Impending nuptials have a way of seeping into the psyche of the parental layer of your inner circle. I get asked if I’ve found someone, if I’m talking to anyone new, if I’m “on the apps.” This, coming from your friend’s relatives, is less awkward than you’d imagine. It is rooted in good intentions but, time after time, it does weigh on you.

 

The accidental, additional pressure is intensified because I think about it too. I contemplate if my gut shouldn’t be trusted when I feel this match isn’t mine, if I wasted too many nights not making it my active mission to find my boo, if I’ve been doing it all wrong from the start. But you’re not allowed to voice concern on this search yourself because you’re a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man. And yet, those around you interfere and worry for you because you’re a strong, independent woman who, god forbid, don’t need no man.

The life I am proud of is like a case of beer with one bottle missing. How do you find that person that fits in with all the other bottles of your life? I have been assembling my crate for three decades. If I’m to make room for another bottle to complete my set, it needs to be a Limited Edition 200th Anniversary Guinness. I don’t actually care much for beer but the metaphor sticks: in order to accommodate their existence in the case that is your life, it needs to bring added value to your entire collection. I have been told that seeking this obscure Guinness is expecting too much. Are you destined to do it alone and fill that void with bubblewrap instead? Isn’t it still a void if filling it with an empty Corona doesn’t really make your box fuller in effect? Can you tell I’m working on a shipment of alcohol?

“You’re too picky. You’re too smart. Your standards are too high. You need to readjust your expectations. You’re picking crappy suitors. You’re not trying. You’re trying too hard. You need to put yourself out there. You need to stop and focus on yourself. You’ve got time. Stop thinking about it and it’ll happen. Aslan ma fi shabeb bil balad.”

I wonder about this gap because I’d like to buy the dual-pack of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for two. If I excise this wondering and assume that I’m destined for one box of Cheerios for as long as I walk this earth, have I carved out a vital organ from my torso? Does it mean I have one less badge from the girl scout sash of what I’ve accomplished? Does it affect the measurement of how much I’ve lived?

I want someone who knows buying throw pillows “to put on the guest bed” actually means they’re for building a sturdy fort on the balcony. I want to find the stabilizing Karen to my off-balance Hank Moody. I want to find my complementary dork and I’m not denying that. I want to share my porch swing but I’m not willing to strike a Faustian bargain in order to find a mate.

 

 

It has led me to this thought: it may not be in the cards for me. It could be that I’m supposed to be alone. I don’t say it as a cry for pity or from a feeling of running out of time as a result of turning 30, that societal deadline of expected self-establishment. I don’t say it out of fear of being the only name on all the wedding invitations to come. Accepting this as my possible status quo from now on is healthier than wondering if something is missing whenever a friend’s mother asks if I’m still single. Right now, I am alone.

Except I’m not.
My case is pretty full, lhamdilla, and I’ve always liked bubblewrap.

Well, for about 4 months at least.

When I moved here in December of 2000, I was a distraught preteen pissed off that I was being dragged away from Laguna Beach. A visit to Jbeil opened my eyes to a part of my identity I hadn’t yet explored. There was something very soothing about the ruins there; I was just a kid then but I remember being overcome with a sense of belonging. Ever since that gloomy day over sixteen years ago, Jbeil has been a special city for me because it felt like the beginning. There was so much I still didn’t know about who I was, about who I am.

In my quest to figure out where and how to secure a balance between my personal and professional life, I’m prepping for a move back to the golden coast of California. The last few trips there have exacerbated the curiosity to pitch a tent in my other homeland. For the last two years, I couldn’t get myself to leave Beirut (read: Wesley’s) to do it. But now, Dadboss & I have devised a plan where I can volley between the two worlds to grow the business, and live alone as a side effect. This arrangement was what I was trying to formulate unknowingly: a logical justification for leaving that allowed me to stay involved yet detached enough to blossom solo versus hopping on a plane to literally and figuratively find my-unemployed-self somewhere on the coast of the Pacific. This is a solution to the plague of confliction that I have tried to wade through every time I’m about to leave or return to the Mediterranean.

Being a dual citizen creates an itch to explore the options of both lands and I’ve yet to see what it’s like to be an adult in the US. That itch has been a roadblock for me; it’s been there sparkling in the back of my mind, tickling my optic nerve whenever Beirut’s giving me an aneurysm. Whenever the car horns get too loud, whenever the parliament decides to be indecisively ineffective, whenever I can’t find my damn socks in the sea of laundry that is my family home.

Oh, your life is SO hard.

I am not oblivious to the fortune bestowed upon me. To have options and the ability to even entertain flight and relocation is not granted equally across the board. Over a decade & a half in Lebanon and people make it sound like you’ve paid your dues by sticking around when you could’ve left sooner. It’s upsetting that living here is equated to a light prison sentencing of some sort. I will firmly state that choosing to stay in Lebanon is not a choice that should be pitied nor should it be labeled as playing it safe by remaining in a comfort zone. As a young careerist, there is this “cap moment” though. It’s when you feel like you’ve soaked up all you could from this place, when you feel like you’re a big fish in a small pond, and you either need to move elsewhere or embrace that status as a blessing. It could be an inherently Lebanese attitude, born thinking that we’re intended for bigger things. The restlessness has pushed so many of us out. We all know the reasons people leave, I don’t need to reiterate them. The reasons for staying though have become harder to hang on to.

Making the jump across the Atlantic has felt like a selfish wish, a direction that seemed tantalizing only because of the honeymoon-length gasps of fresh air I would get whenever stateside. I’d rationalize that living in CA would not be like those quick visits, that it would get lonely, that I would miss my Beirut’s chaotically beautiful bullshit. But the older I get, the more I want to be sure. The more I want to know that I’m not wasting my time on reruns when I could be writing whole chapters to a brand new book.

Deep down, Beirut is mine. She is all I think of when away and all I want to talk about. But lately, when I’m with her, I feel like she’s not there with me, like she doesn’t care to lift me up, like she’s charging through the station into a wall and I’m left on the platform in the dust wondering where the emergency stop is.

 

As of end of May, I’ll be gone for the summer for the first stage of my bicoastal, bicontinental living situation. This short move, similar to my time in Barcelona but not as temporary or short-lived, will be the beta-testing ground for my desire to transplant to LA full-time. This will tell me if that’s where I want to be and it will give Beirut a chance to win me back. Either way, one thing is certain: Beirut will remain my muse, fueling all that I do and flavoring my days with the olive in my skin.