Mafeesh Fayda!!

I'm joking and laughing as if there were no tears a while ago!

I'm telling myself that it was no big deal and that I better stop obsessing and move on already!

I'm too stubborn to allow myself to ache and take time to heal, God forbid I would collapse in the healing process, hasn't he said that in my stubbornness lies my strength!

So I lock it in, stand up and pretend nothing ever happened, it's easier, comme d'habitude!

I do it knowing that I am just burying something that will rise later to haunt me, and I am saying it's ok; I'll be stronger by then!!

But I know it will hit me when I need to be strong to make me weaker...

Yet I'm doing what I do best, I laugh and change the subject with a witty joke!!

On –happy- endings!

There was a time I was big on happy endings and big words like closure. I would jump to the last page of a book hoping it would give me a clue to whether I would like it or not, and even while reading, I’d skip details just to jump to the end much faster missing out on descriptions of surroundings or tones of speech! It never really made me enjoy books less for all I know. Part of it is due to being a Gemini I suppose; luckily, it came with good intuition that helped me guess or rather imagine the things I skipped!

It was not just about my intellectual preference; this is how I lived most of my life, always looking forward impatiently to what’s next. I always looked one step forward, which caused me to not enjoy what I had to the fullest. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy my life, I am just saying that I could have done better, much better actually!

I always thought I’d live my life like a movie in a way, with a rather short duration with too much events, all taking place so rapidly before my time comes! And I wanted a happy ending, I wouldn’t have compromised for less; call it the Disney effect or whatever, but all I ever wanted was my own happy ending just like all those fictional characters.

Years later and on a closer look, I realize happy endings are everywhere. No, let me rephrase that; happy is everywhere, it just isn’t the ending, and perhaps even neither is sad an ending!

I read/watched it somewhere but I can’t find the exact words or the reference for it… They tell you how the movie ends, they make you believe that all the troubles cease to exist and that those in love find eternal happiness and live happily ever after! But they don’t show you what happens next; that in time, they get over their happiness and then troubles and bitterness catch up, and they start fighting over the smallest of things to the extent that their epic happiness is forgotten or no longer counts for anything. He’s never there and she’s always complaining, and then the happy ending turns into built up resentment from both sides… I really wish I remembered where the original lines of that meaning came from; they really speak for me.

Yes, we live our lives with the notion that we’re defined solely by endings when in reality, it is far more complicated; how can one be strictly defined by an ending of which they know nothing?! Or at least this is how I see it…

You can choose a special moment of victory in your life and call it your happy ending, making your life eternally revolve around the fulfillment of that purpose until the day you die.

Or you can freeze a sad moment of losing something you once held so dear and refuse to move on, creating your very own tragic ending.

Or you can just choose to take mental pictures of your happy moments to help you get over your sad ones as you go on in life from one adventure to the next, hoping that at the end of your journey the good will outweigh the bad and you’ll perhaps die with a smile on your face and be occasionally remembered with one.

In fewer words, it’s in the details that you find true meanings, not in the endings; ironically, closures have more to do with those details, only we get it at the end when it all adds up.

to losing…

Around a couple of months ago, I started feeling like I was losing something. The concept felt rather confusing because I was convinced that the “loss” was not even mine to lose! I was not sure why it was being lost, and I was not even sure if I really wanted it to begin with! And even now, I don't have such answers.

Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” kept coming to mind and haunting me. I had strong urges to just post the poem on my blog as an acknowledgement of my “loss”, only a little voice in me kept arguing that there was no real loss, and that if there really was any, it has not yet been lost! Thanks to my short attention span and my wide range of commitments, I ended up forgetting about the whole thing.

In rare moments, I thought of that “loss” and it kinda made me blue because I never really understood why I even considered it much of a loss. Anyways, earlier this month, while talking to a friend, I realized that whatever my “loss” was, I was ok with the term and more importantly, I was ok with the fact that it was no longer there. I found myself accepting and moving on, and it felt good.

Today, something very small and insignificant happened that reminded me of all that. As minor as it was, it was a sign that accepting and moving on were the right things to do and that losing things is not always that bad, even if it feels that way at some point. And in that spirit, I decided to post the poem from my new perspective.

To losing…

One Art
By Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Random!

On Roller Coasters…

Why do people get on them?? I mean, I for one have acrophobia, and my heart and chest simply hurt when the ride starts, right before the action begins!! I am not the type that throws up easily, but it happens from time to time that I just do after roller coaster rides!!

I am not the only one who’s like that! How come roller coasters are that popular?!!!

And why do I know I would get on the next ride?!! However, only outside Egypt because I do not trust the Egyptian standards of safety whatsoever.

P.S. Maat, I do reget not getting on that balloon, not because you said it was awesome, but because I know I would have loved it! Damn you Egypt for screwing my fun with your lack of safety.

A Utopian still!!!

I thought I hit rock bottom… I really really thought I did… then it got so much worse…

I thought I lost faith, almost did anyways….but thankfully, the more shit I got into the easier I could find my way back…

Even then, I though I lost faith in the basic goodness of people… that I was certain of… I was starting to adopt the all-people-are-bastards-until-proven-otherwise approach in life…

Until… I was talking with someone who was saying how love is overrated and the best is to like, not love….

I don’t know where it all came from, but I found myself saying the exact lines:

Love is not just something you feel for your partner in life… love has different forms, forms that could feel a lot stronger than that… I love my mom though I always always fight with her… I adore my dad though I resented him through my teenage years… I love my best friend and could rely on her any time… I am crazy about my sisters… my love for my kids runs in my veins… I love so many people who are good to me and I am hundred percent sure they love me back… the mere feeling of loving and being loved is very fulfilling, it makes you feel safe and protected….

Needless to say that the person I was talking to had very strong urges to throw up and said I was too cheesy to believe I had any shit going on with my life to start with… she kept saying that I am naive to actually think life is a beautiful place…

Truth is, I think life is shit… it is!!! Lucky for me, I have just come to remember how many people I have whom I can call and tell them all about my problems knowing that by the end of the phone call I will not be thinking about those problems… the only reason I wouldn’t call is because I wouldn’t like to expose myself, I mean if I could I could have just blogged about it day and night…

Just when I thought I couldn’t be anymore cynical, I find out that I still belong to that Utopia I thought I no longer believed in… yesss, I have friends as solid, strong and fancy as a marble staircase out of a fairytale and that makes my life worth its while…

I am so grateful… and I have made a resolution; I will let all those I love know that I love them… as shocked and sarcastic as they will be (they will practically make fun of me till I cry), I think they deserve to have that very same feeling I have as I am writing those lines… fulfilled, safe and protected.


p.s. I will quote kareemfromegypt and say “For anyone who feels like vomiting after reading this post, I left several buckets alongside the tissues by the exit :)”

I’m back!

To those who did not notice, I deleted by blog and then restored it only without the previous posts and their comments!! Why I did that?? I promise I will explain later.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been having a lot of things on my mind that I wanted to write and perhaps post, which led me to the conclusion that I missed my blog a lot. It’s not like the first time I deleted my older blog; this time I actually felt bad for deleting this one, that’s why I kept its name and template unchanged.

I was thinking of a fresh start, but I am the same person with the same thoughts and ideas, so… I will just say that I’m back!!