Hello Old Friend,

 This blog is 10 years old.

I started it in my senior year of high school, back when I was still young, confused, and brimming with potential. Torn between pursuing my passion of becoming a writer, or following the traditional path of getting a degree in the medical field.

Well, the degree happened. I never used it, but I did get it.

I wonder what 18 year-old me would have thought if she knew that 28 year-old me would still be writing here, but also working as a full-time writer.

I'm nothing special, though. There are like 50 more of me at my workplace and some of them are unbelievably good at what they do. But I'm okay with it. I'm okay with not being the best.

Yeah. After years of struggling with what I want to be versus what everyone else expected of me. Years of fighting with all my power just to stay afloat and keep my head above water. Years of hopes and fears and disappointments. Years of gathering all my strength to prevent myself from becoming another cog in this magnificent, grinding machine.

I just let it happen. I stopped grasping at straws and let myself be what I was always meant to be; just another person.

It's crazy but it also isn't. To think how the decisions that 18-year-old made are what brought me to this point of my life where I'm so at peace with being mediocre and seeing it as a positive thing. 

I stopped trying to stand out when swimming against the current for so long absolutely damaged me. Instead, ways to fit in became everything I hoped and dreamed to find. 

It wasn't that hard, either. In fact, it was one of the most liberating things to have ever happened to me, precisely because it happened to me, I had no incentive or hand in doing it.

How funny is it that I'm writing about this without bursting into tears, though? The worst thing I could have imagined happening to me ten years ago is exactly why I'm so at peace today.

Hope that's how I'll be looking at things in 10 years, though.

10 Things I Learned As A Short-haired Girl

I have really curly hair (3b on the curl chart), but for my entire adolescent life, I did everything I could to mask it. I never went outside unless my hair was perfectly straightened or waved, and my poor hair was so co-operative that nobody would believe it when I told them my hair is actually very very curly. I recently got it cut, it's now 12-16 inches shorter in different places, and the plan is to almost never heat treat it; i.e. to go natural.

 Here is some of my newly acquired wisdom regarding hair length (and texture!) on girls...and why it's nobody's business but theirs. 

               

1. My hair before the cut was really really long. Longer than I thought it was due to damage and split ends.

2. All guys love long hair on girls.

3. Most girls wish they could chop all their hair off. They don't because of the former reason.

4. People stare at curly hair as if it were an anomaly, which truly is paradoxical since I live in an African, Middle Eastern country. Tells you a lot about beauty standards.

5. I really really like it. More than I thought I would.

6. Change is really easy for me to adapt to; I feel like I've had my hair this short since forever.

7. People who are really close to you won't filter out their opinions of your appearance. Which means getting a lot of "you're insane" and "you look 40."

8. I spend much less time worrying about how I look, whether I have stray locks or frizz. I know I do, I just don't really care about it anymore.

9. "Going natural" made me realize I can feel beautiful with no maintainance whatseoever. But it also made me appreciate how much effort women put into their looks. It's no easy task for a girl, you know.

10. Personal choices are easy to make if you don't think much about what people would say. If I had thought of every time people would look at my short hair with pity, I probably would have had second thoughts about it.

People still drop sour comments about it and some of them kind of sting, but at the end of the day, I look myself in the mirror feeling beautiful and feeling like myself. I wouldn't trade that for all the "good hair days" in the world if they don't give me that. smile emoticon

Twenty (Collective Thoughts from Birthday Week)

Okay, so here it goes...
I turned 20 exactly a week ago. I don't really know how I feel about it, but the immense love I received from so many people (both close to me and just acquaintances) was more than enough to make me feel blessed throughout the whole day. So here's a long due "Thank you!" to everyone who took the time and effort to wish this girl a happy start after a second decade done.

I got into a messy argument with a friend that night. It was not how I imagined my twenties to start, but God only knows what good intentions were put into my actions.
This is all I'm saying about the cause of the state of shock that took over me for the better part of the three days that followed.

