The Living Dead

The worst kind of death is that which happens when you’re still breathing, granted.

The even worse kind is when someone you love dearly ceases to care. Every time you need them, you will remind yourself they are no longer there. In a sad attempt to soothe your agony over their absence, your mind would tell you “if they were dead, you’d be missing them silently instead of whining about why they don’t care anymore”, but here is the thing: death comes with its own closure; it’s final in a sense… you can’t argue with death. Abandonment however is a different thing; it comes with rejection and raises all the issues and insecurities you had buried, and you’re left with nothing but those demons eating away your sanity.

How I learned to be a Mother

I learned to hold them every chance I get.

I learned to tell them I love them every time I felt like it, which is mostly every time I look at them.

I learned to praise them all the time so that they would always be assured of my appreciation of them, and so that they would never underestimate their worth.

I learned to not insult them in public (but I am still learning not to use too much sarcasm either, not even jokingly).

I learned that there are situations where I need to put my foot down with no explanation, and that I can not be bullied into feeling guilty about that. I also learned that there are times when I should give them more credit and explain to them why I make some decisions, and even involve them in those decisions.

I learned to never ask them to lie for me; I also learned to stick to my truths and live up to my promises. Most importantly, I learned to not punish them for telling the truth, and that when a punishment is due, it can be reduced when they come to me with the truth.

I learned to explain it to them when I was frustrated about their behavior, I learned to express to them that my frustration never meant that I loved them less, but that it was rather because I loved them that much.

I learned to call them when I missed them, but never scold them for not calling me to say they miss me; they are kids, they lose track when they’re having fun, and that’s a great thing to forget about me because they’re having a good time.

I learned that no one comes before them, not my friends, not my sisters, and not my parents, and that if any of the aforementioned is offended by them, I should stick to their side and never make them feel forsaken even if there was a lesson of discipline that they must learn; they will learn it, but without ever getting the idea that I chose anyone over them.

I learned not to speak ill of those I dislike in front of them, but I also never told them to respect an elder I didn’t think was worthy of respect; I want them to learn that respect is earned not imposed.

I learned to admit it when I did a mistake and they caught me on it. I learned to apologize and ask for their forgiveness when it was due, but I also taught them that apologizing once is enough, and it was up to the receiver of that apology to either accept it or reject it, but I will not humiliate myself by apologizing over and over, and neither should they.

I learned that I should not hide behind religion or social norms to justify an unfair behavior.

I learned to give them space when they were angry and would not talk to me, but I would also express my dismay when I call for them and they refuse to answer because they’re angry.

I learned to NEVER make them feel like they owed me for all the things I do for them as their mother; it was I who owed them that much the minute they were born.

I am still learning not to let my anger take over in terms of any verbal or physical abuse, regardless how minimal or “justified”.

I am still learning not to use sarcasm as my default way of communication, as hard as it is with how cynical and bitter I become each day.

I am still learning not to be too hard on them when I mean to teach them a life-lesson that I think is important for their growth and maturity.

I am still learning a lot of things and it’s about the one challenge I have in this life that I appreciate regardless how I occasionally like it and how I mostly resent it: my challenge is that I would be a good mother to them, a mother they love and appreciate despite her numerous mistakes and occasional failings, a mother towards whom they feel no resentment.

I learned all that because it was the opposite of what my parents did (combined), and I refuse to give my parents credit for having to taught me to be a good parent by being lousy ones (on an emotional level, not a material one). I don’t owe them that; if I owe it to anyone, it is to the mother figure who had taught me unconditional love, and to the brother figure who had always been there to support me when I needed it, even if he didn’t always know about it, my late Nana, and my youngest uncle. If it weren’t for them, I’d probably be passing on the abuse to my kids using the same lousy justification: that’s what my parents did.

So no, as far as my emotional sanity (or lack of thereof) goes, I don’t owe my parents shit. Every day of my life has been an uphill climb trying to rid myself of the damage they caused, and I can’t say I have it in my to forgive them yet; I deserved better than that, and my kids do deserve better than what my parents made of me. And if there is a reason as to why I am not taking out my anger at my parents now that I can, it’s because I believe I have no right to deny my kids their right to love and be loved by their grandparents, as lousy as they can be, even as grandparents.

Withered

“Men don’t like strong women” they said. “They don’t like independent women who know how to do on their own; they don’t like women who don’t need them”. That’s what people said; it was the agreed-upon rule that was dictated to her over an over every time she tried to voice out her opinions.

She couldn’t oblige and she decided that if a man doesn’t like what she’s struggled so long to be, then what is there to like about any man!

Perhaps naïve, but it was enough to keep her obliviously happy.

Until there was him. 

 “I admire smart women, I find them attractive the way they carry their own weight, unlike the needy ones who feel like a heavy burden that weighs me down” he said with his eyes peering though her, unraveling through under all her layers of strength and self preservation. In time, her entire world revolved around him; she could feel herself getting weaker and dependent inside but she was smart enough to not let it show, to not let it take over. That was what made her special and she wouldn’t forsake it, not out of pride, but out of simple logic: she wouldn’t allow herself to be anything less than who he loved. 

