The choices we make

Deciding to live in another country is a tough decision. It comes with a price. It’s a decision to leave behind all you ever knew as right, as safe. It’s a decision to be far away from those you grew up with and love. It’s to know not only that you’re now responsible for your own laundry, your own cleaning, your own groceries, your own toilet paper, but also to know that you’re responsible for taking care of yourself when you’re sick, when you’re sad, and when you need to cheer up. You’ll meet new people, that’s true, but it won’t be the same.

Most importantly, to decide to move to a different country by yourself means to accept you’ll always have this voice deep inside of you asking “did I make the right choice?” In good days the voice will be so quiet you’ll forget it’s there. You’ll have moments so full of happiness you’ll think yourself to be a fool for ever wondering if it was right or wrong, and you’ll know in your heart you did the right thing. But there will be bad days, in which the voice will scream so loud you won’t be able to ignore it. You may find yourself stalking your hometown friends on Facebook and even regretting not being there when things happen in their lives. You’ll regret not going to a graduation or to a wedding, not holding someone’s baby in your arms, and not being there to see them attempting to parent said child.

I’ve been living away from home, from my country and the ones I love, for almost 6 years now. It’s been a long journey and things have not turned out as I planned, but for the most part I’m happy with my decision. Sure, there are good and bad days, but the good tends to outweigh the bad. Or so I choose to believe. What other choice do I have? Sit down and regret? Consider what if…? What good will that bring? 

In life we must make choices all the time. And since there’s no way of turning back time to try both decisions first, there’s no way of knowing which one is best. All we can do is trust our guts and hope for the best. After all, all we have is now. So make the best of it. Free yourself from the weight of guilt or regret, and enjoy your choices. Allow yourself to be happy about them, even if they didn’t turn out the way you hoped they would. After all, the choices you make are, at least at the moment you make them, the ones you want.

And when things seem to go wrong, do not waste your energy on what ifs. Allow yourself to say “Oh, well,” smile, and move on.

 

Watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends.

Watching the movie P.S. I Love You today got me thinking. The movie starts with a couple fighting over some silly misunderstanding, ending with the couple having make-up sex. It then jumps to him a time where he died and she’s left mourning him as if nothing else in the world mattered and her own life had ended.

Is it a bit too much? Yes. Is her reaction too dramatic? Of course, it’s a movie after all. That’s what movies (and all other stories) do, they exaggerate feelings to an extreme. And even though we do know it’s an exaggeration, we still identify with it. Maybe because we have, at one point in our lives, felt a bit of the hopelessness she feels there, and it’s always nice to be able to identify ourselves with a character. And maybe it is an exaggeration, but when we are hurting, at that very moment, we do feel hopeless, even if for just a short period of time. We all know all suffering ends, but as we go through it, sometimes it’s hard to see the end of the tunnel.

But I do think that what’s nice about this movie is not the overwhelming hopelessness that makes us feel like our life is not so miserable, or even the love stories in it. It’s the other message. The bigger one.

This movie is not about finding someone to love. It’s not about the importance of finding love or of letting love find you. It’s about finding yourself. Holly is in a journey to find herself, and only after that she can find her happiness. Love will come when she’s happy, not as a means to happiness. And that’s something we must learn in life. You can’t hope that you’ll find love and that will solve all your problems. You must first fight and struggle and find yourself. Find yourself and learn to love yourself. You must find something you love doing and make it go from a dream to a reality. Not that you can’t find someone you love before that, but you can’t expect that love itself will fix everything. You are the only one who can fix yourself.

In any case, there are several little bits I like. I like the different characters, the cheesy lines, the crazy letters, and the idea of a kiss that will show you that life as you know it has ended. And that doesn’t mean life as you know it can only change once. It will change as many times as you allow it to happen.

So go, live your life to the fullest, and watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends. 🙂

Quotes:

Gotta be rich to be insane, Hol. Losing your mind is not a luxury for the middle class. ~ Sharon McCarthy

So now, all alone or not, you gotta walk ahead. Thing to remember is, if we’re all alone, then we’re all together in that too. ~ Patricia

Oh, is that why? [fake smile] Oh. Okay. Because I thought it was something different. I thought that it was because I thought I deserved the best and he’s out there. He’s just with all the wrong women. And let me be clear. After centuries of men looking at my tits instead of my eyes and pinching my ass instead of shaking my hand, I now have the divine right to stare at a man’s backside with vulgar, cheap appreciation. If I want to. ~ Denise Hennessey

All I know is, if you don’t figure out this something, you’ll just stay ordinary, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a work of art, or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something… new, and there it is, and it’s you, out in the world, outside of you, and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it… and you know a little more about… you. A little bit more than anyone else does… Does that make any sense at all? ~ Holly Kennedy

We’re so arrogant, aren’t we? So afraid of age, we do everything we can to prevent it. We don’t realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone. Someone who doesn’t drive you to commit murder or doesn’t humiliate you beyond repair. ~ Daniel Connelly

Lemon drops and Tequila, my friend. The moment where a 30-year-old body does not recover quite as fast as a 29-year-old body. ~ Sharon McCarthy

Honestly, I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I didn’t plan on liking you, it just sort of happened that way, I’m sorry about that. ~ Daniel Connelly

If you can promise me anything, promise me that whenever you’re sad, or unsure, or you lose complete faith, that you’ll try to see yourself through my eyes. ~ Gerry’s letter

You made my life, Holly. But I’m just one chapter in yours. There’ll be more. I promise. So here it comes, the big one. Don’t be afraid to fall in love again. Watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends. P.S. I will always love you. ~ Gerry’s letter

Gerry Kennedy: You have my jacket.
Holly Kennedy: I’m keeping it unless we meet again, otherwise that will be the most perfect kiss ever shared by two strangers
Gerry Kennedy: I bet we will meet again.
Holly Kennedy: You better win that bet, because if we do, that’ll be the end of it.
Gerry Kennedy: The end of what?
Holly Kennedy: Life as we know it.

