I'm going now, it's all very real

About a month and a half ago, I came back from New York City after having spent 5 weeks there, on pause. No work, no obligations, the city that never sleeps and a good friend was just what I needed to get my shit back together. I realise that I often lose my own path and find myself wondering again and again what I want to do, really. That trip made me realise many important things: first that I need to leave Beirut, at least for a while. Second that when I'm far away (i.e. 5,600 miles) I feel free from the family-related responsibilities that take up so much of my energy when I'm around. That my dream is still to write a book, and that I should just sit down and write it already. And that my life isn't going to change if I don't change it myself [basically, if I sit back and wait for change, well, it's never going to happen.]

So armed with all this new and wise information I've processed about my current situation, I decided to try my luck and move to New York. Note that I'm doing that with no real plan in sight, except for the hope to pitch some good stories and make some money working freelance, no money (well, that's a lie, a bit of money that could last me a month I guess) and no work permit (don't even get me started on that). Am I scared? I'm terrified. And absolutely excited about it.

Before I left New York at the end of November, I promised myself I was coming back. Even left a few sweaters at my friend's apartment (because they just wouldn't fit in my suitcase) and told everyone (and I mean everyone) that I was planning on moving back to New York in January. I told everyone so it would make it harder for me to back out on this decision. Because, as it happens, the more time I spend in this country, the more anxious I become about making the move.

Truth is, it's not that big of a risk. Worse comes to worst, I'll just pack it all up in a few months and fly my ass back here, at ground zero, where I suspect things will still be the same.

So two days ago, I received a payment which I had promised myself I would use to buy my ticket to New York. I didn't let myself spend a penny of it, I just immediately went online and picked a flight, return date back at the end of May. There we go. Paid. Done. I'm going now, it's all very real.

I should maybe have a farewell party, but I know I'll be back soon enough, we always do. Maybe I'll start a new blog when I get there, New York Rhapsodies or Rhapsodies in New York, don't know yet. The topic: Late 20s Lebanese writer decides to change her life and buys a ticket to New York with no plan and just enough savings to survive a month. She will crash on her gay best-friend's couch (for a little while, I promise!) and they will have lots of fun adventures to share with the world (I hope).

Writing this and posting it, just like telling everyone I was planning to move before I bought my ticket, also makes it more real for me. I'm doing it, even though I'm scared. I'm usually a planner, you see --my friends make fun of me because I need to make a list about everything and anything; it comforts me to know what's coming. Yet I also like adventure, and this is one I'm jumping at with both feet. Whatever happens, I hope I get good stories out of it. That's all that matters in the end.

New York and the Rays of Sunshine

I know it's been months --almost a year actually, but I woke up this morning and all I could think of was I need to write a blog post. So here it goes.

I woke up this morning in New York --the city I first fell in love with when I was 17 years old and made my very first visit to the United States. Since then, I visited New York countless times, lived there for two years and left it with regret. Today I find myself back here, and the feeling of walking down lafayette street on a magical fall morning is just as good as it was the first time, 11 years ago.

I already forgot all about the horrible plane delays, the missed connection, the fact that my suitcase didn't make it and I have been wearing the same clothes for 36 hours... Who cares? I am in Manhattan and the weather is at my absolute favorite: sunny and the perfect amount of cold. 7am and the streets were already alive, people walking their kids to school or walking themselves to work (how amazing to see people walk after so long in Beirut traffic) and I found myself just enjoying gazing at the activity on the street. Morning coffee at the corner barista, with the line of the usual customers ordering their usual cup of coffee, to each their own. There is something about that morning ritual which puts smile on my face. Not just the smell of coffee and the familiar interaction between the customers and their baristas but just the simple fact that people do that here: no one in Beirut stops around the corner for their morning coffee... it comes on a tray to your bed without having to even ask for it.

I stopped by Whole Foods and just enjoyed walking through the aisles of organic spreads, realizing that in Beirut we barely have a few shelves of bio products. I held onto the crispy craft grocery bag walking back home and it's not even 9 in the morning yet I'm having a wonderful day.