So when his actions broke her, the only way she could manage to not fall apart was to retaliate and return the favor; eye for an eye. She wasn’t exactly aware of her actions; she was driven by her desperate need to not break, to remain strong and independent at any cost. However, when she came to her senses and realized that mirroring a wrong action does not make it any less painful, she came clean and admitted to him all her mistakes and owned them like a strong woman does. 

He was outraged with pain and anger. He kept saying all she had to do was speak of her weakness, that he would have preferred her to be weak than to cross him, and that even after that he would have preferred it if she had kept it from him even if it meant she’d think less of herself. He punished her for her strength, and as days passed, she became more fragile than she has ever been in her life while he kept taking away pieces from her deeming her more helplessly in love with him despite his anger and his unforgivingness. She rationalized his emotional abuse and gave him all the excuses in the world, ones he wouldn’t even consider giving her. 

Until she completely broke down and collapsed right before his eyes, until she was no longer that strong independent women he admired. She fell apart right in his arms and he failed to hold her. And so… he left.

He said he was leaving because he loved her too much to cause that horrid change; he loved her too much to take out his anger on her and cause her to become someone who would forever resent him the minute she realized what he’s done to her. He left.

She was never the same; she might have grown strong scar tissue where he had ruptured her heart and soul, but the sad truth is that scar tissue is dead; it may not feel pain, but it never heals or grows either. He has forever scarred her and robbed her of the essence that was behind her strength. 

He left because he said he loved her too much, didn’t he know that you never leave the one you love, especially not to their demons and their despair deprived of hope and faith and feeling nothing but loss.

Soul Bleed

Dostoevsky said “The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular”, I agree.

The problem is that with every man I hate (or woman for that matter), a part of my soul bleeds away its humanity. My general resentment and anger towards mankind keep on growing with every day; it’s poisonous; it’s not just making me hateful, it’s making me mean and cynical and not the fun kind of mean and cynical. 

The deal I had with myself was to observe the things I dislike about life and people without letting it get into me, without allowing myself to judge it, just observe, and try to accept the things I cannot change, but never let it change me. I never said it was easy and I never said I succeeded every time for I know I have surely failed quite a few times, and I know damn well I paid for my failure in blood an tears and I am still having trouble processing it all. 

Recently however, I can’t help but feel the anger building up, fueled by helplessness and despair, I feel the darkness growing inside me and making me envious and malicious in thoughts. I have come to wish people harm because I can no longer see justice, I can no longer believe they will eventually get what they deserve. I’ve been told I only see the part of the picture where they get away with the harm they have inflicted without anyone so much as pointing fingers at them, I’ve been told there shall be more to it, but I don’t care because with my bruised faith, I can’t acknowledge but what I see. It makes me worry about what it would come to if I could do more than wish them harm, would I bestow on them the pain I believe they deserve? Since when have I appointed myself to what people deserve and what they don’t??? It’s right there, I am becoming more judgmental by the day and it’s scaring me. 

The slight shift of character is taking place right there! I always believed true change never happened vividly or dramatically; when it’s too obvious, it’s never real change, it’s rather a defense mechanism, unreal, and/or temporary. Real change however just happens, very slowly and subtly that you only recognize it in retrospect, just like the minute I caught myself wishing ill upon those who have wronged me instead of getting over it all already. 

This is how societies have deteriorated, isn’t it? The “good” and the “moral” grew tired of fighting wrongdoings or were defeated time and time again. With every day their ethics and morals fail to protect them from the malice of others, they cease to overcome injustice (in whatever form it came); they stop thriving and all their energies are wasted on mere survival until even that becomes a luxury they simply can’t afford… And they slip, and it’s all downhill from there. Generation after generation, people no longer value those old ethics and morals that were once practiced because all but those morals had prevailed. This is what I see everyday in society and it always disturbed and saddened me. I always knew it was only a matter of time until I am as tainted as everyone else. 

Two years ago, I wrote a post expressing my hurt and confusion, and only now do I recognize how it can be summed in Nietzsche’s words“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” I feel like the world’s ugliness is eating up at me and making me as ugly. I don’t want to be ugly, I don’t want to be a monster, and neither do I want to learn to live among monsters, but I can feel something within me changing down within the folds of my silent rage. 

I go further back to the first day I walked into a therapist’s office seven years ago and said those exact words “I think my anger is destroying me rather than giving me character”. Two sessions later the therapist said my anger was on the healthy side rather than alarming; she explained that we live in an abusive society where you can either get angry or depressed and that I was lucky to experience the earlier. 

Back then, I had not yet unraveled so much about myself. I was much less informed and I also had faith, or at least I believed if I played my cards right, I could have God on my side. Now faith is another ongoing crisis; this time, I am fueled by a strong feeling that God had forsaken me. They say people usually find God or lose Him in times of adversity; I strongly reject to let either take place and it’s leaving me with even less to hold on to with all that’s going on. The things in which I could once believe are now alienating me and strengthening my feelings of estrangement to the extent that I have caught myself resorting to some kind of self-inflicted exile. 

Another alarming thing is that I spent the past month or perhaps even more severely depressed that I barely left my bed, and before that I have been avoiding most of my friends willingly; what’s the point of having fun if all the negative things from which I run find their way to me the instant I am alone. I just surrendered and I was completely okay with my depression; I was no longer fighting it with anger. 

There again, right there: another change that I notice right now in retrospect that had taken its course so subtly over the past couple of years only to show itself clearly right now. 

