On Leaps of Faith (Again!)

There is a point in your life when you just stop "leaping", not out of fear or hesitance, But you stop taking leaps because you know better, you have been there and you have done that.

There is a point in your life where you can tell the difference between faith and delusion.

There is a point of your life when the only "wise" thing to do is to stop trying.

Will you do the wise thing and risk standing still, or will you keep moving on and take the "delusional" leap?

Defeat

I feel defeated!

I had a series of surprise birthday parties/ gifts/ texts & phone calls. Part of this could be attributed to the fact that I have plenty of loving friends and family. And part could be attributed to the fact that I changed the settings to my birthday on facebook to public. I decided as a treat for my 35^th birthday to indulge in self celebratory attitude. Guess what? It worked. And I had one of the best birthdays in my 35 yrs.

Yet that leads us back to the defeat.

I feel defeated!

And this defeat could be put in one sentence. I am never enough!

I am never enough … and it is exhausting. It has been exhausting all my life to try to be of worth.

And now as I realize that I have lost each and every battle I have ever been at, I am starting to wonder what does a person do after losing the war?

I have spent all my life thinking that all what you have to do is keep fighting. You keep trying. You never give up. You don’t quit. I have spent all my life believing that losing a battle doesn’t mean losing the whole war.

But I feel defeated.

I have no energy to fight. But I have no idea what do you do with defeat!

On Consistency and the Forbidden Fruit

I am a virgin. Somehow this very personal detail has become a hot topic of discussion in the last couple of years. I have been repeatedly put in situations where I had to explain that I am a virgin and, for the time being, I don’t think I will ever be having sex outside marriage.

It all started out with a date. It was sometime in September 2011 when a nice, younger guy asked me out for coffee. He was full of life; it had been years since I was last asked out on a date; I needed life and he offered loads of it. He was a breath of fresh air … of hope. Yet, the guy was direct; he was in for a fling: good company and sex.

Before him I was used to the fact that men will always want sex but they tended to play lovers to get to it. Before him, none of my men doubted the “virgin” part. The “virgin” part was taken for granted. They all wanted sex, yet sex had always been off the table because duh! “I am a virgin”.

This guy was the 1st one to offer a strictly sexual relationship, no emotions attached. And I had to decide whether I was in or out.

And that was when my virginity started to be the topic to discuss.

In this part of the world girls are expected to be virgins as long as they are not married. Yet it is the 21st century, different levels of intimacy had become discreetly accepted. It all depends on your social level. The more you are exposed to “western culture” the more likely the circles you play are open-minded regarding sex. I am saying more likely because exposure doesn’t really grant open-mindedness in our society.

Sex is a taboo in this part of the world. People have been trying to break this taboo yet they have been failing … royally!

Needless to say that relationship failed, it never got started in the 1st place. He wanted sex; I couldn’t give him sex so it faded to a “you are someone that I used to know” type of thing.

He was the 1st but he wasn’t the last to suggest a sexual non-emotional relationship. As that relationship faded I met another guy. Someone that I deeply liked and I dare to say that I deeply loved. That guy was clear too. Marriage for him was off the table, but sex was the most important item on it.

That guy didn’t offer a fling-ship. He didn’t even offer a relationship. He offered nothing and that was somehow everything (Yeah! I am that pathetically in love with him). In his own words, our relationship has different aspects and one of them is sex. According to him sex is a pleasure that should be given and received within the context of exchanging pleasure only, nothing more.

Again my virginity became an issue. Yet, and because I am desperately in love with that guy I started to entertain the idea of sex. The pressure of love and other things got me to the point of thinking why won’t I have sex with him. Why would I want us to be married? After all, and religious reasons aside, marriage is nothing but an exclusive long-term relationship or at least it is what is supposed to be or how I think it is supposed to be. So if I can have the “long-term” and “exclusive” parts, again religion aside, maybe sex will be ok.

I didn’t really voice my ideas to the guy; we moved past the sex aspect of the relationship and kept the other aspects. To be more specific he moved past the sex aspect, apparently he either lost interest or maybe lost hope that I might one day come around what he once described as my obsolete idea about sex.

His move left me with more questions that were even doubled by the appearance of someone who showers me with too much “I love you’s” yet definitely believes that love isn’t love unless it is “consummated”.

Different men, different age groups, different backgrounds, different experiences and different settings yet all had one thing in common. They all wanted sex with a virgin whom they couldn’t really get why she is hanging on to her virginity that much.

