Catching Up

I think the best way to describe penning this post is to compare it to writing a letter (or rather an email to keep with modern times) to a friend after we haven’t been in touch for a while.

And it’s been quite some time since I last wrote any new material for Beyond Beirut, as I just didn’t know what to say.

I want to tell you that I’ve made some improvement on feeling better about myself, pursuing interests and hobbies,  losing weight, and just being an overall better person, but I’d be lying.

This is a long and tedious process where the results take too long to come on display.

It has been a struggle justifying to myself and the people around me why I have been feeling so down. After all, I’m supposed to be in a very good place right now since I’m in a loving and supporting relationship, making ground at work, and surrounded by great family and friends.

My support system

But I just do not feel fulfilled. And I believe that gives me every right to step aside and take a long, hard look at the way things are going, and even feel bad that the process nor the outcomes are what I had always pictured them to be.

At some point, though, I know I will get there. It may be long and tedious, but it is not elusive.

On another note, I haven’t been blogging much because my schedule got all jumbled up as we observed Ramadan. If you know anything about me, you know that I thrive on schedule and organization, and Ramadan was anything but that.

Sure, it was great to share meals with our families instead of eating at home alone every day. And sure you can’t help but feel a bit more dedicated to your belief system. But it was also extremely difficult for me that we were only staying at home over the weekend, while the rest of the week was split between both families. It felt to me that I was barely having enough time to catch my breath before having to hit reset and start everything all over again. So that left little to no time to actually sit down and write.

On a funnier note, this lack of staying at home and cooking made me miss my kitchen more than any normal person should. I need my meal planning and my baking adventures to keep me true to who I am. Things might not always come out looking exactly how I want them to, but I have fun in the meanwhile.

Fun is successfully hosting an iftar for a group of close friends

If there’s anything this absence from the blog has made me realize, it is that this blog was always meant to be about posting every single day. When I challenged myself to do it the first time around, it was a bit difficult, but as the months went by, I looked forward to that half an hour where I could just say what was on my mind, where I could force myself to be creative and to get out of a writing rut.

This is why I am going to challenge myself to do it once again. I may not have a wedding to plan or a house to move to, but I am  on this wacky twist of a ride that is called adulthood and I’m sure that makes for some interesting content.