Happy

I have a gold band on the ring finger of my right hand. It's beautiful, i love it, i love the simplicity of a plain gold band around the finger.
He has a white gold band on the ring finger of his right hand, it's so fucking sexy, my man, my band, with my name on it, carrying it with him every where he goes.
He took me out on a date today, a date to reinforce that we are still dating and not slipping into the taking for granted of committed couples. I dressed up, a skirt and heals and even some make up, he rang my doorbell, got me flowers, and took me to my favorite restaurant where we had somehow never been.
We laughed through out, giggled like kids on a high, it must be sickening to watch; two people consistently holding hands and whispering and giggling. I pity the people who were eating there at the same time.
Where does the time go? Three hours later we had to leave and now i am home blogging while he texts me that he got home safe.
I'm engaged and in love, and i never thought that it would be this easy, or this much fun.
I am simply grateful.

The Dress

Engagement Dress

Dear girl residents of Dubai and Bahrain,

I am flying out to Bahrain for 8 hours and Dubai for 2 days but will only have 4 hours max of shopping time...

Can anyone recommend where to find engagement dresses in the 300 - 400$ price bracket? Before Saturday?

Your recommendations would be sooooo appreciated.

Thanks!

After 8 Dreary Years...

I am going to start watching the news again :)

Three Diamonds Later...

A starry night... a valley... a tent... dim lights... cushions.... a song... a feast... chocolates... champagne.... a ring... a question...

would you be my whole life?

Even though i knew it was going to happen those few days, for the life of me i didn't see it coming.

I couldn't stop smiling, i couldn't stop kissing him.

I said yes.

I said yes :)

And now i have three little diamonds on my finger, one for each word, how tacky is that??
And i keep reliving the few hours that felt like a few minutes, how girly is that???

I said yes!

Inspired by a comment

"so you've got a soulmate..
and you've got a foreign passport,
and you've got a lover...--and u've actually fallen in love with a dutch sailor before? damn!!! what're the odds?!!!
and of course a job..and obviously a fatty bank account to go with all of that too.
and a loving family.
and you've got a curly hair that's a reddish hue --mmm what wouldn't I do to just smell it so deeply?
and you've got a beautiful brain and a free spirit.

I gotta say, ppl like u N make us think "just what the hell are we doing wrong?!!!", if only we knew, life would make a lot of sense to a lot of ppl. So just tell us, are u using The Secret or something? i.e; the law of attraction that is."

Now i have not been known to dwell on my misfortunes, and honestly this comment made me smile, because this is pretty much how i see my life...
However, in fear that all this stated above would leave people thinking that only good things happen to me and all people with bad things happening to them are bringing it on to themselves, i feel the need to set the record straight, even if no one will care.

So Innate, here goes:
My father died when i was six
We had very little money growing up, and all the money we had went into our schooling
I spent the first two years of my professional life in the same pair of jeans and few t-shirts, i couldn't shop on my pay check and most of my friends are millionaires (from that pricey schooling i got)
My bank account is not fat, it is quite slim, everything i own i bought myself, and will continue to furnish my new home off my own paycheck, and pay off my car from there as well
My mother who is my best friend in the whole world and loves me more than life has a terminal disease, and i live every second of the day in fear of how the next second will be like for her, and how i will go on without her
My lover lives with the grey cloud that surrounds us as a result of her illness, even though you are right there, he is the light and warmth through these tough desperate days
I work my ass off in a job that i commute for an hour and a half to get to
I fell in love with a dutch sailor that broke my heart many times over many months, he was my recovery from the love of my life that betrayed me, and the man i fell back on to recover from my dutch sailor induced heartache, turned out to be married after being with me for a year.
I have been on a diet for the past 6 weeks losing the 10K's i have struggled with all my adult life.
And my hair isn't naturally red.

But because of that beautiful brain, and free spirit that god has blessed me with and you have so kindly attributed to me, i choose to see that my life is full of character building experiences, and rewarding relationships. If you choose to do the same, you too will have people wondering what the hell they are doing wrong. You too will have people assuming that you have it all, and have never known hardship and loss.

And yes i did read the secret, and yes the laws of attraction theory is quite functional i think.

Oh, and i really cannot argue with the foreign passport thing!

