Saturday, February 14, 2015

What’s wrong with me?



She asked him, standing at the room’s door: what’s wrong with me? ... What’s wrong with me, huh?

He: what? What are you talking about?

She: just listen to me! What’s wrong with me? Do I have the wrong haircut? I can change it, you know. Or do I have the wrong body? She said this as she was walking slowly towards him. Or do I have the wrong face?! Now she is behind him whispering the latest question, he turned around for her, smiling and putting a sweet kiss over her forehead: you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

She secretly was ecstatic by that, but her face didn’t show the happiness, saying: then, what’s wrong with me? Why don’t you love me?

He: don’t say that! I love you dearly, you are my best friend, and how can you say that?!

She: why don’t you love me instead of her, then? Now he is getting a clue of what she is talking about, but he is still acting like he is not, saying: I don’t know where you are getting at with all of that nonsense?!

She: you know what I am talking about, don’t act like you are clueless, and I am asking you: why didn’t you love me instead? What’s wrong with me? You know I loved you and I still do, we are each other’s best friends and sometimes we are the only friends we’ve got in life, then what?!

He is still acting and doesn’t answer her questions, but he is decent enough to hug her with all the love he can only offer to his best friend, nothing more and nothing less.

By that she knew that he is still in love with that girl, and he loves her too, dearly, but him still incapable of giving her his whole heart.

An imaginary dialogue with him… I dreamed of it
26-2-2014, 3:25 a.m.  



Friday, November 22, 2013

Friends? … May be or may be not!!


