A deserted womb

It cries with me. Abandoned and deserted like me. It weeps and bleeds, it quivers and pulsates. My womb and I are one. The pain is one, the yearning is one, the attachment is one. Will it detach, release itself, let go? Will we eventually succeed to detach, release, and ascend? The pain isn't just big, it has taken over my very existence, for many years on end. Still learning, still honing. Still shifting, moving, changing. I long for the day where we could both breathe the fresh air of freedom, and containment. I dream of endless days floating and flowing without boundaries, weights, and sit backs. An abundance of generosity in every corner, in ever shape and form. A flood of light and warmth. Healing, soothing, belonging. Containment, an no particular reason to exist. No give or take, just a flood of light, pushing every thing in (my) existence towards flowing and floating, until the very end... Or endlessly. 

The mother thief

Once a thief, always a thief. I should've known better. What is few thousands dollars for you when you have stolen hundreds of thousands from others. What am I after all but only just the mother of your daughter. What was that money for but only just to feed, clothe, educate, and house your daughter.

I paid for your absence, I paid for your family's absence, I paid for your mistakes, brother did too. He paid such a very high price with his life and health for your mistakes. I don't think he forgave you, but he's just as sweet and naiive as I have been. Maybe he did, maybe he does secretly prays for you like I used to. For your coming back from this madness, for standing up by the right, for standing up for the good. You stole my youth, my years, my days. My education, my hopes and dreams, my baby's dreams. You stole her joy, by not bringing any normality to her life. All I ever did was run from one place to another, trying to hide and distract her from the fact that she has no family, that there is no father, that there are no men in sight. I was a woman turned mother turned man, and a father, but I failed, because... won't you just look at us now!

Everybody's angry at me because I'm speaking the truth. Well no need to keep quiet anymore, no point keeping up appearances anymore. She's gone, it's all over. She was gone very long time ago, I was too busy making up for everything and everyone to notice. Isn't this the saddest existence!

You, Fouad bahjat mekdash, aka Richard Macleod, are one hell of a deranged, sociopath, narcissistic, egotistic, pathetic criminal. You are the daughter's thief! You robbed your daughter from her mother's money that she had allocated to look after her. Could any human on earth comprehend this, and then explain it to me, because I'm still unable to fathom this, nor your existence. Why haven't you died already? Now you give her money directly to fool her that you're a good person, that you are what she got. You pay for love, like you always have, you cheap, cheap, dirty piece of shit. She's playing your game too, give and take for a price, aren't you some family, aren't those some genes!

I'm so glad everybody left, leave me be with my standards and morals and call me crazy all you want, for I can no longer tolerate those mind fuck, twisted games you guys play. 

My sister too, and that stupid big brother, all of you sickly politically correct idiots, all of you rotten on the inside. Twisted minds and twisted hearts and twisted acts. You only just keep up the clean words, and your appearances. You deranged fucks!

Steal and hold my money all you want, for indeed you will never own me, you would never break me, you could only keep trying for ever, like you always have, to have a hold of me, to control me, or bend me, or tame me in any way. You're so fucking stupid for all your trials and attempts, for thinking that you, with your darkness and mediocre existence, could touch me. Unlike you, I've kept my core untouched, it will keep me this long haul. 

That money you are keeping is not yours, energy can't be held, it flows. It's God's money, we're meant to use just like everything that is energy to create pur path in this life. You still can't see the fate you're living, you still can't see the misery you're creating, you still can't see the curse. Break it already, or lose yourself fully, there is not much time left. Quit living off on people's money! Quit investing money to buy yourself love! Start loving yourself, and everything will flow towards you... 

But what do I know.

I'm only just a mad woman, 

And a robbed, childless mother. 

