I Watched

I was a 5 minute walk away from heavyset military APCs ploughing into a thousands-strong demonstration.

I was just done with an uneventful day at my newsdesk job when not an hour later a barely 15 year old boy got killed, brutally, cold-bloodedly, killed.

The camels, the camels who broke into Tahrir Square on the infamous afternoon, passed along my neighborhood mainstreet on their way.

Someone who went to the same school as I did, only a year older, was also killed in the same place the barely 15 boy was.

I completely lost the ability to take breaths, being the claustrophobic I am, within less than 5 seconds of the first stampede I found myself in after police shot a new round of tear gas into an alleyway street.

I come home to my mother crying on more weekdays than not. She says she can never stand it when she sees  any pictures of our martyrs on television and hearing their families speak.

And all she can do is sit and cry at a television screen because she doesn't allow herself to go to protests, because 'what if I get killed and you're left with no one to support you?' And only because of that.

I watched my 7 year old brother going back and forth around the house repeating to my mother 'I told you, I told you he was lying. Why is he late until now? he must have lied to us and went down to Mohamed Mahmoud. What else would take him so long? What if they beat him there?'

I have trouble sleeping because the minute I turn off the lights mental images of too many young men jump through my head, and I punish myself for my mere inability to grasp the extent of their mothers heartache. I punish myself by not sleeping. Why do I get to sleep and their mothers don't? Why am I in a warm bed while hundreds of people mostly my age have lost their lives way too soon?

I haven't even lost a loved one in the revolution and I'm having a degree of PTSD symptoms already.

And I won't fake smiles. If I can't get myself to smile at all of this then I won't. I know too much by now how much it costs to deny how I feel and focus my energy on feigning what I 'should' feel.

I feel. I feel now. And it's more than I can take. But I'd rather feel too much than to smile and fill the air with empty it's-gonna-be-okays.

And not that it isn't, but that's just not how I'm planning to get there.

The truth has pain in it. It has bitter sacrifice, loss. It has blood and tears and poignant moments of powerlessness. And I'd rather look all of it in the face and tell it like it is.

Faith does not contradict with the truth, and cynicism does not erode faith.

May you rest in peace Anas. May you rest in peace.

It Always Comes Down to Those. Always.

I never come here knowing what it is I want to write about. I sometimes come here thinking that if I open the page, find the empty box, that inexplicable feeling will turn into something because chances are it's an untold story.
But it never really is. Today, while working on my first sample for a break-through journalism internship, I realized something that scared me. I don't go around saying things scare me, so I run a thousand checks before I can really validate a thought or a fact as a scary one. I realized that the more I write, the more I get the feeling that I wasn't really cut out for writing. I go through the document I don't think there are any modifications, and I hate the version I'm staring at. That didn't look good after I decided to actually become a journalist, or at least take a shot at it.
The reason why it scares me is that I don't see myself anywhere else. Now that could seem like a familiar pre-graduation thought, and it could very well be. But the thing is, I don't know if I actually want to see myself somewhere else. Ever since childhood I've had random people going all psychic on me turning into one hell of a journalist one day. And that's not even part of why I feel the way I do about this. It's not part of why I seem to hold on to it so...inexplicably.

Since I already opened the subject, I came across this post just now. Now that one didn't even need validation. And it's not that I'm specifically scared of being alone, it's that I'm scared of driving myself there on purpose knowing it's not right but it's all I can do. I'm scared of not knowing any better than to be alone. It's down to the simplest situation. Yesterday I was at the Tahrir Monologues theatrical performance and I made eye contact with Khaled Abu-Elnaga and didn't manage to smile at him. Correction, couldn't manage to smile at him. It's not about smiling at an actor, it's the fact that I couldn't carry out the simple act of not having a useless straight face on. It was a friendly atmosphere with everyone basically shaking hands with everyone, and there I was, sitting on the counter leaning against the wall, with my eyes locked on my Blackberry and my hands holding on so tight against it because I know it's the only thing that wouldn't make me beat myself up for not smiling at.
I don't smile at friendly strangers. I don''t initiate conversations. I always forget when the last time I talked to my best friends was. I choose to sit home and just sleep all day more days than I should, and not out of being depressed but out of not feeling like people for the day.

And the tricky part is that I never, ever got to the bottom of this. I have no idea why I act the way I do around people. I seem to be very much at peace with the fact that the vast majority of people I meet think I'm one snotty, condescending bitch on the first impression basis. It doesn't change except when/if they actually decide to talk to me and find that I'm actually capable of smiling. I don't know why I, most of the time, avoid having people to ride with in my car. I don't know why I automatically turn down any invitations from a friend to hang out if there's going to be people I don't know where we'll be going. I don't know why I can't remember the last time I had a deep conversation with anyone. The only answer I have so far is that I just don't know any better than to do what I always do around people, and I actually mean people because it does sometimes involve actual friends.

Last week I was parked at the airport waiting to pick up my father who was coming back from Italy. The flight was delayed for over an hour, which I waited in the airport parking lot with a strange pattern of beating in my heart. Last time I was at the airport I was coming back from a short trip to New York that made me realize I was right when I've always felt that there is nothing, and I mean nothing, I want to spend my life doing more than traveling. So I can safely say that the only place, the only thing I feel the strongest connection to, is an airport. The consequences of this statement could extend far beyond what I am willing or able to accept.