Why am I sharing all this? I've had a rough couple of months --not that we don't all go through bad phases but for me it was an especially tough time I was having with myself and I decided I needed a break. Destination New York because it's the one place in the world where I feel totally free. And because I have an amazing friend who is letting me crash his perfect lower east side apartment. I asked for a leave of absence from work --haven't had a break longer than 2 weeks in 7 years and now I am free for a whole month. Just wanted to take some distance and time, regain perspective and regroup my thoughts and plans. Sometimes to find your way back to yourself you need to get out of everything comfortable you know, out of the routine, far from the comfort zone --and just be able to enjoy the little rays of sunshine like New York in the fall, the smell of morning coffee, the noisy streets, and a craft bag of groceries.

breaking away

Sometimes it feels like we're stuck in a bad relationship, a bad routine, a bad job, and we don't know how to break away. We have dreams and ambitions that we keep putting off because something or someone always gets in the way. It's easy to loose track of the things that really excite us, that would really make us happy, and just settle for easy, predictable, safe.
As we grow older, we get more scared. I guess it's the price of "life experience" and "responsibilities" and "acting like an adult." I am always trying to get back to that time when my dreams were so big I would drown myself in them, and just the fact that I had a dream place to evade to was amazing.
I got this book called "Creating Your Best Life" and it's all about how to put your goals and dreams, long-term or short-term, crazy or realistic, on paper. A bucket-list. 100 things you want to do in your life time. It's actually really hard to come up with. And there's a bit of everything in there, from writing a novel, to winning a Nobel prize, to swimming with dolphins or going to meditate at an Ashram in India. And it seems like a long shot, but last year, I crossed out four items off my bucket-list, and it was unexplainably satisfying.
We get stuck doing things we don't enjoy because we're too scared to go outside the familiar. Couples stay in bad relationships because they're afraid of being alone, of loosing the other's support, of never finding anyone else. I know I've done that. I got stuck in a relationship where I wasn't happy, where I felt more lonely than if I were to be alone, where the everyday struggle of thinking my relationship through had become exhausting. So why did I do it? I was settling. I was scared of the alternative. But once you break away and feel the freedom of having your whole life in front of you, then yes, it is scary, but it is also exciting. There is a world of possibilities that I had stopped seeing.
People get stuck in a job they hate, because they're afraid of being unemployed, of having to live without a dime, of falling off their career track. And it is scary, and it is hard to dump it all and start from scratch. But there are things we can do to prevent the really scary part. You can look for something else while you're still working. You can decide to stop postponing for next year, and make a decision before next months. It takes guts, but I think it pays off.
I've been putting off writing a book. I give myself all kinds of excuses --too much work, the routine sucks the creativity out of me, I don't have a quiet place to write, etc., etc., etc... So I started the blog to motivate me, and it worked, I now at least write twice per week, which is a lot more than I used to. But the point was to start me off and get me excited about working on a novel. And there are always new excuses, reasons why it can't be done, and truth is, it's all a question of discipline, of how much you want it.
So now i decided to stop postponing. I left the routine behind, got away from the city (and trust me, I'm a city girl, and I don't do well outside the city for very long), got myself a quiet place to get inspired, and write. So far, I got one page down. But I'm trying.
Sometimes we need to just turn our minds of, stop thinking about doing, and just do it. Just break away.

