Whatever happened to time?

There was a time where I could sleep in almost every day, go to the gym after I woke up, hang out with all of my friends for a nice lunch and spend time doing what I liked doing. Since my first day in Egypt, these days are over! Not having an abundance of time has never been a bad thing for me, but time just completely vanished. I soon couldn’t sleep at all anymore, for the gym or any kind of fun activity there was no time left at the end of the day and my friends forgot what I looked like. As a result, for a few months I wasn’t feeling all that great! Yes, I was happy and satisfied, making enough money and all, but I was physically at the breaking point. Now, one job less, a new phenomenon has reemerged in my life, and it’s called “having time to live!”

I have increasingly come to realize that any career or money ambition is not worth killing yourself for. I had a fantastic job here in Egypt for the time I’ve spent here so far and for most of the time, I didn’t mind it was taking all of mine. With additional jobs, a boyfriend and a sister I occasionally wanted to see, and activities such as eating and sleeping everyone just has to do, my spare time for self-fulfillment was confined to like 20 minutes a day. My body faded away, my blog stopped happening and sleeping became such a waste of time I seemed to no longer be able to do it. Finally, I started missing that boredom I once hated so much.

Drastic measures had to be taken to prevent me from breaking. I did it for months, and now it’s time to step back. I got phenomenal offers to make my dreams come true in this country and I now made the time to make them happen. Success or failure is pretty irrelevant right now! The facts are that I thought I hated boredom and loved being busy but not even Zuckerberg keeps going without a weekend on the beach without his phone sometimes. And if he doesn’t, they pay him with a billion dollars not to. I don’t see no check in my hand for working my good heart condition away, so “most stressful country in the world” or not, Sina is at the end of the power reserve and there needs to be some charging before new juices can flow.

So in the end, all that boredom I blogged about last year actually had one major upside: it didn’t kill me slowly but surely. Maybe I’m just too weak, maybe I’m not as badass as I thought and maybe Egypt is more than just one size too big for me. But chances are that anyone would start fading away with numerous jobs spanning over about 60 hours a week, with really no actual time off ever. No boredom can’t work either! I have now enjoyed a good sleep and finally some catch ups with friends I hadn’t seen in weeks, and I feel something in my body that can only be described as energy: energy to start creating again, energy to laugh and have fun without worrying and energy to make those god damn dreams come true because I know I freaking can!

As a result, I thank the heavens for giving me what I asked for: no more boredom! But more so, I thank them for stopping me before those grey hairs on the right side of my scalp take over my entire head, before those pimples in my face ruined my otherwise perfect complexion and before my increasingly faster heartbeat caused some serious damage. To really make a difference in my health, Mamma’s booked herself a plane ticket to “no smoking land”, otherwise known as home, to finally recover from those ten months in Egypt that have truly shown that time is of the essence; the essence to survive this madhouse!