I have been thinking about this topic for more than six months now; and I have been working on it for more than five months now, but I hesitated to write it over and over again, maybe because I didn’t want to admit it, but now, it’s about time!
What is a friend? Is he/she just a companion, just a colleague or a co-worker? Or is he/she just a person that you trust? Or a person that maybe you haven’t met personally before, but you yet trust? Or is he/she a person that turns you into the story that amuses him/her during the day? Or is a person who lies to you, uses you, hates you, and disrespects you without you even knowing that? Some of the answers to these questions might be yes and might be no, but the questions would never end though… 
Our beloved prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “A man adopts a way of life according to that of his friend, so one should be careful about whom he chooses to be friends with”; which indicates the importance of friends in life, and how careful we must be while choosing them, and how a friend can affect you, we also know the famous saying that states: “The friend in need, is a friend indeed” and etc. we have all been taught these sayings while we were still kids at school, have been taught loads of lessons that state and affirm the critical position of friendship in our lives, but till now we still don’t know the true meaning of friendship, and we still don’t quite get how to be a good friend in this society…unfortunately and specifically in my life!!
Do you have any friends?  Do you have any good friends? Or do you have any best friends? Or let me rephrase that last question; do you have any loyal, best, who make you happy all the time sort of friends? If you do, well, thank your god; because that seems to be a hell of an issue in our society, and of course in my life this is not an exception!!
I have once heard a sentence in an American movie saying: “women hate their friends”, at that time that sentence was very odd to me; I was wondering how could that be? Is that even possible? Can a woman really hate her friends? And why would that be? But now, huh, tell me about it...
Oh Allah, when to begin with? Let me think...hmm, oh, I remember, since kinder garden; last day of the school year, my school was holding a party for kids, and teachers asked us girls to wear white gowns for that party, so mama had me all set up and ready for my first school party ever and I went to school, imagine how much my happiness and excitement would be, anyways when daddy, may Allah mercies his soul, dropped me at school, and I entered my classroom, sat next to my “best friend”, she looked down at me, stood up and walked away!! At that time, my heart was too small to be hurt, but it was anyway, and I couldn’t really understand the “mentality of girls”.
During preparatory school, kids were always teasing me by pronouncing my name incorrectly, as for my “girlfriends”, some of them were good, some of them were mean, and other were unbearable, they are probably the friends who lasted in my life for the longest time, until the last day of high school, two of them decided to turn up against me; they all went out on an outing together, but I didn’t go out with them, I can’t really remember why, but never mind, after that, I had a phone call from “M” telling me: “why did you do such a thing?! I can’t believe you did that!!” “What did I do? I am home, remember?!! I wasn’t even with you guys!!” I asked muddily-headed, the next thing is she telling me that I made up a story to make those two girls hate each other, and that’s why both of them were treating each other badly for our whole high school senior year, as if they were innocent and I suddenly was the bad guy that made them hate each other!!!! So I told “M”: you know me “M”, how could you believe those lies, I didn’t do that, I don’t even know how could I do that, she replied: “I know you, that’s why I called you, but anyways don’t do such a thing again, that’s wrong.” So I hung up the phone, burst into tears, even more muddily-headed. After calling the other two girls, one of them didn’t even pick up, and the other one said the same lies, telling me that I made them hate each other, and the “poor” girls didn’t even know that, so I hung up and burst into tears again, stood up all night thinking, again and again crying, telling myself I didn’t do anything, I didn’t say anything, remembering how each one of them both hated each other and talked badly behind the other girl’s back, and how I was trying to get them back together, but each one of them refused and continued to talk badly about the other one, and finally when they decided to get back together as friends, they made me the “bad guy”!!!!!!! As the sun was rising I learned a harsh lesson; which was: Don’t trust your “friends”, as hurtful as that might be, but IT IS unfortunately. After two years, I went to a reunion they had held, and believe it or not, both of these two girls started talking behind the other one’s back again!!
During college, at the beginning, I was a bit in-communicative; couldn’t really trust again, had locked my heart and thrown the keys away; disappointed with my “friends”; couldn’t let go of that actually, until, I got closer to two of my school friends that had become my colleagues, and we spent every minute with each other, after the first semester, we weren’t friends anymore, or at least close friends, because each one of us had her own perspective in life, and we couldn’t find a common point.
After that, I returned back into my shell again, thinking maybe I am one of those who will be a “friendless” person in life, maybe I am meant to be alone, and also maybe I haven’t meet the right friends yet. 
In college, we meet a lot of people, some stay friends for a long time, some stay for a life time, and some stay for a long time with intentions that won’t show for years, some go after a while, some go and stay at the same time, some we fall in love with, some fall in love with you, and some use you, some you wish you never met, some make you cry every night, and some make you happy all day long, and while I remember all of that, a new little piece of my soul fades away or makes me over the moon.
All of that was a bit normal, maybe!! Especially when I compare this to the “Bullies” in US or any other country, that severe phenomenon that made a lot of kids hate school, psychologically challenged, or even suicide!! So, we have two parties involved in that phenomena; “the victim” and “the bully”, and as much as I would love to put all of the blame on the bully’s shoulder, but I can’t just do so, because the victim won’t be a victim with only the bully bullies him/her; though the victim him/herself have to accept the idea of being a helpless victim to be one. Anyways, back to my so called “friends”.
After that I had a great friend, she was funny, humorous, beautiful, smart, she made me strong, and supported me all the way through, until, one day something happened, and that day was after three wonderful years of my life with her, but anyways, I can’t say what happened, so let’s just skip her…
Let’s move on now to a new lesson that my society is trying viciously and vigorously to teach me, which is: “let’s be friends until I get married or engaged!!” as funny as this may sound, but it’s true, here, in my society, to be more specific, in my community.
Egyptian girls have an odd mentality, I can’t really get it, and I am proud of that, always wishing for never getting it, because if I did, that will mean that I’ve become like them, and I will never ever be like them. That mentality, briefly is, a girl meets some great people, calls them “best friends”, hangs out and go shopping with them, and all of the normal stuff that any girl would ever do with her best friends, until that moment; when she gets engaged or married, she simply “changes”!! like they see you as a temporary period during their lives; when they find something better, they simply move on, but not even graciously, but they make you hate your life and yourself first, hate friendship and fiends secondly, third of all, make you lose hope that you will never ever have friends again, and last but not least, hurt you deeply, and leave a “wounded scar” in your heart that won’t ever heal by time!! Those engaged or married young ladies act like if they were the only girls engaged or married ever on this planet, she suddenly feels special for being picked out of the “market”, and I am deeply sorry for this metaphor; but I can’t help it, treats her friends like shit, suddenly she doesn’t have time for them anymore, and on top of that, when you once misses the old times and tell her that you need to have a talk with her about anything and that you miss her, she simply laughs in a “bloodless, soulless Dracula way”, who has sucked your soul and now ready to move on!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any girl would have a girly conversation with her “girlfriend” about a guy that she has a crush on; or a guy that she finds cute or whatever from that girly nonsense. The funny thing would be if you are the one who is living all of that and you are the narrator that would be perfectly fine; because you are the one who has been turned into the story of the day or your life has been turned into the topic of these dull days that amuses them, but when the day comes when you don’t have a “story” anymore, things change!! And they refuse to even share their lives with you, you are now useless, not interesting to them, they refuse to be the story of the day, which they have made you become into for a long time, while you were unconsciously trusting them and letting them know what is going on with your life!!
