Dear Universe

I haven't been on here for around 5 years and this is where I feel home. This is my little corner of the internet, a place where has seen me grow and evolve.

And as I say this, I want to write the things I would like to make manifest this month:

1. The Dragontree life coaching downpayment/first installment
2. First payment to Exalt 
3. Golden Lotus Level Two training 

I am already part of a few wonderful communities and have managed to enroll in B-School! I am not sure how I found Marie Forleo but she's changing my life everyday!

Explanations

This goes out to all those who have left and all those who I chose to leave.

I honestly had no idea how life would go on without you being there, I am the kind of person who lets people in, quickly and fully, and I get episodes of spending my entire time with someone – until we stop. So if I chose to leave you, know how hard of a decision it was for me to make.

If you chose to leave, know that it left me feeling helpless for a while, until I trained my mind to accept it.

And worst of all, if you were chosen to leave, if I have lost you to death – know that I think you every day in my mind, know that I think of you every single day. Know that you have taught me life’s greatest lesson: Nothing lasts; it is, in essence, temporary.

There is no forever, because our existence, in itself, is temporary.

Next week marks a year since I lost my grandmother, leaving this huge gaping hole in my heart. Leaving a big void where I used to be loved. I feed off of other people’s love (don't we all?). I lost my grandfather, who loved me most, right in front of my teenage eyes. I lost my grandmother who I owe most of my childhood on an October night when I was twenty-seven.

I was dealing with my own issues of loss; loss of heart, loss of will and loss of energy when I woke up one day to the loss of a loved one.

If you choose to leave, please explain. I know you don’t owe me an explanation, but explanations help me accept what I have no control over. And the only thing I have control over are my own choices – if I have none, I need an explanation.

It is late October and earlier this month, I tried to put myself out there, to push myself out of my comfort zone, and I fell face first into a mess of my own choices. And I find it hard to deal with.

I tread to carefully when I care. And the problem lies in my caring about almost everything. People perceive it as my not loving myself enough - but I just invest all I can in things, in people I love, in people I could love and I find nothing wrong with it. I love myself in loving other people, you see? And I have a lot of love to give. 

A few months ago, I went to see a healer and he told me that I need to accept the love I am given, I need to allow myself to be loved. That I am blocking it all. But the truth is, I fear loss long before I am given love of all sorts.

I don't know why I am writing this and I don't know what brings it up. I am just scared. 

Negativity

I have been feeling small for the past year.
I have been feeling insufficient and not enough.

I felt like a bad person, essentially. All my weaknesses were magnified and accentuated and I could not see anything but my faults and flaws.

I could not think of anything but mistakes I have done. Or bad decisions that I have made, or moments of recklessness and irresponsibility.

I had good moments, I saw new places.
There was a lot of good that happened to me over the past year and a lot of good that I have done. But I just tended towards overlooking it and thinking that it was not enough. I did not want to be perfect, I know being perfect is not even possible, I was just striving and thriving to please others. I was so hard on myself and when the time came when I lay my head to sleep at night, all those thoughts would race in my head.

All those concerns and my heart would send all this heaviness throughout my body - it was always hard to breathe and I can't even count the times that I cried myself to sleep.
I was complaining all the time; about life not being fair, asking my friends what to do and what they think and if there is any hope. I was burdened.

BUT.

I only realized the amount of negativity that was within and around me recently. I went to Florida for two weeks and spent the time reflecting on that... I just didn't want to be sad anymore. I wanted to feel like I am enough. I mean, all I ever wanted was to be happy and be at peace with who I am.

But to be at peace with who I am, I needed to be aware of my faults and make peace with them, THEN try and find ways to "downplay" them or "fix" them if needed. But that had to be a decision I made. 

what about you?

You are but a bunch of recycled thoughts. A select few favorite words that you use over and over and over again. Shuffle, shuffle and reshuffle to verbalize a thought that you are too scared to otherwise rid yourself of; for what are you without your thoughts?
But if you word thoughts were gloom? And what if your words are poison?
What about those you care for and those who care for you?

And what about you.

Nights I Would Take Back

here via here

There is one specific point.
One certain decision that I would take back. I would give anything to take that evening back.
I was sitting there and decided to start to head out.

I made plans I said.
It's okay, he said, you can cancel - come with me instead.
You can't cancel plans last minute, I claimed.

And I left.
I left and it all went downhill from there.

I wish I could take that one night back.

Hi

I have been having a really hard time and I feel the need to document this.
I have been neglecting this place as if it were my enemy and I have no idea why.

My grandmother passed away last month. My grandmother was more like a mother to me. But I am trying to deal with that, I have dealt with losing my grandfather, so I have a bit of experience.

On a different note, I have been feeling lost and confused. Not knowing what I want - or rather knowing what I want but not being able to take the steps to get that. I felt crippled, and the more I thought about it the more it left me immobile. I waited and waited and waited; for a sign, for a signal, for something...not realizing that I had waited too long.