Such offers usually leave me both flattered and offended.

Different super interesting men believe I am sexually attractive, this is flattering! The fact that I can’t see why they would get that much interested in me, along the fact that none of them ever offered a “decent relationship” is deeply offending.

Stuck between feeling flattered and offended my moral system gets shaken too deep to the point of clearly showing an inconsistency. Apparently there is a huge gap between what I believe is right, what I say I think is right and the right I actually do.

Is sex wrong?

Yes, No … Maybe! I don’t know.

I really don’t know. I believe it shouldn’t be wrong. Sex is natural. Desire shouldn’t be a sin. But things don’t seem to work in such simple ways in the complicated world we live in.

In this part of the world, the 1^st challenge that faces the “righteousness” of sex is religion. Sex is a sin that will get you safe and sound to hellfire. If you are a “believer” guilt will be the dominant feeling associated with whatever “sex” you decide to have outside what religion said it should be.

The 2^nd challenge that faces the righteousness of sex is social customs.  Sex is a social sin that will get you safe and sound to the “doomed group”.

Well, it depends mainly on your gender in this part of the world. The rule is, men are accepted to do lots of the social sins. They are men. Our society is seemed to be tailored to “protect” the virtue of women. I am not sure why but probably because men have no virtue to protect after all!

Anyhow, regardless that the society is more flexible accepting men who commit social sins you will still be labeled if you engaged in any form of sexual relationship outside wedlock. And unlike the religious reasons where you can work out a way with your God, the society doesn’t really forgive. And most importantly they won’t easily forget.

In this part of the world, where the individuals are more open-minded than the societies they live in, double measures become the norm. Consistency is really rare. People are used to doing what they don’t believe in, they preach what they can’t/ won’t do and more importantly judge others for doing what they secretly do.  

Sex and religion are two major fronts where you can touch the double lives and double measures epidemic spreading among almost everyone you know.

Religion for instance is supposed to be a relationship between you and the God you chose to worship. The details of such relationship are supposed to be personal. But somehow, whether or not you are a believer in God is a basic concern of the society. Everyone would want you to worship a certain God in a certain way. If you chose not to, you will have to pay a certain social cost, a cost that will depend on how grave the society thinks your sin is.

So people end up pretending. They pretend to be religious. They pretend to be socially right. They do whatever makes them “socially acceptable” while maintaining the things the society can’t really stomach a secret.

People stretch the boundaries of their personal freedoms while not having to confront the society.

One of those stretches is what the infamous HH once termed as “Virgin Sex”.

According to HH, and later all the generous men who offered me sexual relationships, I can enjoy a sexual relationship without really losing my virginity. For them, and perhaps for the society, a girl is a virgin as long as she didn’t engage in a penetrative vaginal intercourse.

So, many men and women in this part of the world agreed to engage in all forms of sexual activities outside wedlock as long as there isn’t vaginal penetration.

They pretend that the sex they have isn’t really sex as long as they don’t get caught.

The interesting part is that all those actively engaging in stretching their own personal boundaries are actively engaging in limiting others personal decisions by being part of the tight society measures.

A man who is open to having “virgin sex” with the girl he loves isn’t as open to the idea if the person involved is his sister. The same man who would pressure the girl he likes to jump from base one to three will advise his best friend to cut off the man she likes for doing the same with her.

A man who says that virginity isn’t really a factor to judge a girl will make a pass at every non virgin he knows.

It is duality and inconsistency everywhere.

And because of all the duality and inconsistency I can’t have sex out of wedlock. Not because I believe it is wrong. On the contrary, I believe it is my right and it is everyone’s right to live their life the way they want. I believe that it is my right to fall in love and to have sex and not to worry about social consequences.

I am at a point of my life where I open to compromise lots of the things I thought can’t be compromised. I am turning 34 in few weeks, and although marriage was never a goal of my life yet loneliness wasn’t one of those goals either.

I am open to considering relationships that are not the “happily ever after” type.

And there is two ways to do this. Either I confront the society with my decision and bear with the consequences or play by the duality rules like many are doing.

I don’t have enough courage to live my life the way I think I should be living it. Yet, I have lots of self respect not to let myself fall in the dual life/ double measures trap.

So, until a further notice I am keeping my virginity.

On a Side Note - 1

This might not have a future but it sure has a wonderful present.

One day at a time ... don't jump to conclusions.

Enjoy your present because there might not be a future anyway.

Re-Posting: Completely Personal and Utterly Nonsense

Again, because names change but everything stays the same. 