A lot of things have been going on, and instead of writing like I once did, I kept it all to myself or limited it to empty angry rants to which my facebook contacts have been exposed. A part of me has been struggling with the whole writing process. Writing is a form of committing to certain thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, even with the full acknowledgement that all of it is subject to change, but I have been avoiding writing as if it would document my transformation. Whenever asked why I no longer write, I just mumble any nonsense and hope they change the subject. I could no longer deal with all the things I was served, let alone analyze them and diffuse them so they don’t explode. 

So I either get too angry or too depressed? Is that what it all really comes down to??? 

I am a fighter, and I am a good person. 

But I am losing, and I am not sure I want to remain good… or I do want to remain good, but I am aware that it’s not protecting me or even allowing me to survive. 

So what? One of them shall eventually change, I will either be defeated or I will let go of parts of my soul to fit/survive. 

I have no idea what will happen, nor do I think anyone has answers. I don’t want to be comforted or told that all of it shall pass or that I am blowing matters out of proportion. I am genuinely scared and I feel alone and forsaken, and if there was a time I would have reached out, I have learned the hard way that no one can help. I only wrote this as a form of rebellion against whatever it was that kept me from writing; it had to be let out somewhere.

Relapse.

And after a day of laughter and good times with my friends and my kids, I found myself relapsing into the same old pit of self-destructive thoughts that took me to a few years back, as if time hadn’t passed. 

And I am right there all over again. 

The Eighth Sin

If like me, it took you quite a while to grasp why Pride was among the seven deadly sins; then brace yourself for this one for it has taken me even more time to understand how righteousness is definitely the eighth sin.

He was a man of principle; he believed himself to be a man of black and white. “Everything is crystal clear” he said. There was no room for gray or any other color even though there must have been a time when he saw other colors, when he actually enjoyed their variety and glamor, but something mysterious happened to him that led him to believe that honesty and morals only reside in white, whereas their absence is marked by black.

He was a man of morals and sound judgment, or so he strictly believed. He marked people with the only two colors he acknowledged. He refused to believe that even the purest of people can sin, just like he wouldn’t accept that those who sinned could be benevolent. One sin was “black” enough to taint a good person for life. He refused to see the colors of the rainbow in the human spectrum, only black and white.

And by doing so, he tainted his white soul with the blackness he saw in others. His spirit lost its vibrant colors and got colder and harder that the white faded into gray, and gray faded into a color deemed black by his very own moral standards.

And so, while others could have been forgiving of his rigidness and cruel righteousness, he on the other hand condemned himself as harshly and cruelly as he did others. He no longer found mercy at his heart for his own tormented soul that was no longer as white as he believed of it to be.

He broke. He just broke.

I will never know if I ached for him because I love him, or because I was once as self righteous as he is, or because I pity the fate he had chosen for himself. Would my past righteous self have resented him had he chosen to repent from that sin and break free in search for a world of colors? Would I have hated him if he had it in him to start anew and chase rainbows after all the damage he had caused others in his black and white days, the damage he had caused me? Am I so forgiving of him because of my newly found forgiveness or because I find his fate so poetic and “fair”? Am I any better really?

All I know is that I sincerely love him even though I was one of those he had judged most cruelly, even though I still bear the scars he cut so deep in me, but it is to him that I owe my repentance of that sin, self righteousness.

On Different Kinds of Love

I have been in love, and I have loved and still love alot of people in my life in quite different ways.  

No, wait, this is not how I wanted to say it…

I meant to say…

Having been in love, and having had my heart crushed into shatters in the process, I have questioned love, not in an attempt to refute it, but rather in an attempt analyze where I lost my way to it; in an attempt to understand what it’s really about so that I don’t spend the rest of my life begging my heart to become stone. 

If love was so great and liberating and fulfilling and inspiring, why does it fade? Why does it die? Why does it get sore and we find ourselves aching because of those we love until we resent them??

It made me think that maybe that because of which we suffer is not what love really is… no, I don’t mean that what got my heart broken wasn’t love, it was most certainly something so profound as abusive as it was, or to be more exact before it got to the stage where it became abusive. Something about it was magical, captivating and just heavenly that I still find my heart skipping more than one beat when I recall how it felt.

Let’s not go astray, what is love? Or what was missing from that love, what’s the “preservative” needed for love to prosper and grow,regardless of course of the pain the journey itself would take…

And I think I know it, sadly enough I don’t think I can name it…

It is safely longing for my kids when I am not with them,but surely knowing that I will go home at the end of the day to hug them and kiss them even if they had long fallen asleep. It’s knowing that they love me regardless of how my discipline might get out of hand because at the end of it all, they would still curl into my arms and hug back when I reach out for them. 

It is knowing that I can call out my close friends at whatever time (or text them when it’s ridiculously late and it’s too mundane to just wake them up) and cry my heart out with the most existential questions like “why was he so caught up in his issues that he just couldn’t hold on to me like I needed him to?” and that I can actually find comfort in the fact that they would feel my despair even though I am fully aware they can do nothing to help.

It’s feeling happily and desperately in love with my uncle for standing up for me even though I had just stood up for myself because I learned long time ago that it is my job to do so, but yet feeling absolutely safe that someone is out there to protect you in case you’re too weak; it’s feeling this kind of safety that someone loves you unconditionally no matter how you might have wronged them.

