unexpectedly unexpected

Being back from holidays is a very harsh reality check, especially when you spent the last 8 days in Paradise and you land back in Beirut. No offense Beirut lovers, I love this city most days of the year, but not today. Not when I just came back from blue skies and turquoise seas, deserted islands and elephant rides and white sand as far as the eyes can see.

I haven't been able to write anything since I got back because the mere idea of getting back into my "life" was depressing to me. Ever since I came back last week, I've tried to pretend that I was still away, hiding away from my usual hangouts, getting lectured by dad because he "hasn't seen me one second since I got back" and being passively present at work --physically but not mentally.

Now it's Monday and there are no more excuses. Everyone is back to reality by now and even though it sucks for a few days, I know that by next week, Thailand will be just a memory and life will be in the present again. The streets full of traffic at any hour of the day; The overcrowded bars, even though you'd think everyone got wasted enough the last two weeks of December, turns out they are even more crowded now; in the office where stacks of papers have piled up and you had promised yourself to put everything back in order in 2012; The bedroom where the new housekeeper (God Bless her, she's the sweetest person on earth but she doesn't understand a word I say) has decided to mix all your clothes with your sisters', as if sharing a room and fighting over who borrows what isn't enough; The to-do-list that you have to stop adding to, and start actually getting done. Did I mention all I've done since I got back is post pictures of Thailand on Facebook and play with my new iphone?

But sometimes in the midst of a nauseating routine, you find a glimpse of the good stuff --and what I mean by the good stuff is Sex. Turns out letting your guard down and just doing what you want to do sometimes takes you to better places. Let me explain --my friend Curls meets this guy over Xmas break: she doesn't live here, he doesn't live here, they've got nothing to lose. They find themselves attracted to each other and in that moment she knows all she wants from him is physical. She lets her guard down, doesn't play games, goes for what she wants and what happens? It actually clicks. I mention this because she is the queen of meeting new guys and it not working out. She is almost always looking for something serious, something meaningful, and she's a romantic one --but usually in stead of letting things flow as they should, she is prepared to settle for less. She meets a guy, realizes he fits the checklist, and holds onto him for dear life. Why? Because after years of getting run over by men you develop this phobia (and this is purely my own theory) that you may very well never find what you've always dreamed of and you settle for less. And if there is one thing I hate most in life it has to be just that. I almost fell for this too, not so long ago: met a guy, found him good-looking and charming and sweet and A-Perfect on every item on the list but you know what, at the end of our "date" I was disappointed. There he was: great on paper but no butterflies. Amazingly well-rounded but with nothing "special." No edge. Nothing out of the box. It was a perfectly well wrapped box with a pretty bow on top, and I'm sorry but that's not for me. And it's not for Curls either. Now the second she thought "I've got nothing to lose" suddenly she was herself. She broke down the barriers we put up to be our most attractive self, and put her cards on the table. I know, men like to chase. They don't want all your cards upfront. But it's all in the attitude. I spent all year listening to all kinds of advice from all kinds of people and it got me nowhere, until I met this guy randomly and I decided to have a one night stand --because that is exactly what I wanted-- and it turns out it was a damn good stand to take. It felt liberating to finally act the way I want, with no calculating and no over-thinking, just simply following my own wants and needs. 

So I think I finally may have figured it out. It's not the games and the number of calls and the bitch 101. It's whether you do what you want, or whether you do what you think he wants you to do. Simple as that. And here's the thing about doing what you want: it is so much more fun.

When it counts

Last day of the year.

Here we go again, huh? New resolutions that never make it past the end of January, plans and projects we make because we don't want to waste the next 365 days, we don't want to look back and realize nothing changes year after year, and year after year it gets scarier because we're getting older and the years seem to be going by faster.

I know that feeling because I've felt it almost every New Year's for the last decade. But not this year. It's funny how we only seem to get perspective at the end of the year and get lost in our routine again within weeks. Yeah, we quit smoking and join the gym and we really think this time it's going to stick but it doesn't. I think it's because we make the wrong choices. We can't fix our lives by quitting smoking but we might be able to quit smoking if we fix our lives first. Last year I quit smoking for about a week. I think I also wanted to buy a bike and start cycling but somehow never got around to it. But I also said I wanted to "Find myself" --whatever that means. And in the last few months I have written numerous times about how my life was turned upside down just by "doing" things, every day, in stead of just talking about them. And I'm not the only one. I look at friends and see what they've accomplished this year, and I'm proud of them too. Friends who quit their perfectly comfortable well paid jobs to follow their dreams. Putting two season of a TV show on air within 6 months. Opening a bar. Publishing a book. Moving accross the world to start a new life. I see others around me, taking chances every day to do something different with their lives and it's inspiring. Even when it's just something like starting a blog like my friends Blushing and The Football Supernova. Sometimes small is big. Huge even.

