The Arabic direction

My friends have always asked me, why writing in English? And my answer was always I write in the language of the idea. When I think in English I write in English and when I think in Arabic I write in Arabic. And I tend to think in English whenever I am feeling uncomfortable. I have this unexplained syndrome, whenever I feel pressured I start speaking English, whenever I feel cornered I start thinking English and whenever I feel hurt I start writing English. Arabic on the other hand is the language I deliberately stopped using but whenever I am comfortable it is always my home.
So, as recently I have been experiencing ideas that speak “Egyptian” which is something other than Arabic but resembles it in many ways. I have decided to create a new blog for those Arabic thoughts. It is not a translation of this blog, it is just my Arabic thoughtless thoughts, written mostly in pure “Egyptian”.
I started by posting some of my old writings and I am currently searching for more of these old writings. And soon I will post the new thoughtless thoughts in Arabic.

The blog has the same name, but sure it is the Arabic translation. So if you can read Arabic click here to check it out.

Thanks
Shimaa


Picture by: © Bellamy / Festival d'Avignon

To Brad

Brad wrote:

Dear Shimaa,
Being one of you hideous ex's, as well as a common X-factor catalyst accelerating the process of trust-demolition throughout the vast risky kingdom of men before you, I have certainly been one of your most avid fans and readers.
Putting my thoughless behaviour and shameful acts aside, I hereby stand tall and proud having known you, seen you and been blessed by the unconditional state of forgiveness you've shrouded me with, let alone the most dietous hand open for an everlasting friendship offered by your good self. I have told you before that "To err is human, to forgive to divine" and you, dear Shimaa, have yet again proven this old saying wrong by your forgiveness, or have remarkably proved it right which makes you more a creature of light rather than a human.
For most human being are not capable, let alone made for, granting this sort of forgiveness, or even the mere initiation to try it.
I have been taught a lesson. A hard one. for I have sinned across your shrine of wholehearted purity, elegance and code of knighthood. May the most Gracious bless your good heart, Shimaa.

You know who I am.


Actually this won’t be the first time he leaves me speechless, ever since I have known him he has always taken me by surprise. Good surprises and shocking ones. This comment too was a surprise.

My dear Brad

I guess I have told you before that you are the only one who deprives me of my talent. The poet has always outshined the little girl and left her clueless.
I don’t really know how to start but I guess a good start will be thanking you for your sweet words. I am flattered that you think I am worth reading and that my thoughtless thoughts are of value for someone with your mind.
As for “Us”, I will share with you the reply I gave to a friend of mine who asked about you a couple of days ago. The last thing she knew was your disappearance and she didn’t know the rest of the story. But when she did, she was more than surprised. She wondered how anyone can be that cruel. She wanted me to be angry. She begged me to scream.
She wanted me to get out the feelings she thought I might have towards you. I simply replied that I don’t need to do any of that because I simply gathered everything and I put it in a big black box, I closed the box so tight and I threw it away in a big dark sea. The exact words were, “sandoo2 eswed we ramietoh fi ba7r el zolomat”.
I simply forgot and started from square zero for the sake of the word I gave you. Our deal was to sustain friendship regardless how bad things will go. I am sustaining friendship, I am doing the exact thing I would like you to do if we ever switched places.
It was the friend who forgot, it was the friend who buried the woman with her dark feelings in the big black box, and it was the friend who threw the woman with her soreness in the big dark sea.

Friendship it was, friendship it is and friendship it will always be.

One more time, thanks honey for your sweet words. I hope I will be as lucky as today more often and read more of you comments.

Love, always
Shimaa

Picture: Journey to forgivness

http://www.waynevisser.com/art_2006.htm

What Movie Is Your Love Life Like?

Your Love Life is Like Pretty Woman

"I want the fairy tale" You believe that love is truly blind, unpredictable, and surprising. Two very different people can easily find true love. At least, that is how it will happen when you marry a gorgeous billionaire someday ;-) Your love style: Sensual and flirty Your Hollywood Ending Will Be: Surprisingly happy

What Movie Is Your Love Life Like?

