“Loneliness sets in. Sometimes it’s the places your soul once knew. Sometimes it’s the people. And sometimes it’s the relationships you once had. Nostalgia is a painful thing.

A glimpse, a smell, a particular high-pitched laugh, a whisper, a song, a hymn. Time. A sort of pain that carries over, and envelopes you in waves.

But it’s ok. It was meant to be. Life is not stagnant. It’s painful if it DOES become stagnant because that means it’s deprived of progress.

Moving on is painful but essential. Remember what the beloved (sws) said when he was leaving Makkah? That I would NEVER have left it, had I not been driven out! He too felt the pain of being uprooted from the blessed land, from all that he held dear! All that was familiar.

Bilal (r.a) felt the pain so much that he would pine for it. His yearning can be felt in these words that he uttered:

أَلاَ لَيْتَ شِعرِي هَلْ أَبِيتَنَّ لَيْلَةً بِوَادٍ وَحَوْلِي إِذْخِرٌ وَجَلِيلُ

Would that I could stay overnight in A valley wherein I would be Surrounded by Idhkhir and Jalil (kinds of goodsmelling grass)

وَهَلْ أَرِدَنْ يَوْمًا مِيَاهَ مَجَنَّةٍ

Would that one day I could Drink the water of the Majanna

وَهَلْ يَبْدُوَنْ لِي شَامَةٌ وَطَفِيل

and Would that (The two mountains) Shama and Tafil would appear to me!ُ

And Remember this is the same Bilal (r.a) who refused to give up on Tawheed even when he was put on burning coal!

So how did the Prophet (sws) cope? He (sws) ASKED!

‏ اللَّهُمَّ حَبِّبْ إِلَيْنَا الْمَدِينَةَ كَحُبِّنَا مَكَّةَ أَوْ أَشَدَّ

O Allah! Make us love Medina as we love Mecca or even more than that.

He ASKED to find it within himself to love the new. He ASKED to be delivered of his pain! And He ASKED for his pain to be replaced by love! His pain lived with him. But his pain achieved great things! The fruits of which we still reap, today. And he was ever-grateful and ever-loyal to the new people and new land that opened their arms to him. So much so that he chose to lay there till the end of times, even in his passing away. His beloved Madina.

And remember also what he founded in Madinah! The foundation stones of the greatest society that ever was formed. So his pain wasn`t futile! It had a purpose! It always does. So even though moving on is painful, it is essential. Your pain is valid! And it is for a purpose! You’re not being uprooted but replanted. Blossom where ever you’re planted! Embrace change. Everything you’ve left behind is a part of you, and everything you embrace ALSO becomes a part of you. You’re the sum total of ALL YOUR experiences. NOT JUST YOUR past. Look at the way the Beloved loved the first and embraced the second:)

Loneliness sets in. But it’s ok. You realize it’s always just you. But the more you sit with yourself; you realize it’s not just you. It’s you and God. It always was. It always will be. Every other relationship is a delusion. They are obvious tests when they are a source of pain. But even when they’re a source of comfort, they ARE STILL trials. And their purpose is ONLY to seek God through them.”