Feeling Homicidal...

Nearly a week later I still find myself locked in this house of madness. The high point of the day is getting to escape for a few hours on the excuse of getting groceries.. No sooner do I get in the car and pull off before I start a maddening frenzy of text-ing and making calls to make up for the time of signal restriction within the walls of the bloody house.

No one in the family seems to get why I hate AD so much. They only see material. I am the one who seriously doesn’t get them though. They act like they’re coming from years of being stranded on some desolate island deprived of all luxuries – which they certainly have not. I wouldn’t mind it I guess, though it bothers me to be related to such folks, but they aren’t satisfied being materialistic to their hearts’ content alone. They want bigger and better, which in some screwed logic means picking up and ripping everyone to AD. When I say ‘ripping’ I mean that literally. Being ripped from your ‘home’ and friends.. That’s what they’ve been doing to us from the time we were kids. It got to a point where I stopped bothering with people altogether. By the time I was 13 I had had enough. Really what was the point of making friends or getting close to people who you’d just be expected to leave barely a year after you met them? It might be understandable if one’s parents are employed in the army, traveling physician program or diplomats of some sort but when they belong to no such occupations and move around like Bedouins without direction for no apparent reason it’s frustrating to say the least. So after 5 consecutive years of it I had decided enough was enough. I was already a very shy person and it took too much effort to try and make friends to have to leave them behind almost as soon as I had warmed up to them. I stopped trying. Stayed at home 99% of the time and it was to good fortune that internet was increasingly becoming a popular thing with the people. The parents got it and it became my savior, companion and best friend. Online bonds were a hella lot easier to start, maintain and truthfully lots more fun. We moved around quite a bit at that time as well but I always knew my online friends would be waiting where ever I went and all I had to do was unpack the computer and assemble it. I made the mistake of getting to like a real person during that time. She was one of those types of ppl that made u feel really special. Next thing I knew we weren’t just moving to a different state but all the way OVERSEAS. I knew of UAE cuz I had met some locals back in the states but they were all pretty snotty boring folk. Mother was talking pretty enthusiastically about going. I questioned if it were so great then why the hell were so many of them kicking it in the states? The worst was the plane ride over. I hated planes not to mention I kept thinking of all the things I had to leave cuz we couldn’t bring them and the folks didn’t deem them as worthy enough to be shipped. The plane ride seemed excessively long. I had a window seat but the person beside me was some random stranger. Mother kept calling me to her seat, sheesh I can’t even remember what for now. But after a few goings and comings the random stranger that had to keep moving so I could get back to my seat snapped and barked at me about staying put or not coming back. I sat, thankfully mother didn’t call again, turned my face towards the glorious window, which only showed layers of dark clouds with stars in the distance, and cried. That stranger beside me was busy getting drunk off of the free alcohol on board so I doubt she noticed.

Once we got here, I decided there was no way I could stay. I’d have to go back at all costs. I’d have stayed with the uncle or grandfather. I didn’t care as long as I didn’t have to stay in UAE. I got to work on my high school books thinking that might be the only way, finish HS get to go back for College since it would have been free and all and who the hell wanted a degree from UAE anyway? After a week I realized that wasn’t going to get me out fast enough. Observing the surroundings I decided a much faster way would probably be to insult Shaykh Zayed (Allah yarhamhu). I came up with pretending to be mailing a letter out full of unflattering words about him (not sure why I thought they opened all letters at the post office and scanned them before letting them go to their destination).. Didn’t’ take me long to realize I’d probably end up in jail before I’d get shipped to the states. The thought wasn’t appealing. In the end I figured if I kicked up a big enough fuss and made mother’s life hell I’d get kicked back for sure. I put up a pretty good fight, made myself sick in the process. By that time I ended up meeting some pretty ok folks and the parents managed to secure stable net by then. Two years passed and I found myself getting comfortable. No sooner did that feeling of comfort come before there was talk of picking up and moving to AD. Mother was against the idea, but the father said it was either to AD or Musr. Neither sounded appealing. Praise the Lord he sobered up and forgot the idea (after we had packed up the whole house). A year later he was talking of moving again. This time with no set place in mind. The reason: he had told one of his acquaintances from the states that was coming over with his family that the guy could have our house (even though we hadn’t been planning on moving). So now to save face (or correction, his face) we were going to have to up and leave. It was pretty traumatizing, we packed up again (this time mother decided she needed to visit her folks in the states so she wasn’t even around for the packing of the house). Me and H were left with that job to do alone, lucky for us some of our friends came to help. In the end, that guy came and decided he didn’t like UAE so he turned around and went right back to the states. We had packed up the whole house in a matter of days (with virtually no sleep) and in the end it was for nothing. 2 years later (in which time I had started making friends my own age) there was talk of moving out the country again. This time to Yemen or Musr (Before anyone asks…yes my folks do have deep issues and a very unhealthy obsession with moving about). Praise the Lord that didn’t happen! We just ended up moving around a bit but thankfully it was still in sharjah. We moved near the Ajman border. I really took a liking to that house despite knowing how fickle the parents are. Sometime around the beginning of last year the father got a flat, then a house in AD. Everyone rushed up there to go check out this “new” house. They came back days later raving about how great it was and telling me what I missed. I couldn’t careless. I had been dragged up there once when the flat was gotten and decided I hated the place. To make a long story short I knew what would come of the obsession over the AD house my dumb folks were going thru. H and I tried to talk sense into the materialist blind folk but in the end it fell on deaf ears. Plots and plans were made and next thing we knew the house in sharjah was yet another tally in our book of homes past. By some miracle we managed to bum out this long in the flat in sharjah, but it seems now that my brothers have finished out this term at school they’ll be shifting to AD this fall. Now we are all (that would have naturally meant me and H since we were the only ones in the family opposed to the idea) expected to break ties with everything sharjah related and high-tail it to AD. Enough is freakin’ ENOUGH! I’m tired of seeing moving boxes, I’m tired of having to leave friends behind and being expected to just start over! H took matters into her own hands (this move being partly the reason for her actions) and decided she was no longer going to go where ever the parents fancied but where she wanted to go. I applaud the kid. I really do. But it seems despite that the parents still haven’t learnt that ppl can only be forced around for so long. It’s quite the insult that they believe I’d give up everything in sharjah to move to AD just cuz they offer to pay for uni next semester and give me an allowance.. along with car etc..

My friend Z (she’s my doubles partner) sends me msgs almost everyday. I already miss her loads and reading her msgs makes me miss her even more. I can’t imagine trading seeing her at practice twice a week for anything in AD. The same goes for all the people, friends, acquaintances…heck even enemies back there in Sharjah that make it special. Some of those special ppl are probably reading this post (or rather will read it when I finally get to net to post this) and I just want to say that for as long as you guys remain in Sharjah, it’s the only place I can really call home.

(And Dear God, I think I have already started gaining weight thanx to the sedentary boring life AD provides. UGH. Maybe I’ll abstain from food and drink till I return to my beloved Sharjah.)