How Do You Know?

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I haven’t seen enough in my life, that I know.

I live through other people’s experience…but I have had my own share of experiences, if I may say. I have had my share and still I haven’t figured life out.

This is what makes me believe that you can live your entire life – to the fullest or not – and only realize what it was all about on your deathbed.

What worries me about life is not my deathbed. What worries me about life is, rather, who will be next to me then.

I know enough to know that whoever is left from my family will be there, and knowing that, in itself, is more than enough. But being the greedy person I am (human nature), I want more. I want a man I love and who loves me back to be there. And maybe children…

But I am not looking for that person that you meet and start feeling all tingly on the inside. I believe you just know – you just know this is the person I am going to grow old with; this is the person who has the other half of my children’s genes.

Is it just me? Or do you know?

Do you know?

Am I being too idealistic or too much of a dreamer? Maybe

I was talking to my boss the other day and she said that you know it when you meet that person. She said that you meet them and know that this man will be the father of your child(ren) – you might not necessarily grow old with them, but sharing children gives you a special bond of sorts. She said that she has this ability; with people she knows enough or has spent enough time with…she sees them with someone and knows that this is going to be their wife/husband. Or not.

You see, life is all about trial and error. And, with trial and error comes failure, but with failure there always comes a lesson. I have failed one too many times.

And next time, I want to just know. It’s not about marriage as much as it is about the connection, the click(!), the “oh you make my heart race and I want to lie in your arms for hours on end and not get fidgety.” 

Hard Times

Sometimes, things happen to you and you wonder how you'll ever survive them. And sometimes, these things are your own doing...and you wonder how stupid someone could be...

How stupid you could be.

I might be going through one of the toughest things I ever had to go through. But this is how life works. Rough times make you stronger, they make you tougher, but I am worried I am getting too tough. At times, I am totally unable to exhibit emotion towards the ones I love, and I can only do it when I am on my own.

To make it seem easier, I thought I would make a list. A list of the hardest things I ever had to go through.

1. Watching my grandfather die. I actually did watch my grandfather die. He died of a heart attack and it was a matter of minutes.

2. Realizing that I am not the person I think I am. I am someone, and I think I am a totally different person, it is who I want to be but it is not really who I am. As I grew older, I became...darker. Life became harder, and I decided, well, if it is hard anyway, why not top it off by doing stupid things? (because, logic...)

3. A beak up...potentially two. DUE TO THE SAME STUPID REASON. And, both my own wrong doing. I really don't know what to do with myself.

4. I think that is pretty much it. I have lead a relatively easy life. 

I mean, I have lost several family members to cancer, as well, but so has everyone. I have made wrong choices and decision left, right and center. But I think it is time.

It's time to change this.

“…And with these the sense of the world’s concreteness, irreducible,

immediate, tangible, of something clear and closer to us: of the

world, no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, not as

a race without end, a challenge having constantly to be met, not as

the one pretext for a despairing acquisitiveness, nor as the illusion of

a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that

the earth is a form of writing, a geography, of which we had

forgotten that we ourselves are the authors.”

–Georges Perec, “Species of Spaces” via Keri Smith

Birthday Month

Obligatory sentence about how I cannot believe that it is August already. Wait a second, it really is August...
This year has been quite the roller-coaster for me - quite a few shocking realizations about myself and my life, and an overall feeling of stagnation regarding that life...I went to see a therapist for the first time in my life, and she asked me one time: Sara, do you think you are depressed?
I looked her in the eye and said no.

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I said no because there are hundreds of thousands of people who lead lives that are much more troubled than mine, lives that are a million times more difficult. I have it easy. I have it very easy, I believe, and hence, I have no right to be depressed.

It has been stressful, I agree, with helicopters flying over my building as I try to sleep at night to wake up early enough for an hour commute to a job I love...with army tanks on my way to my daily hangout...with my own little personal issues and insecurities...but I can't complain.

A few months ago, I attended this picnic event thing in a "public park" that has deterred public access and reserved the park for Zamalek elite who have no problem spending EGP 30 on Koshari that you could otherwise buy for EGP 3. I had fun, I had so much fun, but the minutes I left the park, I felt horrible, I felt really bad because who are these people - who have club memberships worth tens of thousands of Egyptian pounds - to prevent those who can only afford this park from entering it on a weekend? Mind you, they didn't physically prevent anyone from entering, but there was the barrier created through looks and brands and makeup...

end of rant.

It's my birthday month! And I promised myself that on days leading to my birthday, I will blog more, and here I am. I am turning twenty-six this year and I cannot believe it. I don't know where the past year of my life has gone...I really don't. I don't feel old...but I have tons of grey hair, my metabolism is slowing and my "late nights" are getting earlier and earlier. I have been working full-time for the past five years, I have cousins who have babies now, and my baby brother is twelve. What the hell, life?

I usually make lists before my birthday. This year, until my birthday, I want to"

• Start a monthly budget
• Plan my holidays
• Write more. I write here, by the way. Let me know what you think!
• Spend more time with my brother and sisters
• Finish the book I am currently reading (NW by Zadie Smith) 

Silent Film

Do you ever look back on your life and remember certain incidents that you could have made so much more of? (an curse your silly, young mind for not doing what the person you are today would do?)

Is this how we learn?

Because, recently, these moments have been haunting me. Things from years and years ago, and I just can't help but think that if I had said so and so or if I had done this and that, things would have been so much better today. Things would have been very different. I would have been very different.

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I don't know what I am doing with my life at the moment. It all feels like a big lull. (one that has lasted too long that my muscles are aching) Like...life is happening to me and I am not making it happen. I am not making anything happen, I am just watching it all take place and just....

It's like a silent film with bad actors, for a viewer, it is so hard to understand. And I am but a mere viewer. And I don't understand a single thing.

Words. It is all about words: words you say and words you don't say. But the things with words is, unlike actions, you regret the words you say and the words you don't equally. And it just sucks.

New Hair!

So I went to the hairdresser who's been cutting my hair for me ever since I was two (that is almost 24 years of cutting my hair) to get a trim, and he managed to convince me to go for a change. I ended up going from this:

photo taken by my good friend Marwan

to this:

I feel so different!! It has been almost three years since I had my hair short and it's a great change, I must say!