Abandoned home

It isn't just just my eyes that have been crying, my uterus too. We're crying the missing of you, the heart too, so sad, all the body quivering and grieving. Little girl how hard it has been this getting used to being without you thing. Those many goodbyes. This body that had once housed you, made you, grew you, longs for you. This body that held you, that nourished you, that nurtured you, misses you. I can shush my nagging mind, I can console my achy heart, but speaking to my mourning womb seems to be of utmost difficulty. I don't know how to begin, I don't know where it would end, what's to hold on to, what to let go of, what to keep. It seems to be doing its own thing since you left, the bleeding is different, the cycles are out of whack, the pains so new, the aching, the longing, the missing. I haven't begun to understand its language yet. Do you ever call it home? Does it still disgust you when you think where you came from? How are you treating your own body little woman? Has it gotten to you yet, the interconnectedness of it all, or are you still ego tripping like everybody else? I can say whatever I want now, you can't stop me. You're just as unconscious as everybody else. I weep, for you, for myself, for humanity. Then I shut myself up, get up, and work. 

A plea

So many lose ends. God give me strength.

So many endings. God give me direction. 

So many pains, so little words. God fill me with your light. 

I'm ready to go at any moment, except I know it's not time yet. 

Won't you please give me patience... and some more strength. 

So little words, my mind is fried. 

I've exhausted every little thing in me, I tried to make it my own faults and mistakes, I did make it my own, and then some more. 

Nothing worked, they're long gone. 

There are only few left, was it meant for it to be like so, all along?!

The knowing hurts... 

The sensing hurts...

The seeing kills...

Please make it go away.

Except, I know, that that's s just not the way!

Please send help. 

Please 

Send 

Help.

Help,

Please... 

The end

I'm so tired, to even remember the dream. Soul been busy at work. A lot was revealed and processed during sleep. I don't bother myself trying to remember. There's nothing to hold back anymore. I've submitted myself fully in, all the work, gung-ho.

Benjamin is keeping me company, I sleep on the sound of his voice in my ears, I work to his songs, I rest my eyes and soul with him on the screen. I love him. I'm grateful there's someone to love again. After all the people turning and leaving, I needed to hang on to something, anything at all.

Tindering through the night and the morning, zombies unite. I keep searching, discerning, looking, for any humans left in sight. Things looking dire. I must master that mind, not allow it to leave fully when things get even more dry. 

Got pains in body like never before. Actually, it's like every pain I ever had, in any part of my body, but now all of them flaring up in one go, together. All is happening simultaneously, there is no past, present and future anymore.

Bracing for the very long ending that has begun.

Brother boy

You didn't need to fuck me up all over again. You've done it so many times already. Actions you took, actions you didn't take. Things you said, things you never said. Punish me for my distance like they always do. Punish the non-ownership of me like all these men do. Except, you were very right, you are (merely) a "male". Isn't it that what you called yourself in the message of the family group, your Muslim sunni God has indeed ordered for "males" to have double the females share in the inheritance Muslim law. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Have you been working all those 54 years on your idiocy? Because you've gotten yourself to a really impressive level at this stage. You ought to be proud. Also, your accounting skills are spot on. Did you ever think of that day you visited me and daughter - your niece - at the start of corona, with your hazmat suit, sitting on my couch, after spending a day at work, so that you could take that supposed filth and germs out when you get inside your own place with your wife and daughter. A male indeed! Good luck my dear friend, oh how it used to be nice when I had my eyes and mouth shut back in the days. I used to take you for a brother, the eldest, our protector and guardian and the "man" of the family. Not to mention our own special bond you and me, from back in the days. Would you believe that? You've turned, full on now, with quite the show! I always took you for a private person, look at you now enjoying the lights. Flutter your feather, say goodbye to your humanness, welcome all of them entities residing your soul. It was nice when I once knew you, and connected with your core. So long, and adieu! 

Today I worked

I haven't forgotten the many thousands of dollars owed to me in child support by my first ex husband from the years were people lazying around with lockdowns and what not, while I killed myself with work, trying to keep that boat carrying me and daughter floating...

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten the many hundreds of dollars stolen from the bank account at the most sensitive and crucial time of closing my etsy business the way I knew ive done it for years so that I no longer use my ex's bank account, out of my own stupid nobleness...

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten the detachment, the distance, the disinterest my daughter - whom I raised almost entirely by myself - feels when I have suffered financially in the recent years, yet her interest, and closeness when I would make the occasional money...

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten the deafening silence of my family, sister and brothers at my plead and crying for my money unjustly taken away from me, my suffering, my pain...

