For the Relief of Unbearable Urges

Space

2011-08-30T02:30:00.002+02:00

One of the things i am most grateful for in my relationships, is space. I always had it with my family. I was never grilled over where i was going or who i was with. I was never interrogated on my thoughts or actions. I was never asked why i was a certain way. Growing up i probably had a little too much space. I would spend weeks on end at friends houses. There are entire summers where i recall only seeing my mom when she came by to drop some fresh clothes. I grew up with lots of space.
My friends are very spacey people as well. Of course we used to be less spacey... we used to butt into every detail of each others lives. But over the years we managed to reach a phenomenal balance of solid long term friendships and space. A group of seven girls two of which are permanently living abroad, the youngest of these friendships is 19 years old. Yes, 19. Thats a lot of years to practice space. There are never guilt trips, or dramatic whining, or accusations. When feelings are hurt conversations are had or neatly pushed away under a rug, to be had one day or just discarded. But there is never a suffocating blame placing sulk or tantrum. We are all very grateful for this, and very bewildered at how any other kind of friendship is sustainable. Space is an amazing thing in relationships, when it is not a cover for disinterest or self absorption.

The most amazing of space in relationships of course, is the space i have found in marriage. By nature my husband and i are not the chatty sort. Him much more than me. I think he could go for weeks without feeling a need to speak. And when he does it would probably be to crack a joke, and then slip back into silence. I have never met a less demanding person. I think if we had not been friends for so long and had he not known me so well and thus felt so entirely comfortable expressing affection (in a mostly physical manner), he would have probably gone through life entirely self sufficient. He is all about the space. Space i appreciate so much. It is not only space to do my thing and see my friends and do my work. It is space in my head to be free. To change my mind about things, to explore horizons that were once unspeakable, to wander off in my mind to new places, to enjoy a freedom in my mind and soul knowing i do not have to always fit in a boxed perception of myself in his mind.
There is space in our perception of each other, that comes from a long standing history of having changed many times before, without really changing to each other.

Space is such a vital thing my peace of mind, i find.

Marriage

2011-08-11T00:25:00.001+02:00

I am home without him. He got a new job, a better job, and he works through the nights. This morning he walked in while i was getting dressed to leave for work, at 8:45am.
The bed is strange without him. We have a 2m x 2m bed. I love big beds, and we had this one designed especially. We had to tailor make sheets for it, it is a huge bed. Our mattress is 30cm thick. It is the most amazing bed.
I was recently asked if my perspective or views on life have changed after marriage...
I must say mine haven't, though i can see how many others might experience that.
Some things change... the dishes pile up faster, the house gets dirty easier in the suburbs, the supermarket isn't around the corner, i have to drive a very long way to see my mom, i have to struggle with the guilt of leaving my mom. Every day things change.
My views however, remain the same...

I still do not think a girl should marry a day before 27, you must have truly lived, traveled, partied, dated, loved and most importantly gotten to know yourself a little before you take on someone for good, or attempt to. I still think that if i had gotten married any earlier i would not be so settled the way i am now. Certain things need to be done before one can take on this kind of commitment.

I still think friendship and understanding are the two most important things to look for in a partner, you need someone you can talk to no matter, and someone who will cut you some slack. You don't want someone at your throat whenever you leave the lights on or need to work late or forget to call back. You want someone who will understand that you must have chocolate now, that you need to see and call your mother that often, and that you can't have the TV volume on an odd number. You need someone who wont be irritated easily, someone laid back and accepting of you.

I still think there are many kinds of love, there is the love of the idea, the possibility of the idea, the impossibility of the idea, the love of the man, the impossibility of the man and the possibility of the man. There is the love in lust, and the love in anguish. There is the painful love and the hopeless love. There is the delusional love and the safe love. I have long since given up on trying to define the love i feel for my husband at any given time, for it is impossible. All i know is that it is the most gentle love i have ever felt. When his hands touch my face i feel like i have gone home, a home i have wanted forever. I know this because when his hands are wrapped around me i have no desire to go anywhere else ever. I could just there with my eyes closed and dose in and out of sleep and know that there is nothing out there that i am missing out on. This is where my world is. I know that everything is better when he is with me. I know that every time i bury my head in his chest he will tell me or show me how much he loves me some way. He is my constant, my rock, my anchor. My best friend and my buddy. And on top of all that he thinks i'm hot and can't keep his hands off me and takes me out on dates. There are many kinds of love, and they are interchangeable.
I still think everyone should live alone for a while before they get married.
I still think France is beautiful, and i miss it painfully.
I still talk to God, though our conversations are kind of one sided these days.

Nothing has really changed, i just sleep better and do more around the house... not too bad for entering into an institute most people have horrible things to say about.

Maybe when the kids come....

Yoga

2011-04-11T22:41:00.002+02:00

Every inch of my body aches.
I can't lift my arms to type without suffering abdominal pain.
Oh blissful yoga, you have been missed!
I promise to be good this time.
I promise to be loyal to you.
I promise to be loyal to me.
I promise to do you long enough to stop falling flat on my face.

Ashtanga yoga this time.

For those of you who think that yoga is mellow and easy, i challenge you to this class.

ay!

Tied

2011-04-05T00:44:00.002+02:00

I feel your eyes on my body
on my back, down my side
Allowed for you, is my body
i never seem to get that fact
I used to tread the sand
and wander off on my own
through my screaming aching body
i yearn for when time was something
spent alone
through the alleys of my mind
i would weave stories of lust
through the fingers gripping hair
i would break barriers
of love
I miss you
oh how this hurts
this rough nostalgia for days of freedom
smeared with dirt
of a patchwork of happiness
and streaks of oneness
of knowing pain so steep it forces you
to numbness
of whims of a tomorrow
that just may be colored by you
of hoping that this look you give me
means more than just a friend
coming through
i feel your hands on my body and remember a time
when not even your eyes could wander this freely
i remember a time
when all i ever wanted was for you to hold me
so completely
how funny it is, this love
escaping us while we dare it
and gripping me now
till it hurts
I feel your hands on my body
and know this is where i belong
i feel your breath on my neck
and know that marriage is for the very naive
and the very very strong

A line in the sand

2011-03-28T01:40:00.002+02:00

It's 2:00am and for the first time in my marriage i have left our bedroom to sleep on the couch; I am that angry. I put my head on my borrowed pillow in an atempt to sleep, and this sentence pop into my head: "you always draw a line in the sand". Used as an ingenious manipulation tool by a sociopath ex, who was indeed extremely intelligent and extremely right. I always do draw lines in the sand. On this side of the line lies my couch and on the other side lies our bed. A line in the sand.....

The emotional roller coaster: Egypt's uprise

2011-03-01T20:33:00.005+02:00

Every single day of this revolution to date, is worthy of several posts. Several. But i was too busy being awakened as an Egyptian, to write. I was too busy following facebook and twitter, then too busy trying to figure out illegal ways to get internet access, then too busy trying to find a phone line, then too busy trying to protect my home and family, then too busy packing to go to my mothers, then too busy convincing my husband to let me go to Tahrir, and in between all this time i was too busy watching BBC, Arabiya, CNN, Al Hayat and dream and reading 3 newspapers daily, and reading articles on the washington post, the independent and every other reputable online news portal available. I was too busy to come to this corner of my world and write. I did not know what to write. I still am not sure i know what to write. So forgive how disconnected this will be, it will be as it is in my head.

Let me just say a few things here before i go on. I have been a disconnected human being. I did not read the papers prior to jan 26 2011. I was actively passive and alienated. Why? My answer is very logical to me: why get worked up over something i don't intend to get up and change? As selfish as that is, that was my reality and i was quite comfortable with it. Let us get something else out there; i am completely and entirely pro this revolution. Completely and entirely. No doubt, no argument, nothing.

i will try to break the experience of the past month into phases, or days, linked to emotions. I think that would make the most sense to me, as i have changed my emotional position many times amidst this "uprising". My emotional position, not my rational one.

Jan 25: i am an oblivious citizen who has seen somewhere on facebook that today something is going on. i know there will be protests, so i plan my day around it. I go to my doctor at 11am, she is right off gam3et el dowal, my husband takes me for safety reasons in his head. i finish, we get into the car, we stop by the gas station in gam3et el dowal, it is very very quiet. And then the gas station tells us they are closing, and we look down the road and see the protesters coming. Hundreds walking towards us, we get into the car and head in the opposite direction and find our way home.

Jan 26th: i am entranced by the coverage and the scene from the day before. I hear the stories of violence. I am angered. I am furious. I fear that this will be the last of it and that the people will go back into their homes. I start nagging my husband to join the streets, without much success. (note: my husband refused that i take part as i have asthma and a leg injury that would have made me quite a burden to him, and i consented in staying home willingly as i chose not to burden him with worrying about me)

Jan 27th: I am proven wrong. I am glued to facebook and cheering it on. I am glued to Al Jazeera (the most channel offering around the clock live coverage at the time). I am flipping between all afore mentioned news channels and i am transfixed and i learn how to access the internet through.... Romania..?

Jan 28th: I wake up to no mobile lines, no internet, no land line! I wake my husband up in panic, i drive over to best friend 5 minutes away, use her phone and camp there for the day watching TV in awe.... violence, live ammunition, people dropping dead, blood, cars running over protestors, live abductions, violence, violence, violence, army take to streets, jubilation, the peace before the storm for like 10 minutes, fire, looting, prisons breaking, neighborhood committees, hiding money and valuables around the house, people calling the TV screaming, weapons, neighborhood, water boiling on the stove, baseball bat in hand, pledge as self defense? husband in the street, gun shots, shouting, repeat, repeat, repeat, 6am meltdown, finally sleep. Somewhere in the middle there was a half ass speech from the then president that i recall nothing from. Was this when he fired the government?

Jan 29th: we abort ship and head to my mothers, where we spend even more time glued to the television if possible

Jan 29th - 30th - 31st, Feb 1st: We watch minister after minister take the screen while we hear gunshots in the background. we hear sporadic rumors that the army has orders to shoot (the one day i had finally convinced husband to go). We watch what seems like a lot of news, but is no news at all. I fear that we have reached stagnation. Shafik makes the infamous speech "3ala re2abty ye7salohom 7aga", referring to the safety of those in Tahrir. I watch Mubarak say that he wants to die on this land, that he will not run again, that he has done the best he could and that history will have the last word with him. I cry. I friggin cry over his speech. I believe that enough is done, he will leave, let him do one last good thing for the country. I abuse my last chance at believing that he really isnt all that bad.

Feb 2nd: Darkness. I watch 16 hours of a live battle between armed thugs and unarmed citizens. I watch, and the world watches, while no one stops it. We all watch as this is left to happen. A day before there were ministers all over TV, and a day after, but on that day there was only one thing happening: murder in broad daylight, with no one stopping it. Till the second i write this i cannot believe that this was left to happen. I do not care who caused it, the fact that it remained unstopped is a crime unlike any other, and it was intentional, and i wait to see who will be held responsible, and he better be hung.

I cry, i do not sleep, i sleep at 7am after the battle ends, i cry myself to sleep over the violation of my innocence and the death of those i am sure died that day, even before we got a count.

Feb 3rd: I watch and watch and watch for some explanation for the night before. Nothing. A feable apology with the excuse of "having no idea". I am even more sick to my stomach.

Feb 4th: I go to Tahrir, i throw such a huge tantrum that led me to Tahrir. And i saw, the chants from a distance, the signs, the humor, the civilized checkpoints, all walks of life. I always understood it, but now i get to see it.

Feb 6th: we go back to work - if you can call it that- and we try to do our part by working hard and do our part by going to Tahrir. Work by day Tahrir after work. The week of perseverance.

Feb 10th: at work, rumors rumors rumors. "He will step down", "Badrway said", "Shafik said", "my mother said". My boss tells whoever wants to go home to leave, while i stay with her till 5:30pm. I go home and sit infront of TV for another 5-6 hours, waiting. I watch "al bayan al awel", and realize that there is conflict between army and president. Build up build up build..... everyone i know in Tahrir (i wanted to watch the speech in a quiet environment, i was not about to miss the presidents stepping down speech!)... build up build up build up........ the worst speech ever given by anyone who ever had an audience. I remember looking at my husband afterwards, so what exactly did he SAY??

I fear the blood.

I pray... i pray that protesters hold themselves peaceful, and i curse a man so narcissistic that he would burn a nation to hell.

Feb 11th: proud, honorable victory..... was it really that easy? Euphoria, Tahrir sq. Dancing and singing to "watany habiby al watan el akbar". Fireworks, Egyptians dancing on the streets. jubilation in all its meaning of the word.

Feb 12th: tears, tears for those who died, tears for not being there the whole time, tears and tears and tears while the magnitude of all we have been put through as a nation sets in.

The next two weeks: the realization of the extent of the filth that this county was turned into. talk show after talk show after talk show. Blood donations, street cleanings, slums visits, how on earth was this country left to be so raped and mutilated?

Tomorrow: uncertainty..... but thats another post.

2011 - the year of being 30

2011-01-01T22:02:00.004+02:00

I have plans for 2011. Big plans. I have plans of getting out of debt, of saving money, of earning a promotion, of losing the rest of the "first year of marriage weight" (5K down, 5 to go!). I have plans of sticking to yoga this time, of traveling to a country i've never been to before (Croatia? Greece? Bali?). I have plans for peace of mind as well. I have intentions to stress less, do more. Worry less, live more. Cocoon less, go out more. I have plans of reading great books, practicing french, and starting my book. I have all the plans someone who is excited about life would have, tailored to little me.

I also have wishes for 2011. I wish for my mother to be better. For my mother to stay with me and to get better. That is my biggest wish, i would trade in all my other wishes and previously declared plans in a heart beat, for this one wish.

I have wishes for my husband to find his peace at work and reap the fruits of all that hard work. I wish him success, in abundance.

I have one last wish that my best friend moves back from the states. That somehow her husband decides that his 15 year plan is not worth it, and just calls it a day. You never know....

Lastly, i am grateful for 2010. I am grateful for my mom's perseverance and stubbornness :)

I am grateful for the miraculous opportunity to change industries and careers without taking a pay cut. I am grateful for the ability to work 12 hour days for weeks on end and being able to prove myself worthy of this opportunity, and being recognized for it so quickly.

I am grateful for the proximity of this opportunity to my home! I am grateful for one year of marriage, peaceful and happy and as smooth as one can hope for it to be.

I am grateful for my 20's being over with all their drama, confusion and intensity. I am grateful for moving into a more grounded era of my life.

Lastly i am grateful for for all the gifts that God has given me to be able to live my life as i live it.

May 2011 be as kind as 2010 and as fruitful.

Love and joy to all,

.......

2010-10-19T23:52:00.003+02:00

8 people have died from my school class. One of which was my best friend since i was 4, she died 11 years ago, she was 19.

one died from a jet ski accident
4 in car crashes
one from diabetes
one didnt wake up
and lastly, one from cancer

Its so shocking and sad. They were all so young, it fills me with fear. Fear for my loved ones, pure raw fear. Fear and sadness.

Time

2010-10-05T00:43:00.003+02:00

I have turned into a workaholic
I am so tired, but i can't stop
I do everything else in between
Except making love
That is the only time i completely disconnect
And collapse in the arms of my man
It feels like i am working for my livelihood
for my sanity
for my existence
when all i want to do deep inside
is have kids and walk barefoot in the sand

this life is passing too quickly
time passes so slowly when you are waiting for something to happen
and when you are finally done waiting
it flies

The Writer in Me

2010-07-28T11:01:00.003+03:00

I am never happier than when i am writing. It is the one thing i can do for hours on end, it is the one thing i can for hours on end and lose all sense of time.
It is the one thing i do that gives me energy, not takes energy away from me. After the hours on end i am left so energized, i could start a whole new day.
I have always wanted to be a writer, i have always wanted to be published. First it was poetry, then it was prose, then it was short pieces, and then came blogging.
Blogging for me was so beneficial, on so many levels. Blogging was my first venture into receiving feedback on my writing. Every positive comment i got was elevating and self assuring, my favorites coming from insomniac, Juka and faisal :) The reassurance that i actually could write, was the most rewarding i have ever received.
Blogging was as well to me a self exploration process. If you have been a follower of this blog you would know just how personal it can get. I was not always so readily expressive. I used to be tied up in taboos and self denial. Maxxed out could attest to that, the one that got me try out blogging to begin with. I was very very closed up and defensive. This blog offered me a medium where i could talk about love, sex, death, religion and so much more...

Back in feb, when i realized i hated every aspect of my job, i thought the time had finally came for me to find a way to write for a living, or get into an industry where i could get closer to writing. I shortlisted all the publishing companies and bookstore chains and targeted them all.
There was no room there for an established manager with relatively high salary expectations. I had to ask myself just how willing i was to take a pay cut... I wasn't very willing, with marriage and kids and mortgages on the horizon, it would not have been very smart of me.
So i resigned myself to doing something i loved, but was not necessarily in love with, and started looking into working with houses - a love i realized when i was making up my own house.
So Sunday i start my new career in something i am very excited in working with.
But now remains the writing issue. I must write. I was born to write, and as i hit 30, i must start realizing that dream as well.

A lot of you bloggers write as well, do you have ideas how i could start this journey?
Have any of you written books and published them? Do share your experiences in this safe haven of a space, i really would love to get started...

Thank you in advance....

N

New Beginnings

2010-07-28T01:05:00.002+03:00

After three years and a half, i have left my job. I am no longer a senior manager in retail, i am no longer the person people go to when they need help, i am no longer doing a million things across a million functions, i no longer exist in the company to solve problems.
Starting Sunday, i am a middle manager in another industry. I am doing one specific thing, i am doing my favorite thing in all the things i have done. I have switched industries and careers all in one go. I am now part of a successful growing company, a leading company in its field, and i am a level 4 not 6. There are two people between me and the CEO. My boss and my boss's boss. I look forward to working at my desk with earphones in my ear marketing away.... for slightly better pay in a much better and healthier working environment.

I am anxious, i am excited, i am elated, i am a fish out of water; i am happy.

I have put a down payment on a beach chalet. its really a 2 bedroom apartment, 95m. My last 3500 EUR savings from France went into the first installment, and i am broke till end of year to pay back the money i needed for the second installment. It's my dream come true :) my house at the beach.

I will be 30 in two weeks. Thirty. THIRTY. It is terrifying, such unfamiliar territory... Officially grown up... in my head i am still 27. Really. I am thinking about having kids in the next few years.. i am married. I swear i do not know when it all happened. 9 month married after tomorrow.

Everything is new, i have a new home with an olive wall and a red wall - not in the same room i assure you - and contemporary furniture that i picked piece by piece. I cook for two and wash men's clothes.

A new home, a new job, a new beach house, a new decade ahead.

And i will finally start writing again, i had been so unhappy in my last job, and so busy doing all of these grown up things.

I have a slight suspicion that parts of me changed along the way.. or maybe i just don't know how to be me and be married at the same time, so much of me was about my stories in love... now love is all about sharing movies and dates and chores and funny banter... now love is so stable, there is no drama to channel my intensity through...

It's sort of exciting to see how i will manage to stay me in this docile role..

New beginnings....

