she was, Tenten moved to put away some student files. She climbed onto the stool and alphabetizing. “It was something cheesy.”

“Austen and Her Contemporaries.” Sakura hadn’t gotten past her first word before Tenten burst out into giggles. She couldn’t help but smirk when another thought came to mind. “Want to know something even better?”

Tenten gave Sakura her full attention. “Um, obviously.”

“Sasuke’s taking it with us too.”

oh man.

thank you for asking about this fic because i had absolutely no recollection of it but as i read all these docs, i realized how trashy i was in undergrad. and how frightened i was of graduating! just reading this makes me remember how afraid of growing up i used to be -- of not being a student and having to get a job and running out of time. but man i’ve been so much happier since then. the fear of “running out of time” is always around but i also have lost the will to care about people and/or things as the years have gone by. 

ok sorry that totally wasn’t your question lmao. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE ROLLERCOASTER OF THAT OUTLINE. 

how did it end? well, everyone graduated. presumably everyone got into the post-grad programs of their dreams (although funding??). the naruto arc was totally based on me in my 4th year and his plans are NOT where my future went lmao. although to be clear, future him is definitely satisfied with where his life took him. ss and ni double dated happily ever after. maybe. probably.

[djsamaha-blog]

Why I Keep My Heart Open Even Though I’ve Been Deceived

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you’ll live in torment if you don’t trust enough.” ~Frank Crane I’m heading home with a latte in hand, listening to This American Life through my headphones when a woman sitting on a bench outside the café waves me down. She looks like she’s in her sixties with grayish brown bangs and a worn pink winter jacket. I pull my headphones out of my ears. “Excuse me, can you tell me how far it is from here to 77 Westwood?” she asks. I take my phone out, Google map the address, and see that it’s thirty-seven minutes away in the suburbs. “Aw, shit,” she mumbles. Spit collects at the corner of her mouth. Her teeth are yellowed and I wonder if she’s a smoker. “What’s wrong? Where do you have to be?” My eyes rest on two leg braces leaning on the bench beside her that I hadn’t noticed before. “My handicap transport cancelled on me at the last minute and you have to book those things like three or four days in advance, so now I’m stuck here and I need to get home.” I ask if there is anyone that can pick her up. She shakes her head and proceeds to ask me, “How come people can be so mean?” Apparently the person she asked for help right before me had sworn at her and told her to leave him alone, which shook up whatever faith she had in humanity. With a heavy heart, she asks me questions I am not sure I have answers to like, why don’t people have more compassion? I can feel my heart inching out toward her. She has spoken to something in me that feels compelled to reassure her that not everyone is cold and heartless. There are good people in this world and it is important that she knows that. Pointing to her legs she says, “This could happen to anyone.” She recounts how she had an accident but would do anything if she could just walk again to get from the bench where we were to the home where she longed to get back to. In the five minutes I stand beside her this is what I learn: She’s getting her PhD in Child Psychology at McGill. She once had a diplomatic passport because her father used to work for the Prime Minister. She traveled all around the world with her parents and lived in Japan for many years. She is half Greek and half eastern European. “My grandmother used to make the best gefilte fish.” Because it turns out her grandmother used to cook for the Steinbergs­, a prominent Jewish family that founded grocery store chains in Quebec in the early 1900’s. At this point I take out my wallet and look at the two $20 bills lying in there side by side. — I start my day with a simple prayer that Marianne Williamson taught me from the book A Course in Miracles. I ask the universe, “Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?” Whoever I encounter that day or whatever happens, I believe in some way I am led to them. So for whatever reason, this woman sitting outside the café was put in my path. When I hand her the bills she takes my hands in hers, and they are warm and soft. “God bless you,” She says. I look into her pale blue, kind eyes and am reminded of my grandfather’s eyes. A survivor of the holocaust, he had eyes that were deep wells of untold pain and stories and kindness. I’m happy to prove that there are good people out there, that the universe is a kind place. She tells me I did a “mitzvah,” clearly familiar with Jewish vernacular. I ask her how to say thank you in Japanese and she proceeds to delight me with a few sentences. I say goodbye and head home to tell my husband Dan about the woman on the