Soul Mate

My soul mate got married last month. He had sent me photos of the castle he planned to book for the wedding a month before. He married a girl that loves him to the ends of the earth and grounds him and makes him happy.
Our last conversation was a few weeks before his wedding. He was having cold feet, he was panicking, he was asking me what if? for the hundredth time. He told me that he missed me, missed our fire, missed our few minutes on the mountains in the middle of nowhere.
He told me that he missed my eyes. My sweet eyes.
"What if?" he told me, "what if we had given it a try?"
"It would've worked out" i told him. "I would've loved you to no end, and i would've forgiven you your mistakes, and we would have lived like we will never live. And you would have given me consistent chest pains".
He laughed, we laughed.
"I have never felt like that since then. Why did we not go for it?"
And i go quiet, and i remind him, that it was him that did not go for it.
And he goes quiet, and then he says what he always says when we get to this point; "it was too much fire, it would not have worked, too much fire, i could not live like that, i need peace."
And i smile, what he calls my sweet smile. A smile that he says somehow combines my sadness and acceptance and my resolve to not be weak. I had long since learnt to smile instead of letting the heart ache well up and consume me.
And we talk on, for hours, for what must have been 4 or 5 hours, he plays me my song, unasked, and i laugh and cry all at the same time. And finally i tell him that i cannot talk anymore, i am too tired from all the emotions, and i wish him well with his wedding, and i wish him much happiness.

He then asks me if i am sad, and i say that no, i am the luckiest girl in the world, i am in love with a man who would walk through fire for me, and my soul mate that i will forever carry in my heart, feels the same.

My soul mate got married last month, yes i believe in soul mates, and that you're not necessarily meant to end up with them, and nor are you necessarily supposed to.

Fated

i miss him sometimes, i shouldn't, but i do, sometimes
i remember moments, like flashbacks, they come uninvited, and they warm my heart
just for a moment
i indulge in them sometimes, the memories
i figure they are mine forever, a part of me that i can't be expected to renounce
i think, what if?, sometimes
only very rarely, but sometimes i do
a walk, a meal, a touch, a moment
so many of them shared, and gone, for good
it's hard to let go, sometimes
it's hard to accept that what is gone is gone
it's funny, that even at my most reminiscent, i know that things can only be the way they are today
that even as i lay today with a love i would not give up for the world
a part of me still lingers behind
i miss him sometimes, i know that i shouldn't
but that's the choice i made when i walked away with love
i'll miss him, always, i know that i will
but i know i'd rather miss him, than be anywhere but here

The Other Woman

So the storm has passed, apologies were said, he got sick and i flew out to Dubai, all contributing to a much heated patch in the relationship. It's all fun and smiles and corny mush, all fabulous really, except for the fact that i need to give him a date of when i am going to have fitar at his mother's house...
His mother's house being the same house where i would have fitar with his mother, brother and sister, all at the same time.
Let's take this from the top. I have known my boyfriend since i was 19, which is 9 years now. My house is the kind of house where friends come and go, girl friends and guy friends and boyfriends. My mother has always been cool with my friends, and my guy friends have spent many a late night playing cards at our dining table, my current boyfriend included. And since he was my best friend forever before we hooked up, my mom has his number on her cell phone, he calls her to check up on her when i am out of the country, and she calls me on his cell phone when she needs to know that i'm ok but can't reach me on mine. My sister as well has taken to asking him for random stuff like picking out her laptop, downloading music, dropping stuff by his office for her, etc etc. so you get the picture, my boyfriend is completely in with my family, he is as much a part of the family as my girlfriends since kindergarten. He has it made.

Now his family, is not quite the same. His mom is much more on the conservative side than my family is. I have never been to his house, girl friends don't just hang out over there. My relationship with this woman was strictly limited to messages through him of say hi to N, tell N hamdella 3al salama, tell her i am praying for her cousin, etc etc. Warm sentiments have been going back and forth between me and her in the third person for nearly a decade. Her warm spot for me really took shape when he broke off his engagement and i was there to pick up the pieces till he was back on his feet. Up until last month i had never even seen the woman, until alas, after much dodging and loitering on my part, i had to meet her. She finally put her foot down and insisted she sees the girl who was backstage for years and has now taken the leading role in her sons life. And met her i did. She disappointed my preconception of her being strict and uptight from the second she hugged me hello. She was bubbly, giggly, warm, affectionate and sweet. We got along very well and really it was much less of an ordeal than i thought it would be.