A couple of months ago, I had a very nice conversation with my favorite ex of all time “HH”. About the things I’d rather be doing at that given point of time.

Well, before telling you about the details of that conversation I should first tell you about my year. This year I turned 31. And for the 1^st time in those 31 years I can proudly say that I have completely wasted a year. And it is not related to how I was designed to only see imperfections. I really wasted this year. I can’t remember I learned a new thing, I can’t remember that I have done something that I wanted. If there is one achievement in this whole year it will be that I kept breathing. I held on to life. I didn’t listen to the voices telling me that it isn’t really worth it. I survived nights of heavy breathing and I had faith to wake up in the time all what I really wanted is eternal sleeping.

The thing with being in that place when holding on to life is the biggest of all achievements is that people can’t understand you. No one would see how breathing, as simple as it sounds, could be a real challenge. They will start getting their magical solutions out of the clichés closet. Go out, get a new job, have a new hobby, shopping and the rest of the long list of what people believe are mood fixers.

But the thing is, it is not a mood. It is somewhere deep. Let me try to explain. I had a bad year; well I am having a bad year. And that was preceded by many bad years. A bad year was never a problem; a bad life is what every human should expect. No one said life is a piece of cake. Life is a tough journey up a very steep hill. But we keep going up for a reason. Every now and then we get things that motivate us to keep on the journey we discovered was lame when it was too late to go back.

But sometimes, for some people, and in this very case me. You get trapped in a place where there are no ways either up or down the hill. You can always try paving a new road, but you will eventually get to understand that regardless how hard you try and how successful you will get, the road you will pave won’t get you longer than two steps ahead. Then you will get back to the trap of nowhere to go. And in many cases after paving the road and walking the two steps you earned you find that they actually led you to where you started and the effort was actually a complete waste of time and energy. And that you will have to try again, and re-trust your now so un-trustable instincts and resources to pave a new road and risk ending up at the very same place again.

For some, this is the joy of life. Actually, even if there is no joy in it, it is how life goes. We don’t get to choose. But it is just exhausting and shopping, eating, new jobs and whatever the people tell you to do to get out of that corner won’t work. At a point all these fix tricks will be a burden too. People themselves will be a burden because you will have to wear a content face while they are around because without that face you will get the lectures, and sometimes the sympathy which both aren’t what you need. What you really need is your two steps up the hill. The two steps you deserve after working your best. Regardless that some people will keep telling you that you should try harder and whatever you are doing isn’t good enough because others are doing more. And because others are doing more and your best is never enough you end up in that place, trapped midway with no sign of direction. And there holding on to life is the best you can do. The greatest of all achievements after realizing that even holding onto life is a waste of energy and time.

So, I was talking with my favorite ex about my bad year. I didn’t tell him exactly that I am barely holding onto life and taking it one day at a time. But I told him that I want a little miracle to move me my two steps up the hill with no strings attached. And I told him about the things I’d rather be doing now. I’d rather be able to drive my car instead of my irrational fear of driving. I’d rather be dating a handsome man, someone who isn’t fat, bald and is sure intellectually interesting. I’d rather be in a relationship with a man who genuinely loves me instead of those who marginally loved me along other things.

I’d rather be entertained than being entertaining. I’d rather get back to finish my master’s degree and even I’d rather please my dad and get back to work.

But the question is will any of these make me happy. The real question should be, am I unhappy?

The answer is simple, regardless how unhappy my words are. I am a happy person. I am flexible enough to get satisfaction from little things. Let it be a smile from a stranger or a complement from an old friend. Little things make me happy. And because of the abundance of those little things I am a really happy person. And doing the things that I’d rather be doing won’t make me any happier. On the contrary many of them come with either guilt built-in or unbearable level of stress and complications. I am better off and happier without all the things I said I’d rather be doing.

Actually the reason behind thinking of these things I’d rather be doing was that I met someone new. He is completely different, maybe representing every opposite thing I stand for. Yet, we got along. One of the main reasons we got along easily is that our differences will never actually meet. The beauty of virtual relations is that everything is in hypothesis and for people who think arguments is a hobby hypothesis is really all what you need.

So my new virtual friend, and because he is completely not me, got me thinking about lots of things. One of these things was am I impressive? Actually it wasn’t completely him; it was a sequence of events that made me wonder whether or not I am impressive.