extraordinary dreams

This is a hard one to write. I told myself that in this post, I would open up more about myself than quote the Rats or use my friends' life dilemmas to make a few people laugh. It's the last post of the decade, and I want to end on something more personal.
Ten years ago like now, I was in Jordan with my entire family, welcoming the new decade in the Wadi Rum desert, near a bonfire and under a sky full of shooting stars. There was so much love and laughter that day that I thought we were going to have a really wonderful year, or ten. And let's just say it wasn't quite what I expected. Three divorces, five cancers, four deaths.
Now before came the doomed decade, I was the unstoppable kind: I thought of myself as the best writer at age 13, and wrote a book to prove it. I thought I was going to be one of the greatest actors of our times, and had started acting in plays, always as a leading character of course. There was nothing humble about me or my dreams, and I believed in them more than anything. I miss that about me. Because once reality started crashing in, I stopped dreaming. I was sixteen but thought of myself as an adult. I thought "now that I understand life (imagine the audacity) I have to prepare myself. No more silly dreams about winning oscars and making the best-seller lists. Let's go to AUB, do some practical degree about something I couldn't care less about, and lower our expectations." Wow. Really amazing philosophy of life I got there.
And every so often, I would wake up in the middle of night in cold sweats, terrified that all I was doing with my life was what everyone else was doing, and that all I was ever going to be is what everyone else was going to be. I was going to be ordinary. And that was the single thing I never  ever wanted to be.
But I was too scared of being disappointed. There are things I couldn't control, like the fact that my mother died before she saw any of her kids grow up. So in what I could control, I would make sure there would be no disappointment factor. I let all of my dreams go.
The truth is, I made a huge mistake. I thought I could manage my disappointments by lowering my expectations and that turned out to be the biggest disappointment of all. And it wasn't the lesson I was supposed to learn. Here's what I know now: Life is short. And it can take months of fighting a disease or a split second to take you away, and no one knows when.
In the last decade, I lost my faith in God and I said a prayer at the Vatican; I broke a heart, and I dated a guy who turned out to be gay; I lived in my very own apartment in New York City and somehow I'm right back where I started: sharing a bedroom with my younger sister and fighting with her about wearing my new shoes.
Now comes the next decade... And there won't be any shooting stars to make a wish to, but I want to dream again. And I don't know yet what those dreams are going to be, but the possibility of doing something extraordinary is enough.

quarter-life crisis

Somewhere in our twenties, we get stuck in this seemingly perpetual transitional phase that makes you want to change everything you know.
When we're fresh off high school, we have one goal: to be free. We crave the university experience, moving to a new country, living alone, getting our driver's license, becoming an adult in the eyes of the law. It's a rush of adrenaline combined with the complete confusion of "what the hell am I going to do with my life?" but it doesn't really matter because we're young and free and everything is going to work out.
When we finish our first degree, we are looking forward to a new kind of experience: paid work. We're excited to get into the realm of the job we always dreamed of, and whatever it is, we think the experience is going to be great. For the first time in our lives, we are making our own money, feeling independent, and really experiencing what it's like to work.
Great. Until we wake up one morning, realize we're 24, 25 or 26, and everything comes crashing down. We're still stuck with the job that was supposed to be our first, and lead on to more exciting prospects. For the most part, we are not who we thought we'd be at this stage of our lives. Remember in high school when we talked about our 10 year reunion, and thought we'd all be super successful or married with babies, or something... Well, my ten year reunion is coming up, and to tell you the truth, me and my high-school friends --we're still almost exactly the same. We still hang out with the same people, laugh at the same jokes, and maybe just handle our alcohol a little better.
I woke up at 25 and thought: really? is this who I'm going to be for the rest of my life? Where did my dreams go? You're suddenly hit with the frightening reality of life: we don't all turn out to be millionaires at 25 (who knew???) and we don't all have our dream job, prince charming on one arm and a Luis-Vuitton bag on the other [not that this was my dream]. Actually, my dream was to become a Hollywood actress, and be the first Lebanese girl to walk the red carpet and win, not one, but two Oscars. When I was 14, no one and nothing could take my focus away. I was going to be one of the best actresses that ever lived, and I was going to show everyone that I could do it. Needless to say, I am not spending my Saturday nights at a pool party with Jennifer Aniston.
So now what? I'm 25 and terrified that this is it, that my life will pretty much be this way from now until the day I die.  A lot of us quit our jobs; one of my best friends just immigrated to Montreal; others decided to go for their MBA and left for other countries. Here we are, still looking for change, for an experience that will enthrall us, pull us up and down and sideways until we're dizzy with excitement. We're still  too young to be stuck in a routine, in a dead-end job, in a boring life.
And it's the same with love. We wake up one morning and think "is this it?" and we're terrified because it's not what we thought it would be. Relationships are hard, and they take work, and they're unfortunately not so exciting everyday. Reality is disappointing, and we don't want to settle for less then our dreams.
And so we make change happen. We quit, we move, we break-up, we take a chance. We'll do anything to make sure we don't end up like our parents, that we live exciting lives, and that we pave the way to great experiences, until we finally let go for a while... and wait for a mid-life crisis.