Okay, how weird is it that this is the THIRD STRAIGHT BIRTHDAY that I have celebrated in Dubai?! (As of 10 minutes ago, when the clock struck midnight.)
Do I, like, really live here or something?!
It's funny the way things have evolved for me in this city. Despite it being "the heinous asshole capital of the world" (as per Schmom's description), I have to say that - weirdly, in a way - there's no other place where I'd feel so at home celebrating my birthday. I could be in Tennessee with my family, or I could be in New York or DC or London or Singapore with a smattering of friends in each place, but somehow Dubai feels... right. Because my closest friends here do feel like family, in the same way my college roommates do, and I'm lucky to have a circle here beyond those people that really matters to me, too.
It's kind of shocking that the girls (Jojo, Mar, Al) + Flatmate E were all there last year - in fact, two of them were even around way back in 2006. For being in such a transient place, I do feel like I have roots here. And yes, assholes abound, but when I was absolutely and totally distraught four days ago after the CofI meltdown, I had plenty of people to run to in tears, and more than enough sage advice to try and process in the coming days.
I'm turning older than I'd like to be, but if there's anything I've learned over the past few months, it's that I'm still pretty damn young. So I feel like that's a good balance - although I did get a little sad today when I entered "26" as my age on the treadmill for the last time. (Will I burn more or less calories tomorrow when I turn 27?! Stay tuned...)
So with that, I will finish up some edits for my deck on tourism opportunities in Saudi Arabia (oh yeah, I have a job where I work now!) and I will down the last few sips of the too-strong midnight G&T E made me, and I will go to bed. And tomorrow I will work and stress and run and go to dinner at a new French bistro with 10 of the friends who have made my life here what it is.
And then I'll go all monastic for 48 hours in preparation for our Friday-night post-birthday pre-Ramadan absolute blowout house party. This is Dubai, after all. :)