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten the lavish spending I did all those years ive been living on the people I love and cherish, all the meals I cooked, all the spoiling and pampering, all the hours standing on my feet for them, and their vanishing when I truly was low and in need for nurturing, any of it...

But today, I worked.

I havent, oh God I haven't forgotten the most fucked up day of my life when brother called to ask me to cancel my set up to his paypal account in Sweden, ruining the last bit of any hope I had for work and  putting my life back together, throwing away several months of work I was doing alone on my new website, week of work between my brother in sweden and the support team here in lebanon. I haven't forgotten ruining my life yet another time for the people in my life, and because of the people in my life... 

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten my sister's words to my daughter when she asked her endearingly to get her something specific, she replied with I'm not earning dollars like your mother. I haven't, few months later, I stopped making money. Daughter still didn't get it... 

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten how one day that very sister was eating on my table, the food I made, my years of learning, trying, persevering... only for her to talk to my ex the very next day, that very same person who haven't sent me money for months on end, money owed to me by court, not out of humanness, or decency, the mere necessities, breadcrumbs. I wish I have forgotten, but I haven't... 

Yet today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten the many times she betrayed me and let me down, I haven't forgotten the many moves I made without my brother visiting me. I haven't forgotten the explosion and my move and battling through in the middle of it all, keep myself and daughter safe and sane. But I supposed I failed at the latter... I shall forget one day, perhaps, and maybe not... 

But today, I worked. 

I haven't forgotten how my ex called and told me in cold blood after daughter flew the nest that he won't be sending me any money anymore. I won't forget how daughter was so fine with it, not once she asked for him to reconsider. I haven't forgotten how this world works in wondrous ways, and how the people I thought I loved and housed and nurtured were zombies waiting so eagerly for their turning, and they turned. I haven't forgotten, I could still see it, I feel it in my body... 

But today, I worked. 

Oh how many stories I have in me that needs telling, oh how many people I loved so very dearly. Oh how much I cared, I sacrificed, I gave. I didn't want anything in return, I only just never thought I'd be stabbed repeatedly in the heart like they did. But I had to at least only just stop the continuous stabbing. And so I shall not forget... 

Still, today I worked. 

I haven't forgotten my sister's face when she exclaimed to me after my very first tv intervew and acknowledgment as a jewelry artisan that I ought to be in the intellectual world, I'm an intellect, she sees me better than only just this. 

I haven't forgotten how she answered me the most coldly answer ever when I rang her phone directly frmo England when I was only few months pregnant and describing to her ever so poetically just how magical this pregnancy thing feels, every mother feels this way she said. I was not special, nor my child, nor my pregnancy, nor the way I felt or existed. Fuck her for loathing me my whole existing, for the evil she sends my way every day of her life. How could I ever forget, all the many many things she did against me, as though I was the nemesis not the sister. I shan't forget... I will forgive though, perhaps one of those days. 

Today, however, I worked. 

I worked despite all the pain that I couldn't function from it, emotional, physical, mental... bodily weight, weight of all types and sorts and ways. Heaviness and darkness and mess and chaos, and people's filth! Will I ever forgot, I don't know... 

Today for sure though, I worked. 

I worked like my old self, I worked with faith, I worked with hope. I worked with prayers, I worked with gratitude, I worked for myself, for there was never ever anybody that did anything for me. 

Today I realized just how much I owe to myself, all that has been drained and wasted from me on all those people, I deserved it better. 

Today I remembered how it was to give to myself, in fact today I learned how it feels to give to myself. I don't know yet if I can do it or if it will work eventually, but I worked anyway... like the fierce mama bear i used to be, nothing stopping me ever, for the better good of my baby. 

Today i was my own baby, and I pushed through, and I worked. 

Today I realized that "protect the baby"angel message I got a while back when I was high wasn't for the children or the people outside of me, the protect the baby message was for myself. 

I cant for the life of me call any of the people I know baby, there hasn't been purity in sight for oh so long. But despite all, I'm still as naiive as an idiot and a retarded fool. 

Today I learned to protect the baby, there was nobody else left, but the memory of what it used to be when I mattered to someone before, I was his baby. 

