As a Female-III

Somebody

As a young girl, I admire anyone, but myself. Those gorgeous celebrities are all ways better than me. They are semi-gods and I am no body. I am some plain girl. Yes, I am going to college. Received good education. I have a close loving family. I am healthy. I have a good reputation and people respect me because I am responsible but… that is NOT enough. That is NOTHING… I am still NOBODY... Inner beauty is a myth. A celebrity with a pretty face and a sexy body whom everyone knows is SOMEBODY... Is EVERYTHING.

My hair is natural. No colours. No extensions, but it is still so boring and hideous compared to the gorgeous hair of some celebrity with a different hair-cut and different hair length every day. It is fake hair. I know. Your hair will not grow overnight but who cares? They are knockouts. Aren’t they?

My skin is terrible. Well, it is natural and fresh. Duh! I’m young.  But it is either too white that is so dull compared to some celebrity’s fake tan or it is too dark compared to some celebrity’s fair skin that I know without makeup is covered with freckles and she has a red nose but who cares?  Makeup does miracles and these ladies are drop-dead gorgeous with makeup. They are on magazine covers. They are popular! They are SOMEBODY!

My lips, not plump enough like some celebrity that I swear she used to have thinner lips in the past. True, sometimes her lips look heavy and painful from all those fillers, but who cares? Those are sexy lips and look perfect with lip gloss. So give me that! Fill up my lips with chemicals! Make them numb. I don’t need to feel kisses anymore. As long as they LOOK pretty!

My body! Don’t mention it please! Not thin enough. If thin, not feminine enough. My breasts are either too small or too big and don’t stand right. I work out and get an athletic body instead of a feminine sexy one. But how to get a slim body then? I don’t know how some celebrities do it! They have big boobs and nice tight butts and yet really flat abs. They claim they work out every day and drink a lot of water. How can they exercise with those big boobs and what water? That flat tummy will swell a bit even if you only drink water. Mine does and never gets that flat because a tummy is not flat anyway so how they do it? Liposuction? Perhaps! Temporary treatments? Who knows!? But still, I want that, that ridiculously flat tummy. Those big boobs that seem to defy gravity and remain hung in the air without a bra. That tight butt with no chunks. I want that and who gives a damn about health concerns and surgery pains!? Such body will make you SOMEBODY!

I am too imperfect compared to all those gorgeous knock-out girls. Well, they do all have issues. Almost all of them have been to rehab a couple of times. Got knocked up and had a bastard child. Or a sex tape of them spread out on the web. They got a divorce or two. changed multiple partners.  Got arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. Their IQ is less than that of a dolphin. They are always half naked. Have millions of scandalous pictures on the web. They have a terrible history and there seems to be a hole in their hearts that only a d*** can fill, but… they are pretty. They are gorgeous. They are popular and their pictures are everywhere. It is always about them. They are SOME BODY! Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that what matters? Or what?

As a Female- II

# 2 A Girlfriend Only

Friends: We all need friends to survive this life's atrocities. A friend is always needed to share both the happy and sad moments with. A friend is needed to teach us giving, forgiveness, respect, patience and other good things we thought we never had in the first place! But sometimes, friends are a bit overrated. If you are a girl and in a relationship with a guy who has many or some close friends, you are going to understand what I am about to say here.

Sometimes your family members can be your best friends that you don't feel like you need any close friends or at least you don't feel like you have to have many friends. And we definitely don't need so many fiends to live a happy life. Whether it is your family, a complete stranger or anyone who is your friend, we, girls, when in love with a guy, want one thing more than any other thing in this world which is to be best friends with the guy we love. Therefore, when we are in love with some guy, we put them on our priority list and we always treat them better than our best friends because we think "c'mon! he is both my love and my best friend!" But have you ever noticed how different guys can be when it comes to this? how they change into a different person when they are around their friends. They are more cheerful, they take things less seriously, they are more relaxed, they complain about nothing, they have more jokes and they are so crazy and funny. For example, if their friend messes up and takes a wrong turn while driving, it's something to joke and laugh about while if you do that, it's the end of the world. Don't you hate how if a friend of his upsets you, he always defends the friend, finds him excuses and asks you to take it easy while if you are the one who directly or indirectly did something bad to their friend, they are ready to point it out immediately and reproach you as if you have touched something very sacred to them! It's just so frustrating when you think of it! You are in a real dilemma. You can't compete with the friend and try to replace them because you are a girl and you can't be everything they are. You are a different person. But you can't live harmoniously with the friend in your life because it's so painful and offending when you know how you are categorized as a "girlfriend only" while the friend is a best friend. Even when he says that you are his best friend, you know it can't be true because you can't be a best friend when he shares with the best friend all he never shares with you and when he treats his best friend more kindly and with more forgiveness and patience than he treats you. Yes, how frustrating it is when your love opens his arms to your love while he turns his back to your friendship! How sad it is when you know you can never be close enough to be best friends. What an ugly place to be: girlfriend only….

