Enme

The past two days have been very productive. My mind has been clear and focused. I’ve caught up on most outstanding items on my list and even done some writing. I just woke up on Tuesday morning and my mind was clear.

Today, this discovered strength was tested to an inch of its robustness. I had a particular conversation with my family and I witnessed the effects it was having on me, real-time. I felt my chest contract and my mind started to slow down as if someone shoved a pipe into a cog.

The question of identity came up in a natural way, mid-conversation. It’s a topic that just makes me sigh and then be silent. I don’t know what to think or know about that subject. People have such defined views of what constitutes an Egyptian, regardless of your efforts and intentions. I gave up on trying to figure out who I am, although I still wrangle with the questions inside. It’s not just about Egyptians, I’ve noticed the behaviour in all the different countries I’ve lived in. In their mind, it’s simple. In mine, it isn’t.

From that platform, we launched into orbit and I finally could pinpoint the exact point in my mental cosmos where I started to regress back into myself.

It was the point when I realized I’m on one side and they are on another. Where I would talk and talk, silence sucking in my words and spitting out awkwardness. A burp. A long, putrid one. At this point also is where I lay things down as they are and my audience are never ready to just accept them, even affirm them. I say the situation as I see it. I doubted today though whether I’m a objective emotion journalist, reporting on my conflicts and tensions accurately. I started thinking maybe all the isolation and ostracizing are distorting my memories of events. But no. No distortion. It is as I see them.

After that difficult conversation, my mind grew murky and thick just thinking of future interactions with my family. I had to shake my head a few times, the symbolic action to help me achieve some hidden purpose. I had to shake off the mental patterns bearing destruction for the rest of the day.

I have to be forced to talk about trivial matters and topics, or topics that interest them. It’s become pretty obvious over the last couple of days. If it’s not a topic they can talk about, it’s either lectures or “advice”. I tell a story from London, an anecdote, something I did or achieved with regards to filmwork, or just a random thought, we somehow regress back into a child-adult relationship (instead of adult-adult, as I once dreamed) and it goes nowhere. This box I have to live in is inducing death.

I came home and I was fighting off the thoughts, trying to kick away the rabid dogs from my door.

The dogs finally ran but I felt the damage already done.

While I was in the car, having that conversation, I had to accept something. And this was very hard to accept because it goes against a long-running principle to never give up, to never give in, to never stop the fight.

I just have to live in my own world away from my family. Engage with them on their terms and preserve my still frail sense of wholeness. I have to stop bringing up the past and the sensitive subjects that end in that voracious blackhole, which never get dealt with and just quietly shoo’ed into there.

This offends all my sensibilities because I’ve wanted a different relationship and future with my family. I’ve now accepted, truly accepted, the reality that this will not happen. And I won’t pursue this dream anymore because the more I do, the more I get hurt and the more time I lose on escaping and trying to make sense of the darkness that burgeons in me when I try to enter their world.

My family are the most generous, loving people, but they just don’t get me. They are not ill-intentioned but they can’t condescend to my level and speak a language we can agree on. They love without abandon and care as if I’m still in my mother’s womb, but their care makes me gasp for air.

I seem to bring out a side in my parents that my sister doesn’t. That pained me today as it struck me, as we couldn’t find common ground for what I was telling her. It pained me but it prompted me to wake up and hear the wind, calling me to not awaken the urges of familial bonding ever again.

It’s a sad day and a pivotal day as well. I have to look out for myself and my health, which is too much pegged against my family: past, present, and future.

It started yesterday with listening to a Gregorian liturgy that I haven’t listened to in at least 3 years. At the symphonic cry of “… is with you all!”, memories flooded back from my time in London – service, faith, church – and my eyes watered.

For the rest of the day, the mention or thought of my now departed grandparents achieved the same effect in me. I am not a crier. The fact that I use humour to express myself more than calm dispassionate words is testament to that I’m not a walking basketcase.

My sister brought back food and books from Egypt. Everything reminded me of them. The sight of food they bought for me as a child was enough to tear through my resolve. I found myself running away from my dad and sister to go upstairs to deal with the surge of emotions. The last time I felt this raw and bare was a recent breakup with a girl.

My father and I spent a lot of Sunday in the car, going to see a priest. Looking up into the sky where I believe my grandparents are, the skilled drone of Fr. Stephanous Rizk’s fractions soothe me, yet bring on more tears.

I took a writing pad with me in the car and wrote as if a message demanded to be conceived in lead. I did. I put it down, humbled by the memories of a prior innocence. Images and words came freely, I couldn’t write fast enough.

Nothing could hold them back. They seem foreign, but I welcome them. They seem wrong, I feel my dad’s unease seeing his son in an unexpected vulnerability, but I don’t hold back. I need them. I needed to feel I care enough about someone else than myself that I can let go.

