A Call For Change.

Did you ever hear about storks? Well, I'm sure you've seen them before. They're white, with huge wings and quite a tall, elegant neck. Their beaks are long enough to dig for worms in the ground and it has been told that storks symbolise the arrival of children or life. I'm pretty close to storks because they're quite popular in Poland and are even national symbols. I've grown quite attached to them in quite a peculiar way and that's why I'm actually starting this post mentioning them.

You see, storks are migrating birds. Every April, I expect a call from my sister and dozens of pictures in celebration of the arrival of storks. When I go to Poland and drive with my family out of town, we always pass by a huge stork nest and it has become a ritual to open the windows and scream "Storks!" and then ridiculously count how many we see up the nest. Sometimes we would find babies, sometimes adults, other times we wouldn't see any so would catch ourselves trying to find them on the fields, gathering their meal.

The thing about them is that they eventually leave. When they come in April, we start to feel like it's spring for sure. The weather gets warmer and everybody feels slightly lighter. But then, some time in late August, they just suddenly disappear, and a sudden pang of sadness hits our chests because we know that autumn is slowly coming and things are just about to change.

When the storks come, I know it's almost time for me to travel. When they leave, I also know it's time to prepare myself to go.. back.

Storks, for me, symbolise change. The way they arrive and leave just hits me with the fact that some things are about to change. Honestly, they're not only storks that make me feel that way; there's also spring, the long days, the blackbirds' songs, dandelions, peach season and sand storms. All of the things just show me that things will change, and there's no way but to accept that change will come.

Just a few days ago, I changed the position of the furniture in my room. Also, I bought a new brownish carpet which matches the setting of my walls and starkly, I felt this sudden change of spirit. With this little change of atmosphere, the day started growing longer and my need to wear socks during the day diminished considerably which led me to think that I need to start changing, too.

I'm graduating in a few months and I'm calmer than I thought I would be. Usually, I face those change of routines with awkward restlessness which tells me to be in control and make plan As, Bs and Cs. Of course I have my plans and alternative modes of action, but it's okay, you know? I know it will be alright. A part of me wants me to continue working in the same job because it's known and comfortable, right? But with all of these changes, I am resisting that voice entirely. Oh God, I'd do everything not to go back to the same work. Every particle of me is just resisting monotony. It wants to push it away. It's tired of meeting the same people, the same routines, events and even staff room. No; I need the change.

I'm quite grateful that I'm not complying to the comfort in monotony. I've seen what lack of change does to people and I do not wish to end up the same way. In an ideal life, I'd love to risk starting over from the very beginning. The notion of leaving my current job and start over as a co-teacher in a different school with a different philosophy seems very compelling. I don't mind the career ladder, if it doesn't refresh me with change.

Every cell of me wants change today. It even calls my own body to change. I'm moving in a different way, starting different routines, learning about different things in my free time. I just want to grow and evolve and monotony just takes away this vacuum needed for renewal and fills it with too many known variables that there isn't any space it grow something different and new.

In my dreams, I graduate and leave this country. I love Egypt, but it has become too known. I consider myself a global citizen who just wants to experience being "Soraya" in all different places. It's healthy for me. It's healing. It's enlivening. This unknown, this next dare step is a field my heart feels truly alive in.

There is nothing quite comparable to the feeling I get when I step out of the airplane and take the first few steps in the airport. You don't know what's going to happen next. You just go, keep looking out for signs that make you turn right and left till you reach your destination. There's this thing which gravitates me towards situations where I have to listen to my heart instead of habit. 

And my heart tells me to change. Change everything. So I might as well listen to it.