Once I was in a night gowns’ shop, and there was a bride to be buying her wedding dress, accompanied by all of her girlfriends, her mom and her sister, and they were living the joy of their lives at that moment, while, I was about to cry, because whenever I imagined my friends since I was young, I used to imagine the same situation, where I am with my best friend who is a bride to be choosing with her the gown that she would wear on her perfect day, or I am the bride to be choosing the dress to wear on my perfect day!! Though, that wasn’t the case, and that was despite of having been told that we will be together in each step of the way!! But I guess, our friendship's age has to be older than others to be the one who is picked out to accompany the bride to be, not older in age, but older in the friend’s list!! Apparently, friendship is now estimated by the years of it, not by the value of the friends themselves, and believe me when I tell you that I’ve been there for years myself; but as I said you have to be older, and maybe because you haven’t been considered as a close friend in the first place, we can say that you were just a phase or a person who I can be friends with in a certain place or time or field!! If you want to hear the proof; well, let me state the exact words which I was told: “she is my friend for a long time, and you are my friend too!!” with a slight deviation of voice and tune of speaking during saying the last phrase, that anyone who has read a book in psychology knows what I mean by referring to that. Damn….what a bunch of nice people indeed, one should be grateful for that!!
One day, I was having a real conversation with a true friend indeed about this topic, and she mentioned to me that she and her cousin were close friends since their childhood, can you imagine to be sharing your past, present and future with a person and not being honest with them, well, not really, those people can quite figure out how to crush these memories, so that cousin’s wedding was about a week later, and my friend didn’t even know except for a couple of days before the wedding, as far as I can remember!!!
Another time, I read on a face book page a status saying: “we salute every girl who wouldn’t change after getting engaged or married”, so I immediately said what!!!!!!!! That wasn’t only in my life, that is actually happening in other girls’ lives too, oh my goodness, what a bunch of true friends indeed that we are dealing with in “our” world!!!
What would you do if a friend tells you about her fiancĂ© to be, though you both are not close friends?  ___  Well, I listened to her with every bit of attention that I can offer, listening to what she says about him, any problem they are encountering, who should she get some useful pieces of advice from, and she even invited me over to meet the guy and get to know him, pretty close friend, huh? Well, not so much! A couple of months later, I got a Facebook notification: “(A) was engaged, say congratulations to her.” OH MY GOSH, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL WORLD!!  WHAT A BEAUTIFUL WORLD INDEED!!!! She didn’t even tell me personally, and when I asked her, imagine what the answer would be; “I had no internet access and I was getting my phone fixed, and everything was in a hurry, so I couldn’t tell you.” And my reply was: “I thought we were close friends, anyways, whatever, congrats!!”
If only people would drop the act, my life would be so much easier, if only!
On the other hand of that miserable friendship life, when my girl "S" got engaged and even longer before that too, I was the first to know, she actually told me, oh my god, I am not insane, I am normal, why? Because there are pretty normal people like me in this life, they talk about their relationships with their close friends!!!!!!! I wasn’t actually asking for some friends from planet mars, oh my god I can’t believe it though! And boom another girl I found, she is from planet “normal” too, but she is not my close friend though, how would I know then?!! After she got married, every single time she meets with her girlfriends, she posts a picture of them together to her Facebook wall, saying what a wonderful outing, I love you girls. OH MY GOSH, a girl who actually meets her girlfriends after marriage, and when she was celebrating her first anniversary, and when she got pregnant, etc. OMG, I must be hallucinating!! Actually, I am not, that was true!! 
Enough with my “girlfriends”, let’s talk about my “guy friends”, to be true, they weren’t as much of a disappointment as the girls, and normally, I go along with them just fine! They respect, trust, listen to me, talk to me about their problems, they take my advice, they talk about their personal lives and relationships with me, I am like their sister, or their “buddy” and I am so happy with that, and they are like my big brothers too, see! The relationship is equal; no one is taking advantage of the other. Let me see, I have three guy friends, they were four until this week I lost one of them, two of them I consider close friends, and at some points of my life, one of those two was actually my closest friend and my only one.  
The great thing about guy friends is that they are not obsessed with “envy”; you never hear a guy says: “oh my god, this guy is envying me!! Totally”; they respect a smart girl, even if they pretend they don’t; they are protective; they are like a rock; you can depend on them; they don’t talk too much, one look to a guy’s face and you can know what is going on in his mind; this one is definitely different from girls, because girls can make you wanna jump over a cliff and kill yourself, rather than telling you what is going on in their minds; they tell you what is going on inside men’s heads; e.g. if you are having a crush on some guy, etc. The bottom line is guy friends are awesome. I think through all of these years of my miserable friendship life, I have gone along with guy friends better than girlfriends, because I am not like the majority of girls, I am not saying I am better than them, god forbids NO, all I am saying is that I get guys and guys get me, we find friendship a lot easier and simpler than most girls do, friendships simply is: “lasts forever, loyalty, comfort, companionship, relying on each other, even if you are not within the same country, giving unconditionally, always protecting each other, even from one self’s crazy ideas that could destroy your future”. It is really common to see a guy, who only has one or two guy friends throughout his entire life, yet they are pretty damn close; while you can see a girl who has a bunch of girlfriends who happen to be not so close after all, and it is so unlikely to see her with only one or two girlfriends who are sincerely true to one another; yet girls commonly prefer to have a bunch of girls around her as a proof of her success in her relationships! Pretty odd, huh?! Told you! You see guys how they deal with their friends, one second they are fighting like enemies, and the second after they become best friend again, with NO grudge in their hearts, while girls rather secretly fight with words for a whole year, than having a five-minute open-minded, open-hearted talk that clears every grudge away!!
Maybe I see things that bad because of what I have been through, you guys saw it through that six-paged article, and maybe things aren’t such bad after all, may be or maybe not! But on the other hand, Friendship is not something you learn in school, and if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship yet, you really haven't learned anything. If you have a good friend never ever let him/her go, good friends are hard to find, because you will regret it sooner or later sir/my lady; when you are in your 60s and yet you have no one to talk to, and you feel lonely, sad and bitter, because you didn’t invest well in your friendship, there is nothing much harder than trying to get your friend back, when it is already too late, and he or she had already left!!
 One of my friends and I have promised one another that we won’t let go of each other, no matter what, and even if -during our fights- we cancel that promise over and over again, we can’t really stand to be away from each other, and we won’t; another one of my friends, when we fight, we fight vigorously, and yet without even having a “talk”, we ask each other: “when will I see you?” and never look back, and that is our reconciliation, and sometimes that happens after one day apart from our fight, believe it or not, she is a girl, see?! Normal girls can be found; you just have to look harder!
 Just look harder for good friends and imagine them in their 60s and you along on their side. You have to work hard to keep them for a life time, don’t you ever dare take them for granted, ignore them, hurt them, or make them cry, if a friend doesn’t make his or her friend happy and comfortable, then why the hell is he or she still here for?! Please take the next exit and go out of your friend’s life and make some space for a better friend to fill in your shoes. Because good friends, better friends, best friends are yet to be found.