I'll protect myself for him, because I love him that much. 

Father and the angels, help me protect me, for I have lost everyone and everything, and the road seems very long still, and I shall never break! 

Amen. 

Thank you, 
Thank you. 

Insane (pain)

I cried all day. When I didn't, I spoke to myself outloud. Then I spoke to Yasmina outloud, as if she was in front of me. Except she wasn't her current age. She was 8, and 5, and 3, and 2... She was baby too. I cradled her and sung her baby song for her... 

ياسمينا حبيبي شو بحبك انا 

ياسمينا طبيبي انت كل المنى

شو بحبك حياتي بدوب فيكي انا

ياسمينا حبيبي انت كل المنى

I said outloud her favorite words, her first words. I had a long conversation with her, we laughed at ourselves and at each other. 

I said goodbye, the 100th time, and I cried some more. 

I'm writing so not to lose my mind completely, I'm here, I do exist, I haven't fully disappeared. I'm in pain, it's OK to grieve. This shall pass... 

If at all. 

Invisible

I am visiting too... Except, I stayed way too long. The unfamiliarity, the coldness, the distance, the atrocities have drained me, and once scared me. There's nothing left to do but to cry in silence, witness, sometimes from distance, sometimes so close to the heart, without the ability to ever partake really. I no longer blame, I no longer anger. I understand in quiet silence, to take it all in, report to source, hold the memory. Let go once told. For now, push through, hold on a little longer. Time is an illusion too, let go, let pass. It's the interlocking of realms and the absence of true separation that's at play. All else doesn't really matter. Hush now, watch now. You're not seen, you're not being noticed. Disappear and blend in, now they see you... Now they don't. 

The home delusion

I'm not home, this is assylum. This is rehab. 

I get visitors sometimes, but they're all addicts. They shouldn't let them in.

I'm detoxing my womb, I'm cleansing that which housed a girl. She was always only just visiting, a passer by, I mistook it for residency. I made oh so many changes for it. Now the guest is gone, time for deep cleaning, and cleansing. 

I'm bleeding, not like my usual anymore, I bleed and cry, the blood is thick and chunky and thin and gooey and runny. The tears are just the same. And the heart, has no option but to go through the notions. Will it take me till the end of this journey or not, I must find out in time. 

Alas, there is plenty of time left it seems.

This slobbering up has been some journey. 

I stopped the pleading. 

Only just my soul does... 

Quite in the darkness of the nights, early in the earliest hours of dawn...
"Get me out of here, get me home, please, take me home. I'm done, it's done, won't you please. 

Just 

Take 

Me 

.... Home."

And then I pray some more, and then I write my prayers down, and then I sleep, and I dream, of her and them, all of the visitors, all of the guests, all of the unconscious druggies, bullies, sociopaths and narcissists. 

I've done my dues, won't you please, let me out.

Amen 

Amen 

Amen 

Thank you, 

Thank you.

Bear. Deer. Fox.

Scrolled brainlessly though the Instagram feed. I watched many baby videos in a typical way. I laughed and cried many times. Then came a deer video. A mother deer grooming her baby deer peacefully in the woods. I sobbed and cried until there was nothing left for me to do but sleep. What a long day, what a very long week.

Why doesn't the mama deer cry her baby deer when it's ready for the world and doesn't need her anymore. Why don't we humans have the animals grace in accepting, being, flowing... I'm so tired from my humanness, how I wish I could be like that graceful deer, doing what nature designed for it to do, no resistance, no worrying, no extended attachments, no anxiety, no fear, no pain... 

I thought of you a hundred times this week, you're not a girl anymore, you're not my girl anymore, you're a woman. I feel it, I know it. I gave you the space you so long wanted and needed and never understood it before. 

Now I know. It's all right now. Sleep at peace, and when the day breaks, soar... I shall never hold you back from this moment on. I'll keep my protective side to myself. Mama bears turns gentle deer. Mama has finally gotten it. You have it your way now, foxy.  Let there be other stories to tell than those I knew, I imagined, I remembered, I hoped for.

