Back in KSA, I used to have those mornings when you wake up to find your parents talking very mysteriously on breakfast. Ominous, their voice tones make you curious, so you crawl your way to the table, afraid of the usual “this stuff is for grown ups, give me and your dad some privacy, Ibraheem”, to find them speaking about how X is not happy with her husband. How X calls Mom constantly to complain, and that Dad’s next mission was to act as counselor to save their marriage. How Y is sick and needs care, and that Z had a very noticeable belligerence to M in the latest gathering of whatever.

Those secret meetings taught me two things: people are important, especially if they trust us, and .. well .. secrets are very precious things that we have to keep. What I didn’t learn however, was the meaning of secrets!

What are secrets?

If inside our house – an institution more of, secrets of numerous families were dealt with so safely, then what’s so secret about them?!

During one of our annual holidays, a huge fight broke out in the neighborhood at my Grandpa’s, I remember very well how that woman screamed her lungs out before running away to our house to call for help after her ape of a husband hit her (that’s ironic somehow, bad marriage flashbacks, NOW), she was covered in tears, her hair dampened by sweat and she heaved in fear and stammered so many words stifled by countless sobs and cries – it was really bad. Mom, instinctively as if she studied it for long years, helped her to a seat and calmed her down, just before she dressed up with Grandpa to prepare a truce to gather the falling apart family again.

That woman fled to our house, the neighborhood had two dozens of other houses, of people whom I believe would’ve cared just as we did, but somehow people felt safe with us around. I have other countless examples – for instance, my father used to and still is the secret confidant of many people inside and outside of the family.

It’s a gene I inadvertently inherited. We were a different family.

“Mom, why can’t we do this?”

“Because we’re not like others honey”

‘This’ being many different stuff that my parents found pejorative of our own principles.

So, I do listen to what others need to say. I have the necessary natural skills to make the exact necessary eye contact to make them feel safe enough, the gestures that will reassure them that .. well .. everything’s just going to be fine, even if I don’t believe they will.

And I never understood those who withdraw and keep away from me. I’m always like “It’s okay”, and then .. I smile. Not to mention, it comes with clairvoyance, especially with those I love the most, it’s like I already know.

Trouble starts when it’s the other way around, when you are the one who needs help. You suddenly feel that you don’t deserve it! I mean, oh my God. It’s actually very perplexing, the feeling that daunts you when someone shows you passion and love, you kinda find it out of place. But at the same time, you crave it. Things go out of balance.

When they do, you fluctuate between two extremes; you first give with full compassion, in ways that might actually touch people’s lives, and then bam! Suddenly you withdraw, because you need to take in .. you need to be touched yourself, and when you find it lacking, you discover about your new addiction. It’s sick business, all out of balance that way. Most of the time, it’s inside of you, talk about depression.

You show some friend or family member that you really care (and you really do btw), but after a while you disappear, and it takes so much love and understanding from their side to stick to you nevertheless and believe that you’ll be back one day, that you still have the heart they know in you and that you just need space to get back in shape again.

Inside my family I could recognize many sadder cases than mine, ones who wound up being resentful to their own children and siblings. I have reached this phase with my father recently, for sorrow. We both have it unbalanced, the compassion thing – this could only last so long.

What I’m grateful for is my realization – that I’m conscious of this fact now. I just want to be on terms with it, I want to tame it and have better control of myself and my own needs. Because I think I’d do really good with those I love if I did. It’s my gift and I should use it wisely. People loved my parents, people love me.

Hmm ..

But would she?

Answer this: would you rather start your life with your soulmate, or would you rather them join you when you’re ready enough somewhere in the middle?

To be continued,