Hands

I can't get enough of his hands...
On my face, in my hair, on my neck, on my back, holding mine...

They're driving me crazy.

Skin on skin, touch to stroke.

A million little things said in silence as they move.

I can't get enough of his hands.

On the tribulations of letting go

I am an engineer. And even though i have not earned one day's living being one, i am one nonetheless, and being an engineer means that i have spent five years of my life being taught certain things. I have spent five years being formatted to understand that there are many solutions to any given problem, but we are meant to only rest when we find the fastest most efficient and consistent solution, that there is always an explanation to any dilemma, and that we have no choice but to persevere. We spend five years learning how to solve problems, and to never rest unless the riddle is unraveled. I am very much an engineer in how i deal with my life, not my work, my life. I think logically, i mind map any situation, i recognize motives, actions and reactions, i retain objectivity, i am methodological and consistent, i do not lose sight of the ball, i persevere like you would never believe, i do all this subconsciously, i am such a good engineer that i do this by nature, it is no effort to me, it is how i am.

I cannot not understand, i cannot make peace without understanding, i always need to know why. This is what lies at the core of my discontentment with religion, this is why i am not completely over what certain people have put me through, this is why i am often skeptical, and other times too trusting. It all comes down to just how much i understand about you or it.

It's a curse but i just can't let go until i understand why... why?

I am also, a writer, a poet, a free spirit. I am passionate and impulsive to a fault, i am in love with all emotions, i ride the roller coaster of life like one would a passionate lover, like one would move in a contemporary dance; i let go and let it throw me all over the place. I have done this from so early on that rarely do i face an emotion that i have not known before. I know anger from anguish, anxiety from abuse, excitement from insecurity, love from lust and passion from infatuation. I know trust from denial, i know willfulness from desperation, i know sadness from heartache, i know emotions.

When you spend a decade trying to understand every emotion life throws your way in order to handle it practically to be able to yield the fastest most efficient outcome, you are someone like me, someone who believes she can have it all, the fullness of feeling everything, and the sanity of understanding every second of it as well.
You are probably someone, who like me, is so exhausted that you need 8 hours of sleep every day. You are probably someone who needs a lot of quiet alone time. You, like me, probably have trouble accepting that sometimes you just have to let go without understanding.
You are probably someone with either emotions in the way of your logic, or logic in the way of your emotions.

You are probably someone who, like me, wish you could just let go without the periodic nag and dire need to understand.... why?

Your World

Falling
In love, in lust, in protection
I am
Resisting, like drowning
I gasp for one last breath
of fresh air
I look, deep into
right through you
I know you
I am
safe, safer
than ever possible
with any other man
Yet still, it feels, like falling
like shedding
the one last layer
that keeps me far
from nightmares and longings
and heartaches of various
natures and reasonings
and letting go
I know that it seems
much simpler
for you to love me
and stroke and adore me
and brush my hair
To be yours and be happy
Falling
Resisting
I am
Fighting
And i know you'll win
We both know you'll win me
over to safety
over to you
Falling
In love, in lust, in protection
Falling i am
into your world

Marriage

He wants to get married. He didn't get down on one knee and propose, he didn't tell me after months of figuring out the perfect way to ask, he just wants us to get married, and he says it every day. Every time he takes me home at the end of the night, he tells me that if we were married he would not have to take me home. He manages to squeeze it into every conversation as a solution to all our problems.
He just wants to marry me.
He wants to share a home and life with me.
He wants me to raise his kids and cook his meals.
He wants me sleeping next to him every night.
He wants to spend his life in the same home with me.

Why can't i bring myself to say yes?

Mortality

No matter how much time i spend with you now, that day is still out there...

Waiting.....

To be lived.

I always knew you were mortal....

But now that i have a clock pressed against my heart.

I can't.

I can't.

You are all i have ever known.

God give me strength.

Peace

He gives me peace.
All of a sudden, it's so easy. I almost can't remember what i was struggling with all these years.
He always holds my hand.
He always gets the door.
He's always there should i need him.
He always wants to see me.

He gives me space.

He sits next to me for hours in silence, even though i know i am more secure in us, he lets me be.

He sleeps after and wakes up before me, a classic sign of more interest.
But he just holds me till i sleep or wake, and i don't mind.

I am enjoying the security of being with someone i can trust.

He doesn't lie. He's a know it all. We bicker like kids, and laugh about it later.

He doesn't mind my moods, or minds them and doesn't show it.

He's patient.
He watched me go through everything i went through.
He understands my turbulence.

He knows that he is the first man more stable than me to take me on.
He knows what that entails, patience.

