God bless good people

Since the day I live in Egypt I meet great people. With heart made of gold. They love me so much that I feel uncomfortable.

I have very strong feelings for them. As I am older than them (the last years am older than anyone I met, so I feel that I am older than life) my feelings are mixed.

I am their friend, of course. I am their “teacher”. I “teach” them another kind of life, strange, different and they teach me theirs’.

I feel a deep affection for these persons without a future. This is the result of years’ bad governing and all these poor creatures try to make their life without any help or any prospect. Even the ones that have a job, the conditions and the salary are deplorable.

Maybe is the mother instinct that makes me feel an endless sweetness for these young friends of mine and a true devotion.

Sometimes I give them something insignificant (and I don’t mean thing or material, I mean emotion, knowledge, advice, information) for me that finally is very precious for them and they react like I have gift them the heaven and the stars.

They suffer when they cannot help me to solve a problem of mine. They are really upset when someone hurts me or treat me bad.

My whole existence is conquered by a deep love for all of them.

Since the day I am here, I wish one thing every day: “I wish I have the power to give them a dignified future full of security, love and fulfilled dreams. OH! LORD. HELP GOOD PEOPLE OF THE EARTH. They need you. I, with my poor powers, cannot do anything”.

OH, LORD, I’m BEGGING YOU, REALLY, HELP THE GOOD PEOPLE!

Waiting to live

I have an aunt; she is almost 80 years old now. She is a deeply religious person (fact that doesn’t guarantee the goodness of her character).

During my childhood, I remember my grandmothers (her mother and my granny), my mother and her sisters and the whole family trying to find the proper suitor for the spinster.

An endless effort to find one man for her. All the family tried to convince her about the graces of her future husband (and the marriage of course).

I remember my mother to enumerate the advantages: he is not womanizer, he has a very good job, a car (these years was something rare), he is a gentle person… And the list was going on.

But, as we all know very well, if someone doesn’t like something, there is always a “but”.

“Yes, but, he likes to drink…” was the answer of my aunt.

“Yes, but, he has a mother and she will come to live with us…”.

“Yes, but, he is ugly and short…”

And this list was going on too… She didn’t like anyone.

Two lists. One against the other. And finally her list, the list of the unmarried daughter, was the winner. She never got married.

All my life as a kid, I remember her to open a trunk… You see, the picture is complete. Every spinster that respects her “spinster-ness” has a trunk.

This trunk was full of stuff: silk textiles with very vivid colors, delicate night dresses, cosmetics with strong smell…

Jewelries, lingerie of white expensive cotton (colorful lingerie was a scandal these years too), small woman’s things: leather wallet, silk socks, a pair of gloves to help her wear the silk socks without destroying them, several kinds of laces…

But this object that really was making my childish imagination burning was a pair of blue mules. An uncle of mine, that was studying Medicine in Turkey, brought them for her. Blue and silver crewels, made by oriental technique, with colorful stones. I adored these slippers. I was jealous. I always wanted something like that.

This trunk was a magic universe for me. So many strange things. So many beautiful, colorful things, pieces of the adults’ life.

But the shoes, the blue mules… For which princess was made for? For what kind of life? For nights full of passion, when woman waits for her man and after a blessing dinner gift him herself, because love obliges her to do it… Nights that she will convert in odalisque for him and make him feel like prince… So many passions, so many feelings, so many love…

She never wore them, or something else of the trunk things. She never got married.

There are many persons that put a limit in their life and they are waiting to live after it. A limit determined with an event.

Her limit was her marriage… She didn’t live; she is still waiting to live. She never had any kind of pleasure, because it was out of the limit. Away from the limit, different from the limit. Unpermitted from the limit. Forbidden…  

Spent lives without a reason, except of the triumph of the limit.

Who has the courage to live out of limits (not only the time ones)?

Even the time that we are waiting to live is life. Our life that goes away and never returns!

Why is so difficult to understand that. Why the progress never help us to understand the important things of life. Why is so difficult to live?

