Wait .. Wait .. Wait

I think the truest test of love is wait. The one who loves you will wait for you to come around, make up your mind, step up to occassion, when you are an hour late to a date, for your name to be called at the doctor's office and will be waiting for you at every finish line you will ever have to cross.

I think the truest test of love is wait, the one who loves you will always be waiting right there where you need him to be.

On Healing

 

They say that healing is a self process. They say that you shouldn't wait for someone to fix you, because no one could fix you but you. They say that you shouldn't be waiting for a helping hand because you are the only one who could pick you up.

They say healing is a self process, and they are right to a great extent. Yet, healing leaves scars. Scars hurt. And putting scars to test, they usually tend to bleed again. 

The real test of healing is how we deal with a bleeding scar. A bleeding scar is nothing but a reminder that whatever we are doing used to hurt one day but now we are ok.

We are healed only when a little bleed is nothing but a little bleed.

Healing is all about perspective.

It is ok if your scars hurt, hurt means you have survived.

Just don't mind the bleed! 

On Death & Dying

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's "On death and dying" was inspired by her work with the terminally ill patients. In  the book Ross introduced the, now widely known, model about the emotional stages of dealing with grief.
The model later was expanded to include (explain) different types of loss, like the death of a loved one or the end of relationship and so forth.

The model has helped a lot of people deal with their "post loss" status. Yet this model could shed a different light on pre-loss stage in love relationships.

There is a point in a relationship when one realizes that it is never going to work out. It is the moment one realizes that their love is terminally ill. And as we do with terminal illness, we attempt at different medications on hope it will help.

We know it is terminal illness yet we never fail to seek whatever treatment that could buy us more time. We buy time on a hope that time will save us. We buy time, on a hope that a miracle is there waiting for us and all we have to do is keep holding on.

And as we realize that whatever treatment we try is never going to bring us to the miracle we start getting angry, at the world, at ourselves and sometimes at God himself for having us to go through this.

Why me?

Why should I watch my love die?

But anger doesn't help and so we move on to compromise and we start bargaining. Maybe we could redefine the relationship? Maybe he needs more space? Maybe if i kept ignoring the signs and kept acting as if the love isn't terminally ill it will never die.

Maybe .. Maybe there isn't a miracle waiting, but we should create our own miracles, aren't we?

And as we fail depression prevails.

And we start getting ready to let it go. We start contemplating how it should end. We plot plans to make it easy. But we know it is never going to be easy.

Depression Prevails, and acceptance brings on some interesting questions.

Would you sign a DNR on your dying love?

Would you rather put the relationship on life support?

Would you ever be ready to pull the plug on your "dead love"?

How could you let go?


There are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. And it was never easy to go through them.

Teammates!

Long story short, I told him that I am no longer jealous because we are teammates which means other women are not competition anymore.

The idea of being teammates with a man is brand new. Not that "we" are real teammates, this is yet to be tested. But the mere idea of "coupling on basis of team-matting" makes one wonder could love ever be love with no "power struggles". Is it possible to navigate through a relationship without the regular fears of rejection/ loss .. etc.

The idea is new. The potential it brings is totally new.

Yet it is to be tested. He is yet to be tested.

Teammates, equal powers, no struggles, no fears => LOVE?!

Who knows!

#RelationshipGoals

There is a scene in “Meet the Focker's” that sets the benchmark for how I define a perfect relationship or “real love”. There stood Ben Stiller (playing Greg) on a stage while drugged with “truth serum” saying “I still masturbate to Pam”.

If I will ever be in a relationship, I would definitely want to be with the man who will still be masturbating to me years into our relationship.

Where Are We Now?

My First man's name was Ahmed. When I met Ahmed I thought he will be my first and my last. When I met Ahmed I believed love is a "forever" thing. Then it didn't work out. And the next man I met I thought he would be the last but that didn't work either. 

I moved from one "last" man to one last man. And with every last man I believed that he will be my first "love" as love is a "forever" thing. 

