My Sister in Dubai

Her life right now is the reason why i haven't blogged in a while. I share her grief. I am just so surprised to find out today that she started a blog and began to write again. Amazing how God provides different ways for us to release our pains, and for her, like me, she releases it so beautifully.

Let us join her in prayers, and hope.
I am so blessed by her love and faith.

Mother's Day

cried buckets last night. yes, again.
i don't know why after every fun and action-filled weekend i tend to get depressed. perhaps it's the physical stress taking its toll...or perhaps, as i always suspect, its the pregnancy hormones. Or the anxiety of still not having a house help and the approaching delivery of the baby. I wonder how i will be able to juggle all the responsibilities, house work, child care, etc. later on- ALONE, with two toddler boys, and an infant. with their routine/sked, will i have time to eat or cook my own meal???? will i have time to rest? and oh, the possibility of post partum blues....and i am alone at home. i could not expect my mom in-law to come up here to help me for she's been very sickly lately plus her youngest daughter is also expecting a baby girl this month.

will somebody tell me, if it is true that women in the old times, and most Libyan women up to now have survived and some even without getting sick, child rearing and home-keeping ALONE????? husband told me its normal for women here, their minds are programmed for motherhood....like his mother, raising 6 children all by herself (the first three boys are only a year apart from each other, followed by two girls after two years) IS THIS TRUE? Because i DO NOT THINK SO. There must be some help somehow...sister, mother, brother, aunt...I AM SURE of this since i know how it is to be ALONE at home, and taking care of very small children...well, unless the mother is NOT REALLY taking care of the kids but just LETTING NATURE do it's job...since as husband said, it is a NATURAL THING>>>>hah! Natural? True perhaps to those who have families around and who live in their own country....

I am angry...very angry. And as much as i love my babies, i hate this idea of motherhood- that a mom has to do it all. I want a helper!!!! And i want her now. Or before i give birth. Imagine even airlines have to limit the weight of handcarried bagage of pregnant women...while i here have to constantly lift a weight of 25 kilos DAILY!!! and bend to wash diaper areas, and run after a toddler about to pour juice on the floor..or referee two roddlers fighting and being get hit instead. action-filled...and i feel like a casualty already.

though there is Grace as always...i pray for Wisdom to come to people around me. The wisdom to know the importance of Now- what is the need of the moment. Because no matter how much one has saved and "kept" and worked hard for for the future, these will all evaporate in a moment of some loss due to neglect of one important thing: the Life of Someone, Now. In as much as i do not want to neglect ME for the purpose of saving more energy and "life" for the future of my family, i have no choice...because i have no help. So far, this is not really LIVING but only SURVIVING. This is fighting to stay alive...and SANE.

Anyone who had to leave her own country, her loves and life to embrace another "love and life", had to live alone, dependent of someone, not knowing or being able to do anything except to watch her own children, struggle emotionally, having no outlet for her feelings and thoughts, no real friends who will be there for her, no one to really understand her...her pains, physical aches, fears and anxieties, having to eat alone (and sometimes choking on tears...) She may get what she wants sometimes but never what she needs...she ends the day in tears, so tired and worn out she could not even sleep...and wishes she wakes up in another place and time...because she still wants to wake up for the sake of her children...Anyone who's been here is the ONLY one who will truly understand.

This is my voice. Only here I can speak. I know I am heard. I wish I am understood. I hope for a touch...

Bath takes the Blues Away

I have recently developed a new philosophy after an experience of severe melancholia/emotional sensitivity to anything due to over-stretching myself. It's the seasonal blues, not literally brought by season change but by perhaps hormonal change or just phase-changes like that of the moon. Momental lunacy? Ahhh whatever was the cause, i decided to take a long warm shower and a tub soak. The effect was instant. I felt better after a three-day-pouring-out-of-trash. And i am ready for more trash again.

Strangely, the next day i found Romana's words so true.

I began to feel the need to connect with women- occasional lunatics, moms, housewives, givers...and of course, speakers of language i could speak. I still cannot relate well to the women in my family here so i tend to stay up here on the 3rd floor the entire week and see them for a few minutes on a day we are about to go to Janzour. Oh my sad existence.
But the bath, the soak, water, suds and bubbles...and the luxury of 30 minutes alone - it was a blessing that came at 12 midnight.