God save the routine

We always blame the routine; we load on her “back” everything. Our misery, our misfortune, our inefficiency, our weakness, our failure…

Routine is like a big house that has place for all.

I blame the routine too. I hate the repeated every day actions: the same things at work, the same clothes in wardrobe, the same scents and perfumes in the bathroom, the same food everyday, the same way of entertainment…

Oh Lord! Give me something new! Oh Lord! I am so tired of the routine…

Oh Lord, release me… Oh Lord, I want to escape… Oh Lord…

But one day succeeds the other and the daily life is exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the time we do the things, because we don’t finish work every day. The super market time, for example, is not always the same. And the list of the necessities too.

But, there are some moments in life, that we realize the blessing of the existence of routine.

Sometimes, I catch myself transfer the newly washed clothes from the washing machine to the drying loft. Exactly the same moment I bless my luck, because I have a house, a washing machine, money to buy the detergents and finally I have clothes.

Except of this, you realize many other things. When you are a lonely person, for example, and you spend your holiday time in your house, wearing your pajamas and walking around an empty house, doing absolutely nothing, you are waiting for the day that work begins. The night before, you have your shower, you take care of yourself, you prepare your clothes… And the next day that the clock sounds, you wake up so happy…

You go to work, you see your colleagues, you do the same things and you are happy.

And moments like this, you really appreciate the existence of routine.

Routine saves us from many, many things.

Just think a little…

Game over

My dearest Mr. Winter! My dearest you! What shall I do without you? You say the most emotional and wise things without knowing...

Like all the genius persons, you don’t understand what you worth!

You are always wiser than me. You are always one step ahead, in spite that you are so much younger than me.

I just want to say to you that sometimes I feel so tired and desperate and lost and terrified. I admit it. I am not so strong and I don’t have as much courage as you think I have.

Yes, Mr. Winter, “Game over”. Don’t freak out. It is normal.

Yes Mr. Winter “Game over”. This is the end. The end of many things. You don’t know my life as I don’t know yours. But sometimes you have to end a game. Even if you don’t want to start a new one, you have to finish the old one.

Yes I am stuck, I am trapped, disappointed, unhappy, afraid, terrified, out of power…

I want to leave and start a new life in another place, hoping for better luck, life, money, work, salary, etc, etc…

Sometimes I cry, because I don’t see any way out. I cannot understand that, even despite of my personal misery, I am at the light side of life.

Some moments I feel like I am 200 years old, like I am the most failed persons of the world. The most useless, the most antisexual. The most unlucky person of the world. Sometimes I feel that I am fool of effects with nothing good.

I want to shoot myself or -to be more specific- I beg someone to shoot me.

I am snailing, I am crying, I am empty.

And then, for me, the game is over. I really want to stop this game. But I cannot.

But, you know, bad mood is like virosis. It has three days life.

You asked me, with all the love of your heart “Can’t you RESTART the game?”

And as you wisely ascertained “yes, I can”.

I can Mr. Winter. I can. That’s why I am here. Because I have and endless energy and appetite to live. Even when everything around me is black and I see only the misery of life.

Dear, Mr. Winter, I want to make a confess to you: “Misery is not a word for Farah”.

Trust me. “Game over” will come with my last breath.

Relax, my dearest. I cannot feel misery with you in my life!

<3

Affronting “Never”

Have you ever thought the real dimension of the world “never”? The real one.

Do you know the difference between “I have never tasted chocolate ice cream” and “I shall never have a baby?”, “I shall never go to America” and “I shall never have a common life with my real friends?”

I don’t want to continue. It is very hard. I think you understand the difference.

But how many “never” can stand a human being? How many “never” can someone affront?

I was born 1.60, I shall never be taller.

My salary is all my life 800 euros. It will never be better.

I always wanted a house and a car. I shall never acquire them.

I always wanted someone to want to be by my side. Just this. Nothing else. It never happened and it will never happen.

My real friends live far away from me. I shall never have a common life with them.

I shell myself to the devil to change my life, but it will never happen!

I would like to have another life. It will never happen.

