The Fist Step is the hardest

 

Life is a magical experience, but it also includes a host of potential #health trials over which we have absolutely no control. We all have the best friend who has been living the epitome of health-conscious lifestyle and still died from cancer. We all know someone who was caught in a freak accident and ended up on a ventilator, or the person who literally caught a deadly virus in the last days before it was declared extinct worldwide…. I call this all a subgroup of Murphy’s law and I am no stranger to its quirks; after all, I had to rebuild myself from scratch on several occasions before.

It’s been two years since I was diagnosed with a fracture of the spine and ensuing complications. This is a diagnosis that is right there on the same level of terminal diseases (at least in my mind) because of the probability of becoming an invalid. I am all for positive body image, being optimistic and looking at the bright side of things, but any #mobility issue carries the threat of discrimination from society, regardless of all the supportive laws and slogans out there. If you add to it #livelihood #challenges and any obstacles that an able-bodied person could face, then it would be even worse for this person. This is compounded multiple times if one lives in a #conflict zone. But the worst fear is losing #control of your own body and #privacy.

Of course, there are wonderful souls out there who have risen to the occasion and overcome all difficulties by forging a different path against #adversity. These are #exceptional people whom we hear about exactly because they #influence us and become a role model.  We ordinary humans prefer an easier route and if I can be in the best health possible with all my wits, limbs and senses, than that would be my first choice. Deep down we would all prefer that to life changing #transformation through adversity.

Being someone with a high #pain #tolerance - because of course it would be shameful to be seen complaining (another of my pet peeves) -I have been known to ditch a cast after 48 hours and walk with a brace because someone in my family needed help. Most times I have the impression on running on pure adrenaline. I used to be proud of this to the point of imagining it a #heroic feat. At some point friends used to describe me a cross between Wonder Woman and the Iron Woman. I’m not sure if either is flattering, but I always felt I had to live up to that hero #syndrome. So that day in November of 2021 when I was in the emergency room in hospital complaining from difficulty in walking and pain in the spine, pelvis and left arm and leg after a fall, I accepted with a tinge of relief the doctor’s diagnosis that it was just a contusion which would take a few weeks to a month to resolve itself. What bothered me was the phrase “for your age maybe a bit more, but you will be fine”. The #ageism, #mansplaining and #chauvinism heaped at me in one single instance hurt me to the core. When I challenged him and requested an x-ray, he refused and maintained that he was confident I did not need it. Because I was capable of walking despite the pain and my previous experience with sports injuries, I wanted to believe that I was ok. That was the logic I had used to accept the diagnosis plus the idiotic #hero-syndrome.

I did not need to sacrifice activities since many of us were still mostly working from home in that late Covid era.  A few days later I had to travel unexpectedly and this is where it was revealed that my range of activity was severely limited. Plane seats were terrible, I could not lift my carryon bag let alone checked luggage. Pure agony. My leg mobility started to become even more restricted, and the pelvis area felt totally off like I was somehow twisted. Two days later my initial limp intensified and I was visibly dragging my right leg. The number of locations that  became numb in my body increased too. It was the scariest sensation feeling numbness and being in pain simultaneously. I checked myself into a hospital. It had been about  a week since my terrible fall and the trauma orthopedist in attendance requested an MRI and some x-rays after the examination. The results revealed two fractures in the sacrum that reached the pelvis, some slippages at the level of thoracic and lumbar areas of the #spine and a hairline fracture of my elbow with a damaged ligament in my shoulder. The doctor was shocked of how I had been withstanding the pain, let alone walking. On hearing the diagnosis, I became totally unraveled and suddenly every ache I had been sucking in became a waterfall of torment as I had released the dam.  The body has immense capabilities in time of need, but I could not understand why this would be one? It’s not like I was chased by a #saber tooth tiger and needed to be on the move! Why did I not allow myself to dwell on the pain and check again its origin? This is what I kept asking myself. Now I know it’s probably because of how I have been all my life, that damned hero syndrome and #prioritizing #others, #duty, #work, #deadlines and wanting the best for my family and team because this is what I had promised. This  was actually a rope I had used to hang myself with, and I realised it is in the nature of  people to might want to to take advantage of that if allowed, sometimes without an ounce of remorse.

The injury undid all the hard work achieved during lockdown in gaining my fitness back. It hurled me from someone who was preparing herself since September 2020 for the ski trip of a lifetime in February 2022, into a person lying in bed for months and who could not control her right side nor get up without massive effort and pain and we won’t even mention the bladder issues and other ugly stuff. I was supposed to rest and take strong painkillers, surgery was out of the question, a cast was not possible either.  I just had to let nature mend my broken body.

When you are a “certain” age, people immediately imagine that you might have osteoporosis and it gets implied very discreetly into conversations even in the work environment. It was somehow pure chance that I had done a routine Dexa test before the injury which proved that I did not have osteoporosis. But even if I had osteoporosis, I did not need to feel “guilty” about like it was an accusation of wrongdoing?  it is a normal process in life.  Moreover, accidents do happen, and I was both unlucky yet extremely lucky. This kind of injury I was informed can result in severe neural damage or potentially bleeding to death for the time it took an ambulance to arrive at the scene. The average response time we are told should be 7 minutes,  and 90% of ambulances should arrive within 15 mins. From my experience in Libya this is not realistic plus our ambulances are really just two guys who carry a person on a stretcher to hospital. I somehow managed to avoid both fates although I did get  neural damage, but it did not leave me permanently in a wheelchair as I keep being reminded. I still don’t have #osteoporosis by the way!

The first 10 days after the diagnosis, the pain was becoming magnified now that my body was finally resting, and I was not holding it off but rather letting it take its course. I spent more than 20 hours per day in a state of slumber, like a particle suspended in time. At times I thought I was even hallucinating. Then when I started regaining consciousness, I was in terrible pain but refused drugs fearing I might become an addict or worse unable to deliver my work tasks. The pain was #debilitating, the fog it created in my mind was unbearable and I felt sorry for myself at the physical state I reached. I was thinking my life was potentially over, my dreams of athletic prowess gone, my ambitions for a family unattainable, I mean who would want a burden. The lowest point was having my father take care of me at home and drive me to doctors’ appointment. That felt so wrong on many levels. I was the one supposed to take care of him in his old age and not vice versa. I feared my job would be at stake if I could not be on top of everything as I was #bedridden with no clear date of when I will be better. My #mental health suffered greatly as from there to thinking I was headed for the poor house and a life of begging in the street or having to do horrible things to survive or not being able to afford #healthcare  or pay bills… there was one step and somehow with my #feverish imagination I jumped it easily.  