Yes, there is such a thing as waiting too long. I waited too long, twice, the one time out of patience and the other out of fear - out of fear to make a decision that might not be the right one.

It's as if I haven't learnt anything over the past ten years. TEN YEARS and I am thinking the same thoughts and doing the same things. Ten years and I am not sure how to get what I want and how to know if I really want it. And seven years have passed and I am not really sure how to go for things and not just wait for things to sort themselves out.

Why could things not sort themselves out? If I have the intention to sort them out, if I WANT to make things right - what's wrong with that?
I want to make things right and it's all I think about but never do anything about. I want to make things right but I don't know how. I don't know where to begin. I am scared - or was scared - to invest even more in things not knowing where that will lead me (even further away from where I want to be?)

I forgot to practice what I preach. I forgot that if you want something you should do all you can to show the world that you want it. I forgot that if you want something you work for it, it doesn't matter where you'll end up as long as you know you tried. If you want something, you try, damn it, Sara, you try!

I forgot my purpose, and hence lost my purpose and direction.

I forgot to remember to not regress when attacked, constantly. I forgot to remember that it's okay for people to not appreciate me the way I would like for them to; people have different ways of expressing things. I forgot that it is more than words, that I shouldn't be blind to actions. I forgot so many things until it all hit me and now all I want to do is curl in a ball in bed and hope for it all to go away.

Yeah, at least I remember that if you want something, you work for it.
Anyway, that's what's been up.

The Making of Butterflies

here

I want to cocoon.

I want distance and detachment. I want solitude and seclusion.

I want to come back to see that you have finally changed your mind. To see that it has finally sunk in. To see that it all finally makes sense.

The goal is to wake up and slowly move or not move at all so as to not wake you. The goal is to exist silently, softly, to float around you.

The goal is to not disturb the lightness you hold dear. To occupy some space but not too much, until your things make room for mine next to them, until the boundary disappears – that imaginary line separating my side from yours.

The purpose is to correctly lay your things down without you having to readjust them. The purpose is to perfect my Brunoise.

The purpose is to be all the right things while still being me. It’s only superficial, the core and essence never change - just tiny corrections at the surface to help the center shine through.

I never really understood this before, it always felt like someone is attacking my existence, my being – it felt like someone was constantly trying to change and control me and it aggravated the feminist in me. To me, no one deserved that I alter my behavior and mannerisms for them. No one deserved that I put in that extra effort – as long as I was comfortable, everyone else should be. And it was in my own comfort that I did not create a storm. Aggravate me, and it would rain on you for days on end.

But that has changed. I am about to emerge a butterfly.

What My Mother Said

here

My mother always told me to not "spill" everything about myself to people, let alone men I find interesting. Or could potentially find interesting.

She told me that some things are better left unsaid. Or hidden. Or "concealed"

So after two failed serious relationships, which happened to take place one after the other, I found a man interesting. I thought well, let's try my mother's advice this time.

And boy was I wrong.

This could be the worst thing I have ever done to myself. One of my bigger mistakes, and definitely among my very few regrets.

So mothers are right when it comes to sensing things. But I am never taking my mum's advice ever again. But I also know better than to blame a parent for a mistake I have made. I should have known better.

A Year in Review

I have mentioned it before that 2013 was a "year of ending" for me (here)
So many things have changed for me over the past year in many ways - mostly overwhelming ways - needless to say, it was quite the tough year.
I have done a lot of traveling. Maybe in search of something, and maybe in running away from something, I am not so sure. I am also not sure if I have learnt anything while traveling. I mean, I have learnt things about specific people. (maybe also about myself)

I have learnt that: I like buying gifts for my family back home, I get homesick easily, being on a highway in the rain scares me, even more so when on a mountain. I love Germany.

I also know now what bittersweet feels like. It's the exact feeling you get when tying loose ends for your own sake and for the benefit of others. It's that feeling you get sitting on a park bench with wind in your hair and your lips are smiling, your heart is aching and tears are running down your cheeks. But you are not lonely, because you know someone else if feeling exactly the same. But you made the right choice.

He was such an adorable little kitten!!

One more important lesson I learnt this year was to NOT ignore signs and gut feelings because they are there for a reason - be it warning signs or ones that bring your attention to a certain thing. And it was something I took so much pride in but this year, I tended to ignore my gut feeling in attempts to be more "grownup" and more "realistic" but I ended up falling flat on my face, really. I lost control. I lost track of who I really am.

Here's a list of (some of the) things I have done for the first time this year:

1.  Walked in a forest
2. Slept to the sound of a running stream
3. Cross-country road trip
4. Moroccan "hammam"
5. Visited new places and countries

So it wasn't that bad after all. I am looking forward to this year; which I started yesterday among family smoking shisha and having pizza. (Earlier I was with my friends)

All What Counts

I am alone in a hotel room. Just me and my mind - me and my thoughts.
Me and my confusion.
When it should have been me and you.
You and me.

