Love

"I think that I would miss you even if I had never met you.", "You are my every thing and I am nothing with out you", "Life with out you means nothing to me", "No one will ever love you as much as I do and by being with me you will make me the happiest man in the world", "The joy that being with you brings to me is so much more than I have ever known", "You are the most beautiful person I have ever met, inside and outside", "I can not live a happy life with out you in it", "I know every curve of your face and every sparkle of your eye"...
The warmth and pleasure that these words bring to a woman is not measurable. These are the words that create tingles all over a woman's body, a rush of heat that fills her from head to toe, and brings flutter to her heart. It even manages to welcome a tear or two into her eyes. These are words that most women live to hear, wait for, long for, and dream of. Words that will make her give all of herself to the man who is presenting them to her, body and soul. Words that will make her weak in the knees and light in the heart.
Most women have heard these words spoken, said by men sincerely and lovingly. It has come from across the room through a little glowing box called television. Even though the words are not directed to them, yet it manages to still effect their body and mind by the rush of blood and the increased heart rate. However, all of these symptoms are followed by a number of alternate feelings. Feelings such as sadness, sorrow, hurt, and most of all, longing. Longing to hear these words spoken to them directly by a real live man. A man who is outside of that box in the flesh, warm and solid, sincere and in love with them. A man who truly means all that he confesses and will continue to always confess his love to her. She longs for the moment when he is looking so deep into her eyes with the least distance possible between their lips and the whispers of never ending, soul consuming, ever lasting love.
Yes, love, it is what women want, need, and desperately desire. They will commit to almost anything if they know that they will find the true love of their life. They will travel across the world, sacrifice friendships, over look family, and let go of their own individuality in order to reach the kind of love they believe really exists. The kind of love they see in movies.
In real life, how often have we seen a man chase a woman down a busy freeway on his motorcycle in order to stop her from leaving, like Mathew McConehy did? In real life, how often have we seen a man wait two years for a woman who he had never been with, as Keanu Reeves did? In real life, how often have we seen a man run in the snow across town to ask a woman to stay with him, as Dermot Melrhony did? In real life, how many times have we seen a man fly from NY to France to confess his love to a woman who had moved on, like Mr. Big did? Not often!
Even after these utterly romantic gestures, does any one ever think of what happens after the credits start to roll up on the screen? Is he going to continue to shower her with those lovely words? Will they live happily ever after or will he start to ask her to stop suffocating him and to leave him alone?
The damage that these movies present to women is severe. Women will believe that the dramatic and heroic love really does exist. Their hopes will be high and they will continue to search for the dream. It is sad when it only ends with disappointment, heart break, failure and sadness. He will not chase after you, he will not rehearse poetic words for you. And if by chance you are one of the lucky ones who finds a man who does act in such a way, know that it will end, he will stop. He will stop holding your hand, he will stop putting his hand on the small of your back, and he will stop cherishing your every move.
Just remember that it will not look like the way it does when it comes out of the shiny box right before the credits roll up!

The heart & the intellect

"The heart is wiser than the intellect". This is what was written as my daily horoscope. As I read on I could not help but to wonder if this saying is really true. When making a major decision in life, which should one go with, the heart or the mind?
Should I study Underwater Basket Knitting because I have a passion for it, or should I go to Medical School in order to make money and obtain status? Should I marry the guy with the job who will never cheat on me, or should I run away with the convict who makes my heart skip a beat? Should I take the stable job with the 401K or should I work in the African Jungle researching my interests? The decision must be made based on one question: Will I regret doing one as oppose to the other later? Because if any thing, we want to avoid the number one disaster in life: Regret!
It is the end of your life and you are thinking "I should have went for Underwater Basket Knitting, I would have been happier", "I should have settled and married the practical guy, I would not have gotten so hurt", "I should have gone to Africa, I would not have wasted my life being miserable", etc. There is no turning back the hands of time and you cannot go back and change a single thing. All you can do is regret your decision and wonder what it would have been like if you had taken the alternate road. Now that is painful!
So how do you know which road to take? Stay with your intellect and take the practical road or go with your heart and take the exciting way? How do you know which one will provide you with a happy life? You know! Deep down in your heart you know which road is the "right" road, being the intellect or the heart. It is your life, you know yourself, and therefore you know what road to take. No matter how much you may think that you are confused, if you take a long hard look at the equation, you will know. There is no straight answer between the heart and the intellect, because either one of them could be right in separate occasions.
Some may always take intellect's side, and some may always take the heart's side, but I am friends with both of them equally. I consult with them both and get their advise, and some times I do not even have to chose one and let the other go. Some times they go hand in hand.
Now I yet have to come to the end of my life to see how my decisions will turn out, but so far I think both intellect and heart have provided me with decent choices.
So no, I do not believe that the heart is wiser than the intellect, because if it was not for intellect I would have been a candy shop clerk married to one of the Nelson brothers.