 

As a Female...

In this crazy modern world of intelligent technology, social networks, GM food, global warming, economic recession, terror, reality shows, media war and thousands of 

different stuff, it's still difficult to be a woman.

Well, I know to be defining myself in terms of my gender means that there's still something seriously wrong with the way the world still views women. As Simon De Beauvoir said, a man never has to start a statement saying "as a man", but anyhow, I'm not really going to discuss these philosophical feminist matters here. What I am mostly interested in is the amount of none-sense I have to deal with everyday just because I'm a woman.

These diaries can be the diaries of any woman or any girl on this planet. The diaries don't have one writer but basically they are all about how frustrating it can be to be a girl or a woman in this supposedly modern world. In fact, no matter how much humanity develops, we, women will always remain women; defined and limited by all the limitations the word bears.

Just before I start, I'd like you to know that in these diaries I'm not going to act like a real feminist and blame men alone for women's misery because women are also part of that misery. Women also give women such terrible times and help this unfair situation persist. So let's be objective people!

# 1 What to Wear Tomorrow!?

I know girls really care about details like your makeup, nail polish, accessories, bag, shoes and so on. Everything should fit and everything should be perfect but seriously, sometimes YOU ARE JUST NOT IN THE MOOD! However, once you ignore one of these, there's some bi*** to point it out. Let's be honest, guys never even notice these details and believe me, they'll never get over your body or if lucky, your face, to look at these things, unless they are gay which in this case shouldn't be something to worry about. We do all this for each other; to show off and try to look better than each other, but we eventually neither feel good about ourselves nor about others because there's always someone prettier than you. So just let it go! For heaven's sake! Do it if you enjoy it for yourself, not to show off or make a rival girl die from envy. Just admit it that sometimes you simply can't look good. Accept the ugly self too and enjoy it. I'm sick of applying those products to my healthy young face every day so that just because I don't look like a clown a bi*** won't say "Oh dear! Are you ill or something?" and I'm sick of thinking of what to wear tomorrow and how to match my clothes with everything else just because if I don't,  girls may mock me and I also won't make any girl jealous. I'm human, not a doll for display at some shop, everyday they make me wear something new! This is crazy but if I don't do it I'm either sad because of a death in the family or I'm living a failing love story or  I'm ill or I'm a weirdo or perhaps I'm a tomboy or just not girly enough! Nonsense! I'm me. I'm human before I'm a girl so stop defining me through all these beauty products, clothes and accessories and instead we'd better spend some time on something more useful so that next time I don't put on make up to work or school, there will be some girl educated and smart enough to say "busy with something important nowadays!?". Damn! It's 12.30 already! I've got to decide what to wear tomorrow! 

Woman and the Other-A Summary of the Introduction of The Second Sex

Woman and the Other

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

"What is a woman?" (Beauvoir, 1949:p. 305) this is a question raised by the French existentialist, writer, and social essayist Simone de Beauvoir in an article under the title: Woman and the Other, which is originally an extract from the introduction of her book The Second Sex, a work of feminist philosophy which can be considered the starting point of second-wave feminism. The extract is published within a collection of critical articles and documents under the title of Literature in the Modern World edited by Dennis Walder and published by Open University. In this article, De Beauvoir sheds light on the deep rooted concept of femininity in the mentality and unconsciousness of humanity and the way this contributes to complicating women's problems of gender inequality and discrimination. She also questions women's position in the world at the time of writing her book and the future awaiting them.

 De Beauvoir questions the word woman; she argues that femininity is a concept holding within it certain qualities that society prescribes to women; the presence or lack of these qualities in a woman decide the degree of her femininity. If a woman has these qualities then she is what De Beauvoir defines as "the eternal feminine" (305) while if these qualities are missing, that woman is not considered feminine or she is not a real woman, as she argues:

All agree in recognizing the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. (305)

From the beginning of the article, De Beauvoir expresses her disappointment at the feminist movements of the nineteenth century; she believes that a lot of time and energy had been wasted on the subject of feminism without being able to approach the subject properly, as she states "the voluminous nonsense uttered during the last century seems to have done little to illuminate the problem" (305).