I had neural #compression and  bone marrow edema in the spine I was given dexamethasone injections. I don’t know to this day why did the specialist prescribe (I live in fear of cortisone and its family) but somehow, it relieved the inflammation which decompressed the nerve it was blocking during the fracture and I was able to get myself to limp and eventually walk albeit with difficulty again. In the meantime, I gained weight, started eating all the fattening foods including sugar and chocolates which had not touched my lips for a long time. All the fears that I had about the future, meant I could not even relax to get better, so I came back to work from bed with a vengeance. I think I worked even more than if I were healthy, I was so afraid to be cast aside, as the #weak are usually #trampled by the #strong. As my body healed, the pain would just not go away, and the mobility would just not be taken for granted anymore. Feeling #overweight and a shadow of my former self with no one providing me with a treatment plan to follow because we needed the fracture to close first, I sought doctors’ opinions who all recommended some form of strong analgesic…One of them even joked that maybe I should get “high”. I did not take him up on that as again I feared loss of control and abilities.

Several #consultations later I learned that I had also become pre-diabetic, apparently this can be precipitated with weight gain, stress but most likely the dexamethasone injections. All this change in my metabolism was messing up with how I perceived hunger. I never felt sated. The doctors said I was looking at physiotherapy once my fracture had healed fully. I was afraid to take the time off  to actually heal lest it delays work #milestones or damages my #career or both, especially in the post pandemic times. A work that you enjoy with a team in an organization that you like are not easy to come by in a conflict riddled country. I had to exert humongous effort to concentrate. I had 3 different diaries and agendas for to do lists just to keep track of my tasks and to feel adequate. A seeker of perfection, I feared any criticism that I would construe as failure. So, I persevered, repeating to myself that I was #resilient and had surmounted challenges before so I could perhaps just combine rehabilitation with the job. I did not succeed with this plan as I kept missing my #physiotherapy sessions as work deadlines were more insistent in that feverish phase getting things into place. On the other hand at work I kept resenting that I was working instead of getting myself back on track, I kept #resenting that others seemed to have prioritized not just their health but actually their #leisure time and that somehow I had signed up to help them do that and insist they do it.

By then I was not only having mobility issues, but I was also overweight and tired. My body image was destroyed – at least in my own mind,  and I had to contend with this sinking sentiment of feeling decrepit and less than what I used to be all while being 24/7 in pain and hungry. It’s difficult to keep up the resilient act when at the same time you want to continue growing as a leader and be there for your team and colleagues and family while you know that you are just too weak physically.  People will tell you to snap out of it and it’s not the end of the world and you will recover in time but tell that to the person who is suffering and is visibly distressed bodily and mentally. This person is only seeing a stretching tunnel with no end. It’s a vicious cycle. Sometimes being a good leader is when you know your limits and let go so you can come back strong again. With hindsight, I find it terrible that I feared disruption to my work more than permanent health damage. The agony I put myself into, in response to some human reactions as a result of my situation fueled the misery.  Of course we know that no one is indispensable; if I had died of Covid 19 or by one of the numerous bombs launched on Tripoli, I would have been replaced after a certain time anyway. It’s cold and logical. But I was not dead. The last straw was when on top of everything else I caught Covid in the summer of 2022; I had to accept my limitations without feeling shamed that this time I could not grit my teeth and bear it. So when I felt that my absence will not be as disruptive, I finally took the long term sick leave to mend my battered body and probably my heart and soul  in the process, but I was profoundly #mortified that I needed to do so.

I have been working hard on this healing journey and to rise above the #indignity and #embarrassment I felt at having to check out from work and focus on walking again. I had to get used to strangers accessing my body, hooking weird machines to stimulate the muscles, heal inflammation, increase bone, infra-red, ultra sound, water exercises, lymphatic drainage, magnetic therapy and God knows what but everything felt like I was losing #agency. I had to leave #modesty at the door. Doing some real assisted exercises brought tears of pain and cries of frustration, because movements that used to be normal before were now something to re-learn. I had forgotten normal posture and how to walk without compensating for pain. My muscles were weak and tight. The book of cures was thrown at me, cupping (very painful), myofascial release (pure torture). My body was covered in bruises, some of which have  become permanent alas. I even had something called #kinesiology tape to help hold my shoulder and  undertook #stem cell harvesting from my own body (brutal) and grafting in my knees to avoid a more invasive surgery. I braved my fear of #anesthesia to which I had PTSD and accepted to be anesthetized albeit through the navel – which was the most frightening sensation ever on a cold operating table in a freezing room full of strangers speaking an unfamiliar language in a foreign country, #alone.

I had to carry out Pilates exercises on a machine that reminded me of  evil medieval instruments and yet is supposed to help with my movements without straining my limbs, because I cannot even lift my legs up properly on my own, I felt horrible. I tried to joke at myself and laugh with my various #therapists, men, women and even the interns who were learning on my body, because these were the people helping to put it together. When I got pain relief in my back I hailed it as a breakthrough, when my arm could be fully raised, I cried. It took 4 sessions just to have my arm move 1 cm to the back. When I was able to do 3 sets of leg raises, I was singing the “Eye of the Tiger” anthem from the Rocky movies. When I was able to do a mini #squat and to raise myself up, with extreme pain mind you, I felt I had completed an #Ironman challenge. 

After two months of sick leave, I finally learnt to stop checking my work emails, it was liberating. I could focus and quiet the internal dialogue going on in my head. It’s a testament to all the lessons I learned from my Mental Health First Aid classes which I started to apply on myself.  It’s been 11 months since I am back to work after  giving myself the chance to become whole again. I can confidently say that I will make it, the #tunnel is shorter, I can see the light peering through, I am finally on the road to healing. I still think I am fat, I still won’t be skiing anytime soon, at least not in 2024, I still have pain, but some days it almost decreases to none for a few hours and it feels like I am in #heaven. I still have difficulty rising from bed or from a chair or taking the stairs, but I can do it faster and  I’m told this will get better with my muscle strength increasing. It’s been two years of hell and this #injury has also left me with something called #fibromyalgia.  Uncle Google tells us that it is a chronic disease causing fatigue, all over muscle and joint pain, which may come and go. Apparently, it is often triggered by an event that causes physical stress or emotional stress. I learned that it shares some symptoms with multiple sclerosis but is NOT MS and also that it has no cure.

The hero syndrome, combined with #impostor syndrome and my habit of competing with myself, meant that in the summer of 2022 I climbed  #Mount Etna with diapers on and the help of my walking sticks and also went down inside a cave, I don’t know how I managed that. It also meant that in the summer of 2023 I completed several zip lines and a forest activity adventure without the diapers this time.  I’m very hard on myself and maybe this needs to go.

At my last check up with the #neurologist in August 2023 I learned that neural damage at S1 has reached the limits of its healing and what is left is permanent which means I have to live with the consequences of this injury. Acceptance is not easy, having a disability is not easy even if itis unseen. I also developed some veinous insufficiency in the legs which I need to see a vascular surgeon  and apparently with all the radiology + cortisone +  resultant diabetes I developed cataract (I'm too young for this to occur); the specter of multiple surgeries scares me. 

When hearing these news this summer I was heartbroken and ended up binging on Netflix. I immersed myself in  Korean Drama to the point that now I can watch without subtitles and have come to love the characters, culture and country.

