the curled ball in the corner

Sometimes it takes you a while to understand yourself, to decipher the code. To understand for example, that you are extremely sensitive to change, way more than your average person. To understand that your mood swings are not the end of the world, and that it takes work and practice to navigate them, that it might be hard work but not entirely impossible.  

Growing up is hard, it’s about choices. And picking up yourself when your choices fail you. When you fail you. It’s about making up your mind and deciding. It’s about learning your own controls.

Sometimes you wake up and the world has ganged up on you, and there is not a shred of comfort to be found anywhere, not even within the safe havens of your mind. Sometimes, you will turn to the person closest to your heart for comfort. Most times, you won’t find it. The problem with people who feel too much is their un-quenchable thirst for sincerity is often misleading. You will never touch the other side so long as you keep your glass doors and expectations up so high. Don’t be genuine, be human. Don’t be perfect, be the somebody they need you to be. Then disappear. No one will notice anyway.

Stop feeling. Stop feeling everything tug at your soul. Stop feeling under your skin. Learn the wonders of superficiality. Learn not to care. This is urgent: learn not to care. Stop breaking your own heart. Fool.

I am on the brink of completely losing interest in the world.

Home

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.

Cairo, I love you.

the ultimate epiphany

Lose faith in everything, even yourself.
Then start all over again.

بكره هبقى كويس

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

little bubbles of peace

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.

the elephant in the room

Very few things feel like pain.

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.