De Beauvoir observes that although science had proven that the qualities ascribed to being feminine are not biologically inherent in women, in the unconsciousness of mankind the word woman still holds some conceptual meanings within it. De Beauvoir observes that it is a denial of reality when some feminist activists refuse to be called women because in De Beauvoir’s opinion, this kind of attitude is not going to make the conceptual meanings the word holds disappear. In some cases, this attitude only reveals those feminists’ sense of lacking and fragility as she suggests "the attitude of defiance of many American women proves that they are haunted by a sense of their femininity" (306), to support the previous statement, De Beauvoir provides an example about a "well-known" woman writer, whose name she does not provide, who refused to allow her portrait to be published among a series of photographs specified for women writers; however, this woman writer used her husband's authority to enable her to have her picture published among the pictures of the men writers. (306)

De Beauvoir discusses the situation and position of women in the world; as an example, she refers to language pointing out how in language the word man can represent all humanity while the word woman cannot do that. She claims that women are not regarded as independent beings with an identity of their own but they are rather defined in accordance with the rules of men. To support this claim, she quotes from Michelet who wrote "Woman, the relative being" (307). As De Beauvoir suggests, in the world man comes first and woman comes last; man represents all the good and acceptable values of humanity while woman is the representative of all that is evil, fragile, corrupt and incomplete; therefore, men and women are not regarded as equals; man is the origin of humanity while woman comes as an accessory or as some entity subordinate to him:

the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity.  (306-307)

De Beauvoir observes that it is very familiar to find women viewed with prejudice by men only because the male dominant society holds strong beliefs that to be a female is to be lacking a number of very significant qualities. De Beauvoir also refers to different cultures, beliefs and philosophies that define women as evil creatures or incomplete beings with numerous flaws, such as Aristotle whom she quotes from: "a female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities" (307) she also quotes from St Thomas who defined woman as "an imperfect man", "an incidental being" (307).  Thus, De Beauvoir argues that a woman's mere function in this world is considered to be satisfying the man's sexual needs as De Beauvoir says, "And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex’, by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being" (307)

The author then moves to the subject of the other; she states that women willingly fill the role of the other in the male-female relationship. She observes that naturally in all conflicts that occur between people of different nationalities, beliefs and so on each side considers themselves the right side or the one while they consider the opposite side to be the other, i.e., no side is willing to play the role of the other, still, as De Beauvoir suggests, women seem to have accepted to play this role willingly and here she questions the reasons and factors that led to this obedience and submissiveness. She brings forth a number of factors that can lead to this; however, she excludes each one of them providing explanations for that. For instance, the Jews or American Negros have been abused and exploited within the white or Western communities for many years because they were a minority and did not have the power to stand up for their rights, but this factor cannot be applied to women because they have never been a minority in this world, in fact, women have always formed half of the world's population. De Beauvoir concludes this argument by stating that it might appear to one that submissiveness is inherent in women, yet, she adds that nothing is permanent in this world and change is possible because an abused fraction of humanity such as the proletarians managed to start a revolution in Russia and fight against class differences, yet, women remain submissive and thus they are abused only because they are not taking serious action to change their situation. Regarding the rights women had gained at the time of writing her book, De Beauvoir claims: "but the women’s effort has never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received." (309) this statement suggests that the rights gained by women are not the outcome of serious struggle and hardship but rather they were obtained because men were willing to give them away.

De Beauvoir draws a comparison between the situation of the Negroes in North America and that of women in the world in terms of how similar both cases are. She observes that both are enslaved and discriminated based on some false assumptions whether it be the "black soul" or "the eternal feminine" (310). She notes that the social class in power is the one that fabricates some terms and excuses in order to justify its exploitation of the other; it is striving to guarantee that the excuses it fabricates are convincing enough to abort the other's attempts to obtain their basic human rights. A good example of these excuses includes considering a woman who is relatively rebellious and disobedient as a woman lacking femininity.

De Beauvoir concludes that women cannot achieve change in their situation like the rest of the abused fractions of humanity such as the Negros or the Jews because they lack the required unity to help them work together for their cause. The reason for this is that they are scattered among the men of the specific social class or group they belong to as subordinate beings. De Beauvoir argues that it is an undeniable fact that at present women are inferior to men; however, the article leaves the readers with an open question through which De Beauvoir suggests that this situation needs to end some day in the future:

Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should this state of affairs continue? (310)

References:

De Beauvoir, S. (1990), "Woman and the Other" in Walder , D., (ed), Literature in the Modern World, Oxford: Open University, pp. 305-310.

The Diaries of an Abused Girlfriend-The Follow up Story

Dear Reader,

I know if one day these diaries came to your hands, they may leave you confused, and if you are a young girl like me, going through the same situation like I had, then you may be in a state that makes it hard for you to believe the last words you read on the book's last pages, therefore, as today I was going through my old stuff, I found these diaries and I realized that you (whoever you are) may need a follow up from me that is like a testimony on the things I predicted and stated in the last pages, so here it is, my testimony after six years from writing those words:

Love is never an easy ride and healing from it is even harder, however, when it comes to abusive relationships like the one I had experienced, healing is much easier, because, the relationship itself is the wound, the sickness, the injury and thus, ending it is the first step towards healing and liberation, therefore, if you are hesitant about ending your relationship with that abusive person thinking that you're going to die after that, you're dead wrong, it's only the relationship itself that makes you die slowly and painfully. As a result, my healing process was easy and smooth and every day I was more grateful that I had ended it as the taste of freedom and peace of mind is so good!