With every "last" man I look for a "first" man .. 

Love is for forever. You are only the first if you are the last ... 

The Burden of Love

What if he said he doesn't mind to be in love?

What if he stayed?

Leagues

A male friend of mine likes a female friend. I told him repeatedly that he isn't her type and he keeps asking what her type is then.

What I didn't tell my friend was the fact that girl is way out of his league. She is perfect and he is a mess.

The fact that he doesn't see how much of a mess he is or how perfect she is, is why he will always live with a broken heart and why she will never find true love.

She is perfect, she is out of the average man's league. Yet she always end up with some average man who would hurt her in process of trying to prove he isn't as average as he is and truly deserves a trophy woman such as her.

While he is an average guy who is overestimating himself and believes he deserves nothing less than her perfection.

Life is a cruel place!

A Kindly Reminder

Just in case you ever wondered whether or not he cared. The answer is always that he never cared.

Live with it. #KeepSwimming

On availability

I studied economics for a good part of my life. And in every page I read there was a clear message "be scarce". Scarcity derives the supply and demand and sets the prices.

Scarcity is the core of the economic theory as much as it is the core of life.

Love is a market that's governed with scarcity too.

A person will walk the extra mile only if you are out of reach.

He will call to check if he can't find traces of you to tell him how you have been.

He will ask to meet if he can't find enough room to talk.

He will propose only if he fears to lose you to someone else.

In a world derived by scarcity I am too available.

I have blogs, twitter and a bi-weekly article for DotMsr (you can find an updated list of the published articles here)

He can always read me. He can never miss me. And he can always find reasons to stay away.

I am too available for him, any him, to love me!

On Loneliness: Definition

There are points in one’s life when something really big happens. Maybe losing a loved one, or seeing one of your dreams coming true.

A moment of pure joy or deep sadness, the type of moment you look around to share with someone. Someone who understands your excitement, someone who will dance a night away to celebrate your happiness. Someone who would hold you tight to ease an unbearable pain.

There are huge moments in one’s life that one needs to share them. They are too big to be lived alone.
When one can’t find someone to share such moments with, that one is officially lonely.

Q.E.D

On holding those lines …

There is a fact that most people ignore, the worst time of your life will always be the right now. Whatever bad you are going through won’t sound as bad later because somehow you will find a way. 

Somehow life will manage to throw you a bigger load of misery. And you know what, you will long for the good old days. The good old days that was never that good. Or you might be smart and long for tomorrow that your heart hopes will be better than the misery you are living today. But when tomorrow comes holding & failing all types of promises you realize there is always a catch. And life is in part misery as much as it is in part joy.

The point is, the worst of your times is always today. The best of your times is always today too.  

Deal with it!

Where are we now?

There is a joke about a man who was asked about the secret of the success of his marriage. He replied that he made a deal with his wife. That major decisions are his job & she gets to do all the minor decisions and that was the last decision he made.

The joke might not be funny. It is sort of funny but I think it holds more philosophy than it was intended to do. Or maybe it is just my mood that makes me see philosophy in such a shallow joke.

What constitutes a major decision? We were all introduced to the “starbucks” decisions in the legendary movie “You have got mail”. It is a series of insignificant decisions that lead to a cup of coffee. A process that makes you feel accomplished but yet not life changing (threatening) in anyway.

So, if the type of coffee you drink to start your day isn’t a major decision what could a major decision be?

Education is a life changing decision which makes it “major”, so is career, marriage, having kids or finding a new place to live. Break ups & investments too. The first that comes to your mind when you think of a major decision is probably a crossroads where you have to decide a turn that will decide your destination. Minor decisions are supposed to be the ones we take down the chosen road just to get over obstacles to get to the destination.

Life changing crossroads is supposed to be clear. You are probably confused while deciding, else you wouldn’t have known that you are at a crossroads. Or even you wouldn’t have felt how “major” the decision is.