Comments

I am a person who respects the freedom of speech. I believe that every person have the right to speak up his mind in the way he believes is right. I believe that diversity is the key to enrich the mind and that the other opinion is always an option.
Out of that belief I never thought of moderating comments. Till someone started exploiting that belief and misused the right of freely expressing his opinion. This person started attacking me as a person and insulting me using every name in the book.
I had to delete these comments and I had to change my attitude towards the freedom of speech. I can accept criticism to the ideology, harsh and honest advices about my positions but I can’t accept personal insult.
I am so sorry I had to start comment moderation.

One last word for that anonymous who posted such comments, I recommend that next time you strap on a pair as if you are man enough you would have signed a name. But a typical behavior is to stay behind the safety wall of anonymity.
And then you dare calling yourself a man just because of your male hormones. What a pitty!!

Where Did I Go Right

The Keys to My Heart

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to good manners and elegance. In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved. You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was insecure and in constant need of reassurance. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred. In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Current Thought - The Type

My idea of a vacation resembles to a great extent my idea of a honeymoon, a place with no one around, a calm sea, fresh air and lots of greenery preferably in a 5 stars hotel with a 24/7 room service.
I am writing this in day 1, the vacation seems to be a good one, though family is around but yet the place isn’t crowded, a really calm sea and lots of greenery. The only thing missing is the 24/7 room service.
I started the vacation with a surprise, my grand mother got some news that I couldn’t categorize as bad or good. She told me that someone is proposing to me. This someone is a relative who happens to be a good friend of mine. Actually I was taken by surprise and my little mind couldn’t find a suitable reply but silence. So, she gave me a week to think the offer over.
I can’t deny that I didn’t like the surprise but it was sort of expected as my grandmother had posed the issue before in a grandma/grand daughter kind of talk. It was two years ago when she asked “what do you think of “”, what if he proposed would you consider accepting his offer.” I remember back then I gave her a vague answer, or what I see now as a vague answer, as my answer was that he isn’t more than a cousin to me and that I never thought of him as anything else.
I didn’t like the surprise as the last thing I need now is to take a decision that would necessarily lead to a significant result. I am in a phase where I need what was best described, in the movie “You got mail”, by the “Starbucks” decisions, a serious of decisions that would lead to an insignificant result like how I would have my coffee and will leave me satisfied by the decision making process.
The first thing that came to my mind was that he isn’t my type. The second thing was the question, if he isn’t my type so, “what is my type?!”
I recall little of the picture I had for the man of my dreams. I have always wanted him be tall, fit, with dark hair, fair complexion, a pair of catchy eyes and a wonderful smile.
I have always pictured long talks, fruitful discussions and genuine laughs.
I wanted him to smell good, to dress good and to accept willingly the hazards of my company, a man who willingly accepts the lioness in the cat, the woman in the girl and the Goddess in the human, a man who can see the different faces of me and love each and every one of them.
I wanted a man who is as genius as Albert Einstein, as poetic as Khalil Gibran & who possess an ambition that can put him on top of this world.
That was the dream but in the reality I have settled for less. I just wanted a man who can read, talk and listen. I wanted a man who looks good. A man who is willing to try, fail and then succeed. A man who accepts me the way I am the same way I appreciate the way he is. I wanted someone who meets a relative definition that could simply be applied on any man.
One more time I started going through the men I knew in a try to find out a pattern or maybe a thread to lead me to discover “my type”.
The trend showed that I have always gone for the engineers, I have always gone for those who spoke more than one language, I have always gone for outgoing men to compensate my shyness deficiency, and above all I have always gone for the good talks regardless how shallow these talks were.
I have had unconsciously chosen the men who had something in common with the picture in my dreams. I have always gone for the taller, the fitter, the better dresser and the sweeter talk. I have always gone for the smarter, the funnier and the more successful.
I have always gone for the dream but was that dream right for me? Is Mr. Right is really right? Is that type is my type?
My sister said that she had always found a problem setting me up with someone, as for everyone she thinks of she discovers that he is too shallow for me. For her, my type is someone who reads, someone who uses the gray material located in his skull and also known as the brain, she said that an open minded man is my type and anything else isn’t a necessity.
“S” on the other hand said that my type is someone quiet and outgoing. Though it might sound strange that an outgoing person can be quiet, but “S” was right. My “Mr. Right” should be outgoing but yet quiet enough to fit with my character.

