Contemplations

I looked at the mirror for brief seconds this morning a little after I got up, I thought I looked something between a child and an old woman. On the inside, I felt exactly that. I don't know why my soul keep holding on to that innocence, I don't know why I still smile wholeheartedly, or why I still get excited and hopeful on mornings, after spending some most excruciating nights, time and again. I don't know why I still get excited about encounters, interactions, humans, and a future, after all I have experienced with them, through them, and because of them...

Another Tinder idiot yesterday was giving me the usual hollow, self reflecting compliments. He said the usual you don't look your age line, but he added that I look like I'm in my 20's. Hell broke lose on him, I was just not having it in that particular moment. I preached him a little, on how insulting that was, and on how honorable it was for me to be in my age, and that it was belittling and disrespectful to tell me I look like a girl in my 20's. I then caught my mind going on a banter, but I stopped myself. I realized half way through that he's just another system victim. He was merely saying all the things he's supposed to say, he has learned all the lessons about women there was to learn from this plastic society. No age revealing, either that or looking forever young. Looking young would be the ultimate flattering thing to say to a woman, most especially if she did indeed look somewhat younger than her actual age. But the thing was that I knew exactly what was going to come after these lines, and I had already lost interest. 

At this stage, I consider myself a Tinder expert. I could almost always tell the things they're going to say after our initial interaction and exchange of messages, and sometimes even prior to that. Was I going to waste my time teaching a man a thing or two about real women? It was just not worth it, most especially after his excitement about my lecture to him. They turn submissive and obsessive. I haven't been more fetishized in my life than I have been in the recent years. The more I am stern, real, straightforward, the more they project their fantasies on me. A down to earth, honest woman, with her head over her shoulders and her heart in place is a most rare sight over here nowadays it seems, so much so that the reactions to my mere existence have been so very diverse but similar in lots of ways. I didn't need more than that to know exactly what's happening in our society and behind closed doors, in people's psyches, and to their souls. I had to let the new idiot go his way, thanks heaven for the unmatch button. I sure have used that figuratively quite a lot in the recent years too, it's been a savior. 

As I was drifting to sleep two nights ago, I experienced one of those lucid dream / epiphany moments. One of them was about my story writing, I smiled, then giggled myself to sleep. That massive question that I kept repeating to myself, repeating to myself in the presence of others, asking it to others repeatedly, for their insight and what I could be missing, and never getting any real answer for... was finally answered. I have always wondered why humans were behaving in such or such ways. All the people, the husbands, the siblings, the friends, the boyfriends. And now the children, the dates, the sex buddies, the customers, the sales people, the neighbours. The answer is that there is no answer, because the question was irrelevant. They behaved in exactly how they wanted to behave, their words and actions were a representation of who they were. Whatever I have gotten excited about used to be inside my own head. I had learned the hard way that to be human, is to be fallible, and that whatever was perceived or experienced as off or too extreme by myself, was also merely another aspect of the human nature. 

That silly creative mind of mine has been busy adding traits to (my) people and getting off of them since I was a tiny little child. As I was drifting to sleep, I remembered the very first short story I wrote when I was around 8 years old. In that moment, I remembered the feeling, the need, the desire to have an alternative, much more vivid, alive, and exciting reality, with more compassion in the humans' heart, and grit in their soul. I could not for the life of me stop myself from grinning, because in that moment, I realized too that all that pain I have been causing myself with my silly expectations, was in big part still the trauma wound I was unconsciously trying to self heal. That was the bubble too, I was never interacting with people on the same level, or within the same reality. They had their agendas, but I too had mine, to see them under the light of their best possible version, their highest potential, perhaps to heal my pain, but perhaps too for the higher good of humanity - and I had been hopeful - and boy did I see potential! 

I still do in fact, and I get oh so excited about it too. I see it in their eyes, in their features, in their very details, physical and otherwise. In the words they speak, in their silences. In their pain and their joy, in their beliefs, their actions, and their work. In their sadness and stagnation, in their posture, in their hands, in the shape of their toes, in the curvature of their backs, in their neck, on their forehead, and the texture of their hair, and their narration of their past, in their talk about their future. But now I know, that the perception of all of that is merely a mixture of empathy, and a lot of creativity.

Now I have finally learned not to get ahead of myself, not to get more excited about other poeple's path than they themselves are. Now I have finally earned it, and learned how to stick my grounds regardless of what people say to me or about me or to me about themselves, or others. Now I am aware that they too are inside their own bubble. Although their lack of creativity could kill me in the past, these days, I just take note, and remain inside my own reality. Now too I was brought back to my story writing space, I have connected with it again, and I recall (know well) why I needed the stories. It was to create a reality that's different than the one I was living in, a much better and colorful version. The stories were also to serve as a reminder or leave a mark about ultimate human existence in its best version, a reflection of God, the master creator. Things got messy since I quit doing that and I started my diary writings instead, as a young adolescent. I had a fascination for journalism, and so that itching creativity turned into merely a reporting machine. 

If I was aware of that then, I am sure I would've split and separated both worlds. Because I ought to stop causing myself pain, or allowing others to hurt me, via clear boundaries. But the worlds intertwined and submerged into each other, there was a lot of needless bleeding done, years wasted in endless emotional battles. Do I know better now, am I aware? I'd say I'm only just starting. I wake up fresh in the morning with clear vision, but by nighttime, I'm haunted by all the actions done and undone, all the words said and unsaid, all those many years, all those people, and stories, real and imaginary, and they get to me. 

The fears that I had as a child, my worst nightmares, they all turned into a reality. Decades in the making, but here we are now, just look around. The thing about creativity is that it doesn't just stem from one's own psyche alone, it is connected, and perhaps for that reason too I have always itched to create, write, and make. Perhaps I am connected, the question is, will I be able to remain connected while I disconnect from people where it's due? Can I stop this naiivety of we're all in this together!? Will I be able to / shall I write my way back to stories, creating an ideal world like I see it inside my head, feel it in my heart, and the way my soul have either witnessed or is longing to experience, regardless of the outcome!? Can I survive the loneliness that will come from even more seclusion for the path I am thereby laying?! 

I had a video sent to me last night about an infant and a todler being abused in a nursery day care in Beirut. I had watched a movie about child trafficking earlier in the day. On the morning of the same day, on Tinder, I stumbled upon the guy who my daughter was seeing, he's big fat liar and a deceit. All I could do was be quiet, about it all. Nobody asked for me to step up, nobody wants to stand up for anything, nobody wants their bubble bursting, nobody wants me to utter the truth, or any truth at all. Life recently has become way too harsh and complex for me to comprehend. I could not use the fat to shield myself anymore, I have areadly quit on that. And perhaps, for that reason too, the idea of a reality within a reality, a bubble inside my bubble, might be the thing to be, and do for now, or until I get more strength in me, if at all, to fight where and if fighting is required again. 

Until then, I will keep holding tight, to my heart, squeezing and clenching. And I will keep saying to my soul, steady now... 

Be quiet,

but write...

if you must.

And while at it, sending blessings to my father's soul, the creative, imaginative, abundant, people loving pastry chef. The single being confirming to me, time again, and his life and after his passing, that all I had ever felt and sensed, was indeed, real.