Let me confess something, I am not really a typical girl. I know that I look like millions of girls and I am sure millions might be smarter than me. But I am not typical. Things go in different paths in my mind and I know it. I just don’t confess it because people will think that I am either arrogant or stupid. But I believe that I am sort of untypical.

And being untypical should make me interesting. And interesting could easily lead to impressive. But I don’t seem to impress anyone. I don’t seem to be showing how untypical I am, and even the worse is that you might get the chance to deal 1^st hand with how untypical my mind can get and still that won’t interest you or in the least impress you.

I am sure that psychology has a term to describe a person who is self-centered and with huge ego issues. And that term will fit me best. But this is the way I am.

So back to being impressive, the things I told my ex that I’d rather be doing were the things I believe will make people see me more interesting. The fact that I don’t drive though having a car makes people see me as a coward, lazy and incapable person. Maybe if I was driving like everyone else I would have been more interesting.

Dating the intellectually interesting, un-fat, un-bald guy will make me more interesting too. And will make me impressive for many people. Actually getting a chance to date that guy means I am already interesting and impressive.

Work seems to be a huge issue for everyone. It is not important how I think, or what I believe. For people it is more important if I work for a multinational, international with whatever catchy name organization. Nothing else matters.

So according to the list of things I said I’d rather be doing to be interesting means I should be driving a nice car, I should have a job with a catchy name and I should be coupled up with someone who people will think is interesting and impressive too.

And then will come the question, does this make me impressive?

And the more important question why the Shimaa who is writing this isn’t interesting and impressive?

Why I should be doing things that I don’t really want to do, to get to people who won’t see whatever I am already doing?!

And then here we are back on the favorite square zero, all things said and all things done. My best is never enough, and I would have tried harder yet my hardest is never hard enough. I put myself out there knowing that there is no guarantee to have my two steps up the hill. But I try. And I proudly fail. And there is no shame in failure. And that’s why I try again and again but never with the same enthusiasm because a part of me is always lost in each trial.

There should be more to life than failing. There should be more to life than trying and falling back where you started. There should be magic. There should be rewards more than a stranger’s smile and a hidden complement. There should be more. Because if there isn’t more, I don’t know how long I can keep holding onto life. If there isn’t magic, it isn’t really worth living.