Between you & me I think “major” decisions are over rated. It is easy to take a major decision regardless how hard it seem to be. After all & out of being confused a person will do what they will over think all the options, will ask for opinions & will eventually take a calculated step into risk. Crossroads decision might feel hard but they are the clearest decisions you can make. You pick a road, that simple. You decide a destination that you know you want, regardless that knowing what you “really” want is a challenge & a major decision in itself.

You know what do I believe are “major” decisions? It is the decisions we take on the go. The ones we don’t think about. The ones that we think are taken to serve “major” decisions already made in previous crossroads.

Those “minor” decisions are taken without taking risk into account, like when you go order sushi & end up in ER. Your lunch of choice would lead to putting an end to your story. And such minor decision would consequently lead to more minor decisions that could be “Life changing”  in so many ways.

Every step of the way is a crossroads. Every step could change our lives. Even the steps we take thinking will lead to the destination we set at the beginning of the journey might turn to be taking us to somewhere we never knew existed.

Every step of the way is a life changing decision. Even your morning coffee. 

To Whom it may Concern!

Let's assume that the long sincere talks, the intimate coffees and the full of fun dinners are of substance enough to make this a relationship and take it from there!

Current Thought: On Signs

Falling in love is like being trapped in quicksand. The harder you resist the faster you drown. Like quicksand love is an innocent trap. There is nothing specific that would warn you that this pile of sand is highly viscous and might suck you down. And like quicksand you don’t know how lethal that trap could be till you are down to your neck. The best practice when you get trapped in quicksand is to stand still and give as much signs as you can asking for help. Signs though should be implicit because any sudden movement will complicate the situation. When you fall in the innocent trap of love signs are everything both partners have. Each gives a sign, implicit in a try to keep things simple but eventually this could be the problem because you are not waving but drowning.

The Dedication

I have been writing that thing I call my book for sometime now. The first thing I wrote was the dedication. I know people usually write books then they dedicate it but in my case I dedicated an unwritten book for the reason who made me thought of writing it in the first place.
I am not sure if I will ever finish it. I am not sure if it will ever get published. The only thing I am sure of is he was the reason.

======================================================

To the man who took me to the other face of life, the man who made me taste the sweet bitterness of human relations, the man who drew the first line in the new picture of me, perfected the picture and eventually broke his perfection with a messing line, The man who manipulated the thoughts, the feelings, and the soul. To my guide in the valley of shadows, to the shadow that darkened my life, to a few good days and a rule of misery.
To Hamdy, the friend, the father, the lover, the husband, the playboy, and the enemy.

Thanks for everything and thanks for nothing.

Illusions: An Analysis

Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conners, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger, and nothing like Robert Redford--but you'll take him anyway!! - Judith Viorst

