On the first anniversary of Mubarak's February 11 ouster, a moment that seemed to freeze in time, nine Egyptians from across the country and all walks of life reflect on a tumultuous year and a future that's still being fought over -- why "revolution" is relative and why, like in any story, sometimes the most difficult part to conceive is the end.

Abdel Rahman Ayad, 25, The Disaffected Activist

Exactly one year ago, Abdel Rahman Ayad's feet were bleeding. For 18 days, he'd make nightly treks from downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square back home to his house in Heliopolis, an affluent Cairene suburb. He protested every day, but always promised his mother he'd come home after sunset to visit her.

Ayad, 25, calls his friends "matey" -- sailor's parlance he picked up while working for a German-based shipping company that's taken him around the world. He's thoughtful, with schoolboy eyes that look eager for trouble. He likes hash and Indian food, optimally in concert. And, in natural form, he curses like a sailor.

He was born and grew up in Abu Dhabi, where his father worked in business, but decided to "get back to his roots" and moved to Egypt for college. He studied at the Maritime Academy in Alexandria and spends an average of eight months a year on a ship. He was supposed to set sail on Jan. 10 of 2011, but he decided not to go. He expected something to happen in Egypt and he wanted to be a part of it.

This year, he spent the revolutionary anniversary in Alexandria, wading through Egyptian bureaucracy, getting documents signed and certified to set sail once again. "If this were last year, I'd tell the sailing company to go fuck themselves. I was fighting for my country," he says. "This year? Man, I'm just trying to get out to the sea again."

Before the revolution, Ayad says he didn't fit in. And now, he says he still doesn't. He's "not pumped up enough to be a revolutionary." But he's not apathetic enough for the popular Hezb al Kanaba, the party of the couch. In fact, he wishes he were more indifferent. Like many, he's frustrated, if not angry, by a regime he says is still running the show. Back then, days spent in Tahrir seemed like the beginning of an exciting story, one where anything could happen. Now, he feels the square's more like a bad sequel.

"It's sad because maybe it shows the majority of Egyptian people don't deserve better, because they're not fighting for it," he says. "You can't want something for them more than they do." Still, after he larks around the world by sea, he hopes to return to Egypt. He's developed a love-hate relationship with the place he can't seem to shake. And he still has hope, he reassures me -- or perhaps himself -- every five minutes.

Ehab Mohammed, 24, The Young Salafi

Ehab was excited to find a marketing job so quickly after graduating from Cairo University. Most of his colleagues, and about one-quarter of his Egyptian counterparts, can't find any work at all. Sixty percent of Egyptians are 30 years old or younger, and at least one of every four between ages 18 and 30 are out of work. So when he landed a gig at Nourayn Media, a media company that specializes in Islamic content, he was thrilled. The soft-spoken, but not meek, self-proclaimed Salafi -- an adherent to a strict interpretation of Islam -- says he's always known Islam would be the solution for Egypt. But when he took the job pre-revolution, he never thought his mild-mannered Salafi boss would soon be the spokesperson for one of Egypt's most powerful political parties, al-Nour, which won about a quarter of the new parliament's seats.