From a woman to a woman, I wish you the very best. You could call me Rana again, I'll turn the page, a heavy chapter has ended. 

A short story

I could write the saddest story

about a motherless child 

Who turned childless mother 

And a manless housewife. 

I could write the saddest story 

About intergenerational traumas

And curses hard to break 

About betrayals

Heartbreaks 

And aches

But instead, I'll just wait off, in the hope that there would be a plot twist, and I could write humanness prevailing, a heart mended, souls uniting. 

A one-sided thing

It's a one-sided thing all over again. What am I missing? What is there to learn? What's the deal? Help me please. Heart is oh so heavy!

It's a one-sided thing, you watch them latch, until there's nothing left of you. Then they go, they let you charge alone, they wander and roam, and then they visit again, latch and suckle some more, until there is no more. 

It's a one-sided thing, the giver and the taker. There is no exchange, there is no return. No turning back time, it is fated to be so. 

It's a one-sided thing, no point fooling yourself with the fake hope. Hold on to whatever you need to hold on to... For the hunger is ever growing, so is greed, so is detachment, and the latching, a fake attachment. 

It's a one-sided thing, the crone and the maiden. It's a one-sided thing, the mother ever hoping. It's a one-sided thing, stuck in between, lack and scarcity, my mother, and my daughter. It's a one-sided thing, death through life, and in between. 

It's a one-sided thing, so much to experience, learn, and know. It's a one-sided thing, a pain birthing pain, feeding pain, growing pain. 

It's a one-sided thing, nothing special, nothing so different nor unique. It's a one-sided thing, no polarities, same melancholy, same detachment, same deserting. 

It's a one-sided thing, hold your ground.

It's a one-sided thing, feel it all, and then some more, and one day you're bound to understand. 

It's a one-sided thing, you were made this way, it's a one-sided thing, did you all agree to it? It's a one-sided thing, learn all the sides of it. It's a one-sided thing, do you see it now? Do you know? 

It's a one-sided thing for you have all the sides within you and maybe more, fill the cup of whomever needs it, and then some more... a child and maiden, mother and crone. 

It's a one-sided thing, a lonesome dance, a heart that pours, never meant to receive. 

It's written in the stars. 

Accept it, 

Perfect it.

Abort mission Protect the Baby

Report to source. 

Innocence can't protect innocence, 

Rely on the angels, report to source.

Innocence can't be prolonged, preserved.

Society has killed purity.

Innocence can't protect innocence. 

Drop mission Protect the Baby. 

There is no baby.

Just a monster in disguise. 

Report to source. 

Drop the mission. 

Rescue yourself. 

While you still can. 

A festival of light and sounds

Humans have made it so that they sleep through the most gorgeous and graceful time of the day, but yet stay up the sleep intended nights. No matter how dead these livings seem, there's always hope at dawn. Follow the birds and their songs, they'll always guide you home. If it isn't a festival of sounds, if there are no rituals for the day breaking, then you haven't yet arrived. Keep looking, but don't you dare stay awake in the darkness of the deep nights. They fooled you so that they could steal your awakened soul, for nothing scares the demons like a festival of light and sounds, and a heart that celebrates life, like a naiive joyful child. Stay naiive, it you must, but preserve the pumping heart.

Wake up at dawn, 

or just before. 

You naiive fool

Quit it already! Haven't you learned something? There is no point. No matter how humane you are, you show, you act. Once a zombie, always a zombie.

Do you get it now, do you!?? They could pretend and fake and dress in all sorts of human ways, but a zombie is human long gone, never to return. 

What does the dead want from the living? Nothing but sucking the life out of them, just because they're made this way.

Quit the blaming too. 

Open your eyes already, you naiive woman! Stop them from eating at your flesh and blood! 

Quit already. 

Just 

You 

Quit. 

The eclipse is at it once again.

Now you see. 

Tomorrow you will know. 

and soon enough... 

you will understand. 

Pick yourself up again.

Tomorrow is another day, 

There are no breaks. 

Shake this off. 

Get up! 

You may still cry, but soon, you need to stop, to stop this crying too, and the self that's crying it.

In a zombie VS. human battle, humans will always lose. You aught to superhumanize yourself, you're here to win. 