Life is like a desert. To live is to survive the burning mornings and freezing nights. To live, is to secure a shelter in the scary open and to live is to believe in company while walking in the valley of wolfs.
Life resembles desert in many ways. Scarcity is one way. Illusions are another.
Unlike desert, illusions in life take many forms. While in desert, we have only the visual illusion which is a phenomenon that can easily be explained by physics. In life we have a phenomenal number of illusions that can never be related to physics.
As we strive for water in desert, we strive for security in life, security that comes in different forms and on different levels. Food, shelter and basic needs can be the perfect definition of security for some of us. A reputable career, a stylish car and a mountain of money could be the best definition for others. Love, family and safe company could be the optimum mix for the rest. Security could be a mix of everything and anything, but it is generally more of the resources the one think can help him survive through the desert called life.
Without getting too much into physics, visual illusion is simply a problem with perception. The reflection of sun light on sand gives the impression of water. And as water is the thing we struggle for in desert, we always forget that simple fact and follow our misleading perception.
Though unrelated to physics, other illusions basically follow that very simple logic. Illusions are just a perception problem; it is our personal perception of things that mislead us. It is our readiness to follow the illusion that takes us to middle of no where. It is our willingness to believe that these reflections are real water that leads us to the end.
We fall for illusions for different reasons, depending on the mix of security we seek, we fall for illusions to ease pain, to skip reality and sometimes because there is nothing else to believe. As the best thing about illusions is that they are always tempting and always pleasant, but unfortunately they always lead to middle of nowhere.
In desert, you risk your life following an illusion. You waste precious time hunting what can’t be hunted. You follow reflections instead of real water you seek, in life things work some how the same way. You get attracted to an illusion seeking what can’t be sought.
Illusions are a mirror where every thing looks beautiful. It twists reality to look as we deeply wish, in that mirror a witch will be an angel falling from heaven and a monster will act as prince charming. Illusions are the hard way to learn our lessons as it always comes at the high price of opportunity cost.
Anger, boredom and loneliness are all reflecting surfaces causing illusions. Anger, boredom and loneliness deflect the human mind towards emotional traps.
Love is one of these traps, or in actual terms imitations of love are the most famous of traps and the most known of illusions.
Real love is as scarce as diamonds, and mostly mistaken with rocks, while illusionary love is as shiny as glass but it worth as much as it.
In the quest for real diamonds, real love, we fall for many similar rocks. Lust, admiration, appreciation, like and love at first sight all shines but shininess of no value. Although each of them is based on a certain emotion, that can never be neglected but such emotions can never be compared to love.
Walking down the sighs valley, following a mirage of non existing water, shining loneliness will make some semi precious stones shines with reflections. A pure physical attraction will then be mistaken as love instead of calling it lust. Boredom will make a pure charcoal so promising of turning into a diamond so soon, the same way instant likeness is called by some, “love at first sight”. Anger is an exaggerating set of rays that will make an enemy of a friend and a lover of someone we just like.
Walking down the sighs valley, following the mirage of non existing solutions, we jump to love as the answer for each single question we ever had.
We just keep missing the real stone as the real stone is usually beneath the shiny semi precious feelings we fall for. We fall for these semi precious rocks as the real worthy one needs work to be earned. To get a diamond you need to dig for it, clean it, shape it and then give it to the one who deserve it. Love is earned through hard work, persistence and patience. Love needs to be handled with care and delivered to those who have waited anxiously for it to develop. Love isn’t a ready made fake jewelry, it is a tailored to taste custom designed art. Love is so precious that it is not commonly traded. Love is a set of rays not a reflecting surface. Love is the opportunity we waste, while running down the sighs valley hunting shiny illusions the same way a butterfly persistently hunt a fire looking for the shininess of light and facing nothing but burning to death.

Picture: Fractal by Pablo Picasso

Fairies’ Boxes and Black Tales

Once upon a time, there was a little beautiful girl who suffered from everything in life. She was poor, orphan with a witch step mother. The girl has hidden all her life, trying to survive poverty and adapting to the step mother orders. Till one day a prince showed up, to do all the work and magically saving her days.
That was a typical fairy tale, something that can describe Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood , The Beauty & The Beast or any other tale of the long list fed to little girls.
These fairy tales are mostly characterized by some major aspects. In all these stories the girl is always of rare beauty and people around her are tremendously ugly.
The girl is always miserable, either because of being poor, or because of a horrible step mother, or for any other reason. But misery is a pre-requisite in any fairy tale. And this misery is the source of the girl’s nobility.
The girl will never work to end her misery; the girl is always characterized of being patient and adapting to the surrounding harsh environment.
In all these tales, a fairy will interfere to give the girl the proper chance to meet a prince charming, and if there was no fairy then there will always be a magic well, or a wish to finding someone to love. Some how a prince will show up, and when the prince shows up there will not be any problems. The prince will slay the dragons, kill the dark magic and finally save the girl’s life with a magical kiss. The prince will make a princess of the poor girl, and they will always live happily ever after.
Girls are brought up on these tales, tales that value beauty, imply that misery is noble, induce submission, and promote the idea of prince charming.
A girl awaits her fairy tale; her life is a misery without a prince. Beauty is her only weapon and happily ever after is her only goal.
The girl lives believing that solutions are man made, usually in a form of a kiss.
In real life, there are no fairies. And princes have their own troubles. In real life, kisses are not the solution, but probably are the start of problems. In real life, misery isn’t a state of nobility but overcoming it, is.
Fairy tales explain most of the girlish behavior. It explains the fashion passion. The make up trends, the dancing classes, the weight watch, the nagging, the sad look and the competition. For each girl is doing her best to be the princess who catches the princess eyes.
There is not a fairy tale that describes a princess as smart or wise. There is not a prince who fell for a princess’ mind.
There is not a fairy tale without a misery as there is not a fairy tale without a magical kiss.