I couldn't stay there. I needed to pull my act together both for college, and for a moment I awaited a long long time, the closing ceremony of a civil society project I'd been working on since last July.

When that moment came along, I was very proud of the work my team and I put into the project, and the incredible outcome that I saw in the eyes of everyone, whether staff or participants. Each "thank you" I received reminded me of how much of a privilege it is to be able to help people reach a better understanding of their potentials. And of the impact that the experience, and each and every one I worked with has left in me.

I took a leap of faith to do somethong I always wanted to do, which is sing alone in English in front of a large group of people. I have performed alone before through acting, and I'm already a member of a choir group in my church, but this experience is completely different. I know I don't have the nicest, strongest voice out there, but I also know that a deeply felt song is almost always well-received.
So, I picked "Fix You" by Coldplay. It's a song I truly love. It holds dear memories to me and it's somewhat popular. And I got up there on the stage of the Great Hall in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in front of over a thousand people, and sang it.
I wouldn't lie and say I was afraid, because I wasn't. But having tried that feeling is still a big experience for me. I enjoyed that moment despite all the background noise in my head that had my feelings blurred and distorted for the previous few days. I had fun.

So, to wrap it all up, I need to work on my ability to properly react on time. I remember vividly how each situation leaves me feeling, but I need to allow these feelings to show up like they used to.

The Lie of Growing up

Yep. It's a lie.
People grow tired, grow apart, grow indifferent, but never grow "up".
It was a term coined for growing old, but getting old does not necessitate "up"-grading your status as a human being. In fact, most people get older without changing much of their personality, most likely acquired throughout their childhood and teenage years. They "grow" one of the aforementioned things, but never "up."

I know I sound stupid/too philosophical, but try and hear me out for a second. How many of us are living a life now that is basically an incarnation of our parents' hopes for us when they were kids?
Alright, these are the unlucky bunch.
Now, how many of us are living "their dream"? Lucky people, eh?
Well, looks like both are trapped now in the expectations that held them as little kids, whether their parents' or theirs. Which is unfortunate, I mean, it only proves that none of us has really grown up, and that who we are now is a larger, less excited, less intuitive version of ourselves as kids. One that's more prone to illness and mental instability. One that has loved and lost, experienced innumerable disappointments, inflicted pain and was afflicted by it; a shattered version of our true selves.

If that's what growing up means, it should have been called "growing anything-else-but-up".

Nineteen

It feels so weird, too old for the age I long felt stuck in...I always picture myself 16.
I'm not even sure if it's too soon or should have been sooner.
I mean, I take a look at my life now and wonder "When the heck did I grow so old?" Then I look back on every single event, detail, blessing and disaster that took my life and completely altered it over the course of the past 19 years, and I realize that it's 30 years worth of life events I've lived so far!
I don't know whether I should be happy or upset about it.
I do know I'm happy with the over-whelming love I received from almost everyone I know. I feel so blessed by how so many people who are not even this close to me are being nice enough to say such sweet things! But I also know that my birthday is not everyday, and growing up will eventually show its crappy side sooner rather than later. Sigh...
I'm confused about so many things right now, trying to set priorities for my life has never looked to difficult!
I'll just keep praying and talking to God about the mess I call my life for now. It felt much better not having to carry around the weight of my life and trusting Him, before I started taking matters into my own hands.
#GloomiestBirthdayBlogPostEver :/

Back When I was a Kid...

