Mood Swings:
The plan
By
Yasmine El-Rashidi
Like most women, age has always been a major issue in my life. At 12, 13 and 14, I was too young to do all the things I believed I needed to do -- pierce my ears, dye my hair, and wear an outfit like those sported by Madonna in her 1980s boy-toy phase. And at 16, 17 and 18 I was so caught up doing the piercings and so on that I got too old to accomplish the other things I had intended to: make it to Wimbledon and become the next teenage tennis superstar la Jennifer Capriati, for instance.
"I'm old," I would wail on a daily basis as I examined my transforming self in my dressing-table mirror. "I need to be two years younger," I would go on to complain to my beloved mother -- who also suffers from the age "syn-doom" herself.
I did a bit of sulking and moaning and grieving over the fact that life was unfair and that I was meant to be famous, but some greater universal energy somehow went drastically wrong. Then I just shut-up, laid a plan, put my head down, and began to race.
"AGE: 19," my list started, "finish AUC."
"AGE: 20," it continued, "Work for a major publication and be accepted to Columbia."
"AGE: 21: Columbia."
"AGE 22: finish Columbia, work for Al-Ahram Weekly, teach at AUC."
"AGE 23: be published in at least two major US publications, finish two chapters of my book." And it went on.
I thought I was smart; I believed I had discovered the meaning of life. Everything made sense, every day had purpose, every year had a milestone. I was flying and I didn't miss a step.
The minor detail in my major plan of life, however, was that I was running so fast, my life couldn't quite keep up. At 24, I hit the proverbial wall.
It must have struck me by absolute surprise, because I recall coming to the realisation that my list sort of ended, and I bought time, instead, by running. Literally.
I started to jog. Ten 400m laps a day, 12, 16, 18, 24, 32. One hour on the treadmill, two hours on the treadmill. It became a daily duty -- to run at least as long as I had the day before. Then my knee collapsed, and reality really struck: I was not super-human. I promptly found other mini-lists to keep myself busy -- at work, at the gym, on the scale.
"On one level I'm satisfied," I told a special friend as she drove us home after she had been on a shopping splurge a few weeks ago. "I write, I work-out, I have a job I love, but what's the greater purpose? What about my big achievements? What great thing am I doing in life?"
I was referring to my big list of life's to-do's -- "THE PLAN" -- which had been untouched since my so-called big failure at 24.
"I'm 26," I paused. "I'm behind schedule," I told her quite calmly and with the utmost gravity.
She laughed -- a lot.
"Yasmine," she said with the wisdom of her five extra years, "What's the rush? So many of us set big goals for ourselves, but when we get there, we think 'oh, this isn't so great. I need to find something else.' You need to learn to enjoy all the little things in life, like going for coffee with a friend. Once you begin to appreciate what you are doing now, "THE PLAN", loses importance. Because let's face it," she continued, assuming a tone that felt almost motherly, "Not everything goes according to plan. And another thing you need to face, which I've already faced," she continued with a chuckle, "You're not superwoman."
Her words echoed in my head through the day, making perfect sense, but seeming impossible to put into practice.
A few days later, in the spinning class I teach one evening a week, I found myself reaching for a Bon Jovi CD that I had not intended to use that night.
"This is your last song," I announced to the class. "I want you to forget about everyone around you and focus on what's inside your head," I continued. "Think of yourself, think of your life, listen to the words of the song, and give it everything you've got! What you do with this song will say a lot about you and what you want to do with your life."
For three minutes and 45 seconds I pedalled as fast as I possibly could, gasping for breath as I squeezed every ounce of energy I had out of myself. I tuned out everything around me, for the entire period, save for one second, when I caught glimpse of one of the stronger, fitter gym members, singing along to Bon Jovi's It's my life and pedalling along at a seemingly pleasurable pace.
"It says a lot about how you want to live your life," I teased him later as I packed up my CDs and he his belongings.
He smiled.
"Yes," he replied. "I want to be nice to myself and enjoy my life," he offered, equally teasingly. "I don't want to kill myself."
It was a little statement in the greater time-driven scheme of things, but it knocked "the" and capitals out of my "plan".