If only girls knew that there is no Santa, and that Cinderella filed for divorce.

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Once, I was one of those girls. I had the fairy tale theme running in the back ground of my life. I got into most of my relations opting for the happily ever after end. I waited for the magical kiss that infuses life in the princess veins.
But the princes in my tales were never charming, and the fairies were never skillful. And by the end of each tale, I grab the fairy, the memories and the prince, put them all in big black box and throw them away in a deep dark sea.
I remembered my old fairy tales as Brad asked me which one was my prince charming. He wanted to know if I had the ability to choose, which one of them was going to have the happily ever after life with me.
I couldn’t give him an answer; it wasn’t the first time to be asked that question. A friend asked me that very same question before and I couldn’t give him an answer.
But some how his question made me go through the black boxes buried in the dark sea. I started getting each box out to figure out what was missing to make it a fairy tale.
The first box was too stinky that I couldn’t stand the smell. It seems that I have buried the prince alive along with his fairy. I looked at the scattered pieces of memories then I closed my eyes and I drew an end that would have made that tale a fairy tale.
This tale would only be a fairy tale, if that little man gets the chance to re-meet his old girl. It will only be a fairy tale, if he has got the chance to know that the little girl is now a woman. The envy look will complement the happy look I will have on my face.
I buried that stinky box, and got out another. That one didn’t have a buried prince. It had a live fairy with a glittery magic wand. The box had a big vault with secret numbers where I kept a dagger with my blood on and a little pieces of papers of what shouldn’t be remembered. I closed my eyes and made a wish, for the fairy to die and for the prince to vanish.
I moved on to another box, it had “DANGER” engraved on it. It was empty for my surprise. I let the memories go one night but I kept the box to remind me of the man who stepped on my Neverland.
I came across the Brad’s box where I know the woman is buried I asked if she has anything to say, and all what she said was, if it was meant to be a fairy tale he would have finished the kiss dream.

I buried the boxes back in place with all the memories, princes and unattainable happy endings. And if I am to choose a dream, I will never choose any of them. As the man who deserves my tears will never make me cry.

Picture: Galatea Of The Spheres by Salvador Dali

The Essential Ingredient

I love cooking, but I rarely write about it. Cooking is my sacred corner, the way I use to teach myself how I can always make a difference. It is the safest way to get creative and the easiest way the fake queen earns praise.
While cooking there is always an essential ingredient in each recipe that without it the recipe will fail. And there is always a secret ingredient that will make all the difference.

I was cooking when the idea crossed my mind. Chopping, mixing, seasoning and stirring resemble life in a great way, fate being the cook and we being cooked. Fate chops us, fries us, boils us, and seasons us to somebody’s taste. Fate mixes us and separates us. Fate bakes us with experience, turning some of us to something sweet, and some of us to something sour. We are all nothing but ingredients in a mystery recipe, some of us are essential and others are the keys fate uses to make all the difference while the rest are just replaceable. But none of us know how and when the cook will decide to stir ‘em in.

