I Suffer from a Restlessness

I suffer from a restlessness. It is both a horrible thing and a wonderful thing at once. I require constant change to feel content. Change, for it to be change, needs to be varied and different. I need to go on great and long adventures. But then I need to settle down and relax. I need a job that constantly challenges and excites me. But then I also need to be able to break away from it every now and then. I like to hike. But then if that’s all I do I become bored with it. I want to learn new things but I don’t want that process to take over the other aspects of my life.

If it weren’t for this restlessness, I would not have climbed Kilimanjaro or learned diving or gone skydiving. If it weren’t for this restlessness, I would not have spent a significant portion of my career as a journalist volunteering my time to help develop the skills of other journalists. If it weren’t for this restlessness, I would not have seen so much in this world and learned from all the people I have met along the way. If it weren’t for this restlessness, I would not have studied for a master’s degree in journalism while taking care of four young children, taking on a full-time job, freelancing internationally, and founding a journalists’ NGO. It is this restlessness that causes me to need to do more, to do better, to do different.

But this restlessness also unsettles me. When I don’t have a plan for my next step, or when I do but there is too long of an interim, I feel empty and lost. It is not enough for me to know that in two months time I’ll be doing something great and exciting. What do I do NOW, is what I need to know. Sometimes I need to check out from the world and just relax. And that is fine. But when I’m done relaxing I need something else. And it can’t be just “normal”. I need to be stimulated. I need to be excited. I need to feel productive.

This morning I woke up with the following image of myself in my mind: I am covered in plastic wrap from head to toe. I cannot breathe. My arms are held tightly by the plastic wrap to my legs. I cannot raise them. I open my mouth and struggle to gasp for air. I contract every muscle of my body in attempt to free my arms enough to attempt to break free.

Whether I manage to break free or not remains to be seen. For now, I am suffocating in a cocoon of plastic wrap.

This will sound ridiculous to the many people who know me. I have managed to do so much with my life. I have great plans for the near future. I have an amazing family life. And this is why I suffer. I do have all that. But I need to do more.

Am I discontent? I don’t think so. I am happy and thankful for all that I have and for all that I have accomplished. But there is an energy inside me that tells me I can do so much more. I need to do so much more.

I suffer from a restlessness. It is a horrible thing and a great thing all at once.

 

Running with Cairo Runners

Hundreds of young Egyptians gathered this Friday morning in Heliopolis. It was not to protest in front of the Presidential Palace. It was not to throw molotov cocktails. It was not to express anger at government policies. Hundreds of Egyptians gathered this Friday morning in Heliopolis to collectively and proactively express the importance of physical fitness.

A new running movement seems to be gearing up in Egypt. It was started a few short weeks ago by a group who call themselves Cairo Runners. Their aim is to organize a half marathon sometime in April. And until then they are gathering people from all over the city to gradually increase the distances they can jog.

Today there were two routes; a shorter six kilometer route and a longer 11 kilometer route. It was one of the most amazing and inspiring experiences of my life to run alongside my fellow Egyptians on the streets of sunny Cairo. Instead of the typical harassment girls have come to expect, people were standing on the sides of the road cheering on the hundreds of young men and women who were chugging along. There were all kinds of people running today. They were mostly young people in their twenties. But I saw younger teenagers and older 50-year-olds as well. There were girls running in their hijab and girls without. There were guys with beards and guys without. There were extremely fit men (the kind with bulging muscles that you just want to squeeze) and there were young women who were nice and curvy. One young man was running with his two huge dogs on their chains.  Some people jogged the whole distance. Others jogged until they got tired and then walked.

If jogging on the streets of Cairo has been one of your dreams – as it has been mine – your dream has now come true! I’ll be joining Cairo Runners next week. I hope you will too.

Follow Cairo Runners on Twitter @CairoRunners and on Facebook where they post details of where the next running event will happen approximately half way into each week.

The Night I Killed a Ghost Child

My earliest memory, beyond false memories that can sometimes be induced whilst looking at old photographs, is from the time when I was four years old.