And now she wants me to come over for fitar. With the rest of the family.

Where i will walk in to the house embarrassed, shy and fumbling with my clothes or hair. Where i will not know where to sit until i am told to be seated. Where i will not know whether to help out in the kitchen or if that would be intrusive. Where i will not know if i should eat too much to compliment her cooking or eat too little to show that i am not a cow. Where i will not know what to bring, if bringing something is offensive, or bringing nothing is ill mannered. Where i will not know what to do with myself after food, or when would be a good time to leave. Too early? Too late?

Why oh why must i go through this getting to know the mother process at all?

Deal Breakers

The first fight. The first BIG fight. We have not spoken today, this is the first day in six months and half that we have not spoken.
I was harsh, of course, but i was also right. He is silent, a deadly silence.
We have fought about our deal breaker. Every relationship has a deal breaker. Something that if you can't both reach some common ground on, will ruin the relationship.
I had my first bursting point today. I am not very eloquent when angry, and i was angry.
Well at least he sent me a text to make sure i got home ok...

Now we are both supposed to be together at this thing at ten, and it's 8:45. Am i supposed to call? But if i call that means i softened first, and if i soften first that means i didn't mean the things i said! Might even mean that i'm sorry! And i did mean everything i said.
No, calling is not an option.
So what to do? Do i just go without him? Without telling him i'm going?
But that's so weird... Never done that before... We usually talk like ten times a day.. What if he calls when i am already out? I will have disregarded him and went anyway, without calling...
That's not nice...

But i don't really want to see him if he thinks he's upset over what i said. I can't handle the tantrum over what is simply factual.

Uuuurrrggggghhhhhhhhh... it really is easier being single.

Picture Perfect

We are away for the weekend, the boyfriend and I. We are at a camp in Sinai, in the blistering heat, because i have missed Sinai to no end, and do not want to go to Sahel again, because i have spent the past two months dealing with my mothers devastating illness and simply because i nagged and nagged and nagged till he agreed to drive south in August and take me to a place where there is nothing but mountains, bamboo and silence.

Scene 1:
The boyfriend is sitting in the common area, reading. I am standing in the joint kitchen, cutting up vegetables and cooking. The boyfriend comes over to the stove and washes up whatever i have dirtied while cooking and goes back to his book. I serve the food, we eat and talk in soft voices, he gets up to get me a drink, washes the aftermath of dinner, comes back to his book, kisses my hand and continues reading. Periodically he will look up from his book and ask me something, or tell me something, i will either laugh or smile, and eventually my eyes start to get heavy and i put my head on his shoulder hinting that it is time to call it a night. All the while a girl aged twenty something sitting at the end of the table watches us in shy silence.

Scene 2:
The next morning i wake up craving coffee, the boyfriend tells me to follow him to the common area and he will make me coffee while i change out of my pj's into people friendly clothes. I follow him and find my cup of coffee on the table covered by a little plate as protection from the flies and placed in front of him. He is reading "awlad 7aretna", a book i read ages ago and remember nothing from, he tells me the latest of what he's read while i sip my coffee, and then i slip into my book and we both read on in silence. Periodically he will put a hand on my back, or bring my hand to his lips, all the while reading. I am so used to this i barely look up from my book. I see that same girl looking our way, wistful, sad.
She looks at me with the far away eyes of a girl who is watching an unattainable miracle.


I want to walk over to that girl, i have so much to say to that girl, i want to tell her about the amount of times i got the look she is giving me now over the years.

The first time i got that look was in December 2004, my ex, THE EX, was visiting me in France, i had just moved there, we were at Cannes train station, it was days before Christmas and we were booking train tickets across Europe. We were at the counter, he had an arm around my waist and the other draped around my shoulder, he held me so closely like he could not bear the thought of wind blowing between us, he nuzzled my neck with his nose as we giggled over the destinations we would hit for Christmas not giving a damn about the outrageous cost of it. Then a girl standing alone across the counter looked at us, in her eyes i saw the reflection of two young people in love, two people swooning over each other without a care in the world.
I remember looking her in the eye thinking; if only you knew. What she was witnessing were the last ten days i ever spent with my ex, ever talked to my ex, and we both knew it at the time.