Remember, for heaven's sake. 

Let go.

Let's go. 

False Hope

It was almost over. Sadly, it isn't.

When the shaking woke me up from my deep sleep, and I realized that an earthquake was taking place, I felt a strange familiar / unfamiliar moment of relief. I thought: this is it, it's all over now, deeds were done, words were said, actions taken, chances given, prayers given, wrong doings forgiven, heart has been so filled with love it almost knocked me over. There was nothing else for me to say or do or be after the life that I've lived. I thought that the earth shaking the ground from underneath people, literally now, would shake the debris stuck on their soul, would clean the residues in the hearts, would shake their minds clean to the realization of the interconnectedness of it / us all... 

The shaking stopped soon enough, we missed the cataclysm by only 300 kilometers! 

Thousands have died, thousands injured, thousands lost family and loved ones, thousands of mothers lost their babies and kids. How can I whine on the missing of my own baby this morning, when she's healthy and alive still, and making the conscious choice every day to be on a different terrain than I... 

But was it really a blessing? Is it really good luck? Is this really a good thing we weren't affected by this devastating earthquake? Christians are praying for their saints and Jesus, the Muslims are praying for God almighty to avoid them the disasters. Pictures of Jesus carrying a globe earth shared on statuses on whatsapp by the christians, with words of relief and acknowledgments to Christ who saved them and is protecting Lebanon! Pictures of Quran verses about earthquakes and natural disasters and judgment day equally shared by the Muslims, also videos of Sheikhs reciting prayers inside Mosques asking for healing for the affected by the event, and the saving of their own souls in the afterlife!

The neighbours who not so long ago were attacking each other very aggressively in the whatsapp groups of the compound and building over the most menial matters, are now most gentle, most loving and soft towards each other, sending words of congrats for escaping the quake...  They're quite docile now. What is it about death that scares people so much, yet doesn't really break them open! I give them until beginning of summer before it's all forgotten about, and the good old norm of hostility to take place again. 

Yes I did feel scared, not the thought of my death though, but horrified really at having to witness more of the madness this amnesic humanity is capable of - and is going to be - committing. From the biggest scale to the smallest scale. My REAL NEWS - The Big Picture playlist on YouTube is being filled to the brim lately with the most horrible and horrifying stories of this madness on the bigger scale. Not merely predictions anymore, not the far away future, not Huxlian or Orwelian scenarios, it's real time facts and acts. But then there's the small scale madness too, but that's my every day life and the people and the stuff I keep writing about in this blog... 

Lose expectations, lose expectations. Yes, alright, okay, I am learning! 

Haven't the last 4 years taught me enough already? Apparently a lot, but not enough, because I still hope, every now and then, like an idiot. Like I had hoped the wild fires from Autumn 2019 to waken people up to that we only really have each other and not the politicians or the parties or or or... And then the so called revolution weeks after that, and the dragging of it, and the new problems it created, and the banking system collapse, and and and... what did they learn from that? Nothing, life carried on... and then Covid, and the lockdowns... what did they do? Oh God I had so much hope! Like the war time when I was 9 years old. 30 years apart, I still had the same hope... but now, I've finally accepted the reality and removed my filters. Things are quite bleak! What happened during the port explosion and afterwards, what happened with family and friends. What did my "family" and friends do? Fuck me up! It was my whole life all over again, each of these events presenting the initial traumas, and people oblivious to my pain or the connectedness of our humanness. I kept meeting them half way, and end up being deserted every single time... did I learn my lesson already? I sure hope I did, I sure hope if death was to take me now, I wouldn't say "if only!..."

Each and every single event created a cataclysm on its own, a dissolving of the past as we knew it, and the space creating for a new reality. Except, people simply don't get the cues! 

Amnesia at play continues, souls trade is the hype, gratifications addiction is the name of the game. 

And as it stands, asshole number 1, aka first ex husband, still hasn't settled what he owes me in arrears of child custody for job done and finished years ago... 

and asshole number 2, aka my second husband, still hasn't sent me the money we agreed on 3 years ago to help pay the laywer to finalise our overseas divorce for us. 

but perhaps now after the earthquake I know more, and perhaps and I sure hope, that I finally know better. 

