everything is the same (except the world has changed)

navigating the in-between

I haven’t been sleeping well, like most people. I keep having bad dreams. My bad dreams are the same ones I’ve always had. Nonsensical, pressing the “down” button in an elevator that is nowhere near stopping. Clammy fingers pressing an alphabet soup of buttons. It’s funny that my dreams have not evolved to match current events, neither in their content nor in their urgency.

I worry a lot. Didn’t I always? But now the worrying has taken on another, sharper edge. I worry not only for myself but for the world. My worry is not limited to myself. There is an adorable and lovely Lebanese food TikToker I have been following for two years who pops up on my “For You” page.

“People are asking me why I stopped posting,” he begins apologetically, smiling weakly. “I’ve just been feeling bad. Everyone has been feeling bad.” I realize, that for the first time since Covid, my anxieties have taken on a universal form. Now, however, they feel more devastating, more urgent. War is not like Covid. It doesn’t care if someone is young or old, taking precautions or not. The cure is out of our hands. I know this worry might only apply to the Middle East, but that feels like as big of a slice of the Earth as there ever would be. In any case, even when I look back on my years in Boston, where I still wore dara3as in Ramadan and bought labneh from Whole Foods, I realize that the Middle East still is the only world I’ve ever known.

I am watching TikTok in my bed, and so I should feel like nothing has changed. In many ways, nothing has, and we can thank God for that. But the things we have long ignored have, like a nightmare, shaken us from our slumber. The beasts of imperialism are as alive as they have ever been, and they are real and hungry. And as technology and industrialism makes it feel like the events of the world are moving at lightning-speed, we realize that what we thought would come decades into the future is on its way to our doorsteps and taking all prisoners. The Armageddon I watched YouTube videos about at ten years old, past my bedtime and biting my nails to the quick, no longer stares back at me through the grainy screen of a Dell laptop. It is on the television, and it has claimed the lives of 70,000+ innocent Palestinians, 2000+ Lebanese people. People in Kuwait who could have been our neighbors or friends.

So yes, I still have nightmares. The same ones. I still wake up in the morning and drink my coffee and go to work, except my work is now done online. I still check Instagram, except now I am looking for news more than anything. I still watch TikToks, but seeing the faces of people I’ve cheered on mourning the things they’ve lost leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. I still pray. I lift my hands to the sky and ask that tomorrow might be better than today, that peace may be around the corner. Not just for myself, but for all the people who deserve it, which may be every human being, every animal, every daisy that sprouts from the dirt of spring. I used to pray for things to change, and now I pray for things to go back to how they were. Isn’t that funny? You get a glimpse of your parallel life, a different reality, and all you want is to go back. You charge on towards the future, but you know you will always treasure the bliss of the past.

The world has changed. I have changed. I wince at every loud sound. I look at stray cats and wonder if they’re sleeping through the night. I look in the face of every person and wonder if they are scared. And these changes aren’t even really changes, but so much feels different. Or maybe what’s mostly different is me.