I was cleaning out a closet at home when I stumbled upon some pretty ancient stuff. The most remarkable loot from my raid was my 6th grade diary. That's right; the unedited, untouched version of who I was when I was 12. I read through all the times I was crushing on boys (whom I had not named, unfortunately!) The times I thought my parents didn't understand, and times when having exams actually mattered to me, lol! Let's just say that was a long while ago.
Why do I care so much about something as trivial as an elementary school diary, you ask? Well, first off I thought it was neat that it's kept its form for so long. Secondly, I like the idea of gazing to my thoughts when I was actually excited to become a teenager. My choice of vocabulary was still shaky, but I think I managed to get on pretty well (regarding that English is NOT my first language). I was relatively happy, ignoring the fact that I was bullied at school regularly. I had some deep thoughts and daydreams...of which I share with you:

April 16th, 2007

Dear Diary,
    Today i noticed that we must learn from wax. when it melts, it holds on together and becomes solid again. It's important to know that when we fall we can go up and hold on to be whatever we wanna be.

The rest of this diary entry was a rant about my mom yelling at me, how typical of a teenager!
Another excerpt from the diary, about being bullied, it was on 6th grade picture day. I remember not being told it was picture day because I was absent the day before, so I went there with a very "unusual" hairstyle for my frizzy, curly hair...and let's just say it didn't turn out so good with the peers...

April 19th, 2007

Dear Diary,
     I tied my hair in two ponytails today, some folk called me a "freaky child", I'm not a freak OR a child!

That was all I had to say about it, I guess I didn't understand what bullying was all about back then. And frankly, I didn't seem to mind and lived my life normally.

I liked them Disney princesses ;)

Okay, the next one is hilarious/kinda embarrassing. See, my first celebrity crush was Zac Efron, I was so in love with him! But then again, would I blame myself for it? Heeeeck NO!

April 21st, 2007
Dear Diary,
     I wish today I could meet Zac Efron himself, & write french. Someday, I'll do.
Writing french, not meeting Zacky, lol!

 And I did! I aced my french exam last year when I had to take french class. I guess with some determination it happened. Ya know, "Rien est impossible." ;)

I almost cried when seeing full diary entries about being so happy to turn thirteen, starting middle school, or getting A's...I like how pure and simple my mind was, even though I was rushing straight ahead into puberty and its miserable years, of feeling incompetent, not pretty enough, not popular enough, not strong enough...
I like this idea of a "time capsule" of my brain, you know, when you're older you can get all kinds of memories lost and replaced. So keeping them in a journal, diary or a blog is a perfect way to reminisce and analyze the contents of your brain at a certain age. Maybe this blog is some kind of diary for later use, so I could know what I was thinking and feeling and experiencing when I was 18.
Hope you enjoyed those small excerpts from my diary, which I allow absolutely no one to read.
You should feel special. :))

Turning Away

It's been a long while since I last posted on here, the truth is that my mind was completely in a block. I wanted to post, but had no idea what to write. But I was just thinking about this thing 2 days ago, and I felt the need to share it...
The thing is that I noticed this pattern I go through when I'm "in love." Not necessarily with someone, but even when I'm in love with something. When it comes to things, I like to call them a temporary obsession of mine, because I know this "love" will fade away quite fast. The real problem is when it comes to a person, a real person.
You can't develop an interest in a person, let them consume your thoughts and energy, hang by a word they say, feel a deep affection for what they are and what they represent to you, just to find yourself suddenly repulsed by them. It happened to me, it still happens to me. It's like at a moment your whole life revolves around someone, but after a few months, you feel like you never even wanted to know them!
I realize that people are not paper towels. I can't just use one and dispose of them after I'm done. I also realize that there's something seriously wrong with me. Of course, those people are not saints who never do me wrong or hurt me or push me away, but neither am I. I can't just develop deep emotions this fast to just throw them to the wind the minute I'm not comfortable anymore.
I also realized that I can't blame people for what I do to them. For example: I stop calling a certain friend for 5 weeks, but then I feel this sudden storm of rage pounding on my mind saying this isn't a real friend for not calling me that long. I tried to medicate this by revealing what I was thinking to said friend. the answer I got was nothing but sensible, he said: "I was thinking the same thing, I was just waiting for you to go on and call first." Shoot! That was awkward, and even if he were lying, and he didn't really care (which isn't true, I checked later) it was still, equally, my fault.

