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

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

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. 

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