I would like to have a warm house in the winter, but I shall never have a house like this.

Never, never, never, never… Millions of never1

How many “never” are suitable for one only human being?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I was in a very difficult period of my life and a friend of mine -God bless her- told me: “Now, you are confused. You see only the black part of life. Please, do me a favor. Take pen and paper and start to make a list. Separate the paper in two and put from one side the symbol of (+) and from the other the symbol of (-). Under these symbols, write the good and the bad think of the situation you are in. You will see that even now there are positive things in your life!”

I reject the idea, but in a moment, I said “why not?” and I took paper and pen.

I started writing, believing that I do something ridiculous and useless.

Of course I started with the (-). I wrote almost 10 parameters in a breath. And I continued. When my anger died down, I started to think what I can write in (+).

The fact, that there are things to write in (+) even in the darkest situations of your life, surprised me.

And finally I realized that the (+) was not only one thing. I couldn’t believe it. This “silly”, until this moment, list make me feel better. And the fact there was at least one positive thing in this hell, for me was a big surprise.

And after this a second and a third… “Every cloud has a silver line”. This is the English apodosis of the Greek proverb «ουδέν κακόν, αμιγές καλού».

When you try to climb a very difficult mountain, you haven’t kicked your own foot. It is not fair and it is not clever too.

This naïve kind of reaction in the difficulties -believe it or not- is very helpful.

It is a kind of facing the real dimension of the problem.

And the real dimension of a problem -except of some particular situations- it’s not as grave as we think.

When you will try to find the real word to describe a situation, it will help you to realize the size of the problem. For example, if you write the world “tragedy”, maybe after some seconds you’ll see that this word is too much!

Try to do it. It is a relief!  

Ode to weakness

How is to feel weak all your life? Weak, insecure, terrified, afraid, unprotected, coward…

How is when you cannot speak, you don’t have any other feeling than fear?

How is life when you are not enough for anything? When in every project of yours, something is missing.

When always you realize that you are insufficient? “Small”? Pathetic?

When you can never finish something because you are weak (we don’t care about the reasons of this weakness)? We you are convinced (fairly or unfairly) that you are weak and react like this?

When all your life feels like you are closed in a place just a little bit more than your size and actually you cannot move? When all your life feels that you decide, but finally is the box around you that decides?

How is when you feel like Scarlett O’Hara, when he says to Ashley Wilkes, “Nothing in my life happened as I wished”?

How you’ll find the courage to continue and for what reason, when every time you make a step ahead, life kicks you back to the beginning again?

When you never had things that for all the others are obvious?

When your heat is flying and you are ready to rule the world, but you are not even able to rule your own life? When your insecurity drives the boat of your life?

When you have never felt what success is?

How is life when you are afraid even of your shadow? When every moment of your life a secret fear -that you cannot exactly understand its source- scratches your heart every day and every beat of its is an hurtful pain?

When the “whens” with question marks and the “hows” become more and more every day?

What happen in life when you realize that you are a weak person? That in case that you have any other advantage, your weakness covers every thing?

When you discover that you are not able to spread your winds? You cannot move your feet more than the distance that life has decided for you?

When every night when you dream your ideal life you hear only three words: “you are weak, you are nothing”?

Carrying the cross

Some people have a very hard life and this is not fair for them. We come to this life without our acquiescence, we leave without this and (except of a few cases) during our existence we live as life (God, future, fortune, kismet, etc) wants to live.

We don’t live according our will. We come to this world and we are called to carry a cross. Everyone his own.

Some occasions are very hard, without people deserve it, and I really don’t know why they have to carry a so heavy cross. Maybe it is true that we live many lives and in every one we pay for everything bad we have done in a previous life.

I really don’t know. Me, personally, believe that in this life we pay our personal fears. Our personal demons. We fight them. We are always in an eternal fight with them.

I want to ask about carrying “the cross of no life”.

You are alive, healthy, full of appetite to live, but you don’t. Life doesn’t permit it to you. The doors of life are closed for you. You are always chasing your life, but you are like the dog that chases his own tale. He can never catch it.