I am bit sad to be honest, but I am learning to work on taking  one step at a time. Firstly, I am grateful that my fractures have resolved cleanly. Secondly that I can move my body almost 80% of what it was before the accident, which is another #blessing. Thirdly I am getting better at physical re-education which means with perseverance I will see my muscle mass stronger, and my fitness level improve, which in turn means I could enjoy life better. When my muscles are stronger and I am more active, I will lose weight and reverse the pre-diabetes. I have already started working on accepting my current image and not struggling against it because I know it’s not my fault, I am not a lazy glutton, it was just an  unfortunate accident. With this acceptance, I hope to translate it into health life habits soon, up to the level of pre-injury. I know it’s not easy to retrain a sluggish metabolism, but I did lose 2 kg in one year that’s encouraging. I am excited about not only the future but also the present. The #pandemic had thought us the importance of living in the now, of family of friends of freedom of movement of not taking anything for granted, and my injury had thought me that self-care is not a shameful or  negatively selfish act. It’s a necessity. I am not going to worry about the fibromyalgia now, I just know that I will be OK. The first step is the hardest and I already took it when I accepted to take a long sick leave and I am persevering by writing this story publicly to prove that having health challenges is not a sign of weakness nor is something to be hidden and that it is unjust to be discriminated against because of it.  I had an accident, which happened to be at work, there is no shame in that, I survived, I beat the odds, had some setbacks and found my way back after a hard battle. That’s life!

In the meantime, I am grateful for having a loving family, amazing  friends and wonderfully supporting colleagues.

In memoriam of my friend Huda Shalabi

 

🌸Throughout the past week, thoughts about our mortality and how our life is flimsy have been darting back and forth across  my mind. I am sure you are all  blasé about descriptions of life being ephemeral and having to carpe diem… but that was not what was nagging at me. 

I realized early during childhood that we are mortal. I must have been 9 or 10 when this happened. I don’t know what brought it on, that kind of digging might need a therapist or some hypnosis. But I do know that I had awoken from a nightmare where I was entombed alive and woke up  being incapable to push the walls of the earth that was surrounding me. I knew I was screaming but that at some point, I had to accept that no one was going to save me from this dark place. I knew I was unable to fight the cockroaches and worms  that will soon enter my crevices against my will and I knew that no matter how much I held my breath it was not going to change the inevitable. DEATH – La Mort as I thought about it in French at that time. 

So when I woke up screaming with these horrible images of insects, serpents, worms and other things engulfing me while I felt every bit of pain they would inflict, I knew that I had to surrender and find some way to make peace with the concept of my mortality. That somehow of all the things on earth and in life, this was the ONLY truth. Believing in God was a choice but DEATH was never a choice. At some point, we never know when it will be our time to go, even if  that time was suicide, it still will be our time if we die from it. 

That was a terrible, terrible feeling for a child to accept, it coloured all my perception of life and what was important. I embraced my mortality but I could not accept that one day those I love will be gone, somehow they would be immortal as long as I was ready to leave life. I am not sure what was happening in my head but that’s the gist of it. A lot to unpack. The tradeoff was my life for those I loved. I did not realize that I had no power whatsoever to make that kind of commerce. 

Anyway, all this intro just to say that the specter of death and its imminence never left my side so it was strange somehow to feel like these thoughts were crossing my head more aggressively, that there was like someone revisiting spaces in my memories and feelings. I kept wondering was it because I suspected I had Covid 19 and how 2 years of pandemic have linked it with death ?  After all I had been suffering from related symptoms for 2 weeks  despite 4 negative rapid antigen tests. Thoughts of Covid and death of course brought back memories of my dear friend Lubna who passed away tragically a year ago. When I looked at the date I realized that the first year anniversary was upon us. So I started thinking was this why I had the blues ? Or was it because of the still unresolved trauma of my mother’s death? There was just this nagging voice and this overwhelming sadness that was gripping my heart.Then thoughts of Lubna who was my high school friend connected with thoughts of another high school friend who was struggling and whom against all hope,I was expecting to hear of her demise at any moment. 

Why was it  important this specific week? My bestie and lifelong friend Huda Shalabi was a long time survivor of terrible illness. She was thriving for years and was doing so well, but in the last 3 months her situation turned for the worse with no warning. This time I knew she was not going to make it, I just did not know when and I hated feeling that way. I cried and though we had spoken and she had accepted her mortality too, I caught myself thinking about the old trade concocted before I was a teenager. I did not want to lose another friend, another guardian of the memories of growing up, one of the people who lived with you all the phases of life! We were too young for this “shit” to happen. We are supposed to grow into those old ladies and be crazy in our 90s with flowers in our hair and hearing aids!

I pushed away these thoughts and tried to embrace life, but I was not able to enjoy getting back to unmasking, attending events, going to restaurants with friends… it just did not seem real. The dark shadows were more real … Still I fought them by sending encouraging messages to Huda, not knowing if she read or heard them and wondering if those were for her or for me?  When you don’t receive a response the messages taper down from daily to every few days to weekly. Then this Friday I received two messages about two hours apart from close family members, one was a voice recording stating that our Huda was gone  and the other was a written short sentence stating “ to Him we belong and unto Him we shall return”.  It concretized all the presentiments of doom I was having but at the same time I felt numb as I was expecting this message for a while. I felt horrible for this feeling of accepting mortality, of not being able to change anything about it for those I loved. 

Huda was buried yesterday, but it’s been two days since she left this plane, I’d like to think she is in peace, with no pain anymore. Recalling my childhood nightmares, I have no way of knowing what’s in the other dimension all I know is that it’s the place where we will all go to and spend the longest time of our presence in the form acceptable there. I dream about it as a breeze, peace, quiet rivers and green grass.

It’s a tribute to how much I love my friend Huda, that the threat of her passing away brought so much intense feelings to me, feelings that were boiling in the last week which was  the duration of her final struggle. Huda loved life and her family, she loved most of all her two sons  and it must have been difficult to let go. But I am sure they will be  ok after all their father is a good man and they were raised by an exceptional women. 

The first time I met Huda she was 16 and she already knew what she wanted and the principles that she was never going to waver from. Huda was the wise one, the no-nonsense one, the one you go to for advice and who will give you the logical approach. She was fun and loved life, she was also a words craftswoman. I remember listening rapturously to the draft of her first novel when we were teens. I thought the hero she was describing so meticulously was hot. She never had the chance to publish that novel.  Huda was no martyr, she made her choices and her life with eyes wide open, she chose her happiness and her family and was strong enough to stick to it.  She used to tell me “you have to think of yourself too girl, not just everybody else!”. She would chide me for failing to do that, and I was looking forward to proving to her that in 2022, I finally was going to look out for myself! I am so sorry she won’t be here to witness that and that we will not partake in our daily conversations. 

Huda had a tendency to mother me, as do a number of my other friends. That’s also something I need to think about deeply. But I will never forget how in her first year of marriage, every time I went up to London for a visit from my university I would stay in her home and she would make sure to cook my favourite Libyan dishes. I have been going over our photos in the past 3 months and there is so much we shared, perhaps one day her sons would like to hear how much their mum loves them and is a great woman or even look at our photos as teens their age.

