What is Love?!

   "Is it something we invented or is it something in our nature?"

  "Do we choose who we love or is it chosen for us?"

  "There are different kinds of love or love is just love?"

  "Is love measurable or it's all the same?" 

   I'm still looking for the right answers, I managed to answer them for now but they keep changing as I grow up.

   So here is the answer to my 1st question " Is it something we invented or is it in our nature? "

I believe we were born with the ability to love, as we love our parents blindly soon after we are born. We need and depend on them and for that we love them, but then as we grow month after month we start to see uncles and aunts and we love them too, and the same applies to sisters or brothers. We just get on with the loving because we have this very pure heart as children that gives us the ability to love unconditionally.

   Once we started to disagree with any of the ones in our lives, we started to doubt how much we love them and how much they love us. Fights begin and arguments emerge in our daily life, and the little pure heart of ours gets contaminated. The idea of love is not the same now, we decide to love a person after we get to know them, then like them and start to share memories with them. It doesn't come as easy as it used to be when we were children.

   Now let's move on to the next one " Do we choose who we love or is it chosen for us? " As I said earlier, in the beginning, it is chosen for us but, later on, we kind of decide who we love. First we like someone, be it a friend or a lover, it doesn't matter; as it all starts with us liking a person, assess this person, discover the things we have in common and so on. After we found that we like him/her, we make the effort to get closer and know him/her even better so that if we found that we really really like this person we spend time together, we create memories together so we make more effort to keep this relationship until we realize that we don't just like this person; we love this person.

   As for the last two "There are different kinds of love or love is just love? Is love measurable or it's all the same? "  I personally think that yes, there are different kinds of love, and yes love is measurable; we just don't have the tool to measure it. No way the love for your mother is the same as the love for your best friends or that the love for your father is the same as the love for your husband/boyfriend. Of course, we love them all but I believe each have a special kind of love, what we are willing to do for each person varies. I always heard this strange example that if two people you love are drowning  and you can only save one, the one you choose to save; is the one you love more. It is an uncanny example I agree, but it is kind of logical. I wouldn't dare imagine myself in this situation because I know that what I think  now that I'm going to do, is probably not what I will end up doing.

   What I'm trying to say is, the heart works in mysterious ways. Who you love now can become a complete stranger in a month, and someone you thought you can never love will end up being the love of your life. It happened to all of us, a best friend from school is now just an acquaintance or a boyfriend/girlfriend  is now someone you know nothing about.So be careful, it's not necessarily the other person's fault, it could be yours.

    Let me tell you a quick story about my grandmother. The last time I went to visit her, we were sitting in the kitchen preparing food and talking, then I found myself telling her: " Nannah, I love you "so she looked at me in such an astonishment that made me realize that the last time I told her I loved her was probably when I was a kid. She gave me a very strong hug from which I understood how happy she was, and it made me feel guilty that I only told her that I loved her after moving to a different country and not seeing her every week like I used to.

   I know for some people- myself included- it can be hard to express our feelings, I have no idea why we have such difficulty talking about how we feel, but that's just something that we will have to work on, so please be careful of how you treat your loved ones so that you won't have a shred of regret when they are no longer in your life.Tell them how much you love them and how much they mean to you, not a daily basis of course but when you feel that they need to hear it.

What are you waiting for ?!

   
   Most people spend their lifetime waiting for something to happen, but what are they waiting for exactly?

   I took the liberty of contemplating the society I live in, and not much to my surprise I found them all waiting too. I don't know when or how it all started, but let me give you a quick explanation of how I think it began.

   Let's imagine the life of a Girl before and after she is born, it may sound a bit confusing and it actually is, so be patient.

   Step 1: The Girl's parents were waiting for her to be born, once she was born they waited for her to take her first steps, say her first word, etc..
   Step 2: Waited for her first day at school, then her first day at college and then work, etc..
   
   Now here is the tricky part, along the way the Girl started to realize that she exists and that she wants things in life, so she joined the waiting club.

   Step 2.1: She couldn't wait to finish school and right after she started college, she wanted to graduate as fast as possible so that she can start working and earn her own money.
   Step 2.2: She is now working; so the waiting starts for her knight in shining armor.

   This step can take a few years, and all those years she would linger through life waiting. Whether it's for her long awaited partner or just a better job, she is in a standby mode and not fully operational.  Just waiting for "that" thing to happen in order to be happy. Doesn't matter what it is, but to her, life is incomplete without it.

   I can actually relate to all that. We all went through this phase when we just felt or still feeling this void inside, eating us up and making us miserable without even realizing that we are. And it's all because of this unconscious state of waiting which makes us too distracted to enjoy life.

   Then, after the long years of waiting, something happens. The right person to fill the knight position comes along; the Girl gets married and she becomes a parent herself, but one who is on hold, because no baby is here yet and so the waiting begins AGAIN.

