I want to assure everybody that I'm in no way sad or disappointed because you haven't congratulated me. Until yesterday, I myself was a slave to the fake digital friendship propagated by these social media and I know how hard it is to return back to an authentic old-fashioned friendship. There is really no need to write on the wall of someone just because facebook tell you so. It must happen when you are really remembering the person. I also think that there is absolutely no shame in missing the birthday of your large friend's circle, but if you forgot (or realise that you don't even know) the special day of your closest friend and family members then you should probably ring the alarm bell, take a break and rethink your priorities in life... and that's exactly what I did on my birthday, here is the story:
When you are a foreign student in a foreign country for at least 5 years, you could think that you have seen it all and that you already went through the most unpleasant experiences. Wrong! It could get worst :) It always have been hard to spend birthdays (and sometime Christmas) far away from my family and school friends. During these years abroad you tie friendships and maybe find lovers that help you ignore your loneliness, but when you move to a new city over 500 km far away from your last place it's literally starting from zero again. Starting from scratch and leaving your old life behind isn't an easy thing to do and I'm sadly getting used to it. This experience gets more painful when your birthday occur in the first period of resettling. I'm living and studying in the city of Hamburg since barley 2 months now but all the nice people and colleagues I met aren't real friends yet. I really wish they will be, but so far I felt uncomfortable celebrating such an important milestone with individuals I just started to appreciate.
So for my 26th birthday I decided to dedicate all the time to do things I like. The night before I went to the Opera with a special person, we watched The Magic Flute (composed by Mozart) and then enjoyed dinner in a wonderful restaurant directly near the iconic Alster lake in the heart of the city. The day after I woke up at 7am and started a journey by train to a village named St. Peter Ording. The place was recommended to my by a dear friend and I trusted him. St. Peter Ording is a pretty popular spa resort on the north sea cost with a 12 km of Mudflats. I used the first part of my day hiking and searching seashells in the sand as if I was 5 year old again, these where the artifacts to remember my journey here and the decisions I was preparing to take later. The north sea is a surprising place and indeed very different from what I used to know back home at the blue-green Mediterranean sea. Some people when they get to know me an my story, ask me why I'm I always moving north (from Tunisia to Karlsruhe, Koblenz and Hamburg)? I really don't know... Sometime I feel like a call coming from north, a call to go further despite most people go in the opposite direction to enjoy the sun. Maybe it's a call from oceans that have always fascinated me. My inner beacon tells me to go meet the ocean, the unlimited never-forgiving deep blue sanctuary that gives live the our planet...
I spent the second part of my day in the wellness and spa center of the village. I enjoyed a beer bath (a dream for every man, right :)) and was for the very first time in a Finish Sauna. I loved it !
I used my time there to reflect on the last months, the long path I took with the pleasant experiences and dark moments, I though about how did I blew up a relationship which meant a lot to me, how did I met some great friends I'm sure I will care for during years to come, how I voluntarily separated from people poisoning my life slowly or retaining me from progressing further, how I become the person I am today but most importantly, how did I found my dream and life's mission in my adventure last year in the Himalayas [described in an older post]. Knowing already the kind of person I wanted to be, it was time for me to recheck my inner compass and picture the road I needed to take in the next phase of my life to fulfil my destiny.
I set 5 goals that I want to reach within a year from now:
#1: Live healthier and be in world-class physical condition.
#2: Read at least 1 hour of non-university related texts every week.
#3: Have outstanding results at university and a mini-job that I love.
#4: Cultivate richer, deeper friendships with at least 5 people.
#5: (This one stays private :))
I'm publishing this list in my blog to create some kind of a positive pressure to keep me inspired and to be able to track back my spiritual evolution in the future :)
Another extraordinary thing I did during the last 24 hours and that I'm proude of is that I read an entire book within a day. I bough it a year ago in India and never had time (or pretended not to have) to read it.
How am I doing now? I feel like a new born, like a reptile that have changed his skin... and damn it feels good!
