We should do what we love more often. We should also care less about what other people think. These wonderful heads of ours can conjure up quite bizarre thoughts, which often catch us like a spider web, and it’s difficult to avoid it. Fortunately, the head is round, which means thoughts can change direction. It’s all up to us, but you already know that. Recently, while coming home on a sunny morning, I was a guest at a kindergarten and I spent an hour entertaining the children with stories about fashion, beauty, success and television. They were looking at me with big eyes full of dreams and expectations, they’ve never been hurt, disappointed or thinking now and then in life you just happen to fall. Not only physically, but morally. They gave me chestnuts, marmalade, homemade tomato sauce, a frame with our group photo and some other things, all of which seemed entirely too much for my small contribution, but I sensed perfect happiness in their smiles and so I thought maybe I did something good that day.
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
When I came home, I saw a woman sitting on the low wall, but I didn’t immediately recognize her. Only after I ran up the stairs did it occur to me that the lady with a scarf and sunglasses on her head was a brief acquaintance. I know she had had better times, but now she is fighting a serious illness. The surface of her large sunglasses reflected the sun. The pale skin said to the world that things aren’t as they are supposed to be. And unfortunately, it’s often all wrong. I love those moments, when I’m writing for Graceful Story, when I can expose my heart and share with you my feelings, thoughts, fears, even anger, sometimes. Today, I’m writing because it seems highly inappropriate that I should go around taking care of things that go on in my life, as long as I’m healthy and have lungs that are able to breathe in the fresh air, and a heart that calmly beats and allows me to do all the things that I like every day. Our organism is something that simply is and we all take our healthy bodies for granted. Until something stops us and we realize that a day has hours, which have minutes, which have seconds. It’s all precious. It’s all unique, it all matters.
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
So I stopped. I went to the kitchen to make some coffee. The living room was full of toys, lying around where Sofia had left them. I was folding laundry and smelling the scent of fabric softener, because I really like it, it gives me a feeling of cleanliness and freshness. The day outside went on as before, no matter what I was thinking or feeling. Everything was in its place, and yet everything was wrong. I think about the hours I spend ironing, and the hours that fill me with negative energy. I believe we all have our own bad boss and we could gather and complain about them even louder, and about all the relationships gone wrong. But still. We still have a job and to me, mine really is a dream job. I have a career that has enabled me to choose my own path, say no, and stay focused on things I really like. I put my foot down now and then, not that often, but when it comes to my spare time, happiness, love, or health, I push everything else in a corner and think: well, these things will have to wait, I don’t have the time right now.
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
For a day, one single day, I would like to put myself first. I would wake up in the morning, not exactly at seven a.m., and ask myself while brewing coffee, what exactly makes me happy and which are the things that I 100 % truly like? Right now, I long to go to New York, because I really miss the States; and not just for a couple of weeks, I would like it to be a longer trip to clean myself of the mess and get rid of things I don’t like at all. Then I would go somewhere warm, where I could fly around in shorts and sandals, swim in the ocean and feel the perfect happiness that we’re often not given the chance to even experience. I would definitely work less, deal less with people who I’m sorry to say don’t understand me, and even less with those I don’t need. There are many of them, not in the sphere of friendships or deep relationships, but rather in business, although I don’t want to hurt their feelings out of politeness. And then the little big things pile up inside of you. The vase slowly becomes too full and you’re just waiting for the moment, when it all gets to be too much. And this moment can also move, because women are masters of pushing matters into the subconscious and as if that weren’t enough, we put a mask of happiness over it to make it easier to persuade ourselves that everything is as it should be. Well, sometimes it just isn’t.
Photo and make-up: Biljana Babic
Life has many different shades. Children’s laughter may be the most perfect one. On the other side of the rainbow, less brilliant things are going on. I sometimes ask myself, why, but I never get an answer. So all I would like to say is this: let’s stop, enjoy, breathe and try to catch the magic, while it’s still perfect. Because there are also people out there, fighting serious battles. And my strongest hug goes out to all of them.
Read more about this here
3 thoughts on “Everything matters”
Just amazing
“…if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will be the same again.” William Paul Young
Adorable photos and reading!