The Racing Chocolate Thief

I have this recurring dream where I'm in a big race, but the race starts off with a free all-you-can-eat chocolate chip waffle breakfast. Needless to say, I stay at the starting line for a while, even after the race starts. In fact, I stay there until I've finished every last waffle. Then, once I start the race, I keep stumbling upon these massive chocolate stashes located under people's mattresses (not sure why I had access to their mattresses). I suddenly notice that I'm carrying a very big sack, so I begin to fill it up with all the various chocolate bars I'm finding until it's completely full. I should mention that there were other sweets including soft cookies, gum, toffee, mints - I remember I didn't take the mints because I calculated that they were a waste of sack space.

And then, after all that, I still manage win the race. Chocolate dreams are the best. Especially when they are recurring.

But then I wake up and I'm seriously hungry.

avoiding living so as not to make a Life

I've been avoiding living. And by living I mean, actually digging my heels into anything real in Egypt. I haven't enrolled in any classes, haven't made any friends, haven't said or done anything to make me accountable to anyone (besides my husband).

I didn't really do it on purpose. I just avoided doing real stuff and my conscious mind told me that it was because I was newly married - getting a hang of things like cooking, pleasing in-laws, etc. (yeah...right.) I kept using excuses until I finally stopped suppressing the real reason of avoidance. Well, I didn't want to stop - it all kind of just forcefully broke out of my subconscious mind.

I don't want to make a life here. I don't want any of this to be real. The more anchored I become here, the more it feels like the anchor will be too heavy to lift when I need to go home. For example, when I think about the slight possibility of making friends, my guard automatically goes up - because I already have friends at home.

And my guard is always up because people in Egypt are nosey in a major way. And everyone has an opinion. I understand that people who are close to you want to advise you, but it's often done in a way that's extremely pushy, and might I add, not only people who are close to you. Someone you just met might just tell you that you're living your life wrong. So yes, my guard is up in an exhausting way. Sometimes I just collapse under its weight and take a day or two to just be moody and not let anyone in.

And when I remember my parents and siblings, and all the babies that are related to me that I haven't seen in so long, my heart aches. And although my logical mind tells me that I should be where I am, how can it ever win an argument with my heart?

I did the thing I promised myself I would never do.

I did the thing I promised myself I would never do. I promised myself that someday when I got married, I wouldn't neglect my old life - I would keep blogging, I would stay in touch with friends and family. I would work. Basically, I would just be myself, except with another person.

When my friends were getting married and falling off the face of the planet, I didn't understand. I thought it was about them being so in love that they just didn't think anything else was as important. At the time, I turned my nose up at them. To be honest, I thought they were overly-emotional ninnies.

But I think I now understand their predicaments. After you get married, things change - there's so much more complex emotional states that need to be analyzed and sorted through. There is a lot of personal adjustment and reflection that happens. And well, there are in-laws.

The person you're with will make you re-examine your own life and habits - compare and contrast them to your own, worry about new things you had never thought of before. And it's a lot to handle on a psychological level. So I get it now - I get why people struggle to maintain their old lives when they get married. It's emotionally taxing.

Granted, the fact that I'm in Egypt makes it significantly harder to maintain my old life (well, actually it makes it impossible). But I'm still a little bit sad. And that's not because some of the things I was and some of the values that I held are falling to the wayside. No, it's because it's happening without me noticing. But I should notice, and I should care. The last thing that I want to be is a woman who loses herself in marriage simply because she didn't take the time or effort to carve her own niche in the world.

I know it's not easy, but I'm trying.

While I was lying in bed I came up with a really great blog post topic. I thought I should write it down or else I might forget, but I was too lazy to get out of bed. And then, I forgot. So this is what you get to read:

booga booga booga.

October

I miss Autumn in Canada. October is the month all the trees used to really start looking like they were set ablaze with colour. I remember being so distracted by the trees that I would often almost bump into passers-by. To me, autumn is associated with putting a jacket on in the morning and holding a travel mug filled with hot tea while running towards the bus in half drizzly weather. I never understood why people called this kind of weather "miserable."

Autumn is what life is about - seeing that stage of immense beauty disintegrate into a cold kind of darkness. I always found those quiet moments of reflection surprising and sweet, like a chocolate bar you forgot you had in your bag. I suppose I'll have to find things that inspire me in Egypt now - although autumn here is just the same as summer, but slightly less hot. No changing colours, no putting on jackets, and no having coffee with friends on their lunch breaks.

I used to craved the culture of Egypt - knowing that it was rich and filled with family and unique flavours of life. And not that it isn't, but every day I realize more and more how much I miss my home, the familiar associations I have with Canadian nature and atmosphere. I didn't realize how connected I was to home until I left it. It isn't just people anymore, it's smells and tastes and sensory things that I just can't explain with words.

I miss bumping into friends on the street. I miss muffins - I guess Egyptians haven't come around to the idea of muffins just yet. I miss calling my sister whenever I want to complain about something (which was daily). I miss my mom.

I miss the place my heart grew up.