My life went normally and I did pretty well at college. I had self-confidence and I made heads turn, I made a lot of friends of both genders and I found out that nothing appeals to guys as much as confidence and feeling comfortable with oneself does, however, this also made guys dread asking me out thinking: Whoa!!!She's never going to say yes! And yes, they were right! I wasn't planning to say yes and I wasn't ready to fall for any new guy and restart dating, I wanted to focus on my future plans and dreams, I believed it wasn't going to work to be both in a relationship and pursue your dreams so I turned down any guy who had the guts to ask me out. I had a simple and clear plan: I was going to nail it in all of my classes, I was going to graduate with very high grades and then I was going to complete my studies abroad , but, life has  a very good sense of humor, whenever we feel like we are all equipped and we have everything under control, it grins at our faces and says: Not so fast!!!We have a last minute change! And my last minute change was a guy as simple as you can imagine, of the purest heart I had ever seen, very kind and polite, so sweet and considerate and really cute and funny. He wasn't special in any particular way and yet he was very special in so many different ways: he wasn't the most handsome but he was very cute and adorable, he wasn't rich or anything like that but you could have thought that he was a millionaire because he had such a great self-esteem and dignity and he was so generous and content, he wasn't the most educated and knowledgeable guy yet he was educated enough to lead many serious conversations, talk about profound matters and discuss them thoroughly and he seemed much older and wiser than his own age. Despite all this, there were many special details about him that made him so special, things you can't describe in words but you can only feel, simple little things that were very precious and rare to see in a guy, his…I don't know, I will never be able to describe that. So, there was a very intense chemistry between us from the very first beginning, from the moment I saw him I couldn't help noticing and remembering him, as if we were searching for each other for many centuries and in previous lives and we finally came together again, this is how smooth, easy and familiar it was to be around him. Soon, we became friends and we talked and talked for hours, I felt like I could be myself around him and no matter how much my brain protested, my heart wasn't ready to step back, so we became very special friends and my mind still resisted and the day the friend-zone was broken, my mind protested and I broke his heart, but I couldn't sleep all that night feeling stupid for what I had done, so in the morning I gave up and after two weeks trial I allowed myself to say those magic words "I love you" once again and his reaction was so worth it, it was the reaction that every girl deserves to get when she says it to a guy who is supposed to be in love with her. Two good friends were now in love and it was very human and peaceful. But many crazy things followed, we had the craziest relationship ever, and that I mean in the good sense, it was like movies, no, even better! I lived the best days of my life with him. I broke free and I experienced all the beautiful and magical moments that I heard of or read until then. He was a dream coming true and I felt like God made up for all the bad things that happened to me with my ex, oh! Speaking about my ex, the first thing I did when he told me about his feelings was telling him about my previous relationship, which he took so easy and later when he heard the whole story, he felt sad and sorry that I was put through all that by him, this is how nice he was. Those were our first magical months of being young and crazily in love. But, is Love just a sweet fairytale full of bunnies and butterflies?! No, love is never going to come without pain and heartbreak; it's part of the package and love is not love without it. So, we had our ugly days later, when we faced some of our tough differences that were the reason why both our brains were resisting our love for a year when we were stuck in the friend-zone. Things got nasty and decisions had to be taken, we had to choose, we had to compromise and meet half-way, things were tense and we had to let our minds control it, we never said harmful things or any offensive things to each other, we were rational adults debating and trying our hardest to survive but we knew two things for sure: we loved each other too much to let go and we had to choose once for all. The final moment came and my stubbornness was overcome by my own awakening that I was insisting on something that was not worth doing the unimaginable: letting him go. So my walls tumbled down and I accepted the compromise and great/terrible days followed. We had many beautiful and magical moments but we also had many fights and yet none of them ever contained the words: let's end this or any similar things, breaking up was never a possibility and unlike my ex, he never spoke of it at all, in fact, among all the terrible fights and ups and downs we had, being together and not being ready to let go was the thing that we were always so sure of, it was the golden rule and it was so simple, we couldn't handle it, we were meant to each other and our love was all a divine plan and a  message we had to proceed with!

Talking about how he was to me: he was very sweet, very kind, very romantic in a very unusual way, very considerate and sensitive, very funny and easy-going, a very good listener and very polite and well mannered. He was simply all that my ex wasn't. And we were in the same age, which is something that I used to think it bad but it was a blessing because we grew together so we supported each other and we shared many experiences that made us life companions sharing life's long journey.

We dated for about four years and we became a famous couple envied by all and a good sample to look up to by others. He knew my family and he was approved and loved by almost all of them and he was someone to show off and be proud of. We finally got engaged and then married and lived happily ever after! And the good part is that I didn't have to give up my plan to go abroad and study for my major because we shared the same dreams so we did that together and he was a great encouragement to me because he always believed in me more than I did myself, he was my number one fan and he gave me faith and hope, he reached out and awakened the angelic part of me, he made me closer to my good self and my spiritual self, he made me a new person, a better person not by forcing me or pushing me but by the mere goodness in him that made my own goodness show up and the dark self hide. He's the best gift God ever sent me and I will never be able to thank Him enough for that.