                                                          Friday, 22 November, 2013, 08: 13 pm.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Abandoned gifts ♥


Words are a very interesting thing indeed, I have always been very fascinated by them; some people may ask me why would that be? Well, my reply would be beyond simple; our life is all about words, they get to form our lives, we are always searching for “love”, always hoping for “success”, continuously chasing our “dream”, knocked down by “betrayal”, constantly fighting “loss” and last but not least, all of the world agreed on one fact which is “death”.

Recently, I have been caught up in the word “ruin”; it was like a riddle to me, always thinking about it, and how fascinating that word might turn out to be, so I looked up in the dictionary for its definition, and what I’ve found out was that “ruins” means “The remains of something destroyed, disintegrated, or decayed”. And the interesting thing would be that the verb “ruin” by itself means “to destroy completely”. Frankly, that what made me think of the various points of view that the word itself carries around within its structure; on one hand we have the act itself which is ruin, and on the other hand we have the result that comes out of the act which is ruins, and I felt like if the word itself was talking to us, it would say “I have them both, and you are the only one who get to choose which one are you going to go by in life, either you are going to focus on the act of ruining itself and choose to cry over the spoilt milk and ruin your soul, or are you going to focus on your soul ruins and put them back together and redeem yourself?!!” let me say, that is the question that life asks us, and we ask ourselves every single time when we are knocked down in the bottom of the world, and the answer is it’s our choice, only we get to choose what this word will stand for in our lives, and which definition would be for us and only we get to live by that choice and take in the responsibility for it.  

All of us have been put into this kind of situation, who on earth hasn’t been knocked down, who hasn’t fall or failed or lost or ruined or felt that his own heart is about to be ripped out of his chest and he is about to lose his own life like a ricked home?!! All of us have, and all of us will, that’s how life goes by, it’s natural, but it is not natural at all to ruin ourselves!! It is not normal to get caught up into the ruins, and not change them into motivation to start all over again, it is not normal to chain ourselves to the fact that we got ruined by life, and it is not normal nor ok if we neglect the fact that we can change those ruins into strength that helps us continue up all the way through to be reborn and relive again.

“‘Ruin’ is a gift, ‘ruin’ is the road for transformation”; that has helped me put my soul ruins up together and be reborn again every single time life has knocked me down. Either, that act of ruining was losing someone, failing, regret or putting so much of high expectations on someone not worth it at all…etc. And every single time, I get knocked down, I stay in my bed for a couple of days, or for a week or even for months crying, wondering why that happened to me?!! But also every single time I confront myself with the fact that if I let myself get caught up into this kind of mess, I will lose my life, so I choose to go by the first meaning of the word “ruins”, those little pieces that I gather around together to redeem myself and save my life because life worth saving, and I do really appreciate the ruins for being in my life more than I can even remember and for being such a wonderful and gracious gift.

