Alive /əˈlʌɪv/

Whether you ask an English literature teacher about it or ask google. Whether you look it up in dictionaries or all the existent books on earth, you will find that alive has one meaning and one only.

Alive by definition “is living, not dead”

But see, although alive has one definition, which invokes a sense of happiness and joy, I just feel like that’s not true… I say, and you can quote me on that, you are WRONG!

Alive can have different meanings and can ignite different feelings depending on the context. How? Well, take a look.

When said by a doctor, alive is wonderful news. “The surgery went perfectly well, the patient is alive and stable”.

But this is just one of many cases.

If a cop says to a woman who tried to kill her husband because he kept interrupting her while she was watching her Turkish series, “Ma’am, your husband is still alive, and he’d like to get a divorce”, then that definitely does not scream joy, happiness or blessing to me…

Well, what if you were a coroner, and while you were getting ready to “work” on a corpse, you discover that that corpse… is STILL ALIVE?!
-Coroner left the chat-

And these are few of many situations where alive can mean different things, at least to the person saying or hearing that word.

Now, why did I choose “Alive” to be my first Word of The Month? Is it because I’ll be trying to go in alphabetical order with my word choice? Maybe… But that’s not all.

How are you? How have you been?

I don’t know if it’s just me, but recently, alive has been the only right way to answer these questions.

Answering with good, okay, or fine would feel like a lie because I don’t think I am neither good nor fine nor okay. But at the same time, answering with bad or not good would also be somehow a lie, because, well I’m not “terrible”, I’m… alive.

I am still breathing, I still have a roof above my head, I can still afford to buy groceries, and I am thankfully not going to bed on an empty stomach.

I am going through difficult times, but at this point, who isn’t? I am trying to get a grip on the current situation, but who am I kidding? It’s impossible to do so.

Going into quarantine, we heard a lot of, “it’s time to make up for lost time” and “now is the time to do everything you’ve always wanted to do, but never got the chance to”.

We set up high expectations for ourselves, and we were expected to come out of quarantine fluent in 7 languages, professional chefs, with multiple online degrees and 50 kg less. And as good as that sounds, it’s easier said than done.

When there is a worldwide pandemic that is collecting more and more lives by the hour. When the country’s economic situation is crashing to the ground. When your academic future is on the line and you’re not sure whether you’ll have enough money to provide food on the table or pay the bills. When all of those things are happening to you or around you, I think you have every right to feel demotivated, and not want to do anything at all.

We are in survival mode. The least of our concerns is whether we can speak Chinese at the end of quarantine, or bake a 5-tier wedding cake. All we want is for the people we love to stay safe, for the world leaders to stop coming for the vulnerable countries, for humans to start being more human and for 2020 to take it easy on us because… I don’t think we can take any more hits!

There is no stability in the way we are living today. There is no right or wrong about how we’re feeling. The situation isn’t as easy as black and white. We are facing a reality, an unstable one, full of dreadful events, and our emotions are changing according to those events. In the morning, we might wake up feeling OK then we watch the news and we suddenly feel down, not OK anymore. We are going through difficult times, worldwide generally and in Lebanon specifically.

So, if I were to answer the question: “How am I today?” I would say:

I don’t know. I’m alive. Surviving. Trying to make it through the day.

This year has been an emotional roller coaster, it’s an ongoing ride and I think what I’m trying to say is, it’s okay not to feel okay right now. We feel impelled to feel joy sometimes because we only want to be “positive” and everyone around us keeps asking us to stop nagging, stop being pessimistic.  

But being realistic doesn’t mean we’re being pessimistic. One can be realistic yet have hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m going to end this by quoting High School Musical:

“We’re all in this together”

Whether we like it or not, this is the reality we’re living in. But luckily, we can support each other and get through it. So reach out. If you need anything, let me know. Let us know. We all need a helping hand sometimes. Let us help each other. Let’s show the world that there is still humanity amongst us humans.