The Two Rings – Status Update

I know I might have said this like 100 times before but I won’t stop saying it. I don’t know how I was going to pull through if I didn’t have Sameh in my life. Up to this moment he is the living proof that I can still attract decent and respectable men. I can still have friendship that’s not biased at any level with malicious thoughts.
My sweet friend Sameh called me last night. He was checking on me. Earlier I sent him an SMS saying that I am extremely depressed which has been the case ever since he has known me. I have always been depressed and moaning. Or at least this is as far as I can remember. Anyway, he asked the typical question “how are things going with you?” I gave him my typical answer that I have been giving to people for little around 8 years now, “Nothing new”. I laughed telling him that my life is all about two circles. These two circles get repeated in the same routine over and over and over. Nothing could ever be new. I go through the very same problems and I give the very same reactions and I always end up where I started.
I have the “HH” circle and the “family” circle. As I am writing this I discovered that these two circles are extremely similar. Both are abusive, both never take no as an answer and both are a die hard.
On the “HH” side nothing is really new, it is the very same scenario but with different lines. I had laid a plan to kick the “HH” addiction out of my life. I thought that my plan worked till I found out that this plan has a little draw back which was HH’s reaction. The plan was simple and naïve counting on his arrogance and the fact that he will never think I will ever have the courage to try to get him off my life. I wanted him to take the step; I used the things he used to say that he hates about me. I nagged, then I nagged and when he thought I was done nagging I nagged again. I put him in the famous corner “marry me or I will be off to another relation” and that was when he gave up. I couldn’t even believe that he had given up for such a silly old trick so I topped my cake of lies with the cherry of declaring my engagement. He bought it and when I was done celebrating the rise of the sun after a long era of darkness I discovered that my persisting shadow wasn’t gone in the first place. He was just taking a break of my nagging. He was back with a smile and an offer. He wanted to be the other man. But I couldn’t live with the fact that he believes I am no better than him and that I am just a naturally born cheater so I came clean with him and I confessed that the whole engagement thing was a lie to blow up his lies.
And so, here I am trying to catch up with the tunes of what I hope to be my last waltz with HH. I am back to exactly where I started.
On the family side, nothing is really new. I just want to declare that I have a wonderful loving family. I still have to admit that there are things that I hate about my family but who doesn’t. And the family circle isn’t about family affairs. It is about work. As my ex-boss was my uncle.
This circle started little before the HH circle. I got graduated and I had high hopes and we all know how hopes are the only way to disappointments. So, I couldn’t find a decent job. I couldn’t find any kind of job. I was either over qualified or under qualified. And my dad wasn’t that patient to leave me hunting my Red October. He decided that I should start working for him. My dad has a little business in the field of contracting and construction along with my uncle. I didn’t like things there. My dad wasn’t my type of boss. He gave me assignments not jobs. He has always had someone else do the job and I felt like that everyone there was baby sitting me. I packed my bag of hopes and I was off to a career switching program. Later, again I fell under the catch 22 spell. I wasn’t experienced in the time they needed experience. And that was my second time to get back to my dad and uncle’s little place. I didn’t stay for long as I was off to other jobs, it all ended dramatically; even one of the companies went bankrupt. And again I was back to the little place but this time my uncle decided to use my qualifications. He found a way to use my English proficiency, my computer proficiency, my accounting knowledge and my financial courses. It was fun. I made things out of nothing. I laid systems and people had to follow. It was a perfect environment for a spider like me. Everything had my print. But as everything in life, it isn’t always that good. My sweet uncle started abusing me. I started to work extra long hours. I had to be the 1st to go and the last to leave. I couldn’t take a vacation for two years because if I did who will do the work. I was completely underpaid. And when I asked for help he didn’t bring me an assistant he promoted someone who used to work under me to be my boss. And that was the straw the broke the camel’s back. I simply left. I said no and I meant it.
The tricky thing for working for your family is that everyone thinks that I get a special treatment because we share the same blood. But the truth is, when you work for your family you put your personal relation at stake. Little work problems always turned to be huge family problems. Family gatherings were business meetings. They abused me with the name of the family’s best interest. The problem with working with family is that you will always be wrong because they are older and they know what’s best for you and for the family.
I was off and it was the worst break-up I ever had in my life. I was off and he didn’t even consider apologizing. He asked every possible person on this world to ask me to come back (he wanted me back because who else was going to do the work) but he never did the call. Now after 14 months. After getting 6 employees and a manager to do the job I used to do. He wants me back. He said he is having major expansions and he wants a family member to watch his back. Can anyone spot a pattern here?
I just don’t know what’s so tempting about me for people to try to abuse me. Why if not sex it will be business?
Honestly, I have lost my faith in people. I have real problems trusting. I have turned to be a paranoid creature who expects a stab whenever someone smiles to me. These two circles have really left me with nothing to hold on.
I remember the last time I met Brad when I poured my worries into his ears. I told him that I need a change. He wondered if I need someone new. I replied I just need something new. Now I guess I know what I need. I need a new circle. I need to break these two circles for good. I spent all my sweet twenties in an on/off relation with HH and with my family business. I don’t want to waste my thirties fighting the same old battles and losing for the same old reasons.
That was Shimaa Gamal reporting about the two rings
Over and Out.

Current Thought - The Circles Entrapment

There was time when everyone believed the world is flat. And those who could walk to the end of the world they will fall in the outer space. There has been time when everyone believed that a big bull holds earth on his thorn. That bull was held responsible every time the earth got shaken. It was believed that this shake is because the bull was moving the land from on thorn to the other.
Then the earth was discovered to be a big ball that rotates around a bigger ball called the sun which in turn rotates around the center of a bigger formation of balls rotating around other balls called the galaxy. And these big balls which move in circles around other big balls were found to be rotating around themselves.
The whole universe is formed of circles that move around circles in a circular motion in an endless perfect rhythm.
A circle is an absolutely relative shape. It could start at any point and could end at any point. Moving around a circle grants difference as you change the location as it grants repetition because there is no where to escape.
Nothing in this universe miss that circular motion. Even we, humans, might not look like a circle but our lives follow the circular pattern. We start in the darkness and humidity of a womb and we end in the darkness and humidity of a grave. We move in circles of hopes and disappointments. That’s why opportunity keeps knocking our doors in different shapes. That’s why we do repeat our mistakes, may be with different persons but it is always the same mistake. That’s why we will always end up hurt. And that’s why there is always light at the end of darkness. Life is just a circle that starts nowhere, goes to everywhere and ends up at nowhere again.

P.S.
This thought is inspired by a post by my good friend Askandarani, he felt down and this thought was my idea of cheering him up. I know I suck at cheering people up. Sorry dear, I failed you again.

Picture: Circle Of Life