So, what are the so called ruins? They are the broken little pieces of us when we are smashed like a broken glass, when we feel like we stand no chance, when we feel like the sun won’t rise, and we won’t last, that is the so called ruins. They are the left homes, like our souls when life turns its back upon us, abandoned, venerable, and just smashed. They are the little pieces of paper that we tell our secrets and pains to when we are broken, that we hide in the back of our wardrobes or in little buried boxes and leave them there frozen, abandoned, left but not forgotten, that is the so called ruins. The so called ruins are little ones, and little ones need to be loved, even if they are just ruins and smashed, but if they don’t mean a thing to us, then to whom would they mean a thing?!! They are our own ruins, our own abandoned gifts, the ones that get us to stand a chance, a chance of survival, a chance of rebirth, a chance of reliving again, the ones that get us to last, so that’s why they get to be loved, cherished, and kept within our hearts and souls. So again, what are the so called ruins? They are the precious little pieces of our souls, when life confronts us with the reason of our being, when life wants us to remember the strength within our souls, when life gets to make us get the chance of knowing our real truth, when life knocks us down, life wants us to get outside of our bodies and see how our lives are, wants us to pick up the so called ruins, collect them and put them away with the so called our old ruins abandoned in our hearts to make us remember how we did make it in the very first time when we got smashed, got broken and got knocked down, wants us to know that we did alright, that we are brave enough, good enough, smart enough not to ruin or lose or abandon our precious lives,  Because life is Allah’s precious gifts to us and gifts don’t get to be lost, yet they get to be appreciated, kept and well cherished.
                                                  
                                                                     Saturday, 02 February, 2013, 10: 46 am

Sunday, January 27, 2013

A moment of pure joy ♥





Life has its ups and downs, people fall down and stumble, but they move back up again, at least some of them still do. Hardships are the challenges that confront us within our path, and they make us question ourselves, blame them, beat them up, and even bruise them, but we can never hold ourselves up, look forward and walk down the road without fixing our souls and making peace with ourselves. No matter how hard we tried we can never be “healthy” again and fully recovered from our soul bruises unless we made a decision that we can continue and we are not stopping.

To tell the truth, I have faced one of the most excruciating hardships in my entire 21 year old life; I couldn’t write a word!! Yes, I could not!! For more than a week I could not hold a pen to write a single word, as a matter of fact I couldn’t even open a new word document even to try, I didn’t have the courage to do!! When I had an idea, I was typing it down using my mobile, and the most painful thing I faced during this hardship was that I had like a million idea to talk about and share, but I just could not find the right words!! For more than a whole week, nearly two weeks now, I could not, it was impossible for me to write more than a couple of sentences about my new idea!! And let me tell you, that was a huge pain I was experiencing within my heart, because I could not speak up my mind through my words!! I could not express what was going on with my soul, the things that no one knows about, but I usually have no problem writing about them. I bet some people as they are reading this right now say ironically:" not capable of writing is one of her most excruciating hardships?!! What a psycho!!" But ironically, yes, it was, and that is because I consider writing as the window that I stand up in, letting my breath the only one that is heard, and me just standing there soaking into the sun, letting go of all of my inner soul bruises, writing is my healer, my psychiatrist, it is really the only thing that is giving me the opportunity to be free, writing gives me freedom, freedom from all of the pain, the hurt, the people, life cuffs that are holding my soul down and keeping my heart from flying and smiling, and that is why I named this blog “P.S. Freedom writings”, because that is what these writings do to me, they are freeing my soul. And that what made this hardship so painful, because my soul was held in cuffs, I couldn’t cry out for help, I could not yell, I just could not write!! 

Until the moment I decided to write, it was the most liberating decision I have ever made, that I will open a new word document and I will write, no matter what, I will write now, not tomorrow or the day after, and not about the million ideas that I have been holding up to in my mind, I decided that I will write about what I am writing about now, with a very sincere heart in every single word and every single letter. I decided I will no longer experience this sort of writing sickness that I had, I will no longer miss writing as I did, I just made a decision that came out of my heart.  

So I prepared a cup of tea, with cream and a half spoon of sugar, with a cup of water, on my mother’s silver tray, like I was some sort of a professional writer or something, and played a sound track I named “peace of mind”, muted the TV, and sat down with a smile, not just a face smile, but a heart smile too, the kind of smile that makes your soul smile, that makes your heart beats so fast and so calm in the same time, that makes your eyes tear up out of joy, that makes you hold your breath, fearing that if you breathe once more, you may lose it, this kind of smile, the smile that you have when you are in love, when you are satisfied, when you are purely happy, when you are having a moment of pure joy.

