From the very beginning of this blog (Beirut Rhapsodies) from the very first post I wrote, I chose a topic: I chose to talk about a generation of women entering the 21st and the trying to make sense of our place in this new world, whether it be in career, family, love and all three. As I put it back then, over four years ago: "It's the story about women in their twenties, struggling to find their balance." I wanted to write a novel, but didn't know what about. I started the blog just to get back into writing mode.
So it's funny to realize that years later, I am in fact writing a book about exactly that: women in their twenties, through different generations and different periods of time. I guess somehow I was already onto to something without even realizing it.
The reason I mention this, is because of what I want to talk about today. A conversation I have had again and again, with so many girls around me, and I really believe that it's the essence of understanding relationships in our time. Expectations need to be redefined.
It feels unimaginable, impossible even, that we should expect to have the same kinds of relationships that they had 60 years ago, or even 30 years ago. Yet we do.
Technology alone has redefined the way we communicate, the way one might connect with someone. Take long distance relationships for example. For my grandparents, their courtship was a time of letters exchanged between Beirut and Cairo. My grandmother would send a letter, and then she would count: if it took 8 days to reach Cairo, and if he wrote back that very same day and sent the letter the next, then she would receive her answer 17 days later at the earliest. I have friends in long distance relationships right now, and they can't go 17 hours without speaking to each other through at least one of the dozen available apps.
Imagine waiting 17 days for someone to reply to your love letter. We can't imagine it. When we see the "last seen" stamp on Whatsapp (or the wonderful new addition of the blue ticks), we can't even wait 17 minutes. The other day my friend P. panicked because her boyfriend was "last seen" at 8pm and it was 11pm and she didn't understand how he could go three hours without checking his Whatsapp (what the hell was he doing?)... turns out he was sleeping.
And that's just one example. We've lost so many fundamental pillars to our inter-human connections --patience, privacy, freedom... Yesterday, T. told me her boyfriend sometimes goes an entire day without calling her, because he needs his space and she just doesn't get it. Now if T. lived in 1949 like my grandmother, getting one phone call a month would be magic. Not the norm. Not the minimum requirement. But maybe not all of us are wired to keep up with the demands of technology. Maybe some of us need to disappear for a day, or two, because that's how we were wired to start with. And if we'd just readjust our expectations --if we were able to understand that people weren't created to keep up and (dis)function in perfect tune with technology-- we'd all be so much happier, wouldn't we?
February 26, 2015
February 17, 2015
about time
Maybe it's the fact that the seasons are shuffled and that I can run into the sea on a random February day. Well maybe not run, more like slowly step into and gasp every time the water gets higher.
Or it's that days of the week blend-in and get blurry. That Sundays no longer mean lazy day on the blue couch watching a marathon of bad TV and eating hangover food. Here, Sunday means Monday, early mornings and at your desk by 9.
Could also be that the correlation between distance and time makes no sense to me here: like it takes 3 minutes for me to go from work to my hotel by car, but it takes 30 minutes for me to walk it.
And then there's punching in and out of work on time (welcome to the corporate world, me!) and staying at the office until midnight (I know it's not that weird, most people have done it, but it's a little weird for me...) Apparently, that's what having a grown-up job feels like.
The fact is, for so long I was used to my time being mine. I was especially good at wasting it, atrociously, and procrastination is a particular skill of mine. But here, you just can't waste time, even if you try. It goes by so quickly, it feels like it's running on a different clock then the rest of the world. The day flies by, the week is over in a blink. Suddenly, I've been here a month already.
In a way, it feels energizing. So much to do and so much getting done. But it's also a little scary, time going by so fast. There are so many things I thought I'd accomplish before turning 30 (did I mention I'm turning 30? I expect it to come up a lot). So before I actually do turn 30, maybe I should try to accomplish some (most? all?) of these things. I'll do what I usually do, I'll make a list. And then I'll have exactly 4 months to tick all the boxes.
Maybe like that, I can use time to my advantage. The fact that I feel it so strongly here, it could be just what I need: like having a fire lit under my ass --to use a French expression that I can't find the proper equivalent for.
I have to go now, time is ticking.
But I'll keep you posted on that list.
I have to go now, time is ticking.
But I'll keep you posted on that list.
February 10, 2015
like a grownup
This last year has been eventful, to say the least, so let me catch you up. I know, it's been a while.
Beirut - New York - Beirut - Dubai
Three moves in 11 months, that's a record for me. Not that I'm not used to moving, back and forth from my childhood bedroom onto the next new experience --and back.
