Be Forever Young… and You Shall Rise
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Forever young… I’ve believed in the meaning of these words and I still believe in them. I believe that no matter how old I get or how mature I become, I will keep my soul forever young. I will think of today and savor every minute of it instead of worrying about tomorrow and crying over yesterday.
I will keep on making errors and learning from them; I’ll keep on falling and getting up. I will keep on listening to people around me, sometimes to the young before the old. I will keep on thinking of how magnificent the skies look even when they are grey and spitting droplets of mud instead of sparkling with rays of sunshine. I’ll keep on trying to see the liveliness of Cairo’s people instead of complaining about the horns that never stop honking and streets that never empty of cars nor people.
‘Chin up’, I’ll tell myself and I’ll smile to the world every morning. I’ll remind myself that if I see the love in people’s eyes I’ll be able to look beyond the meanness of their tired expressions; and maybe I can live happier. I’ll keep my heart open to the truth around me instead shutting it away from the lies. I’ll try to remember that if I stop doing this I’ll only see and feel the dullness of the world crowding in on me.
That’s my vision of me.
But today I realized that I’d forgotten that… I felt totally alienated from the world. I felt I didn’t even know myself anymore. I couldn’t remember the last time I really wanted something and was really convinced that I did. I felt that my world had shrunk from around me and I could only find myself within it, and no one else. What was more is that I even found that that one person, me, that one person I thought I had and understood so well, was so small, she’d disappeared. She’d shriveled up through the years. That’s how I feel right now. I feel I’ve become old. Nine months ago, I was turning 19, I thought I had reached the epitome of life, I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I had finally tried it all and that I’d decided on my own path, with all it involves of people, decisions and experiences. I thought my falls had come to an end and that I would only rise higher into the skies, up the ladder I’d built myself with all the blood and gore it took to do so.
Yeah, I know it seems like such an exaggeration. But you see I also realized that everyone has a battle, and that was mine. It was that harsh for me. My falls cut into me deeply but I managed to get up bigger and stronger, just as the saying goes: what hurts you but doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger. The problem here was that just as I thought I’d reached the pinnacle of my success I’d actually also reached the tip of my failure; the beginning of my journey down towards an aging soul. That moment I lost a very valuable meaning to me, yet I only came to realize it today. Just a few months before my twentieth birthday, I realize that I lost the meaning I’d lived by. I lost it on that day, the same day I thought I had conquered its essence, its heart, body and soul.
My story simply means to say to you… if you want to be forever young,8 be prepared for a life of falls once and again. If you think you’ve reached the top, that’s when you’ve fallen your hardest fall. Be forever young, keep your soul alive, keep your heart open with love, look on the brighter side, keep falling and getting up, keep learning, make yourself bigger by making your world bigger. As soon as you only see yourself, that’s when your world shrinks, when you become smaller and older. Keep living the meaning and you shall rise. Be forever young and you will be so… you will be forever young.
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