I couldn’t really know what was holding me back, and keeping me from writing, maybe I was tired and I wanted to stop, maybe because I was bruised, maybe because I lost some dear people to my heart and I know deep down that I will never have them again, and I will never let myself do so neither, maybe because I was angry, and maybe because I could not make a single decision, because I doubted myself, I said over and over again I could not do it, and I do not deserve to live this joyful writing experience, I beat myself and punished my soul with keeping it cuffed, prisoned, held back. But I realized I made a huge mistake, because I was not moving forward, I was standing still, I was suffering, was wasting time, time I cannot have it back bruising myself even more, so the moment I decided I was going to write, the moment I decided to let go…

Remember when I told you that no matter how hard we tried we can never be “healthy” again and fully recovered from our soul bruises unless we made a decision that we can continue and we are not stopping. This is all it takes, and by “it” I mean life, decisions, either we convince ourselves that we are going to fail and fall, or we are going to stand up again and do it. And this reminds me of an ancient wisdom story about a Japanese emperor, that had a habit of flapping a coin in front of his army before any war, and tells them that if it was a head, this means they are going to win this war, but if it was a tail, they are going to lose it, and wonderfully every single time it was a head, and they won every battle, and day after another the Japanese emperor was very sick, and while he was on his death bed, his son came to him asking for that magical coin that made them win every single battle, so he handled that coin to his son, and his son was very surprised at that moment finding out that the coin’s both sides were heads!! So he asked his father with his heart full of doubt: “what am I going to tell our army; that their great emperor is a decisive one?!!” so the great emperor smiled and told him: “I did not deceive any of you, life is full of battles, and you only have two choices while you are confronting them; either you win or you win, failure only occurs when you think about failing, and winning happens when you believe in it”. We are never defeated, unless we give up.

I just read that story yesterday, and once I have read it, I knew something has changed within me for the rest of my life, I felt it. And that was another decision; the decision of believing that I can win my own battles and it doesn’t matter if I lost one or two, as long as I have sincerely tried with all my heart, and here I am finishing the most liberating article I have ever written in my whole life, winning this battle of how I can really hold myself back up again, how to let go and move on with my heart smiling, and my tear full eyes out of a moment of pure joy.

                                                                              Sunday, 27 January, 2013, 7:10 am

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Being a woman ♥





Being a woman in this era is hard, being a feminist is harder, and being a strong one is way harder. First and foremost, I would like to discuss this from my own perspective, as an Arab, Muslim, Egyptian, 21 year-old woman, and from my point of view I can say that women are not appreciated enough in this era, and the weird phenomena would be that they are not appreciated enough by also women, and of course men, but from the way I’ve been seeing it, mostly women!! 

So here I am a woman having a conversation with a group of women including a man between them, about women’s rights and how she should be treated and boom, here comes the surprise, I am being attacked by the women before the man!! Or in another situation, i am asked the usual question among girls which is “How is your dream man look like?” and here I am responding it with what I truly feel saying this and that and he is not supposed to be like this and that, and boom out of nowhere one of the girls say: “calm down ?!! What has gone into you? ” Or “here comes Sawsan the feminist” like I was coming from mars!! Or i suddenly look like an alien!! Or for another example, I found a ton of girls posting on their Facebook accounts their one and only goal in life which is finding a husband!!!! And my immediate response is what?!!! As if there is nothing in any woman’s life but getting a husband to guard her!!! 

These girls and I prefer to use the word “girls” not women, are their own enemies, their first goal in life is having a husband, their second one is having a nice house and the third one is having kids!! And um not saying that these are not among my wishes in life, but these definitely are not my goals in life, neither being my first ones!!

A woman is a strong creature, she is like iron, she is not supposed to break under pressure, she is independent, intelligent, successful, has her own principles, beautiful in her own way, she is a leader, not a follower, and I have seen a lot of women like that, firstly, my mom, let me tell you, she is my raw model in life, and I wish to be like her, secondly, millions of very beautiful and successful women like a poor African American woman who has protected her kids from joining a gang until they went straight up to college, or a divorced woman that has bringing up her kids and teaching them and leading them in life to the path of greatness, or a widowed woman, like my mom, who has struggled bringing up her two girls in every single day and she still does, all of these are super women like Alicia keys said, and these women are the women who a woman like me should look up to, they are all single and I insisted on bringing up them into this article, cause i believe with all my soul that safety and security are not provided by men only. Or on the other hand, women like my beloved Oprah Winfrey; she is a real raw model.