Like you cannot catch your life. You lose your time trying to live, but in vain. You always take the wrong decision and the only thing you manage is to lose your life.

You meet wrong people, you make the wrong job, and you do all the wrong things that drive you exactly to a gap. To a life without life.

What are you doing then? You are alive. Your body, your heart, your mind are hungry for life. But you don’t live.

Why. You are wondering what your crime is. What is this sin that you have to pay a so expensive price? But there is no answer. You spend your life to solve this mystery, but there’s no answer.

This life is chosen for you and you have to live it!

A dot in a page

Have you ever felt that you want to be a dot in a page –and especially in one page that no one wants to open- when the things in your life are not like you want?

When your courage is over? When you cannot find the power to continue? When all your life seems without any meaning?

When I am in a situation like this, this is what I wish “to be a dot in a book”. 

What a wonderful sense. To feel absolutely safe. In a place that no one can touch you. No one can hurt you. No one can use you.

Wonderful. It is a place that I think everyone has invented for himself. For me, is a page in a book, for someone else, for example, maybe is the sea sand, the water, a tree in the forest. In a place that nobody can distinguish you between the others, so you can continue you life easily and quietly.

I wish existed a place like this. A safety box for every one.

In the moments that you feel so weak, so vulnerable, so fragile life might to open you the door of the safety box.

A place like a dollhouse that no one can get inside. There is a place for special habitants only.

Sometimes, when I sleep after a very difficult day, and I cover myself tight with my blanket, I feel that every fear disappears. And then, I don’t care about the tough day I had. I make a fantastic word in my mind that I live there only with my beloved persons and everything is perfect.

There is a spiritual exercise in one of the Asian arts (I don’t remember, I think in yoga) that says to you: Every night close your eyes and open the door of your house (chose a house with courtyard to have one more door. Open the door and “welcome” any person you don’t like. Start this way “Welcome Mary, welcome John, welcome Larry…” and when every one pass the courtyard and get in the house, then you close the door behind them. And when everyone is comfortable, you open the door and say “get out Mary, get out John, get out Larry…” and when all the guests are gone you close the door behind them. You do it until all these persons stop hurting you.

It is not as easy as it seams. In the beginning, you feel fear to say “go out” to your boss for example, or to a very hard colleague.

Step by step!

But when you do it, it is like a rose blooms in your heart. And after this, maybe you don’t need the page anymore.

No return…

There some mistakes in your life, that you do them and after this, there is no way to correct, to take them back or to “repair” the situation.

Like the hero in “Dolls”. He left his love for another one and when she tried to kill herself, he went back to her. But for what?

He made the mistake and, after it, nothing was the same anymore.

This happens to everyone.

In a moment, we do something and, after it, everything changes. It is destroyed. There is no recover anymore.

The guy returned to her, she forgave (?) him because she was absolutely devoted to him, she was living for him, but… will she trust him again 100%?

This is movie and in the movies the things are different and the scripts are not like life.

Would you trust someone that betrayed you and leave you, in case that he will be back again?

Maybe yes. Depends on the person, but I think that some mistakes (different for every one of us) are always between us and as hard as we try to overcome them, it is impossible. They are like the soul traumas. You pass over them, you don’t overcome them.

You stop think your problem every moment, in spite of that it is always in your mind, you cover it temporary and you continue your life.

I think this is the way. If we want to continue, this is the only way.

In this coverage help many things: drugs, alcohol, psychiatrics, religion, but the ALL are temporary crutches.

But we cannot avoid mistakes (serious or no). This is our nature. The problem that we live with them every moment of our life, more than that we live with our good actions.

At least we have to let them teach us!  

Is the repentance enough?

“Dolls III”.

The man after his betraying regretted and returned to her lover, but for what?

She stayed between life and death, logic and madness, understanding and no understanding. She still obeys to him and because the object of her obedience is missing, she lives kike a doll: she moves, lives, acts exactly as a doll. Without energy and appetite for life.