When I moved to New York last January, it was the cool move: girl gets dumped, quits her job, takes all her savings, crashes on her best friend's couch and starts writing a book. It was a good story, so everyone cheered me on and told me how brave I was and I thought, for sure, it's all going to work out. It was like a scene in a movie, and of course, if it had been a movie, I would've found a job, gotten a work permit, finished the book, found a publisher, met the man of my dreams and all that. But it was real life and none of that happened. So after eight months of living in my parallel universe, where I refused to conform because I'm just not the kind of girl who wants to be stuck in another 9 to 5 job in the boring corporate world making money like normal people (who wants to be normal?) --I came back to Beirut with my tail between my legs, not a cent left and an unfinished manuscript.
I came back to Beirut and there I found myself, once again, in the bedroom I grew up in. The yellow walls I painted myself closing in on me. And everywhere around me, all the questions that I really didn't need.
"Oh so you're back from New York?" Yes... (Look of pity.)
"Did you finish your book?" Not exactly, it does take a little more than few months to write a book you know. (Nod of pretend-understanding.)
"Did you meet someone?" Yes, I met lots of people... but no, not in the way you mean. (Nod of extreme pity, then an encouraging "don't worry you'll meet someone when the time is right".)
"So you're back for good?" No. I'm never back for good. What does that even mean?
What I really wanted to say? At least I tried.
And I'm not afraid to try again.
When I decided to move to Dubai, it was the safe move; nothing cool about it. Girl finds herself banging her head against the wall because she's almost thirty and still gets paid peanuts to write, so she gives in to the corporate 9 to 5, accepts the fact that getting a salary is unfortunately necessary sometimes and tries to make the best out of it. I wouldn't write this one into a movie scene --doesn't sound too exciting. And it was unsurprisingly met with a lot of "You went from New York to Dubai...? Wow..." (and then the look of disappointment, which is almost worse than look of pity.) Like it wasn't already hard enough for me.
The thing is, the truth is, I'm not exactly ecstatic about moving to Dubai. Everything I was running away from is all here in one place on a silver platter with a silver spoon that I don't want and don't care about. But I finally realized that what I need right now, to do what it is that I really want to do and need to do, is some stability. Maybe act like a grownup. At least for a little while.
So just in case you had any doubts, I'm not going to stop. Not the moving, not the dreaming, and definitely not the writing.
Beirut - New York - Beirut - Dubai
Three moves in 11 months, that's a record for me. Not that I'm not used to moving, back and forth from my childhood bedroom onto the next new experience --and back.
When I moved to New York last January, it was the cool move: girl gets dumped, quits her job, takes all her savings, crashes on her best friend's couch and starts writing a book. It was a good story, so everyone cheered me on and told me how brave I was and I thought, for sure, it's all going to work out. It was like a scene in a movie, and of course, if it had been a movie, I would've found a job, gotten a work permit, finished the book, found a publisher, met the man of my dreams and all that. But it was real life and none of that happened. So after eight months of living in my parallel universe, where I refused to conform because I'm just not the kind of girl who wants to be stuck in another 9 to 5 job in the boring corporate world making money like normal people (who wants to be normal?) --I came back to Beirut with my tail between my legs, not a cent left and an unfinished manuscript.
I came back to Beirut and there I found myself, once again, in the bedroom I grew up in. The yellow walls I painted myself closing in on me. And everywhere around me, all the questions that I really didn't need.
"Oh so you're back from New York?" Yes... (Look of pity.)
"Did you finish your book?" Not exactly, it does take a little more than few months to write a book you know. (Nod of pretend-understanding.)
"Did you meet someone?" Yes, I met lots of people... but no, not in the way you mean. (Nod of extreme pity, then an encouraging "don't worry you'll meet someone when the time is right".)
"So you're back for good?" No. I'm never back for good. What does that even mean?
What I really wanted to say? At least I tried.
And I'm not afraid to try again.
When I decided to move to Dubai, it was the safe move; nothing cool about it. Girl finds herself banging her head against the wall because she's almost thirty and still gets paid peanuts to write, so she gives in to the corporate 9 to 5, accepts the fact that getting a salary is unfortunately necessary sometimes and tries to make the best out of it. I wouldn't write this one into a movie scene --doesn't sound too exciting. And it was unsurprisingly met with a lot of "You went from New York to Dubai...? Wow..." (and then the look of disappointment, which is almost worse than look of pity.) Like it wasn't already hard enough for me.
The thing is, the truth is, I'm not exactly ecstatic about moving to Dubai. Everything I was running away from is all here in one place on a silver platter with a silver spoon that I don't want and don't care about. But I finally realized that what I need right now, to do what it is that I really want to do and need to do, is some stability. Maybe act like a grownup. At least for a little while.
So just in case you had any doubts, I'm not going to stop. Not the moving, not the dreaming, and definitely not the writing.
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