An Overwhelming Meh

I woke up an hour ago, and I'm still trying to convince myself to get out of bed. I keep thinking about it logically. I should get out of bed. It would be good. I'd feel better if I did stuff. Any stuff. But I'm filled with an overwhelming ... meh.

That's all. Carry on, world.

The Writer's Voice entry

This blog post is my official entry in a writing competition called "The Writer's Voice."

Title: Fight for the Galaxy
Genre: MG fiction
Word count: 47,600 words

Query:

Orion Carrera never wanted to save the world, much less the entire solar system. But when the President of the Milky Way shows up at his dad’s auto repair shop, Orion learns his dad has been keeping secrets. Big secrets—like the fact that he is an intergalactic racecar celebrity, has saved the galaxy dozens of times, and goes a lot farther away than Texas when he says he’s away for business. And now the President of the Galaxy needs Orion’s dad one more time in a race around the rings of Saturn to keep the evil Antennites from annexing Earth’s solar system for their own nefarious purposes. And this time, Orion and his carefree older brother, James, need to buckle up and join the team. 

Orion has to face more than just his insecurities and fears along the way—he learns the truth about how his mother died, makes unlikely friends, and is thrust unwillingly into the limelight while the Antennites try to make sure Team Milky Way loses before the race has even begun. Things take a turn for the worst when Orion falls for one of the Antennites' traps, and it looks like the fate of the solar system depends on Orion learning that sometimes it’s okay to break the rules.

First 250 words:

      I should have known my dad had a secret. I should have seen the signs but I didn't. Not until the truth flew out of the sky and hit me on the head. You're probably thinking that's just an exaggeration, but it's not. Seriously, it flew out of the sky and hit me on the head. It hurt, too.
      It happened on the last day of 6th grade. Everything started out pretty normal: cold breakfast, classes, and a long wait for my brother to pick me up after school. He was late, as usual, so I was reading a book on the grass. Everyone else was gone already except for a couple guys kicking a soccer ball around and some girls giggling together. I tried to ignore them, which was pretty easy since they were acting like I didn't even exist. I glanced up and saw a cloud of dust rising in the distance. Somebody was driving through the dirt roads in my small town way too quickly, and I had a feeling I knew who it was.
      Sure enough, the crazy dust storm headed straight toward the school. A minute later, a silver convertible materialized and skidded to a stop in the parking lot. The car was beautiful: a vintage 60's Jaguar in mint condition. The soccer players stopped and stared at it. "Nice car," one of them muttered to the other. He was right--the Jaguar was extremely valuable and my dad had spent months restoring it.

Losing Faith

Everyone knows how difficult my past year has been as I made the impossible decision to get divorced. But there has been an even bigger source of pain in my life that I kept carefully hidden away. Today I am ready to share it with the world.

For many years, I have struggled with what I believe. Doubts constantly crept in and I spent hours on my knees in heartfelt prayer asking God what I was doing wrong. Why couldn't I get the testimony that I wanted? I was living my life exactly as I was supposed to, but the promised blessings didn't come. I searched my soul to understand what sin was causing me not to believe. The guilt was tremendous.

Then came the fears. What if it all really wasn't true? What if there was nothing after death? What if this is the only life I will really ever get? To someone who has always lived with the promise that this life really isn't important in the eternal scheme, losing the comfort of an afterlife was terrifying. I had a lot of anxiety attacks where I was afraid to fall asleep at night because I didn't know if I would ever wake up.

I struggled and prayed and felt terrible until I had given 1000% to the effort. Last year, crying on my knees, I finally realized how empty I felt. I had nothing more to give. So I looked at the situation practically. If God exists, He wants me to live the best life I can in whatever form I can and he KNOWS I have given 1000% to try. If I go to hell, there is nothing more I can do to stop that. But my religion also teaches that even sinners will go to heaven--just a lower form of heaven. I'll tell you something: if I die and find out there is life after death, I will be so thrilled to EXIST that I won't care what form of heaven I go to. That's the bottom line.

I handed my temple recommend to my Bishop about a year ago and have been gradually trying to live with the pain and uncertainty that comes with my lack of faith. I feel like I have lost everything. I lost all my comfort, my world view, my self identity, the socialization of my amazing neighbors, and soon I will have to tell my children. I am devastated to think of how their opinion of me will change.

I remember how I viewed "apostates" as a child. They were some kind of other species--one that couldn't be trusted or understood. They were the worst people in the world to my young mind. I'm scared my children will reject me, even though I'm exactly the same person I was before. I'm just more honest and more  true to myself. I feel like, if anything, I am a better person now that I am not living a lie.

