Blind Eye

I’m not sure how it started. But he was arguing that one cannot live in a world of their own, because there is no such thing. I thought that one could, because I do. I wake up every day in my “I have turned a blind eye” mood. I wake up in the morning, every working day, disregarding what’s going on in my house. I take a deep breath and act as if I’m leading the life I’ve always wanted-for now. I get in the car, check the rear-view mirror; hair-check, sunglasses-they match, lip gloss-when I get to work. Then I drive.

Or I escape. In the car, there is no screaming. In the car, I’m not over-weight. In the car, my English is good enough and in the car I get all the attention.

From Mokattam to Agouza is a long drive. When I’m driving, alone, I feel like I’m in control-which I obviously am- but I mean of my life-or its miniature. I play my music- I either drown my senses into Om Kolthoum’s finest or random pop music. I am sometimes a classy Egyptian who is too Egyptian for her work place or sometimes a perfect hybrid who’s assumed they actually know where they stand in life. And sometimes I am both. And whoever I am, I am in a world of my own.

I could be in a world of my own but the question is,am I the only one shaping it? There is probably no straight answer to that question but I believe that the concrete reality of someone’s life is never the reality they truly live, the always live the one it appears to be; the one in their heads.  It is only when someone metaphorically lends you the lens through which they view life that you can actually live a life other than your own-or at least see the preivew.

Sometimes, I want to remain where I am, stay put. No borrowing, no lending. I just want to get to work and go back home and maybe tomorrow the world I’m living in will change.