The Rest of My Life

2010-01-30T02:17:00.002+02:00

I want to write for the rest of my life.
I want to write a book. A clever book that is insightful that you can't put down.
I want to write a book about people, and what they have to get through just by being people.
I want to start my own magazine. I want to rent a studio, paint it in bright colors and turn it into a buzzing magazine mania. And when i have kids i want to take them to work with me.

I am sick of being employed. I am loathsome of the business world. The top line, the bottom line, the expansion strategy, the development path, the remuneration strategy, the flip side, the product mix, the aging report, the positioning, the branding.

I want to write. I want to switch to mac and write in my terrace.

I hate money.

Ordinary Love Story - Tribute to K'

2010-01-25T23:47:00.003+02:00

It was era's ago. I still wore baggy shirts and took my own notes.
It was two years before we spoke, two years of playing cards every day, a group of four, two of four.
We shared a hand, then shared a laugh, we were inseparable, at the card table that is.
I fell in anguish with his friend, he fell in need-fullness with a girl in my class. A new group of four, those were fun times.
I graduated, he graduated. He wore a band, my heart got crushed, unrelated incidents at the time.
I left the country, he drove me to the plane, he held my hand, he was my friend.
My heart got butchered, his girl left him for more cash. I picked up the pieces, we found comfort in picking up each others pieces. He was my best friend.
He took me to and from every plane that touched home. Little words, no touches save for twice in ten years, the touch of a hand when i left home and when my heart got butchered.
No kisses on the cheeks, no hugs, no looks. He was my bestest friend.
I fell in lust, i let myself ride the wind, i went here and there and let my hair down. Then i went home. He picked me up and took me home.
I lost faith, i swore off the whole thing, i was done. He was the only man i believed. He was my truest ever friend.
He waited. A while. A very little while. He spoke, he wanted, he saw, he knew.
A risk, two friends, of years and years. So much trust, so much love, so many pieces picked up along the way.
It was 6 months before i hugged him back. It was a 100 i love yous before i felt it too. It was a million reassurances before i could really give it a chance.
It was mostly hard for a very long time.

Today, we both smell like our washing detergent. I do not cook if he is not eating with me. I do not sleep if he is not next to me. I cannot sit far away from him. I cannot tolerate the thought of harm to him. My hands find him before i tell them to. My lips reach for him while i am half asleep. My heart goes to him whenever i am away from him. I am as he sees me. I am lovable because he loves me. I am good because he believes in me. I am safe because he is still my best friend. My truest ever friend.

I do not know how long it will last. A month, a year, a lifetime... I do know that today, we both believe it can last forever, and want it to. As naive as that is.

A tribute to you Kaf, may your doubts get overshadowed by your idealism, and may your heart leap in faith despite yourself.

Love you,
N

4 days

2009-10-20T00:54:00.002+02:00

I am signing off my single status on Friday. I am officially going to be a man's wife in 4 days.
For the past three months all I have done is work my ass off to put a house, honeymoon and wedding together. My hand bag has carried catalogs, magazines, wood samples, fabric samples, knob samples and handle samples, sporadically and sometimes all at the same time. I have made lists of people, items, food, gifts, dates, songs and lists of the lists themselves. I've gone through three notebooks and all the favors i have been offered. My finances have been stretched beyond anything i could ever imagine and any decision is only taken when the excel sheet of my life approves.
I have discovered in these three months that i am undoubtedly a nerd. My budget goes down to the towels and serving plates.
I have also discovered that i like olive green enough to paint a wall in it and furnish alot of my house in it. That i will not get along with my mother in law and that the best i can hope for is her not stopping our getting married before friday, and that brides are actually slaves/maids that wear themselves out completely by the time they get to the wedding date. And that the reason people have honeymoons is to recover from the pre-wedding slavery.

I am getting married on Friday. I do not comprehend it. Amidst this madness i got caught up in the details and forgot that huge fact.

Today while i was driving i realized that i am deciding to stop exploring the options of the world and am deciding to go through the world with this one companion, always.
I have decided that i need not try to search further, i am set.

These are big things to decide. Does one really decide these things consciously?
I think not. One meets someone, likes them, they get to know each other, they get to love each other, the good times outweigh the bad and one grows attached and things unroll smoothly till it is time to move forward. The excitement of the many festivities then overshadows any real thinking, and the rest just happens.
Till one day when you have an hour to yourself for the first time in months on your bachelorette trip while your friends are decorating the house for the big bash, and your wedding is two weeks away, you realize; you are marrying this person.

You realize the responsibility of the decision, and you do one of two things; brush it off as nerves and do not think about it, or actually revisit the idea if this is what you really want.

I want to say i did the latter, but i will not lie straight to your faces.

I brushed it off and put on my hot top and went downstairs to play all these fun violating games and then went dancing all night with my girlfriends and drank so many kinds of alcohol its a wonder i have any recollection of that night at all. I had the most fun ever.

And then i went back home and fought with my fiance for 10 days straight. I think that was my way to try to push him away one final time from the damaged girl that i am. Try to see just how much he can take; i AM marrying him after all.

Two days ago we sat down and had the talk; should we really be doing this? If we have so much to fight about, should we really be getting married when everyone knows that things get worse after marriage?

"If i was still your best friend i would tell you not to go ahead with this, but i am not your best friend anymore, i am the man that loves you and wants to spend his life with you and i am telling you that marrying me is the right thing to do"

I laughed, we laughed. "Leap of faith it is then?" "Yes, leap of faith" he said.

It is idealistic to think that binding yourself to another person raised in a different house with a different family will work out for you. It is idealistic and downright naive. There is so much to fight about. "We do it this way", "but we do it that way!". So so naive.

But i think of our mornings in bed together to come.
I think of us watching a movie on our couch.
I think of coming home after a long day to a warm house and a man that is waiting to take me in his arms.
I think of the trips we are yet to take and the plans we are yet to make.
I think of our terrace with the view.
I think of the little things and i say what the hell? I'll be naive like everyone else and get married.
Eshme3na ana?

Wish me luck, i am getting married in 4 days....

Leap of Love

2009-09-22T17:58:00.002+02:00

i leap
out the window, down the steep
you catch, our roles
were assigned from days of old
we play, our parts
we walk the footsteps
and check the marks
the fear, so real
it manifests itself in me
why leap? why go?
why change the few things that we know?
why must? why more?
why take my anchor off its shore?
we love
i know
we leap together because we know
i leap, with you
with my feet feared to the floor
i try, i do
to only think that i love you
the fear, so real
it manifests itself in me

Love II

2009-06-30T00:37:00.002+03:00

I love him so much, it hurts
I am about to marry him
I know he loves me
Every day he tells me he loves me
Every day i ask him "how much?"
"As much as the whole world" he says
"As much as the sea is blue"
"As much as you ask me"
"more than you want"
"More than i ever loved or will love anyone"
He always tells me how much
It makes me fall more and more in love
And it hurts
This complete falling
This complete surrendering
This dependency
This feeling that a part of me is missing if i am not touching him
This amount of care and tenderness i feel to one person
Even when love is complete
It still manages to ache somehow
This constant want
This constant want

Trousseau

2009-05-31T04:01:00.003+03:00

I've been in the states for a month, hence the disappearing act. I was in Philly for an advanced executive education in Wharton Business School and then i was in NYC buying my getting married gear.
I've always wondered what that was. I'd always hear about girls going abroad to get their "trousseau". I have genuinely truly always wondered what the hell that meant. So for the benefit of all my single friends reading this out there, let me let you in on a little secret, trousseau is french (i think) for guilt free shopping spree.
It does however entail some no brainers:
1. your wedding dress / gear (veil, shoes etc)
2. lingerie (for those of you who only ever do cotton basic like myself and need to take it up a notch)
3. honey moon outfits (the super little cloths that you will wrap around your body when you are thinner than you have ever been as you have been starving yourself to be the thinnest version of you on your big day), i am yet to be the thinnest version of me, but after ten days of ten hour shopping marathons carrying weights (shopping bags), i am not too far behind. The soundest piece of advice anyone will give you is not to get all your clothes in that ridiculous size you will not sustain.
4. nice clothes for all the events to come, as somehow when you embark on getting married and enter into that form of coupledom formal events that require soiree outfits seem to pop out of nowhere weekly
5. your katb kitab outfit and shoes
6. shopping spree! swimsuits, shoes, makeup, pajamas, more clothes, that estee moisturizer you always thought you deserved, a new toilet case (i mean everything else is new why stop there?), that super expensive guerlain blusher that transforms you with one stroke (surely if not now then when?) the designer belt, the CK bag, etc etc
7. Whatever you convince yourself you must buy for the house from the country you are in. In my case this amounted to table cloths, napkins, runners and place mats (you'd think i was going to be spending my life camped under my dining table), a down duvet (yes, i carried it ten blocks and packed it cross Atlantic) and bathroom sets. Oh, and an apron, a pealer and kitchen towels. (i really don't know why i was so obsessed)

Girls, trousseau is fancy for take some money and go spend it at your every whim. I had to save up this money myself so i was a bit more careful, and took the rest out on my credit card and will be paying it off for the year to come. But for once i do not care i am in debt again, it's my trousseau! It is meant to be guilt free.

After 14 ten hour days of simulation, role playing, lectures and extreme business practices, it was a fine break to invade Manhattan in such a way. Should anyone need to know where to buy what of the above from NYC, i am an email away, do not let all this research go to waste!

May you all be well and happy and look forward to that shopping spree.

Soft

2009-04-14T00:02:00.004+02:00

I see his faults.
I see them as clearly as i see the sun or the stars.
I see them and see how i could let them turn our life into a living hell.
I see his stubbornness, his over sensitivity, his insecurities.
I see them, so very clearly i see them.
I remember a very far away time, when i was blinded of faults by love.
Where i could have sworn that every inch was perfect, every trait endearing.
Where i had no need to change a thing.
So long gone are those days of innocence, of blinding passion, of naivety.
I never thought i would be this me of today.
Where i see his faults, like the sun in the sky, and at the same time see my smile in his eyes.
I am always smiling, i am always loved, it is always gentle.
It is so very soft, this thing we have.
We can talk, and we can laugh, and we can argue, and we can get angry, and we can hurt and get hurt, but it is at the end the softness that always wins.
I see his faults, and i see the choice to let them ruin us or let the softness smooth it all out.
Growing up has it's virtues, you get the chance to choose happiness.

4:00am terrors

2009-03-31T01:44:00.003+02:00

I didn't know what that meant. I thought i did, but i didn't, not really.
I go to bed tired, having spread myself too thin across the various areas of my life that demand my full attention.
I go to bed exhausted from the decisions, responsibilities and the commute.
I go to bed to face the only time in the day when i am truly alone.
The weight on my chest fills into its full heaviness.
The pain in my shoulders from all the clenching becomes prominent.
The muscles of my face are tense from all the frowning.
I am alone with my thoughts.
I try to trick my mind into going elsewhere.
I am too tired to even do that, so i just close my eyes and hope for sleep.
And i start to feel the fear.
I feel it starting in the pit of my stomach and flowing slowly and steadily outwards stretching into every part of my body till it is all consuming and overtaking.
I am aware of the flow of my fear through my soul, and it scares me.
Fear itself scares me, i know what is coming.
I feel my nose tinkle with the warning of tears that need to be let out.
I will not cry. There will be no cracking of the dam.
I bite it back and will myself to sleep.
Out of sheer misery i sleep.
It is somewhere between 1 and 2am.
I dream, i dream that i am sick.
I dream that i will die.
I dream that worse things happen than what is actually happening.
I wake up traumatized and tired.
It is 4:00am.
I have had one hours sleep and nightmares that would grey the hairs of some.
I look forward to an hour of terror.
Where i contemplate getting up to sleep next to her to ease the pain.
Where i will try to comfort myself that it was just a dream, and remember reality, and remember that it is not that much better than the dream.
I start feeling that my heart might stop.
That i might not get through the night.
I wonder if dying would a solution.
I remind myself that i am happy by day, and that this is not rational.
I yearn for the day where i am not so afraid.
I wonder how i will get through the next few hours to sunlight, to safety.
It's 5:00am.
I know that sunlight is near.
I calm down enough to sleep.
I sleep.
I snooze the alarm 4 times and drag myself out of bed an hour late.
I have slept 4 hours in total, for the tenth day in a row.
Except for the weekends. I can sleep in on the weekends.
But it's ok, it's daytime, and i am good at the day time.
I can get through the day where my daily duties distract me from the pain.
I consider taking a valium at night before i sleep.
I discard that thought, as i discard the thought of therapy and many other thoughts.
If only i could get through the nights.
If only i could get through the nights.

First Times

2009-03-23T13:01:00.002+02:00

At night in bed after he left my place and went back home, after i spent the weekend at the beach with my friends without him. I reach for my phone and start typing a text message...

"awel marra to3od 7adenny keteer kedda in silence..."

"i just wanted to enjoy taking you in my arms..."

"you've never done that before"

"yes i have"

"when?"

"i can't remember habibi"

"it felt like the first time"

"that's because you miss me"

"i do"

"i miss you too love"

And then i went back in my memory to the many many times he held me for long intervals in silence. Can it really still feel like the first time?

It amazes me this falling in love with same person every once in a while, its like little leaps of emotion within the same emotion. I never thought it possible.

Dreams

2009-03-13T02:00:00.002+02:00

I dreamt of you last night. It was in an apartment crowded with people. My long since dead friend was sitting with my friends on a couch at the end of the room telling them stories of where she'd been and i was desperate to cross the room to her. But i couldn't, then i could, then i was back in my spot standing in the middle of the room. The ex i never loved was on my right making noise, calling out for attention, and i felt that same wave of annoyance of wanting him to just disappear. And then you called me, out of nowhere, and asked me how i was. I was civil, as i always am when abusive ex's call me. I was trying to tell you that now was not a good time to talk, i was thinking about crossing the room to my dead friend to finally get to see her, hear her, feel her presence, when you asked me to look to my left. Then i saw you, you were thin, and you were playing poker on the table with my fiance. He didn't seem to recognize you, or didn't realize that you were you, he just played the cards he was dealt, not bothered. Our eyes locked, and you were smiling. That over confident cocky warm affection smile. That smile that is so seemingly sincere and genuine, and i felt tricked all over again, and somewhat nauseous, how could i possibly get confused again about your intentions after all this time? And then i was on the couch next to her, and her voice was her voice, her very voice. And then i woke up.

And as i type this my itunes played on shuffle plays this song:

save a place for me
save a place for me
in your heart
in your heart
save a place for me
save a space for me
in your heart
in your heart
cause if you wait, i will come for you
if you wait, i will come for you
if you wait, i will come for you
if you wait
if you wait
if you wait
if you wait, i will come for you
if you wait, i will come for you
if you wait, i will come for you
if you wait
if you wait
if you wait
save a place for me
save a space for me

The song i listened to over and over and over again when she died.
If only i believed in coincidences.

And the first thing i remembered from my dream was that you were thin. My fiance seems to think that is because i believe you just want to spite me.
He also thinks i need to see a shrink.

CRYSTAL BALL

2009-02-12T00:45:00.002+02:00

I sit in the vintage orange colored tent; the noise from the carnival fades into a background to the ethnic music this woman plays. I wonder how I got here. How did my feet walk into this tent? To the home of a gypsy with incense burners and crystal balls, with long strands of hair and tie-dye scarves, how did my reason lead me to here?

I sit out of place, I sit uncomfortable in my own skin, I sit and I watch this gypsy woman take the chair across from me and look me straight in the eye.

“You’ve come a long way” I watch her say, “you’ve come with much silence, and hunger in your soul”, “give me your hand girl, give me your hand”.

I extend my hand and expectantly turn my palm to her, she turns my hand over and reaches for my other hand as well, and I watch her close her eyes as she asks me to close mine. “Shush your noises and free your heart, let me feel what it is that took you away from your home and brought you here”.

I do as I’m told, in the most unlikely obedience I hold the woman’s hands and close my eyes. I block out the noises, I silence the contradicting voices that live in my head, I unblock the passage of all the feelings from my heart to my blood. My shoulders lose strain, my spine releases bottled up pain as I stop my minds control over me and hear myself breathe.

She opens her eyes and asks for my palm, she takes a few minutes to confirm what it seems she felt through my pulse, I watch her eyes rise up from the lines of my grip to meet mine.

“You have been far from home my girl, what is it with water that makes you yearn so?”

Expressionless I look at her and wait for her to go off mark and lose her guessing ground.

“Since you are here with a mistrustful heart, but here nonetheless, I will tell you what there is to know”. “I will tell you why you come here; I will tell you what questions you need to ask your soul”.

“Your home is neither here nor there, you are one with the people whose home is in their hearts”, “your life has had much sea and sun and too many farewells for your years”. “You change with the wind, you live inside your bones, you build yourself every day, and your heart is lost at water”.

To this she sees my eyes light up.

“Yes my girl, you feel like the fire and act like the steel, your soul is a battle field between your thoughts and your desires, you are always happy and always tired, you are so very alive and so very quiet, and your heart is lost at water”.

“Which of these two men do you love?”

I look at her pensively; “What men do you mean? There are no men in my days, there was only one, he is now far away and lost to me”.

“Sweet girl, why do you come to my tent then tell me lies? In these past moons, and past season’s whole turns you met two men by the sea”. “One of them loved you the moment he saw you, and the other one played you till he loved you too”.

“Gypsy woman, I tell you, there was one man and many, and the many meant nothing for more than days each time. There was only one man, we met by the sea, he loved and unloved, and loved me once more, and I tell you gypsy woman, he is now far away with only the winds guiding his way”.

“Why are you youth so blind in the heart?”, “I tell you again, and listen to me, the first man you met melted when you smiled, the first man you met travelled for you, the first man you met wanted homes and fireplaces, the first man you met held your hand through the rough, how can you not know this man from the other?”

I answer the crazy woman in confusion; “The man that I had, was sometimes like that, but who is this other? My soul hasn’t moved for anyone else in such a long time…”

“Sweet girl, I will help you”, “the other man you met is a smiling sunny man though he is sometimes dark, he lives out of a bag, and is always on his feet, he rushes you often, and plays with you often, and had your heart not been more free, he would have hurt you more often”.

“He comes and he goes, and when he goes he loses touch with what he loves when in your arms”, “but you are no fool, you know he always comes back to you”. “You wait for him without waiting; you welcome him back with a smile without asking, you care for his happiness more than he knows”. “You didn’t know this man loved you just as much as the other who made you coffee every morning did”.

“Now do you know the men in your life?”, “Now tell me my child, which of these men kept your heart with him at sea?”, “which of these men do you miss when you laugh? Which of these men would you have if he asked? Which of these men would give you a life you’d build another you for?”

“Which of these men is missed by the soul?”

I watch her watch me frown, I watch her watch me ache, I watch her watch me understand every word she had to say. I watch her wait for me to say anything at all since I walked into her world.

“These two men are one and the same.”

I watch her go quiet; I watch her sympathy as she understands why she finds me in her tent today.

“My girl, your heart soars and your mind needs the earth, my child your soul misses but your reason won’t let you weaken, daughter of this universe you are strong in the now, you must also be strong with the unknown tomorrows.”

“Which of these men do you want to come for you?”

