Why it’s the good memories that last...

One could not have made more changes in their life than I did this month: within two weeks I changed my job and relationship status, I’m potentially leaving the country of Egypt to move to greater shores (literally!) and let’s say last month I had no intention to do any of that. While all of my decisions have been well thought through, graduation goggles suck. Why is it when I think about a job that sucked in the end I remember only the banter? And why do I get nostalgic over a relationship that unfortunately had very little future and was making everybody in it feel terrible about themselves? It’s because good things are much stronger than bad things, and we will forget the hurt, damage and irritation and remember only the fun, love and comfort.

I am not new to this phenomenon. I write diaries and the overwhelming theme that is gracing my diary of summer in Kenya 2010 is “There is nothing worse than Kenya!” Looking back though, all I see is the incredible things I got to do there. Living in Glasgow, I always thought there could not be a place as miserable as that rainy shithole, yet now, all I remember is my cozy bedroom (which I only call cozy because I forgot how physically painful it was to live in that icicle) and all of my lovely times with friends. Clearly, the memories of wishing to be anywhere but there have left my mind, and I seem to remember only the rare moments of awesomeness…

One of the biggest mysteries of my life is my sentiments towards Germany. When I’m there, I pray to God to let me get away: the horribly boring people, the pish weather and the constant complaining aren’t my favorite. Then I get away, all the time, and all I can think is “I’d die for a bite of Bratwurst”, and “geez, Germans are so funny!” In the end, I always have to reread my diaries where I am reminding myself why it sucks there. Every week or so I wrote the words “Sina, never forget to always avoid living in Germany!”, otherwise I’d forget! And still I always go back… It’s funny how something that is thoroughly unenjoyable becomes a beautiful memory in retrospect. Genuinely all break ups of anyone’s life are bitter (even if they’re bitter-sweet). If a couple decides to break up, the relationship isn’t good anymore, right? So why be sad? We still are, all the time.

Last week my favorite boyfriend ever and I broke up. Although he is like “oh my gosh, like such a good guy!”, we knew for a while the end was near. Mamma hates Egypt, and her lover was Egyptian; one can see where it would get problematic at some point! I can only speak for myself but the reason we struggled to finally calling it a day was the memories of our first meetings, the amazing times we had and the comfort we felt being together. I know I wasn’t alone with this feeling! The end of that relationship was not fun, and neither of us enjoyed it, yet all I could think about is how he left me notes on my bed when I went to work, how he sneaked a kiss in the street (that he could have been arrested for) and how he well and truly fought to be with me. In the moment of breaking up it was those moments I thought about, and not the evident struggles we were having and were always going to have.

I am happy that these things stick and the bad memories vanish. My favorite memory of Egypt, in fact, is and will always be the support from friends I received when I was evicted like a dozen times. I cannot physically wait until the memory of being evicted because of greedy and nothing short of criminal landlords is no longer predominant. And maybe, just maybe, the worst time of my life aka my stay in Egypt will become a nice memory in which I remember weekends by the beach, a job that was hard to exceed in fun and falling in love. And much later, I would hope that on my deathbed I’ll have completely forgotten the hardships that are really much more frequent in quantity than the good stuff, at least in the last few years. Good thing my memory sucks…