It’s the kind of security I feel about my close friends with whom I haven’t kept in touch, yet I know nothing I tell them would ever make them think less of me because I know that no matter how much they would disagree with me, they would still give me the benefit of … the benefit of understanding that I am having my own journey and their respect for it.

It’s being comforted and reassured merely by the existence of some people even though I haven’t yet gotten the chance to know them well, yet knowing that such genuine people are out there within my reach gives me faith that there are things in this world that make life worth living.

Real love… no wait, I won’t call it real love, who am I to know and define it for everybody…

The love I described is the only constant love in my life that had kept me safe from losing the remaining shreds of my not so reliable sanity. The people in my life whose mere existence helped me gather the little pieces of my heart and put them back together so that it would be healed and reassured by their love.

I know I get too overwhelmed with my pain and my despair from time to time, but I promised never to let it steal away my gratitude… I am grateful for feeling loved like that even if the love of my life had failed me,and I am deeply in love with the people I have in my life whose love has carried me through it all. 

Gilbert

Are you still out there????

“You’re Beautiful”

Him: God you’re beautiful

Me: *smile* I know

That was NOT the answer I would have given him years ago; that was not the answer I’ve given anybody else before him. My response was not just one triggered by a defense mechanism designed to shut people up like he probably assumed then, I really knew I was beautiful before he actually told me, not just because I saw it in how he looked at me, but because it was something he had taught me about myself.

Being the first of my parents’ three daughters, my dad raised me to be more like the son he never had. Most of the values I was taught were originally “masculine” (at least from his point of view), but he tried to put them in a rather feminine mold because he knew someday I’d have to be the weaker sex if I am to marry a man in this society (a fact he never bothered explaining to me until he saw how I insisted on being treated like an equal by my ex-husband).

I walked as fast as guys did, I dressed in jeans and sneakers most of the time, I was even brought up with more guys my age than girls, I had puzzles and “boyish” toys rather than Barbie’s, I actually played with my male play mates and their mock screw drivers and mechanics kit. Very little attention was brought to me about my being a girl or whatever that entailed in our society; my hair was cut short until my dad started worrying I’d believe I’m a boy, but even then my mom would strictly braid it leaving none of it covering my face, like other girls my age had it.

My mom, well, she made my dad’s job so much easier having adopted the hippie bohemian look all her life; she never really spent time attending to her looks and she totally relied on her God given beauty and was blessed by a husband who somehow seemed to see it and appreciate it under her thick layers of carelessness. All my life I watched my late nana and her own sisters criticizing her lack of care for her appearance. Braiding my hair, I always heard her talking beneath her breath about how shallow it was to spend that much time to look beautiful and she’d justify it by making up fictional reasons about it.

Bottom line, I didn’t grow up like the typical girl people usually assume I am until I start breaking down all their assumptions. Being pretty or looking cute was not something I was taught, and it was not something of any kind of meaning or value to me to compete for.

I was just me, I cared about what I said and what I did, not how I looked. Well, I did care about matching colors and styles, I had the genes for it being the official heir of my grandmother’s genes. Before you start thinking it was all that great, it wasn’t; one of the reasons I married my ex was probably because he was the first guy who pointed out the obvious, I was a girl, a beautiful one, who is also smart and funny, but not full of herself; he made me feel special and I liked it.

But then with the divorce, all its social stigma and all the drama from which everybody warned me, I just fended off all those compliments and never took them seriously or gave them any considerable weight. Again, being brought up the way I was, helped deprive meaning from every remark on my looks, my brains, my humor, and of course my most recent endurance of hardships. I didn’t need those compliments and hearing them did not fulfill any yearnings for being recognized like that. I always smiled calmly and thanked people for complimenting my looks, said I had my late nana’s wits and endurance, and attributed my humor to my dad’s side of the family. Nothing of it was mine; I was just the holder of qualities that were passed on to me, made me feel blessed more than special… actually, it didn’t make me feel anything.  I just was, nothing was special about it, and anyone pointing out otherwise was just overdoing all those clichés men do to win women, end of story.

And then he was. He was my best friend when I needed a male friend the most. It felt like I grew up with him; he was familiar and somehow safe. He was observant, smart, and oh so subtle; moreover, he also shared my interests and fed them. He became my best friend, he noticed my repulsion from men’s silly approaches, and probably figured out he’d lose me if he starts complimenting me, and he needed my friendship probably as much as I needed his.

He just was, and I just was… and it was the best thing I ever had.

And without doing it on purpose, he told me the most beautiful things I’ve ever been told without making them sound like the boring clichés, but rather like an overdue fact. I’d be complaining about a photo that was taken of me that made my face look too cheeky, and he’d reply so casually that I had nothing to complain about having such clear skin; natural blush and pimple free face, how dare I complain!!! Every remark about my qualities was made within a context that made it feel more like a fact rather than a compliment, it just felt more credible.

I got to know myself with him, and I got to love myself with him. I got to see what other people saw that I took for granted without really appreciating it or even really acknowledging it existed or had value. I started believing I was beautiful, I started acknowledging that my brains were not something everybody had, or my intellect, or my taste, all the things that brought us together started from a strong mental bond that developed later into an even stronger emotional one.

