Lest there be unwarranted pride

Lives have come crashing down here in the city of Dubai. As I'm sure they have elsewhere.

I confess Dubai never held much appeal to me to begin with. However the prospect of having to leave my family, leave my friends, leave the routine that I've become so accustomed to causes me pain.

Most importantly the idea of leaving the comfort of the well cushioned cocoon that I have created for myself irks me.

I am a class A self criticizing masochist.

I have been down memory lane so many times over the past two weeks, I've reached the point of unravelling and I have to say I feel so isolated.

Did I really do this all to myself? Was I that stupid? And if not, then have I done all this for myself ? Have I been that great? And if neither conclusion is correct, am I to conclude my life has been unremarkable and I am gloriously unremarkable because of it?

Why does it feel like everything I've wanted and half of it have always been inches or miles for all I know out of my grasp.

Why does it seem so easy for others ?

I don't have an answer.

Driving back home last night after midnight down Dubai's empty roads in my car, I felt a sense of loss. Not for Dubai but for the years of my life that I have wasted in futile attempts at being like the rest.

I'm not like the rest. I never was.

I don't belong anywhere.

There is not a single place outside of myself that I find myself.

There is not a single path that I have not embarked on and subsequently found an independently satisfactory result. A result that I haven't had to flip over a thousand times in order to accept and move on.

I pulled over and opened the glove compartment reaching for the ancient CD stack. I found what I was looking for and pushed it in to the CD player.

Submissive, defeated, and reaching out for compromise.

Who do I turn to? Who do I talk to ? Who do I tell ?

More poignantly who will understand and who will care?

I have to leave and I don't hate leaving. I hate that I have to face the unknown again. It brings out my vulnerability.

The unknown holds the almost definite possibility of hurt.

I've worked so hard to establish this routine and although I gripe about it at times, it protected me, it coddled me, and it nurtured me slowly but surely. I accept that nothing extraordinary may have happened to me but when you've lived my life all you want is ordinary. Just plain ordinary. It fills the void with a numbness that serves you and assists you in navigating plainness because even plain and boring can make you go crazy if you let it. But when the alternative is what it is, you accept it wholeheartedly.

And however puzzling it may be it occurred to me last night that if given the chance even if it were in return for crippling payment I would like, no love to live my life over again. I would definitely do somethings over again but there are things I would never do again. I cannot truthfully say that I have learnt from those things positively. All I have learnt is fear and withdrawal.

Maybe it is pride that compels me to choose a do - over and maybe it is that I long for the clock to turn back so I can fix what went wrong. I know that that is just not possible. I also know that its not too late but knowing me, who I am on the inside has not really changed. Therefore I opt for the mundane, the routine, and the unexciting.

I'm still me. I'm still emotional. I'm still sensitive. I'm still proud. I'm still stubborn. I'm still searching for a love greater than life itself. I'm still profoundly stupid. I'm still incapable of fulfilling myself completely on my own and I'm still afraid that I will never be happy with what I have and never will I learn to love what I have.


What's more, I am still wondering what it is that I have to do, what it is that I need to do, who it is I have to be in order for someone to love me. I'm still trying to find my place in this world.

There, I said it.

I don't know the answer to that. I have never known it. All I know is I have to be myself. Unfortunately, that self is not good enough or maybe its too good.

But I digress.

In the place of all of this, I created a shell in which I have lived in over the past 3 years. There is a me that sees people, interacts with people, goes through life, lives it everyday and all the sadness and fear that I carry get boxed up every morning and put on the proverbial shelf and left to lie there until I return at the end of the day and pull out the box and add more to it.

I speak things other than what I wish to speak and I react in ways different to which I feel. I don't mean to say that I am not myself. What I mean to say is that everything I put out there is an abbreviated, condensed, and filtered version of the real me. Toned down, unemotional, and may sometimes be perceived as curt or harsh but ultimately is intuitive and brings about the end result to what may have otherwise been a prolonged and unnecessary interaction. An exchange that may have required an emotional investment with no ROI.

All they see is happy, strong, collected, and in control. I always compromise hoping that someone else will compromise for me too.

And I wonder to myself all the time when will there ever be someone willing to give me a little of their time and consideration without having the obligation of friendship. Friendships which to me now seem fleeting at best in some cases and in others just a position to be filled. That's not to say that there are one or two people who have left semi-lasting impressions on me. That's only to say that they are far and few in between.

And true to the intent of condensing myself, I have been afraid to say so many things on my blog for the longest time.

I have been blogging non-consistently for the past 3 years now.

I started at a time in my life where I mistakenly believed I had an opinion worth listening to. Some kind of deluded commentary on life in Dubai. What I was really trying to do was to find myself in the middle of all the confusion and in the center of all the noise with Dubai as a backdrop. And what an ill backdrop it has been.

Sometime though around February 18th of 2007 I realized I had become too depressed and too sad and ultimately in my eyes a whining, nagging, 29 year old unattached arab female who could not write anything for my blog without seeming like I had nothing in my life that offered fulfillment outside of the definitions of a relationship, an attachment, or even marriage.

I tried to not let that seep through the blog. I tried to tell myself I can do it. And sometimes it would come through, the loneliness that is, and it would find its way through on to the blog. And I would try to disguise it with a non-defeated air. Paint away my sadness and my self-pity and replace them with brighter more cheerful tones. I succeeded in fooling myself. Those that read the blog most probably and in all likelihood are aware of the truth of how I feel.

They already know that I am afraid, hurt, and mostly unhappy with my life but by the same token they recognize that I am tenacious and I try and try and try again in small ways and sometimes big ways to fix things. To find better ground. They also know that I sometimes succeed momentarily but entirely un-notably

So I've realized a few things today.

This is my blog. I'm going to write what I feel in it and on it without shame. Should you wish to read it you are more than welcome.

These are my thoughts, my feelings, my hopes and my dreams however futile, petty, small or completely worthless they may be in the grand scheme of things, I need to express them.

I don't belong anywhere. I never did. There is not a place on this earth or in this universe that I know of or can envision that I can call my own or home. That is a fact of my life.

While everyone else has a particular social group they find themselves within, or can relate too, I find myself nowhere. Westerners in general don't understand me but for the most part attempt to accept me with no real emotional effort put into it. I'm a safe muslim and a moderate one. I do not offend and I offer the option of having the token arab within the group. With arabs, I am at a loss. The few arab friends with similar backgrounds that I have have either gone so far down the spectrum of becoming completely westernized or completely islamified leaving no room for a middle ground. While the other arabs that I know who do not share my upbringing and who have continuously been fed the same constant messages throughout their lives find me to difficult to be with I'm sure.

I'm in the uncomfortable middle. I don't think people are meant to be in the middle for long.

I've been here forever.

I was just starting to accept it after having put so much effort into beautifying it and finding ways I could make it tolerable, livable, and only mildly painful.

Now I have to leave it and start all over again.

And that makes me want to cry.