...for the things that we do not do speaks volumes about us, as much as the things that we actually do. 

Cease to plead

When the crying and screaming and the pleading doesn't get answered, when the echoes of the SOS sounds return back empty-handed, know that the salvation is near. That moment when the violated finally ceases to resist her rapist.

Find solace in the very giving up on hope, this hope that had turned into faith from desperation, then transformed into despair with the realizations. This very despair is your way out; the act of deconstructing the illusion of the possibility of ever being rescued. You can't lose anything if you've already lost everything. In the silence lies your true freedom. Surrender your body, you've conquered. Let it all be over and done with, stay put, sit still, quiet, and limp, like a corpse, like the soul of your rapist, let him finish, it's nearly over. Remain silent. 

Loosen hope, let go of attachments, smash your expectations. 

Despair is the new beginning in disguise. 

............. 

When you've already reached the peak and height of the most agonizing pain you ever thought you could experience, anything from that point onward becomes a relief. 

Embrace your pain, lick your wounds, attend to your broken bones. Scrub your skin, touch it, caress it, feel your muscles, know how it hurts in each place, and where it hurts the most. Learn how it feels in your body for someone to betray their own soul, to disconnect from their heart, from source, to get off the designated path. 

The long dark nights, the grieving, and the collapse are your friends now. 

Put your million broken pieces together. 

Take all the time you need.

You will wake up a little bit more in your body every new morning from now on.

That was your rebirth. 

Welcome back. 

Delirium

I was relieved I spent the whole afternoon and evening without crying. As soon as I hit my bed on the pillow to sleep come nighttime, I started crying uncontrollably. Missing you came crushing on me like high waves of tormenting emotions. I let my body weep, covered my face to mute the sounds. I shivered and trembled, body temperature changed, felt hot then cold, then hot again. It went on for a while, until I no longer remember drifting to sleep. 

I woke up from a dream. I'm crying some more again...

It was you and I and another move. This time around you were young again, 6 or 7 years old. It was a two storey house. Huge with many rooms in different sizes. I let you roam the place and you're excited about it. I tell you to pick your room. You can't decide from too many options. You end up deciding on one every day. I move things around for you as you make each new room your own. I bring your furniture in, decorate the room, clean it and dress it up. Only for you to decide on another one in the next morning, and we change all over again. I didn't seem to mind it, I was excited for your excitement and I played along. 

At one point in the dream, Yasmina your friend joins us. We dedicate a room for her too. We're doing the same now for her, you two exchanged rooms at some point too. 

You in particular were very giddy, goofy, and confident giving me instructions and orders, but she was timid and couldn't get herself to speak up. I told you to tell her to feel comfortable, that I would not harm her, that we did not need anything in return from her. That we do all of that in our home just because it feels nice. She eases into her new temporary environment, and I soon hear the sound of your pitter patter and talks and laughs from the distant rooms. 

At one moment in the dream, there was a drain underneath her bed that flooded her room. She tries to hide that from us for fear of embarrassement. When we eventually find out, we get in there and try to solve the problem and help clean the mess. She's impressed at our team work, we work on it as though it wasn't even a problem but a regular routine of a sort. I tell you to pour the drain opener from another room, you do it then bring in gloves and plastic bags and we get on our hands and knees and removed all sorts of blocking mock and  dirt from inside the drain. We assure her that we know it's not hers, we tell her it's not ours either and that we too are still new to the place.

I whisper to you to go and comfort her and explain to her how it was not her fault, telling her not to feel shameful, and how these things just happen sometimes, just because, and that we're personally totally OK, and used to, getting down and cleaning the residues of those before us, when it soils and invades our space.

Meanwhile, I finish cleaning, put things back to place, and I ask you two girls which rooms next. You excitedly rush to the other rooms to make new choices, this time you're both deciding on which one of you will take the one with the "pinkier" wall. 

Yasmina's face and demeanor changes from anxious to relaxed, from confused to comfortable, from guarded to being totally at ease. I am soft and gentle and accommodating, but she still looks out for any cues of threat. She doesn't find any, but still struggles to remove the image of the monster they had her make of me when she was younger. 