Sometimes I feel very close to God. And sometimes I think that is just my normal psychological reaction to the world around me. But I can say that those times when I feel close to God, I feel he is prouder of me now than ever before. I know that if God exists, He is proud of me for the life I am living. It is harder to live a good life without the promised blessings of a religion, but I am doing it. I think that counts for more. I'm not obeying laws just for the sake of a reward--I am living a good life because I actually believe that's the right way to live. When I told a Stake President about my doubts a few years ago, he looked at me with clear admiration and said, "I don't know if I could keep living that kind of life without a testimony." The validation I felt buoyed me up for a long time.

Still, this has been the most devastating thing in my life. Losing my religion and my marriage in the same year has crushed me. And no, they were not related at all. My husband knew of my religious concerns for years and was completely supportive of me in my search for truth. It was never an issue in our relationship then, and it is not now.

I find myself too stressed out to live a normal life right now. I feel like I've lost more than any person should have to lose in a single year. Losing religion is not like losing a house or a car--it's like realizing one day that you live in a world that makes no sense anymore. And people around you look at you distrustfully, as though you chose this path. It wasn't my choice. If I could force myself to believe, I would do it. In an instant. I want that comfort in my life. And that's why I want my children to be raised religiously. But I also want them to know that I will support them and not judge them whatever their beliefs--Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Baha'i.

I hope that some of the people who read this post will do the same for me--love me and support me through this painful time of my life without trying to quote scriptures, convince me of my mistakes, or judge me.

Facades

Broken plaster, peeling paint.

A permanently grey sky.

Sand and litter at my feet.

Defeat? Despair? Sorrow? Pain?

No, only facades.

The life is within.

Love, passion, hope, desire, friendship, respect, kindness, unity.

This is the pulse below the broken facades. Once you feel it, the shell disappears and only a vibrancy remains. This is the Egypt I love.

Cairo, ya habibi

Today is not a normal day. In fact, "today" is a term that I am using very loosely because I really have no idea how many hours this "day" has been. Maybe 24? 36? Too many time zone changes to keep track.

I wake up, anxiety and anticipation mixing together in my stomach and making me jittery. I fuss around my luggage and grin a little as I think, "Today's the day. I'm going to Egypt." Egypt--that ancient civilization that has survived thousands of years, numberless changes of government, and history so rich that you can taste it in the air. That Egypt. I look out at my quaint, quiet neighborhood street in Utah. This street is only 10 years old.

A few hours later, I'm trying not to cry as I wave goodbye to my kids and my oldest boy hugs me for the fifth time and tells me he loves me. The next 20 hours are a blur of driving to the airport, boarding my plane, flying across the Atlantic ocean and landing in Paris. Paris would be a lot more fun if it wasn't cloudy. And if I wasn't stuck in an airport. Ce la vie.

As my second plane starts crossing the Mediterranean Sea, I can't help but feel giddy. I'm over Greece right now. Greece! Hey, that's Alexandria down there! I'm over Egyptian soil! The plane lands and it has not escaped my notice that I'm in a country--alone--with several million people who speak Arabic. I speak English. It will be okay, I say to myself, insha'allah. God willing. I have promised myself that I will stop being an uptight American for two weeks and I will live the life of an Egyptian. That means being flexible, not expecting efficiency, and letting things happen in a very organic way. Which is, to say the least, not my way.

The first thing that hits me as I step out of the plane is the dry, musty scent of Cairo. It's not unpleasant at all, just slightly different from what I'm used to. The second is the language barrier. I walk into the airport from the plane and have no clue where to go. One sign points toward the luggage claim to the left and I'm pretty sure I have to get my luggage before I go through customs, but nobody is going that way. People seem to be standing around in a line marked simply "Passports" on the right by some booths that are currently unmanned.

I see something that looks like a help desk and ask for help in English. The man tells me to go to the right, so I go right. After waiting in line, the man who has shown up to deal with the line tells me I needed to buy a visa before coming into this line. He points me in the right direction and I step out of line as approximately the entire population of some small country streams through the doors and the line I was just standing in quadruples in length. Okay. No problem. It will be fine, insha'allah.

Forty-five minutes later, I am officially on vacation in Egypt with luggage in hand, scanning the crowd for a familiar face, a face I've known for ten years online but never seen in person. Then suddenly, there he is smiling and hugging me and everything in the world is right. Another one of my friends is there, too, and I hug him before we head out to the parking lot. Cars are parked haphazardly all over the place but my friend's car is nice and clean, so I feel comfortable. Until he starts driving and everything my sister told me about Egypt is suddenly real and not exaggerated at all.

