This morning I woke up in a good mood, convinced that I can be a good person with a kind heart, even if I can say no. This was a soothing realization, because the way I see things, the more we focus on the pain, the more suffering continues, and if we instead focus on the lesson, we start to grow. In either case, we’re the ones making the decision. So, which way do you turn, left or right? Maybe with warmer air kinder mornings came, when I don’t really care about other people’s thoughts and the words going through their minds. Iturn my interest instead to what’s hidden underneath my shell. It’s been a while since I’ve opened it, I preferred living like a safe caterpillar in a cozy place, always wishing nobody ever findme and alsobe certain that the outside world won’t hurt me. And then I discover the small big things that make me insanely happy. I still keep Christmas stars in the living room, lights hanging on a tape above a big window and every night I think they’re my stars, full of happiness and wonderful moments, set there to remind me of how good my life actually is. And I was just looking at them yesterday in combination with candles on the balcony, which accompanied dinner while the scent of lemon and vanilla rose in the air and everything seemed even more magical.
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
My friend Bernarda interrupts my train of thought, as she’s calling for no particular reason, but tojust to let me know about something and I think I wishto have her here.I wouldcook her something nice, caress her soul a bit and try to teach her that she should stop now and then, notonly when she runs far away from us, but every day, when various emotional vampires suck onto her and make her crawl home on all four. Something I know all too much about. Which is why I’m saying that it was liberating to think that when you’re 40, to be kind is not always to please, bow your head and take all the garbage in the world, but rather to take care of yourself first, set your boundaries, raise a barrier and choose your friends carefully. Becauseyou realize that you really don’t need everybody. I don’t like it when people start collecting people they know and friends they want to hang out with, when it’s all so superficial they don’t know much more than about the other person than their name. I’m not one for these Instagram relationships, where it’s all beautiful on the outside and the filters are carefully chosen, but in reality there issuch an emptiness you can sink into and never find your way out.
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
I smile at an old friend who leaves a comment under a photo and sends me a Whatsapp message, because I know that in her heart she’s still 16, just like I am, and it doesn’t make any difference that she has two kids at home and I have one and we both have so many worries we walk around hunched underneath the burden, because the world does stop sometimes, allowing usto take a step back to when things were either black or white and our cell phones werethe size of a small baguette. But we loved it. I’m actually thinking that life is so rich and so filled with rainbow shades, so wonderfully complicated, just like those long necklaces, thatyou put in a box and when you pull them out, you realize there’s no use trying, because everything is entangled and you don’t know whether to cry or buy a new one. Decisions, my darlings, that’s all there is to it, as if someone put us in front of an endless being and made us choose wisely, but without a clue, which way is the right way to go: left or right? I have no idea, to be honest. But perhaps part of the charm is precisely in that it’s difficult to go back and sometimes it’s good to cut everyone off, forget about people, start over, give yourself another chance and become very fair, especially to what it is that you want. I spent a long time wondering what actually makes me happy and it took me a long time setting things where they belong. I lived for the summer to come, to finally see June, July and August, to finally create the life the way it sitsin my imagination, but three months are not enough, if you spent the rest of the time neglecting your soul. In the end, it’s a mild recovery, which gives you some of your strength back, but you’re still far from being your normal self.
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
And I remembered the airline hostesses, who always warn you to make sure your own mask is secured, before you help others, even if you sit next to your own child, because if you get badly hurt, you won’t be of any use to anybody. So I imagine life as a long flight, which lands here and there, in various places, but it’s hard to know where the final destination is. Sometimes I feel like there isn’t one, so it’s important to enjoy the flight and not think too much about what’s waiting for us at the end of the journey. Maybe we’ll never land and spend our whole lives among the clouds, far from those who safely walk on the pavement or paths well trodden. I sincerely don’t know, which one I would choose. Walking seems so endlessly boring and flying is one big mystery, but now and then you have to jump into nothingness to realize you’re still alive. I sky dived a few years ago and all I could think about the minutes before the big somersault was that I’m a complete idiot, why did I have to try this, why did I make this decision and wouldn’t it be better to just go home…But in the end, I jumped. Without a reason, out of curiosity and vanity, because sometimes you feel as though you’re eternal and invincible, but then life bringsyou to your knees. It was wonderful, full of freedom, cold, windy, magical. But I wouldn’t do it again, just like I wouldn’t repeat last weekend in Gardaland, when I stood underneath a roller coaster and thought everyone was crazy. At the same time, I forgot that I was already up there and not just once, I even let go of the safety rail, but I was in a different time in my life.
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
Foto: Zen
I like this moment, because I’m strongly aware of myself and it feels like I’m in the sky without a parachute. Differently. Like a woman at forty.
MY STYLE: dress and bag Kate Spade, shoes Steve Madden, earrings JCrew.
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4 thoughts on “A woman at forty”
I could have avoided a few bad relationships if I would have figured this out when I was younger. Compromise is required in any close relationship because we are all different and have different wants. Compromise is a good thing most of the time if the compromising is equal on both sides. Once you give up your wants and needs the majority of the time in any one relationship, it’s time to re-evaluate that relationship and decide if it really is healthy for you to be a part of it.
During some of my harder times in life, I wore a pretty and smiling mask on my face no matter what I was going through. Only a few close people in my life knew what was really going on during my hardest trials. Once you begin to show others you have ups, downs and struggles in life just like everyone else, you become more trustworthy and sincere to others.
I truly believe if I had accepted the good and bad parts of myself at a younger age, I would have avoided many of the wrong decisions that I made in my life. Once you know who you really are inside, you begin to accept and love yourself fully. Once you truly love yourself from the inside, you are able to love and accept others which provides a much higher probability of maintaining healthy relationships.
I would be lying if I said that turning the big 40 didn’t bother me. It seems that 40 is a number where I believe I should have finally ‘arrived’ in life, or my life should be the perfect picture of a successful wife, mother, business woman or whatever other demanding expectation I put upon myself when I was younger. My life right now is pretty good, but if I could have planned it all out or done things differently – it definitely would not look like how it actually turned out. I am a blessed mother of two children and I do have a few accomplishments under my belt but I sometimes compare my life to others and it just gets me down.