So, this is my follow up story in the perfect and Hollywood sense but I know this is not going to help when you face reality, so let's share some facts:

Yes, he sometimes ignores me and forgets important stuff. He is sometimes a complete jerk and says not so nice things. He can be so stubborn and annoying. He can be cold and unaffectionate. Yet, he is always able to show me that he loves me and he's there for me when I need him to. He never cheats or lies and he's the most sincere and honest person I know. He always has those little simple thoughtful moves that make me just adore him. He always can make me feel so special and make me feel so beautiful even when I'm simply not. Yes, we have our bad moments, our boring and cold moments and our terrible moments too but the thing is, we are always like a team, we have invisible strings that attach us to each other and make us not wander too far before we are back to each other. I can never describe our relationship because it is like nothing of the lies and books' words you read and heard. It is a human relationship at its highest forms. We are friends, we are life companions and we are passionate crazy lovers! We are a weird mixture of all the human good and bad deeds and we go through this life together trying to control the bad ones and project the good ones. We are after all ordinary people with so much compassion between us because after all, love is not the heat, the rush, the heart beats and butterflies, it's not even the anxiety and worry, love is at it seems: the affectionate compassionate peaceful relationship that is between two people who share this life with its ups and downs like one team and they live their life while feeling content and satisfied with what they have and they enjoy the daily ordinary things and routines they share together. Love is nothing extraordinary or miraculous, it is a very simple and human experience that its simplicity makes it so hard to achieve because all of our wrong and high expectations about it. In fact, a great love is not a love that can survive the great challenges and hard days but it is the one that survives the simple ordinary daily routines of life till death separates us.

Finally, I may have sounded like a victim in my diaries but that wasn't true, I was not anyone's victim but myself and I gave someone the power to abuse me and I let them do it consciously for long enough, but this had to stop the way yours has to stop too, love yourself, see its value and save it from that disgraceful situation because no matter who you are and how you look, you are human and you deserve better than that, so rise and say NO to this form of abuse and retreat from the battle with dignity and pride because life is there waiting for you while you're waiting for him to change and be better to you. Life has many good gifts to give and you should go and catch them but among them I advise you to take these: content, compassion and self-esteem. And my last words to you are a quotation that says

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
 

Bob Marley

The Ultimate Goal!

When a baby-girl is born in our third world countries, people who congratulate the mom say: We hope to see her as a bride soon.
when she goes to school, the same thing is said.
when she goes to college, same thing.
when she finishes college, same thing.
when she gets a job same thing and thus on every single occasion, birthday, achievement..etc she's always made that wish as if she's going to be incomplete and everything else will be worthless unless she actually achieves this goal!! what an encouraging thing indeed! and people say, girls are crazy, all they want from this life is marriage and they have got no ambitions! and I say: shut up you hypocrites!! isn't it you and the society who caused this in the very first place!!? who really taught and brain-washed girls that their ultimate goal in life should be marriage and how many people, men and women, when they see a strong bad-ass woman who is so independent and educated but single they say: she's sick, she's got some issues and complexes because she's not married and they even make fun of her and all her achievements saying: well, no matter what you do, you're a loser because you're singe and God willing you will always remain so..so are our girls insane or they are the sane ones in this insane society? and aren't they so ambitious when they are running after their "ultimate goal" in life like this!!?

The Diaries of an Abused Girlfriend- Part Ten and the End

Dear Diary,

Finally here I am again, six weeks passed since last time we talked! Long time! Huh!

When I turn your pages, I see a very long history of painful writings! Yes! Painful! They are painful to read and even my hand writing seems like of someone in pain! But ironically, your 500 pages are finally going to finish with the end of the story that occupied your pages for the last 3 years. You know I have this ritual of not writing on the last page of any diary book, so I have a poem I wrote to put there later. I think you are going to like it and perhaps you'll sigh with relief! I'm sorry for all the terrible stories that filled your pages; you were a nice happy and colorful diary note book when I bought you.