    By now you would think that her parents stopped their waiting, but let me tell you, my friend, you are wrong. Because now, she is not the only one waiting. No no no the grandparents are also waiting for the Girl to be a Parent, for her baby to take his first steps and the list goes on. So basically, at this point Step 3 and Step 2.3 overlap, but with a new cycle this time, one for the grandchild.

   See how confusing this is; it is an endless loop. People, you have got to stop with all the waiting and start living. Start enjoying what you have today rather than looking for what is missing and wait for it to happen. 

   Just be grateful you are alive. Be happy with what God bestowed upon you, your days are not all going to be butterflies and rainbows, I get that. But just try, try to live happily. So if you want to travel, don't wait up for someone to travel with you; do it on your own, it's fun and that is a fact, I know, I tried. And if you want to learn a new language, do it. Do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy just make sure nobody gets hurt in the  process. 

   Anyway, I don't want to make it longer than I already did. What I finally want to say is that waiting is good, it is sort of exciting even sometimes, but don't let it consume you and make you forget to live. So a word of advice, don't postpone life until whatever you think will make you happy happens, make yourself happy. It really is not about the destination, but it sure is about the journey. So please, let's stop the horrific waiting cycle and start a brand new cycle of happily ever after with or without a knight.

What Makes You, You?

   When we say : " This is who I'm " , and 10 years later we say the exact sentence.
Are we really the same or did we change?!

   The more difficult question is : Do people really change? If  yes, why so many of us don't give second chances and we utter the words " NOBODY CHANGES ".

   In my very humble opinion, people do change and based on my personal experience I can assure you I did and I've been changing for years without even noticing that I'm. I used to say " This is who I'm so don't try to change me " to anyone who would ask me to do something I didn't want to do at the time, of course I didn't know it then, but I do now.

   It took me a while to answer the question: " What makes me, me ? " Figuring out who I'm and why I'm the way I'm, is still an ongoing process because I realized that what makes a person him/herself is a combination of ( Genes, upbringing, habits, traditions, education and circumstances) among other things for sure but I think this combo sums it up; the genes, the way you were raised, your education are all in your past and done already but traditions , habits and circumstances can obviously change. 

   So again- and bare with me here please- when we say " This is who I'm " do we mean this is who we are now or generally ? We don't notice it but I think it usually means now, because we don't often admit to ourselves that we have changed. Let's think of it as an evolution rather than a change, human kind is in a constant state of transformation since Adam & Eve. We evolve physically just as we evolve emotionally and we are affected by our surroundings just like everything else sharing this universe with us, is.

   Take me for example, I used to be so sure about my future. I had it all figured out and I made up my mind about never being a housewife, never giving up on my career. The very idea of being a stay at home mother freaked me out and don't let me even start about the fear of getting married; yet here I'm married at 25, moved to a different country, quit my job and stayed home.

   Now adaptation is key.You need to adapt to your new set-up, and once that is accomplished change is going to be so gradual that you wont even feel it happening and only when people around you start telling you how much you have changed, it will sink in. 

   What really happens, or at least what I think happens is that when you grow up and start dealing with life year after year; you start to see things from a new perspective not a correct one per se, just one that is new to you. Some things will remain the same, for instance a person who is secretive will never be communicative or someone who is stingy will never be generous. These things are in our nature but things like political views, religious believes, likes and dislikes can change in a heartbeat.

   I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't think that who you are today is who you were yesterday and who you will be tomorrow. Give yourself the chance to explore new opportunities, to explore your capabilities and most importantly to explore life.

Let's give this thing a try

My name is Nadia and I'm a 26 years old housewife. 

   I'm an Egyptian lady -if I can claim to be one- my early years of childhood were spent in Jeddah, KSA. Later on in life we moved back to Cairo; my mother, father and my sister. Only about a year from the move back home my little brother arrived. I went to a French school and then to college to study information systems. There I met my dashing husband and had no clue then that  I will end up marrying him. At that time my father had moved back to KSA but this time it was to Riyadh, we all used to visit him at least twice a year and yet again I didn't know what this city had in store for me.

   Flash-forward 9 years, I got married and moved to the one and only Riyadh. So for those of you who won't bother doing the mathematics it means that I've been married for almost 16 months now. But I used to work until May of 2015 so being a housewife is a fairly new experience to me. And I'm doing the very best I can to enjoy it.

   As I mentioned earlier I got married and moved to Riyadh-KSA with my husband, because for me being married and apart is not an option and definitely not the kind of marriage I want to be part of.I respect everybody's way of life, but for me personally I would not choose it voluntarily.

   The move itself did not bother me that much, nevertheless it is still hard at times. Specially  when I look back at my life and realize how different it was from what it is right now, and good different let me just add. It's just a different kind of different that's all.

   Now due to the fact that I currently have a lot of free time at my disposal, I started to write down my thoughts.
Useless as it may for others, yet still everybody around me kind of encouraged me to start a blog and write away all these thoughts to share with the world. The top 2 supporters are my wonderful husband and my fabulous cousin.

   I'm not quite sure what I'm going to share with you, but most certainly just some random thoughts and a look into the mind of a housewife.