In my sleepless nights....

 

In my sleepless nights, I longed for you. I missed our conversations…..no, it wasn’t the conversations that I missed, it was the hope of a new life, the promise of happiness, that unrealistic feeling of pure satisfaction. I am sad, lonely and miserable, but I knew quite well how to deceive others and distract myself. There is nothing new tonight, nothing new to be written or added to my pathetic saga, but I just need to remove all these heavy masks, turn off the background music, push away all the distractors and scream that I am lonely. Days have been passing by super quickly, my whole life seemed like a new treadmill, and I have to keep moving, I cant afford to stumble and fall. The audience is just an audience and will never jump in and help. Isn’t it a pity that I had to go through all these heartbreaks to understand that  I am destined for loneliness. Whenever I try to make things more genuine more meaningful, they burst in my face. Don’t they say “If a thing works, don’t fix it”, but for God’s sake nothing was or is working. It is either that I am discovering the core of human nature, or Im just turning into a lunatic.

I cant keep blaming my antidepressant pills, my inner child, my abrupt therapy sessions or my imagined creativity. There is something wrong, and it is not related to creativity, Im sorry to admit. Why cant I admit that being nonconfrontational has led to all this mess. Am I looking for another excuse, or did my years of trying to be an obedient religious person smudged the already shaken personality?

Luckily my dreams are amusing these days, there I meet friends, I face problems but at the end, a dream is a dream. I wish my dreams were longer. There is something wrong, I am sure that there is something wrong. I used to say “I have a big appetite for life” , but no, maybe I have a big appetite for sadness. That inner void is killing me, and I want to scream but I cant. I cant scream and I don’t have the energy. I was raised to be grateful, and to appreciate that Im in a better state than others. So I should keep oppressing my feelings, keep shushing my voice, and keep ignoring all my thoughts, just to be grateful. But at the end of the day, Am I really grateful? Can a frightened person ever be grateful.

It is that eternal feeling of fear, it paralysis me, and make me accept the endless tiny unacceptable details that form my life. No wonder that I appreciate my dreams, they are quick and they come to an end. My real life feels more like a punishment, and no matter how complicated it becomes, I have to keep being grateful. I fake happiness, I fake acceptance, I even fake ok-ness. If I ever talk about myself, I will be accused of being either self-centered or selfish, or both. Sometimes I will be accused of being immature. So, let me keep faking that everything is fine. Let me keep oppressing my fear and let me keep longing for what will never happen.

The list of my enemies is getting longer. Time does not heal, memories are merciless, and getting myself buy does not help at all. Lately, I feel that my only salvation is through a loud and blunt confession of my utter failure.  The failure of having, or even creating genuine connections. The failure of speaking up. The failure of not betraying myself day and night. If I am allowed to confess…. No it should not be a confession, it should be a scream, an endless scream that purifies my soul from decades of silence, acceptance and faking indifference. Now, what can I do? Go to bed hoping to be blessed by one of those dreams, where I am free, where I’m light and where I am capable of dealing with the situations. A few hours later I will wake up with my legendary headache, I will wade through the day and its errands with a fake smile, my stutters, and the endless distractors that I wrap around my poor self.

Is there a place in heaven for those frightened people? Some optimistic people murmur that heaven and hell, are merely “states of mind”. Ah, so I have been to hell, and I hope that Allah the merciful will let me taste the relief of Paradise, or at least to save me from hell. I need to pause for a while, think and perhaps reflect on my journey, which has been a long one. But, how would I do this? If all what I do is ignoring the obvious. I am exhausted, and whenever I pause, I distract myself. I do this, as expected, out of fear. Yes, it has always been fear that controlled me and shaped my life from the beginning. There is no need to blame anyone, it seems that this is how my story was written.

 

To the woman who will love me,

 

Hello,

I'm not sure when we will meet, but I'm certain we will meet one day. Every man is destined to meet his other half, his better half, and im waiting for that day. I'm thirsty for your love, that pure, overwhelming and crazy love. I am not referring to the romantic movies I love or the melodramatic novels I enjoy; I am just waiting for your profound feelings. Silence will be to eloquent to be disturbed by our words. Time will be our friend, and will slow its pace just for us.

My love, I am not dreaming, or maybe I am. But as years are passing by, phases are left behind, and battles have been lost, I am eager to witness the miracle of your love. We don’t need a lifetime…. What a cliché! We just need these genuine moments, when we lose ourselves in the sheer happiness of being together. They say that I am talkative, I want to quit talking and listen to you, listen to your words of love, passion and compassion. Wise people said that everything happens for a reason, so maybe every experience that I have been through was a mere preparation for your love. I assure you I am not dreaming. I don’t feel that I am lonely and I don’t sound pathetic, it is just a moment of honest vulnerability that is surprising me, but I am willing to admit that I need your love, and I believe that we will meet one day, and that my life won’t be complete unless we meet.

A few real moments, these will be enough to heal all the wounds of the past, turn my scars into beautiful tattoos, and encourage me to dream of a future that we share. The chaos engulfing me needs the mercy and magic of your love. I am confused whether I reached the apex of wisdom or the climax of my middle age crisis, either way, I can't wait to be showered by your love.

F E A R

 

In one of my dreams tonight, it seemed that I reached nirvana, a state of enlightenment or in other words, I understood the essence of life. It is all about FEAR. Yes, fear, simple, it is all about fear. It is the only constant feeling that haunts us from the very beginning to the last breath, the fear of everything, from everything and of and about everyone. Both the good achievements and the terrible failures result from fear. We worship God out of fear, we kill others out of fear! We fall in love out of fear, the fear of loneliness, one of the bitter types of fear. We develop various illnesses, again, because of fear, just think of migraines, these wicked migraines, aren’t they, how our bodies translate their fears in a primitive yet painful way?

In that dream, it all seemed clear! If at the end of the story, no matter the story was a short or a long one, everything will be lost, our possessions, our health, our memories, and the containers that we called them our bodies, everything will be lost, our beloved places and most cruelly our beloved ones. We will have vague memories of our long - sometimes boring -lives, only mirages of our realities. So, why cant we just take a breath, smile and enjoy the ride, and kick FEAR out of our lives, till it shrewdly seeps back again.

I had a good sleep, I woke up in a good mood, I enjoyed a hearty breakfast, now sipping my coffee and trying to remember that it has always been fear. I am looking forward to having another moment of enlightenment and hopefully that time I will be awake!