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.