The image that embodies all that was Huda for me will forever be the one on her graduation day from SOAS. Holding her son, supported by a wonderful husband and graduating with distinction. Huda had nailed the success story. 

May you rest in peace my dear dear Huda Shalabi, you will be missed dearly now and forever.

Adieu my sweet friend on your final journey……

My earliest memory of Lubna was when her mother passed away in high school in the mid-80s. I walked into Lubna’s grandparents' house and this lovely girl with blond curly hair in a thick plait running down her back like Rapunzel greeted me. She had wide innocent yet knowing eyes and a tender smile, despite the tragic circumstances. Her voice was soft and composed as I hugged her awkwardly not knowing what to say to someone who had lost their mother.

It was my first funeral. I uttered the traditional Libyan words of condolences that my father taught me. The words felt clipped because I did not really know how to show emotions, I was afraid to show emotions. Yet Lubna kept my hand in hers and sat next to me quietly. Almost like it was her comforting me and not the other way around.

Until her last moment among us in this dimension, she was the same sweet, caring girl and woman.

In the last decade of her life we became very close as we worked together and though younger than me, she could not help herself to mother me. This was in her nature, she would remind me to drink my water, to eat, to leave the office and go home, to stop being a workaholic and to take care of my health. Lubna always checked if I was well and even in the middle of the pandemic she offered to bring supplies to my house when I was stuck abroad in 2020 so that my father would not risk his life!  I am sure all her friends have similar stories, those of a woman with a heart as big as the world and a contagious smile. She was a no-nonsense person and she loved to travel and loved shoes and handbags – she called them her soft spot. She was so elegant and had immense guts.

I was waiting for the world to recover from the pandemic so that I can see her seize her dream and move to a country where she believed she could live a quiet life of service and enjoyment. She longed for peace, predictability, quiet and rest, and I was going to visit and sit on the balcony with her and eat from her famous summer salad and gossip and talk about things not related to war but to love and life. She was tired of ugly.

I texted her last month for our usual social distancing meet up on the beach front park, but she told me: “no I can’t do it this week, I am going to Egypt, let’s meet when I am back!”.  I was surprised, the covid numbers where drastic in Egypt why risk it unless one has a business meeting? and even those now used online conference apps. She explained it was a vacation, that she was excited about, she had become tired of the usual Istanbul destination and now that we had direct flights to Cairo again she wanted to seize the opportunity to reconnect with a place she loved. I was skeptical because in my opinion Turkey had handled the pandemic better, was more organized and frankly had better capabilities in its health sector. But I couldn’t be the boring spoilsport and tell her not to go…. Although that was exactly what I was screaming inside my head. So I told myself Lubna was always careful, knew how to take care of herself and knew what  she was doing.

On the last day of her vacation, I asked her if she was back already and she said “no tomorrow I am supposed to fly back, but I have some bad news Intissar… my PCR test came back positive and so I will need to quarantine in Cairo until I get better!”.

I did not know that it would be the last time I hear her voice. I sent messages every day to cheer her up. Then she stopped reading the messages as the blue WhatsApp ticks did not show up. Her phone’s battery either died or it was switched off. I did not know, but I was angry at the hospital, the doctors and the isolation ward. Lubna was in an induced sedation to help her lungs recover, but I was frustrated that the staff would not allow or arrange for family members to peak at their loved ones on Facetime or WhatsApp just to be able to see them. I was worried that being alone and unable to move would take its toll on her. Yes Lubna was a fighter, but you still needed something to fight for. How can we show her that she had so much to return to? That  so many people loved her if we could not get her to hear us? Covid be damned! The sense of doom gripped my heart.

I have not pieced together her last hours, but I want to believe that she went peacefully into the quiet, beautiful and better place she always sought and that one day I hope we will be united in Heaven to sit down and chat over a summer salad and laugh at the past.

Even in her death, she continued to be of service.  So many people who did not speak with each other for years have reached out to one another for comfort. Tributes from all over Libya and the world are filling out her Facebook  page in the hundreds. The soft-spoken girl had touched so many hearts.

I cried when I heard she had moved on, I have not cried for a long, long, long time;  I have a problem in crying. That was her last gift to me, one of healing, of release of suppressed emotions and trauma, one where I could acknowledge that I missed her very much and will miss her forever. I can’t believe that I won’t be able to call her anymore, nor that my phone will light up with her thoughtful messages, but I know that for her death not to go in vain, I have to act on the lessons learnt: “There is no shame in taking care of yourself, in making yourself a priority, in seeking your happiness and peace of mind. There is no need for me to be heroic, it is ok to remove the shield around my heart to enjoy life. It is ok to be heartbroken, it means you lived and tried”.

I wanted Lubna to experience the peace and happiness she wanted, I pray she is in peace now with her loved ones who had preceded her. Yet I find myself hoping that she still will have the  the time to look my way and be with me when I do the things I want with her in mind sort of like a bucket list. She left us too soon, I did not realize how much I loved this wonderful friend, until she was gone. That’s another lesson, don’t’ hold back in in expressing your love to others, ego be damned, if they don’t respond it is on them but you would have shared your heart and planted a seed.

I will miss Lubna every day of my life. Rest in Peace sweet angel. Thank you for having allowed me to walk with you for part of the journey.

Intissar

Photocredit: from her public social media profile.

A Year of Adjustments

Last summer I wrote an introspective post and concluded that the “forced break of Covid 19 has given many of us a grip back on our mad life”!

It’s been a glorious year of self-development, of closures and bold plans, of acceptance, decluttering, lifestyle changes, rediscovering oneself and healing. The journey is not finished but it is so good to be alive and beat the odds … But how did it start?

As I said in my post last year, I have been thinking about it for a while. So it’s not new; but as my burnout started to manifest itself more and more between 2018/2019 and some weight increase creeped up on me changing the model look  to a  tired matronly appearance… I was unable to recognize myself! I also realized it was not as easy to bounce back to good health as I used to do before. With hindsight, I understand that I may have been too harsh on myself and exaggerated how bad I perceived myself in my search of perfection, as no one ever commented negatively except that I was rounder on the edges. But weight gain to me was associated with loss of youth and loss of mobility as ancient sports injuries and accidents flared up. No sports for two years, dehydration, weight gain due to too much food during travel, eating too much chocolate to ease PTSD anxiety from the civil war workaholism.. .  I had truly entered a vicious cycle and needed to break it up.

There I was at the Duty free area at Pearson Toronto airport last March looking to purchase a magazine for the flight,  when my gaze fell on the cover of a book :  “The Self Care Solution: a year of becoming happier, healthier, and fitter – one moment at a time”  by Jennifer Ashton . The title is very smart. A year is not too long to invest to reach all these goals right ? I needed baby steps as a radical change was not going to happen for me. What did Dr Ashton do ? Basically chose to try something new for one month each month. Like drink more water, stop sugar intake, exercise more, walk more, sleep earlier etc. Just one month! That’s bearable right ? no commitments, no pressure, if you don’t like it then no shame. It was a relief! Why did I not think of it before? For me it was either/or .