bench I just met. — The story could have ended there, but it’s what happened the following day that threw me off balance. I was walking back from doing some errands when a woman caught my eye. She was sitting on a ledge outside the YMCA talking to another woman standing beside her. I positioned myself so that the sitting woman couldn’t see me, but I could still overhear their conversation. It went something like this. “I’m sorry but my transport cancelled and I need to get home. Can you check on your phone how far it is?” My heart dropped and I could feel my face getting hot. I stood there for a moment in shock watching as stranger after stranger continued to stop for her, wanting to help. I went home and recounted the story to Dan. As I spoke, I felt my emotions transform from anger to utter confusion. I asked myself, was she really disabled? Was she really a student? What was true and what was just a story to pull at the hearts of strangers passing by? Did it even matter? I wasn’t sure. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I spoke. I suddenly felt naïve and foolish. “How do I respond to those in need from now on?” I asked him. “How do I know who really needs my help? Do I close my heart in protection? Do I stop giving because maybe I’ll be fooled again? Do I confront her?” Dan held me and assured me I didn’t have to close up. He told me that there was no harm in giving to her. I didn’t put myself in danger. I didn’t get pulled into a thousand dollar scam. I lost forty dollars to someone who probably needed it a lot more than I did, and maybe next time I wouldn’t be fooled again. After sleeping on it, I realized that what angered me most was the feeling of being deceived. I hated feeling so vulnerable and pulled into someone’s story that I couldn’t distinguish truth from scam. Every day in my work I hear my client’s stories of pain and struggle, and in order to empathize with them, a part of me needs to feel into that part of myself that they are struggling with. And what I realized was that, while I have a gift for empathy and a soft spot for people’s vulnerability, it can also be my kryptonite. If I’m not aware of the shadow side of the innocent part of me that wants to be helpful, I can easily be taken advantage of. The innocent is an archetype that we all have as children. We see it in every Disney movie when the film begins with a child, an orphan– someone who naively steps out alone into the forest to greet the animals without knowing who is a threat and who they can trust, which might lead them to befriend a wolf who lures them into the dark forest by pretending to be a grandmother who looks shockingly like a wolf. The innocent is the part of us who is naturally open and trusts that people are who they say they are. It is the part of us that might give another chance to a date whose been treating the waitress poorly, or excuse the behavior of someone who serves our own interests. But maybe we should take Maya Angelou’s words to heart, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Once you know that you’ve been tricked, it’s natural to feel angry, and there is always the possibility of becoming cynical. I could have gotten mad and, in the extreme case, called the cops on her, or I could have warned all the other strangers not to approach her because she was a liar and a swindler. It is far easier to react out of fear or injured pride and exact our revenge. We promise ourselves we will never be swindled again—“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” If we start to believe that everyone is motivated by self-interest or that everyone is out to get us, we risk closing our hearts instead of opening up to compassion. What I learned was even after all that, the woman on the bench still deserved my compassion. I still had the privileged position of being able to walk away, come back home, and have dinner with my loving husband. I had a choice whether to give to her at all. No one would be the wiser if I chose to walk away. But in practicing being a loving and compassionate person, I learned that I want to give without attachment to how it will be received and without expectation that I am owed something in return. I can’t control how the money is spent once I choose to give it, and if I wanted to do that, I could have bought her a meal instead. I don’t think it is my business to judge anyone else’s life and circumstances. Instead, I want to be able to give and let go, and walk away with my heart a little lighter. Let go of needing to hear a thank you. Let go of the gesture being appreciated. Let go of the attachment to a particular outcome. Let go of judgment. Let go of control. I know that the only thing I can ever be in charge of is myself and my own response—my thoughts, my words, my actions, and the decision to show up every day and try and keep this heart of mine open when it is so much easier, and more tempting, to keep it closed. Have you ever been deceived? Have you been more discerning since then? What’s helped you hold on to your compassion?