So when he first told me how beautiful I was the way men tell the women they love, I knew it, I believed it because for years he has been teaching me all those things about myself that I never learned in my years before him.

Him: *teasing* you can try saying “thank you” instead of “I know”, don’t be too full of yourself..

Me: *smiling* but you like this answer better, and you know it…

*sigh*

 I don’t like it anymore when men tell me I’m beautiful. I mean of course it is flattering and all, but it is not as fulfilling as people expect it to be when they say it; if anything, it just reminds me of him and makes me miss him. They say it to win me over, to impress me, to give me the attention they think I long for, to even just express it… whatever the reasons, they say it too “bluntly”, it doesn’t hold that kind of special meaning to me. I liked how subtle it was with him, I liked how I read it in his almond brown eyes first, and how I’d see his lips curling as he starts saying it and then pauses to reconsider, and then lets it out in the least words possible.

I don’t like being told I’m beautiful by anyone but him, because it only had meaning with him.

 

 

 

Dead

I keep thinking it’s the only way out to end the pain, but my rather saner self tells me there is probably more of that awaiting me in the afterlife. My bleeding heart cries in its constant aching as it sheds its blood to my system thinking it would flood it, but the idiot doesn’t seem to get that it’s only doing its job of pumping blood, only with yet extra pain for me to feel.

I’ve been down that road before; I’ve reached for the pills, emptied them on my bed, and gulped them slowly one after the other, resenting myself as I swallowed each one. And when I was done, I switched the lights and started crying myself to sleep one last time. Just about the time the drugs started kicking in, it hit me what I was actually doing; I was abandoning my kids to no one who loves them like I do, to no one who has the will and the stomach to fight for them like I would, despite all my pain and my agony. And I started crying different tears in my loneliness as I was dosing off, I was crying to God to spare me, only if my life would make a good difference in theirs. And the darkness seeped in and I started losing my grip of my consciousness little by little.

I woke up the next day, about 10 hours later than I should have. I was sick, I was sore, I was alone, I was still in endless amount of pain, but I was alive… and it hit me that I had to be, even if my life felt so worthless to me, the quality of theirs still means something; this world still holds one single meaning to me, them.

And I have been pushing through every day since, knowing that I will never do it again. I know it’s no longer a choice I can make. I wake up every day knowing that truth about myself, I have no control over my life; the one thing I did as a desperate act to find that control, I prayed for it to be reversed because my life means something to someone else whom I love way too much than to abandon them. That simple, and that complicated.

So in my worst episodes, I curl in bed and I cry as I imagine a different scenario every time hoping time would pass and I would eventually fall asleep.

I imagine never having waken up that day, and I imagine what they would have figured out my departure, and I sigh sarcastically… they would have never known why, because I am so tough and so strong and so independent, they just never saw it coming.

And I look at that broken glass every time the pain attacks me too much, and I imagine myself holding it and slitting my wrist with it, and I close my eyes as I imagine what the warm blood would feel like drowning my consciousness, and I cry harder and harder as that part that’s linked to my kids starts crying in panic.

He told me to imagine how they would break the news to my little boy, and how he would fail to grasp it and they would have to repeat it and it would traumatize him, and he didn’t get that he just made me hate myself even more; it just makes me hate this life even more.

So recently, I just go to bed every night with a different scenario that only ends with more self-loathing.

Yesterday, I talked myself into another resolution… I am dead. Yes, I already feel dead and hollow; I am just a loving shell who provides certain things for those boys, that’s all I have to be… God knows I don’t wanna write much anymore, and I don’t wanna create any art and I barely sit and enjoy any of it as much… I am dead, it’s just that my body still works, and I have to keep it working until it’s no longer a necessity, until it fails on its own.

I just wish that kind of dead came pain-free. I wish my eyes wouldn’t swell from all the tears, and I wish my skull wouldn’t hurt with all the headache, and I wish my back wouldn’t ache like that… I am dead, can I please be numb too?!

Ugly

It hit me yesterday as I was driving home…

*THE WORLD IS UGLY*

There is so much ugliness in this world, so much that hit in the face every day that we have probably gotten numb to it and can no longer really see it or be disgusted by it, let alone try to change it…

“Ugliness is all around” my mind kept repeating that phrase in such a sad and defeated tone “the world is ugly ugly ugly”

That beauty we see from time to time around us is real, but it does not belong to the world; it is the mere projection of the beauty we still have inside us since our birth, which keeps decreasing until we eventually fade into the background of ugliness that captures our souls as we grow older.

Say all you want about optimism and positive thinking and believing that there is goodness and beauty out there, there isn’t.

I used to believe in the basic goodness in people, that it can out-win any evil that may take possession of their souls, I used to believe there is enough beauty to take over ugliness, and enough happiness that can wipe away all the sorrow there is, there isn’t.

Truth is, we will always get hurt by that ugliness, our souls will always quiver in pain at its sight, until we eventually learn to become uglier each day so that we don’t stand out in the contrast and be attacked with more pain…

That’s what I learned on the night of my thirty first birthday, I have spent a couple of years becoming ugly because I failed at making my world beautiful and failed twice as miserably to protect myself from its ugliness…

I hate my ugliness more than I hate that of the world’s because it’s staying within me hurting me every single day of my life, and the more I try to rid myself of it I keep getting hit by that of the world so I hide back again into my own ugliness; it’s like a cloak of dirt I hide into because without it I am exposed to what I cannot take.

