Day: October 27, 2020

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Complaining

I hate it when I care. It’s not a nice color on me, when I care. It makes me feel too much, and we all know how much I hate over-feeling. It really doesn’t compliment me, because I’m not as healthy when it comes to these things, I tend to think in the strangest way possible, and I convince myself that it’s reality, and it’s just a beating.

But what if it’s not true? What if it’s not personal? How can I convince myself that caring isn’t a vulnerability and that sometimes people’s actions are not directed at me but are directed at the universe in general?

It’s so hard to convince myself, to either care healthily or not care at all. I prefer the latter really, it’s less thinking and more apathy, and even though I’m not fond of apathy, I’m not fond of weakness either.

As I listen to Halloween music and try to shake this frustration I’m feeling; I find myself searching for new opportunities and new things to fill my life with, knowing that I don’t even have a minute to spare in my back-to-back schedule.

Maybe I’m searching for an opportunity to replace another? Because that’s how it is, whenever I’m feeling the way I am, I leave, and I tend to want to hurt myself as a way to hurt others, and I don’t even know why.

Yet here I am, casually applying for a volunteering opportunity with a center dealing with Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients. I always wanted to volunteer beyond what I usually do with the elderly, and I’m kind of excited to meet these new beautiful people and listen to their stories.

I think I’m trying to find distractions, escaping the vicious dilemma I’ve put myself in. Funny how the safety I once thought I had is now the thing I’m trying to get away from. It got too heavy on me, too inconsistent, and now all I want is to rid myself of this feeling of clinginess and the idea that my priorities might be different.

It’s weird though, how dependent I sometimes get, and how easily it gets manipulated. Why do I do that? Why do I keep putting trust and giving chances, knowing that it won’t change and everything needs to go its own way?

I feel a certain discomfort that I cannot shake.

It’s like I’m in the wrong place and with the wrong person, yet I don’t know where the right place is and who the right person is. But I know this is not it, I know I’m in the wrong place.

It’s like I lived in a cloud for a while and now I’m slowly falling down, without a ground to fall on. Like the person I was sitting on a cloud with is standing at the edge threatening to shake the stability of the cloud, only because this person can.

I don’t feel like I belong in where I am right now, I’m not feeling the belonging I felt anymore, and I don’t feel in control. I hate now being in control. Why can’t you be here, with me, why can’t you do the thing(s) I told you to do and say to me all the things you probably never would say?

So frustrating to wait for you to understand, yet you never do. Why can’t I control you? If all that you say is true, you should understand. You need to understand.

I wish I can rid myself of dependency, of over-feeling, over caring. I would like not to worry as much.

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To live

Walking today in a Palestinian refugee camp, I almost felt like I know what I wanted.

With my life, I mean. The career I want to pursue. I know I absolutely love people, and I absolutely love spending time with them. I wonder if being with people is why I exist in the first place. To give people a little bit of what they give to me, some validation that I live for them.

As I sat with people who not only believe and support Palestine but actually lived the cause and had a thing to say to free their lands, I felt a sense of belonging to a cause so dear to my heart.

I interviewed a Palestinian woman called Amal who has a leading role in a Palestinian movement/political party and is now part of mediation groups. She started telling us the incredible stories of the strength and stubbornness of Palestinian women.

Amal told us what happened during the Israeli invasion in 1982 when they destroyed the whole camp and kidnapped and imprisoned the men, how women stood high, holding their illiteracy in one hand, and the years of housewife-ing in another, and rebuilt the camp.

They rebuilt their houses brick by brick, reopened their husbands’ and fathers’ stores, and taught themselves how to do business. They protected their streets and made sure they were safe enough for their children. When men came back from the war, they were surprised that the completely marred camp they left is now blooming.

Amal also told me the story of her imprisonment, how the Zionists performed the worst kind of emotional and mental torture to break her; still, she stood strong, how they used the women’s menstrual cycles to humiliate them, how they would only call on the women in the middle of the night for interrogation, using the women’s fear of night and rape against them.

She went to tell me about the resilience of women in times of conflict and the mediation skills they have by nature. Amal told me when things got intense one time in the camp, and two parties started shooting at each other, how women held their babies, brought their chairs, and sat in the middle of the streets, daring the men to shoot.

They have a cause, and they live for it. I would like to live for their cause too.

I think I might want to visit the camp again.