My father was teaching at the University of Cambridge in England for a year. One night, while I was sleeping, I woke up to the sound of footsteps coming up the staircase. They were slow, purposeful footsteps; the scary kind like in horror movies. They were footsteps that were out to get you. I froze. My back was to the bedroom door and I could not turn around to see who it was. So the thing came to me. It walked into my room, around my bed, and stood right in front of me. It was the apparition of a 40ish woman. She was transparent (as ghosts tend to be). Her hair was held up high on her head in a bun (I can’t remember the birth dates of my own children but I remember that). She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You killed my daughter!”

My heart stopped. I knew exactly what she was talking about. The electricity cut off just as ghost lady was starting up the stairs. As the nightlight went off in my room, and just as my eyes were getting accustomed to the dark, I saw a wisp of little girl disappear underneath my bed. In my head I figured that’s what happened when there is a power cut: little ghost girls die and hide underneath alive girls’ beds.

Once I realized that I had something to do with the death of a ghost child (I still had no real idea how I had anything to do with the power cut) and her mother was standing in front of my bed looking for retribution, I shrieked, “Mooooooommy!” My mother came into my room, sat next to me on my bed, took me into her arms, and asked me what was wrong. I told her what had happened. She chuckled and told me I must have had a bad dream. Mothers! She lit a candle and led me from my room to my parents’ room. I could sleep in their bed until the electricity came back.

I have never stopped wondering what really happened that cold, damp British night some 40 years ago.

 

Dream Diary: Ghostly Nightmares

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted something in my online dream diary. I ALWAYS dream (almost always they are nightmares) but I haven’t been remembering enough of my dreams to have something coherent to write.

Last night I dreamt something and I actually remember part of that dream because it was so odd. I woke up in the middle of the night, my heart beating rapidly, and when I recalled the dream I thought, “How odd.”

I was walking down a darkened corridor. Light was emanating from the last room on the left. I didn’t want to go into that room because I knew that’s where the dead man lay. But for some reason, a reason my awake self cannot remember, I had to. I timidly looked into the room from the corner of the door. A fancy, dark wood coffin lay on a table. The top half was open to reveal the dead man’s face. It was covered everywhere with long hair. It was the face of a wolfman. His arms protruded from holes in the sides of the coffin, his fingers tapping endlessly on the table.

I rushed out of the room. I was frightened. But as I walked back down the corridor I bumped into Henry the Ghost. Henry was a tall, skinny chap of middle age. He was cheerful and I was pleased to see him. “Where have you been all this time,” I asked him. We were old friends.

Is Egypt Really Self-Destructing? Observations From My 1st Day Back

This post is directed to Egyptians using social media:

I am terribly disappointed in you.

I have only been away from Egypt for three months. In those three months I have followed my close friends on Facebook and a large number of Egyptians on Twitter who have yelled wolf, screamed, and waved their hands in the air as one drowning. Almost everything I read on Egypt’s social media over the past three months gave me the impression that Egypt was about to self-destruct. I was terrified to come home. What I read made me feel like I wouldn’t be safe in Egypt. What I read convinced me that there was no stability in Egypt. I had already started considering the possibility of immigrating with my children to another country.

It took me only one day back in Egypt running normal errands to see that the country is exactly the same country that it has been for more than 20 years. All the bad stuff is still here. But all the good stuff is still here too. I wasn’t raped or harassed. Bearded men and face-veiled women had nothing but smiles on their faces and kind words on their tongues. The supermarket and mall were full of people buying things, meaning there must still be money in the country. Egyptian men are not out to rape me. The Islamists are not out to eat me alive. And the economy is still chugging along.

What Egyptians are posting through social media will inevitably keep Egyptians abroad from feeling safe enough to come home and tourists from feeling safe enough to visit the country.

Egypt is the same that it has been for 20 years. Yes. We have had a revolution and very little has changed for the better. But we still have lots of hope that it will. For change to happen we need to work very hard. Real change does not happen in 18 days. Real change takes decades of hard work.