She eventually realizes that the big giant veiled woman in dark clothing and a deep voice is the guardian of the heart.

She rejoices in the knowing that she's safe with us. Still peeking on me every now and then and checking what I'm up to, from mere curiosity and interest this time around, and not out of anxiety or fear. 

.... 

Won't you tell Yasmina from me that I'm sorry about the tomato incident. It was never meant to be how her mother reacted to it. In fact, quite the opposite was intended. Loving and guiding only, not guilt tripping!!! Also tell her that the shame and guilt her mother made her feel was a projection of her own, and not Yasmina's, for she was totally innocent, merely a child doing normal children things. Also tell her that when she visits Lebanon again eventually, I owe her a huge box of cherry tomatoes to make it up for her, and for the laughs. 

I love you both, boy how the years have passed! 

Tell her I say hi, and you, you better take care of yourself, baby girl. 

You'll always be my baby, and one day, you'll realize things too... 

I'm not in a hurry, we have this long (and daunting) lifetime we're experiencing simultaneously - though I would've loved me an emergency exit option, but I'll also be content with just a break. 

Hope you're sleeping soundly.

A dark dawn

Just like this, you discharge me from my motherhood services, you fire me from my mom job. 

Just like this, your father erases years of overdue custody payments owed to me. 

I'm shocked and confused. Haven't I been doing my job? I was perfecting that solo parenting thing, which was especially hard considering the absence of support and the peculiar circumstances. Was all of that just inside my head too!? Did I mess up really that bad to be treated in this way and manner, by both of you?! What crime did I commit? What am I being punished for?!? 

When the people and the country and the world were going crazy and hell broke lose, didn't I keep steady? I kept carrying you and running around with my head and heart in the right place despite the chaos. I kept you a priority, I carried on working, pushing through, while moving us through different places, always seeking better in everything, with your needs and desires at the heart of it all. Kept our "home" safe, kept you sheltered, contained, and nurtured. All the while your father deafening our ears with his excuses of lack and can not's, for years on end, from his high horse in the country of comfort and wealth, inside his world of luxury and "lordship", and sickening stories of polygamy. I pushed through it all, and some more, didn't I?! 

Was it that much to ask to keep it smooth and peaceful this passage of rite!? I so wanted to celebrate it, I so wanted to celebrate you. I was preparing for it, we were doing it together, I was following your guidelines like you wanted me to. I so wanted it to be celebrated properly, if for anything, to make up for all those years of abrupt and forced everything, and milestone after the other missed and overlooked! I so wanted your passage to adulthood to be beautiful, free from mess and chaos, or pressure and forced anything... 

No point talking more now, no point of right or wrong. Everybody made their choice, isn't it time I make my own?!!! 

My trauma wound highly activated, my body and system reminding me:

You're not worthy of good deeds

You're not worthy of effort

You're not worthy of sorry's

You're not worthy of thank you's

To heal is to feel is to feel is to feel is to feel is to feel is to feel is to feel if to feel is to detach. 

I'm praying for the God who puts so much compassion inside of me to show me how does one go about detaching. 

I'll pray for the heavens to look at me and look after me, only just for a little while now, because I feel most utterly bereft. 

Discharged, dispatched, dismissed, deposed, laid off, disregarded, deserted.

Without a notice, without payment, like a corrupt nanny, or a thief babysitter, or a dirty housekeeper, or some sort of a lousy cleaner. Like a nobody! 

I was the keeper of your heart, baby girl, what made you forget? 

Trauma mode activated:

I'm not worthy of honorable actions 

I'm not worthy of the hard but right choices

I'm not worthy of the slightest of efforts

I'm not worthy of kind words 

I'm not worthy of kind gestures 

I'm not worthy of the right actions 

I'm an undesired, useless, emotional mess

Discharged, dispatched, dismissed, deposed, laid off, disregarded, deserted.

Please God help me feel all there is to feel, and some more, so I can finally move on. Please help me detach myself, once and for all, from this cursed man and anything that he touches, who was a mirage of a friend, husband, co-parent. 

Amen.