I exhale my sigh, I look at her with despair, I talk to her with conviction; “Gypsy woman, I want them both. Gypsy woman I know them both and I’ve lived with them both. I’ve held one’s hand and packed the others bags, I’ve taken one’s flowers and planned the others trips, I’ve seen the home of both. Gypsy woman, I love them both.”

She looks me at, and she is the only one who looks at me with understanding, looks at me like I am sane, looks at me like I know what it is this worlds about. She understands me better than I understand myself; “but you love yourself as well.”

And she watches my tears of conflict stream down my face; “Yes Gypsy woman, I love myself as well”.

She picks up my palm, looking for the answers, she looks at my hands lines, looking for a premonition of what will become of me, she spends minutes or hours lost in her thoughts of my path and my knots.

“My girl, I can’t see.”

I look at her in despair; “What are you telling me?”

“In your years you have learnt more than your day’s worth, in his years he has seen plenty more than he should. With players so aware of life and your own choice, what can a woman in an orange tent say? The two of you are of the people whose palm changes every day. You make your lines, you make yourselves, you make your tomorrows, to people like you I have nothing to say.”

“Oh girl, why does the water overpower you so?”

I take back my hand, I pick up my bag, I remove myself from that chair and prepare to leave.

“What will you do girl? What will you do?”

“I’ll live gypsy woman, I’ve already done all that I can”

“And what about the part of you that stays with him at water?”

“It shall stay with him at water, for as long as he may need”

“You give a part of you away and sacrifice life for love?”

“Wise woman, the day I shared it is the day it stopped being mine. I will live well dear woman; life and love never were separate for me.”

“And you’ll love yourself well?”

“Yes gypsy woman, I’ll love us all well, I know no other way.”

“Go my girl, you shall never find yourself in harm, for you have understood the mystery of this world.”

And with unlined hands, I walk out of the orange tent back into the world.

The Blade

2009-02-03T00:45:00.003+02:00

Living with the knowledge that someone you love has cancer is like living with a sharp blade pressed against your throat.
You live with the unsettling feeling of cold steel constantly pressed against your skin
You live with the pain of the knife scraping the outer layers of your skin carving out what is, for now, a shallow wound
You do not move too abruptly, you do not breathe too deeply, you do not think too much, lest the knife slip and cut you
You live with the fear that the blade will at any given second cut through your throat and maim you
You live wondering just how much it will hurt when that knife finally cuts through

Living with someone you love who has cancer is like living the few moments before watching someone get shot, over and over and over....

It is entirely and consistently devastating.

2009

2009-01-26T14:10:00.003+02:00

For 2009 i resolve to:

Accept my best friends choice of significant others
Spend smart. No more 20$ Starbucks coffees, 10 coffees = 1 potential coffee table
Have more fun at work
Be more adventurous with colors (orange kitchen?)
Not fall into the conventional marriage procedures/ceremonies (i WILL get married barefoot on the beach!)
Wear my hair completely down when curly, at least once!

Happy

2008-12-24T00:38:00.002+02:00

I have a gold band on the ring finger of my right hand. It's beautiful, i love it, i love the simplicity of a plain gold band around the finger.
He has a white gold band on the ring finger of his right hand, it's so fucking sexy, my man, my band, with my name on it, carrying it with him every where he goes.
He took me out on a date today, a date to reinforce that we are still dating and not slipping into the taking for granted of committed couples. I dressed up, a skirt and heals and even some make up, he rang my doorbell, got me flowers, and took me to my favorite restaurant where we had somehow never been.
We laughed through out, giggled like kids on a high, it must be sickening to watch; two people consistently holding hands and whispering and giggling. I pity the people who were eating there at the same time.
Where does the time go? Three hours later we had to leave and now i am home blogging while he texts me that he got home safe.
I'm engaged and in love, and i never thought that it would be this easy, or this much fun.
I am simply grateful.

The Dress

2008-12-23T01:12:00.001+02:00

Engagement Dress

2008-11-13T13:27:00.002+02:00

Dear girl residents of Dubai and Bahrain,

I am flying out to Bahrain for 8 hours and Dubai for 2 days but will only have 4 hours max of shopping time...

Can anyone recommend where to find engagement dresses in the 300 - 400$ price bracket? Before Saturday?

Your recommendations would be sooooo appreciated.

Thanks!

After 8 Dreary Years...

2008-11-05T11:35:00.000+02:00

I am going to start watching the news again :)

Three Diamonds Later...

2008-10-07T16:24:00.002+02:00

A starry night... a valley... a tent... dim lights... cushions.... a song... a feast... chocolates... champagne.... a ring... a question...

would you be my whole life?

Even though i knew it was going to happen those few days, for the life of me i didn't see it coming.

I couldn't stop smiling, i couldn't stop kissing him.

I said yes.

I said yes :)

And now i have three little diamonds on my finger, one for each word, how tacky is that??
And i keep reliving the few hours that felt like a few minutes, how girly is that???

I said yes!

Inspired by a comment

2008-09-28T01:50:00.003+02:00

"so you've got a soulmate..
and you've got a foreign passport,
and you've got a lover...--and u've actually fallen in love with a dutch sailor before? damn!!! what're the odds?!!!
and of course a job..and obviously a fatty bank account to go with all of that too.
and a loving family.
and you've got a curly hair that's a reddish hue --mmm what wouldn't I do to just smell it so deeply?
and you've got a beautiful brain and a free spirit.

I gotta say, ppl like u N make us think "just what the hell are we doing wrong?!!!", if only we knew, life would make a lot of sense to a lot of ppl. So just tell us, are u using The Secret or something? i.e; the law of attraction that is."

Now i have not been known to dwell on my misfortunes, and honestly this comment made me smile, because this is pretty much how i see my life...
However, in fear that all this stated above would leave people thinking that only good things happen to me and all people with bad things happening to them are bringing it on to themselves, i feel the need to set the record straight, even if no one will care.

So Innate, here goes:
My father died when i was six
We had very little money growing up, and all the money we had went into our schooling
I spent the first two years of my professional life in the same pair of jeans and few t-shirts, i couldn't shop on my pay check and most of my friends are millionaires (from that pricey schooling i got)
My bank account is not fat, it is quite slim, everything i own i bought myself, and will continue to furnish my new home off my own paycheck, and pay off my car from there as well
My mother who is my best friend in the whole world and loves me more than life has a terminal disease, and i live every second of the day in fear of how the next second will be like for her, and how i will go on without her
My lover lives with the grey cloud that surrounds us as a result of her illness, even though you are right there, he is the light and warmth through these tough desperate days
I work my ass off in a job that i commute for an hour and a half to get to
I fell in love with a dutch sailor that broke my heart many times over many months, he was my recovery from the love of my life that betrayed me, and the man i fell back on to recover from my dutch sailor induced heartache, turned out to be married after being with me for a year.
I have been on a diet for the past 6 weeks losing the 10K's i have struggled with all my adult life.
And my hair isn't naturally red.

But because of that beautiful brain, and free spirit that god has blessed me with and you have so kindly attributed to me, i choose to see that my life is full of character building experiences, and rewarding relationships. If you choose to do the same, you too will have people wondering what the hell they are doing wrong. You too will have people assuming that you have it all, and have never known hardship and loss.

And yes i did read the secret, and yes the laws of attraction theory is quite functional i think.

Oh, and i really cannot argue with the foreign passport thing!

Soul Mate

2008-09-23T01:10:00.002+02:00

My soul mate got married last month. He had sent me photos of the castle he planned to book for the wedding a month before. He married a girl that loves him to the ends of the earth and grounds him and makes him happy.
Our last conversation was a few weeks before his wedding. He was having cold feet, he was panicking, he was asking me what if? for the hundredth time. He told me that he missed me, missed our fire, missed our few minutes on the mountains in the middle of nowhere.
He told me that he missed my eyes. My sweet eyes.
"What if?" he told me, "what if we had given it a try?"
"It would've worked out" i told him. "I would've loved you to no end, and i would've forgiven you your mistakes, and we would have lived like we will never live. And you would have given me consistent chest pains".
He laughed, we laughed.
"I have never felt like that since then. Why did we not go for it?"
And i go quiet, and i remind him, that it was him that did not go for it.
And he goes quiet, and then he says what he always says when we get to this point; "it was too much fire, it would not have worked, too much fire, i could not live like that, i need peace."
And i smile, what he calls my sweet smile. A smile that he says somehow combines my sadness and acceptance and my resolve to not be weak. I had long since learnt to smile instead of letting the heart ache well up and consume me.
And we talk on, for hours, for what must have been 4 or 5 hours, he plays me my song, unasked, and i laugh and cry all at the same time. And finally i tell him that i cannot talk anymore, i am too tired from all the emotions, and i wish him well with his wedding, and i wish him much happiness.

He then asks me if i am sad, and i say that no, i am the luckiest girl in the world, i am in love with a man who would walk through fire for me, and my soul mate that i will forever carry in my heart, feels the same.

My soul mate got married last month, yes i believe in soul mates, and that you're not necessarily meant to end up with them, and nor are you necessarily supposed to.

Fated

2008-09-15T00:25:00.003+02:00

i miss him sometimes, i shouldn't, but i do, sometimes
i remember moments, like flashbacks, they come uninvited, and they warm my heart
just for a moment
i indulge in them sometimes, the memories
i figure they are mine forever, a part of me that i can't be expected to renounce
i think, what if?, sometimes
only very rarely, but sometimes i do
a walk, a meal, a touch, a moment
so many of them shared, and gone, for good
it's hard to let go, sometimes
it's hard to accept that what is gone is gone
it's funny, that even at my most reminiscent, i know that things can only be the way they are today
that even as i lay today with a love i would not give up for the world
a part of me still lingers behind
i miss him sometimes, i know that i shouldn't
but that's the choice i made when i walked away with love
i'll miss him, always, i know that i will
but i know i'd rather miss him, than be anywhere but here

The Other Woman

2008-09-14T23:09:00.002+02:00

So the storm has passed, apologies were said, he got sick and i flew out to Dubai, all contributing to a much heated patch in the relationship. It's all fun and smiles and corny mush, all fabulous really, except for the fact that i need to give him a date of when i am going to have fitar at his mother's house...
His mother's house being the same house where i would have fitar with his mother, brother and sister, all at the same time.
Let's take this from the top. I have known my boyfriend since i was 19, which is 9 years now. My house is the kind of house where friends come and go, girl friends and guy friends and boyfriends. My mother has always been cool with my friends, and my guy friends have spent many a late night playing cards at our dining table, my current boyfriend included. And since he was my best friend forever before we hooked up, my mom has his number on her cell phone, he calls her to check up on her when i am out of the country, and she calls me on his cell phone when she needs to know that i'm ok but can't reach me on mine. My sister as well has taken to asking him for random stuff like picking out her laptop, downloading music, dropping stuff by his office for her, etc etc. so you get the picture, my boyfriend is completely in with my family, he is as much a part of the family as my girlfriends since kindergarten. He has it made.

Now his family, is not quite the same. His mom is much more on the conservative side than my family is. I have never been to his house, girl friends don't just hang out over there. My relationship with this woman was strictly limited to messages through him of say hi to N, tell N hamdella 3al salama, tell her i am praying for her cousin, etc etc. Warm sentiments have been going back and forth between me and her in the third person for nearly a decade. Her warm spot for me really took shape when he broke off his engagement and i was there to pick up the pieces till he was back on his feet. Up until last month i had never even seen the woman, until alas, after much dodging and loitering on my part, i had to meet her. She finally put her foot down and insisted she sees the girl who was backstage for years and has now taken the leading role in her sons life. And met her i did. She disappointed my preconception of her being strict and uptight from the second she hugged me hello. She was bubbly, giggly, warm, affectionate and sweet. We got along very well and really it was much less of an ordeal than i thought it would be.

And now she wants me to come over for fitar. With the rest of the family.

Where i will walk in to the house embarrassed, shy and fumbling with my clothes or hair. Where i will not know where to sit until i am told to be seated. Where i will not know whether to help out in the kitchen or if that would be intrusive. Where i will not know if i should eat too much to compliment her cooking or eat too little to show that i am not a cow. Where i will not know what to bring, if bringing something is offensive, or bringing nothing is ill mannered. Where i will not know what to do with myself after food, or when would be a good time to leave. Too early? Too late?

Why oh why must i go through this getting to know the mother process at all?

Deal Breakers

2008-09-03T20:41:00.002+02:00

The first fight. The first BIG fight. We have not spoken today, this is the first day in six months and half that we have not spoken.
I was harsh, of course, but i was also right. He is silent, a deadly silence.
We have fought about our deal breaker. Every relationship has a deal breaker. Something that if you can't both reach some common ground on, will ruin the relationship.
I had my first bursting point today. I am not very eloquent when angry, and i was angry.
Well at least he sent me a text to make sure i got home ok...

Now we are both supposed to be together at this thing at ten, and it's 8:45. Am i supposed to call? But if i call that means i softened first, and if i soften first that means i didn't mean the things i said! Might even mean that i'm sorry! And i did mean everything i said.
No, calling is not an option.
So what to do? Do i just go without him? Without telling him i'm going?
But that's so weird... Never done that before... We usually talk like ten times a day.. What if he calls when i am already out? I will have disregarded him and went anyway, without calling...
That's not nice...

But i don't really want to see him if he thinks he's upset over what i said. I can't handle the tantrum over what is simply factual.

Uuuurrrggggghhhhhhhhh... it really is easier being single.

Picture Perfect

2008-08-24T22:40:00.002+03:00

We are away for the weekend, the boyfriend and I. We are at a camp in Sinai, in the blistering heat, because i have missed Sinai to no end, and do not want to go to Sahel again, because i have spent the past two months dealing with my mothers devastating illness and simply because i nagged and nagged and nagged till he agreed to drive south in August and take me to a place where there is nothing but mountains, bamboo and silence.

Scene 1:
The boyfriend is sitting in the common area, reading. I am standing in the joint kitchen, cutting up vegetables and cooking. The boyfriend comes over to the stove and washes up whatever i have dirtied while cooking and goes back to his book. I serve the food, we eat and talk in soft voices, he gets up to get me a drink, washes the aftermath of dinner, comes back to his book, kisses my hand and continues reading. Periodically he will look up from his book and ask me something, or tell me something, i will either laugh or smile, and eventually my eyes start to get heavy and i put my head on his shoulder hinting that it is time to call it a night. All the while a girl aged twenty something sitting at the end of the table watches us in shy silence.

Scene 2:
The next morning i wake up craving coffee, the boyfriend tells me to follow him to the common area and he will make me coffee while i change out of my pj's into people friendly clothes. I follow him and find my cup of coffee on the table covered by a little plate as protection from the flies and placed in front of him. He is reading "awlad 7aretna", a book i read ages ago and remember nothing from, he tells me the latest of what he's read while i sip my coffee, and then i slip into my book and we both read on in silence. Periodically he will put a hand on my back, or bring my hand to his lips, all the while reading. I am so used to this i barely look up from my book. I see that same girl looking our way, wistful, sad.
She looks at me with the far away eyes of a girl who is watching an unattainable miracle.

I want to walk over to that girl, i have so much to say to that girl, i want to tell her about the amount of times i got the look she is giving me now over the years.

The first time i got that look was in December 2004, my ex, THE EX, was visiting me in France, i had just moved there, we were at Cannes train station, it was days before Christmas and we were booking train tickets across Europe. We were at the counter, he had an arm around my waist and the other draped around my shoulder, he held me so closely like he could not bear the thought of wind blowing between us, he nuzzled my neck with his nose as we giggled over the destinations we would hit for Christmas not giving a damn about the outrageous cost of it. Then a girl standing alone across the counter looked at us, in her eyes i saw the reflection of two young people in love, two people swooning over each other without a care in the world.
I remember looking her in the eye thinking; if only you knew. What she was witnessing were the last ten days i ever spent with my ex, ever talked to my ex, and we both knew it at the time.

I got used to getting those looks all the time when i was with T. Every time he took me out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and leaned over and held both my hands over the table. Every time we were at a bar and one of our songs came on and he grabbed and swung me all around the place. At the end of every night with friends when the night slowed down and it was a bit cold and he snuggled up to me for warmth as we talked away on our hosts couch. Every time he introduced me to one of his friends as his Egyptian Princess. I got the look all the time.

The look is a mixture of many things, hope that love does actually exist, jealousy that some people have it all, envy that they are alone while i am not, desperation in wondering what i am doing right that they are doing wrong, admiration that i have it so together and look so confident, aspiration to the picture perfect life, as part of a picture perfect couple.
Little did they know that almost every time i got that look, my heart was on a free fall towards the ground on its way to being shattered into a million little pieces, and then stomped on.

I so wanted to go talk to that girl, i wanted to tell her that looks are deceitful, i wanted to tell her that i can look that way when i know i am with a man who will soon leave me, i wanted to tell her that she should not waste her energy being deluded by what she sees.
I wanted to tell her that this time it was real. I wanted to tell her that what she saw really was as good as it looked, and the most thing i wanted to tell her was that it didn't matter.
Having this didn't add or subtract a thing to who she was, that it was out there for every single person, the second they stop thinking that it is all that matters.

I smiled at her, she smiled back, i think that made me more human to her. I didn't say anything of course, it wasn't my place, and i sunk back into my gratitude, and hoped that through that smile she knew i understood, and was far from gloating.

En Fin

2008-08-12T01:13:00.006+03:00

Sometimes stories need to wait a while before they can be told.

I was very much in love with T. I was so in love with T that when I saw him smile the rest of the world melted into oblivion. I was in love with him in a way that when I saw him sleeping I wanted to protect him from his dreams. One day while I was driving and he was sitting next to me on our way to Italy he fell asleep holding my hand, I remember wanting to freeze time and stay in that moment forever. I was very much in love with T, and he was leaving me. He was leaving me and France and this side of the Atlantic, he had run out his time in the

cote d’azur

and we were parting ways in a few weeks.

It was no one’s fault, he was a Dutch sailor with weak belief in religion and even a weaker belief in marriage, I was an Egyptian Muslim girl who would need at least a promise of a possibility of a marriage and intrinsically a conversion of faith – if only on paper- before I threw my life as I knew it away and went gallivanting around the world taking beach jobs and disappointing my mother in every way imaginable.

It was no one’s fault, we were both clear from the start, he told me he would never marry, I told him I was 24 and wanted to enjoy my time in France, we struggled to stay apart and finally accepted that we would make the most of our time together till our time was up.
And our time was up, and somewhere between the beginning and the end we fell in love, knowing we would have to fall out it of it one day. And that day was here.

I packed his bags with him, made him a box of gifts for him to open one by one all the way from here to the Caribbean where he chose to make a new home, I drove him to the sailing boat taking him away from me and the life we made with each other, we hugged, we cried, I walked away and drove back to my empty apartment. I woke up the next day dreading every day ahead till I as well left France, I sobbed and endlessly watched TV, I turned on my computer and wrote a post on this blog. And that is how it all began.

He left me a comment, a silly witty comment with a reply-to email address. I emailed him, he emailed back, we started playing twenty questions, and daily marathon emails turned to msn turned to sms’s. Before I knew it I was talking to him all day every day in some form or another and he was hanging on my every word, before I knew it I was smiling at messages or emails that came my way, before I knew it I was choosing between flying out to meet my Dutch love one last time, and meeting this man that fit himself into my day. Before I knew it he was guiding me through the streets of Rome through sms’s, asking me to see him for coffee, telling me that he wanted to be with me. Before I knew it we had in jokes, and a world of our own.

