امبارح كان عمري عشرين Or Do you belive in Life after 30?

فعلا مش فاكرة لما كان عمري عشرين. كل اللي فاكره أنه كنت في حالة من الذعر الوجودي لما خلصت الكلية و جالي اكتئاب لشهور بعديها. مكنش عندي أي فكرة اللي هيحصل و هيحصل ازاي. كل اللي كنت حاسه بيه أن أنا عند مفترق الطرق. لسه فاكرة آخر أيام امتحانات سنة رابعة و بعدين فجأة ذا نكست ثينج آي نو أز أنا عندي 30 سنة و لسه ما عنديش فاكرة عن الباذنجان. نوثيج. لسه مشتتة و ضائعة زي ما أنا مع الفارق آز أت أز نو لونجر كيوت. مايبي أت واز كيوت من ستين سنة فاتوا. بس دلوقتس أت أز نو لونجر كيوت

Is there life after 30? What happens when you turn 30? Should you start planning your own funeral? Or do you descend to gay hell?

Or maybe gay limbo?

I used to despise men in their 30s. I used to think that beneath that veneer of success they had no idea what they want to do with their lives, they are unsure of their needs and desires and they are just plain obnoxious by the very fact that they think they are at the peak of their existence and therefore have the right to torture the rest of us by their ostentatious display of “possibility”and “control”.

I kept asking myself how can anyone reach 30 and not figure what they want and how to do it?

Shouldn't some magical transformation take place once you turn 30 and suddenly all of the world realizes that you just turned 30 and places on a certain clear and solid path towards a 'fulfilled' existence?

Or a meaningful existence?

Apparently it does not.

I have a new found sympathy for people in their 30s.

I am 30 and I have no idea what the hell am I doing and I have no idea what the hell should I do to actually change what I am doing to get what to where I am supposed to be or should be.

I am not unsure about my desires or needs, I know what they are and I think I understand them but you never know what those desires or needs truly are unless they are actually fulfilled.

So until this moment, its just rhetoric.

I am aware of my desires and can articulate them (I think) and have no problem saying what they are.

But I am not sure once I get in the process of fulfilling them will they stay the same?

Will I stay the same?

I think that is the 30s wanking that I was pissed about.

But I am not wanking and I don't like wankers.

It is very unsettling feeling to come to terms with the fact that you are 30 and there is a certain expectation that you have many things in your life "figured out" - I hate that expression, while you are completely oblivious about what exactly is going on and how did you get there.

I have this compulsive itch to keep looking back and when I do, all I find is a trail of regrets.

This is really not the time to strut around in exuberance vivacity, flashing your sense of achievement and youthfulness.

It is a tumultuous disconcerting moment where regret (the past) meets confusion (the present) and create anxiety (the future).

Whoever said the 30s were fun?

Just the other day I was at one of the few gay haunts in Cairo, it was a Thursday night, every bitch in town was there. And then it struck me: I did not know 90% of the people in that room.

It was a very Jurassic Park moment. I felt ancient, large and extinct.

Somewhere in my mid-twenties I lost touch with the world and woke up to realize that that I skipped an entire generation of homos.

The twenty-something year old bitches are a complete mystery to me.

Not that I care, but if you are living in a very young population, the twenty-something year old bitches are the majority of society in general and gay community is no exception.

I was officially archaic and useless. I really felt I possessed the social skills of a mole shrew (pun intended), cthonic , blind, furry with fat hips.

 It didn't help that my sense of achievement was subterranean just like the mole shrews.

There was not just the sense of a 'generational gap', that I shared very little in my personal history with the crazy preteens taking over the scene, I had no desire to understand or relate.
Which is the first sign of being senile.

But that is issue for another post (why there is a true generational gap between those in their early reached adolescence in the late 90s and those who were actually born in the late 90s!).

There was the sense of being of unable to connect to the world around you because of a certain state of doubt. 

Doubt in your capacity to make the right decision having reached such age and still unable to make that decision.

Doubt in the possibility of having a meaningful relationship, having reached such age without having been part of one.

Doubt in fulfilling your potential (whatever the f*ck that means) having reached 30 and are still 'exploring' or 'experimenting'.

A lot of doubt that is not just an internal psychological drama, but rather the very physical condition of the context you are living in.

This is your brain on Cairo reality.

Welcome to the 30s in a place where half of what you want does not exist and the other half is a criminal offence!