Coming Home
When I was 24 years old, I changed my whole life. In six months, I left my corporate PR job, my longterm boyfriend and my Brooklyn apartment trading the normalcy of my life in New York for the Middle East.
Yes, that Middle East. See, I was determined to become a writer. And for whatever reason, I felt that I couldn’t be a writer if I just settled in New York after attending college there. So, I saved up for two years, applied for SO MANY jobs across the Middle East, and then finally, when all else failed, decided to move to Lebanon.
I had about $15,000 in savings and one Lebanese friend from college, who was moving to Italy two days after I made it to the country.
When I arrived, it took the cab driver thirty minutes to find my apartment – or flat as I soon would be calling it – on the twisted hilly street. Eventually, my new roommates walked out on the balcony to yell for us to find the house. I felt both welcomed and incredibly alone.
“It is a lesson I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”
I remember my first walk from East Beirut where I was living to West Beirut. My Belgian and French roommate took out the map that had been left in our share house and sketched out a circuitous path through the art deco galleries of Gemmazye, past the El Amin mosque, over the hulking modern buildings of downtown to traditional Beiruti neighborhood of Ain El Mressieh. There, three storied apartment buildings with ornate arches and cut out stairways loomed over the Mediterranean.
That feeling continued for the next few months, as I enrolled in daily Arabic classes and found a job copywriting for a big business magazine in Beirut. While it at times the windy roads that Google Maps couldn’t yet navigate felt unmanageable there was something incredible about deciding to do something and following through.
“It is a lesson I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”
One night soon after arriving in Beirut sticks out in my mind. I was standing on the street in the newly established neighborhood of Mar Mikhael, drinking a beer. Someone asked me what I did and I told them I was going to become a journalist. A good friend of mine stopped me immediately and said, Alexandra, don’t ever say that again. Say that you are a journalist.
If you know what you want in life, or even if you have an idea of it, tell everyone. Shout it from the rooftops. And don’t be afraid of change. It’s the only way you can make your life your own.
Written by ALEXANDRA TALTY | Travel Journalist
