I’m 27 years old now.

It’s scary age in this fast, non-stop developing world. I’ve been traveling the world for the last 5 years, well “traveling the world” seems big, lovely, happy and exciting words! Actually they are not.

In the last couple of years, I was in Asia, Africa and now Europe, I’ve moved in more than 50 houses, I never felt home.

It’s not easy, you see. I’ve studied medicine, which was my dream: study medicine, go into neurology, make uncle Sacks proud.

Sacks died, I didn’t get to complete my studies in Syria, I stopped studying, because at the time, no college accepted me, for a year, a whole year, with nothing to do.

I did nothing in that year, I was depressed, devastated, helpless, alone, lonely. I wanted to change every thing, I even thought of applying to journalism school instead.

It was dangerous, it was sad and ugly, I would have thrown everything behind, just to live, I really wanted only to live, nothing more, no news, no dead bodies, no politics.

I don’t want to see my friends’ dead bodies, I don’t want to hear the cries of their mothers, I don’t want to hold the phone, listening, not being able to answer. Not a word.

Death, the silent thief, well..it wasn’t so silent there..back home.

All my life was in a small bag, collection of clothes, books and papers, this is how I lived, this is how I traveled.

I went to Tripoli, in hope of getting back to medicine, I went to another war zone, there I found old friends, and yes, old means old as in age and old as in ..really old friends.

There I found my father’s colleagues, their sons are old enough, one of them is already a doctor, the other is in his fifth year, just like me. I even got the chance to attend the eldest’s wedding, and participate in the wedding ceremony. I was what the Libyans call “ The Perfume bearer”.

I worked in Tripoli’s hospitals for 33 days, I can’t forget one of them. It was horrible, lovely, and sad. I remembered my childhood, I found friends again.

I moved back to the UAE, then again to Egypt, seeking the chance, the mere chance of completing my studies, and there, there after two years, I found my chance. It was Tanta University, where I studied and worked to get my degree.

Now I am: MBBCh. holder.

I moved to Germany, I still haven’t done much, five months passed, many in this time would’ve gotten a job or at least a clinical attachment. However, I didn’t.

Regret is nothing but the acknowledgment of our failures. Hope sometimes can be a failure itself. I have not seen my family in four years, I haven’t become what I wanted to be, a neurologist, I haven’t done anything worth mentioning in my life…yet.

I am moderating now one of the biggest Arabic website, in science and technology. Maybe that’s something ..good? I don’t know.

I just hope I can change something through my work, let more people get interested in science and just give them a bit of ..enthusiasm to be something different in this ugly red world.

I told someone “Never regret anything, but the things that hurt others”.
I am not 100% sure about that, but it’s a good way to live anyway.

Even though I got drifted away, from my self and my dreams, but I still believe that just being able to consider everything one has gone through, is really a great chance to learn from mistakes, and perhaps one day, to overcome them.