You know, you have witnessed how I was charmed and fascinated by a guy who for some few reasons I believed he was the one for me, you have witnessed those fantasies and unrealistic dreams, those high expectations and assumptions about how great, how special, how unique, how romantic, how educated, how well-manner, and what a gentleman he was and how he was going to treat me and love me, how our love will be exceptional and how we are going to live a fairytale envied by everyone. And you also witnessed how slowly I fell head over heels in love with this man, this imaginary man I created in my head and gave him his face and his name and you heard those repeated stories about my failing attempts to get closer to him, my endless questions and interpretations of things he said or did and wondering all the time where we were standing and weather we were on the same page! you also witnessed how when finally my dream came true and I was his girl, how everyday and in every single incident he proved to be the opposite of what I thought, but you also saw my denial, my naivety, and my desperate efforts to convince myself that he was the right one for me and that he was the one I have been dreaming about, meanwhile, you also realized that he took advantage of this and of me, he fooled me, he played games whose rules were put by him and he, so slowly, made me lose pieces of myself convincing me that the problem was me and I was the one who stood in the way of his being the great guy and boyfriend I wanted him to be. You witnessed my despair, my tears, my pain and sorrow, you saw me breaking down, you saw me struggling to get on my feet as I was always crawling in the dirt reaching up for that ever far and ever impossible place he called "future". That future that was always better, always happier than now, a future in which he would be a better man, a nicer man, a more romantic, more respectful and more understanding and more tolerant man. But somehow, that future never came because it was just an illusion to keep me stick around him waiting while life passes me by. It took me long, long but not too long to realize that you didn't need future or miraculous changes and events to be yourself, to be human, to be kind, to do what's right, unless, you don't have these qualities already, unless you're not that person anyway, and in this case, waiting for centuries will not change this, but I didn't want to see this, I didn't ask why I am already all that, no matter how bad my day is, no matter how stressed out I am, I'm still a good supportive loving and tolerant girlfriend, I didn't see that, or better say, I looked away when I saw it. You witnessed all this and you were unable to speak. But I have some good news for you now: I am awake, I can see all that and I'm no longer blinded by his fake and fabricated charm. Now I see all he is and all he's not and that's why I walked away; I turned that page, once for all.

One day, I talked to him about the things that have been eating me about him, and I said I wanted to call it the end, but he didn't allow me, he gave me excuses and justifications, he said that he needed my patience, he needed me to be tolerant and he was going to change once his life was back on track and his business was going to blossom (I still don't know what business has to do with being a jerk!). I knew they were all lame excuses and I knew he was just buying himself time, but I decided to play along and wait for that perfect moment, so I said o.k., we'll wait then. I must add, he didn't beg me or anything, but he was just "discussing" the thing with me in his "rational" grown-up" "experienced" way that was supposed to impress or let's say fool me!

I was already running out of my love towards him, because love, just like anything else, if you keep giving it without receiving it in return, you eventually go bankrupt and you find no more of it to give. Before, I used to fill my love pockets through going back to those fantasies about our future and my imaginary picture of him as that great guy, but now that I was aware of their false nature, my only source of love ran dry.

I must also mention that in our last days, I was almost sure that he was seeing other people and that he had more than one girl in his life and that explained his days of disappearance, his late replies, his "being busy" excuses…etc so it seems like I was a name on a big list, although I know I was in the shortlist. The "Maybe we'll have some future together list" because if physical pleasure is what he wanted me for, then I'm sure I didn't give any of it, so he was keeping me for that other purpose, like some fine suit hanged in the closet for special occasions.