So I decided there and then to improve my hydration by increasing water intake from one glass of 200ml  water per week to 1.5 liters as a goal per day. Not easy.  I downloaded an app which should remind me at regular intervals to drink water and once I did I would click to log it. Watching my intake rise over time felt like an immense achievement. I finally got into a good routine, but if I skip a day of listening to the prompt then I would lose the momentum again. A year  later and I still have not yet formed the habit of drinking water. If I don’t use the app, I do become dehydrated. So correcting a bad habit needs more time but now I know how it feels to be well hydrated and strive towards that.

My second challenge was to sleep better and earlier. With the advent of the lockdown and loss of framework, I spent weeks binging on Netflix and social media to know about the latest battles in Libya. Sometimes awake for 3 days in a row, worrying ….I felt that I was not breathing properly during sleep.. I never woke rested. So again, I downloaded an app, which promised to analyze my sleep patterns and I discovered that I was snoring, and that I was never fully in deep sleep. I needed to rethink my schedule.

For 4 months when I was living alone in Turkey, I managed to get into a good routine, my skin cleared, it became easier to lose weight. I still snored but the quality of sleep was better. Instead of 4 hrs I slept 6 hrs . Now I am back to my bad habits as I am home in Libya and to my family responsibilities. So I need to think about what can I improve on my routine, to sleep better with other people in the house. How to prioritize my health and my family. Difficult balance but will work it out.

The third challenge was regaining my fitness and especially my six pack 👀. It was there but I could not see it anymore. I have a competitive streak but was afraid to jump back into sports and make the injuries worse. Plus the gyms were closed. So I called my coach and asked her if she would do 101 training in my house 3 times per week at 9 am in the morning. I asked her if we could do the exercises with alternative motions that would be like physiotherapy to restore mobility.  We began in June. It was  slow and painful but the day I was able to kneel down properly again was a celebration. Coach D was getting married so she stopped working with me after two months and I did not know what to do so continued to dance to Bollywood music instead. My theory was that if I was  moving this is good.

The next challenge was to do a full health check up and sort things out. I was relieved to find out that some things were reversible with lifestyle changes and that if I dedicated my time to physiotherapy and healing my injuries, I could even learn to ski again.  I had started using a cane since my vacations to Rome and Tokyo in  2019 👎. I called it my sexy cane and used it as a fashion accessory sort of like the old mafia bosses and sheikhs. But nothing screams old like a walking aid that is not used in hiking situations. I stopped using the cane in autumn of 2020. The day I was able to cross my legs again and get up on my own from a sitting position on the floor and do a plank was the day I was proverbially reborn. I had forgotten all these things which are natural to people. I discovered that I had numerous food intolerances and allergies which were the main cause of what had happened to me since 2016 and which kept getting worse. Here again I initially used a food app but  it was too time consuming, seeing a nutritionist was healthier and more useful. Learning to eat gluten free and remove sugar, meat, bread etc…. and seeing the weight diminish, the hair stop falling, the skin becoming supple like it was a few years ago, the neuralgia decrease and the edema go away was a source of joy.  Seeing myself lose fat and gain muscle felt like regaining the pre civil war Intissar. I was not obese, but I was not comfortable in my own skin anymore.  I tried reintroducing the forbidden foods in April 2020, but all my intolerances and pain flared up. It seems I may need to change my diet for a long time if not for life. This is a bit sad as I love beautiful, rich , tasty food and meat and pasta and bread and cheese and Nutella 💖but I will need to learn alternative tastes. 

Here we are in May 2021. I only lost 8 kg during this journey but the difference is massive. I struggle with the forbidden foods at times and binged for a couple of weeks but when I saw the damage I had to readjust. My physiotherapist is not near me so I need to find someone else who could help me continue to improve my posture.

My other challenge was to reconnect with friends who were not from the inner sanctum;  to go back to the kinder person  I was before the bitterness of war. So every week I would call someone and catch up with their news. It was sweet and cathartic. I used the time to seek closure whether in person or to forgive those who wronged me. I was also open to establish if I was the one who had  wronged them. I tried to work on my grief about my mother but I still have not been able to access that part properly so we shall revisit soon. 

I thought I needed to find a partner now that I had the time, but I discovered that I was not interested because I would rather be fiercely fit 💪 Talking to someone who was not interested in activities and travel and sports and culture and life was just not interesting. I discovered that the  old geezers wanted a young chick and the young men wanted also a young chick. I was not really a spring chicken anymore. I tried meeting  people from my generation online  and was shocked to find how old they looked on the outside. Sorry but I am superficial ! So I caught myself thinking : “OMG I cannot be that OLD” . Is this how I am perceived ? I am not sure about that. So anyway dating is not on the menu, but my six pack is.

Another set of decisions/ resolutions I had made at the beginning of the pandemic:

Not to buy new clothes, shoes, make up, hard copy books, accessories, bags ,  electronics,  jewelry, magazines, stationary etc…..until I finished all the beauty products, read the books and magazine , used all the stationery, worn out the shoes/clothes/bags/electronics etc..As for jewelry I did not need any.  I was curious how much I will save and could I go back to being a minimalist ?

I also thought of recording my experience with the beauty products I was using until they ended. Most were purchased on a whim because I was bored in duty free shops between London, Tokyo, New York, Washington, Paris, Malta, Rome, Toronto, Chicago, Istanbul, Beirut and Madrid etc….. I was going to document how they felt and did they work. It made me feel like a potential social media influencer.😎

Over a year later this is the result :

Jewelry : 1 ring

Bags: 1 cheap sport’s bag

Magazines : 7

Books : 5 hard copies only ( but tons of e-books).

Shoes : one pair only

Beauty products : 2 lipsticks, one eyeliner, one mascara  and deodorants to replace those that I finished.

Clothes : 3 tracksuits and 1 dress and 1 anorak .

Accessories : one pair of gloves to replace the one that I lost. 2 prescription glasses as I lost/broke the old ones during the year.

Only the ring and magazines were unnecessary. I am proud of myself, even though I was unemployed and spending from my savings on health treatment for 4 months I still managed to save money. I read somewhere that you always needed to keep emergency money equivalent to 6 months of salary in your savings to wait out in comfort until you find a suitable job. I am super grateful.

I begun the decluttering journey since 2018, it is still ongoing. I hope to finish in 2021. Donating and or selling everything that is not needed. I discovered my stash of ancient postage stamps and coins and money, one day I will sit down to arrange them. Maybe I have an unknown fortune? That’s for 2022.

I have only started to look for employment in February this year… and I hope my plans pan out. But work life balance is going to be one of my priorities now.👌 No more suicide missions to complete deadlines that no one has really asked from you. My mother’s death has shown me that life is ephemeral and  Covid19 has demonstrated also  that everything can stop and be taken from you. Your life in the span of a second can start to revolve around 100 square meters of your home and nothing else. And if you are an IDP you don’t even have that luxury.

I am going to try the social influencer thingy … as in posting the products I finished this past year next, if you want to see them check my Instagram..... 

It has been a year of adjustments !
 