I had never met him, but I liked the idea. He was half Egyptian half European, he was well traveled, successful, older, attentive, clever, witty, and he was a message away, all the time. I agreed to meet him for coffee before I flew out to meet T. He flew over the weekend before I left France, he spent 48 hours in my vicinity and waited while I packed and said my goodbyes and fit him into my schedule. Coffee turned into a midnight walk, turned into an over night talk, turned into stretches of hours of putting a face to the month of every day talking. He fascinated me with his attentiveness, he fascinated me with his chivalry, he did everything right, and it blew me away.

I liked this scenario much more, instead of going back home to Cairo broken hearted and alone, I would go back to Cairo having ended a hopeless relationship with an agnostic sailor and started dating a man that I could actually have a future with. He lived in the UAE so it would be long distance, which would give me time to get over my sailor, and if all went well I would leave Cairo soon enough again. Instead of going back to a dating scene full of hypocritical holders of double standards oriental men, I go back dating a witty thoughtful man who is quickly falling for me. Yes, I liked this scenario much better.

I got him to let me fall back in the arms of T for three weeks, knowing that when I was done he would be there, the only agreement was that I had to break it off with T before I came back. And break it off I did.

Those three weeks with T were so emotionally violent, I was in love with this man to no end, and I could no longer keep this love from taking over my life, I had to get out, and I needed the cushioning because it was going to be hard, leaving T was going to be very hard. Somehow after swimming in the most beautiful waters with him, dancing to reggae music in the street with him, flying back to his home with him and meeting his family, somehow after being the closest I ever was to him, I broke both our hearts over dinner a few nights before I left. I fought off his feeble attempts at keeping us together and told him I wanted a clean break, I could no longer live only for today, and he could never promise me a tomorrow, we agreed to break up the day I left, got drunk and went to a casino where we laughed it off instead of crying over a year and a half’s worth of memories. I packed my bags and what was left of my beaten up heart and took the plane out of the Caribbean back to the real world.

And there he was, waiting for me in Cairo, waiting as promised to hold me while I cried over another man. And our story began, he had all the symptoms of a man in love. He flew in to see me three times that first month, he was patient, doting, borderline obsessive, he asked me if I was ok/comfortable/any better every hour, he pushed for intimacy too soon and too hard. I was cold, I was distant, I was brutally hurtful, I was still in love with another man and all I wanted to do was sleep. And then one day a month later T told me that he met another woman, was in love with another woman, and as the trained girl that I was, I’d be damned if I was going to stop living while he moved on. And I started to let go. I let myself be adored, I let myself be swept off my feet, I let myself let my guards down, I believed it when he said he wanted to share a life with the woman he loved, I believed him when he said if he had to he would move back to Egypt for me, I believed him when he told me he had never loved a woman the way he loved me. I looked up to him in a way I never knew with any man, his opinions mattered, his advice mattered, his take on things always mattered.

He called me every morning for our morning talk, we laughed, we flirted, we had fun. We counted the hours backwards every time he was scheduled to fly in to meet me. And when he came we spent every second together, traveling, driving, swimming, wining, dining, talking. He met all my friends and they all loved him; at last a man that treated me the way I deserved to be treated.

Four months into the relationship I started letting go, and that is when I started noticing the little things, the little fibs. He attended the final of the world cup, then two months later he said he watched it in a bar, I called him on it he said I was confused, he had never said that. His stories were always too exaggerated, he canoed across a lake in Africa to get across a border. His roommate/ ex girlfriend who talked to me on msn for hours when I was with T as we had decided not to talk for those three weeks, disappeared from his life after I returned to Cairo, she left the UAE the second we got together….

He would only call me by day, and was out of reach all night as he was living on a boat and sailed off every night were there was no network. Six months into the relationship he had met all my friends, visited my workplace, traveled with me and my best friend, knew everything about my life, and hadn't introduced me to a single person in his life. His mother lived in Egypt and he never once called or visited her when he was in Cairo. His fibs were more frequent and all his plans for renting a flat in Cairo so he could come more often disappeared. He started coming less and I started getting confused.

I asked to meet his friends, he said sure, come over and I will introduce you. I flew over, we stayed in a hotel because he had no home as he was living on a boat, and his friends were all out of town. Whenever I asked what was up he reassured me that nothing was up, that our time together was just too precious for him to share it with his friends. My gut was telling me that something was wrong and every time I mustered up the courage to ask, he would solidly confirm that all was well and fine.

Then one day when he was visiting he made the fatal mistake of giving me the password to his computer. On a sleepless night full of unanswered questions where he was once again out of reach and weeks away from coming to see me, I tried that password on his email account, and voila, I suddenly had access to more information than just his word of mouth.

My first discovery was that when he told me he was in France with his roommate/ex girlfriend he was actually in his office chatting with other female bloggers, when he was smsing me through the streets of Rome he was actually at his desk, not at that funeral with his ex in France where her parents died simultaneously and he punched her uncle at the funeral when she was cut out of their will. My second discovery was that he was his ex, he was the girl talking to me on msn and emailing me, I logged into her email account with that same password and found emails to and from only me. Shaken by this discovery, I asked him if he had been pretending to be her, I even gave him an outlet that it could've been an innocent prank at the time. He denied it fiercely and ended the conversation. For some reason I decided to let it go. So he was a bit of a fibber, so what? Surely there are worse things and it was all harmless.

But I would not rest, could not rest. I grew suspicious and he grew impatient. He started talking about how refreshing our long distance relationship was that kept us always missing each other, and how marriage killed the relationship. I hit the roof.
I phoned him one day asking him straight out if this was as good as this relationship would get, I pointed out that we were not on the same page, and that I wanted to know that he would one day want us to share a life or I would leave.
He confirmed that I was mistaken, that he loved me dearly, that we were just taking our time, that ultimately our vision was the same; a shared life in the same place.

He felt the strain on the relationship and flew in to Cairo to make things better. He started mentioning meeting my mom to show her who her daughter was dating, my friends fell in love with him even more from how good he was to me when he was here, how he made up for all the time he was away when he was with me.
It worked, I was calmer, happier, we had been together eleven months and I loved him, we spent great days together as always, and after a week together he flew back home. While he was on the plane I found myself compulsively checking his email again. I was happy with him but something was not right, I could not put my finger on it but I was constantly at disease.

And I finally found what I was looking for all along.

An email from a woman carrying his family name. My heart pounded, and throbbed in my ears, she’s just a cousin I told myself, she must be a cousin.

She called him baby. She told him that the house was empty without him. She told him that she and the baby missed him and that she can’t wait till he comes back home.

He called her amour. He told her he was coming back as soon as he could and that he missed her more than words could say.

She signed off by saying that she missed her husband.

Her husband.

My body went numb. Surely that word must mean something else. My mind traced back to an email I had stumbled across before that he had sent a blogger telling her he was married to a girl of a different faith that I had discarded as another fib.

Married, my boyfriend of eleven months was married.

I went through his entire inbox, discovering lie after lie after lie. This man had a completely different life than the one I knew. This man that had consumed my time and thoughts was a stranger to me.

He texted me when he landed, I texted back asking if he was married, he called me laughing and wondering where I heard such nonsense.

And the disaster really began. He denied, he admitted, he was separated, he was sorry, it was too difficult to tell me, he didn't love her, she watched his dog, he went there very little, he would do anything to make it right, he would tell her everything, he needed time, he needed a break, she meant too much to him to hurt her, he could not divorce her, he had a child, a three year old son, he would step aside, he would let me go on with my life, he was sorry, it was better this way.

I was hit by a bus.

I cried, I yelled, I sobbed. I went insane. I went from being the girlfriend of a man who insisted he adored me and shared every part of my life, to the mistress in the dark on the side, over night.

I could not believe that this was the same man who called me every day and flew in to see me every month. And after a week when I finally realized that this was indeed the same man, that this ending would not go my way, that there was nothing to do but to accept that I must leave, I mustered up the worst words a girl could tell a man, and let him leave.

Everything was black. I drafted up an email telling his wife the whole story, then read it to myself out loud before hitting the send button, and all I could see through the email was a pathetic girl who was taken for a ride and had no significant importance in this man’s life. I was a fool, and I was in the weakest position a woman could find herself.
I was so helpless all I could do was cry at the injustice of where I had found myself with no choice of my own.
I resigned myself to licking my wounds and having to accept that all I could do was walk away and hope that time would even the score.

I was angry, so very angry.

I booked a flight to NYC with money I didn't have, I maxed out my credit card on two weeks in NYC to get away from it all. It cost me 5000$ but I came home better, and less bitter. In NY I met a blogger he had claimed to meet, she assured me they had never met, and that is when it dawned on me, this man lied to fill the gaps, he lied as he went along, there was no logic, there was no explaining it, there was no comprehension of why I was where I was today.

I had wasted a year of my life taking seriously what was taken lightly by him.

I was livid.

All I wanted to know, was why?

Why would he seek me out to do this to me?

I was consumed by the need to tell the lies from the truth.

Was he really in Dallas when he flew in to see me? Where they really separated? Was he in love with her? Was there ever a boat? Was his ex character completely fictitious? Did he really have a company? Did he really have work when he said he couldn't talk? Did he really do anything that he ever said he was doing?

I was so very livid, I was spiteful and unforgiving, and I didn't see a day coming where I would trust another human being again. No matter what answers he gave me I could not believe him, and soon I began to understand that I would never know what really happened in his life while I was a part of it.

The hardest part was that I loved him. He was my friend, he was close to me, and I believed that in his way he truly loved me. I would remember how soft he was with me, how he mentored me through work, how he talked to me about my life, and my heart would ache. I missed him, or the part of him that wasn't about the facts of his life.
I understood that the lying was not malicious, it was not explicable, it was not controllable, it was not called for on my part. I understood that for some reason he found it in his heart to do this, and I didn't believe he understood the magnitude of the pain it caused me. I loved him and missed him and hated him for the pain. There were no answers to my whys, there were no reasons for why this happened.

I lost him and I lost heart, and those were very very bad days for me.

But alas nothing stays the same, slowly I moved on, I thought about him less, and less.
I started enjoying myself again, and enjoying life again, my nature won the better of me and I couldn't help wanting to enjoy my life. I reached that place where I was happy being alone, and that is when my best friend pursued me till I caved, and I find myself today where I am. Trustful again, relaxed again, secure again, confident again.

For the longest time even though I was over him I was not over what happened, I could not let it go. I post this story today because I finally have moved on, because finally I don’t need these answers anymore to make my peace. I post this today because nine months later, I forgive him. I don’t forgive what he has done, no one can, but I harbor no ill feelings towards him, when I remember him I wonder at the enigma of it all for a few seconds and then I let it be. I am not angry, I am not resentful, it is a bloody miracle.

I would still love to watch a video tape of his life when I was with him and compare it to the life I thought we had… but I don’t need to anymore, I am free.

Some stories take a while before they can be told, they are too fresh to be told sometimes, too hurtful, too unresolved, too ugly, and it’s worth celebrating when we can finally put our ugly stories behind us.

Hands

2008-07-25T01:02:00.002+03:00

I can't get enough of his hands...
On my face, in my hair, on my neck, on my back, holding mine...

They're driving me crazy.

Skin on skin, touch to stroke.

A million little things said in silence as they move.

I can't get enough of his hands.

On the tribulations of letting go

2008-07-22T22:48:00.003+03:00

I am an engineer. And even though i have not earned one day's living being one, i am one nonetheless, and being an engineer means that i have spent five years of my life being taught certain things. I have spent five years being formatted to understand that there are many solutions to any given problem, but we are meant to only rest when we find the fastest most efficient and consistent solution, that there is always an explanation to any dilemma, and that we have no choice but to persevere. We spend five years learning how to solve problems, and to never rest unless the riddle is unraveled. I am very much an engineer in how i deal with my life, not my work, my life. I think logically, i mind map any situation, i recognize motives, actions and reactions, i retain objectivity, i am methodological and consistent, i do not lose sight of the ball, i persevere like you would never believe, i do all this subconsciously, i am such a good engineer that i do this by nature, it is no effort to me, it is how i am.

I cannot not understand, i cannot make peace without understanding, i always need to know why. This is what lies at the core of my discontentment with religion, this is why i am not completely over what certain people have put me through, this is why i am often skeptical, and other times too trusting. It all comes down to just how much i understand about you or it.

It's a curse but i just can't let go until i understand why... why?

I am also, a writer, a poet, a free spirit. I am passionate and impulsive to a fault, i am in love with all emotions, i ride the roller coaster of life like one would a passionate lover, like one would move in a contemporary dance; i let go and let it throw me all over the place. I have done this from so early on that rarely do i face an emotion that i have not known before. I know anger from anguish, anxiety from abuse, excitement from insecurity, love from lust and passion from infatuation. I know trust from denial, i know willfulness from desperation, i know sadness from heartache, i know emotions.

When you spend a decade trying to understand every emotion life throws your way in order to handle it practically to be able to yield the fastest most efficient outcome, you are someone like me, someone who believes she can have it all, the fullness of feeling everything, and the sanity of understanding every second of it as well.
You are probably someone, who like me, is so exhausted that you need 8 hours of sleep every day. You are probably someone who needs a lot of quiet alone time. You, like me, probably have trouble accepting that sometimes you just have to let go without understanding.
You are probably someone with either emotions in the way of your logic, or logic in the way of your emotions.

You are probably someone who, like me, wish you could just let go without the periodic nag and dire need to understand.... why?

Your World

2008-07-14T00:39:00.003+03:00

Falling
In love, in lust, in protection
I am
Resisting, like drowning
I gasp for one last breath
of fresh air
I look, deep into
right through you
I know you
I am
safe, safer
than ever possible
with any other man
Yet still, it feels, like falling
like shedding
the one last layer
that keeps me far
from nightmares and longings
and heartaches of various
natures and reasonings
and letting go
I know that it seems
much simpler
for you to love me
and stroke and adore me
and brush my hair
To be yours and be happy
Falling
Resisting
I am
Fighting
And i know you'll win
We both know you'll win me
over to safety
over to you
Falling
In love, in lust, in protection
Falling i am
into your world

Marriage

2008-06-30T23:47:00.002+03:00

He wants to get married. He didn't get down on one knee and propose, he didn't tell me after months of figuring out the perfect way to ask, he just wants us to get married, and he says it every day. Every time he takes me home at the end of the night, he tells me that if we were married he would not have to take me home. He manages to squeeze it into every conversation as a solution to all our problems.
He just wants to marry me.
He wants to share a home and life with me.
He wants me to raise his kids and cook his meals.
He wants me sleeping next to him every night.
He wants to spend his life in the same home with me.

Why can't i bring myself to say yes?

Mortality

2008-06-22T20:33:00.004+03:00

No matter how much time i spend with you now, that day is still out there...

Waiting.....

To be lived.

I always knew you were mortal....

But now that i have a clock pressed against my heart.

I can't.

I can't.

You are all i have ever known.

God give me strength.

Peace

2008-05-30T13:55:00.002+03:00

He gives me peace.
All of a sudden, it's so easy. I almost can't remember what i was struggling with all these years.
He always holds my hand.
He always gets the door.
He's always there should i need him.
He always wants to see me.

He gives me space.

He sits next to me for hours in silence, even though i know i am more secure in us, he lets me be.

He sleeps after and wakes up before me, a classic sign of more interest.
But he just holds me till i sleep or wake, and i don't mind.

I am enjoying the security of being with someone i can trust.

He doesn't lie. He's a know it all. We bicker like kids, and laugh about it later.

He doesn't mind my moods, or minds them and doesn't show it.

He's patient.
He watched me go through everything i went through.
He understands my turbulence.

He knows that he is the first man more stable than me to take me on.
He knows what that entails, patience.

Time for my turbulence to find peace in his stability.
Time for me to be ready to let myself fall one more time.

One more time.

We pick out wallpaper and tear down walls and pick out names.
And after i realize we're doing that he holds my hand and asks me not to freak out.
He reminds me that i have time.
That he is not going anywhere.

This is a nice place to be.

He gives me peace, and i am oh so thankful for it.

Kuwait

2008-05-18T23:03:00.002+03:00

Three months ago i was offered to go to NYC to sub in a work function, i declined, i was just back from NYC, broke (paying off the trip to NYC), and i can't fly over the Atlantic twice in 1 year - fear of flying, vertigo and fear of heights. Last Thursday i was asked to fly to Kuwait as they needed someone last minute and my British passport means that i don't need a visa, making one of two people in the company who could sub in this function at such short notice, i accepted, i'm weird, i accept going to Kuwait and decline NYC, the reason? I wanted to go somewhere i had never been before.

I've been here 48 hours, i still don't have much to say about this country other than that it is so quiet and not crowded that i feel like i'm in a movie set not a city, and that its very strange being in a city where going for a drink is literally not an option.

This is a quick update for those emailing me asking where i've been. I've been working and going out and all the time i spend at home i catch up on missed sleep and try to watch the shows my mom tapes for me as fast as she tapes them! I have no tragic dramatic events to report for a change, but will figure out a way to turn my currently "normal" life to interesting posts.

Thanks for asking!

N

Eat, Pray, Love

2008-04-13T00:13:00.005+02:00

An excerpt:

".....I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than i care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and then i have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance i have been a victim of my own optimism."

I think that is the best expressed written paragraph i have ever read.

Yoga

2008-04-08T01:05:00.003+02:00

I do yoga.
I do it twice a week religiously.
I do it even if i am sick, or have to reschedule work.
I do yoga.
My yoga instructor, my teacher, says that everyone does yoga for their own reasons, the only important thing is that you know why you do yoga, so that you can find what you seek.
Let me think.
I do yoga because i like the feeling of pushing myself farther than i can go, and getting there.
Because i like how it feels when i am finally comfortable with a very uncomfortable position.
Because i like feeling the pain of muscles i didn't know i had.
I do yoga because i get to lie on the ground in the middle of the room.
I do yoga because i get to sit still, and switch off my phone, and forget about the world.
I do yoga because it is the only discipline i practice in my life, and it's good to know that i am capable of discipline.
I do yoga because i get to listen to my body, and i get my body to listen to me.
I do yoga because i get to get my mind to shut up.
I do yoga because ever since i started my neck and back stopped hurting, and i can bend and squat without thinking.
I do yoga because i like chanting in a group, and i like that the words i chant mean nothing to me.
I do yoga because it's self indulgent, and because the more i do it, the better things are.
I do yoga to get better, in whatever sense of the word.

At the beginning of every class my teacher talks to us about something, today she talked about having our hearts not too closed, and not too open, having our hearts in balance. In case you didn't know, yoga is all about balance. Then she talked about forgiveness, "forgive the person, but not the act", she talked about forgiveness for a while and then proceeded with the chant that starts our class.

I can't forgive. I want to, but i can't. All through today's class i tried to forgive, i tried to separate myself from the past, separate my experience from the person, separate the person from the act. With every movement and impossible stretch and hold i tried to will my body to let go of it all, "it doesn't matter" i told my body, "you're wasting life" i told my mind. It had been a very long time since i felt myself struggle like that.