I am alone; my mirror and I, and I look up to see her. She who knows not what to do with her life, with her self. She, who has dark circles round her eyes. Maybe it's days of work, but it could also be what she has brought upon herself.

She has turned into this person she refuses to accept. And in this refusal, she has learnt to lie not only to others but also to herself. It is a bit hard to swallow, the person she has become; real.
Reality comes with lines around your eyes, and stretchmarks on your thighs. It comes with grey hair and heartbreak. It comes with the realization that you cannot save the world.

Even worse, it comes with the realization that you are capable of hurting others. You are capable of hurting those who love you. (and those who truly care for you)

I look up and decide to look through pictures of my younger self, some from when I thought I had life figured out (seven years ago) - I thought that maybe finally, my life is sorting itself out. But no. It kept doing the same thing over and over again where it pushes me further and further into a place I could no longer recognize.

I am not scared to admit it any longer, in fact, I don't have life figured out. I have no idea where I am heading and the closest thing to a plan I have is this: to start saving, to write a business plan and to stop lying to myself. But I don't know where I want to be in two years, let alone five. What I know is that I feel young, that I won't let anything weigh me down, and that is all that counts at times.

First Day of School - Life Edition

Actually, I want to talk to you.
My fiance and I broke up some two months ago.
It was my second long term relationship. Before then, I was with someone for two and a half years, and four months after we broke up, I met my now ex-fiance - we were together for almost three years.

I turned twenty while dating ex number one and I turned twenty-six fresh out of the relationship with ex number two. And the conclusion is that I don't really know my grown up self at all. I have never been single in my twenties. The twenty-something year old person that I know as myself has always been with someone. And this is all so weird for me.
I am enjoying it.
I am enjoying hanging out with friends; old and new, and catching up with people in general

But I can't deny the fact that it is quite weird in an unsettling kind of way. I am just not used to it. It's like the first day of school all over again. It's not that I feel like I don't fit in, it's just that I am seeing myself in a different life, discovering myself in a different context. I don't know my mannerisms anymore. I am me and just me and only have to do things that would please me, and would be okay by me. My plans are my plans and my time is just my time. There are no constraints, there is no other variable in the equation that is my life.

It's weird.

I am discovering a new dimension of everything and everyone and not just myself and my life.
I just came back from a very nice trip to the Red Sea, which has always been my favourite. I'll post pictures then!

I miss kindness.
I miss genuine smiles.
I miss people doing good for the sake of doing good and not labeling it a "favour"

here

I really miss all these things.
A few things have happened to me lately that shook my faith in the good in people. I am not really sure if people are genuinely nice to me anymore. Or if there is some ulterior motive.
Whenever someone smiles at me or touches my shoulder jokingly, I keep thinking "why are you doing this?" "what do you want from me?" "are you objectifying me?" "Is there more to me than just my body that you see?"
"do you want to steal my wallet/phone?" "do you want to hurt me?"

I am not really sure if I will ever get myself back, or is this the kind of person I will be from now on..
But I miss trusting people.

It's Still July in Her Head

here

It was a July morning – a Saturday if she remembers correctly. There were no curtains in the old room filled with knickknacks collected with the years, a fraternity flag here, a conference invitation there…a picture from a first date and of best friends lost to borders and time.

The summer sun filled the room and it woke her up. Lazy with joy, with last night’s food and wine, she opens her eyes and finds him fast asleep next to her. Sweaty…men are always sweaty; it’s all the hair covering their bodies. She likes hairy men, she things…she looks at him thinking what a beautiful moment this is. She thinks about what would go through his mind had he been the one to wake up first but changes her mind knowing it wouldn't please her.

She’s hard to please, anyway.

How Do You Know?

here

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.

here

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.

here

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!

Why I didn't #BEDM

I went to Germany for holidays.
I found it beautiful.
Everyone back home was wondering why anyone would go to Germany for holidays...but I took enough pictures to prove them wrong.

 Beautiful Bamberg

And that's Nürnberg

More to come later, definitely!

He Loves Me

here

I knew he loved me the moment he decided to stay.
I knew he loved me when, against all what he believed in, he still gave me that ring;
that he is still young
that he is still not ready
that we haven't been together long enough

I knew he loved me, because I could see it in his eyes. I knew he loved me even at times when I was confused whether he would hang out with me out of fear of confrontation, or because he really wants to see me. He still saw me and that's all that counts.

I knew he loved me when...I know he loves me because he does. Because things like that you just know. I know he loves me but I know that it takes a lot more than love. It takes effort to sustain and maintain a relationship - a long term, serious relationship.

Being engaged is hard, and being engaged without having a definite wedding date is even harder. But I know it's worth it. It's worth it because love is there.

I know he loves me.
He loves me.