I got used to getting those looks all the time when i was with T. Every time he took me out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and leaned over and held both my hands over the table. Every time we were at a bar and one of our songs came on and he grabbed and swung me all around the place. At the end of every night with friends when the night slowed down and it was a bit cold and he snuggled up to me for warmth as we talked away on our hosts couch. Every time he introduced me to one of his friends as his Egyptian Princess. I got the look all the time.

The look is a mixture of many things, hope that love does actually exist, jealousy that some people have it all, envy that they are alone while i am not, desperation in wondering what i am doing right that they are doing wrong, admiration that i have it so together and look so confident, aspiration to the picture perfect life, as part of a picture perfect couple.
Little did they know that almost every time i got that look, my heart was on a free fall towards the ground on its way to being shattered into a million little pieces, and then stomped on.

I so wanted to go talk to that girl, i wanted to tell her that looks are deceitful, i wanted to tell her that i can look that way when i know i am with a man who will soon leave me, i wanted to tell her that she should not waste her energy being deluded by what she sees.
I wanted to tell her that this time it was real. I wanted to tell her that what she saw really was as good as it looked, and the most thing i wanted to tell her was that it didn't matter.
Having this didn't add or subtract a thing to who she was, that it was out there for every single person, the second they stop thinking that it is all that matters.

I smiled at her, she smiled back, i think that made me more human to her. I didn't say anything of course, it wasn't my place, and i sunk back into my gratitude, and hoped that through that smile she knew i understood, and was far from gloating.

En Fin

Sometimes stories need to wait a while before they can be told.

I was very much in love with T. I was so in love with T that when I saw him smile the rest of the world melted into oblivion. I was in love with him in a way that when I saw him sleeping I wanted to protect him from his dreams. One day while I was driving and he was sitting next to me on our way to Italy he fell asleep holding my hand, I remember wanting to freeze time and stay in that moment forever. I was very much in love with T, and he was leaving me. He was leaving me and France and this side of the Atlantic, he had run out his time in the cote d’azur and we were parting ways in a few weeks.

It was no one’s fault, he was a Dutch sailor with weak belief in religion and even a weaker belief in marriage, I was an Egyptian Muslim girl who would need at least a promise of a possibility of a marriage and intrinsically a conversion of faith – if only on paper- before I threw my life as I knew it away and went gallivanting around the world taking beach jobs and disappointing my mother in every way imaginable.

It was no one’s fault, we were both clear from the start, he told me he would never marry, I told him I was 24 and wanted to enjoy my time in France, we struggled to stay apart and finally accepted that we would make the most of our time together till our time was up.
And our time was up, and somewhere between the beginning and the end we fell in love, knowing we would have to fall out it of it one day. And that day was here.

I packed his bags with him, made him a box of gifts for him to open one by one all the way from here to the Caribbean where he chose to make a new home, I drove him to the sailing boat taking him away from me and the life we made with each other, we hugged, we cried, I walked away and drove back to my empty apartment. I woke up the next day dreading every day ahead till I as well left France, I sobbed and endlessly watched TV, I turned on my computer and wrote a post on this blog. And that is how it all began.

He left me a comment, a silly witty comment with a reply-to email address. I emailed him, he emailed back, we started playing twenty questions, and daily marathon emails turned to msn turned to sms’s. Before I knew it I was talking to him all day every day in some form or another and he was hanging on my every word, before I knew it I was smiling at messages or emails that came my way, before I knew it I was choosing between flying out to meet my Dutch love one last time, and meeting this man that fit himself into my day. Before I knew it he was guiding me through the streets of Rome through sms’s, asking me to see him for coffee, telling me that he wanted to be with me. Before I knew it we had in jokes, and a world of our own.

I had never met him, but I liked the idea. He was half Egyptian half European, he was well traveled, successful, older, attentive, clever, witty, and he was a message away, all the time. I agreed to meet him for coffee before I flew out to meet T. He flew over the weekend before I left France, he spent 48 hours in my vicinity and waited while I packed and said my goodbyes and fit him into my schedule. Coffee turned into a midnight walk, turned into an over night talk, turned into stretches of hours of putting a face to the month of every day talking. He fascinated me with his attentiveness, he fascinated me with his chivalry, he did everything right, and it blew me away.

