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.

about time

There's something about Dubai that's constantly making me think 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.