The Almost 30 project - Week 2

As I'm finishing off week 2 of my "Almost 30" project, I'm sharing a summary of my daily challenges here on the blog...

• Day 7 - "Take an acting class in Dubai": Far from being my first acting class, it was my first in a very long time. But it brought me back to a world in which I always felt happy in --a world where I can pretend to be anyone but myself. When I was younger, all I wanted was to be an actress. I filled my head with dreams and fantasies of one day conquering Hollywood and winning an Oscar. I hadn't acted in more than 3 years before that class, and being in an environment where I could just play felt fantastic.

• Day 8 - "Write the 10 biggest achievements of you twenties": I wrote those in details in a previous post... But I will say one thing about this challenge... putting these achievements down on paper really surprised me.  It's easy to forget how many things you should be proud of, and reminding myself was a huge boost. Now I'm looking forward to see what I'll do in my thirties...

• Day 9 - "Wear blue mascara": a challenge of beauty and make-up for someone who doesn't often wear any... It was fun to get out of my comfort box of black eye-liner and bronzer and try something a little more daring. Maybe it'll make me spice things up in the makeup department...

• Day 10 - "Do something that makes you feel like a child": Colors, brushes, paints... being surrounded by 6 and 7 year olds. Spending hours coloring on a ceramic mug on a saturday afternoon... just the type of thing I loved to do, back in the day when weekends were all about gathering around something creative. My mom always had an idea to keep us occupied: making chandeliers out of coca cola bottles, playing with salt dough clay, creating dolls out of buttons... it feels good to know we can still play like children as we grow into adulthood.

• Day 11 - "Wear high-heels at the office": This may seem like a curious one... considering that most people don't wear anything but heels at the office... but I had never done it in my entire professional life. I don't even wear heels when I go out at night, only very rarely. I have to admit though, there is something about spending a day in high-heels: It made me feel like I was in an episode of The Good Wife -like a sexy powerful professional woman... Not a bad thing to feel... And I think I may where more heels in my thirties!

• Day 12 - "Witness a moment of pure happiness": when I got this "to-do", I had no idea how or when I could get it done... it's not like you can predict a moment like that. And then my best friend got engaged... On Monday night, we went to celebrate, and I have never seen her that happy in fifteen years of friendship. It's a blessing to see someone you love so happy. And in that moment, I let go of all the fears and insecurities of my own life, and felt happy too. Not just "happy for her," but happy because she was happy. It's feels nice to tell the difference. 

• Day 13 - "Go to an audition": I've been acting since I was 12 years old and I've done dozens of plays, a few short films and even a TV series but I had never gone to a real audition before. I was a little nervous but I decided to give it my all --my big chance to see if I can really nail an audition or not. I learnt the text by heart in the 3 minutes I got to prepare, and went in to impress... let's see what happens! Maybe the career I dreamt of as a child will finally come to me in my thirties!

Today, as I write this, I still have no idea which "to-do" I'm going to do... it's getting harder and harder as the list gets shorter! And there are some scary things coming up on that list, including skinny dipping (I might get kicked out of Dubai for that one), apply for your dream job (which I still haven't figured out) and go for a 5k run (very, very optimistic...). Tune in next week for the next episode of "Almost 30"!

everything is okay

Monday morning no longer feels like it has for the past 29 years. It's not the first day of the week anymore; it doesn't hold that same power, the pressure, that sense of dread. It's just a day of the week now. Here, I start my week on a Sunday.

I woke up this morning and decided that everything is okay. Everything is okay, everything will be okay. I just need to let go. For the longest time, I've tried to control everything. Even things I can't control, I try to plan for. I make lists --that's how I feel better about things. To be prepared and avoid surprises. I guess this is what became of me after a series of unexpected events that came and punched me in the face, so, surprise surprise, my reaction is to be controlling. Was to be. I'm letting go now.

Actually, the truth is, the unexpected events probably exacerbated my anxieties but I'd always been naturally anxious. Even as a little girl, I always asked the "what if?" questions. I remember my mother pointing this out to me one day when we were on the Corniche, the beach walk in my hometown of Beirut. My baby brother was running around, and I kept worrying he'd fall over the edge. "What if he trips?" I asked. "What if he's holding onto the barrier and it breaks?" "What if he passes under the barrier because he's so small?"

"Why do you always have to think of all the bad possible things that could happen?" my mother asked me. "Relax. You don't need to worry. I'm here, let me worry about it, ok?"

Ok. If she was going to worry about it, then maybe I didn't have to. And I think it worked for a while. But then she died. And there was no one left to worry about all the things that needed to be worried about; no one but me. And I could not be unprepared again. I couldn't just let things happen to me, without accounting for every possibility.

But then something strange happened: unexpected things kept on happening; despite my lists, despite my whatifs, despite my preparations. Sometimes they were good unexpected things, sometimes they weren't so good.  But they happened anyway.

And now... well now, I've realized that even though I do all my worrying, go through all my anxieties, make all my lists --nothing is going as planned. I am absolutely not where I expected to be. And maybe that's okay.

Monday morning is still Monday morning; it has the same name, it still comes at the same time and in the same order. It just acts as a Tuesday now. And the world hasn't collapsed. And everything is okay.

expectations redefined

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?