Time for my turbulence to find peace in his stability.
Time for me to be ready to let myself fall one more time.

One more time.

We pick out wallpaper and tear down walls and pick out names.
And after i realize we're doing that he holds my hand and asks me not to freak out.
He reminds me that i have time.
That he is not going anywhere.

This is a nice place to be.

He gives me peace, and i am oh so thankful for it.

Kuwait

Three months ago i was offered to go to NYC to sub in a work function, i declined, i was just back from NYC, broke (paying off the trip to NYC), and i can't fly over the Atlantic twice in 1 year - fear of flying, vertigo and fear of heights. Last Thursday i was asked to fly to Kuwait as they needed someone last minute and my British passport means that i don't need a visa, making one of two people in the company who could sub in this function at such short notice, i accepted, i'm weird, i accept going to Kuwait and decline NYC, the reason? I wanted to go somewhere i had never been before.

I've been here 48 hours, i still don't have much to say about this country other than that it is so quiet and not crowded that i feel like i'm in a movie set not a city, and that its very strange being in a city where going for a drink is literally not an option.

This is a quick update for those emailing me asking where i've been. I've been working and going out and all the time i spend at home i catch up on missed sleep and try to watch the shows my mom tapes for me as fast as she tapes them! I have no tragic dramatic events to report for a change, but will figure out a way to turn my currently "normal" life to interesting posts.

Thanks for asking!

N

Eat, Pray, Love

An excerpt:

".....I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than i care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and then i have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance i have been a victim of my own optimism."

I think that is the best expressed written paragraph i have ever read.

Yoga

I do yoga.
I do it twice a week religiously.
I do it even if i am sick, or have to reschedule work.
I do yoga.
My yoga instructor, my teacher, says that everyone does yoga for their own reasons, the only important thing is that you know why you do yoga, so that you can find what you seek.
Let me think.
I do yoga because i like the feeling of pushing myself farther than i can go, and getting there.
Because i like how it feels when i am finally comfortable with a very uncomfortable position.
Because i like feeling the pain of muscles i didn't know i had.
I do yoga because i get to lie on the ground in the middle of the room.
I do yoga because i get to sit still, and switch off my phone, and forget about the world.
I do yoga because it is the only discipline i practice in my life, and it's good to know that i am capable of discipline.
I do yoga because i get to listen to my body, and i get my body to listen to me.
I do yoga because i get to get my mind to shut up.
I do yoga because ever since i started my neck and back stopped hurting, and i can bend and squat without thinking.
I do yoga because i like chanting in a group, and i like that the words i chant mean nothing to me.
I do yoga because it's self indulgent, and because the more i do it, the better things are.
I do yoga to get better, in whatever sense of the word.

At the beginning of every class my teacher talks to us about something, today she talked about having our hearts not too closed, and not too open, having our hearts in balance. In case you didn't know, yoga is all about balance. Then she talked about forgiveness, "forgive the person, but not the act", she talked about forgiveness for a while and then proceeded with the chant that starts our class.

I can't forgive. I want to, but i can't. All through today's class i tried to forgive, i tried to separate myself from the past, separate my experience from the person, separate the person from the act. With every movement and impossible stretch and hold i tried to will my body to let go of it all, "it doesn't matter" i told my body, "you're wasting life" i told my mind. It had been a very long time since i felt myself struggle like that.

My class ended, and as i was tying my shoe laces my teacher sought me out with her eyes and asked me if i was better. It is common practice for a class member to hang back after the rest had left to consult with my teacher on one thing or the other, but i never had.
I sat at her desk, and told her my thoughts without filtering.

"I can't forgive."

"It isn't easy."

"But I know i must, in my mind i have, but in my heart i can't."

"It takes time, it will happen on it's own"

"But in my mind i believe that i must, i want to, for me, i can't bear it, i have never not forgiven anyone, no matter."

"Do you want revenge?"

"No."

"Do you feel self pity?"

"No."

"Then what do you think is stopping you?"

"Pride."

"What was done to you was no about you, you do see."

"In my mind i know that, but a part of me just can't accept that this was done to me."

"You will get there, so long as you keep wanting to."


I do yoga because in the world of yoga this language is normal and unpretentious.

I do yoga because it is the embodiment of the belief of yoga that i can make myself get better, in whatever sense of the word, and nothing is better than that feeling of power over me.