I liked this scenario much more, instead of going back home to Cairo broken hearted and alone, I would go back to Cairo having ended a hopeless relationship with an agnostic sailor and started dating a man that I could actually have a future with. He lived in the UAE so it would be long distance, which would give me time to get over my sailor, and if all went well I would leave Cairo soon enough again. Instead of going back to a dating scene full of hypocritical holders of double standards oriental men, I go back dating a witty thoughtful man who is quickly falling for me. Yes, I liked this scenario much better.

I got him to let me fall back in the arms of T for three weeks, knowing that when I was done he would be there, the only agreement was that I had to break it off with T before I came back. And break it off I did.

Those three weeks with T were so emotionally violent, I was in love with this man to no end, and I could no longer keep this love from taking over my life, I had to get out, and I needed the cushioning because it was going to be hard, leaving T was going to be very hard. Somehow after swimming in the most beautiful waters with him, dancing to reggae music in the street with him, flying back to his home with him and meeting his family, somehow after being the closest I ever was to him, I broke both our hearts over dinner a few nights before I left. I fought off his feeble attempts at keeping us together and told him I wanted a clean break, I could no longer live only for today, and he could never promise me a tomorrow, we agreed to break up the day I left, got drunk and went to a casino where we laughed it off instead of crying over a year and a half’s worth of memories. I packed my bags and what was left of my beaten up heart and took the plane out of the Caribbean back to the real world.

And there he was, waiting for me in Cairo, waiting as promised to hold me while I cried over another man. And our story began, he had all the symptoms of a man in love. He flew in to see me three times that first month, he was patient, doting, borderline obsessive, he asked me if I was ok/comfortable/any better every hour, he pushed for intimacy too soon and too hard. I was cold, I was distant, I was brutally hurtful, I was still in love with another man and all I wanted to do was sleep. And then one day a month later T told me that he met another woman, was in love with another woman, and as the trained girl that I was, I’d be damned if I was going to stop living while he moved on. And I started to let go. I let myself be adored, I let myself be swept off my feet, I let myself let my guards down, I believed it when he said he wanted to share a life with the woman he loved, I believed him when he said if he had to he would move back to Egypt for me, I believed him when he told me he had never loved a woman the way he loved me. I looked up to him in a way I never knew with any man, his opinions mattered, his advice mattered, his take on things always mattered.

He called me every morning for our morning talk, we laughed, we flirted, we had fun. We counted the hours backwards every time he was scheduled to fly in to meet me. And when he came we spent every second together, traveling, driving, swimming, wining, dining, talking. He met all my friends and they all loved him; at last a man that treated me the way I deserved to be treated.

Four months into the relationship I started letting go, and that is when I started noticing the little things, the little fibs. He attended the final of the world cup, then two months later he said he watched it in a bar, I called him on it he said I was confused, he had never said that. His stories were always too exaggerated, he canoed across a lake in Africa to get across a border. His roommate/ ex girlfriend who talked to me on msn for hours when I was with T as we had decided not to talk for those three weeks, disappeared from his life after I returned to Cairo, she left the UAE the second we got together….

He would only call me by day, and was out of reach all night as he was living on a boat and sailed off every night were there was no network. Six months into the relationship he had met all my friends, visited my workplace, traveled with me and my best friend, knew everything about my life, and hadn't introduced me to a single person in his life. His mother lived in Egypt and he never once called or visited her when he was in Cairo. His fibs were more frequent and all his plans for renting a flat in Cairo so he could come more often disappeared. He started coming less and I started getting confused.

I asked to meet his friends, he said sure, come over and I will introduce you. I flew over, we stayed in a hotel because he had no home as he was living on a boat, and his friends were all out of town. Whenever I asked what was up he reassured me that nothing was up, that our time together was just too precious for him to share it with his friends. My gut was telling me that something was wrong and every time I mustered up the courage to ask, he would solidly confirm that all was well and fine.

Then one day when he was visiting he made the fatal mistake of giving me the password to his computer. On a sleepless night full of unanswered questions where he was once again out of reach and weeks away from coming to see me, I tried that password on his email account, and voila, I suddenly had access to more information than just his word of mouth.