Retracing The Pandemic in Libya

There is nothing like the smell of decaying garbage and meat to drive home images of virulent diseases and apocalyptic environmental disasters. ! When you combine that with an ongoing global pandemic and a decade long civil war in Libya which includes a multitude of foreign meddlers, a failed state, crushed economy, divided nation, dismantled heath sector and one of the highest corruption indexes on earth ; then I had the right to lose hope on the morning of August 2, 2020 when I noticed maggots coming out of the the garbage bags carefully lined up on our balcony and the stench of rot filling the air!

Why were there maggots ? because the  GNA (government in the Western side of Libya)  had imposed a 5 day full lockdown for Eid Adha festivities. If you are a follower of Libyan affairs, you realise that this is a tragedy, because the country is plagued by a civil war since 2011 and rubbish collection is low on its priority scale.  Also Libya  has the largest number and variety of deadly foreign intervention and proxy wars on its soil and in its skies and waters in this century. 

Now let's get back to the  hideous  olfactory experience.

It was a powerful catalyst to my fears about the future in Libya and in the world.  I watch with concern as the USA,  allegedly the most powerful, advanced nation on earth crumbles under the impact of Covid19  virus and as the 

WHO,  makes increasingly alarming announcements, literally stating that there is no "silver bullet" in sight. 

Media bombards us with numbers of cases on a daily basis but every week I check the dashboard of the Libya website of the Libyan NCDC or  National Centre for Disease Control, and the numbers though small compared to the rest of the world are worrisome to me especially when they surpassed the 1000 confirmed cases. But the strange part wast that it took until the first week of  July to reach 1000 cases. Today we stand at 9707 positive tests  and are looking at an abyss. If we look at the numbers: by August 2 we were almost 4000, at this rate it looks like before the end of August we would have reached the 10,000 mark! ( We actually reached it on August 21 as I was writing this post).

             What on earth happened?

As a lingering pursuit from my previous background and interest in clinical pharmacology and healthcare,  I have been following  @Muaaddio on Twitter. Muaad is a Libyan medical student who has been tweeting  about public healthcare in Libya for a while and collates the news from various sources. This builds an image of what is actually taking place in the country, better than the local news sites as he combs through them all. Naturally he started compiling the data on Covid19 as provided by the NCDC but translating it in English but also with raw data from contacts and personal resources. 

I have been expecting a disaster after Ramadan as social media filled up my inbox with people celebrating Eid El Fitr  with zero social distancing or masks in various cities across Libya. I was proven right when the spike started rising right about a week later. 

 

But how did we get to this? 

Libya's airports fly a limited  number of routes and with an ongoing conflict, our tourism sector is basically defunct. In this article I will attempt to retrace the steps of Covid19 in Libya that have led us to what I can only see as a tragedy on a grand scale if unchecked. This is not a scientific paper, this is not a thesis for a degree nor even investigative journalism. It is simply a story to recount from memory and to try to bring the different threads in the pantomime together before we get buried in more details and forget what happened in Libya.

The wider news about the corona virus started to filter to us around December last year as some form SARS-COV2 breaking out in China. In our lifetime we have seen many diseases, Mad Cow diseases, SARS, Mexican flu, Ziza virus,  bird flu, Ebola, mouth and feet you name it. Periodically we have a scare that flares up somewhere in the world and we beat it by paying attention and restricting travel a little bit or curtailing the activity that was causing it in the first place. But it is always contained in some way.  We always knew the fact that disease can be carried by travellers back to their countries or from their countries to other destinations since the great travels of Columbus at least. Having travelled through Asia, I am very familiar with people wearing medical face masks on public transport, airports and streets. This is done for protection from viruses or pollution or if they have the flu as a courtesy to others. So when I think that we are in a particularly dangerous time of the year during my travels I try to wear a mask.   

Around mid December 2019, my 16 year old niece became very ill. She had a continuous cough that she could not clear, chest pain, difficulty breathing, loss of smell, sore throat, lethargy and coughing her lungs out. Her fever was continuous  and when the usual flu remedies of , vitamins C, Nurofen or Panadol, lozenges for the sore throat, soup etc... were not working and she started using her asthma SOS inhalers almost constantly we went to hospital. The ER ward at that time was busy with the wounded from the frontline, but the young doctor managed to check her and by listening to her chest he asked for an x-ray. When the results came out a corner in lungs was not ok. I was appalled and felt guilty how can a young, healthy teenagers, who eats well and is well taken care off get pneumonia !!! How can her "normal flu" deteriorate so fast to this situation where her life was in danger? She was given oxygen and  prescribed antibiotics but it was not working as a few days her fever did not drop but rose even higher. So I took her to another hospital thinking they would have more time for her since it was farther from the frontline. There in the outpatient ward we has some tests and she was prescribed with very potent IV antibiotics. I call them the munitions of  last resort. She was also given panadol in IV form. I was seriously panicked. What if she gets worse, how can we treat her in a war zone. But I also noticed another thing that most beds in the ER where filled with men and women who were getting the same injection and had more or less the same symptoms. They were also given oxygen. I simply assumed that this years flu strain was more vicious than before. Still we both had masks on because it is easy to catch more viruses in hospitals. I spent a week taking her for her daily dose of  injection.  The patients at the two hospitals I had seen were either young men wounded at the frontline or people who had,  flu like symptoms, chest issues and fever that needed, oxygen and strong antibiotics. In that same week I discovered one evening my 80 year old father inanimate in the living room and burning hot with fever.  He had mild flu symptoms a few days ago and I was cursing at the war and whoever was responsible for it, that had damaged our infrastructure and caused us to feel cold in our own homes due to long hours of power cuts. Which meant we were prone to getting sick and others illnesses. I had never seen my father unconscious. So it was terrifying to have a child burning with fever in one room and  choking on her own breath and my father who had heart disease and a string of other chronic issues helpless in front of me. I did first aid and changed him and tried to bring down his fever. I was unable to move him on my own, and when he regained a bit of consciousness later he refused to go to hospital. So I brought him antibiotics, as he chest was definitely making weird sounds. That week was a nightmare. All in all my niece was severely ill for 20 days and convalescing until February. My father fared better, he was prompt on his feet in about 10 days. 

At the end of January I travelled to Turkey. At that time we had already heard about Covid19 but not many people were taking precautions. I am an OCD in terms of cleaning my personal space on a plane but I noticed a few of the travellers with disinfectant gels and masks something I never did before. I was seated next to a young man and the middle seat was empty between us. This suited me fine. There is no inflight movie on Libyan flights but you could follow the flight progress on the map on your screen. My neighbour  was doing that during the journey. He did not hesitate to ask for one of my wet wipes when the meal was served. Then at some point over the Mediterranean Sea he observed that it was strange that we were not passing over Greece in our route. I was curious so I asked  why is that a problem? he said that usually we fly a bit over it on our way to Istanbul and that the same thing happened when we was returning from China, the pilot had deviated slightly from the usual route. I won't get here today about  Greek part, nor the China change of route. But when I heard that he had been in China, I remembered that he was sneezing earlier. I did not ask him when was he in China.. But for the rest of the trip I covered my whole face with my scarf not just my mask. This was the 29 of January.