F You! (or it's equivalent in arabic)

I did something today that i never ever thought i would do, could do; i gave a man the finger while driving. He did nothing that is exceptional to Cairo driving etiquette, he was coming onto the mansoureya road from a side road too fast and was about to cut me off had i not swerved to the left and insisted on reserving my right to keep going as i was on the main road. But for some odd reason, i was in such a foul mood that i actually did what i have so often resisted doing, after he started cursing and throwing his hands around in protesting gestures, i looked him straight in the eye through my rear view mirror, and gave him the finger while mouthing profanities at him.
I felt a surge of liberation that lasted about ten seconds, after which i realized that i am on the mansoureya road, that this guy could very well jam his old car into my semi-new baby and attempt to scare me off the road into the horrendous ter3a bellow. I locked my doors and pressed on the gas, in what resulted in him lighting a cigarette and engaging me in a car chase that lasted all of 15 minutes where i displayed unbelievable driving skills that even i didn't know i had. I swerved between tractors, karetas and vespas which such smoothness watching him getting repeatedly frustrated as he kept getting stuck behind annoying obstacles with every "stitch" i took. My fear augmented with every near escape, as i was sure that if he caught up with me now he would surely screw me over. After fifteen minutes of this fear driven mania, i reached the highway where my baby gave me an easy outlet as his car is minimum 15 years older. As i unclenched my shoulders, I had to ask myself; was it really worth it? Was giving him the finger and the satisfaction it entailed worth the fifteen minutes of tension?

I dare say it was.

Four

I have loved four men in my life. According to statistics that say that the average person falls in love six times in a lifetime, i have only two left, but then again some people fall in love once or twice, and others never fall at all, maybe this would allow me the luxury of falling in and out for the rest of my days... so anyway; four men in my life.
Over the course of the past five years all this has happened. The first one is the only one i knew from longer, this thought leaves me wondering how my life would've been different had i not moved to France... I probably would've still been in love with him.
I am big on learning from my experiences. I am big on so many things as any follower of this blog would have noticed, but one of the things i am biggest on, is learning from my experiences.

My first love is until today my fiercest love, i often wonder how much of that love was abuse, addiction, lust and youthful notions, and the beauty of life is; i will never know. My first love was according to my experience of love, my fiercest, it was the love for someone i would have actually died for, the love for someone i could not bear the thought of being without, it was a love that intoxicated my every thought and action. It was an obsession, it was uncontrollable, an avalanche of emotions that would not stop. I lost friends and family because of him, i lost myself for a long time because of who i was when i wanted him. I was always either ecstatic or devastated. I never gave anyone more, and i never hated myself more than at the end of that relationship. My first love taught me all the terrible things that love can turn into. And from learning that i learnt all the things that i would never do again. My first love taught me self worth, emotional independence, my devastation at the loss of him taught me that nothing was worth losing myself. My first love gave me the basics that many are born with, and i was absolutely unaware of. My first love broke me down so i could build myself again from scratch. My first love is why i moved to France.
My first love taught me, that even when the unimaginable happens, life goes on.

My second love was a dream. He had me at what was possibly even before a first glance, he had me at my being exposed to his aura before we met, he had me at that smile, and the memory holds power over me still. If i counted all the days that i have been with this man, in the geographical sense, they would not amount to two weeks, and they would be scattered months apart. My second love defied distance, defied logic, defied boundaries, my second love was a merging of the souls. Everything was beautiful when i was with him, geographically, spiritually, on the phone or in a dream, everything was beautiful and full of love. Together we were fire, we completed each other's sentences the second day we met, he played the piano for me and i wrote love letters to him. My second love was perfection, my second love was a dream. My second love solidified my belief in other lifetimes, where surely we were lovers all our life, in a time where the circumstances were not so impossible. My second love taught me freedom, my second love taught me that love was absolutely irrational.

My third love was the only real love i ever had. He loved me slowly, and i loved him dearly. He showed me what it was to accept a person fully; he saw wonderment in all i did, and i saw perfection in all his flaws. The only real love i ever had, my third love taught me that love was in the simple things; we cooked, we read, we got drunk, we watched TV, we sat in silence, we walked, we drove, we played, we laughed, he put flowers in my hair and was my nurse when i was sick. My third love taught me all about today, live today, have fun today, you are magnificent today. My third love taught me to be in love with him today, just today, for the better part of a year and a half. He taught me things about the world, simple things and simple ways to use my hands. My third love was a bully with a weak spot for me, he taught me how to scream at him and how to pack his stuff in a bag and gracefully dump it at his feet when he pushed me too far. My third love was a tough guy who let himself be a little boy with me. I loved him dearly, i loved him completely, and the last day i was with him was the last day i could do it and still be on my feet.
My third love taught me that even a love so complete, was not enough.