She is dead. She lives, moves, acts, reacts, thinks automatically. Without any sense or emotion. Only the instinct works. The nature.

After all her drama, the guy, acting under the pressure of the obligation, of duty or love (we don’t know and we don’t care) returns to her. But what now?

He keeps her obedience vow, but now it is too late.

She is happy? We don’t know. Maybe she is like the drug addicts that they need the drugs to live, without that means that they love or want them.

He came back to her, after a try to marry another woman to complete his “love vow”.

But now it is too late.

What happen when some things come late, they come when we don’t need them, or, even when we need them, and it is too late?

Could he repair her damaged mind, he hurt soul, her empty mind? She was following him, because for her this was something natural, but his care came after everything.

When the trauma is too deep and the betraying so big the logic cannot find any reason to forgive. Yes, the soul does it, because this is its job… its duty.

But what about the heart, the logic? No, even if we accept this forgiveness, somewhere deep inside, a thorn will always bothers…

Like the chickpea in the princess bed. What does it worth the “sorry’, “forgive me”, “it was beyond my control”, etc, etc…

I am not against the forgiveness, but the declaration of guilt sometimes is useless. Especially in case that the other person loses everything and there is no life for it after the betraying and the abandonment.

The other person, with the magnificence of its soul, forgives. But what about the guilty one? Regrets for his “crime” or for himself? He wants the forgiveness to soften the other’s pain or to make himself feel better?

I don’t know and I don’t like to be unfair.

The only proof for this is the qualms of conscience that the guilty feels and how calm is his sleep.

We pay the price for everything in this life!

Abandonment

“Dolls” and Takeshi Kitano again. This movie is an apocalypse.

There’s a short cut in the film -after the separation of the couple- that is very hard for me. I cannot understand it, I cannot accept it.

Before the abandonment, the lady was going every day in the same place, sitting on the same bench and taking lunch, that she had prepared, with her lover.

After his betraying, every day, at lunch time, she stays alone, waiting for him… but… he doesn’t come.

She sits at the same bench with empty eyes, empty life, empty soul, empty future, trying to understand not why her obedience didn’t appreciate, but why?

She didn’t ask for anything. Why? Why this? Why?

This “why” that after a big love, any kind of love, drives us crazy. This “why” make us feel fool, stupid, insufficient, unable… all the “un” and “imp” of the world.

Her empty eyes show her pain, her craziness, her abandonment, her empty life, her “nothing”. Her empty eyes prove her bind obedience, her absolute love to him, her wondering about what happened. 

She denied her life to be with him, but he left her. She asked him nothing, but he left her. She gave him everything, but he left her.

The problem in this life is that we cannot put limits with the persons we love. We surrender without any credits, conditions, contracts, without asking any kind of payment or repayment.

And this is a characteristic of women (mostly).

Devotion runs in their blood! They don’t have limits when they love and especially when they are in love.

And even when they are abandoned, they are following the abandoner. Is this masochism? I am not a psychiatric. I cannot analyze. But I don’t think so. This is the way she knows.

This is a tragedy. This is a sign that we don’t respect ourselves. I will not blame the stereotypes one more time.

Everybody is responsible for his actions. Are we really. I don’t criticize, because I don’t know what kind of traumas they have. I am not sure even for mine.

Maybe it is true love. But even in the most extreme type of love there are limits. We have to keep the “safe distance”, to be sure that we shall survive. This is nature. Personally, when I didn’t keep the distances I lost very much (except some exceptions, all persons are not the same).

The poor lady, alone in the bench, broke my heart. She stays there and she proves the magnificence of love, the magnificence and the altruism of human nature. And at the same time it is the proof that the one that doesn’t “protect” him pays, always.

I know that he doesn’t ask for anything, but –finally-this emptiness is not fair for anyone.

Not fair. Blind obedience for what?

Is is a proof of one’s soul, but does it worth?

Stereotype or nature?

Yesterday I watch at last “Dolls” by Takeshi Kitano. It was very famous in my country.

I didn’t even know the story of the film.