I’m sorry for those who may read it and feel sad for me –or for themselves-, I am really sorry for drawing your attention to what you may have never wanted to see, or what you may have been denying in order to survive, but this world is ugly, and it makes us all ugly or it destroys us beyond repair.

The Dead

 I never got to visit my late nana’s grave since she died until last year. Years ago when she died, I didn’t know where she was buried and I have heard that it was unfavorable to visit the dead and well, the whole idea was unsettling…

But missing her increased over the years and I found myself always wishing I would go sit next to her grave and just sit… I didn’t want to cry, I wanted to take flowers that I never gave her when she was alive, I wanted to recite Quran, I wanted to feel whatever presence left of her in that place…

When I finally went with my youngest uncle (the only one who actually cares enough to visit), I stood there locked outside the graveyard with him and my two cousins who have no recollection of her, we recited Quran silently and I didn’t know how to feel…

I can’t say I felt her presence, I can’t say that I felt nothing either… I just felt… confusion… I wished I could go inside beyond that door and hug the earth covering her, I wished I could cry but no tears came, I just stood there and kept whispering to her “I miss you, I really do”… I couldn’t mention how much I love her, because it would remind me how much she loved me and then I would cry, oh, but did I not want to cry?!!!

I would like to visit her again; in fact, I would have had it been safe, but given how unsafe it is to drive on those roads, I don’t, but I would visit once I can, and I would get them keys to get inside, and I would see if I could plant some greenery in that corner to keep her company when I am not there…

…

It’s a lot like that now, I reconnect with something that wouldn’t die, but is nonetheless buried under layers of pain, unforgiveness, foolish pride, and despair… I wish I’d hold it so close to my heart but it’s like a burning amber that would burn my heart to ashes over and over, so I just leave it in the earth hoping time would take care of it all whichever way… it’s how I pay my respects and my love to all that was and probably still is…

I know people grieve differently, I know, but it adds insult to injury when I see you doing the exact opposite.

Emotional Chaos

I never had that before, or I did but I lost it some time ago.

Someone who’d sense my agitation across oceans even though he doesn’t have a clue what I’m going through… and then reach out to me, and when I reluctantly respond, he calls and offers all the support he can… and then follows up day in and day out, and when I reject the support ad sink in my depression as I disappear even further, he tries to reach out even harder….

And then he calls me from a local number and tells me he flew to Cairo to see what’s wrong and be there…

And then I just lost my voice as tears kept flowing from my eyes with both awe and disbelief, that there is someone in this world who is actually there for me when I was just praying for a magic wand to fix all my problems!

But instead of letting my sobs be heard to him, I just hang up, so that I can gasp and cry loudly without him hearing my aching manifesting in uncontrollable cries of pain I can no longer control!

I don’t want that done for me, I don’t want to be loved like that anymore because it hurts, the idea of someone loving me the way I once loved is now scary because I couldn’t get over the loss of a love that couldn’t make it through, and I know this love will be lost too one day and I just can’t depend….

I really love you since even before I knew what love is, you were everything I needed to grow up feeling as loved, but I am not that little girl anymore, I am full of pain and the scars to show it and I have lost so much love I am too scared you’d be gone if you really know what I have become or what if you die just like she did… I really can’t afford loss anymore.

I sound like my worst nightmare.

I will write

The death you urge for me to learn is not as graceful as you try to convince yourself. Grace means doing your best, fighting for what you believe, for what you hold dear to your heart, living it until your last breath, that’s when death is indeed graceful. But giving up because you “tried but it hurt too much” is weakness and cowardice, not grace.

The more you use death as an analogy, the more doubts you give me about all there is I once thought was beyond doubt. Don’t taint death and don’t disgrace the dead for you and I have lost people so dear to us whom we know would have fought to stay with us, or at least so we would like to believe.

And don’t ask me not to write; don’t silence me to justify your disgraceful silence. Don’t blame me for making it harder for you with my words, because unlike yours, my conscience is not too guilty to speak its mind. Yes, to write about loss is painful, but to write about it knowing that you have tried your best is more dignified that sinking in silence because of the shame of having given up what you should have fought for.

I will write because I want to remember, and I want you to remember until the memory deprives you of all the peace you try your best to fake; I hope my words shatter it to pieces. The reason my words scare you is that they remind you of the pain you caused, that’s what true words do, they simply tear down all the false justifications one makes when one disappoints. So I will write, for my own peace; words hurt, but they are also the cure for those who don’t have a guilty conscience.

I will write, you can choose not to read; that would be your decision.

Nostalgia

“الحنين وجع لا يحن إلى وجع. هو الوجع الذي يسببه الهواء النقي القادم من أعالي جبل بعيد.. وجع البحث عن فرح سابق..”

  ~ محمود درويش – في حضرة الغياب

The word Nostalgia has such magic to it; it’s bitter sweet both in meaning as in pronunciation.

We miss people who are no longer there the most when we go through days where we could have used their presence; when we are desperate for their presence. It’s not that we don’t miss them every day on normal days, we probably do, but our conscious knows better than to let it surface, so it locks that feeling in our subconscious until those moments of nostalgia occur.