It was a charged day with ebbs and tides. We received a penetrating words of benefit from the priest we visited, but they quickly vaporized when I got home. I escaped soon after and that was that.

It was a surreal Sunday and as I write this watching the sky beam blue with morning, it’s still surreal. Yesterday, as if a hot knife seared through me.

If every dream and plan had a vicious toothache that would erupt after enough irritation, this past week would be that fire-in-mouth.

continue reading…

[This is a journal entry from November 19th, 2007]

I’m bruised and exhausted from this last week. I’m numb and distant, an unwanted but understandable reaction. I feel like a tree whose sap has been sucked out with calculated malice. I’m eating my breakfast. Unlike my first month in South Africa, I’m not looking ahead to my week with excited and enthused eyes.

I’m back in my jail again. I am suffocated and I can’t talk freely. I’m back at a place where I can’t even throw out random ideas or dreams. Everything said passes through a pragmatic and analytical filter. How will this work? Doesn’t this contradict what you said 3 days ago? It will fail, why bother? This will distract you from your main job, why can’t you make up your mind?

That difficult week experienced coincided with me finishing Stephen King’s book On Writing. I ate up this book with a rediscovered voracity. Like the old times, I read it in a matter of days. I read a few of his fiction books in middle school, but I never understood and appreciated them. I even watched a few film adaptations with little enjoyment. Horror and fantasy never appealed to me. This is so for I never understood the purpose or appeal or the point to those genres.

continue reading…

This is technically last night’s evening writing section, part of my self-enforced routine to write twice every day. So, when I say “yesterday”, it should read as “today”.

I’ve picked first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening because they are the hardest, darkest times for me. My vision for this routine is to help me punctuate my day and to retrain my writing muscles.

Yesterday (today) was only a moderate success. I checked off items off the to-do list I compiled in the morning. I didn’t complete all the critical tasks, but I’m content with what I did do in the end.

I spent the rest of the day stuck inside myself, escaping, and giving into the pain.

The pain is a buildup of all the frustration, hurt, anger, and exhaustion of the past two weeks’ worth of issues at home. I thought with all my walls that I’ve erected over the years, I would be able to withstand and move on. I did that for most of the 2 months I’ve been here. But I have to confess to myself and to chase away that lying thought.

My walls may be tall but they are porous. I may be distant and strong, but when the attacks pore in, I absorb it somehow while being numb. And then, when it’s all quiet, I let go and fiery pain replaces the numbness.

Yesterday looked, felt, smelt, and taste the same as any of those harrowing days alone in London. It was being back to black in a 4 room house, eating home-cooked food rather than my usual cooked rice fix.

I finally passed out around midafternoon. Interrupted by a few phone calls, I descended deep into dreams and woke up relatively refreshed. My mouth still tasted sour from the day’s warfare, but I got up, had dinner, finished some housework, and watched some TV in peace and 5.1 stereo loudness.

It brings me to now writing this, sensing nature soothe me with its deft display of a light blue sunrise.

After I publish this, I’m going to make a cuppa, light a shisha, and start a new day. Then after that, I’m doing my morning writing.

I will get there. I’ve learned after yesterday, it’s very important I learn to process and deal with my pain on a day-to-day basis, rather than store it up and try to fit it all into a weathered suitcase.

I have admitted now that I am affected by negativity around me, especially about my work and future. I am not immune, no matter how much I try to convince myself. Their words do sear into me like unwanted knives. I want a dream to come true, where my family support me wholeheartedly without reservation and in full genuineness. I don’t want their lectures or advice; I want their encouragement. I don’t want their veiled humour; I want their support.

It feels wrong that I’m saying this because I’ve defined myself for a good 8 years on being anti-family and a loner. I just want the dream to come true, even as I am convinced my parents won’t change and their ways will always seep into my sibling.

I wrote a journal entry about deep-seated dreams and desires. I’ll post it as my morning writing slot.

It’s a new week. I’m home alone and it’s a dour morning.

And I’m back to black. My chest feels narrow, the plum-sized mass lodged there is inhibiting my motivation. I got up early this morning and sat in my reclining chair by my bed to set in motion a new routine. For the past two weeks, I’ve lost my energy, motivation, and joy. I’ve barely written anything in my blogs, journal, or film work. I’ve languishing in my dark escape valves.  So, I’m going to sit in my chair twice a day, morning and evening, to write about anything or something. Even if I have nothing to say, which is hurtful enough given I left England to become a writer, I’ll sit here until something comes.

