Sitting down, I gather my limbs closer to my body and wonder “has it been that long already?”. A year has passed since that trip in my car towards Fuhais, 12 whole months passed carrying with them more change than I ever imagined possible, yet no change at all. The thought makes me nauseous. Is this how I will feel 10 years down the road? Probably. I always ask the same questions one way or the other, mainly because nobody ever answers me. The process is a futile cliché but I can’t escape it. I think I even love it.

The issue at hand is not the past, but the future. The past I leave to another mood, the future fills me with pessimism and anticipation at the same time. I want to know what happens, like when you watch a good movie and want to know how it ends. The trouble is that this is not a movie, the people are not fictional characters, and at the end of the drama I will cease to be. I will not be able to even record my own impressions of it or my evaluation of its artistic merit. Isn’t that sad? Entirely. It’s a pathetic anticlimax. You’re almost there…but not quite.

I am looking forward to a number of things this summer. One of them is the pool. The other is a mosaic class in no other than ancient Madaba. The third thing is a job interview which might lead me to something I have always imagined I would be good at (the truth of this speculation remains to be discovered.) And finally, a trip. A trip away from the hypocrisy of Amman, away from its dry and dusty summer heat, away from the people who stare and criticize. I will move away albeit temporarily, to a better world. Somewhere where I can relax and be myself without apprehension. I really shouldn’t have said “finally,” because there are other things awaiting me this summer; things I can’t disclose.

Books also await. Mostly fiction. I’ve become an ultra-avid reader this year, it seems frustration pushes me to seek refuge in the words of people I can’t converse with. I also have an exam at one point in the summer. And my birthday — that anniversary of the start of my life, relatively inconsequential and out of control as it is, the episodes that cast me as their lead character even when I choose not to. All of this, and more — I have no doubt about it, will happen this summer. Nothing according to plan though. Isn’t that ironic?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.