The dead are the worst to miss. Not just because they are no longer there, but also because we tend to give them a sense of sanctity after they’re gone. We remember only their virtues and somehow convince ourselves they hold on to wisdom that would have solved our current dilemmas or soothed our agony. Ironically, their death is the secret of their wisdom.

The dead are the worst to miss. Because as we remember them, they never let us down, either because we didn’t hold on to such memory, or because they passed away before they got the chance. Both way, their memory remains painfully untainted and it’s summoned every time we’re let down.

The dead are the worst to miss. Because missing them is a dead-end to the pain we feel, where we linger.

False Impressions

It’s easy to buy into the thought that we have false impressions of others. It is harder to believe though that we might have false impressions of ourselves, as truer and even more common as it is!

I always thought I was selfish, turns out, I wish I were selfish, I aspire to being selfish, but I never really pull through with my attempted selfishness… I really try, I really want to, I really really really perceive selfishness as something good, I talk my friends and close people into being selfish, but I could never really pull through for my own self all the way. Turns out I am a failure at being truly selfish… and it doesn’t mean I am selfless or great, I am just not selfish.

I always thought I was a give upper, that I lack persistence… God I am not! I am the kind of fighter they probably needed in those raw wars fought centuries before my time where a fighter would fall a million times and keeps standing up to get more hits in the face and the body until their own bodies fail them before their wills do. I don’t know how to let go or give up so long as my soul is tied to something; it would definitely take me down before I even attempt to let go. I may have put it in a heroic form, but I am not necessarily fighting for a good cause to be proud of that personal trait; in fact, I believe good causes have the tendency to lose me when they get tainted by what people label them… but that’s another rant.

I never thought I was the forgiving type; I always believed I was as unforgiving as sin and always trashed second chances. But I lived to see a year (or perhaps two) of me giving second chances and completely believing in them, and I am proud of myself for that, I needed to know that I have it in me to forgive, it helped me believe in people and it really helped me to let go of so much anger and hate I once thought I’d take to my grave.

I am stubborn, proud (very egoistic actually), resilient, yet whiny and in constant need of reassurance that I am a great person. Why? Because I grew up where none of that was acknowledged, at least not to my face, where I had to fight for that kind of acknowledgement let alone praise after having been fed that I am selfish, a give upper, and black-hearted. Because every time I was actually praised, it either meant nothing or was for the wrong reasons.

But it’s ok, I get it, sort of… we all have our issues and our demons and we all have them chasing us either until they get us or until we get over them… I am not yet sure which is my case; I am still haunted and lost in that forest, but this is a brief moment of clarity that I was taught to cherish…

*lighting a match*

I am a good person, a kind person, funny, smart and make for interesting company. I have good taste in about everything, and I have an opinion about everything too, but it’s open minded and accepting of others.

That match will go to a kindling, and it won’t fade out taking me to that black hole that keeps absorbing me into its darkness. A friend told me “you will always have people who love and care for you, even when you’re dark, self-absorbed, and resentful of the entire world, because a true friend will also remember how much of a good friend you have always been and will not only give you a break when you’re down, but will be there for you” … I was too angry and sad to let it go through when I first heard it, but every day, a friend does something so random yet kind for me, and it’s God’s reminder that I have good friends, much better than those I thought I lost. That’s my kindling.

Nothing

I was told what to do…

You looked at me and I could see it all in your eyes behind that foolish ego that always tore us apart…

I walked toward you and wrapped my arms around your neck as you wrapped yours around me…

You started crying as you held me tighter…

Nothing, I felt nothing…

I held you tighter, in an attempt to summon those feelings I had always felt for you, to let them wrap around us and fix this, but nothing came…

I started crying and shivering in your arms because I felt nothing, and you probably thought I was apologizing or asking for your forgiveness or feeling all the things I should be feeling, but I felt nothing…

Is it because the spell that bound me to you was finally broken??

Is it because the most abusive relationship of my life, the one that created a solid pattern for all my other relationships to follow just ended in an even more dramatic way??

Or is it because I am numb?

I feel like I am a dying soul in a hollow shell of a body, withering slowly…

A couple of hours later, I laid in bed with the right half of my body shaking nonstop as it has been since we let go of each other… I was hearing the same old broken record, and instead of replying back, I could hear the echo of my words fading inside my head as my body shook even harder and tears fell through my eyes…

The most abusive relationship of my life, the one that created a solid pattern for all my other relationships to follow just ended… but it also ended me, I am no longer myself, and I no longer have the strength to get out of my negativity and try to distract myself until I am better, I have nothing to look forward to because this relationship and all those that followed its pattern had sucked me dry, and now my soul is slowly dying.

البيضة ولا الفرخة

أنا فاكرة كويس زمان لما سمعت “الفزورة” دي و رحت لبابا علشان يحلهالي بما انه كان أكتر واحد يعرف كل حاجة…

الحوار كان حاجة زي كده….

 

أنا: بابا، هو البيضة الأول ولا الفرخة؟؟

هو: الفرخة طبعا!

أنا: اشمعنى؟ ماهي الفرخة بتطلع من البيضة

هو: لأ، الروح دايما الأول… روحي جيبي بيضة من التلاجة و شوفي فيها فرخة ولا لأ… البيضة محتاجة الفرخة علشان تفقس كتكوت….

 

وعليه….

