The worst kind of despair is the type that creeps in over time and contaminates our behavior, our character, and our life, becoming routine. We have survived wars, but never have Lebanese felt as exiled from the world as during the last seven years, and this has created an anxiety that manifests itself in how we conduct ourselves. The suffocation is both geographic and economic. Our inability to access our immediate geography is contradictory to our natural impulse. The economic crisis that is hitting Lebanon and the region is overwhelming. It has even affected how we raise our children. Families separate at the airport with a finality not seen before—our goodbyes have turned from “au revoir” to “adieu.” Hands are clasped, not in a final goodbye, but in a desperate attempt to save those determined to stay, with tears of pity and calls to abandon a crippled homeland and accompany
