So… I finally took my end year vacation, grabbed some clothes, half a dozen of unread books (dreamt of finishing half of them but couldn’t), my paper notebook & a pencil, stored some of my favorite music on my mp3 player, switched off my cellular phone, and headed towards El-Gouna promising myself a technology free vacation… and so it was – if I ignored the fact that I switched my mobile phone on a couple of times and had a couple of phone calls…

The miraculous thing about this is the fact that I did not check my email for whole 5 days (it’s almost impossible for me to stay 5 hours without checking it in normal), did not open the TV for news, did not buy a newspaper (although got shocked as soon as I arrived with the news of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto… a very respectable woman she was…), and did not think of meeting agendas or projects schedules… it was only me and the sea… with the flow of the precious words I read along with the music enriching my soul…

I desperately needed this kind of vacation… needed to throw away all the disappointments and sadness of the past 2 years into the sea and return new born…

What a tough year it was… this 2007… At its start, when some painful events started to occur, I called it “the 2006 extension” referring to the worse year ever in my life; 2006… And this was something completely wrong to do… I guess what made 2007 really tough is the fact that I convinced myself it’s gonna be so before serious things actually happened… sometimes expecting the worse makes it happen, or at least makes it impossible to enjoy the good things… it makes you so pessimistic and fails to enjoy whatever beauty life might bring…

Well, this was extremely off beam… and thanks to GOD I had a stand with myself a few months ago and promised myself to learn from all the bad experiences I have encountered throughout the past 2 years and dig out whatever good they came up with… and I guess I finally learned not to personalize things and that it’s not about me… it’s simply life’s happenings…

However, there was one thing left I had to do to make sure I am on the right track… and I finally did it last night while witnessing an amazing seen of the moon rising up from the sea at 10 pm (I never imagined it that beautiful)…

I cleared my mobile inbox… I went through each and every message, read every single word… remembered each situation as if it was yesterday… then deleted all those who brings me painful memories… messages from people who happened to be close to me at a certain time in my life… and now they are only memories of the past… It felt really strange while doing it… it was as if I was trying to forget my history… to erase certain period of my life… But then again, I keep telling myself… No, I wasn’t doing so… it’s just that… whenever I read those messages I seem to be getting hurt all over again… I don’t know… but I guess I did the right thing…

Some things are better left as history with a new leaf turned on upon them… sometimes you has to forsake some painful experiences in your past so that you can be able to move forward in life…

Staring at the well decorated tree in the corner of the room where my office is, and as my colleagues got busy in a deep discussion regarding the gifts they’re gonna get to their friends and loved ones on Christmas day, I remembered a beautiful – and very short – Prophetic saying that encourages gifts giving as a way of getting people closer; “Tahaado, Ta7abbo”, which basically means: “Give presents to one another, and you will love one another”. I’m not quite sure why it crossed my mind at this particular moment, but maybe the reason is that it’s a time in the year where everybody in the streets is cheerful and saying “Kol sana wenta tayeb” to everybody else in this beautiful combination of Adha Eid, Christmas, New Year, Eastern Christmas, then Hijri New Year… All… in a very short period of time… At times like these giving gifts is the perfect way of saying “I care” to close ones…

But, the thing is that the purpose of giving gifts is far beyond the gift itself and how expensive it might be… Gifts are all about the hidden meanings they represent… it’s all about love and care… However, sometimes I get the feeling that we seem to be exchanging gifts just because we’re used to doing this and not because there’s actually “love” in doing it…

Think with me… How many times have you got a gift for close ones lately…? Whatever was the occasion… Birthday, Eid, Christmas or whatever…

How many of those times have you really thought of what the other side might need…? How many of those times have you put enough love and real care while spending time in thinking of what is best for him/her…?

And…How many of those times have you ended up getting anything “expensive” just to get relieved from the duty of “buying” the gift…?

We’re abusing the real meaning behind the idea of “giving gifts”… we’re turning it into a duty that we want to get rid of as soon as we can…

I don’t know… but as for myself, I would rather get flowers, a chocolate bar, or even just call that says “I care”, than getting a pretty expensive gift without feeling this kind of love and care surrounding it…

A gift doesn’t have to be something physical…

Have you ever thought of giving a loving smile in Eid?

Or spending the night sitting with close ones on couch watching an old movie in Christmas?

Those are gifts too…

Care is a gift…

Love is the most precious gift…

Did I make it long…?

Anyways, have lovely Holidays All… J

Rou… humming “Rej3et el shatweye…”

There was that movie that I saw years ago about the difference that happened into the life of a specific person because of a delay of less than one second. The movie – as far as I remember – started with the normal daily life of a couple and in a scene where the girl was supposed to take the underground, the screen was divided into two; in one of them she was able to catch the underground, and in the other she wasn’t able to due to the delay of less than one second… The rest of the movie explains – in the same two screens – how different her life went starting that moment…

I don’t know why I remembered that movie today while crossing the street… and I found myself drowning into some fuzzy thoughts… so, anyhow; I just thought of sharing them with you…

Fuzziness!

Does walking into a certain street at a certain moment entail something…?

Are you destined to meet a specific person…?

Or are you meant to farewell someone…?

I wonder…

—

I am me… this is who I am and this how I want to be…

Accept me as I am, and don’t ask for changes you cannot afford to bear its consequences… And remember… I wouldn’t be me…

—

He held her hand into his while crossing the street… whispered in her ears “I love you”… She stopped and looked at his eyes, only to see the front light of the speedy car that was heading towards them…

—

I love his laughter… But, I adore his smile…

—

What I miss the most in me… is you…

And so, whenever I miss myself, I remember you…

—

I try to break the crystal cube I’m held in… but I fail to…

I wave to the people out there to help me… but nobody seems to see me…

I scream… but I cannot hear my own voice…

I vanish in silence…

—

Ever felt of how scary it might be to be standing in the sunshine with no traces of a shadow of yourself… You do not really exist… Do you…?

—

I’m not weak… I’m just… too exhausted to face life…

—

Is it still possible to live the life I once dreamt of…?

I wonder… if “songs are still possible” – as Moneer tries to convince us…

—

Ever thought of what might not exist in Heaven…?

It’s the ability to go back to Life…!

Keep breathing,

Rou…