Cars drive, literally, anywhere they want. As long as you honk loudly, you can apparently create whatever lanes you need at the moment. Street paint is unnecessary because the traffic weaves like a river, sometimes three lanes, sometimes four, with motorcycles squeezing through the smallest cracks between honking and swerving cars. My jaw drops as I see pedestrians darting into the road and hopping between lanes like a Frogger game.

We stop at a mall for some dinner and I feel at home in the modern-looking structure, full of cars and shining lights. I eat a dinner of chicken kebab and rice and then head to the restroom, where I get my first reality check that no, Toto, we really aren't in Kansas anymore. A woman hands me a small amount of toilet paper and I look through the stalls. Several of them are broken and the one I end up in does not live up to American standards of cleanliness. But at least it's not a pit toilet and I have some toilet paper. Good enough. As I leave the restroom, I look up and see the ceiling of the mall patched up in several places and jimmyrigged with various materials.

An hour later, my friend has created a parking space for himself outside my hotel and I'm checking in. The manager I spoke to on the phone two days before is standing at the counter, waiting for me to arrive. He has upgraded me to a beautiful room with a view of the Nile, Tahrir Square, and the famous Egyptian Museum. Everything is breathtaking and I have hard time pulling myself away from the view to meet my friends again in the lobby.

"Do you want to go to Tahrir Square?" they ask me, knowing that yes, of course I do. I'm writing a book about the Revolution of 2011 and I won't be persuaded to stay away. I didn't think I'd go on my first night, in the dark, on foot, but it will be fine, insha'allah. They take me by the arm and we hop out into traffic, cars honking at us and braking. We don't die, which is all I can ask.

The police (I assume) have set up a barricade all around Tahrir Square  so that no cars can enter. As we step through piles of sand that have somehow accumulated in this spot, I see tents dotting the higher parts of the traffic circle that is Tahrir Square. All around us, groups of two and three young men wander around, looking vaguely discontented but not at all threatening. Signs all around the middle of the square proclaim love for past leaders before the days of Mubarak and Morsi. Small shrines honor those who have died in the 2011 revolution and the disaster at Port Said last year. Small tables are set up to sell tea, and one tantalizing street vendor is selling something that smells divine.

"You'll get sick for sure," says my friend cheerfully, pointing at the food. I nod sadly, knowing it's true, but still tempted by the spicy scent wafting toward me. We walk all around the square and a group of three street children saunter up to us, asking for money. I refuse to look at them, like all the guide books suggested, because engaging with them will only encourage them to beg more. But my heart is stripped open as my friends explain they have never known their parents and will live on the streets probably their whole lives, one day being the tea vendors behind the small tables. I think my own children would survive about two days here.

My friends smile and laugh with the kids, though, eventually handing them a small coin and telling them not to bother us again. The kids walk away grinning, giving some cheeky reply that makes my friends laugh. Even the poorest Egyptians can smile and laugh. I wonder why Americans who have everything have such a hard time feeling content.

My friends want tea, so we sit along a small wall as a young man and a child prepare it for them. A slight breeze stirs the air around me and my friends ask if I'm cold. No, I'm sweating just a little in my black sweater. At home in Utah, the weather is below freezing and snow is on the ground.

"This is the best tea in the world," my friend tells me as the tea vendor tells us to stand up so he can change the rug that is draped across the wall. Even here in Tahrir Square after midnight, people are hospitable and anxious to please. This is Egypt.

My friends take me by the hand and insist on sheltering me against oncoming traffic as we run through the streets again to my hotel. I ask them to walk me inside and I give them each a Pepperidge Farms chocolate chip cookie that I brought from Utah. They hold their cookies lightly between their fingers, inspecting them somewhat suspiciously before risking a bite. They chew their cookies thoughtfully and I'm not sure what they think. Maybe they're being polite--after all, Egypt is known for their delicious desserts--but my friends seem to sincerely enjoy the cookies after they get used to the flavor. I offer one to a hotel employee and he accepts readily. I'm pretty sure I'm not the average American tourist.

Back in the hotel room, it takes me an hour to figure out how to get both electricity and an internet connection to my computer. I call my kids to let them know I'm safe and I love them. Then I collapse into bed, the distant cacophony of honking cars and Arabic music lulling me to sleep.