Anyways, it was a normal day, we were talking and he was in a good mood, for tomorrow of that day, we were going on a trip out of town because this is what my parents promised me after I was going to finish my finals, so I was very excited that day. That day, he  was out of town too, he was visiting some friends at his hometown that he left a few years ago to settle down with his family here, suddenly the subject of how he had better chances for his business to flourish in his hometown came up and he said he was going to move back in there in the future, and sure he asked me if I was going to follow him there, my honest answer was simply "NO" sure he didn't like it and suddenly I found myself accused of always saying no to everything and never making any sacrifices (seriously!) and he started giving me examples of girls much more educated and beautiful than me who followed a guy to rural places and lived to raise cattle and plant crops just to be with the man they loved and all this because I objected that I wasn't ready to get away from my family and live in his hometown where my dreams and ambitions that he knew very well about and he was supposed to be the greatest supporter of them were impossible to achieve in that place. So, his inferiority complex came into surface again and he accused me of making fun of his roots and looking down on him and no matter how much I tried to explain my position, it was useless, so he told me: you know, you have to choose, either me or here! If you won't follow me there, you will lose me! So make a choice! And I explained my reasons again and explained how unreasonable his request was especially that there's no way that any business will blossom in that place. But he wouldn't listen and he made up an excuse to end the phone-call. After that, I sat with myself, I thought for a while of how much I was ready to let go of him and yet there was that pain in my throat, the pain of letting go of something familiar and jumping into the unknown, but I thought, how perfect timing was that, a day before my long-awaited trip, a few months before my new life at college starts, i.e, I was literally in front of a new beginning, but this wasn't all of it, was I really not ready to give up my plans? Was I not ready to give up my dreams for the one I love and follow him wherever he went? Was I really not ready to make sacrifices for my love? No, I wasn't that terrible person, but I knew three things for sure, first: this was all again a new test, a new attempt to control me and my life and make me submit to him because I knew there was no business or bull shit in the matter. Secondly: I knew if he loved me for real, he would never have asked me to give up everything for him like this especially that his only motivation here was business and money, so how come they can be more valuable than me? Isn't it just because he wants me to say: yes, of course darling, I'll follow you to the end of the world? But let's say I was going to say that, wouldn't that have been a lie? Wouldn't I then just lose myself? Third: I was ready to sacrifice for real for the one I love, I was and still I am ready to follow my love, my true love to the end of the world except, he wasn't my true love and he didn't deserve that sacrifice form my side because he never did anything that could have earned him this and make him worthy of it, so I texted him and told him that it didn't work for me, I wasn't ready to do that and I told him that then this is better to be the end. He texted me back, and told me in his provokingly short kind of texts "it surely is" I won't lie and say this didn't hurt and part of me didn't wish for another reply but I knew this was for the best, so I texted him back and wished him all the best in life and wished him that he was going to achieve all his goals and I said goodbye" he replied "good bye" and that was it, my long tragic gothic romantic novel ended with a text message! I didn't mind it, I didn't want it to end in a better way because it was as cold and impassionate as text messages! So, the moment I received that text, I felt such a great relief! I felt like I was set free and yet I was scared that it wasn't over but I made it clear to myself that it was over no matter how hard he was going to try to have me back. I got rid of everything and threw all the memories away, they were not much anyway (he wasn't so generous in this too) and for next morning we hit the road and I had the best road trip in my life! I loved the feeling of being single again and I still love it! when we were back he seems to have made some stupid attempts such as sending a new request to my messenger which I declined and I also blocked him and that was it, I know he may send on certain occasions but these will get no replies too, he will, from now on think that I'm dead because the only responses he is going to get from me will be those of a dead person: NO RESPONSE.  And this is it, the end of my painfully long story with an unhealthy abusive relationship. I am seeking no revenge, I have already forgiven him and let him go, he, with this life he's leading will not reach any happy endings anyway and one day he will regret all this he did to me and any other girl and he will say: boy! That girl really loved me! But even if he remained a jerk even on his death bed, it's o.k., I don' care anyway because I'm seeking nothing from him and I am already alone on my own but also free and strong because what doesn't kill you, it only makes you stronger and I learned my lesson and I'm having no regrets and I will change nothing of all that even if I could because this is what it should have been and this is what I needed to go through to learn some lessons about patience, tolerance, selflessness, compromise, sacrifice and giving and I also learned what kind of men are the right kind for me, what concepts I had about love and about a good boyfriend were wrong, what in reality isn't any cool or charming. I am more realistic, mature and experienced now and I somehow owe this to him and this experience and I know next time I will do much better and I'm not sorry for all that I gave him, I know they are not really wasted because I loved sincerely and honestly and I believe this can't be wasted, I believe in karma, and one day, I will receive all that I gave in return from someone who will be ready to give them without even being asked or begged to, someone who is going to love me, just the way I am, with all I am and I am not, someone who won't make me change into someone else but rather will make me the best of myself because he will support me to win my battles with my own demons. I know that person is somewhere out there, and I'm not in a hurry to find him or search for him, I will live my life to the fullest, I will love myself and complete myself because no one can complete you but You and I will leave it all to fate, to God, and I know someday, somehow, out of blue, he'll be standing there and I won't miss him because it's destined for us to meet and when we do, we'll fall in love and I will love him even more passionately, more sincerely and honestly than I did with my ex and I will give him more and more because he will be worth it and I will be ready to sacrifice everything for him, but I won't anyway, because he will never ask me to. It will be love with all its human and sacred meanings and I know it will hurt a little too, but it's o.k., we're human and this is how we work things out, what matters now is that I'm content with myself and I'm not waiting for anyone, for the first time in my life, it's just me-myself-my dreams-my ambitions-my potentials and everything I am facing life and the unknown! Quite interesting! Boy! I'm really loving it!

P.S. I'm done with writing diaries, I'll let life write itself and my diaries will be recorded in my mind, my memory and my achievements in life.

Here is my poem as the epilogue of this chapter of my life:

The Winner

Your bright glow has finally worn off

Exposing the rough features

Of your ugly truth:

You were not a great dream

You were not a sweet song

and you were not my only hope.

You were the jailor of all great dreams,

A deadly deafening silence,

And the slayer of any hopes.

Looking back at the footprints you left on my path,

at all the pretty roses and buds you accidentally on purpose, trod.

at the crushed leaves of  your beautiful lies

That fell even before the arrival of fall,

I realize:

I'm not sorry or sorrowful for losing you

I don’t miss that "endless love"

I feel no guilt, no regrets.

I don't need another ending

Or need an eraser, placed on the end of fate's pencil

But I DO regret failing myself

I DO miss the innocence in my eyes

That burning flame in my heart

That perfect harmony between the body and the soul

But mostly I miss my lost faith,

my faith in love.

looking back at what we had,

looking within at what I still have,

and looking forward to where the road will take me and the parts that survived,

 I understand:

I don't need to seek other choices,

I can do without your instructions,

Without your manuals, without your maps,

And without your keys of heaven

So, I'm closing this door once for all

because I ran out of expectations.