Brad said that he thinks my type is "a Neo-Classical Rebelliously Conventional Gentleman
A Brad that didn't stab you in the back would be an excellent choice for you"

The thing is, if all the men I knew were my type in a way and it always failed. Will it be wise to try someone who isn’t the type maybe it works?!!!

Pages From A Torn Diary - That Night

While going through some of my old writings I found this, it is not too old. But it never found its way to be published. It wasn't meant to be published in the first place, it is just a page from the diary I tear apart ...
It was dated June 22, 2007. It was about Brad

I guess that night started a couple of days earlier. It started with that kind of dreams. There was him and there was the silly me handing him some of my hair as a gift. And typically he took it playfully and ended up throwing it away.
I don’t tend to take my dreams seriously, but I couldn’t ignore that one. I couldn’t ignore my subconscious warning me to wake up from the dream I am living.
I remembered the similar dreams that I had before, “M.M.I.B” kicking me in one, “H.H” leaving me with a monster. I just couldn’t ignore the subconscious warning.
I woke up from that dream to find my radar screaming, the target couldn’t be located.
He didn’t call, didn’t answer the calls and if he eventually ended up answering. He will sound as cold as a snow storm. He stopped missing me, he couldn’t find anything to say and the conclusion was he lost interest.
It was the moment I told myself seems that the game is over and reminded myself that this game was a timed game in the 1st place but seems that our timers were set to two different times. I reminded myself with every advice my friends gave me when I told them about him.
Then it was the time of the friends’ talks or let it be the truth call. “Something/someone else has got his attention and that was expected, I warned you”. That was his first comment. “I never liked him in the first place”. He said so reminding me with every single warning he gave me before. “Honey, Relax and think”, that was the comment of the more understanding friend. He added “We already know that it is just a game”.

Then came the time of what I call “The TALK”. I said “honey you seem busy”. He replied “kind of, you know I am usually busy at that time of the day”. So, I said when you are free, tell me because we need to talk. That was the hardest thing I have done that night. A couple of minutes earlier I tangoed in a fight with a “Something” who thought can have some free fun on my expense and I didn’t mess a step. It couldn’t even be considered hard. But asking him to have “the talk” can be considered the hardest thing I have done in a while. It was even harder from kicking the ex’s off my life.
His immediate reply was, now is good I am free.
I asked him directly “honey, are you pulling away”.
He replied “define pulling away”
I said “I noticed a change in your habits”
He replied “me too” and elaborated “less phone calls”
I said “less phone calls, less missing, and less interest”
He denied that he has lost interest and explained his change by a mood swing.
So, I asked him if we are good now, and he replied that up to his knowledge we are always good.
Then he stated three things that he doesn’t really like about me, the fact that I am “ZANANA”. which is something that I have told him about before but he didn’t really experience. And I guess the more he approaches my “Zann” zone the more he believes how severe my case is.
The second reason was a tip that he thinks I gave to his stalker. Though I have explained before that it wasn’t a tip it was more like a water test. But still he couldn’t accept me tipping his stalker.
The third thing was the fact that I am a super curious person. And he just didn’t like how much I am trying to push his buttons to know something that he didn’t want to talk about.
The fact that the three turn offs were all related to that stalker because of something that I have told her, or something that I implied in my talk to her or because a question that I have asked about her gave me a shiver that I ignored.
Because we already had the stalker talk before and supposedly he cleared it and I should never have any more reasons to doubt the stalker’s position in his life.
He asked me if something is turning me off. I replied no. I just said that I didn’t want to have that talk.
He wondered if we are at the same place. He meant the cross roads. I replied sure we are don’t panic. He replied panic is the last thing he does.
I went to bed seeking some sleep after few sleepless nights. For the first time in months I pushed the pillow I call his name away. I couldn’t hold it. I found myself crying and I couldn’t stop my tears.
Though he denied losing interest but he couldn’t be any less interested. He didn’t deny that he stopped missing me. He stopped missing me in the time I couldn’t sleep for days because I missed him. I wanted to talk in the time he avoided talking by all means.
He was turned off by some key characters in my personality, Curiosity and nagging. I am a female, I am entitled to nag, I am entitled to be curious and I am entitled to feel insecure because of a shadow. I am a woman and I have the right to use my intuition to evaluate situations.
I just cried, I wanted someone to get my out of that state but couldn’t think of a name because everyone who knows about it won’t support me. They will all have the same answer, “you knew it”. They will blame me for accepting the “No Status” status in the first place. They will blame me for getting the young girl out to play that game in the time it was a game suggested by the devil woman in the mirror. I didn’t even have the chance to call the ex’s I blew away to be free for the game. How to expect support from someone you just kicked away for someone else. I regretted the old time of the ex’s. They gave me the enough suspense in the hide and seek game we played. They provided a familiar and safe way to exercise my mind. And ever since they held the title “ex” they stopped rejecting me. I have become more interesting for them when I became less interested in them.
I cried thinking of my silly thoughts of giving the men’s empire a last chance, a chance that will never include marriage, a chance that will never include any sort of commitment other than a commitment to enjoy life.