Stranger

I would like to document this day, November 13Th 2007, as a significant day in my life. I did something this morning that I never thought I would do. Something that will place me in a different category of people than where I sat before. I did something which simply means a complete change in my character, personality, and way of life.
The time was this morning at about 8:30 a.m., the place was in my car. I was on my way to the Starbucks drive through before work, for my Double Tall Vanilla Latte. I did it. I programed NPR into my car radio!
I had never listened to NPR before. I put it in the category of boring, dull, who cares?, and whatever! I was more of a Kube 93 or KIIS 102.7 type of person, jamming to the tune of hip hop and R&B. I do not care about what is going on in talk radio I would think. What happened you ask? I do not know! I do not know how I reached the place where I was this morning. Mind you that NPR's voice only lasted for about one minute in my car before my patience ran out and the channel was changed to "On Air With Ryan Seacrets" where I hear all about the celebrity sleaze and plastic surgeries gone bad. But the point is that the person who even thought about listening to NPR, the person who even knew what station NPR would be on was not me!
I have to say that this is not the first out of character change that has stirred up in me these days. I have noticed some major differences in the person I call "me". Unbelievable, unexplainable changes which I never expected to occur in my lifetime. These are not changes that others warn you to expect with age, such as wrinkles, gray hair, fatigue, decrease of brain functioning, etc. These are major personality changes. I will provide you with some example: I have lost my love of chocolate and my love of shopping!! With out these two I was nothing, nothing I tell you! But a recent wave of cravings of fruit over chocolate has left me baffled. The fact that I leave the mall with minimal amount of shopping or even none what so ever, leaves me confused. This is not "me"! Who is this person? This fruit eating, non-compulsive shopper, NPR listening person is as unfamiliar to me as is a 98 year old Chinese man.
If you are waiting for a conclusion in this piece rationalizing, explaining, and summarizing who this new person is, how I became her, and why this happened, you will not find it here. All I know is that I am turning into a person who is a stranger to me and I feel that my body is being posessed by a whole new person and I'm not sure if I like her or not.

My favorite time of the year

As a person who was born into an Iranian family and was raised in a Muslim culture for the first 12 years of her life my next statement could come across as odd. Christmas is my favorite time of the year, as well as my all time favorite holiday. From the neighborhood light decorations to the music, from the liveliness of it all to the spirit that fills people's hearts, it all brings so much joy into my heart. These are all the things that I love and wait for all year. There is something about the aroma in the air that spreads cheer into every one's soul. It is the one time that people seem to be so happy, excited, and high spirited! This is the time when people let you take the extra parking spot, the time when others let you go in front of them in line. This is the time when bosses cut you some slack and the time when strangers smile and say hi to each other in the streets. The red, the green, and the gold, the beautiful decorations, the wonderful music that spreads goose bumps on my arms, and the old man with the long white beard, this time represents the word happy to me.
Yes, it is odd how this could be, when I never had a Christmas tree in my house, I never drank eggnog before, and how I never really believed in Santa! But I do share the spirit. The smell of chest nuts roasting on an open fire, the sight of mistletoe hanging on the ceiling, and the cookies and milk left on the table, it is not foreign to me.
I love the chilled air outside, fire burning hot inside, bundling up and playing in the snow, waiting for the day to come when you rise up to open gifts, and spending time with family and friends. I do, I love it, it makes me so happy! And I feel lucky to be able to celebrate holidays from two different cultures. I cant wait for Santa's arrival!!