So, I'm retreating from this battlefield

proud of all the scars I hold,

because I am taking home the biggest trophy:

I-with all that I am.

07/10/2006

The Diaries of an Abused Girlfriend-Part Nine

Dear Diary,

If you have noticed, I'm not writing you daily anymore because I feel like I'm running out of new things to say, as if over months, I've been filling your pages with the same crap every day, I don't even remember when was the last time I didn't tell you about him, to be more specific, about how much he hurts me and makes me suffer. As you know, we talked, we reached an agreement which was to agree with all he says and I gave up half of myself for him and all this just hoping that this will make things better, this will make him better, kinder, sweeter, more loving, more passionate and eventually will make our relationship more peaceful and stable, more like what I have been dreaming of all these years. But, as you may have guessed, nothing really changed, he's just the same, he ignores my texts and replies after hours giving me the "I was busy" excuse and when he replies, his replies are always shorter than my messages, less passionate and don't answer or comment on many things I mentioned. He doesn't answer my calls most of the time giving me the "There were many people around" or "I wasn't in a good place to pick up" excuses and if I show resentment or doubt, he'll start getting mad of me and suddenly, from the one who was mad of him and waiting for his apologies, I become the one who's reproached and has to apologize. Just like before, I have to pick my words carefully because you never know when a certain word suddenly becomes an insult. Just like before, sometimes I don't hear from him for one whole day. Just like before, I have to beg for some romance from his side and say all the romantic crazy stuff to get some from him in return (which is not always guaranteed). Just like before, he's so mysterious, his behavior is hard to predict, it's hard to know what he's up to and you don't dare to ask him in a way that makes him think that you're questioning him. And as a result of all this, just like before, I can find no rest, no peace, no lasting moments of happiness. Any time he doesn't reply to a text or a call, any time I don't hear of him for a day, I grow anxious and think that maybe I have done something wrong again and he broke up with me again without even letting me know. So, nowadays I'm realizing many things and some stuff seem to start to sink in, like, considering the many break ups and fights we went through in this short period of time, how long will this relationship last before another one, a last happens, especially that this is supposed to be my last chance?! And how we are supposed to survive sharing the rest of our live together if this is how we are already?! And I'm thinking, how tired I am of always thinking and wondering if I have done something wrong, I'm becoming obsessed, I look around, I recall my day and check my sent messages over and over to see if I have said or done anything that can make him get mad of me, it doesn't feel right. That day I saw an interview with a woman whose husband was so abusive and used to beat her up for any simple reason, she said the same thing, she talked about how she would look around to see if she had done something that could have triggered his violent side. And she talked about that he wasn't physically abusive before marriage, but he was emotionally abusive, like him now, and I thought "God! Will I be that woman?" I don't know, but I just fear him now more than I love him, it doesn't feel right! And the fact that I gave and gave and gave only hoping that he will change, he will become the man he used to be before but I ended up with me changing while he remained the same, maybe, this is how he simply is, maybe he was never any different, except I didn't know this before, I was blinded by some of his sides so I made that perfect picture of him in my mind and I fell in love with that imaginary guy that I gave his name and his face, maybe this is the problem, and this is why I thought being with him will be like a fairy-tale coming true, but now, after being his girl was the dream I was chasing after for years and it was all I wanted, now that I have it, it has become a nightmare, something I want to run away from. After all these sacrifices, all this suffering, all these tears and all this heartbreak, when I look back, I see that the happy moments are so few compared to the sad ones, I mean, where is it? Where is the guy I was dreaming of, that special guy who was supposed to give me that unique relationship? Well, I see nothing of it. And he and his love are unique in the things I'd wish them to be ordinary and they're ordinary in things I'd rather if they were unique! So, where is that love and romance? I find them no where around, I've been chasing it, feeding myself on its hopes and fantasies but the real one, I never tasted it. And you know what happened today? Today something happened that can be the last straw, we were supposed to meet, I almost got prepared but he called and said he had some urgent work to do and he couldn't make it. later, we were chatting , and I complained  a bit about what happened(sure without crossing my limits) then after some other stuff being discussed, I said that I was sad, sure I meant mainly because I couldn't see him, but you know what he told me "You girls never stop whining! You're sad! What can I do for you? Should I dance to you to cheer you up?" I know I am so young and inexperienced about love and romance but is this, the kind of answers a girl gets when she says to her boyfriend that she's sad? Did I misunderstand the whole concept of a love relationship or what?! Did I?! anyways, I remained calm and explained to him what I meant and he then like some sort of charity said  a few romantic things to fix the shit he said but I it's just too little too late. So, I'm waiting for that chance, that chance when I walk away, that moment when I'm ready, a moment when I walk out of the door gracefully, proudly, with nothing to regret, with nothing to be ashamed of, with no what ifs, with nothing to be ever blamed for. I'm waiting for it and I know; it's approaching.