DISCLAIMER: The quotes inserted are written by my friend Rou'a Nafea. This piece is dedicated to her and to all of those who has lost loved ones.
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"الالم و الجرح و الوجع و الحنين و الشوق و حاجات تانيه كتير فوق بعض بتبان و تجرح في القلب لما الناس تنام و تفشل محاولات الصبر!"
The pain, the nostalgia, the yearning, and so many other things, hurt in the heart and manifest when people go to sleep. That's when all trials to be patient seem to fail!
Every night is a fight now; it is a war. I am afraid to go to sleep that I’d die out of desperation. Every breath I take, every move I make is just another blow from my gun towards oblivion; towards me. The thing is; this war, my war, can never end until I die. You cannot survive without your mind and you cannot keep fighting it unless you lose; the mind never loses. I know what my dreams will be. I am scared of them. I’m fighting in the morning the monsters I never kill at night. I may wound them, may overcome them by interrupting my dreams by sudden shakes and wide open eyes. But still I sleep again, and I dream again, and I’m in this war again; a war I’m dragged into.
It’s just a blast of memories that I try to repress all day long. What I kill in the morning is what is killing me at night. Every toss in my bed is a reminder of what I’m coming up against after perhaps, if I’m too hopeful, a couple of seconds! Every blink is an eternity of misery and every breath is a mile towards either desolation or salvation.
Most nights I try to lay awake, so as to recover from those hellhounds; ripping me. It is either I’m too strong that I get pass them or they are too persistent that they bind me to their underworld. It is not their fault; I created them. I created those memories that got torn apart from me so suddenly that now I’m just too lost without them. Every day in my life is a reminder of what I lost forever. There is no going back, there is no way out of it, and there is nothing but this fight that I’m dragged in. I miss everything about him, about her, about everyone I lost along the way. I’m now even scared of another loss that I try to either enjoy every part of the second and make new memories that perhaps would wipe out the old ones, or I just disconnect myself from everything else to avoid getting attached to something so much that I lose another part of me if I ever lose them, like I lost their counterparts. It’s a never ending cycle, a genocide in which I’m the attacker and I’m the attacked.
At some moments I really do miss each and every little thing I used to do with him. I miss those things so much that I even miss those things which used to make me disgusted. At other times, when I go through the photos, yearning for those old, sweet times, I feel like "what the hell was I thinking when I first loved him?" I feel like I miss even the way he used to run his fingers through his soft, brown hair. I miss the way he laughed and the way he got angry at me for overthinking about things that he told me before. I remember every photo we took, every second we spent together and it’s just too hard letting it all go so easily. It’s just too hard to forget. I’m too indulged in our memories that I can’t remember to forget him!
The same goes with her! I miss how she used to tuck me in bed and sometimes cuddle me until I fall asleep. She used to stand up for me; she loved me and showed it every time she took me in between her arms. I remember her smile, her illness, her laugh, and her yelling at me when she wanted me to get something done and I find it too nagging that I yell back at her. I even miss when I used to yell back at her! I miss her smell, even when she smelled all like medicine, her hand sliding down my hair when she used to brush it, when I was a little girl, and the conspiracies that I used to make with my dad just to get her a little bit mad at us to have something to laugh at later in the evening. I miss it all too much that now it’s gone; I miss the bad memories before the good ones.
This is what happens when you have so much going on in your life and then suddenly you just have it all taken away from you. I’m not grateful to those memories, neither am I ungrateful. I can’t imagine that I would have come that far without them in my life. Similarly, I can’t imagine that I would go any further with them in it. I can’t let go and I can’t keep on holding on to the emptiness they left in me, after they are all gone. No one will ever fill in the gap that these people used to fill in my life, yet now they are not here, I have to find someone else with whom I can continue living.
"Death is an integral part of life. It enhances it, so appreciate its significance. It is a slap; a warning. It says “Life is too short; it ends so suddenly, grab at it, work on it, and try your best every day.” Give people their due NOW! If you're mad, tell them and fix it...If you love them, tell them...people should realize their importance in your life! SPEAK UP! You never know what may happen next, so tell people how you feel about them; speak from the heart, take chances, trust more often and love more deeply."
This war can only end when I realize the necessity of living with and without those memories I’m carrying around all the time. My mind has to function for and against these fractures in the same time. If I lose them, I’m lost, and if I keep my life only for them, I’m also lost. The only thing I can do now is to appreciate them, then move forward. Any other option will just be a negligence spell that will backfire! Appreciate death, understand it and live with it!