My class ended, and as i was tying my shoe laces my teacher sought me out with her eyes and asked me if i was better. It is common practice for a class member to hang back after the rest had left to consult with my teacher on one thing or the other, but i never had.
I sat at her desk, and told her my thoughts without filtering.

"I can't forgive."

"It isn't easy."

"But I know i must, in my mind i have, but in my heart i can't."

"It takes time, it will happen on it's own"

"But in my mind i believe that i must, i want to, for me, i can't bear it, i have never not forgiven anyone, no matter."

"Do you want revenge?"

"No."

"Do you feel self pity?"

"No."

"Then what do you think is stopping you?"

"Pride."

"What was done to you was no about you, you do see."

"In my mind i know that, but a part of me just can't accept that this was done to me."

"You will get there, so long as you keep wanting to."

I do yoga because in the world of yoga this language is normal and unpretentious.

I do yoga because it is the embodiment of the belief of yoga that i can make myself get better, in whatever sense of the word, and nothing is better than that feeling of power over me.

F You! (or it's equivalent in arabic)

2008-04-01T23:24:00.002+02:00

I did something today that i never ever thought i would do, could do; i gave a man the finger while driving. He did nothing that is exceptional to Cairo driving etiquette, he was coming onto the mansoureya road from a side road too fast and was about to cut me off had i not swerved to the left and insisted on reserving my right to keep going as i was on the main road. But for some odd reason, i was in such a foul mood that i actually did what i have so often resisted doing, after he started cursing and throwing his hands around in protesting gestures, i looked him straight in the eye through my rear view mirror, and gave him the finger while mouthing profanities at him.
I felt a surge of liberation that lasted about ten seconds, after which i realized that i am on the mansoureya road, that this guy could very well jam his old car into my semi-new baby and attempt to scare me off the road into the horrendous ter3a bellow. I locked my doors and pressed on the gas, in what resulted in him lighting a cigarette and engaging me in a car chase that lasted all of 15 minutes where i displayed unbelievable driving skills that even i didn't know i had. I swerved between tractors, karetas and vespas which such smoothness watching him getting repeatedly frustrated as he kept getting stuck behind annoying obstacles with every "stitch" i took. My fear augmented with every near escape, as i was sure that if he caught up with me now he would surely screw me over. After fifteen minutes of this fear driven mania, i reached the highway where my baby gave me an easy outlet as his car is minimum 15 years older. As i unclenched my shoulders, I had to ask myself; was it really worth it? Was giving him the finger and the satisfaction it entailed worth the fifteen minutes of tension?

I dare say it was.

Four

2008-03-23T01:36:00.004+02:00

I have loved four men in my life. According to statistics that say that the average person falls in love six times in a lifetime, i have only two left, but then again some people fall in love once or twice, and others never fall at all, maybe this would allow me the luxury of falling in and out for the rest of my days... so anyway; four men in my life.
Over the course of the past five years all this has happened. The first one is the only one i knew from longer, this thought leaves me wondering how my life would've been different had i not moved to France... I probably would've still been in love with him.
I am big on learning from my experiences. I am big on so many things as any follower of this blog would have noticed, but one of the things i am biggest on, is learning from my experiences.

My first love is until today my fiercest love, i often wonder how much of that love was abuse, addiction, lust and youthful notions, and the beauty of life is; i will never know. My first love was according to my experience of love, my fiercest, it was the love for someone i would have actually died for, the love for someone i could not bear the thought of being without, it was a love that intoxicated my every thought and action. It was an obsession, it was uncontrollable, an avalanche of emotions that would not stop. I lost friends and family because of him, i lost myself for a long time because of who i was when i wanted him. I was always either ecstatic or devastated. I never gave anyone more, and i never hated myself more than at the end of that relationship. My first love taught me all the terrible things that love can turn into. And from learning that i learnt all the things that i would never do again. My first love taught me self worth, emotional independence, my devastation at the loss of him taught me that nothing was worth losing myself. My first love gave me the basics that many are born with, and i was absolutely unaware of. My first love broke me down so i could build myself again from scratch. My first love is why i moved to France.
My first love taught me, that even when the unimaginable happens, life goes on.

My second love was a dream. He had me at what was possibly even before a first glance, he had me at my being exposed to his aura before we met, he had me at that smile, and the memory holds power over me still. If i counted all the days that i have been with this man, in the geographical sense, they would not amount to two weeks, and they would be scattered months apart. My second love defied distance, defied logic, defied boundaries, my second love was a merging of the souls. Everything was beautiful when i was with him, geographically, spiritually, on the phone or in a dream, everything was beautiful and full of love. Together we were fire, we completed each other's sentences the second day we met, he played the piano for me and i wrote love letters to him. My second love was perfection, my second love was a dream. My second love solidified my belief in other lifetimes, where surely we were lovers all our life, in a time where the circumstances were not so impossible. My second love taught me freedom, my second love taught me that love was absolutely irrational.

My third love was the only real love i ever had. He loved me slowly, and i loved him dearly. He showed me what it was to accept a person fully; he saw wonderment in all i did, and i saw perfection in all his flaws. The only real love i ever had, my third love taught me that love was in the simple things; we cooked, we read, we got drunk, we watched TV, we sat in silence, we walked, we drove, we played, we laughed, he put flowers in my hair and was my nurse when i was sick. My third love taught me all about today, live today, have fun today, you are magnificent today. My third love taught me to be in love with him today, just today, for the better part of a year and a half. He taught me things about the world, simple things and simple ways to use my hands. My third love was a bully with a weak spot for me, he taught me how to scream at him and how to pack his stuff in a bag and gracefully dump it at his feet when he pushed me too far. My third love was a tough guy who let himself be a little boy with me. I loved him dearly, i loved him completely, and the last day i was with him was the last day i could do it and still be on my feet.
My third love taught me that even a love so complete, was not enough.

My fourth love happened to me. There is no other way to put it, he came into my life forcefully, and left unexpectedly, i had very little input to what has been my fourth love, i had consented to neither, and all that is in between is lost to me in a world between fiction and fact. Had my heart not still been burdened with sadness i would not have thought it to have been a love at all, but if i am to be true to myself i must say that i loved, the question of who or what i loved will remain forever unanswered, but i did feel love, and in my books that counts.
My fourth love came into my life for one reason only; to teach me how to be loved. For i believed through-out that he loved me utterly, and adored me endlessly and treated me accordingly, and that was very very hard for me. My fourth love taught me how to be loved, a lesson that no one had succeeded in teaching me before. Had he not been the ruthless man that he is, he would have probably failed. My fourth love taught me to open myself to someones love, and to fall in love as a result of being loved.

After i lost my first love and reaped the consequences of never being able to speak with him again, i vowed never to lose my friend with the lover, with the second forgiveness came easily, and i traveled to the ends of the earth to make sure that i would not lose my friend with the third. My vow broke with the fourth, and it is every bit as sour as i remember it from three years ago. All of these men broke my heart, if not a lot then a little, i often wonder if that is why they are the only memorable ones from a list that is three or four times as long.

Between the four of them i have learnt how strongly i can love and still go on after loss, that it's beautiful to surrender to the madness of love, that love alone in all it's fullness is not enough, and i learnt how to be loved.
I have learnt all this in some of the most beautiful places in the world, i have learnt all this and i am only 27 and now with a man who i know loves me more than all of them did combined.
I have learnt all this and come out sane, oh how i doubted that i would ever call myself sane.

I have loved four men in my life, and i am all the better for it, now please if you have lasted this far down the post, cross your fingers for me that i will not need to do it more than this one more time.

Parts of Me

2008-03-19T16:21:00.002+02:00

Love, i write you,
now that i am home
away from the days of being
with you yet alone
love, i write to bid
farewell to that part
that all this while has been
resting in your heart
to the me that one day wanted
a you that's now long gone
Love today i release
the me that only you have known
I write to say goodbye
to the part of me i left with you
Love, i have, i am, i do
a part of me will always
be in love with you

On being Smothered

2008-03-15T23:44:00.002+02:00

So i went and got myself into another relationship. I know, don't ask, i actually tried to stay single this time, but it just never works out. And as vain as it sounds, being unable to stay single, it has nothing to do with being super attractive or anything, if you ran into me nineteen times out of twenty i will be without make-up, with messy tied up hair and needing to lose a few kilo's, i frown alot and am not very interested in what most people have to say, i'm aloof and seemingly quite self absorbed, and at work i am seriously no fun. Yet somehow i am never without a man's interest. I think it's the independent flair i give off, i guess men feel that if they can make me need them then they have proven to be more manly than man. Maybe that's the explanation, or whatever.
so anyway, i just wish i knew why men needed to smother women so much? And it's always in the beginning of a relationship, always. Thank God my current guy knows me well enough to know better than to baby talk me like some of my exes, but then again i know him well enough to puke all over him if he did! Why do men treat women like they are toddlers in the beginning of relationships? Why the cuteness factor? You know why it bugs me so much? We all know it's not real. We all know that the men wont be keeping it up, that it's not a genuine emotion, it just comes with the novelty of the relationship i guess, this whole i am crazy about you and i finally got you and you're my little precious thing. Luckily i know better than to up and leave as a result of this, as i have seen how time and time again it dwindles over time.
I just wish i could fast forward the first ten weeks of it, fast forward to the good stuff, the sexy talk, the buddy drinking, the fun trips, the pool games, the bickering over chores.
I like it real, what can i say?

Fast forward, please.

Days of Black

2008-03-12T23:26:00.004+02:00

I wont wear black
no i wont wear black
you know i'd paint the world that color
if wearing that color
would bring you back
I can still feel the heat
pass from your fingers to mine
I can still see you little underneath that sheet
before the grief replaced
the fear that numbed my spine
And now i tread the day
wishing reality away
wishing i knew
how people who love you this much
can say goodbye to you
I fight back tears
saving them for those who will miss you more
I bite back streams
I know you know i'd cry you rivers
if that would make the world, like it was before
I can't wear black
over you, no i can't wear black
over the freeing of love
over you going home
I just can't wear black
you know i'd paint the whole world that color
if wearing that color, would take all this back

Pray

2008-02-18T11:21:00.003+02:00

If you pass through here, please take a moment to pray.

Pray for a girl recovering from a hemorrhage

She's a mother of two and adored by everyone who's met her.

She is the light of her family's life.

She's 35.

She has curly hair and a sunny smile.

She is beautiful and full of life.

Picture her and pray. Please.

Being Christina...

2008-02-16T11:30:00.003+02:00

Exorcism

2008-02-15T10:16:00.008+02:00

My ever polite and charming, compulsive lying, turned out to be married and with child after a year of dating me ex boyfriend sent me a text message yesterday; wishing me a great night, and a happy valentine. After running off like a six year old who soiled his pants in class - never to return to class again- when i dug up a marriage and child and realized his absolute incomprehension of the value of truth and genuine incapability of telling any coherent non-contradicting fact, this person sends me a text message, wishing me a great night, on valentines day.

I was at that very minute, having a great night. I was out with friends unwinding after the long week and having a very intimate moment with my glass of wine. I was sitting next to my best friend, toying with the idea of just how much i can flirt with him tonight without needing to consent to officially starting to date him. I was unwound and happy, and looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

And then i got the text message, wishing me a great night.

In his style of words, it had been 94 days, 18 hours and some number of minutes since the last time i looked forward to receiving a message from him.

My stomach flipped, my hands started shaking and i reached out for the first cigarette of many to come that night.

So, ex boyfriend, this one's for you and for me and this world you love so much and frequent so often in different shapes and forms unaware of just how dangerous your little fun can be;

I am only ever interested in hearing from you if you decide to seek professional help.
If you wake up one day sick of living ground hog day.
If you google the word sociopath, and something rings a bell, and you freak out.

I am only ever interested in hearing from you then.

Until then may the God you don't believe in protect you from harms way, and protect those who cross paths with you from taking you too seriously. And rest assured that there is no need to wish me happy days, my days are happy away from you.

From all my heart; be well and good bye,
N

Promises

2008-01-23T23:53:00.000+02:00

I promised you that i would love you
every day that i would live
I promised you that my hands
would always find and ease your pain
I promised you that i would smile
every day you spent with me
I promised you that i would stay
no matter what, that i would stay
I tried
oh how i tried
Only to wake up one day finding
that when i promised
I must have lied
There was no air;
My skin could no longer bear your whipping
I could no longer watch the dripping off my back
onto your floor
And i left
And broke the ties that held my soul
in its place right next to you
I tried my love, i really tried
Seems when i told you i needed nothing -
I must have lied
I found myself one day breathless
and my soul found itself homeless
And my softness for you
squirming in its pain just died
Seems when i promised i needed nothing
I must have lied

September 05

Recurring Thought over the Years

2008-01-22T22:20:00.000+02:00

If i love you am i trapped forever?

The Benchmark

2008-01-19T01:08:00.000+02:00

It's true; the more people you date, the pickier you get. Once upon a time i used to be oblivious to people's faults, i would only see what made them sunny and charming, once upon a time indeed.
I have been getting out much more in the past few weeks, i've ran into people i hadn't seen in years, i've met new people, and i've had conversations with people i always knew but never really got to talk to, and since i am absolutely uninterested in dating at the moment, i have naturally been getting advances left right and center, for some reason this is how the world works.
So a nice enough guy starts talking to me, and ten minutes into the conversation i can only think of how i am going to exit this conversation. I never thought i was vain, but i'm afraid i must be, it is not natural that i find almost every guy i talk to either too cocky, or too boring, or too chatty, or too fickle, or too shallow, or too vulnerable, or too something that will make him unstimulating. It's like i have a sensor that goes off when i pick up on a trait that i know doesn't sit well with me, it's as if through the gazillion guys i have dated all i have been doing is accumulating character traits that turn me off! You see the first guy you date, you don't know that him being pessimistic could actually spoil it for you, the second guy you date you make sure that he isn't pessimistic, but have no clue that him being full of himself will bore you to death, the third guy you date you make sure he is not pessimistic and not full of himself and after three weeks you can't tolerate his temper for one more day that you have to bail. So what i know now is that i can't be with anyone who is pessimistic, whiny, chatty, passive, dependent, lazy, stingy, bad tempered, possessive, cruel, a high school dropout, sexist, irrational, controlling, rigid, judgmental, hesitant, promiscuous, gay, manipulative or a liar.
And thats what i know, imagine what i don't know...
I put this snobbishness of mine down to being fresh out of a messy dramatic breakup, and thought; ok, since you are in a good place and so off dating, just hang out with your close friends and have fun. So i did that, and then bam! My best guy friend of 100 years pulled a stunt on me and suggested the development of our friendship into more. I have known this guy for 8 solid years, and now i find myself looking at him as one would a nicely wrapped package that you can hear ticking because you are absolutely sure there is a bomb inside. My first thoughts when he told me where, oh shit, now you are going to turn into something absolutely devastatingly intolerable that i am yet to discover... while my mom and friends look at me in bewilderment that i am not jumping at the chance to land such a great guy.

I think i am turning into one of those guys who see any form of a relationship as a potential hazard and an eternal threat to their peace of mind. I so get you guys now! I have alot of single ahead of me, i hope...

P.S: i said almost every guy, some conversations are still fun, thank god for that.

To Dye or not to Dye

2008-01-11T22:00:00.000+02:00

My hair color is back to its natural shade, thanks to non ammonia containing wash out dyes that eventually fade out only leaving a hint of the dark red i use (this information is only useful if at all interesting to female readers, and i'm aware of that), and now i am contemplating what to do next...

It is now a darkish brown that has a reddish and sometimes yellowish (can't say blondish) aura in the sun. Now i know very few of you have any clue of what i'm going on about as very few of you have seen me, but i am now wondering what to do with my hair color so indulge me.

The options are:
1. Dark red again (as per picture on left)
2. Leave as is and stay on the dark brown conventional side for the winter
3. Go lighter and get light brown/dark blond highlights, the key word here would be "subtle"

I am most inclined to option 2, it's been a while since i had my own shade, however, the red gets tons of compliments, and the lighter is something i've never done before so could be a nice change, however again, high lights must be done using ammonia, and ammonia fucks the hair.

Input?

Things I've learnt

2008-01-08T00:36:00.000+02:00

Quitting when you're ahead is under rated
A good pizza is a rare commodity
First kisses almost always suck
Holding out is over rated
Hardly anyone ever returns the wine bottle after tasting it
Ice skating is not for everyone
An ego is only as large as you inflate it
Tequila doesn't go well with ka7k el 3eid
Rebounds work
If forgiveness is not possible, forgetfulness will do
Clever is sometimes very stupid
No one is keeping score
Credit cards are malicious
Time flies either way

Simplicity

2007-12-20T20:04:00.000+02:00

The more time i spend in this world, the more i get to know things about myself, and the less i understand the world.

2007 was hard, everything about 2007 was hard. Breaking up with T was hard, moving back was hard, work was hard, attempting a long distance relationship was hard, two break ups in one year was hard, accepting that you have been very delusional, is very hard.
Holding grudges when you are supposed to is very hard for me. Accepting that i am still the last person standing, is hard. Letting go has always been and always will be hard.

2007 was hard, and i was scarcely happy; i was very far away from myself.

2006 was the year of fun
2007 was the year of work
may 2008 be the year of me.

Happy new year to you all, may your year end with closure, and the next start with hope.
May you meet consistently good people, and may you discover more of the wonder that is yourselves.
May you embrace the sanctity of truth, and the reward of being good.
May you find pride in who you are, and satisfaction in what you do.
May you do unto others, as you would have done unto yourselves.

May you find peace, and have fun in the process.

Love,
N

Free Me

2007-12-18T00:02:00.000+02:00

I want to fly away
To sleep for months on end
and wake up to the warmth of a man i love in my bed
I want to unclench my shoulders
To lose myself in the scent of someone familiar
I want my mind to stop
I want to allow the tears to drop
To let myself feel everything
Without fear of tomorrow
or fear of my own harsh disdain
I want to feel without restraint
I want to walk on water
To know the freedom of release
I want rip my shields to pieces
I want to collapse in another's arms
I want to relinquish control
I want to bare myself to the storm
I want to only believe
I want my alter ego to leave
I want to fly away

Falling Out

2007-12-14T20:45:00.000+02:00

I don't know why it's called falling out of love. I really don't. I don't think the decision to be with someone or not has much to do with love....
I still love the few men i was once in love with. I still love them very much, i would still do pretty much anything for them. I still regard them softly, i still have feelings of affection for them, i still love them. I don't think i have fallen out of love with them... at all.
People should call it falling out of want... or need... or habit...
Getting over someone like a bad habit, or an addiction. Shifting our attention elsewhere, shifting our desires elsewhere..
Falling out of want,your mind deciding that you don't want to have the love, you only need to feel it, not own it. To love for the sake of love, and not feed off it. To love with no reciprocation, and no fixation, an absolute abstract love with no expectation. A love that is let go of. A subtle lingering bitter sweetness that is irrelevant to anyone's actions.
I don't think any love that was truly felt can be undone, unfelt. Love is not something we acquire, it's something we realize within ourselves, brought out by people we cross paths with. I cannot unrealize love, if i had my way with the world that would be a crime.
But hell, if i had my way with the world no one would recognize it anymore.