My fourth love happened to me. There is no other way to put it, he came into my life forcefully, and left unexpectedly, i had very little input to what has been my fourth love, i had consented to neither, and all that is in between is lost to me in a world between fiction and fact. Had my heart not still been burdened with sadness i would not have thought it to have been a love at all, but if i am to be true to myself i must say that i loved, the question of who or what i loved will remain forever unanswered, but i did feel love, and in my books that counts.
My fourth love came into my life for one reason only; to teach me how to be loved. For i believed through-out that he loved me utterly, and adored me endlessly and treated me accordingly, and that was very very hard for me. My fourth love taught me how to be loved, a lesson that no one had succeeded in teaching me before. Had he not been the ruthless man that he is, he would have probably failed. My fourth love taught me to open myself to someones love, and to fall in love as a result of being loved.

After i lost my first love and reaped the consequences of never being able to speak with him again, i vowed never to lose my friend with the lover, with the second forgiveness came easily, and i traveled to the ends of the earth to make sure that i would not lose my friend with the third. My vow broke with the fourth, and it is every bit as sour as i remember it from three years ago. All of these men broke my heart, if not a lot then a little, i often wonder if that is why they are the only memorable ones from a list that is three or four times as long.

Between the four of them i have learnt how strongly i can love and still go on after loss, that it's beautiful to surrender to the madness of love, that love alone in all it's fullness is not enough, and i learnt how to be loved.
I have learnt all this in some of the most beautiful places in the world, i have learnt all this and i am only 27 and now with a man who i know loves me more than all of them did combined.
I have learnt all this and come out sane, oh how i doubted that i would ever call myself sane.

I have loved four men in my life, and i am all the better for it, now please if you have lasted this far down the post, cross your fingers for me that i will not need to do it more than this one more time.

Parts of Me

Love, i write you,
now that i am home
away from the days of being
with you yet alone
love, i write to bid
farewell to that part
that all this while has been
resting in your heart
to the me that one day wanted
a you that's now long gone
Love today i release
the me that only you have known
I write to say goodbye
to the part of me i left with you
Love, i have, i am, i do
a part of me will always
be in love with you

On being Smothered

So i went and got myself into another relationship. I know, don't ask, i actually tried to stay single this time, but it just never works out. And as vain as it sounds, being unable to stay single, it has nothing to do with being super attractive or anything, if you ran into me nineteen times out of twenty i will be without make-up, with messy tied up hair and needing to lose a few kilo's, i frown alot and am not very interested in what most people have to say, i'm aloof and seemingly quite self absorbed, and at work i am seriously no fun. Yet somehow i am never without a man's interest. I think it's the independent flair i give off, i guess men feel that if they can make me need them then they have proven to be more manly than man. Maybe that's the explanation, or whatever.
so anyway, i just wish i knew why men needed to smother women so much? And it's always in the beginning of a relationship, always. Thank God my current guy knows me well enough to know better than to baby talk me like some of my exes, but then again i know him well enough to puke all over him if he did! Why do men treat women like they are toddlers in the beginning of relationships? Why the cuteness factor? You know why it bugs me so much? We all know it's not real. We all know that the men wont be keeping it up, that it's not a genuine emotion, it just comes with the novelty of the relationship i guess, this whole i am crazy about you and i finally got you and you're my little precious thing. Luckily i know better than to up and leave as a result of this, as i have seen how time and time again it dwindles over time.
I just wish i could fast forward the first ten weeks of it, fast forward to the good stuff, the sexy talk, the buddy drinking, the fun trips, the pool games, the bickering over chores.
I like it real, what can i say?

Fast forward, please.

Days of Black

I wont wear black
no i wont wear black
you know i'd paint the world that color
if wearing that color
would bring you back
I can still feel the heat
pass from your fingers to mine
I can still see you little underneath that sheet
before the grief replaced
the fear that numbed my spine
And now i tread the day
wishing reality away
wishing i knew
how people who love you this much
can say goodbye to you
I fight back tears
saving them for those who will miss you more
I bite back streams
I know you know i'd cry you rivers
if that would make the world, like it was before
I can't wear black
over you, no i can't wear black
over the freeing of love
over you going home
I just can't wear black
you know i'd paint the whole world that color
if wearing that color, would take all this back

Pray

If you pass through here, please take a moment to pray.

Pray for a girl recovering from a hemorrhage

She's a mother of two and adored by everyone who's met her.

She is the light of her family's life.

She's 35.

She has curly hair and a sunny smile.

She is beautiful and full of life.

Picture her and pray. Please.