The fate’s mystery recipe is the master recipe and as we play the role of ingredients we play the role of cooks in smaller recipes of our creations. We are cooking and being cooked all in a harmonious movement.
And as fate tosses us with others we start creating bonds that takes forms of relations.
Relations that come with different flavors, that ranges from the ice cold to the burning hot.
I was cooking and I wondered what is giving the flavor. What is the essential ingredient? What makes friendship, friendship? How come love is love? What draws boundaries? If tomato sauce is only tomato sauce because of tomato, can defining a human relation be as easy?
Let’s assume a man and a woman, a regular man and a regular woman, who happen to meet somewhere.
They get tossed together, cooked under different kinds of heat and the result is always different. What is causing that difference?
Why it is once lust, another love, sometimes friendship? What is the essential ingredient that turned a simple bond into a type of relation?
We are basically friends with our friends due to the physical antipathy; lust on the other hand is unreasonable physical attraction. Love is a friendship with lust.
So, though physical attraction might seem to be a superficial way to define a relationship but it seems to play the key role in the recipe preparation. It is how we use it that creates the difference.
And unlike the other factors that build a relation, physical attraction is the only instant factor. It is either initially found or it will never be there. Then comes the reason, if there is reason so there might be love if not hence a one night stand.
It is like salt for a recipe, it turns tasteless components into a delicious combination. Ad just like salt it should always be consumed with moderation. The more of it is something that you can’t stand for long and you will keep craving more if you used less.

So, if lust is the essential ingredient that differentiates friendship from love, what will be the key ingredient that makes all the difference?
I always say, add a little nutmeg, and the nutmeg of relationships is honesty. so a little more pinch of honesty will always make a difference!!

When the spoon becomes just a spoon

There is a point in a relationship when you discover that things have lost their meaning. You suddenly discover that you are not the same person and that this is not what you signed up for. The point where you look at you partner wondering why you fell in love in the first place.
You look back and remember how good it was when you first met. The tingles of like and the first buzzes of love. You go on keeping the little memories, match boxes from places you visited, the plastic spoon you used to share your first bowl of soup and lots of tiny little meaningless things that meant everything at that time.
And you keep going on, replacing the tingles with a soft feeling of security, breaking the uncertainty of anticipation with the routine of a relation.
Then life takes over, instead of you and me it becomes you, me and everyone. It is the stage where the relation is like a little boat in an angry ocean. And in the ocean tiny things disappear, in the storm whispering sweet nothings is of no use. And some how you wake up on the fact that yelling have replaced talking and fights have become the official way of communication. You come to the point to face that the little boat is drowning and then you have to face the fear of facing each other and finding out that you have nothing in common.
The point you both discover that the spoon you kept is just a spoon and that the little things that meant everything belongs to your trash can.
The moment you know that boredom has conquered. And that there is nothing left to be done.
Boredom isn’t an instant thing, it grows over time that I even think it is a parasite that lives on the love plant. It takes as much time as for love to develop but secretly it suffocates the poor plant that seems strong but fails to face the slightest breeze.
We start the relation with the belief that we are not like any other couple. Love always comes in a promotional package that reads genuine that’s mostly believed to be unique too. And this believe of uniqueness has the seeds of boredom and hence the destruction of the relation.
Love relations are genuine but are not unique, we opt for uniqueness in away to prove to ourselves that this relation will be a big boat to stand for the oceans waves ignoring that no matter how big the boat is, the ocean will always be bigger and no matter how strong the boat is, storms will always be fierce.
Out of uniqueness come expectations, expectations that the other will always understand and will always fulfill. And out of expectations come unfulfilled needs and frustrations. And out of frustrations come subsurface anger, and out of anger comes the loss of curiosity and then the boat flips and the storm takes over.
We cause the boredom by refraining from communicating our needs in a clear way, we expect for love to be the answer for the questions that we didn’t ask. We expect the other to read our minds and act the way we want. We push the limits by doing things that we think will make our significant other happy in the time we don’t really want. We suppress anger and accumulate frustration. And instead of facing the storm side by side we face it back to back and when the time for eye contact come we find out that we have lost the aim and that spoon is just a spoon after all.

Picture from: studio.nathanielguy.com