I'm just going to click Publish Post before I press Ctrl + A and delete.

Fugitives Say That The Streets Aren't For Dreaming Now *

Gut feelings work.


The unthinkable still happens.


The perception of friendship does change.


Tom Waits is too human for his own good. Mumford and Sons know what they're doing, and if they actually don't it's all the better.


Connections get you places, and I'm still referring to legitimate ones.


Most-if not even all-the things you're waiting on to hit you, won't. Things will start to just...happen, and we might not notice that, while we're still waiting on them to let us know they are. It could go on for years, explains mid-life crisis doesn't it?


Reading is essential.


Traveling is, too.


Money Vs doing what you love is possibly the hardest early-adulthood conundrum. Especially if,  given the circumstances, you need both equally to survive.


Becoming a workaholic is not as far from me as I thought. Not at all. And I don't know yet how good or bad this piece of information could turn out to be.


By comparison, weight loss should by no means be on top of the list of why healthy eating is great.


Sloth would pretty much be the end of me if it ever could, and it came close more times than it should have.


But seriously, Tom Waits can't be so human.



* Tom Waits (of course) - Waltzing Matilda.

In The Shuffling Madness..

It's 7:04 am, Cairo local time. I haven't slept since yesterday and I'm having a strange craving for coffee that we're out of anyway.

Coffee...

I keep remembering the existence of some aspects related to life before January 25th, 2011, and they sound like things I have been estranged from for years. It started yesterday, when I remembered the existence of music, and just now, with coffee.

As to anything starting January 25th, I have so much to say that it's crippling. And that's not really a bad thing for now because now, is the time to watch, just watch. Since any answers would still be incomplete, any questions are distracting.

The world will watch today, and it will keep watching. The world will watch Egypt come back from the dead, having to cross back through hell to get there, and however it does that, will be a story worth telling.

مصر هتفضل غالية عليا

It's All Happening...

Even if it's not. Even if what should/could/would is not. It still is.

Here I am, months later, with more question marks and a relieving sense of curiosity that makes them, not necessarily easier, but just rather more interesting. More like life, not just words followed by that most feared symbol.

I made a miscalculation. I basically founded my future vision of my life upon what I have right now. And, needless to say, it looked great. It looked...possible, to hold on to everything I thought I'd never let life take away from me, regarding the choices I would make.
And so, I've officially known what it means that "Time is making fools of us." Upon realizing the little big error, I watched it all fall down waiting for me to reconsider everything, and then I laughed so hard on the inside, gracefully accepting my first badge. I'm not being cynical at all, I really did laugh, because I'm happy with the occurrence. Change is gonna come, and now this is a much better shape and form to live through it. I had to understand that it doesn't mean losing oneself, because at the end of the day, the different choice is still a choice. Written down, it looks like I'm just stating the obvious, but it doesn't really become obvious until after that kind of realization.

I'm going to be 21 in April, and two months later, I'll be graduating. And then comes the infinite abyss. Life does happen when we're busy thinking about it, maybe that is why it's hard to grasp it when it does. Maybe that's why a word such as "graduation" would never really sink in, because when it does happen, it still won't be happening on some other level...the one in my head, that is. Then again, that's when I can say that this other level, doesn't really matter now.

Currently high on:
Regina Spektor - Us
Florence and the machine - The dog days are over

7:27

Tell me it's a lie. Tell me that when I'm on the road and the skies are still in their orange darkness hour, as I listen to a song about home, that it's all a lie.

Tell me that when I'm thinking of it and the tears slip before I can realize it, that it's just the effect of years and years of make-believe. Tell me I belong here. Tell me nothing of what I think is waiting, is. Tell me to get out the stack of get-out thoughts out of the car next time I get in. Tell the car to stop making this much sense to me. Tell me to hold on without it necessarily being for one meticulously crafted result. Tell me to sit down, and cry. And then keep telling me not to stop, until the flood washes away everything that stands in my view. Because the view at 7:27 does not look bad, at all.

Words are irrelevant, as of this full-stop.

Except for maybe these:
"Hey, good luck exploring the infinite abyss."

And Say This On Repeat.

On second thought, I should consider practicing my fuck-everything smile more often. Life should not move disproportionally against one's tolerance level.

Currently listening to: Nothing, actually. This is not a music-induced post, for a change.

Yesterday.

Here goes the time of the year where you just know autumn is bound to be around the corner, and that summer can't last as long as it already has.

As great as this piece of fact on its own is to an autumn/winter person, that's not entirely why the first day in every month, as of September each year, have started to wash over me with unreasonable excitement. That reminds me of something, though. Not that long ago, I used to get what's called "weather blues" at times of seasons-changing. So I can safely say my weather-sensitive biological reactions know of only extremes.

But at that, I know I can now induce the other extreme much better. And that is good to know. That is really, really good to know.

On a random note, I believe in birthdays. I always say it's one day the universe owes you. People should take their birthdays seriously. They should let it show them who they've become. They should listen to what that new number is trying to say. It always has useful things to say, regardless of whether it comes in as as a pat on the shoulder or a kick in the stomach.

On a not so random note, however; the skill of not giving a shit when it comes to what shouldn't be given a shit about anymore, is a worthy investment of time and effort, if you ask me.

It's the time of times, again.