About Myrite Rotstein

Fullness Coach and Pattern Disruptor Myrite Rotstein helps women stop filling up with food, people pleasing, and self-doubt and learn to fill themselves up from the inside out, so they can stop dimming their light and remember their ‘nuf'ness.’ She leads monthly Fullness Circles to help women elevate one another, speak their truth, and spark connection. Visit her at myriterotstein.com.

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Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site. The post Why I Keep My Heart Open Even Though I’ve Been Deceived appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

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[sarahburness]

How I Keep My Heart Open After Being Deceived

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you’ll live in torment if you don’t trust enough.” ~Frank Crane

I’m heading home with a latte in hand, listening to This American Life through my headphones when a woman sitting on a bench outside the café waves me down. She looks like she’s in her sixties with grayish brown bangs and a worn pink winter jacket. I pull my headphones out of my ears.

“Excuse me, can you tell me how far it is from here to 77 Westwood?” she asks. I take my phone out, Google map the address, and see that it’s thirty-seven minutes away in the suburbs.

“Aw, shit,” she mumbles. Spit collects at the corner of her mouth. Her teeth are yellowed and I wonder if she’s a smoker.

“What’s wrong? Where do you have to be?” My eyes rest on two leg braces leaning on the bench beside her that I hadn’t noticed before.

“My handicap transport cancelled on me at the last minute and you have to book those things like three or four days in advance, so now I’m stuck here and I need to get home.”

I ask if there is anyone that can pick her up. She shakes her head and proceeds to ask me, “How come people can be so mean?”

Apparently the person she asked for help right before me had sworn at her and told her to leave him alone, which shook up whatever faith she had in humanity.

With a heavy heart, she asks me questions I am not sure I have answers to like, why don’t people have more compassion? I can feel my heart inching out toward her. She has spoken to something in me that feels compelled to reassure her that not everyone is cold and heartless. There are good people in this world and it is important that she knows that.

Pointing to her legs she says, “This could happen to anyone.” She recounts how she had an accident but would do anything if she could just walk again to get from the bench where we were to the home where she longed to get back to.

In the five minutes I stand beside her this is what I learn: She’s getting her PhD in Child Psychology at McGill. She once had a diplomatic passport because her father used to work for the Prime Minister. She traveled all around the world with her parents and lived in Japan for many years. She is half Greek and half eastern European.

“My grandmother used to make the best gefilte fish.” Because it turns out her grandmother used to cook for the Steinbergs­, a prominent Jewish family that founded grocery store chains in Quebec in the early 1900’s. At this point I take out my wallet and look at the two $20 bills lying in there side by side.

—

I start my day with a simple prayer that Marianne Williamson taught me from the book A Course in Miracles. I ask the universe, “Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?”

Whoever I encounter that day or whatever happens, I believe in some way I am led to them. So for whatever reason, this woman sitting outside the café was put in my path.

When I hand her the bills she takes my hands in hers, and they are warm and soft. “God bless you,” She says. I look into her pale blue, kind eyes and am reminded of my grandfather’s eyes. A survivor of the holocaust, he had eyes that were deep wells of untold pain and stories and kindness.

I’m happy to prove that there are good people out there, that the universe is a kind place.

She tells me I did a “mitzvah,” clearly familiar with Jewish vernacular. I ask her how to say thank you in Japanese and she proceeds to delight me with a few sentences. I say goodbye and head home to tell my husband Dan about the woman on the bench I just met.

—

The story could have ended there, but it’s what happened the following day that threw me off balance.

I was walking back from doing some errands when a woman caught my eye. She was sitting on a ledge outside the YMCA talking to another woman standing beside her. I positioned myself so that the sitting woman couldn’t see me, but I could still overhear their conversation. It went something like this.

“I’m sorry but my transport cancelled and I need to get home. Can you check on your phone how far it is?”