Falling out of want... yes i am.
Yes i am...

The Black Book

2007-12-09T23:07:00.000+02:00

My friend walks in on me at work, as i stare at the computer way after working hours.
F: You still here?
Me: Uh huh
F: Have you moved in?
Me: i still take showers at home..
F: You need to rebound.
Me: I've been rebounding for six years straight, i think it's proven to be a bad idea
F: Well it beats dying at your desk
Me: You have a point i guess
F: So what are the options?
Me: Options?
F: The black book, lets bring out the black book
Me: I have two exes calling for dates
F: How'd they know?
Me: Bloody facebook, tells the world when you remove the relationship thing
F: Which exes?
Me: X & Y
F: Dear God!
Me: Exactly
F: What else is on the table?
Me: Heartthrob is back from Canada...
F: No!
Me: Yup, and has a pool table at home... and wine in the fridge
F: He called you?
Me: Msn. The internet has fucked romantic gestures
F: Go for it!
Me: Said i'd give him a call, drop by some time, can't be bothered awy...
F: Ok.. we don't want to jeopardize chances with heartthrob, not seeing him in your mood might not be a bad idea
Me: Right
F: Anything else?
Me: I have an open invitation to Holland. He even offered to buy me the ticket
F: Ya moseibty
Me: Right
F: Don't!
Me (had to laugh): probably wont
F: Doesn't he have a girlfriend?
Me: He does
F: So how come he asked you over?
Me: Seriously? Have you learnt nothing about men at all?
F: Sa7. So what will it be, a bottle of wine?
Me: A bottle of wine sounds like the best option, yes.

God bless friends.

Being

2007-12-09T22:28:00.000+02:00

I lie on the floor
I concentrate on my toes
The soles of my feet
My calves
My knees
My thighs
My navel
My abdomen
My chest
My arms
My palms
My fingers
I concentrate on my breathing
Inside and out
My eyes are closed
I am heavy on the floor
I am all there is
I am everything yet nothing
I am a feather in God's wind
I am only me
Not what i do or what i think
Just me
I stretch my body as far as it will go, and farther
I test every muscle to the limit
It hurts
And i don't mind
I let every emotion flow through my veins
I let myself feel
I embrace the turmoil
I relax all my body, as i'm told
I look for my center
I find it
I retain it, without holding on to it
I accept
I breathe

I walk out of the class, already waiting for my next class.
I walk to my car, a long walk in the cold, i don't mind, i am peaceful.
I embrace the tranquility of sadness and solitude.
I cherish the silence.
I get into my car, and have no need for music.
I drive in the quiet in the dark streets.
I accept the only thought that comes to mind then;
You didn't need to lie to make me love you.

Fuck It

2007-12-07T23:04:00.001+02:00

I'm done.
I have put on my short red dress, my high heel boots, and i'm going out.
I'm going to drink and dance my ass off.
Fuck it. Seriously.

Consequences

2007-12-07T11:49:00.000+02:00

What is worse? To have been wronged and pained, or to have wronged someone and pained them?
If you were to ask me, N, i would tell you that i would rather be hurt than hurt someone, not because i am that noble, simply because the guilt and torment of having caused someone pain is unbearable. The responsibility is very real to me. I think that is what sums up why i am a good person.
If a good person wrongs me, i know they feel pain, i know they are sorry, i know they are weighed down with the grief they have caused me. That alone, makes it easy to forgive, logical to move on.
When good people interact together they are operating on the same code. Pain has very little room in life when you are with like minded people.

My problem lies with the wondering of what happens when you are wronged by someone who does not feel? It's the only thing i'm angry about right now. I know it will take time for me to forget that i have been betrayed, i know the bitter taste of lies will stay in my mouth for a while, i know i will waste even more time than i have, unable to open up, skeptical of heart felt words, reserved and clammed up and mistrustful. Because i have strength i know that it wont be long before that has gone. But for the duration, i will cringe when i hear words that are familiar, i will mistrust, i will roll my eyes, i will be out of it, i will be cynical.
It will take even more of my time, because i am human, because i have felt, because i have invested, because i cared.
It would make my journey shorter had i believed i was wronged by someone who cared. I will know that i am not alone in my grief, that it is equally bad if not more so, to the person who has wronged me.
What happens to the people who wrong but do not care?
If they have no conscience, who will be their reprimand?
If they will not bear the consequences of their actions, what will be their punishment for this?

My friends tell me their punishment is in the people that they are, the things they will miss out on in life, their lack of self worth, their knowledge of what they are made of.
I used to believe this, but now i'm not so sure. Do people who have no ethics really care that they are worth nothing? Do people who are so selfish that they rape others of their right of choice really care that they end up alone? Do people who are capable of such devastation feel any discomfort when they watch the consequences of their actions, knowing all along that these consequences would materialize?
Are these not the virtues of good people? To feel remorse, to feel sorry, to feel bad? Isn't that what stops good people from doing wrong?

Is there anything to convince me that this was not done in cold blood and that now it is done, too bad, and life goes on to something new?

Do people who are worth nothing, know or care that they are worth nothing?

I find one consolation, even if they don't feel any of the above, this must mean that they do not feel at all. Do not feel sorrow, hence do not feel joy, do not feel regret, hence do not feel appreciation. Do not feel loss, hence do not feel gratitude.
My consolation is that these people are dead people walking.

And if you are someone who can rape people of their right to choose, manipulate their hopes and dreams, consciously, and feel no sorrow or remorse, feel no need to do whatever it may take to take back your wrongs, if you are a monster, then the very least thing you deserve, is to be a dead man walking.
Neither alive nor dead.
Neither happy nor sad.
Nothing.

The very least you deserve to be is nothing. That should be your consequence.

Am i wrong?

The Drill

2007-12-05T00:04:00.000+02:00

I read every word, many times.
I have become an expert at extracting the most amount of information possible from a few lines.
I could see him writing them, choosing one word instead of the other, using an absolutely inopportune word for rhyme.
I could tell which words were written for my benefit. And which slipped despite him betraying traits he should be hiding now.
I read every word, many times.
And then this emptiness consumed me.
Is this what i have loved for?
Is this what i was faithful to?
Is this vanity what i loved?

And i saw it like everyone could see it, apathetically, without interest, like the bad story that it is.
I saw him for the man he was today, a man who only knows how to take the easy way out.
And i felt a surge of relief, i didn't want him anymore. And i worked for hours straight, and forgot he even existed.
And then i got into my car, turned on my music, lit my cigarette, and the pang in my stomach came back.
I missed him. I missed the man he was to me every day for eleven months.

When does this cycle ever end?

Not Enough

2007-12-02T22:37:00.000+02:00

Dear Readers of this blog, this is a depressing post, move on from it now if you are in a happy place, i am not.
I am tired of life, i am disappointed at it, i am weary.
Through out my life whenever i went through a bad patch, the death of a loved one, a devastating heart break, i never lost faith. I always knew that this was just happening to me now, that this was just a bad experience i had to go through to learn something to prepare me for the good things to come. I always held the belief that the world was a happy place, that i chose my own misery, that i chose pain over happiness. I never blamed life, i never blamed the world, i took responsibility for my bad choices, and emerged out of every experience telling myself that if i fixed myself i would learn how to choose happiness. I spent endless years fixing myself, loving myself more, treating myself better, shedding one bad habit after the next. I had motivation, i wanted to embrace the world.
Today i find myself without faith, without heart, without a desire to go on. Today i find myself disappointed with the nature of humans, and with the world we live in that is so full of tragedy.

I look beyond my own current drama, and no one i know is happy. My married friends are either bored, unstimulated, being cheated on, or contemplating cheating on their partners. My single friends are either divorced, unstimulated, badly bruised, or trying to settle for a partner to have kids. I have been hearing one sickening story after the next, that i look at my own stories, and i am not that shocked anymore.
I am beginning to think that love is a myth.
Whatever happened to the world? If it's not fear of commitment it's fear of failure, if it's not fear of failure it's fear of boredom, if it's non of the above it's too many options.
Whatever happened to the days of love? Whatever happened to through thick and thin?
Why does everyone - whether with someone or not - end up alone?
Everyone i know who is single doesn't want to be. They say they want love, yet they are not meeting "the one". The people they meet are either too conservative, too loose, too religious, too atheist, too tall, too short, too fat, too bald, too loud, too needy, too pushy, too stuck up, too moody, too restless, too weird, too boring.

Uuuufffff. What is wrong with the world?

My last boyfriend (i will not assign him a letter here) came into my life disguised as the one who will make all my mistakes go away, he was supposed to be the one to make it all better. He promised not to break promises, he promised not to leave when i depended, he promised me a rational mature relationship. To me that was promising the world. I chose to enter into what looked like a healthy chance at something happy. I took a leap of faith, left a man i loved very much who promised me eternal heartache, and decided to love this man.
I had learnt all the lessons of love, to stay independent, to go slow, to have a life, to not fall first, to voice what i want loud and clear, to speak up when i was unhappy, to not get ahead of myself, and to not love him more than myself. These lessons were engraved in my bones from all the men i'd loved before. This time i would not get screwed over, this time i would be good to me, this time i would be happy.

And the rest is history. He broke his promises, he left when i was dependant, he taught me how to go for us when he couldn't. He taught me to trust while he wouldn't. He showed me one more time how nothing is ever as good as it seems.

And here i am. I am not heartbroken, i've lost heart. I am not lonely, i am just very aware that i am alone. I am not angry or bitter, i just have no urge to look forward.
What's the point? Everything ends. Why should i invest in anything if it always goes down the drain? Why should i begin something that will almost surely end?
For the one off chance that it wont? Who has the energy to take that chance one more time?
If love is not ever enough, then what is? If people never know what they want, how can we link our fates with other people's whims?
If people have lost the urge to be happy together, why should i be the only one who hasn't?

I come out of this one not devastated, not heartbroken, not betrayed, I come out older, and disillusioned; the world is not a happy place.

I come out of this one faithless. When all i used to have was faith.

On Love Gone Bad

2007-11-28T18:52:00.000+02:00

One of the worst feelings is knowing that it is wrong to love a certain someone.
To know that the only right thing to do is to change all your feelings of love to at the very bare minimum, neutral.
To unlove them.
You force yourself to do it, knowing it is the only way back to good.

Something is very wrong with the world when the only right thing left to do is to unlove.

Cairo Winter

2007-11-26T23:54:00.000+02:00

It's getting colder.
I drive to work and there are clouds in the sky, a luxury in Cairo. There are clouds but it's clear and sunny, it's cold but not enough to turn on the heater.
I love this winter, i have missed the last three winters in Cairo, i have missed them badly.
I'm in boots and a t-shirt. My last three winters i had to wait for the frost to melt off the windshield for ten minutes every morning.
For the first time since i moved back from France i feel like i am home.

Two

2007-11-18T20:41:00.000+02:00

I shall split you into two:

The man i so wanted you to be
And the man you turned out to be

Yes, that is what i will do. To preserve my sanity, to forgive my disloyalty to my instincts, to get through these horrid times. I shall split you into two.

I knew, of course i knew, i doubted every word, i filled every gap in your stories with fractions of my imagination. I knew, i always knew something was wrong.

I shall split you into two:
The man i looked up to, the man that wished me good mornings and good nights, the man that called me love, the man that kissed my shoulder, the man who bought me books, the man who made me laugh.
The man that got me.
The man that held me long and never tired of holding me.
The man who promised me protection from the world.

To find my peace i will separate the man who was my best friend from this other man. And then i will tell myself that my best friend went to a place far far away, where there are no phones and no planes, no good mornings or good nights.

I shall split you into two; the best friend that had to go away, and this other man...

I will not ask why you did this anymore.
I will not try to understand, what i cannot understand.
I will not repeat every word you said to me this week.
I will not remember the other things.
I will not remember them.

I will not wonder just how much longer you were going to lie.
I will not wonder how much more you did not tell me.
I will not wonder what in your life pushed you to be this way.
I will not wonder how that same man had no heart.

I will not wonder about your heart. Or lack thereof.

I shall split you into two, the man that loved me, and the man that is capable of this.

I will bid the man that loved me farewell, he is no longer here, i don't know why he had to leave but i will accept that he had to. The best ones always leave early.

And i will forget the man who was able to do this.
To hold and to lie.
To kiss and to lie.
To love and to lie.
To talk and to lie.
To breath and to lie.
To touch my scars and to lie.

To find his way into my life, manipulate, and lie.

I will not wonder where you got the heart.

I will move on and forget that such things really happen, or that they happened to me.
I will take what i want from this and move on.

You will not have devastated me. You will not have drove me crazy. You will not have had me believe that all the world is one big lie.

I am better than that. Yes i am.

When i doubted i was not crazy.
When my nights were sleepless, i was right.
When you told me i was wrong, i was not.
When i was unhappy, i had reason.

The only thing i know that matters to you is to lose.

You lose.

In this little game that we played where i am one and you are two, you lose.

You lose me, you lose you.

As for me, i will separate the man i so wished you were, from the man you are today.

I will split you into two, and let you both go.

I am better for it. Yes i am.

.......

2007-11-13T20:16:00.000+02:00

My earliest memory of smoking at my window was four years ago, ever since then it has been linked to my world falling apart.
that was the first time i understood that in life anything goes.

I just put out my nth cigarette today, i threw it out my window and the familiar feeling came back. It's so cynical to be more at home with disaster than with happiness.

I am a great girl.
I battle myself and better it. I accept every challenge that comes my way.
I have always fought for what i believed in, even when i believed in the most horrid of things.
Even at the worst version of myself i didn't give up.
I don't know impossible. I was born a fighter.
I try not to judge, i value trying to be humane.
I am fair.

I deserve to be happy, i deserve the simplest joys of life.

And yet somehow i end up at my window, smoking it off; the sensation that the world is crashing all around me. Numb, passive, tired, with energy enough only to light another cigarette, and try to accept that what will be will be.

My head wont leave my head alone.

It's so exhausting being so aware of everything i think and feel. It is so hard being so objective that i can understand insanity. It is so claustrophobic being so emotional yet so mentally aware.

My head wont leave my head alone.

My body aches everywhere, i carry a stone in my stomach, it is a curse being so physically reactive to my mental state.

There is absolutely nothing i can do.

I have done everything right and ended up in the thick of it anyway; I can't move, i can't go, i can't stay, i can't think.

Thrown off my bed into the deep of the ocean.

My head wont leave my head alone.

Real

2007-11-12T22:46:00.000+02:00

Real: The man i love holds the door for me and fills up my glass of wine before it is ever empty

Real: The man i love is the best company i know

Real: The man i love makes me laugh at myself, the most challenging of tasks

Real: The idea of my days without him, makes my stomach turn

Real: The man i love devastated me today

Real: For the first time since i can remember, i came home to crawl into my mothers arms

Real: All day i have been repeating in my head
"please make it ok again, please pull through"
"please make it ok again, please pull through"

Real: I still love the man i love, i still want no other man

I am exhausted.

All i want in my world right now is for this man to wake up tomorrow and decide to earn his second chance.

All i want is that, the hope of a chance at something real.

"May you find the strength to do what you think is right, the wisdom to accept it and the conviction to uphold it. May your strength be understood, your wisdom appreciated and your conviction respected."

Pedestals

2007-10-30T10:14:00.000+02:00

One after one, i break my pedestals.
It is such a dangerous thing to have, a person on a pedestal.
I think i've always been anti pedestals, my friends used to tell me about their daydreams of boyfriends or crushes or celebrities, i was always strongly against that kind of day dreaming, of consciously idolizing people with fictitious thoughts.
"It's dangerous" i would say.
Yes, i have always been anti pedestals. I have only been stuck with getting rid of the ones that placed people on them all by themselves, out of naivete or youth, or conditioning.

The other day i found out that our happily married friend was being cheated on, i was not shocked, absence of pedestal for him, good.

A few days ago i discovered i had been lied to for no reason from someone i love, sadness, calmness, the choice to forgive, no pedestal there anymore.

I wonder how many people have me on a pedestal, i can spot a dozen, and i recognize the things in me that would shatter that pedestal for them in a second.

What dysfunctional tendencies us humans have.

Why I Fast

2007-09-30T19:40:00.000+02:00

Every day my friend at work comes to me with a new reason why she thinks she is fasting, one day it is detoxing the body, the other day it is unburdening the soul, the latest one was self discipline. N, i found it, it's to be taught self discipline!
N: um.. why do you think we need to be taught discipline to begin with?
Silence..

And it goes on and on.

My other friend asked me before Ramadan: will you fast N?
N: Yes i think so, haven't given it much thought, you?
M: I will i guess, but i doubt i will next year.

When i fasted in France my friends looked at me like i was an enigma, sitting with them over dinner having not eaten all day and turning down wine every day for 30 days.
But you're so cool otherwise, how does this make sense to you?

The bf had me on the phone the other day: are you fasting?
N: Yup
Bf (disgruntled): how could people assume that starving themselves all day is something that would make God happy?

I watch the people around me full of contradictions:
some pray but also drink and have sex
some fast and don't pray and drink but wont have sex
some do drugs and bash alcohol
some drink and bash drugs

most of them are on the fence, clinging to the notion of a god in case heaven and hell really were out there awaiting us, or are on the fence still and have some unanswered questions but the idea of god pisses them off, so they take no clear stand.

I had a three hour long conversation with one of my close friends about religion, not God, religion. At the end of which she concluded: so you don't believe in God at all?

I was puzzled, that's not true at all i replied, why does everyone jump to that conclusion?
If i have reservations about religion, i am rendered blasphemous
If i believe in God i am rendered backwards and brainwashed

why does everyone care so much to box?

I am a very simple girl when it comes to my belief in the existence of God.

I believe we are all made of the same thing, we are all essentially good, we shall keep living over and over again through different lives and planes. We are not going anywhere, we are already there, time is like a row of leaves, all happens at the same time, there is free will, and the free will coincides with the free will of the universe, the collective free will.
Hell can be your bad day or mine, hell could be the next life of a rapist having come back as a snail. But no on is to tell me that we were born with instinct that would lead us to rot in hell forever, or that i am to go through life with any notion that i need to be disciplined. The only discipline i need is to make myself stay positive, to prolong my heaven, to enjoy my life.

I have met many great people in my life.

One of the greatest people i met was a gardener in France, she was the kindest and strongest of women, after many months of a lovely friendship, she asked me, so you believe in God?
I said, yes, after alot of thinking i have decided that i do, you?
S: No i don't, i believe in me.
I looked at her admirably, and i told her that for me, that was the same as believing in God.
S: So you don't judge me?
N: Hell no, good on you.

That girl is one of the best people i know.

I have other great people in my life, some of them meditate, some of them believe in Islam and that they are sinners and will calm down one day. Some of them can't be bothered to think about it so pass on making the statement, and some of them are so turned off religion they've renounced the whole notion of it. Others completely and whole heartedly don't believe there is anything more to life than this.

They are all good people, they feed the poor, they try to make people smile, they don't take what is not rightfully theirs and they all earn their living and take care of their friends and family.
What more could you ask for in a person? What more could you want? At the end of the day they all live, we all live, and that is what we were all meant to do, just be.

Whatever your beliefs or actions are, do you think they affect God one way or the other?
You are what you make of yourself, only you lose or gain from how you think or what you do.
I don't know why people think God has anything to do with it at all.

