Today I turn 21, and what a time for one to be alive.
Today I will have officially lived 20 years, and survived the past 1.
Yes. This past year has been a year of pure survival. Happiness was not an option, resting was not a choice. For the past year, I could do nothing but try to survive this ugly and atrocious reality called life. Every day is a fight. Against what? Against who? No one knows. We are fighting an absurd that we can neither see nor touch, but whose traces are non-erasable. This past year has made it clear that time waits for no one, and life cuts you no slack.
This is how my, and lots of others ‘year went by.
First came the Lebanese protests, then raging fires, then we feared a third world war would break and then, there it was, the start of a worldwide pandemic. We thought this year couldn’t get any worse, we thought we had seen everything. But the universe found a way to prove us wrong.
Just imagine…
Imagine hearing a 6-year-old boy telling his mom, “I don’t wanna die!” while covered in dust and shattered glass.
Imagine hearing, “I was talking to her through video call. I could see the fire. I could sense something was off. I told her to run. She ran as fast as she could. She ran as far as she could. But…”
–The fiancé of a medic who was sent to her own death-
Imagine how a young man felt when his brother told him “See you soon” before he left the house only to never make it back home.
Imagine how it feels hearing your beloved capital “declared a disaster city”
Are you done imagining?
On August 4th, at 6:07 p.m., Beirut- Lebanon, that turned into reality. You never expect to see yourself in a position where, the slightest sight of smoke scares you to death because you fear a blast will follow. You never expect to run away from your window fearing for your life when the door shuts close violently. You never expected a capital to be destroyed within seconds. You did not see it coming. But who could blame you? We were all oblivious.
So what has this year made me realize?
All it takes is one split of a second and a whole life can just disappear; vanish into thin air. It is gone just as easy as blowing off some dust. That is a little too heavy to process. We go to sleep everyday not knowing whether tomorrow is at reach, whether our eyes are going to shut close forever, whether we are going to lose someone, or someone is going to lose us. We go to sleep not knowing what tomorrow holds, and that is some scary shit.
On August the 4th, all it took was one split of a second to end the lives of hundreds, injure thousands, and terrorize an entire population. All it took was one split of a second to leave a long trail of broken hearts, aching souls, shattered people and a demolished city.
All it takes is one split of a second, and the world you previously knew is now a memory. A place of mourning. Either someone is mourning you, or you are mourning someone. Either way, the world in which you now exist is a changed world or the person you now are is a drastically changed person. Either way, you have suffered a loss.
Is it just me, or did you have this “conversation” with yourself a lot during this year? If I were to die today, I would be so disappointed. Why? Well, because, I have a lot of loose ends that were left untied, words that were left unspoken, dreams that were still dreams, opportunities that were left untaken, and so much more.
2020 is almost over and it has brought to this world an immense load of pain and suffering. How does one find hope in such a reality? How does one survive while everything around them is being destroyed? This month, hell…, this year has been a lot to handle and it feels like this is merely the beginning of a downhill ride. One that will leave behind many more broken souls and will cause a lot more destruction along the way. One that somehow seems to get worse as it goes.
It takes one split of a second to destroy all the hope that was in one’s heart, one split of a second to dim one’s light, but it takes so much more to get that back.
At a time like this, the only thing one can do is hold on as tight as possible to that shred of hope, with the hope of not losing it. We are but a speck of dust on this planet, one that can go away so easily. Guess we have to try to get through whatever is going on and make every second of our lives count. But the real question is, how?
I guess what I’m trying to say is, happy birthday to me… ?