China is a popular destination for young Libyan men, as they bring a lot of goods to sell in Libya from there. Electronics, monogrammed luxury leathers, brand clothes or just other business. We also have a  good sized diaspora there since 2011 and many students who are on scholarships from the Chinese government. About 100 per annum. 

On February 3rd, my fever started rising and my throat closing and my nose was stuffy. I was very tired and started losing my voice. I was breathless and by the next day had a dry unproductive cough which I could not stop. I lay down for most of the week, feeling miserable, sweaty, coughing, choking, with a fever going up and down. Fears of Covid19 started plaguing  me. So by the end of the week I went to hospital, telling myself that if I had something, I would immediately be  kept there. My doctor did a thorough examinations and decided that I had a viral infection of the vocal chords and asked me to shut up for 5 days. He only gave me Advil and something to soothe my throat. Two days later I wore my mask and returned home to Libya. I was choking most of the time like having asthma attack. I took a panadol before boarding so I would not raise any alarms because by the time we established that I have no Covid it be too long. 

When I got home, I isolated myself in my room because I did not want my family to have another bout of flu, since they just recovered if you recall. My brain was burning like mush and my cough was not getting better, though it became very productive now. So when I saw yellowish colour from my nose and throat I realised it was no longer viral throat but probably some kind of bacterial infection. It was the morning I woke up with yellow pus coming out of my eyes and I was unable to open them that I realised this was serious. I donned a mask and got my own meds, antibiotic tablets but also antibiotic eye drops and nasal solutions the whole lot. About 24hrs later I started improving. A week later I felt human again, though I was still having difficulty breathing. 

In February if you were traveling to Tunisia or Turkey you had to fill some forms on arrival for contact tracing, while if you arrived in Tripoli, Libya your temperature was taken at the airport.  I left the country again on February 28 and arrived in Canada on March 1st. I got another sore throat on March 2 and was ill, coughing etc... until March 10, had to take antibiotics again. The doctor said it was not Covid19. 

My point is that perhaps Covid 19 was introduced in Libya early on by the Libyan travellers who came from China back in 2019?  It is a popular destination. Why was there such a high number of pneumonia cases? There are many anecdotes.

  

Sewage testing in a number of countries shows that the virus was present in Europe since December 2019 most likely but also as far back as March 2019 ( yes you read that right !) even before China announced the first cases  on December 31st, 2019.  So does that mean it could be present in Libya too ? How can we find out ? 

Could we have herd immunity ? Apparently it is possible . But if we did in Libya, why are the numbers ONLY now rising drastically ? are these new mutations? or is it because we increased testing?

All I know is that around the 10th of March, Libya woke up from its slumber and decided to do something drastic. The GNA side closed flights on 15 March without any previous warning while the eastern government told its citizens they had until the 19 March to get to Benghazi. Of course people in southern Libya used either western or eastern airports to get home. At the same time many countries were closing their borders and imposing quarantine such as Tunisia. 

When you know that most of your travellers are people going for treatment or people who have meetings overseas and some small business entrepreneurs who cannot afford to stay long outside, or simple young men gone to withdraw some foreign currency from the ATMs to resell back home and combine with it the visa challenges facing Libyans you would imagine the mess that can happen. The Libyans who became stranded abroad was a tragedy on its own. Because many Libyans spend everything before the day they go to the airport. Travellers had left families and jobs in Libya, while others had finished or not finished treatment. Others were dead and their family wanted to return their remains. In short It was a completed mess. I should know I was one of those stranded in Istanbul as a result of the dumbest decree on earth.Why was it dumb ? because while it stopped travel for ordinary Libyans those who has "waste" still were able to board one way or another  a flight back home on the so called "cargo flights" or Air Ambulance flights or even private jets or even by special exemptions from a minister. I used to see their Facebook posts boasted that they made it home... Additionally all these non publicly documented returnees did NOT undergo quarantine or even self isolate. Libya had no Covid19 confirmation  until March 24.

In early March, the  multiple Libyan governments had all announced sets of budgets to combat Covid19, by building hospitals ( now ? ) and testing plans etc...In addition to the state of emergency the GNA announced  "half a billion dinars to fight the virus." Also all the governments put some measures. There was no lack of advocacy on line, on social media, radio, TV, billboards. Tripoli residents were on lockdown for two months. Schools closed etc... Masks were encouraged not mandatory. 

In April 75 million LYD was supposedly finally allocated to municipalities from the initial half a billion. The EU contribute 18 million Euro in May and a further 110 million Euro in July, further mobilising 20 million Euro in August. By May the United States had confirmed over  12 million USD of support to Libya's anti-Covid19 efforts.

All the above is a lot of money ! WHERE  did it go?   Is anyone keeping track of this ?

The Libyan health sector crashed,  testing kits are always not available, PPE as well, as for ventilators and spaces in hospital ..... in Tripoli the hospitals were targeted by the LNA so probably some contamination took place when people ran out or others ran in to help? The water has been cut for months, the electricity is a non-ending saga. The oil blockade has not helped with paying bills and the government undertook a very late and expensive scenario to repatriate travellers. Put them in hotels at  its expenses abroad and quarantine them + Covid tests before returning home. At some point it became unsustainable and people are now quarantined locally. It does not mean that those who stranded brought it with them, no I can vouch that between March 16 and May 15 those that were quarantined in Istanbul did not see even the street until they were put on the planes, but as I mentioned above there were some slips and also those that had returned to Libya and to their communities between March 10 and 19 and those that were brought by private jets, also let's not forget all the foreign combatants, planeloads after planeloads were descending in  a number of Libya cities in the east and the west. So many factors went wrong that must be laid at the feet of those who had crowned themselves responsible for us but also to our own stubborness and Libyan macho psyche that we are invincible and this is just the flu.  

At the end of May Libyans threw caution to the wind  due to the enormous economic suffering and also they got fed up and emerged from lockdown and the numbers started rising.  Now in the past two weeks while the spike has gone up drastically and everyone knows someone who died from the virus or suffered from it, people are increasingly finally wearing masks and having a modicum of social distancing. However, to this day, weddings/funerals have not abated. We also have to contend with protests. The war on Tripoli ended but all the rest of miserable circumstances did not stop. 

I believe that we must have had our first wave in early 2020 and we are now riding the second wave due to the botched up measures. 

Solar Power, the Great Man Made River and the Environment

I was pleasantly surprised to read about the announcement of the projected building of solar plants along the Great Man Made River (GMMR) in Libya to guarantee the availability of water to towns and counteract the massive crippling power cuts we have been experiencing due to quasi a decade of civil war.

This is a  USAID project with a number of  international partners  namely UNSMIL  and UNDP plus one Libyan partner:  the Libyan Local Investment and Development Fund.

Being a cheerleader for entrepreneurship and sustainable livelihoods and having experience in development project, I think it's a great  initiative and much needed step to encourage renewable energy which will rightly create jobs.  