I will forget

By reading my Glamour Magazine, I learn very important information such as "101 ways to dress my body better" and "12 things no one ever tells me about sex". In September's issue between "Should I get rid of my period?" and "What the celebs are obsessed with now" I stumble across an article about women in Congo. I wonder what the style for their fall season is? But as I read on my heart is crushed and I cannot hold back the tears as they roll down my face for the women I have never met. As I read on I learn about the rapes that are committed in front of the woman's family, the tortures such as forcing the woman to eat her own feces, the destruction of the woman's soul by forcing her to have sex with her own brother and killing him for refusing to do so. I read about the stories so horrendous that it will haunt me for days to come, stories that crush the women's spirits in order to make the men feel satisfied, powerful, and dominant.
I could not help but to think about the "problems" that are stress factors in my daily life, and compare them with the problems women are faced with in countries like Congo.
I say "I have gained five pounds and I have to go on a diet", they say "I had to walk from morning to dust searching for a way to buy a banana for my baby". I say "I wish my husband was more romantic and lit a candle or two", the say "I was gang raped and left for dead". I say "I will go for laser hair removal because I am sick of shaving and waxing", they say "my soul died after my vagina was mutilated with guns and sticks". I say "please take your shoes off when you step on my white carpet", they say "please do not rip my stomach open and yank my baby out". The list of I say, they say can go on, and the question it presents is how can life be so unfair? How can I have such a privileged life where my concerns are exercising enough and getting the bigger office, when others have to worry about losing their dignity, spirits, children, and life?
The sad part is that for the moment that I read the article, maybe for a few hours later, and possibly for a few days after I will think about these women and their stories. I will compare my own life to theirs and try not to take what I have for granted. But eventually I will forget about these women, their pains, their sorrows and their stories as I become once again entangled with the routine of my own daily life and my own story. Eventually I will forget about the women of Congo and I will go on with my life, stressing over why husband walked two steps ahead of me. I will continue to travel the same path I was on and I will continue to call my little nothings problems, that is the way this world turns.