These women have formed my perspective of how women should be, and um not gonna apologize for it because of some trivial girls who wish to have goals in life other than having a husband, but they don’t know how!! These girls are pathetic in my opinion, because if you don’t know how to be strong, then don’t interrupt other ones who are trying to be, rather than trying to be so too, because it is not rocket science, but shamefully, they prefer to live in the shadow of a man. 

And now for the men, most of the real men I have met during my life have respected me, but most of them have also been intimidated by me too, and this is so strange, cause unfortunately, as you know men are brought up by women, and when most of women think that a woman should not powerfully speak up her mind, or stands for her rights as having her own career side by side to having a family life, and she can’t succeed doing both of them, or that women should have men by their side to live safely and to be beloved, and by that and only that she would be considered successful even if she is the head of the state, all of that ideology mess will bring up a strange, weirdo guy to the society!! When one of my guy colleagues stand up in front of the whole class and say: “I think that Chinese women are better than Egyptian women, are more beautiful, wealthier…etc.” all of us were insulted by what he said, and in another conversation with the same guy, he refuses to be married to a strong woman, cause she will over power him, in that moment I said to myself “hold on, men are crazy and schizophrenic!!” cause we all know how any Chinese wife is like, she is strong and independent, and powerful; and when our colleagues like to crack a joke about Chinese wives, they say they beat up their husbands!! So all of that is just strange, all of young women like myself are caught up in this mess, I know that!!  

In our society, and I am ashamed to say that, all of the following cases had happened; a man rejects a woman he likes, cause his mom didn’t like how talkative and outgoing that young lady was; a man couldn’t marry the woman he likes cause his mom didn’t approve her cause she is two years older than him; I have heard a divorced woman says: “I am ashamed of being divorced” and she is a doctor, and she is divorced because it didn’t work out between her and her ex-husband and etc.!!

I am not saying that our society is only full of tragedies like that, but it is so hard to live your life the way you want, without any one judging you as a freak, or as an odd phenomena who rather spends her life alone than being married to a man who abuses her and her children cause the society can’t embrace divorced women properly!! But I am declaring my own point of view, I have always said that I will not bow to a man or crawl over my knees for him neither, and I have always said that a man doesn’t own my heart, he just belongs to a part of it, and I am not a freak of nature, I just respect myself, and I know what a woman deserves from a man, from a society, and that is what our religion taught us, but most of the men shamefully have their own interpretations of women’s rights in Islam. But I will stay the way I am, I will not change so as to be embraced by all of the society, I am thrilled by the small community around me that embraces me for being me. 

Once I have read a lovely quote says: “a woman brought you into this world, so you have no right to disrespect one”, said Tupac.

 To all of the young ladies out there, love yourselves as you are and feel good about you, you are beautiful, intelligent, confident, you don’t need a man to tell you that to believe it, you have to believe it for any man to believe it about you, and to love you and mostly important to respect you, you don’t need whitening creams to look more beautiful, neither do you need plastic surgeries!! I have been asked “if you get to change something about the way you look what do you get to change?”, and I proudly said “nothing”, cause I have embraced myself ages ago, except for losing a couple of pounds for my own health, and the moment I did embrace myself the way Allah created me, the more I had more confidence in myself, the more I respected myself, and the more I focused on my mind, my ideology in life and my career and the more I succeeded in life. The bottom line I love me as it is, and all of you should do it too, because I feel like I own the whole world.

                                                                       Saturday, 12 Jan. 2013, 5:38 am




Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Just talk it out




I have always said that the simplest way to solve an issue that has been holding any relationship behind is to talk it out, a simple 30 minute talk can solve everything and it is so much better than holding it back. We all know the famous line that says: “the shortest way is a straight line.” So this is my principle in life, a simple one, and also very effective one too, but unfortunately, it has been an issue with people who have issues up in their mind!! I guess because people are not the same, maybe, I don’t know.

This has been my only way to solve any problem with anybody, just talk it out, and as soon as our talk is done, the problem is always done, and it becomes past. Though the problem that I have been facing is that some of the people in my life don’t like to solve their problems this way; they like to hold it back and put it deep down inside of them, and treat the other person in a strange way!! I just don’t get it! It is so strange to me, cause the only thing that came out of this is always making the problem worse, and also making the relationship worse, and the people involved in this sick, poisoned relationship feel like they are walking down a path of darkness, and suddenly the relationship is over, and if it’s not, it will not be normal again.

The reason why I have always hated this sick way of holding so much talk down and not simply talk it out and let go of it, is that I have seen how these people have done to preserve the secrecy of the talk inside of them, they lie, they manipulate each other, and as the time goes by, they change and become another people, and suddenly they don’t know each other anymore. So this is why I always know with all of my heart that “truth is the only path”, and that “the bitterest truth is always better than the sweetest lies”, I don’t know any other way of living but that.