My first discovery was that when he told me he was in France with his roommate/ex girlfriend he was actually in his office chatting with other female bloggers, when he was smsing me through the streets of Rome he was actually at his desk, not at that funeral with his ex in France where her parents died simultaneously and he punched her uncle at the funeral when she was cut out of their will. My second discovery was that he was his ex, he was the girl talking to me on msn and emailing me, I logged into her email account with that same password and found emails to and from only me. Shaken by this discovery, I asked him if he had been pretending to be her, I even gave him an outlet that it could've been an innocent prank at the time. He denied it fiercely and ended the conversation. For some reason I decided to let it go. So he was a bit of a fibber, so what? Surely there are worse things and it was all harmless.

But I would not rest, could not rest. I grew suspicious and he grew impatient. He started talking about how refreshing our long distance relationship was that kept us always missing each other, and how marriage killed the relationship. I hit the roof.
I phoned him one day asking him straight out if this was as good as this relationship would get, I pointed out that we were not on the same page, and that I wanted to know that he would one day want us to share a life or I would leave.
He confirmed that I was mistaken, that he loved me dearly, that we were just taking our time, that ultimately our vision was the same; a shared life in the same place.

He felt the strain on the relationship and flew in to Cairo to make things better. He started mentioning meeting my mom to show her who her daughter was dating, my friends fell in love with him even more from how good he was to me when he was here, how he made up for all the time he was away when he was with me.
It worked, I was calmer, happier, we had been together eleven months and I loved him, we spent great days together as always, and after a week together he flew back home. While he was on the plane I found myself compulsively checking his email again. I was happy with him but something was not right, I could not put my finger on it but I was constantly at disease.

And I finally found what I was looking for all along.

An email from a woman carrying his family name. My heart pounded, and throbbed in my ears, she’s just a cousin I told myself, she must be a cousin.

She called him baby. She told him that the house was empty without him. She told him that she and the baby missed him and that she can’t wait till he comes back home.

He called her amour. He told her he was coming back as soon as he could and that he missed her more than words could say.

She signed off by saying that she missed her husband.

Her husband.

My body went numb. Surely that word must mean something else. My mind traced back to an email I had stumbled across before that he had sent a blogger telling her he was married to a girl of a different faith that I had discarded as another fib.

Married, my boyfriend of eleven months was married.

I went through his entire inbox, discovering lie after lie after lie. This man had a completely different life than the one I knew. This man that had consumed my time and thoughts was a stranger to me.

He texted me when he landed, I texted back asking if he was married, he called me laughing and wondering where I heard such nonsense.

And the disaster really began. He denied, he admitted, he was separated, he was sorry, it was too difficult to tell me, he didn't love her, she watched his dog, he went there very little, he would do anything to make it right, he would tell her everything, he needed time, he needed a break, she meant too much to him to hurt her, he could not divorce her, he had a child, a three year old son, he would step aside, he would let me go on with my life, he was sorry, it was better this way.

I was hit by a bus.

I cried, I yelled, I sobbed. I went insane. I went from being the girlfriend of a man who insisted he adored me and shared every part of my life, to the mistress in the dark on the side, over night.

I could not believe that this was the same man who called me every day and flew in to see me every month. And after a week when I finally realized that this was indeed the same man, that this ending would not go my way, that there was nothing to do but to accept that I must leave, I mustered up the worst words a girl could tell a man, and let him leave.

Everything was black. I drafted up an email telling his wife the whole story, then read it to myself out loud before hitting the send button, and all I could see through the email was a pathetic girl who was taken for a ride and had no significant importance in this man’s life. I was a fool, and I was in the weakest position a woman could find herself.
I was so helpless all I could do was cry at the injustice of where I had found myself with no choice of my own.
I resigned myself to licking my wounds and having to accept that all I could do was walk away and hope that time would even the score.

I was angry, so very angry.

I booked a flight to NYC with money I didn't have, I maxed out my credit card on two weeks in NYC to get away from it all. It cost me 5000$ but I came home better, and less bitter. In NY I met a blogger he had claimed to meet, she assured me they had never met, and that is when it dawned on me, this man lied to fill the gaps, he lied as he went along, there was no logic, there was no explaining it, there was no comprehension of why I was where I was today.