I came to know a part of my being is still a little kid. And I do not mean this in a good way!
Remember when you kept nagging your parents for that toy at the store or in the commercials that you wanted so bad. You said your happiness depended on it. They listened and got you the toy...
But then what?! Another commercial aired, you felt like your happiness depended on The New Toy (I capitalized on purpose). So?!
See, this is a never ending loop, it just goes on and on and on. I think I need serious help with commitment, patience, tolerance, trust and other issues that I'm really struggling with right now.
I'm praying for now. I just got tired of being like this. Unless you suffer from the same problem, you'll never know what it feels like to pour your heart so into something/ someone, then just get bored, of everything and everyone. I go on and find new people and new things, to just repeat the cycle again.
I figured for some time that not caring too much will be the answer, turns out I wasn't caring enough. I hurt people I loved and cared about, and still care about. I got hurt a lot from what I'm doing. It wasn't quite the right answer...
I just wish I could know what causes me to turn away, is it people/ things changing? is it knowing too much about them? Is it the fact that I realize I gave them undeserved attention? Is it a means of twisted self discipline?
I'm not even sure I made sense in this post, I just needed to get this off my chest...
If you believe in prayers, pray for me, please!

Just like the movies

I had just finished reading a book of a story I had known so many years ago. That time, it was the way the writer intended it to sound like when the little voice in my head read it. I was so much moved by the way he described events, people and emotions. Those emotions! If only life in some way could imitate art, well, if only it were even possible for something like this to happen!

 I considered myself a very emotional person, yet in someway I got very good at hiding it. I got used to convincing myself that it's just a waste of time feeling something, or at least thinking about feeling something. That opening the door, or just leaving a little gap where light could enter, will wreck me eventually.

I grew tough. Tougher by the day. I even scare people away; looking so collected and so whole on your own is always a deal breaker.

I am deprived of emotions. I search inside of me for them but I fail to find enough of them for the people I handle everyday. If there are some left, they would be merely the remnant of what I once held inside of me.

Yet in my heart, still yearns the old me to the slightest glimpse of hope that someday I will be loved. This "embarrassing" side shows every time I witness an outpour of feelings. I'm not made of stone, apparently. And just as I try to make this side more obvious, I get laughed at for crying over a movie, or tearing up to a song, or just reacting to a gesture I thought was sincere towards me.

It is then when I pray the most that life would truly imitate art.

How have we become so poor on the inside? It's almost scandalous that it's impossible a man tells his lady that he loves her, without risking a million gazing eyes towards him. Even friends no longer make their loyalty a priority, for interest's sake! I lament where we've become. So bad that I pity myself instead of blaming it for where I have gone.

But then I'm bewildered, how on earth is life not like "the movies" when people who create movies are, well, alive?! From where would poets, authors or artists in general soak the vividness of their emotions? Don't they live on the same planet we live on? Why isn't it that we wonder from where we got all the stiffness, instead of pondering at their "mushiness"?

I admit that not all people are created equal, especially when it comes to feelings. But we could just try! We could just pray for more enlightenment when it comes to searching our souls within. I can't say that this is the answer. Truth is that I am still looking into it myself. I may never reach the shore when it comes to just this...

Can't Erase It

(click the play button to listen to the song :) )

Follow the crowd and love everybody now
'Cause love is the best thing for you now
But you changed your mind, you let everybody down
But down is the best place for you
It's easier that way,
You know it's

So wrong, can't embrace it
Wish sometimes for any other you
But you can't erase it, and you won't escape it

Don't waste your time
Your words only confine you
To all of the things you've buried now
Don't ask them why
Their wisdom will leave you blind
But blind is the best place for you
It's easier I know,
You know it's

So wrong, can't embrace it
Wish sometimes for any other you
But you can't erase it, and you won't escape it