So I was wondering who are the companies that will install these panels and accompanying equipment. Are they local businesses ? Because we do have a growing number of Libyan business people who operate in this sector due to the growing market in Libya as a result of increased power cuts (long story maybe another post).  Different businesses/jobs would rise from these plants and provide the opportunity for the Libyan engineers to gain more experience and income. Or will this be given to a foreign company ? I have not seen the tender announcements yet but it would be awesome to see Libyans do this. Keeping fingers crossed.

The other thing that crossed my mind, is the land public or private? if private will it be purchased or will the owners get royalties? So many questions running in my head. 

Now the high-school environment buff in me, one of those people we used to call 'tree huggers' a lifetime ago got thinking if we made the necessary environment impact studies or will that be included in the terms of reference for whoever will be carrying out the recce mission? I have recently been reading about  India's experience as one of the largest investors in renewable energy. Apparently sometimes  large scale solar projects could create more problems than they solve.😕

[[Four of the top five investments in renewable energy in 2019 were in India. “In second place came the US, down 8% at $797 million, and Europe was third, climbing 14% to $443 million,”]]

This part had me particularly worried in water starved Libya :

[[Large solar power plants require between 7,000 and 20,000 litres of water per megawatt per wash--an average water tanker has 5,000 litres capacity, and a wash is needed at least twice a year. And since they are mostly located in arid and semi-arid ecosystems, they add to the water stress of local regions. Requiring an average of five acres per megawatt, solar power plants are also land-intensive sources of energy, said experts.]]

I am not an engineer or technical expert on  solar panels so it all could be very easy, but I wonder if the Libyan environmental laws have been modernised after 2011? 

The GMMR is vital to  Libyans so I hope it has all been worked out well. Would love to hear more about it.

From Wikipedia

A Time for Introspection

For the last two years I have been constantly thinking and wishing for a long break. For a time where I would not have any deadlines, where I would be able to spend time at home, be with family, complete my library, re-arrange my papers,  scan the family albums, exercise more, eat healthy, cook, dance, try to find love, write my book, study etc... be normal!  I wanted to leave behind the cynicism that has creeped slowly into my life like a climbing weed and so I promised myself that as soon as I finish the next goalpost I will be able to take a couple of months off. But the goalpost was always moving forward.... 

There is a saying " be careful what you wish for ...lest it becomes true!". Indeed, when battle fatigue was settling in and "what next?" was growing as question in my head followed by the  "if I don't do something I will end up alone!" becoming more than just a cliche, and I  found myself collecting more auto-immune diseases in one decade then during most of my lifetime; I knew something had to happen to get out of this vicious cycle. 

The first sign was that after years of a successful, loved and respected project the funding partner decided to not extend anymore. It is a very normal action in the development sector and we had discussed this eventuality. But somehow I thought it  would be in a mythical future. The surprising thing was that I was not upset  at the prospect of unemployment for an unknown period of time - after all we are a country at war and stable jobs are not the norm - I told myself.  I begun planning  for all the activities on my bucket list - we all have one stashed somewhere 😀.  Then just as I was heading towards putting my vacation plans into reality the world pressed the brake pedals in March 2020.  I will come back to this shortly. 

Though I worked hard for the last three decades, bordering on perfectionism and addiction to completing deadlines, I had a sacrosanct time (in summer usually) when everything stopped so I could travel with my mother for our annual pilgrimage to her home and family in Syria. This meant I would not see a single email or shred of work for the duration of the vacation. It was priceless! I don't know what happened,  but at some point early on in this decade something changed and I turned into the most hard core workaholic of all times. It is telling that by March 2020 I had 75 days of untaken vacation privilege to which I had to reluctantly say goodbye.  Some people say it's your fault for not taking time off,  use it or lose it... but when you have responsibilities and dependents in a country at war you don't always have this luxury. Why? because you need to prove impact and success  if you combine that with hardline principles it means you literally won't raise your head to breathe. With hindsight I can see I was headed for burnout and that I did not need to be such an idealist.

So let's get back to when the world shut down in March. I was on the return journey home and became stranded on the final leg. I watched as the world was taken in a frenzy of death, illness and economic woes due to the Covid19 pandemic. I also watched as people tried to adjust to lockdown and social distancing. I read avidly about people learning new languages, starting a degree, cooking. spending time with their families, reading, having dance parties on Zoom, exercising on rooftops and balconies etc..The point was they were at home not somewhere in between. I did not have the heart to cook and I did not have the place to exercise on the balcony  what with it being freezing and windy!   I did not feel settled enough to learn something new, after all, I just lost my job yet had to ensure the office was closed down properly while  my country was at war and facing a pandemic. I feared for my family's life and I had none of the material things which I wanted with me during a lockdown. So I binged on #Neflix, chatted with my BFF, read some books on #Kindle and started eating jars of Nutella ! This situation lasted until I arrived safely home  on 15 May, 2020. That is my official lockdown date; before that was purgatory. 

So on May 16, I wake up at home, facing a self imposed, self isolation for 14 days, exhausted with two more weeks of Ramadan to go but somehow full of hope. For the first time, I had nowhere to hurry to. I could take my time. I had all the time in the world if I survived the civil war raging outside. Time was the most expensive commodity. My mother always used to mention an Arabic proverb which said that : "time is like a sword, if you don't cut it, it will cut you". I can still hear her words ringing in my head. 

I have been at home for a little over two months now. I relish talking to my father and experiencing the teenage tantrums of  my niece. Watching TV together, arguing about silly things, sitting in the balcony looking at the blue sky , cuddling with the cat, reading my stash of books, using my expensive face creams, discovering mum's recipes..My father would share with me vacancy links but all I could think about  was: not now, I am not ready. It's been a trip into memory lane but also mindfulness and decluttering. I had read so much about these two topics but putting them into practice was a struggle. So I thought I would begin with my beauty products and it was when I found a lovely jar of bath crystals and had a relaxing foot bath  that  the extent of how much I had  neglected my own well being hit me. There while soaking my feet and reading a book on a log lost civilisation, I started crying. Why was this activity no longer something I did regularly? I had those crystals since 2017! It took three years, unemployment and a global pandemic for them to find their way to me. 

It was a time for introspection!.... This was not right, it must run deeper than just plain workaholism.... As I had more time I discovered so many little things where I shortchanged myself:  being inactive, ignoring medical issues, ignoring sports injuries, not sleeping enough, tons of clothes since with their price tags in the closet, hair products, jewellery and accessories which I completely forgot. But the problem was not just personal material and body issues but also friendships that somehow fell of the radar and yet were important.. All this I discovered because I put everyone else before me and I was trying to push aside my mother's tragic death... not mourning meant there was unfinished business. Not having closures means you ruminate about the past constantly. Trauma was deepening and accumulating. The good thing I finally was accepting and acknowledging this which means it was easier to do something about it. 

The forced break of Covid19 has given many of us a grip back on our mad life. As much as it is scary what is happening to our world, planet and everything we know as much as I like to see this shake up with  a silver lining if we try and keep our distance. 

I gave myself the right to just enjoy being at home and daydream, read, think, explore very deep within my soul what and who  is it that is important to me

The answer will help shape the next decade of my life....