I never planned on leaving Lebanon. I loved my life in my tiny home country by the Mediterranean with its warm people, familiar narrow streets and charming heritage homes.

The often volatile political situation that is almost a Lebanese trademark did not affect me at the time and I was content living surrounded by family and friends careening between the breezy mountains and the glittering sea.

And yet here I am, starting over from scratch at 38 years old in the UAE. This move was 100 percent my choice but I also feel I was forced into it by what Lebanon has become.

I remember emailing my new boss Eddie the morning after the Beirut port explosion on August 4 to say I was ready to move to Dubai and start working with Arabian Business the next day, even though I had originally asked to give my former employers a one-month-notice before leaving Lebanon.

The explosion had left me numb and shook my deeply entrenched love for Lebanon. I felt I had to get out before it was too late.

Put quite simply, I could no longer see my future in my own country. I no longer felt secure in Beirut knowing that, at any moment, everything I had worked for and achieved could quite literally be blown away. What’s even worse is that no one would be held accountable for that and I would be chalked up as just another casualty of the corrupt system eroding Lebanon.

I am far from the only one that has been put in this position of leaving Lebanon with a heavy heart but a determined head. Every time I talk with my Lebanese friends or family, some of whom are pictured with me in this piece, we share the names of those who have left, or are planning to leave and the list keeps growing longer.

This exercise gives me a strange sense of validation in that I took the right decision but it also fills me with sorrow for Lebanon.

If we all leave who will be there to rebuild the country? Even 77 percent of Lebanon’s youth, whom I had secretly pinned my hopes for my country’s future on, say they want to emigrate, according to the 12th annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey.

What is even more tragic is that for every person that has made their way out, there are 10 more who desperately want to leave but can’t.

I was fortunate enough to be hired by Arabian Business when I was but had that not been the case, there might not have been any way out of Lebanon for me.

Due to the increasingly restrictive banking policies in place in Lebanon, the money I had saved over 16 years of hard work was trapped in the country. My bank relations manager told me bluntly that I had to forget I have any money in Lebanon when I leave it.

This automatically ruled out the option of studying for a Master’s degree in Canada for me as it did for the hundreds of Lebanese students whose dreams of getting an international education have been crushed.

Emigration was also out of the question without access to my bank account. Even if I could pay for the required paperwork and buy the airplane ticket with my lollars (dollars that can only be used in Lebanon), I would not have been able to sustain myself in a new country while I found a job; not an easy feat given the global economic situation.

Hundreds of Lebanese are therefore dreaming of a job abroad that would save them from the mounting crisis in Lebanon while turning a blind eye to the fact that the chances of this happening are very slim. I can imagine the hopelessness they feel and my heart aches for my country that was once called the Paris or Switzerland of the Middle East.

How did we go from that glory to this tragic situation?

I am aware of how blessed I am for this opportunity to build my future in Dubai, even though it was not what I had envisioned for myself growing up.

This is what we Lebanese expats refer to as the “Lebanese curse” - forever yearning to be home in Lebanon and yet destined to be emigrants, chasing our hopes and dreams abroad because there is no hope of achieving them at home.