Today, I sat in a little café in Cairo’s downtown that is centuries
older than I am. I watched as every reason why I fell in love with this city
passed by my window seat. I thought about how beautiful the people were, how
resilient and brave to still find the courage to laugh in the midst of all
this, and that, chaos. I thought about all the reasons I had forgotten to
remember that I’m in love with this place, have been for as long as I have been
alive. Today, I said my own little early goodbye and I said a little prayer: I
hope you don’t forget me while I’m away.
يعنى
ايه حزن؟ و ايه الفرق ما بينه و ما بين
القرف؟ و التبلد و الإحباط و اليأس؟ ليه
لازم ابقى حزين لو محبط؟ ليه لازم ابقى
سلبى لو محبط؟ ليه مش ممكن اكون بس..
محبط؟ وليه لازم
اكون إنهزامى لو محبط ؟ ليه مش ممكن بس
اكون.. محبط؟
ليه لازم اتوصف بالمطلق و عالعموم.
ليه مش ممكن المرة
دى يكون الشعور على قد اللحظة، على قد
دلوقتى. و
مش دايماً و مش عامةً و مش علاطول. .و مش لازم تقلب
بوزك اوى كده و انت بتعايرنى انى محبط،
او تشفق عليا انى مضايق او كفران.
انا بكره هبقى
كويس
Steaming
coffee, beautiful Fairouz’s voice soothing into my soul, my new laptop and
doing my new dream job, which I actually love and have wanted for so long.
Realization:
I’m grateful.
I’m so
grateful it brought tears to my eyes. I’m grateful for this moment. A moment which I paused, to revel in. I stop and think, wait, I should enjoy this. I should
be grateful for this. And I am. And I think, isn’t this what happiness is
almost like? Perfect little details and satisfactions that make you feel
alive and thankful to be right here, right now. Then I wonder if it’s a little
sad that I have to probe myself to recognize happiness. I wonder if this makes
me sad, then realize that no, it doesn’t.That there is a difference between melancholy and sadness, and that it
shouldn’t be sad sad sad all the time, and that a little melancholy is ok, is
fine. It doesn’t make you depressing.
Have
I been mislabeling myself all this time as sad? Instead of maybe nostalgic,
apprehensive or, as in this case, melancholic?. Has a limited emotional vocabulary
instilled a depressing image of myself into well, myself? Could I really not be
as sad as I sometimes think I am?
All these
thoughts and one thing for sure, I’m grateful for right now. I’m grateful for
feeling like I belong in a place somehow, a place in my head. Or feeling fulfilled
in a way, even it’s just a job.
It feels
good. There’s so much magic Fairouz can do to you.
Its not even pain. It's that agitation coursing just below
your skin. Making you feel like you need to scratch your skin off. Peel. it
.off. now! It runs under your skin. Vibrating, glowing orange red. Making you
miserable. Making your heart heavy. So heavy you can’t breath. So heavy you
automatically don’t think about it. Flick on to something else. An incepted
need for a cigarette. Or a hunger that doesn’t exist but that needs to be
satisfied.right.now!
You will probably not look back to the chain of
events/feelings that landed you here. Will probably forget more than choose not
to. You probably blocked it out. Your mind/subconscious/etc blocked it out. Is
that a self-defense mechanism you picked up during a lonely, ignored childhood?
Oh sweetie!
You have all the best intentions to “fix yourself”. Heal.
Find whatever the fuck it is that is keeping you miserable and standing like a
concrete wall between you and feeling things. You probably make all these plans
to start over. But its useless. There isn’t a place to start. To or a place to
go. No map. You become like a little twirling girl in a tutu, desperately going
round in circles round yourself. And calling it art. Enjoy.
Pain. Sometimes it’s not physical. Not just a heavy heart.
Sometimes, it’s a hole in your soul. Sometimes it's the absence that hurts.
Sometimes, you miss being something else you can’t be. Or feeling things you no
longer can.
You might feel singled out. For misery. For eternal
damnation. For a lifetime of cosmic bad luck. Fine. If it makes you feel better.
If it helps you sleep or whatever. Just at that point, when the thought comes
creeping into your bed and whispers in your ear that, perhaps, you are the one
doing the singling out.
And that’s when you know; there is nowhere to go from here.
You test my patience over and over and over. Today, I have no more room
for you.
You take my kindness for submissiveness and my tolerance for
helplessness. I will now take your arrogance for stupidity.
…
I have days when I wake up and feel like not moving a muscle. Just wrap
my comforter around me and do nothing but breathe.
Most of these days I make myself get up, shower and go to work. But I don't
leave my comforter behind. Nor do I do anything more than breathe.
…
It is such a liberating moment when you finally make up your mind about
someone/something that's happened in the past/ certain life events. You finally
figure out the label to put on that memory when it flashes up in your head, and
know how to react then.
Most times, you'll change your mind again every 2 months anyway.
…
Sometimes, the only plausible thing to say to you would be to go fuck yourself
you asshole.
But I worry that you will only pay attention to my audacity and not to
how much of an asshole you really are.
…
There are things that are pretty, and there are things that are pretty
because you want them to be.
The same could apply to who you really think
you are.
