Love and Marriage

The idea of loving what you see and who you see keeps getting stronger every day to me.

Celebrating my friend's pre wedding party I realized the more I watch her dance with her groom the more I love them. We love watching the people we love, we love being there for them. That is why people get so upset when they were not invited, it is like you are telling them, we do not want you watching, we fear your eye, or you are not close enough. In many cases it is true that the person not invited is not actually close to you, the problem is when they think they are. I think it is all about the visual, we are afraid of the evil eye in our culture and all we think about is who the people we do not want to see the things happening to us are, and suddenly instead of enjoying our event or the happy thing happening to us we become terrified of the person we fear their eye. We fear them so much and we do not want them to know, they were not invited so we keep fearing them and their reaction until our happiness is forgotten and they end up becoming all we think of.

When we are invited we feel trusted and close enough to be there, we love that feeling and the less people there the more special we feel because we were selected. As a guest you feel vulnerable and you feel like your name was on a list and then maybe it was scribbled on and then maybe it came back to the list. You never know what happened in the selective process but you end up really enjoying going there when you care about the bride and groom. The more you see them, the happier you are for them, the more they dance, the more joyful you become, the lazy brides and grooms kill the joy of the guests.

At the party last night we realized the less people have, the more they can find joy. They prepared a surprise wedding before the official wedding and the surprise wedding was surprisingly super fun. It was a wedding that any low income Egyptian family can provide, and it tasted as powerful as our authentic Egyptian food in Egypt. The vibrant colored lights, the insane music and the beer on the tables, every thing was purely Egyptian to the core. Everyone was welcome to come since we all pitched in, but we found out the night before and that kept some guests from going. The thing is it was all planned a night before. It was spontaneous, it was splashing with joy, it was a night I will never forget. It was not over crowded, it was not planned for a long time ago, it was not pretentious, no body there came by social force or out of fear of guilt. We all dressed up like the simplest Egyptian would and it was the most fun ever!

We felt the joy of the masses that we are segregated from, the people of Egypt are mostly those who get married the way we partied last night, they dance until they drop! they sing and they do not stop, in comfortable insane colors they dress, they over accessorize, the girls in red lipstick, the guys in golden chains, and red is the king of colors and the decorations are so tasty. The music is so powerful and with sticks they dance the night away!!

I realized that joy costs nothing and the more we complicate the less fun we have. I realized that in costumes people lose a fear of their own skin and identity and they party like crazy, I realized that the happiest times are those that cost the least. I realized that all people need is music and freedom and no fear of judgement. I realized that in our Egyptian culture and drums is the power of the Brazilian drum, and the passion we have as young Egyptians is just as powerful as the Brazilian will to dance.

I missed my high school friends so much when I took up the grown up role, it was so much fun partying like it was prom night. It was like a carnival, festive, colorful, fun and so joyful. We were all so happy for them, I started remembering how the bride was in school and I got flashbacks of how much fun we used to have. Weddings in Egypt are so sentimental, we start having motherly feelings to the bride and groom and close friends are so happy for you like they were your grandparents. Every bride in Egypt lives like a princess for her week of fame, with every single tradition and the days of showers of love and presents. She becomes the center of so many dancing circles and all the guests fall in love with her, grooms are expected to worship the beauty of their brides and dance in joy. The wedding is all about the bride's dress in our cultures and the family of the brides almost light their fingers up with flames to brighten her last days up.

Marriage is a journey that is not blissful all along. Nothing is as joyful as the wedding day, the rest is no fairy tale, it is sharing life with its happy days and its sad. There should be some kind of catalogue telling happy brides that it is not all kisses and dances, it involves a lot of work too. No body tells the smiling bride about the laundry and all the bills they will have to pay. No body tells the future mothers about the sleepless nights and the disappearing "I" in her. Nobody tells her that for a while she will be someone's food literally!

Nobody tells her that it gets better with time, it takes getting used to, moving out and starting a new page. Nobody tells her that love is great but change is stressful. Nobody tells her that if she does not pick up the clothes from the floor they will fail to rise and hang them selves alone. Nobody tells her that cooking is not always a fun chore. Nobody tells her that the help will be as important as family or else she will become the help but for free. No body warns her but thats the way it should be so her jumps of joy on the wedding night are not half jumps.

Still in the wedding ceremony the priest or Sheikh should mention the fact that marriage is a journey with responsibility and that is not all about the freedom we thought it would be, it is about compromise, sharing and learning the catalogue of how a person you chose to share your life with, functions.

In sharing a life you learn to share someone's fears, joys, and eyes. You become phsycic anticipating patterns of behavior and so do they. They become heroes putting up with your imperfections and so do you. A kind heart is what every girl should seek or else knives could be thrown and homicide becomes an option. Compassion and saintly qualities is what couples need and living out of cairo too, since life in Cairo is not meant for married couples, it is custom made to destroy marriages. With the lack of privacy that couples experience and all the pressures from society and the expectations of every girl becoming a super house wife. With all the stress of living in this city that glorifies men and patronizes women, with all the options that unqualified religious advisors give men, it is only natural that the divorce rate is 60 percent.

Couples face the world together with all the monsters it may bring, if they can not find comfort in each other, life becomes extra hard, since they will be fighting the monsters at home too. Married couples take a vow in the west, for better or for worse till death do us part. However in the East like my experience the government official who married us whispered in my groom's ear telling him next time he gets married he should call him. It was not romantic take it from me!

Marriage means promising someone that it is you and them against the world not you against them while the world throws down it's monsters. Marriage is a promise of loyalty and support, telling someone you are on his or her team and they will always come first. Marriage is a show of love and a heavenly bond that is no joke, it is a full time job. Disney's cartoons fooled us, there is no happily ever after, it is more of a happy and sad, together, through a journey, hopefully, (fingers crossed)!