My heart dropped and I could feel my face getting hot. I stood there for a moment in shock watching as stranger after stranger continued to stop for her, wanting to help.

I went home and recounted the story to Dan. As I spoke, I felt my emotions transform from anger to utter confusion. I asked myself, was she really disabled? Was she really a student? What was true and what was just a story to pull at the hearts of strangers passing by? Did it even matter? I wasn’t sure.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I spoke. I suddenly felt naïve and foolish. “How do I respond to those in need from now on?” I asked him. “How do I know who really needs my help? Do I close my heart in protection? Do I stop giving because maybe I’ll be fooled again? Do I confront her?”

Dan held me and assured me I didn’t have to close up. He told me that there was no harm in giving to her. I didn’t put myself in danger. I didn’t get pulled into a thousand dollar scam. I lost forty dollars to someone who probably needed it a lot more than I did, and maybe next time I wouldn’t be fooled again.

After sleeping on it, I realized that what angered me most was the feeling of being deceived. I hated feeling so vulnerable and pulled into someone’s story that I couldn’t distinguish truth from scam.

Every day in my work I hear my client’s stories of pain and struggle, and in order to empathize with them, a part of me needs to feel into that part of myself that they are struggling with. And what I realized was that, while I have a gift for empathy and a soft spot for people’s vulnerability, it can also be my kryptonite.

If I’m not aware of the shadow side of the innocent part of me that wants to be helpful, I can easily be taken advantage of.

The innocent is an archetype that we all have as children. We see it in every Disney movie when the film begins with a child, an orphan– someone who naively steps out alone into the forest to greet the animals without knowing who is a threat and who they can trust, which might lead them to befriend a wolf who lures them into the dark forest by pretending to be a grandmother who looks shockingly like a wolf.

The innocent is the part of us who is naturally open and trusts that people are who they say they are. It is the part of us that might give another chance to a date whose been treating the waitress poorly, or excuse the behavior of someone who serves our own interests. But maybe we should take Maya Angelou’s words to heart, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

Once you know that you’ve been tricked, it’s natural to feel angry, and there is always the possibility of becoming cynical.

I could have gotten mad and, in the extreme case, called the cops on her, or I could have warned all the other strangers not to approach her because she was a liar and a swindler. It is far easier to react out of fear or injured pride and exact our revenge.

We promise ourselves we will never be swindled again—“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” If we start to believe that everyone is motivated by self-interest or that everyone is out to get us, we risk closing our hearts instead of opening up to compassion.

What I learned was even after all that, the woman on the bench still deserved my compassion. I still had the privileged position of being able to walk away, come back home, and have dinner with my loving husband.

I had a choice whether to give to her at all. No one would be the wiser if I chose to walk away. But in practicing being a loving and compassionate person, I learned that I want to give without attachment to how it will be received and without expectation that I am owed something in return.

I can’t control how the money is spent once I choose to give it, and if I wanted to do that, I could have bought her a meal instead.

I don’t think it is my business to judge anyone else’s life and circumstances. Instead, I want to be able to give and let go, and walk away with my heart a little lighter. Let go of needing to hear a thank you. Let go of the gesture being appreciated. Let go of the attachment to a particular outcome. Let go of judgment. Let go of control.

I know that the only thing I can ever be in charge of is myself and my own response—my thoughts, my words, and my own actions, and the decision to show up every day and try and keep this heart of mine open when it is so much easier, and more tempting, to keep it closed.

Have you ever been deceived? Have you been more discerning since then? What’s helped you hold on to your compassion?

About Myrite Rotstein

Fullness Coach and Pattern Disruptor Myrite Rotstein helps women stop filling up with food, people pleasing, and self-doubt and learn to fill themselves up from the inside out, so they can stop dimming their light and remember their ‘nuf'ness.’ She leads monthly Fullness Circles to help women elevate one another, speak their truth, and spark connection. Visit her at myriterotstein.com.

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Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

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