For all us, women

I suppose you know, I love to write. You are my bad mood therapy and my friends, whom I don’t know personally. The women on the other side of the screen that follow my words and, I suppose, identify with me. We have different jobs and perhaps mine is a bit unusual, but not so much so that it would make me very different from you; I actually think we have a lot in common.

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

As I put on my black tulle dress and zip it up, I’m thinking how I would rather wear it for a different occasion than filming my show. I am lost in a sea of responsibilities and a job that never ends, however, my job has merged with my life to such an extent, I have a hard time telling them apart, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But sometimes I just want to switch off. I consider it a gift from up above, being able to share with you my personal stories. That I am able to let the light shine upon them and turn them into words. That I am able to be honest and naked, without shame, because at forty I am truly not interested in whether somebody dislikes me. To stop proving to others you exist, to stop counting compliments because you know who you are and where you are going, so you don’t need these kind of accessories. These are the good qualities of a mature woman. I’d rather have a burgundy lipstick and pedicured feet, it gives me more confidence than looking for the sympathy of a superior at work, who has forgotten that such a thing as kindness even exists. Or, who knows, maybe they never even knew it. I still compromise, but less than I used to, because I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like crashing my head against the wall, because I love my body, my head especially and all the thoughts it contains, sometimes as shiny as wings of an angel, other times darker, but mostly silvery and magical like rays of moonlight, and just uniquely mine. I know how to stop myself now and give myself a hug, laugh and forget about the things I may not like all that much, even people sometimes, ones I’m certainly not going to change.

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

I drink coffee in the city and look at the street full of life. Book stands, a group of Chinese that are too loud, as usual, interesting youth, well dressed. I become fully aware of this moment and the life running through my veins. I ponder how one life isn’t going to be enough for everything I had set out to do. And I see my little Sofia in my mind’s eye, who isn’t so little anymore, but in my heart she is forever going to stay just a baby in a yellow onesie with an infinite gaze full of stars, and little hands searching for mine. Just like she held on to my finger in the hospital and drew life in with all the strength she had and breathed on her own for the very first time, I hold on to the lymph and the energy that courses through me day by day. Through all of us. The female curiosity and the witching power awakens. My senses become alert and I suddenly sense things I wasn’t able to before. What I miss these days is a car ride along the coast, where I used to be able to admire the sea every morning and look at Koper form that blue perspective. Now this has also changed. I climb a hill strewn with concrete and apartment buildings and I wonder, if the kindergarten I used to go to so many years ago is still there, at the edge of the woods. I realise there isn’t much green left, and the building seems surprisingly smaller. Or maybe it’s just that I am bigger.

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

People, who have left, experience we haveaccumulated, love that broke our wings, the friend that lives too far away, they’re all things that we haven’t actually lost. They are a part of us, a part of our history. I probably wouldn’t be me today, if it weren’t for that love. I wrote about it in my journal and I can scroll through it, like a book of life, when I need to. I need to know who I am and, partly, who I was, and that is why the written word is so important; it can stop the flow of time and allows you to take a look back. When I see people in the streets, I always think they each have their own story. I imagine how complicated they are, or perhaps simply wonderful, and sometimes fiercely dark; and I suppose we all must have gone through some similar phases. I still believe, however, that there must be a “forever”. In friendship, family, love, work. There are some golden pieces of eternity that ensure we’re safely harboured. And when I sense them, subtly and ever so softly, I also sense a moment of perfection, when everything is in its place and exactly as it should be.

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Photo: Manca Kocjancic

Thank you for reading me, my words, and making sure every moment that I am not alone. Neither are you.