It doesn’t matter that you have arrived, it’s the way you got there that counts, because a successful person always has new goals. You reach one, and there’s another the next morning: better, even more daring, unique, full of expectation. That’s the way it is. The force inside you has a hard time stopping, it keeps pushing you forward, sometimes into infinity, and there are people you leave behind along the way, fake friends, co-workers, pieces of yourself here and there, which you simply have no need for anymore. And then, you can clearly see the peak. Beautiful, sunny, not a cloud in sight, glistening like morning dew, clad in fairytale colours of the rainbow, and it’s all yours. At least for a moment. You’re alone at the top, you got to where you wanted to be and it’s wonderful. You have the time to reflect about the path you have taken, about how it felt when you were running, slowed down to walk for a bit, then stopped entirely to catch your breath and then pushed forward again, quickly and stronger than ever. You admire the things that surround you, you look at people and events from a completely different, bird’s eye perspective, and realise nothing is missing. You put things away, where they belong, they’re all tidy and finally make sense, you understand them, and, thank God, don’t need to interpret them anymore. They’re all so simple, either black or white, clear, and above all, where they belong.
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
We, women, are warriors, and this goes for every single one of us. I believe we run faster and have an incredibly developed gift, called intuition. This is our companion in life, the one telling us how to react in precisely the right moment. It’s sort of like if you’re sitting next to a person you don’t know, and something starts to bother you, but you can’t put your finger on it. It’s not their perfume. It’s not their looks. It’s not their words. They say that is the moment that two different auras touch and they’re incompatible, which they sense in a split second, so a sort of resistance is formed, which you can feel crawling in your skin for no particular reason. Because some things don’t even have a reason, they just are, like they’re supposed to be, as if somebody was looking down on us from above, knowing all the answers, particularly the ones we don’t understand. I ask a lot of questions and I always hope somebody will hear me; I don’t pretend to know it all, because I’m imperfect and fragile, and I’m clear about this to the people I let in closely enough. There aren’t many people, but to me they’re the real ones, the ones that I can trust and can accept me for who I am without wanting to change me. Perhaps even without wanting to understand me completely.
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
I spent a lot of time thinking about friendship these past few days, about how it’s precious and delicate, oftentimes demanding, especially when it takes root far back in the past, and maybe the only true friends can be those you shared a part of your history and growth with. The ones that saw you in tears when you were 16, shared the joy of passing the driver’s test with you, that were sitting in your living room and awaited the first independent TV show about fashion, that were there when you got caught up in a web of doubts about business and it seemed like there’s no way forward. The rest come along later and they’re definitely a part of your life, but always with a feeling that they found you in the middle of something, so they can have an idea about what’s going to happen a year from now, but they are unable to understand what it was like ten years ago. Our past is like DNA that marks us forever, it’s the way we walked to become better, sometimes worse, perhaps bitter, or eternal optimists. It doesn’t even matter, because every one of us has their own story, some are sprinkled with stardust, others lonelier and quieter, like my January afternoons, when I try to untangle myself from the web of thoughts that have caught me and won’t let go. I am a demanding woman, there is no doubt about that, and I am too much of a witch for this world, too submerged into gazes, words, and the rhythm of breathing. I sense all of it, like a modern time radar that wants to just shut down most of the times, and stop recording reality, because it’s so different from the one I imagined.
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
Photo and make-up Biljana Babic
Then I see my wonderful living room, all covered in white. It is peaceful, and is calling to me, inviting me into it’s embrace like a lover. I lie in my chair, I feel the warmth of my beloved coffee on the palms of my hands as I stare at a cup from New York, I remember everything it means to me, and think of life as it should be. A magical man once told me: “It’s lonely at the top”. I didn’t understand it then, it was just a string of words, accompanied by a wise look in the eyes and a white smile. Only a moment had passed, before he laughed again and held me close. Life goes on, it’s true, like a wild river that often swallows us up. And some have the ability to see the entire landscape from a different perspective, higher, better and wiser. And while the rest keep running here and there like little black ants with all their busywork, the top is indeed lonely, and these days also very, very quiet.