The story of my nose

As I was sitting in the airplane looking out the window I shed the last tears ever shed for the loss of a certain part of my life. Later I would think of that exact moment as the start of a new chapter in my story book. The plane was still on the ground and I was leaving the country. I was alone and traveling to the other side of the earth. I had to go far and away in order to start fresh and to never look back. As soon as the plane accelerated on the runway my tears dried up and I never cried about that heartbreak ever again!
That summer I spent two months in my native country and that summer went into my book as the best summer of my life. It had been 7 years since my last visit to Iran, things had changed, and I had grown up! I traveled to many different parts of the country, I was reunited with my relatives, I visited with the friends who I had kept in touch with since elementary school, and I made new friends. Among all of those things there was one thing that I did which became a major decision/change/step/event in my life: I went under the knife and had a major surgery. It was called Rhynoplasty, or in simpler terms a "nose job"!
Growing up I never had a second thought about my nose, even after adolescence when the bone grew a little bump on top of the crown. It was a very small bump that never succeeded at bothering me. I definitely did not belong in the group of those who hated a feature on their face throughout their life and eagerly awaiting for the opportunity to alter it. When I was in Iran that summer I noticed all of the perfect noses, the bandages on many girls and boy's faces, and the fact that this procedure was so common. Yet, the thought of my own nose did not creep into my mind, It was never even considered. One day I found myself among a group of ladies who were deeply involved in a conversation about some one's nose surgery, and that is how it all started. Casually one of them looked at me and asked "Have you ever considered nose surgery"? I laughed and said "no". The second lady looked at me and said "I think it would suit you". I dismissed it at that moment, but a seed was planted in my mind which grew and grew to the point that two weeks later I was lying on the surgery bed. After that conversation I could not stop thinking about the idea. The amazing part was that I did not take much time to consider the idea and the very important decision was quick and with out ponder. The vedict was yes.
The first thing I needed was money, so I made a call to America. I explained the situation to my father and he said the sweetest thing to me. He said "We want you to be happy, so if you promise that when you come back home you will not see a certain some one any longer you may do this". With out hesitation I accepted since that was my plan. The money was given to me right away. Now I needed to find a surgeon. With some help from others and after 5 interviews I chose my surgeon and set the date. The date of the surgery was within two weeks of the planted seed!
I was driven to the doctor's office early in the morning. I did not experience any worry, anxiety, fear or doubt. I felt excited and ready. I had decided that I will stay awake during the procedure with only inducing numbness to the noted area. This way I will avoid the hospital. The way I did it was very similar to visiting the dentist but less painful. It was a regular office, a small and simple room with a single bed in the middle. I laid on the bed and was surrounded by the team: the surgeon, a nurse and an old man who was in charge of the numbness. They stuck an IV in my arm and laid a very thin cloth on my eyes where I could see the ceiling light through it. Then there it was, a shadow of a very large size needle, which penetrated twice on each side of my nose. That was the first and only severe pain that I felt until after the surgery.
During the procedure I had conversations with the team working on me, as I was laying on the bed. Meanwhile my face was ripped open and bloody. We talked about Googoosh, since that was the time she had just left Iran and was having her first concert in Canada. We talked about my major in school and whether I believed that the surgeon was "crazy" or not. I heard the crack of bone breaking, I heard the filing of the bone, I felt blood roll down my cheek and it being wiped off by the nurse, and I continued to swallow gulps of blood. At times when I felt uncomfortable, the old man would place his kind hand on my knee and stroke it; that simple act calmed me greatly. Within half an hour they were taking my hand and walking me to the next room. It was so fast that I mistakenly thought that they were taking a break and was worried about things falling out of my face when I stood. We were out of there within one hour!
The second and last time I experienced pain was in the car. During the time it took to drive from the doctor's office to the pharmacy the numbness wore off. The pain was so strong that I could not stop crying! My poor cousin was so panicked that he illegally parked the car (not too out of the ordinary in Iran) in front of the Pharmacy and ran back with those wonderful white pills and water for me within seconds. I was then very happy!
Back at the house every one was in shock to see me talk, smile, laugh, walk as if there never was a surgery. Seems that usually when patients go through this kind of surgery they are in bed for at least the first two days with swollen eyes and are not able to talk, let alone smile. During my recovery I had minimal marks on my face, and the discomfort was very low. I was able to enjoy my vacation to the fullest even with the bandages on my face.
One week later I was back at the doctor's office ready to take off the bandages. Yet again I did not feel any worry, anxiety, fear or doubt. Yet again I was excited and ready. The nose turned out perfect!
I came back home to America with a new nose, and as a new and improved person. Since I had been away for two months and my nose had not been a major disaster before, many people did not notice the change. When told, some were shocked as to why I did it and that it was not needed. Most provided me with great compliments. I could see the difference and I was happy. The difference was not only in how I looked, but it was in how I felt and what the change had done for me personally. It was a symbol of a new life, a new face who had thrown some trash away from her old life and was ready for the new chapter.
Later when I looked back at that time I realized that the entire process was not "normal". The way it started, the way I easily and quickly made this important decision and how easily it all fell into place. The lack of anxiety, nervousness or fear about the procedure and the results. The way my recovery was so easy and out of the ordinary. And how it actually turned out so perfect! It could have been because I was in a different world and in a different state of mind, or it could have been other forces. I came back to my life with a new energy and an improved attitude. Overall, that was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, physically and emotionally. I have a feeling that there was a reason why it all happened, which was out of my hands! I needed help to get over a hump in my story at that particular time, and a lending hand had been presented to me.