يعني اللي موجود الأول بيمد روحه للي بييجي بعده…

يعني الأم (و الأب) هما اللي بيدوا للجنين الحياه بإذن ربنا

يعني برده الأم (و الأب) همه برده اللي بيحبوا الطفل الأول قبل ما الطفل يحبهم…

همه اللي بيعلموه ازاي يحب و ازاي يعبر عن حبه، منهم همة، مش منه لنفسه…

الخلاصة إن لو مش عاجبكم أنا بحبكم ازاي ولا بأنهي طريقة، ياريت تلوموا نفسكم قبل ما تلوموني أو تقولوا عليا جافة أو قلبي جامد أو تقرروا اني لو بحبكم أعبر عن حبي بطريقة أحسن… لأن ده للأسف اللي اتعلمته منكم و ده اللي كل يوم بحارب نفسي و قطعها علشان معلموش لولادي…

أنا بسافر علشان أهرب من الأم اللي بتزنقوني اني أكونها، علشان في الغربة و وحدتها الاقي نفسي اللي أكيد هتعرف تبقى أم أحسن من اللي انتم بتقولبوها بأحكامكم اللي محجرة على تفكير بيظلمني و بيقول عليا حاجات كل اللي يعرفوني بيقولوا انها مش في…

أنا عنيدة آه، لكن مش جاحدة ولا قاسية

دماغي لما بتحجر كدة بيكون من وجعي لأن الوجع بينشفني و بيكسرني، لكن حتى وجعي عمره ما قساني مهما قلت و اتمنيت… لو كنت بقيت قاسية كان زماني قادرة أكبر دماغي و مكانش زمان قلبي بيوجعني عمال على بطال كدة

أنا آسفة جدا اني مش هادية و مهاودة و مسامحة في حقي زي غيري، بس على فكرة لولا اني كدة مكنتوش اعتمدتوا عليا كل مرة احتجتوا حد حد يشيل المسؤولية و يتصرف صح و بسرعة… و لولا اني كدة كان زماني اتكسرت من زمان و فضلت زوجة كارهة جوزها و بتشتم فيه طول ماهو مش موجود زي غيري و كان زماني بربي ولادي انهم يخافوا منه و يكرهوه و يلوموه… أنا كسرت “الباترن” اللي شفته قدامي كتير بدل ماخليه يكسرني، و بيحز في نفسي قوي كل ماسمع حد فيكم بيقول ان “لو ماكانتش دماغها ناشفة و عندية و طبعها وحش، كان زمان الولاد بيتربوا بينهه و بين أبوهم”….

أنا آسفة إنكم مش شايفيني غير كدة… لكن أنا خلاص تعبت من محاولة اثبات اني كل الحاجات التانية اللي مش شايفينها ولا هتشوفوها، لأني كل ما بحاول بفشل و ببعد عن نفسي من غير ما أقرب منكم…

و مباقتش فارقة، أنا بعدت كتير و مقربتش…

ده مش وجعك*

It’s like biting into one sour green lemon and feeling that electric shock filling up all my senses…

Everything is cringing with pain… the pain source is my heart, sending out ripples of pain, no, tides of random, yet somehow timed electric shocks that electrocute every cell in my body… and then, the pain subsides at my limbs leaving them totally numb…

My lungs swell wanting to burst through my ribs despite my attempts of expanding my ribs by breathing in harder through a stuffy nose and a blocked throat…

بحس ان روحي بتطلع… لكن في نفس الوقت بتحاول تكلبش فى جسمي على قد ما تقدر و ده اللي بيسبب الوجع…

The minute I start surrendering to the numbness, and feel that pain subsiding, tears start flowing and before I know it, I start fighting for air, but then the electric shocks attack me again repeating that entire cycle…

….

 “ده مش وجعك… ده بيحصل لما بيتحدف عليكي وجع مش بتاعك و انتي بتحاولي تشيليه…

This is the kind of woman you are… you deny men their instinct to protect you because you make everyone –including yourself- believe that you’re strong enough to take it all…

انتي اللي هتشيلي الليلة!! و على فكرة يعني، دي مش ميزة فيكي… ده خازوق كبير

متصلبيش نفسك و تستني الناس تعمل منك اله…

Get off that cross ; there are no believers, and you will bleed to death…

Recognize it when it’s not your pain and reject it, and love yourself… when you love yourself, you don’t allow her to feel that kind of pain… you protect her like no one could”

 

* April 20, 2011

Another Note to My Pride

(7 months later)

Take me back, please take me back…

I feel what a paper must feel after having been through a shredder… with no hope of being pulled back together to look the same as before…

I have willingly endured more humiliation than I thought I would ever allow myself to go through… I am not sure how graceful I was about it all, but I have been told I handled the humiliation and the pain that came with it with admirable grace…

But I am running out of grace and I am running out of threshold for more pain… I need to be wrapped and sheltered and promised none of this will ever happen again, none of it…

I am promising myself this right now, and I am promising you you’ll never be locked in this room or any room … you belong in my heart, just like all the other things that make me who I am, and it was a huge mistake to ask you to step aside…

It was worth it, would I do it all over again, perhaps, but never again…

So I am sorry for thinking I was stronger on my own, turns out I am too sensitive to be left without that kind of protection and no one, no matter what they claim, can provide it…

So please make that pain go away, and take me to a safe place where I can heal.

Thanks.