How long will you face it
Till the wait comes crashing down on you
'Cause you can't erase it, and you won't escape it 

I decided to begin the post with this song because, well, it's so true! First of all, it's been a while since I posted on here, or been online at all actually. I've been very busy with school that it didn't leave me time to do virtually anything beside study and sleep. I've been sick for about 3 weeks to a month now, but I think I'm getting better. Anyway, back to the song... I won't be lying if I said that feeling pressed is nowadays the norm, not just for me, but for everybody else around me as well. "You have to" is probably the one thing I hear the most now from my parents, teachers, family...etc. What's that have to do with the song, you ask?! Well, it's pretty obvious that it's about expectations let down, plans gone awry and overall failure to accomplish anything. Which, by the way, is what I feel I've done to everyone around me now. I'm studying to get my GCSEs this year, which is the final high school year or 12th grade. I'm working my butt off so I could get good grades, minimum hours of sleep, no going out, no wasting time, no friends, no nothing!
But lately I have realized that this way I'm killing myself. As I mentioned earlier I'm getting sick a lot, my spirit is not exactly high, even with my friends it's not the same, I'm losing motivation to go on. Part of me says that I can do it, get over all the crap and kick some butt, the other says that even so, I'll still be a loser, that doing something with my life is impossible, that I'm supposed to be average, nothing is special about me nor am I capable of doing something important. These negative thoughts have taken their toll on me. I began doubting whether I could go on or not. But I try to shed them off whenever possible, talk to someone I trust, take their advice, motivate myself, cook something delish, this sort of stuff works.
However, the best I feel is when I'm talking to God about what's bugging me. It's very relieving to know that someone's watching over you even when nobody around you does, this makes me feel so grateful, happy, satisfied. Knowing that amidst the frustrations, the let downs, the falling outs, there's still someone who cares for you, not for what you've done or about to do, but for you...just you.
So, I wake up again, scrubbing my eyes and wishing the day to be over already, I might mess up big time, make someone mad at me, lose my mind over something stupid...but in the end C'est La Vie, and I can't erase it!

Turning "18"

So yeah, as the title suggests. I will be turning eighteen in less than two weeks, it's happening! But you know what, all I gotta say about it is...IT'S SO DARN OVER-RATED!!
I feel like the person I'll wake up to be Friday the 9th is exactly the same that will go to bed the preceding Thursday...I have nothing to look forward to about it, maybe with the exception of changing my Facebook privacy settings to resemble their current status, and decorating a cake with pink frosting. I feel like being a legal adult is an event so popularized by the media that it has turned into just being an over-18 person! It's not like on the previously mentioned Thursday I won't be mature enough to watch an R-rated movie that on Friday I will! Or maybe that I'll take my allowance from dad for the next week and a half but on Friday I'll just go find a job!

Then comes the part which I think of the most, the accountability for my actions. I'm a fairly responsible person, in fact I get mistaken for being in my mid-twenties because I act so poised (which is so not true!) It just bugs me that making mistakes before hitting this "milestone" will account to my parents, but right after...I'm on my own. It just seems not right. Any misconduct coming from 'me' is supposed to be 'my' fault however old or young I am, I can't just keep being treated like a baby and then boom, I'm caught off-guard into being my own person. It's quite contradictory to basic logic.

It's ridiculous, I could think of a million things wrong with just assuming that by eighteen a person will be an adult. There need to be tests to confirm these things, people! I mights as well just call mom and dad by their first names, since we'll all be "adults" now.

 I may or may not be into my sane mind right now, but I just hope this thing will be over soon, the "transition" I mean. Turning 18 might mean something more than just it being legal to marry me off, or being able to purchase alcohol. It might as well be a reminder to me that I'm not getting any younger, that it's about time I have known my responsibilities  and planned for my future. Crap, I don't even know from where all this lofty talking is coming. I just know that on November 9th, I'll be 18 :)