I had wasted a year of my life taking seriously what was taken lightly by him.

I was livid.

All I wanted to know, was why?

Why would he seek me out to do this to me?

I was consumed by the need to tell the lies from the truth.

Was he really in Dallas when he flew in to see me? Where they really separated? Was he in love with her? Was there ever a boat? Was his ex character completely fictitious? Did he really have a company? Did he really have work when he said he couldn't talk? Did he really do anything that he ever said he was doing?

I was so very livid, I was spiteful and unforgiving, and I didn't see a day coming where I would trust another human being again. No matter what answers he gave me I could not believe him, and soon I began to understand that I would never know what really happened in his life while I was a part of it.

The hardest part was that I loved him. He was my friend, he was close to me, and I believed that in his way he truly loved me. I would remember how soft he was with me, how he mentored me through work, how he talked to me about my life, and my heart would ache. I missed him, or the part of him that wasn't about the facts of his life.
I understood that the lying was not malicious, it was not explicable, it was not controllable, it was not called for on my part. I understood that for some reason he found it in his heart to do this, and I didn't believe he understood the magnitude of the pain it caused me. I loved him and missed him and hated him for the pain. There were no answers to my whys, there were no reasons for why this happened.

I lost him and I lost heart, and those were very very bad days for me.

But alas nothing stays the same, slowly I moved on, I thought about him less, and less.
I started enjoying myself again, and enjoying life again, my nature won the better of me and I couldn't help wanting to enjoy my life. I reached that place where I was happy being alone, and that is when my best friend pursued me till I caved, and I find myself today where I am. Trustful again, relaxed again, secure again, confident again.

For the longest time even though I was over him I was not over what happened, I could not let it go. I post this story today because I finally have moved on, because finally I don’t need these answers anymore to make my peace. I post this today because nine months later, I forgive him. I don’t forgive what he has done, no one can, but I harbor no ill feelings towards him, when I remember him I wonder at the enigma of it all for a few seconds and then I let it be. I am not angry, I am not resentful, it is a bloody miracle.

I would still love to watch a video tape of his life when I was with him and compare it to the life I thought we had… but I don’t need to anymore, I am free.

Some stories take a while before they can be told, they are too fresh to be told sometimes, too hurtful, too unresolved, too ugly, and it’s worth celebrating when we can finally put our ugly stories behind us.

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.

Being Christina...

Exorcism

My ever polite and charming, compulsive lying, turned out to be married and with child after a year of dating me ex boyfriend sent me a text message yesterday; wishing me a great night, and a happy valentine. After running off like a six year old who soiled his pants in class - never to return to class again- when i dug up a marriage and child and realized his absolute incomprehension of the value of truth and genuine incapability of telling any coherent non-contradicting fact, this person sends me a text message, wishing me a great night, on valentines day.

I was at that very minute, having a great night. I was out with friends unwinding after the long week and having a very intimate moment with my glass of wine. I was sitting next to my best friend, toying with the idea of just how much i can flirt with him tonight without needing to consent to officially starting to date him. I was unwound and happy, and looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

And then i got the text message, wishing me a great night.

In his style of words, it had been 94 days, 18 hours and some number of minutes since the last time i looked forward to receiving a message from him.

My stomach flipped, my hands started shaking and i reached out for the first cigarette of many to come that night.

So, ex boyfriend, this one's for you and for me and this world you love so much and frequent so often in different shapes and forms unaware of just how dangerous your little fun can be;

I am only ever interested in hearing from you if you decide to seek professional help.
If you wake up one day sick of living ground hog day.
If you google the word sociopath, and something rings a bell, and you freak out.

I am only ever interested in hearing from you then.

Until then may the God you don't believe in protect you from harms way, and protect those who cross paths with you from taking you too seriously. And rest assured that there is no need to wish me happy days, my days are happy away from you.

From all my heart; be well and good bye,
N

Promises

I promised you that i would love you
every day that i would live
I promised you that my hands
would always find and ease your pain
I promised you that i would smile
every day you spent with me
I promised you that i would stay
no matter what, that i would stay
I tried
oh how i tried
Only to wake up one day finding
that when i promised
I must have lied
There was no air;
My skin could no longer bear your whipping
I could no longer watch the dripping off my back
onto your floor
And i left
And broke the ties that held my soul
in its place right next to you
I tried my love, i really tried
Seems when i told you i needed nothing -
I must have lied
I found myself one day breathless
and my soul found itself homeless
And my softness for you
squirming in its pain just died
Seems when i promised i needed nothing
I must have lied

September 05

Recurring Thought over the Years

If i love you am i trapped forever?

