jWoman is forty today!

Today I close my fourth decade on this earth. A decade ends and a new one starts. I hope I am wiser than when I started my thirties, I am happier and much more calmer. 

I remember this day a decade ago, 10 years ago! I started my thirties in the middle of the Arabic spring, in the streets of my beloved city Alexandria, marching and asking for freedom, for the right to have a voice, to exist. 

As difficult as those years were, they brought me to where I am today, and you do not regret one bit of that. I won't start on the cheesy lines of age is just a number blah, blah, blah. But I know things look so clearer and calmer now I am forty (woooow, that is super weird hearing myself say it!!!!), than when I was thirty. 

The last decade held so much, 

    a revolution, marching the streets, shouting at the top of your lungs, the illusion of making a difference and the ecstatic feeling it brings, divorce, love and loss intertwined, broken hearts, friendships lost and gained, saying goodbyes and saying hellos, leaving home, making a new home, aloneness and loneliness, being a student again, starting a new career, toxic workplace, leaving and starting over, restarting career again, opening up, being scared but yet getting out of bed every morning.

And here I am 10 years from 27/7/2011, in 2021.  I am a different version of myself, the little girl of 10 is still there along with the hesitant angry young woman at 20, and that too-sure of herself 30-year-old me. They are there, but quieter, smarter and less sure of themselves :).

I know a lot but the most important thing is that I am still missing a lot more. There is so much more to learn and see and experience and as long as I am here I will live, breathe and enjoy.

Enjoy the little things, the voice of a friend, the taste of a hot cup of coffee in the early morning, the smile on a little child or a cheeky naughty one, a small pink bud barely visible in the tree in my front yard is enough.

I understand now that nothing will make me happy and no one, I am the only one able to achieve this. And happiness is not a goal that I will reach when something happens. No happiness is a way of living, a lifestyle, a diet ;). And enjoying the journey is what life is all about.

So my dear friends, stay safe, be happy and enjoy the ride.

This is what jWoman has to say today.

And again I am not ok

 Yes, I am not ok.

And I havent been ok for a long time now. I am in a very dark place and it is getting darker by the second. I try, I push back and push back trying to get out and it seems that I am going towards the light then I just fall back.

I am so lonely, so hurt, so frustrated and again so lonely.

Life is a very gloomy place to be and I am lost in the silence of isolation and loneliness. It seems like I am navigating through the endless seas of life, alone with no crew on deck or below it. I am alone trying to take control of my ship where as the fact is the wind is tossing me to random directions going towards nowhere. My ship just sails and sails and nothing around but silence, endless seas broken just by a sound of a flock of birds flying overhead or the wind blowing my sails and sometimes rocking the ship so hard. 

The birds hail land but no land appear in the horizon, it is always this endless blue seas.

And yes, I am not ok.