And finally, if it all doesn't matter why do i believe in God? If there are no punishments or rewards, no endings and no beginnings? How is my faith in God so absolute?
Because my faith in God is for me.
It gives me a sense of belonging, a friend at all times, the comfort that i am understood no matter how crazy i am, it makes me feel like i am a part of something.
It's a selfish feeling, i do it for me not him/her/it.
This belief makes me strengthen myself, not expect him to bless me with strength.
This belief makes me able to go on when it's tough, not expect him to make it easy.
This belief makes me feel that no matter how lonely i get, I'm not alone.

Maybe there are people out there who don't need this, who are absolutely happy without this, there is nothing wrong with that, our fingers are not the same, and we would be foolish to want them to be.

So yogi's, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, meditators, atheists and agnostics, and all those other people out there, you are all right if you are all happy, fret not, fight not.

I would celebrate with all of you if i were in your culture or with one of you, i'd light candles and chant mantras, i'd eat turkey and wrap Christmas gifts, it's all about sharing love and wanting good things, that's all we have to have in common.

And that is why i fast.

Raw

2007-09-29T14:12:00.000+02:00

One day when i was six, i got off the bus and walked the two blocks from where the bus dropped me off to my then home. I went up the two flights, and took a right to where our apartment was, i found the door open.
I walked into our apartment and found random people dressed in black sitting everywhere, there were chairs laid out where there usually weren't any chairs, all there was were chairs and women dressed in black. I recognized one as a friend of my grandmother, she nodded at me and gave me a faint smile. Confused i walked into my mother's room, the one she shared with my grandmother, and i found them both sitting on the floor with their back to the closet.
They were both in black as well, and my mother had both her hands on her head. Our eyes met, she looked at my sister who was also in the room, and motioned for her to take me into the balcony.
I went into the balcony with my sister, who told me in so many words that our father had died. She repeated this several times, and asked me if i understood, i nodded affirmatively, she hugged me, i think i hugged her back and we went back into the room.
My sister nods at my mother, i see my mother again on the floor with her hands on her head. She is not crying, i note that, and that is all i remember from that scene.
Next scene i remember my mother is taking me and my sister to her aunt's house, she leaves us there for what feels like a month or so, i remember skipping school for the while. I remember that the whole experience was weird and surreal. I don't remember crying or feeling any sadness of loss. The only disturbing thought is the image in my head of my mother on the floor, so very unlike her, looking as what i now understand as to be broken.

Everyone was overtly nice to me, and i didn't really get it. At the age of twelve i then realize that from the day that happened i was completely convinced that my father was pulling a stunt. He was living abroad at the time and he was close to moving back home, so to make his coming home extra special he pretended to have died, so that we would be really really surprised when he came back.

Aren't children's minds scary?

From age six to twelve there was to be no mention of my father in the house. I tried once, but everyone broke down and started crying, i decided against getting information from there on, it set the house on fire, so i went without.
Every year we would go visit where he is buried, somewhere in upper Egypt where the rest of his family still resides. At twelve i asked if i could go along as well, surprisingly my mom agreed, and i remember going with them to the family house, then leaving by car, taking a boat across a lake or river to a cemetery.
His tombstone was huge, and i remember being confused about that, wasn't it supposed to be on the level of the earth and humble?
I recited what i knew was appropriate, watched my mother horribly solemn, and waited for them to be ready to go.
I remember that on the boat ride back i felt the need to make things lighter, so i started telling my sister jokes. My sister and i were still friends back then. I knew this would lighten my mothers heart, and i saw her look at us from across the boat with a smile in her eyes.
That was the year i decided to admit to myself that my father had died. Ironically, we never went to visit him again, my mother couldn't do it anymore.

I still didn't cry, i felt no self pity for having lost a father at any point. I had too much pride and developed an allergy to sympathy, whenever someone would ask about him i would say he passed away, i would get the painful twisted face, and i would immediately say, hey no worries, that was ages ago! And i meant it.
I always had so much going for me, i was smart, got good grades easily, loved sports, was popular at school, always had great friends, and life went on. I never grieved the loss, i didn't feel the need to.

Then on my 19th birthday, my best friend of 15 years died in a car crash.
There is no describing how badly i took that, I remember having no grip and dropping things, i remember having no control over my tear glands for several months. I was a happy 18 year old whose only concern was partying on the weekend and saving up for trips with my friends, then came this, it was a blow to my priorities, to my perception of life.
That time, the few weeks and months after the car crash, was the first time my mother talked to me about my father. I learnt how he died, what he was like, what similarities i had to him, how wonderful he was, etc etc..
I was introduced to the man at 19, and i suddenly began to miss him.
I mourned my friend for two years, i am later told it was my mourning of both my father and her, i suppose that makes sense on paper, but the feeling of mourning was so claustrophobic that i just wanted it done with. I continued to miss my father, and i somehow wanted him back, it was not conscious, it was not rational, it was a gap in my heart that i was suddenly monstrously aware of, and there was no shushing it. It would not go away.

And as cliched as our lives usually are, i went from being a straight arrow goody two shoes responsible girl, who had only had one boyfriend who was her childhood sweetheart, to the girl who wanted to try anything and everything, to a hunger struck soul striving to devour all that was possibly out there.
I had several relationships, i broke men's hearts and got my heart broken, i took emotions to extremities, i was looking for an unconditional love that i wouldn't want to push away, i was looking for the love of a man that was so complete, it would fill the gap.
At 24, i began to understand the magnitude of self destruction i was doing.
I began to see that i had everything in my life under complete control at will, i began to understand that i was unbelievably strong in every way, except in my relationships with men.
I packed up and moved to France, i tore myself away from my mother and my then insane relationship, and i spent eight months walking the streets of the south of France, drinking coffee, writing and making my apartment into a home. I learned how to cook, how to clean, how to wash my clothes, how to pay my bills, how to save up money and how to be alone. I rejected all advances made by men, when my ex came to find me i drove to Italy, i realized again all that was great about me, all the things i knew how to do, i started traveling, and i finally accepted that no man or thing could fill the gap a father left. I understood that i had to love myself enough for me and him, and i recognized the power of being independent, of not needing external love.
The dark ages were ending, i was finally dealing with the loss of a father, 18 years later.

I've been in love and out and in again since then, i slip and struggle often with my relationship with men, but i find my peace with it through two things:
1. I know in my heart that i don't want anyone to fill that gap anymore
2. I know this is my baggage, its a part of me, and whoever loves me will love all of me, with gaps and holes and luggage and wounds.

Such is life. We all go through traumas, we all carry scars, we all have mutilated characters as a consequence, we all have our own reasons for aggression, distance and self defenses.
I pride myself on at least being able to see my faults and distortions, and apologize for them when they take over me.

This post is probably about a year over due. I've dreaded writing it, but now that i have i know that i always had to. Contrary to funny, sexy, amusing blogs, mine has always served first and foremost as my outlet.

Things I Love....

2007-09-26T22:19:00.001+02:00

Sandy Beach....

A juicy Steak...

A Good Book....

Good Wine....

Massages....

Cherries...

Road Trips...

Sterling Silver

Hand Bags....

TV Shows.....

Big Comfy Beds....

Yoga....

Kissing....

Temptation

2007-09-23T16:41:00.000+02:00

This is the nth time i consider posting job vacancies on this blog and decide against it.

Beliefs

2007-09-09T23:57:00.000+02:00

I believe in the one God. The force, nature, the universe, the soul of the world, the source, I believe in the one God, and i don't care what you call him/her/it. I believe in the one God, in you, in me, in the drops that make the ocean, parts of one and all the same. The beginning and the end and all that's in between, the abstract, the all, the light and absence thereof.
I believe in the one God.

I follow my own religion, i mix and match all of yours and pick the ideas that feel right for me. Most of you will call me faithless, but i live with no guilt, no shame, no regret and am subject to no vengeance. I am fair and comfortable, i am my own persecutor, the consequences of my actions are my heaven and hell. I talk to God, we have good conversations, i am happy in my own skin and very comfortable with my ignorance and confusions. I am honest with myself. I believe that God is home.

I believe that the truth always comes out. Always. That's why i stopped lying, there's just no point, it's wasted effort, the truth always comes out. The only person i lie to now is my mother, i lie because i love her, and because i love myself, i lie to protect her, and i do it with love. I would have no fear for myself if she found out my lies, my only fears are for her happiness. I lie to her with no guilt.

I believe that good prevails. Eventually, maybe in a very very long time, maybe in another life, but i believe that good will win over evil.

I am right there in the middle, i was a capitalist, then a socialist, now i am right there in the middle. I believe in equal opportunity and everyones' right to medical care and education. I also believe that if you don't get off your ass and grab your life, you only have yourself to blame.

I am very big on compassion, very stingy with sympathy, i believe one bonds people and the other wrecks them.

I believe in education. If there's anything that would save the world it's teaching people how to think - for themselves that is-.

I believe that love makes the world go round. Not money, not contacts, Love. Love makes the world go round.

I believe in trust, there is no freedom without trust, there is no absolute without trust, there are no dreams without trust, there is no hope without trust. I spend most of my day battling my skepticism and trying to find a way back to trust. If there was one thing i didn't want to lose it's my natural inclination to trust.

I am addicted to travel, i believe that travel gives you perspective, gives you self knowledge, gives you confidence, gives you individuality. I am an addict of travel and change.

I believe the body gets ill when the soul gets tired.

I believe in families and children, and having a lot of people around you that love you enough to scream in your face.

I believe in monogamy, sometimes i thought i didn't, but i believe in monogamy. I believe that intimacy is precious and touching anothers' skin is sacred. I believe in monogamy of the body, mind and soul. I believe in only one person sharing my plate and bed.

I believe in freedom. To each his own every day and any day, i am intolerant to intolerance, the worst thing you can be according to me is judgmental. Whatever makes you happy as long as you don't inflict it on me. I am a true believer of freedom.

I believe in the one God. The force, nature, the universe, the soul of the world, the source, I believe in the one God, and i don't care what you call him/her/it. I believe in the one God, in you, in me, in the drops that make the ocean, parts of one and all the same. The beginning and the end and all that's in between, the abstract, the all, the light and absence thereof.
I believe in the one God.

I'm So Screwed!

2007-09-01T09:01:00.000+03:00

You Are 4: The Individualist

You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself.
You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable.
You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt.
Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel.
At Your Best: You are inspired, artistic, and introspective. You know what you're thinking, and you can communicate it well.
At Your Worst: You are melancholy, alienated, and withdrawn.
Your Fixation: Envy
Your Primary Fear: To have no identity
Your Primary Desire: To find yourself

Other Number 4's: Alanis Morisette, Johnny Depp, J.D. Salinger, Jim Morrison, and Anne Rice.

What Number Are You?

Johnny Depp, Alanis and Anne Rice... Can it get any darker???
I protest on the envy part though, where did that come from?

Drunken Blogging

2007-08-30T23:27:00.000+03:00

Well of course there have been worse weeks, but this one was quite bad. If there's one thing that gets the better of me it's someone telling me i am wrong when i am right. I'm a child that way. So my chest pains are back, and i had to sit through two doctors telling me that i am imagining the pain and there is nothing wrong with me. It's partly my fault.. I wake up, go to work, hold my meetings, go about my day, walk in to the doctors cabinet, wait, get admitted, tell him my symptoms with a clear straight face, i am factual, i don't whine or scream or hold my chest in agony. So when the x-rays and such come out normal how is he to know that every time i breathe i feel like a piece of glass is cutting through my chest? How is he to know that i need to pause and break between sentences to get my bearings and stop panting? How is he to know that i need to sit down after the effort exerted brushing my hair? If i just say i am in pain and act and talk completely fine, really, how is he to believe me when i say the echo's are wrong?
Then i went to the best doctor in Cairo, and he sat me down, and listened to me, actually listened to me, and after an hour told me that even though everything looks fine, my pains were back because i was sick again. And that was all i needed, someone to tell me i had a right to feel sick, and to give me something for the pain to go away, and things were beginning to look up.
Then a man waved a gun in my face. My first encounter with a gun in real life, in my office. And i saw just how crazy people can get, how logic is not mandatory, how some people really have no sense of right or wrong, how corroded and vain some minds are, how power drunk they get. A gun in my office, the second he took it out of the grip i lost all sense of anything else, i didn't hear the swear words being shouted over my head, i don't know who came out of the office or went in, all i saw was the gun, my eyes completely fixated on it's every movement willing it back into it's grip. Then i spent four hours in the police station, three of which i spent giggling with my friend in a completely out of context way, maybe that was the shock of it.
And then that blew over, and the panic subsided, and i went back to work where everyone had started joking about the gun in the factory incident, and then a girl i had coached and helped get promoted came in and gave me a present, a little silver pendant with my name written in arabic and a flower on top. She hugged me for my belated birthday and made my day sweet again. She had made it herself, she made my heart melt.
It's a good job where you can contain a gun situation and get such a nice present all in one day...
But then the shock wouldn't wear off, so i had to get a drink, and the drink turned into a few too many, and before we knew it the bottle of wine was gone and here we are...
Blogging in drunkenness about the off throwing week.

Note to Friend

2007-08-28T23:22:00.000+03:00

Sand-e wrote this as a comment on my last post:

Once upon a time there was a little girl called N who dreamed of that just right fit for her bum on the couch. Warm, comfortable, well fed and content she fell asleep and woke up only to come to the realization that it was just a dream... and in her distress with figuring out the facts she woke up only to find that she'd done so before entirely experiencing her dream for what it was.

Sand-e is a blogger close to my heart, she usually leaves comments on my most heart felt posts, she leaves comments on ambiguous posts i'm sure no one gets, she knows when to say what, and to be honest her vocabulary and sentence construction are sometimes too advanced for me that i have to read the sentences several times to get it.
I read this comment over and over, what does she mean? That i've been delusional? That i burst my own bubble? That i get caught up in analysis too much to enjoy the experience?

Is she wicked enough to mean nothing in particular other than to let me come up with my own afraid to face truths?

So Sand-e, this is for you;

Once upon a time there was a little girl called N who dreamed of that just right fit for her bum on the couch. Warm, comfortable, well fed and content she fell asleep and woke up only to come to the realization that it was just a dream... and in her distress with figuring out the facts she woke up only to find that she'd done so before entirely experiencing her dream for what it was. But then she remembered that dreams are realities, and realities are dreams, because she was once told that our perceptions weave our lives. Now it's a tough paradigm shift back from distress to contentment, especially illusory contentment, after all warmth and comfort are not emotions to be saved in a bottle for emergency need...
So she did what she does best, she inhaled - though that hurts these days- and she fixed her eyesight on her feet, the feet that took her every place she's been, and out of every mess she's made and she smiled at the power of her feet. Those feet combined with lucid reality meant that the shit could just go ahead and hit the fan, and her bum would remain nicely fitting to that couch.

Don't mind me, i'm in the weirdest mood today, please feel free to tell me what it is you actually meant :)

Security

2007-08-27T01:42:00.000+03:00

My boyfriend has gotten used to having me around.
He knows that if he sends me a message, i will sooner or later reply.
He knows that if he wants to make plans i will accommodate them.
He knows that if i don't pick up i will be calling him back the next chance i get.
He knows that if i sit next to him i will reach out for him if he doesn't reach out first.
And he knows that if we fight i will want to work things out in the end.

My boyfriend is now secure and knows that i am there....

I have been twitching and twirling in my place for ages avoiding arriving at this place at any cost where he can slack off and get cosy... Where he can sit back and know that i wont just up and go for no reason...

Is there any way to put this off any longer? Or do i just grab a book and make myself comfortable too?

Choice

2007-08-23T00:16:00.000+03:00

If you woke up today and had to choose all the people in your life again, would you choose the same people you have now?

Would you chose your partner again?

The friends you've had all your life?

If you never knew the brand of coffee you drink today, would you blindly choose it again?

Would you? Really?

Seeing Through

2007-08-21T00:05:00.000+03:00

She sat me next to her on the beach, and started asking me questions. She's a friend of a friend, even though she was sharing a room with me and this was our first one on one encounter since i had arrived the night before. She was older and from another part of the arab world, and really a testament to educated, broad minded and yet traditional arab women.
She told me to sit close while she asked me all the questions, i was the last one there to be tested as i had displayed no interest really in what was supposed to be a fascinating personality test. The day was beautiful, i had spent most of it swimming and playing in the sand with a friend's one year old, and it was close to sunset and i was beat from walking hunchbacked for hours holding the baby's hands while he attempted his newly found talent to walk/stumble on his own feet.
I sat down next to her, completely slumped in my chair, and lightly answered questions about old keys and apples, dark caves and bears, horses and the sea and finally the perfect house i suddenly saw and the mug sitting on the table.
My answers were short, one sentence if not a few words, and her interest in my answers though i considered them to be very fickle, was truly deep.

"Do you want to hear the analysis?"

"yes, of course" faking an interest to be somewhat polite.

"You carry your memories everywhere you go, you treasure all that has happened to you and your past is very much with you all the time, with all it's very good and very bad.
You are unable to walk away from your fears and threats, when faced with a threatening situation you seek control, you must assess, analyze and contain, and then you walk away when peace is restored, even if within you the situation had not passed at all, if you walk away from a situation that went beyond your control, you never go back to it.
Death is something you do not think about, it is not even an after thought, you have no interest whatsoever in the subject, and you would avoid handling related topics at absolutely any cost.
You like your life to be somewhat difficult, challenging, and you take the challenge every time, you are fearless in the face of life, very little danger would put you off from going after what you want.
You indulge in what people classify as sins or the forbidden, you indulge in peace and truly believe that it is your born right to satisfy your desires should they yield no harm to others, you also understand that others may not understand this, it is very rare that you will offend someone for believing different than you.
People who know you see right through you, and you are only close to those who are the same, you seek clarity and understanding always, and in it's absence you lose interest. You are unable to be close to people who are not as transparent and clear as you are. For the people who are not close to you, you are almost impossible to understand, especially since you cannot be bothered to offer any explanation of who you are, you simply do not care."

She had my full attention as she paused.

"You have been through a traumatic relationship, and ever since you have not wanted anything to do with men. You may have had relationships since, but deep inside it is very hard for you to be with a man. You have very deep wounds that have only healed at the surface making everything look fine, but when anyone applies even little pressure on the skin covering the wound you want to scream.
After this relationship you became much more private and detached, and i would assume that at heart you have no faith in men and have no interest in having real faith again.
Don't worry, this is not a permanent state, it will pass, but not yet, it will still be a while"

I must have been very wide eyed while i looked at her, cause she smiled and said:
"Is any of this true?"

I nodded and said yes, the woman had won me over, i couldn't help it.
I told her that i had nightmares about that part of my life almost every week even though it was a long time ago and i never thought about those times when i was awake. I told her that i was now happy with someone else. I told her i have willed myself to not be that way. I told her i saw no reason why i should be that affected by something that has long since gone.
She nodded and gave no further explanation.

"You try very hard, but it takes time, this is not who you are, it will pass"

I thought about how much little words affected me now, being called over sensitive or insecure feels like digging into a raw wound and pouring salt in the hollow space, and i went back to that feeling of wanting to be alone forever in a very far away place.
She must have read the distraught look on my face, because she suddenly said "i have some good news though.."

