I'm officially old! Although I feel nothing unusual, but the fact remains, I'm old now!
The past year has passed very fast, probably one of the fastest. I feel that I may have started to be on the right track. Thus, I don't care much about how old.
I've had a busy year, lots of major changes: quitting job, leaving the country, back to study, a lot of traveling and money spending! I'm writing my post now at Dubai International airport while awaiting my flight to New York, then Canada. I'm sad and already miss my family and some people. But I'm going to finish what I have started. One month and 3 weeks have passed like a glimpse. Lots of outings and socializing but nothing fruitful and accomplishing at all!
My vacation in Syria has showed me that what connects me to this country and my home city is my family….nothing else! I donno if I should feel ashamed! Well, I'm not anyway. I'm not sure if it was me or the people are changing, or maybe they have always been like but I'd never noticed, or maybe I was one of them and I'm the one who is changing! The problem is that I don't feel it. I mean, even if I was changing, I'm not realizing, in fact, I may be rationalizing it as an evident and better thing. I'm not sure if the changes are for better. But I'm neither worried about them nor afraid that they may be for the worse.
I re-read what I read and felt how vague this post is. I will definitely want to thoroughly post about the feeling of change and the changes. But now is not the time. Maybe later!
For now, all what I care is that I'm a 29 year old. One year to go and I'm 30! Half of my life (if not sudden accidents or plane crashes) have passed. I have done a lot, experienced a lot and lived through a lot as well Known lots of people. Being disappointed by many of them and I did disappoint some myself, being stupidly in love once, met a perfect match once but didn't know at the time (long story). Lost a parent, become an uncle (not a popular one), and visited only one quarter of the places that I wanna visit before getting married!
I hope the second half of my life (again, if no sudden accidents or planes crashes occurred) will be more fulfilling on all level.
Education and career: Finish my MBA and start in a career within 3 years from now.
Love: Find someone
Life: Travel to Peru, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, Japan, China and Kenya. (Before the "love" factor exists.
Family: Keep having my great family.
Friends: They come and go, but for those who have lasted, I hope they can bear me for another 30 years or so.
I had several birthdays' celebrations yesterday, 3 to be exact. I got some nice gifts and ate a lot, 4 to be exact, as in one celebration, I ate twice!
I still have an hour and a half for my flight, I'd better go and have one last tour in the "super" Duty Free Shop they have in here. I've already spend a lot on perfumes, smokes and cigar. But boy, the prices are so good and the stuff is ever better!
Oh by the way, I just looked it up, it's "Virgo" not "Virgin" and it's the horoscope for those who are born in the last week of August and first 2 weeks of September, and that would be me ;)
8 comments:
Happy birthday Ihsan wish you a great year :)
too bad i haven't the chance to meet u while you were in Syira
yalla kheera be gheera
Fly safely.
the feeling of age is everlasting, yesterday i was thinking, i'm 20 and i still havent started my degree program.
birthdays are becoming [every year] a bit more than just party and cake.. they're becoming some naughty thinkin black holes.
Man O Man.....
As if i hear myself thinking....
exactly the same thoughts every time i leave syria,... especially the last trip.....
I had the same scary thought:
"My vacation in Syria has showed me that what connects me to this country and my home city is my family….nothing else!"
finally..... Happy birthday... and good luck .... the best of luck..
Happy Birth Day!
Happy Birthday Ihsan...I know how you feel..I one year olderthan you..
I wish you happiness and love..
Dear Ihsan and Sam,
I have been there, when I was your ages. Seven years later, here is what I learned:
What connects you to your country is your CHOICE to connect and absolutely nothing else.
If our connections to a place are conditional of how much this place or its people give us, then we are selfish.
Yes the country and people might not live up to your standards, but remember that that happened because you had the chance to leave to different countries and learn and see. Otherwise, if you had stayed, you might on the other side of the story and have been considered as irrelevant to someone else who had left and came back to visit.
If you choose to connect, then you know that you have obligations, when the right time comes, to try to make your country as good-to-connect-to as the other places you are in now and you feel connected to.
But until that right time comes, you can always choose to be connected, choose to love Syria, regardless of what you like or you don't like in it.
Maybe you will understand me when you grow a bit older, maybe it make sense to you when you fall in love and find your perfect other half; then you will realize that you did not fall in love because your wife was perfect, rather, she is perfect because you fell in love with her.
It is the same when it comes to our love to Syria.
Happy Birthday.
to " Late 30s Syrian":
Hi, and thanks for your comment,i guess you brought up some ineresting sides of the issue.
we as syrians never lost our love to syria, but we always question this matter, we always think about it and about what we can do to our country.
I guess because we are outside we are thinking about home more often, we think about the place and the people more often, while i think the man inside takes things more for granted.
being outside gave me the chance to see things from a deferent view, see some beautiful stuff i did not se before though i lived most of my life there..
also it opend my eyes to some bad and ugly things i did not see before.
i guess we all share the love of home in deferent ways....
Take care and thanks again...
Thank you everyone and sorry for the delay in my reply! I'm still in the transition period, body in one place and the heart and mind are in another place.
Once you love your home, Damascus, you can never do anything but keep loving it! You may try by supressing the good times into the back of your head...and bring the negatives up front....but at the end of the time....it's your home!
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