I have had the most satsifying year of my life and it just makes me want to do more. It's not about quitting smoking, although we should... It's the feeling of doing something every day that you can be proud of. I'm proud of so many things right now I would sound very pretentious if I were to list them all! But I have never felt better. Right this moment, I'm sitting in my hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, and I can barely believe I am here. In the last few days I have seen more beauty than I have in a lifetime. Everything here reminds me of everything I have learnt this year, and how much more I want to learn. Recently I was once again painfully reminded at how short life is and how easily we can all slip out of this world. So I'm damn well going to make my time count.

I look at the breathtaking views of the beaches of Thailand and I take it all in. And then I snap a picture because that's the only thing we can keep, right? You're there one moment and then you're not. So I snap away at the beach and the sunset and my friends on motorcycles around Phuket. Weekends of shoots, we snap. Gala dinner raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for children, we snap. My cousin who was completely paralyzed from neck to toe last year, dancing the foxtrot like a beaty queen -we snap. My aunt's last birthday with her husband. My brother turning 18. Snap, snap, snap. The year went by so fast we barely had time to blink. Yet so much has changed we don't live in the same world anymore. The world I'm in right now has blue skies and turquoise water and most of my closest friends. I can't think of a better way to wrap up this year and start the new.

Make it count.

it's a wrap!

I can't believe it's that time of the year again.

The lights are shining on every street in the country --it's not just green and red anymore, now it's purple, blue, yellow and pink. The songs are overtaking every FM station I have a hard time listening to on a normal day. We did the tree at home like we do every year, my sister, my brother and me, with the cheesiest Christmas Carols in the background because it's our tradition and it reminds me that even though the years go by, we always find ourselves once a year to do this together. Christmas had different meanings for me in the course of my relatively short life and I am surprised to discover a whole new feeling this year.

When I was a child Christmas was about presents and Santa. For the last ten Christmases, it's been about missing loved ones. But suddenly I feel like I might have grasped a new meaning to what this holiday is about, at least for me.

I feel profoundly lucky. I was just thinking that on Sunday, driving down from Bikfaya where I had a 48hour shoot this weekend. We barely got any sleep, were up on our feet in the freezing cold since 5.30AM and were shooting all day with our heels digging in the mud and our fingers turning blue. Yet this weekend was magical. The energy of people coming together to create something fun, even if it's hard work, and to smile and laugh and freeze while doing it made me realize that the single goal I had set for myself this year, I've actually reached: I found passion.

I smiled as I had that thought, driving down in the fog without my eyeglasses and with smudges on my windshield, feeling completely blinded. I smiled because I realized I am not waiting for anything to happen to me anymore: it's around me, all the time, and I feel it. I wake up in the morning and I can't wait to get started with my day because I have so many things that I want to do and people that I want to see and I know that I am lucky to feel that way. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be: I believe that I will do something fulfilling one day, and in the mean time I was filling the gaps. Now the days and the weeks and the months are all converging in one giant bubble of time. I don't stop and do nothing anymore, and when I do, I actually appreciate every second of nothingness, making it a special activity in and of itself.  I've learned how to appreciate time.

When I was younger, 10 or 11, I didn't really have friends to hang out with in school. I was bit shy, I didn't know how to impose myself, so I would hide out in the school library during recess, always finding comfort in my books. Then things changed, and I met the group of people I have been friends with ever since. I've always felt lucky to have them, and I thought I didn't really need other friends. I never really made an effort being social --who needs a million acquaintances anyway? Turns out I was wrong to be so closed-up to people for so many years. This year, I met new people every week, made a dozen of new friends, each of them unique in his own way and all of them important. And I've learned that everyone I meet can bring something good to my life.

And as family goes, I've never felt closer to them. It's true, we've had another loss this year, this month actually. But Saturday morning, as my aunt enters her third week as a widow, she will still get up and make "Shorbet el Eid," stuff the turkey and set-up the table. The Christmas tree will still be lit and the presents will still come, and the magic of Christmas will have to find us despite the sadness. This is what this holiday is about for me now: last year, I had a thought for all those who passed. All those who are gone and are around us in the form of memories and pictures --and I can't believe that another face is now behind a glass frame. But this year, I'm having a thought for the living. Spending our energy on ourselves and on our loved ones who are right here in front of us, because that is the way to go on, stay strong, and make those above us proud.

So here's a Xmas thought, for the living: Go do a random act of kindness. Be spontaneous, do something big, something small, to someone you know or a perfect stranger.