I wish so badly, that all of the people would be frank to each other, to be simple in their own ways, and that they didn’t change the world to be so complicated, everything is now complicated; love is complicated, friendship, marriage…etc. but I guess the world does not wanna know this ugly truth too!! Especially from an amateur 21 year old writer living in the “Third world”!!

                                                                        Tuesday, 8, Jan. 2013, 6:43 pm. 

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Being yourself ♥



Being you in life is the most gracious gift any human being could possibly be gifted with, it takes courage, honesty, determination, and it just takes guts, so don’t freaking change!!!

Cause people don’t just leave you the hell alone to be courageous and to have the guts for living the way you like, even if it’s only you and you don’t ask them to be so too!! They just love you being any other person rather than being you!! But um here declaring that no matter what, you shouldn’t let go of yourself, cause then you will just feel lost!! Be thankful for a gift like this, don’t change your personality, don’t lose your guts, or even slow it down a bit for someone to feel more powerful than you and to make them feel good about themselves, don’t put on faces and change your own colors, believe me I’ve tried to do it before and it made me wanna run away and start all over again, with me just being me!! 

As it’s so simple as it sounds, but to be frank it is not gonna be simple and plain in this kind of world when “some” people, and yes I prefer to convince myself that they are just some people to preserve my sanity, they like to play roles, put on faces and personas they just are not, to drag you to like them, they buy you dinner, say nice things, agree with you in everything you say just to complement you, and after a while they change!!!!!!! they start being cold out of nowhere, they lie, they use you to go shopping or talk about their issues, to listen to their crap that they repeat over and over again, and if once, just once, you tried to talk a bit more about one thing that belongs to you, they stop listening to you, as if you are bothering them, or keeping them busy from achieving their temporary goals and successes, but um glad to tell you guys that they are just wrong, yes they are indeed, cause when this kind of life crap is over after thirty years, you either find a bunch of friends or even only one good friend around you to talk to or you are gonna find yourself alone!! So you are free to choose and then deal with your choice for the rest of your life!! This is not how good people treat each other; neither do friends, especially close ones!!!!! Yes I know how awful it may sound, but this is the ugly truth that I’ve been denying ages ago, thinking that may be one day I will keep a true person that stays true for years without changing suddenly, and I can’t believe that I’ve doubted myself for years that may be um just wrong, the way I see things so simple, the way I think of a real life perspective. 

Say you pronounced a famous trademark wrong, SO FREAKING WHAT!!!!! So you dress not so fashionably or you don’t know the freaking weird names they name clothes and furniture stuff, so freaking what!!!!! It doesn’t define you as a person, and it will never do, what defines you as a person is your principles, your personality, your way of thinking and dealing with life, that’s what freaking matters the most. I just feel sorry for those who first see in a person is how he dresses or talks or says freaking things, I feel sorry for those who so pathetically think that being ill with some disease in the past is a disgrace for a person to say or declare!!!!! I feel sorry for those who just judge people by their appearances, not by their gifts and talents and their “real themselves”, or judge you forever for a word that slipped out of your mouth and no matter how badly you wanted to and tried to make it right, they just don’t let you do, I also feel sorry for those who don’t appreciate a true friend because of some life race bullshit, and excuse my language, cause um just tired of stumbling into this kind of people!!!! tired of being manipulated or misused, tired of their sick poisoned toxic ways of treating other people, um tired of all of that. 

The bottom line is don’t try too hard for someone to embrace you, cause if they did embrace you, that’s good for them, and if they didn’t, then they may go straight to hell without any stops. Hang on to yourselves, cause they are just, simply, perfectly AWESOME, you are perfect in the most imperfect ways, don’t change your great quality treats for people who are just trash, love your selves cause they are just worth loving. ♥

                                                                              Thursday, 3-jan.-2013, 3:01pm 

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Greatness within my soul


     Did you ever feel that you have something great within your soul before? Have you ever wondered whether you got it or not? And one day will come to you and wake you up from your dreams to chase?

     I believe that everyone has greatness within his/her soul.. I believe that there is something great lying within the layers of my soul..waiting to come out to the world..but unfortunately i don't know it yet...but i feel with all my heart that one day i will find it..i also know that i don't have it right now..not in my education .. neither in all the things i can do...cause i believe that GREATNESS CAN'T BE DONE, THOUGH IT'S FELT DEEP DOWN WITHIN YOUR SOUL, HEART, BODY AND MIND..and i will always keep searching for it in my soul until one day i feel it...feel greatness in something..feel gifted..a gift that i will dedicate my life to..that i will love more than my self, more than my life, more than my breath...even more than my soul..

To greatness..i am waiting for you ♥
                                                                              Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 11:21 pm