“It is about absolute obedience” my roommate told me.

Yes, the movie was very special and its aesthetics was fantastic, but something bothered me. Something inside me…

For one more time the woman was the victim. The woman suffered. The woman cheated.

I don’t know. I was born girl, I grew up as a girl, but for me, I am not a girl.

I am just a HUMAN BEING.

Let me explain.

I hate the stereotypes and especially the ones that have to do with women, because I cannot find any reason to them. They give us nothing. They put them in our minds and they ruin us.

“Even if my husband has much money, I’ll continue working” (have you ever heard these words from a man). “Look at this heartless woman, she abandoned her children” (but this is normal for a father). I don’t want to continue, I think you understand very well what I mean.

I don’t understand this. I work not because I am a woman, but because I need money to live. As I don’t have any money, I work. If the other part has money, I don’t care, because this is not my money. I’ll continue work, because I don’t have any other choice. I cook my meals, because I have to eat, not because I am a woman. I clean my house; I do my shopping for the same reasons.

I don’t understand why I have to die from hunger if I am a man? What is this kind of intelligence that makes me able to fry and egg and a man no?

I have sex and I fall in love, because this is the human nature. Of course I have different way to approach them; of course I have different hormones…

My disagreement is that I cannot always be the victim. And I don’t know why the woman is the victim. Because of her nature or because of the stereotypes.

This lady in the movie almost paid with her life her love. I don’t care what happened after this action. If she died?

Who has the winner? Love? Nature. The stereotype?

She was not, this is dead sure.

Maybe she likes this way, because she, like me, reacts like a human being and not like a woman. But she was the lost one of the story.

This is what bothers me. That our mind (male and female) never works clearly.

Except of the natural reaction, there is something else: the stereotype (u can call it family, mentality, school, education, areas customs, nature, etc).

I don’t care how someone lives, if he is happy, but is he really?

This woman in the movie destroyed her life. How many cases like this you know that concern a man?

I am not against men. I consider that they are more perfect creatures than women, because her soul is clearer.

But man are there ones that “cultivate and keep’ the stereotypes. And we, the women are trapped in them because of our extreme emotion or because of lack of courage or because this is the only way we know.

I don’t blame anyone. I just write my opinion.

PS Stereotype is a Greek word. Sometimes I think that we gave all the bad things to the world (LOL)

Empty…

Sometimes I feel an extreme fear, loneliness without reason.

I just see a photo of a friend of mine or he’s talking to me about a day out with his friend and I feel pain. I feel empty.

This moment I feel empty, alone, abandoned. This is not truth, I know. And I am not a jealous person at all. I don’t think that a person belongs to another. I don’t understand possessiveness in human relationships (except the normal one).

I don’t have any right on no one, I know, but sometimes, when I see that the life of my friends doesn’t include me, I am dead sad. I think I lost them.

I don’t know why it happens. I am not a psychologist to analyze such things. But it happens.

I feel that my friends throw me out of their lives. They can live without me. They don’t need me. They can go on without me. Things happen in their lives and I don’t know them. Maybe they’ll tell me about them by the way one day.

I am not part of their lives or even I am, I am not a precious one. I cry, I get mad, I get sad, I disappoint, I don’t know. I feel my heart so heavy and the same time I feel empty.

I don’t know. Maybe I grow old and I leave emotion rule my life and not the logic.

Maybe I feel extremely lonely. Maybe I am jealous.

But sometimes, when I am out with a friend of mine, I think that this time, someone of my other friends is “out of the scenery” this time. And then I think “oh, of course I love him and he loves me even if we don’t live together 24 hours in a day”.

And then the logic controls again and I feel better. But what happen to me and the emotion take the place of logic?

I don’t like it. I judge people unfairly. I don’t like to be unfair. I hate it.

But I consider the important thing is that I understand what happen and I don’t have the problem to talk with them and solve any kind of problem.

To apologize, to say “mea culpa”, to ask them “why”, “how” and all these adverbs that help a conversation to go on.

Isn’t it GOOD LUCK?