If you are an Egyptian using social media, take some time to consider what you post before you post it. By focusing only on the negative you make it appear much worse than it actually is. By refraining to mention the positive, you make it appear that Egypt is nothing but a pile of shit. For those of us who are not always in Egypt, we have come to depend on social media users to get a sense whether what is published in the media is representative of reality or if it’s an exaggeration of it. When we see Egyptians echoing what the media says, we believe it. So stop blaming the media for scaremongering. Most Egyptians using social media are doing it far better than the media is. What that means is that Egyptians living abroad and tourists will not want to come to Egypt. Our country needs them both if we are to develop and to prosper.

Before you write your next status or tweet your next tweet, consider what effect it will have on people outside of the country. You terrified me. I am sure you are terrifying others. Be honest. Be balanced. Write as much about the positive as you do about the negative. Build Egypt. Stop destroying it.

 

I am in love…you deserve to be too

I am a 44-year-old woman and I am in love.

I am telling you this even though I am a strict believer in the existence of the evil eye. I have made a conscious decision to brave your evil eyes because I believe you deserve to know that you should have this too. I have, of course, made all the necessary incantations against your evil eyes and have placed a preventative curse on anyone who so much as thinks of sending evil eye vibes my way.

I am a 44-year-old woman and I am in love. And it feels great. The love I feel for my husband isn’t the warm, wishy-washy, cuddly sort of love we think we feel for another person when we are teenagers. It feels so much more mature than any love I have felt before. It is a love that is aware, from experience, of the risks involved and the compromises that must be made. It is a love that knows the hard work that is involved in keeping it alive. It is a love that is willing to take those risks and to make those compromises and to do all the hard work because I know that it is worth it.

You deserve to have this too. Know that. Feel it in your core. If you do not feel it, go to the nearest mirror and repeat these words, “I deserve to love and to be loved.” Continue to say this until you believe it. Force yourself to believe it and then go act on it. Stop this crap of waiting for love to come and knock at your door. It doesn’t happen that way. You need to actively seek it out. Think of love the way you think of other things you are passionate about. When I am passionate about something I find a way to go get it. You need to feel that way about love. Get your butt out there in the world, meet people, socialize, and continue to do this until you see something you like and then go get it! When you believe in yourself, when you believe you are worthy, when you believe you are super-awesome, others will see that in you too.

Do not let age get in your way. Do not let circumstances get in your way. Start thinking positively and make things happen.

Stop being afraid of taking risks. Stop being afraid of rejection. Consider risks and rejection part of the learning process of finding love.

If you are a single woman, do not wait for the men to take the initiative. You do not live in the 19^th Century.

If you are married, work at falling back in love with your spouse.

Stop making check lists of the characteristics the love of your life must have. It doesn’t work that way. Love is often found where it is least expected. If you do not open yourself up to that thought, you may let it pass by unnoticed. Do not let that happen.

I am a 44-year-old woman in love. And it feels great. You deserve to have this too. Do something about it.

 

 

The Career Struggles of a Woman

I find myself – again – in a very difficult and uncomfortable position. I am unable to make the career choices and decisions I would like to make – that I NEED to make even – because I feel I need to wait for other people around me to make their own decisions first.

How many other women live their lives this way?

When I gave birth to my children, I made the decision not to work. This was a very conscious decision on my behalf. It was a very easy decision. My children were my priority. They were babies. They needed a parent to give them fulltime care for a certain period of time. That parent would be me, their mother. Their father would play the other traditional role of providing for us. I was happy with my decision for the first years of our marriage. But then the children started growing older and I realized three things: we needed more money as a family, I needed to be financially independent, and I needed to have something to occupy myself when the children started going to school.

This was when I made the conscious decision to start working. I was very fortunate to find my way into journalism and it became my passion. But I was always “limited” in the choices I could make because of my responsibilities towards my children.