The Benchmark

It's true; the more people you date, the pickier you get. Once upon a time i used to be oblivious to people's faults, i would only see what made them sunny and charming, once upon a time indeed.
I have been getting out much more in the past few weeks, i've ran into people i hadn't seen in years, i've met new people, and i've had conversations with people i always knew but never really got to talk to, and since i am absolutely uninterested in dating at the moment, i have naturally been getting advances left right and center, for some reason this is how the world works.
So a nice enough guy starts talking to me, and ten minutes into the conversation i can only think of how i am going to exit this conversation. I never thought i was vain, but i'm afraid i must be, it is not natural that i find almost every guy i talk to either too cocky, or too boring, or too chatty, or too fickle, or too shallow, or too vulnerable, or too something that will make him unstimulating. It's like i have a sensor that goes off when i pick up on a trait that i know doesn't sit well with me, it's as if through the gazillion guys i have dated all i have been doing is accumulating character traits that turn me off! You see the first guy you date, you don't know that him being pessimistic could actually spoil it for you, the second guy you date you make sure that he isn't pessimistic, but have no clue that him being full of himself will bore you to death, the third guy you date you make sure he is not pessimistic and not full of himself and after three weeks you can't tolerate his temper for one more day that you have to bail. So what i know now is that i can't be with anyone who is pessimistic, whiny, chatty, passive, dependent, lazy, stingy, bad tempered, possessive, cruel, a high school dropout, sexist, irrational, controlling, rigid, judgmental, hesitant, promiscuous, gay, manipulative or a liar.
And thats what i know, imagine what i don't know...
I put this snobbishness of mine down to being fresh out of a messy dramatic breakup, and thought; ok, since you are in a good place and so off dating, just hang out with your close friends and have fun. So i did that, and then bam! My best guy friend of 100 years pulled a stunt on me and suggested the development of our friendship into more. I have known this guy for 8 solid years, and now i find myself looking at him as one would a nicely wrapped package that you can hear ticking because you are absolutely sure there is a bomb inside. My first thoughts when he told me where, oh shit, now you are going to turn into something absolutely devastatingly intolerable that i am yet to discover... while my mom and friends look at me in bewilderment that i am not jumping at the chance to land such a great guy.

I think i am turning into one of those guys who see any form of a relationship as a potential hazard and an eternal threat to their peace of mind. I so get you guys now! I have alot of single ahead of me, i hope...

P.S: i said almost every guy, some conversations are still fun, thank god for that.

To Dye or not to Dye

My hair color is back to its natural shade, thanks to non ammonia containing wash out dyes that eventually fade out only leaving a hint of the dark red i use (this information is only useful if at all interesting to female readers, and i'm aware of that), and now i am contemplating what to do next...

It is now a darkish brown that has a reddish and sometimes yellowish (can't say blondish) aura in the sun. Now i know very few of you have any clue of what i'm going on about as very few of you have seen me, but i am now wondering what to do with my hair color so indulge me.

The options are:
1. Dark red again (as per picture on left)
2. Leave as is and stay on the dark brown conventional side for the winter
3. Go lighter and get light brown/dark blond highlights, the key word here would be "subtle"

I am most inclined to option 2, it's been a while since i had my own shade, however, the red gets tons of compliments, and the lighter is something i've never done before so could be a nice change, however again, high lights must be done using ammonia, and ammonia fucks the hair.

Input?

Things I've learnt

• Quitting when you're ahead is under rated
• A good pizza is a rare commodity
• First kisses almost always suck
• Holding out is over rated
• Hardly anyone ever returns the wine bottle after tasting it
• Ice skating is not for everyone
• An ego is only as large as you inflate it
• Tequila doesn't go well with ka7k el 3eid
• Rebounds work
• If forgiveness is not possible, forgetfulness will do
• Clever is sometimes very stupid
• No one is keeping score
• Credit cards are malicious
• Time flies either way