All what I wanted was a hug, the right to shed a few tears on his shoulder whispering how much I will miss him. All what I wanted is a chance to look into his eyes wondering if it was to end with a kiss how it was going to be. All what I wanted is to know that I am not standing alone in the cross roads.


Silly ME!!

Temporarily Out of Service

I just hate the timing of that vacation, I just hate unplanned things. I tend to be spontaneous but I guess I am not as spontaneous as I am supposed to be.
I hate the timing of this vacation because I am leaving on my birthday. I didn’t have plans and no one booked me for the occasion, but I had hopes for doing something special that day. I usually hate my birthday, I hate the whole month of August. I believe it is a disastrous month but I am trying to be positive.
So as a part of celebrating my birthday I decided to stay positive and make a list of the good things that happened since my last birthday.
The best birthday celebration ever that “S” gave me. The amazing breakfast, the serious of gifts and the feeling that someone really care to remember.
- My brother finally graduated
- Roka (my friend)got married
- Fatma (my friend)got engaged
- Safaa (my cousin & friend) doing her PhD and hopefully she will finish it the way she wants.
- Essam (my friend)got rid of the someone I call “Mozet Q8”
- Hossam (my friend)coming home in vacation after a really long time
- Finally I found my closure regarding the M.M.I.B issue
- Shady (my friend) finishing his masters.
- The blog :)
Brad was among the best things that happened to me till the disastrous month of August did its tricks and one more time I lost a man to that month

Speaking of the bad things that happened to me in that year
- Brad, the whole experience, though I am not the type who regrets things but I have to admit that the Brad’s experience was something that I didn’t sign up for, A proof that I didn’t really seek. The way he treated me wasn’t something that can be ignored and it was one of the bad things that happened to me in that year. (the freshest and the closest to my birthday).
- Quitting my job; though I have been telling everyone that it was one of the best things that happened to me, but I have to admit that the way I have quitted my job was as painful as being dumped. I have given everything I can into this job and I took nothing in return, not even a thank you, sounds typical!!
- Getting back to “H.H” the dominant shadow. I wasted my hard work by accepting his apology. I have wasted my only chance to get rid of him.
- Gaining more weight.

I guess it wasn’t a bad year after all.

Happy birthday to me

I will be temporarily out of service, see you after the vacation

Current Thought - Forgiveness

I once wrote about the definition of love wondering if love is in forgiveness. Now as Brad is asking for my forgiveness, does forgiving him mean that I love him?
What if I couldn’t? Does that mean I don’t? What if I forgot what he did, does that count as forgiveness??

Would my closure be forgivness? Do I need a closure? I have always wanted one; do I still need a closure? Do I need a closure to stop missing him, to stop thinking of him, to fight the urge of calling him, to fight the need to talk to him? Do I need a point to reach peace and let go? Can I ever let go? Did I ever let go?
I have been trying to forgive him, but I would lie if I said I did. I am trying to forget what he did but I have a long list of unanswered questions that keeps reminding me with every single detail.
Can I forgive him? Can I forget?