The one hurtful fact raping my thoughts is that I do have a lot to write about. My mind never sleeps from finding, compositing, generating, and unearthing ideas, based on what I see and hear. I have writing projects from years ago. I’ve come up with so many concepts since I’ve been here. Yet, I’m unable to pursue them. Please meet the second faceless fact-individual this mental gangbang. All I know is that when I have to fend off negativity and constantly explain myself in terms of my calling and future, I get tired. And when I’m tired, I can no longer write.

That plum-sized mass lodged in my chest must be a sign, an end to the gangbang. Can hear the beltbuckles rustling as they get dressed to leave and I’m lying numb.

I’m watching quarterlife, this new on-line series. I stumbled upon it today while looking for something on youtube and as I watch it, it becomes frightfully relevant.

The main character and narrator is Dylan, a writer stuck in a deadend editorial position, who blogs about her thoughts, life, and friends.

In this episode I’m watching as I push myself to write this post, she says, “You said to write whenever something moves me…. I’m sorry, it’s like a fetish…”

I’m so envious of Dylan. She writes at ease and in volumes. I don’t agree with her, I don’t think you’re chained to writing to the point that you can’t defer to a higher set of principles like your moral code or conscience. But, I won’t get too moralistic on Dylan, I mean, she’s writing and I’m not.

I relate to Jed, the tortured artist. The one who falls in love with the girl who’s either taken or doesn’t return the feelings. I don’t want to be that tortured artist. But it seems to me that I am. My torture comes from thoughts of grandeur revealing themselves to me and then when they disappear, all I see is my inability to make them happen.

I thought the first sign of being pretentious and doomed to failure (which in this business equates to being ignored and humoured)  is when you think or are tortured in your pursuit of your art.

I don’t know if I will ever make it to first base should things continue this way. I will fail and I won’t be able to show my face to anyone. Then my family will be right and I will sink deeper into myself until I die.

I fear I will fail. I fear I will never complete any project. I fear I will never amount to anything.

It’s 10 to 10 in the morning and I’ve just written something for my morning exercise.

Well… I’ve achieved something.

I was really down since I wrote the post about that girl who messaged me recently on a dating site I joined. All of yesterday, I was just bitter and angry. I even came up with a website concept, one that would be a large database and community site to document, track and publicise scammers.

I may do it, but for now, I joined this Yahoo! group called Romancescams that I found randomly while researching this mystery girl who e-mailed me. It’s a fulfillment of that brief image I had in my head yesterday. So, I’m going to stay on there, get to know the people, and join the community. And as a side goal, learn more and become skilled in smelling out a scammer.

Not that I need training with all the experiences I’ve had with fake people on dating sites, but perhaps just to quell the sense of despair I have about it all.

Will keep you posted.

Everytime I come before this blank slate, to put down my words and thoughts, I revisit the same questions.

Why am I writing? To whom am I writing this? What’s the effect on me? What’s the purpose?

This time, I don’t have answers to any of those questions. When I go still, quiet, and empty, I think of my blog. I think, “Perhaps, if I write it out, I won’t act out, I won’t drown, I won’t despair..”

That thought, incredibly redemptive. Only if I follow through on the thought, as it transforms from thought to state to practice to path…

This is not the introspective dissertation for the end of world year. It’s still brewing.

Blogs are fuelled by people other than the writer. No one is really following this one unless I tell someone or someone finds it randomly by surfing the Net. So, ever since I moved to London, I haven’t had much reason or motivation to write.

As an informal introduction to this year’s dissertation, this year has been about disappointment, isolation, and futility.

I’ve never contemplated dying so many times with such intensity and desire as I did this year.

I gave up on many, many people, dreams, hopes, and ideas this year. I had a memorable birthday in July. I moved to London. I got halfway through qualifying as a counsellor. I started reading again. I started flamenco. I started exercising seriously.

Lots of other achievements. But deep down, still..

I’m dark and

[Note: Much later on - I've just discovered the draft for this post]

I left this draft hanging on an unfinished conjunction.

Ah. I see now.. This was supposed to be for the New Year. Not too late, I guess. Just four months.

I’m writing here today mostly to help me work through my state today. My thoughts and feelings are dense, and I don’t know why.

I’m not really scared or anything. I just don’t understand. I’m trying to find the cause. If there is no cause, no purpose, if it’s just a day of being blah, that’s cool. I’ll leave it. So be it. I’m human. Let humans be human.

Yesterday was a really difficult day. Work was really discouraging and offputting. I carry a lot of that into today.

And the prayer meeting was just weird. The Lord was present. The Church was thick with his glory.

At the same time, in true incarnational fashion, I came face-to-face with the fact that the girls of that meeting are totally leading, totally steering, totally at the helm.

It bothers me, especially yesterday because of the rough day at work. But it also bothers me in general.

The glut has passed. I think this morning was also about LTF not working all of a sudden, and just sitting next to Dilyan all day long.