I smiled, and looked at her eagerly "tell me.."

"You will have or are having one hell of a sex life!"

During the Night

2007-08-06T21:55:00.000+03:00

I don't know why i get such bad nightmares. They are so disturbed as well, mutations of people into other bodily beings, with blood exploding and splashing all over, sometimes even with a perverted sexual twist that is anything but pleasurable, they are so graphic and grotesque, i often wake up wondering what i have done in my life to deserve those kinds of dreams..
After my best friend died in a car crash ten years ago, i spent two years suffering from recurring nightmares of graveyards and death, ranging anywhere from being lost in a cemetery with no way out at twilight battling against time to get out before it gets dark, to watching people i know lying bleeding from open wounds next to a dug out hole in a cemetery waiting for their death so they can be pushed into the slot.
For two years almost i dodged sleep, i slept sporadic hours during day time, and agonized over battling sleep during the night. After that the nightmares calmed down in nature, they went completely psychological rotating around an abusive relationship that was to form much of my character later on. The nightmares were justified even then, i was not leading a good life, i was unhappy with all that i was, i was going through the horrible early twenties where it seems one is known to be quite lost. It was justified to have nightmares, i could live with it because in a fucked up way i thought i deserved it.
I moved to France and life got better, my life style got healthier, my choices were mine and i grew up a bit. My nightmares recurred less frequently, due to the positive life change and regular exercise, but still, every few weeks i'd get a nerve wrecking dream, out of nowhere, flames, attacks, mutations, distortions, and death, always lots of death.
I thought that i must be detoxing from all the suppression i did as a child onwards till i became an independent entity, i decided to give it time and ignore it, and i've lived like that ever since. The thought that my subconscious holds material for these nightmares never stops scaring me though, it really terrifies me that i have thoughts buried somewhere that can be a constant feed to these never ending nightmares
This morning i woke up from yet another nightmare, blood, amputated distorted body parts, combined with disappointments in a parallel scenario. My dreams are always about people i know, and most disturbingly, people who are important to me.
In my frenzy of waking up i sent a message asking if he was ok, he was part of the dream, of course i shouldn't have cause it was 7am or something, and that is whacko mental behavior, but i was still in my frenzy, in the dark world where bad things happen for no reason.
When this happens and i wake up and he's next to me, i crawl up near, listen for a breath, put my ear against the rhythm and take comfort that everything is still the same and all that harm was just a dream, and the rhythm of the breathing eventually puts me back to sleep..

Can someone please, please tell me if this is still borderline mad or if i have always been insane?

I dream....

2007-08-05T22:36:00.001+03:00

I dream of a little house on the beach that my mother loves, a little house to make her happy, i dream her simple dream comes true
I dream of another few years off, a little flat with my own kitchen, with my own sofa, with my own glass window with a view
I dream of a white sandy island, with crystal waters and little waterfalls flowing into fresh water pools
I dream that every night i go to bed everyone i love is warm
I dream of a little girl with curly hair, in a family with lots of love to give
I dream of years of freedom yet, with light weights on my shoulders, and open clear skies
I dream of making someones life, a little better than what it would've been, if i were not there
I dream that my losses come with acceptance, and that my paths part gently and only sweet memories stay behind
I dream that if i went away, i would be loved not missed, wanted not needed, wished for not longed for
I dream for those that came and went, that what i believe is true, that love still lives and breathes through both of you
I dream that all my dreams comes true...

One Night

2007-07-29T23:54:00.000+03:00

At the end of a perfect day, amidst the softness of familiar yet much missed tenderness..

"Now do you believe that i love you?"

Silence....

"You don't?"

"I believe that you believe you do..." said tenderly, gently, cautiously...

"You think i wouldn't know?"

For a split second he contemplated my question, i don't know what went on in his mind after that, he was too busy containing the situation i think, preventing tears and such to follow..
I couldn't go on, the moment of closeness was gone for me, i turned around to spare him tears for the nth time and willed myself to sleep.

Ever since i've remembered that sentence several times a day, it's my first thought of him when i think of him and every time i wonder what i do that makes him think that? I must be responsible somehow, and i wonder over and over, is it how we started out? Is it because he hasn't seen scribblings and writings of torture and torment over him? Is it because i'm far away? Is it because i say it too much?

This feels like one of the very few battles i cannot fight. I don't think this is a battle meant to be fought...
I can only hope that if i keep being me, he will get it one day...

His response to this post was: "you should give me more credit"
What does that even mean?

When It's Worth It

2007-07-24T21:25:00.000+03:00

Today i went to the office after a week off. I'd gone to Turkey for a much needed break and some quality time with the Bf. I had been working 12 - 13 hour days for the past few weeks as the boss was away and i had to fill in for her beside doing my job and i was up against a deadline.
Consequently, whilst packing i left my work phone at home, took no documents to work on if i felt like it, didn't take my laptop with me for the first time i can remember, and didn't check my work email once! (pathetic victory i know).
Part of my job is coaching people to do their job better, i.e. fill their posts, construct their reports, own their meeting and manage their time so they can develop into indispensable promotable people. I have been exerting quite a substantial amount of effort with 7 people of diverse functions in the organization, and on my way back to work this morning i had palpitations from the issues and emails waiting for my arrival...

I walked into my office, coffee mug in hand, turned on my computer and started going through the bunch of emails waiting for me:

The product release team meeting was held, and the minutes delivered on time
Moreover, all the pending collections were launched, and marketing had placed production orders
Marketing had delievered the three collection briefs as agreed, two months ahead of schedule as requested, to push our production calendar back to make room for market testing
The minutes of the factory meeting of before were edited and distributed correctly
The factory status report was comprehensive, with exact production figures, finished prototypes, with a zero lott report attached
The stock repricing was complete and ready for consultant final lookover
The stock report was broken down per collection per production stage
The precious stones appraising project was finished to be presented that week
The bathroom were being revamped, and were almost finished
and finally
All the contract copies requested from employees had been handed in during my absence as requested..

Nothing was missing, everything i asked for happened, no one had excuses for why things hadn't happened, and other than asking me to confirm a tile color for the bathroom, no one needed help.

It was the perfect day. Maybe i should've gone on vacation sooner...

Terms of Endearment

2007-07-14T23:08:00.000+03:00

I recall when i was a teenager how uncool terms of endearment were. I remember the looks me and my girlfriends would exchange if someone called one of us "habibty" or "ro7y".... if someone said "2alby" i would literally cringe. It was icky, over emotional, uncalled for and oh so LAME.
The other day i was on the phone whilst driving back to work from a meeting with my life long friend next to me who also happens to be my boss and the snobbiest person i know, i was on the phone with a girl doing some work for us, and after i ended the conversation my friend turned to me giggling:

F: Did you realize that you just called her "ro7y"
Me: I did?
F: Yes, and habibty as well

I started giggling as well

F (reassuringly): It's ok, i do it too you know... well, maybe not "ro7y"... but the concept is ok now

I started laughing: why wouldn't it be ok?
and then i remembered our years of allergy to terms of endearment and smiled.

Somewhere on the french coast it became ok to say habibty, habiby, ro7y, love, honey, hun and even baby on the occasional highly highly affectionate moment. One day i woke up and i wanted to call people nice things, pamper them, make them feel loved, it has become an integral part of who i am...

This observation leads me to the most absurd of thoughts, are we THAT uncomfortable with emotions when we're young? Why is it that hard for teenagers to accept open affection? Why did i used to find this embarrassing and downright uncool? Why will teenagers push you away if you try to hug them?

Are we that messed up when we're growing up?

My BF has taken to calling me the most absurd things, i can only thank both of our lucky stars that we didn't meet a few years back when his calling me "konafa" would've been responded to by a dagger in the heart rather than a very appreciative sensation of being pampered..

Life

2007-07-11T15:38:00.000+03:00

I wake up and the urge hits me again. The unbearable urge to pack a bag, call in sick for a month and flee. I readjust my face and bury it into the pillow and remember that i love my job, love my life really and should get up and start my day. I remove my hair from my face and remember once again that i moved back by choice, that it's a trade off and i head off to work.

I do this every day, for four and a half months now i've done this almost every day.

Is crying in the middle of a meeting from the stress a sign that maybe i don't belong in this managerial place and was more at home shopping in the cote d'azur and downing espresso's all day?

Chronic Nightmares

2007-07-05T02:29:00.000+03:00

It's 2:28 am.

I have just woken up from the dream that lucifer had struck a town with the doom of death by demons because i had been mocking his existence. The town's plague then spread to the other surrounding towns, until i see a birds eye view of stampedes of people fleeing the south of France up to Paris, and there are so many of them and they are so scared that they have torn down the tolls, entrances and exits of the highway and are all crawling onto the highway with their belongings from everywhere in the south of France in the pitch blackness of the night, all of them wailing and screaming.

Yesterday i dreamt that a woman got into a car and put her child in the back seat, she was parked with her back to a huge hole where a building's infra structure was about to be drilled, the ditch was maybe 15m deep. The woman backed up too much, the two back wheels slid into the ditch, and i watched as the cars weight shifted backwards, the car tilted into the ditch and the car started falling in back first. I saw the maybe four year old's body hit the top of the car and the look of horror on his face as they fell. I heard the baby scream.

Can you people please tell me how often you get nightmare of this level of horror so i can have a benchmark before i seek professional help?

Recurrence

2007-07-01T00:16:00.000+03:00

He came to me last night.
He didn't really look like him, but i knew it was him, dreams are funny that way.
And even though i didn't know i was dreaming, i knew we had little time, i knew every moment was precious, and i panicked because i didn't want to waste or misuse the little time we had.
He saw my panic, and i suddenly found him with me, beside me, surrounding me, and he started talking to me. I only knew he was talking because i found myself soothed, calm, protected like i didn't know was possible.
And then i dared to ask; are you proud at all?
And the question shocked him, truly distressed him, and he asked me why i ask that?
"Because i'm different than what you planned, i have not followed the laid out path"
And he looked at me long, and hard, and i woke up...

Victims of East and West Collisions

2007-06-30T02:13:00.000+03:00

So i found myself in the middle of the day with nothing to do, it was too late to go back to the office, too early to go home, i was in the area so i decided to make the most out of this situation and call my long lost friend and pass by her at work. Our friendship was suffering from me, as many of my friendships currently are, after moving back to Egypt i have found it impossible to spend time with anyone i wont thoroughly enjoy, and as the last time we had bonded was when i was in the manic K relationship, we had drifted, and i wanted to do something about it.
So i dropped by, hugs and kisses and coffee, and conversation.

Me: So tell me, what was it you were going on about on the phone?
Her: Am restless
Me: Yes i gathered that much, how restless?
Her: I don't know, i miss it, i miss the excitement, the rush, i love my husband dearly, i want to grow old with him, but right now i just want to have fun
Me: What kind of fun?
Her: I don't know, i'm travelling all the time, i'm meeting all these people, getting exposed, i keep getting signs to let go...
Me: Signs?
Her: Yes, two men, two different men approached me in the past two weeks, and the way they looked at me, the desire, the rush, it made me feel alive again, i don't know how long i can resist the temptation, sex with my husband has gotten boring, i need variety, and i don't want to be that person who cheats on her husband.

I recline in my chair, and sip my coffee.

Her: you know i could never tell anyone but you all this stuff
Me: Yes i know, i wouldn't tell anyone else if i were you

We laugh, and a woman in her early thirties walks in, tall, wide shouldered, attractive, seemed smart, talked a bit to my friend and then walked out again.

Me: who's that? She seems nice
Her: One of my subordinates, she wants to sleep with me
Me: Huh?
Her: Yup, she offered straight out, she's a lesbian and wanted to sleep with me.

At this point i am a bit thrown off, the last time i checked this was Cairo.

Another girl came in and took a seat.

My friend: I was just telling N about my struggles.
Other girl: Ya sheikha bala neela, what struggles? I don't see why you're making such a big fuss of things. Go have your fun, take a break, if sex is all it's about then whats the harm?
My friend: Women can never have sex without emotions.
Other girl: That's bullshit, of course they can, plus why are you being so dramatic about it? You'll do this now, he'll do this later. It's how it works.

And i watched in amazement as the conversation flowed.

There was nothing that shocked me about the conversation, but that is only because i am difficult to shock, i knew my friend was a good person, and i was just watching her fall into life's many holes. The only thought i had through out was; why does this country preach so much and not let everyone do it his own way if this is the reality behind the Egyptian flag? Only the hypocrisy kills me.

The girl leaves the office and my friend turns to me;

Her: A3mel eh?
Me: Hate3mely eh ya3ny?
Her: No seriously, what do i do with all this battling?
Me: what do you want more?
Her: you mean the stable life or the excitement? The husband or the few more flings?
Me: Yes, you want everything, but what do you want more?
Her: what about this struggling?

I smiled, finished my coffee and told her it was time for me to go.

I got into my car, picked up my phone and sms'd the boyfriend, full of appreciation that i wasn't any of those three girls i had talked to in that visit.

Seasons

2007-06-24T23:05:00.000+03:00

The summer comes, the summer goes, the autumn brings the leaves and boots, i untie my hair and kick my heals, its been so very long since i'd felt this kind of breeze. In a coat i roam the streets, i eat on pavements and browse museums, there is a way to be alone, there is a day where the sun comes out all by its own. Things of old now things of new, days untainted by all that you, and just like that i step across, like stepping from one season into the next, without loss.
And it's amazing how much life, just sits there waiting to be lived. It's fascinating how one can laugh all by ones self on a winter day, just because its so cold its crystal clear, just because every tingle in the veins is now real. And along i skipped and ran, and winter went sweet, then spring went sour, and yet i still knew the drenching joy of April showers. How beautiful life is when you carry, all you get from days before, i burn and ache and laugh some more.
And summer comes, and just like that, nothing matters but the waves, you may come and you may go, you may break for all i know, all i have are beaches and seas, all i want today is me.
And just like that, what you want is never yours, till your want leaves your soul and turns itself into a prayer in the wind. Maybe lost, maybe found, maybe foolish, maybe sound, in the wind all the same. And the autumn comes with roughness, comes with tests of no more sun, and leaves us really one by one. The trivia stopped, the smiles were blocked, and through the horrors came the good, i thanked you once, i thank you still, i walk out of that nightmare, happy at will.
And the winter parts the ways, and the gloom threatens those days, and just like that, you knock a door, you tap a window and there i am. I'd been back to my days of skipping, of this and that and trying to find myself a home. How funny how words when put together, can mean so much to someone waiting. And seasons switched, and paths got twirly, with hands extended and hands outstretched for fortune telling, how lucky some of us are to see the choice and its rewards unfold before its even made.
And just like that, from summer to winter, i step through the seasons with grace in my step, just like that i step across, from there to here, without loss.
And today i watch the passing of all those seasons like i were someone not from here. I watch the self lose and gain, i watch the soul laugh through the pain, i watch the journey of the person knowing all is said and done. I watch you watch me come undone. Am i happy? Am i content? Is the tear or the skip, the tip you need to carry on? How much of this is about you? How much of the history is about anyone other than me? I choose, i run, i reap, i pick my pain and my fun. Through the smiles like the sun, what needs be done?
The summers here, it's time to swim, through seas of joy on clear white sands, it's time to fall asleep, holding hands. It's time to forget all quarters of years that turned, it's time to soak in the sun, and melt away in the seas of all and one.

Messages

2007-06-17T00:01:00.000+03:00

It's been a while since we've done this, well i've hardly ever been any good at it really.... it's past midnight and your phone is stashed away in a bag in the middle of the sea.. not very convenient, but hey, it could be worse, wont whine about that anymore.

To reciprocate here's a list that may be of use to you, god knows you've had to figure out enough on your own...

1. I like to sleep on the left side of the bed, the right side is alien to me
2. Anything you render ugly never leaves the wardrobe when you're here
3. My predominant thought when we are in public is not to slip into PDA
4. That's one of the reasons i like staying in
5. I am never restful enough to watch TV for that long, so i take advantage of it when i am
6. The only thing that keeps me here is my mom
7. There's something you know how to do that i would love to learn. Can you guess?
8. I am an outdoors person. I know.. I swear, ask anyone.
9. I drink tea with milk every day all the time except when you're around, i don't know why
10. I hold the fork and my squash racket wrong, i wonder if you noticed the fork thing
11. I can't stand in my place for more than ten minutes, weak back
12. I chew on one side of my teeth, missing tooth
13. Something about Miracle puts me to sleep, like that bedtime baby thing they were talking about
14. I have been told that i dance like a stripper (without the taking off of clothes), hence i haven't danced at ease in three years. I miss it like hell.
15. When i do that pensive far away look, i am avoiding confrontation, and that is the only thing i have on my mind then

and one that's only significant today; the only upsetting thing about K getting married today is that i can't call to say congratulations.

Talk to you in the morning. x

Fantasia

2007-06-11T15:37:00.000+03:00

I want to go buy a super backpack, that i can carry on my back, take on a plane, push under a train seat, and still be able to pack all the things i love and could ever possibly need.
I want to pack that backpack, and head off into the world where i need no money and can barter away through my travels. I'll land in NY in the autumn then on to central america and hitch boat rides to all those endless islands, then i'd land in Panama, and walk/drive from there onto all that is worth seeing in latin america, plane to Australia, see if New Zealand is really that beautiful, go to the Maldives before they drown, pass though Tibet and then end up back in Europe. Experience Croatia before it booms, spend more time in Italy, walk the spanish coast and go back to Cairo via the saharan dessert; Morocco, Tunisia and all that endless sand.

Where do they sell those backpacks?

Release

2007-06-05T23:01:00.000+03:00

In the rising of the dawn
I was always yours
When the present cannot be
Release the image; I am free

With the passing of the spirit
and the crashing of the waves
take a step into the light
there will never be tonight

When your soul withers, dies
surrender to the winds, for you-
set me free and then you cry
I; shall be free until i die

Happiness

2007-06-01T12:50:00.000+03:00

When you look around you and feel that you have it better than everyone else, smile, and don't gloat, not even inside.

The Insomniac

2007-05-16T04:33:00.001+03:00

There were once
two friends of long
Tick and tock
they went everywhere together
and one day found they were bound
for the ever
Tick got sad
and tock got mad
and out of frenzy
they sang a song
tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock
through the night, and all day long
they never used to sing before
now it feels like someones waiting
counting, shouting, anticipating
and in their defence
they blame the sun
and say its always been this way
but imagine a life with no ticking tock
with no shorter distance
with no better way
imagine a life where you can just stay
imagine a life of "what the heck"
with no ticking tock breathing
down the bloody neck

I need to be at my desk in 4 hours and i cannot sleep.

The City Virus

2007-05-14T22:22:00.000+03:00

Almost every time i leave work i get the same thought; what now?

Funny thing is; when i lived in France i hardly ever got this feeling. I lived alone amidst the Europeans and spent the better part of my time alone entertaining myself, walks, drives, shopping, restaurants, etc etc etc... I did most things alone.

There is something eerily restless about having 70 million people around and having no urge to initiate activity.. like having 76 channels and finding nothing to watch...

I'm not even restless, i am just absolutely unstimulated by anything other work and home, there is nothing else i want to do...

What exactly is this phenomena?