Monotone

For a couple of years now my plan has been to spend a year in Egypt after I graduate from Texas. To learn Arabic, meet new people, get a more worldly perspective, boost my resume. I've looked at this experience as the next step in a process. 

Bachelor's, Egypt, Master's, PhD, respectable and knowledgeable human being who makes money and will die comfortably. That's been the plan.

Well here I am. I arrived in Egypt and started studying Arabic and meeting Egyptians and going to coffee shops and fighting with taxi drivers. Watching the sunset over the Mediterranean multiple times a week, snorkeling a shipwreck in the Red Sea, talking about politics. I witnessed Egypt's first ever democratic presidential election in it's extremely long and rich history. An election that could have destroyed the current stability in the country. All in the first month. This seems to be exactly what I want and need according to my plan. I even got accepted into the Master's program that I was aiming for, so the next stage is already set up for me. Perfect, right?

So why do I feel so in-genuine? Like a ghost of a person who's putting on a smile. I don't want to undercut Egypt, this place is great. It's beautiful and the people are friendly and there's so much to learn here. However I can't help but be underwhelmed by how I'm taking it all in. Everything that should be wonderful is coming up short and lack-luster. My heart, my passion, is somewhere else. It's been taken from me. I lost it and I don't know how to get it back. I've lost my ability to express, to feel and connect. The only way I can experience these things is through some distorted nostalgia, a transference of the past onto the present. 

Yesterday I went on a "safari" trip, which apparently translates to riding an ATV through the desert. When we reached a clearing surrounded by a band of mountains, we stopped to watch the sunset and take pictures. I stood still and took in the panoramic view of the Sinai, and felt for the first time like I was fully experiencing something. The sepia-toned landscape, the silence, the fleeting rays of light. At that moment, it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen in my life. I've seen the green, snow-capped Rocky mountains. The clear Caribbean, the violent Pacific. I've walked the streets of New York and Paris. I've sprawled out under thousands of purple and green Texas sunsets. These are breath-taking and beautiful things. But I maintain that I've never been more in awe than I was yesterday in that brown and barren land. Gorgeous in it's uniformity. 

I remember saying to someone, "this is my natural habitat". I assumed then that I only meant since my family is from the gates of the Sahara, this kind of place is in my blood. After a day, however, of letting that desert sink in to my mind, I don't think it's that simple. I was blown away by the desert and it's monotonous splendor because it is a perfect reflection of my current mindset and emotional state. Colorless, other than the sepia-toned nostalgia that continually washes over me and inhibits me from experiencing newfound beauty. The harder I look, the more seemingly endless the beige horizon. 

Although this post may seem... depressing, it feels more like a release. I know that this is going to be the hardest year of my life. I've never felt more lost and confused, but I think I need to feel like this. And writing this is helping me break down the walls that I've been hiding behind to shield myself from actually feeling anything. They're very tall walls. 

As I write this final paragraph I'm listening to a song that has made me cry very many times. It's the final song on a fantastically sad album. It's also the longest song on the album. I feel like I'm living the last and longest song on my first album. I want to start working on a new one, but at this moment I really don't have the material or know where to begin. But I guess that's okay. Because I have a feeling my sophomore effort will be something special.

-Angry T

"This is not the sound of a new man or a crispy realization, it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away. Your love will be safe with me."