Dear Gerry, you said you wanted me to fall in love again, and maybe one day I will. But there are all kinds of love out there. This is my one and only life. And it’s a great and terrible and short and endless thing, and none of us come out of it alive. I don’t have a plan… except, it’s time my mom laughed again. She has never seen the world. She has never seen Ireland. So, I’m taking her back where we started. Maybe now she’ll understand. I don’t know how you did it, but you brought me back from the dead. I’ll write to you again soon. P.S… Guess what? ~ Holly Kennedy

 

People said it couldn’t be done. But I said, why not?

Often in life we have heard people saying that something can’t be done.

Really? It can’t be done? Who said it? And why not? Can we just sit down and accept it? Should we resign ourselves to the fact that this or that is something we cannot do and just forget about it? Or should we fight for it?

I say fight. I say get up and do it! That dream you had? Act on it! That goal you have in your mind? Go for it! What do you have to lose?

All of us have already made the world a bit more complex simply by existing in it. We changed the rules from what it was to what it is now. We must now take advantage of our position as beings who exist and make that count.

After all, we are beings who live, and as such, may never be truly known. Maybe that’s it. Maybe we are not supposed to be truly known by anyone. Every single person we meet in life gets to see only one tiny piece of the complex puzzle that makes up who we are. Maybe not even I can truly see all I truly am.

How it hurts when you realize I can never be truly known.

 

Dealing with negative comments

This is a video created by Vi Hart, and I know that I’ve been posting a lot of videos lately, but I’ve been struggling with writing and trying to make my stories the way I want them to be and the videos help me.

Anyway, this one is about negative comments, and although she’s talking about comments on YouTube, this can be applied to comments on blogs and even on our own work.

So always remember: you have no power over them that they don’t give you, and most importantly, they have no power over you that you don’t give them. You don’t make things for their approval. You make them because it’s in you to create. So create something. And then share it. Because you are capable of more than you realize.

 

A wine tasting dance with a handsome stranger

I just had the most restful night ever. I can’t even remember the last time I had such a good night of sleep with such vivid dreams.

The first dream I remember was in a theater. There was going to be a play there in a few minutes, and we were going from backstage to the stage and to the part were the seats are. I can’t remember who was the man with me, but I know we were together. Once we reached the steps going down he pulled me to him and said something. It was a silly conversation and I won’t bother you with it, but it was nice.

Then we were in a restaurant. I have a feeling we were in Italy, for some reason. I can’t be sure, but I know for sure it was not here or anywhere I’ve ever been. There was a man, probably the same from the theater but I could see him a little better now. He had dark hair, a beautiful smile, and a nice chin. I know, I know, most people couldn’t care less about chins but I like them. Anyway, we were standing next to his table where there were several people, mostly women. He grabbed a bottle of wine, a special wine, and poured me a glass. He handed me the glass and I saw women looking at him as if they wanted him. I didn’t feel like they were jealous of me, but that they certainly wanted him and his attention. I remember laughing. He started dancing with me and I told him to slow down so I could drink the wine and that I had to smell it first. And I can still remember how good the wine tasted.

Cheers to good dreams and strangers making us smile!
(photo by CityRover Media – http://www.cityrover.com)

 

 

Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

I’ve been trying to write a certain story that’s in my head. I know what I want from it (kind of) but I’m still having a hard time doing it. Sometimes I just feel like I have to go back and fix the little things I know I have to fix in the first few chapters. Other times I feel like if I do that I’ll never get to the end of it. As a consequence, I end up stuck in between those two options.

In the meantime, I try to find inspiration here and there to help me write the story. And I love when I watch something that has nothing to do with my story but then I see this one thing that just seems to fit, that just makes a lot of sense. Do you know what I mean?

JJ tells Penelope someone’s watching her. Penelope looks at him sitting at his computer desk. She turns back to JJ and asks, “Do you believe everything happens for a reason?”

Penelope walks toward him. He stands up.

“You,” she says, acknowledging him.

“You,” he replies; a sigh of relief escapes his lips. The coolest girl he has ever met now has a face.

“You’re good,” she states.

“You’re better,” he replies.

They look deep into each other’s eyes. The universe comes to a stop. Everything around starts to disappear. They are the only ones standing there.

“Kevin Lynch,” he says, offering her his hand.

“Penelope,” she says, accepting his hand in hers.

His lips mouth her name. No sound comes out, for his lips have no intention of being heard. They are merely repeating what the mind has already memorized. Kevin smiles.

Falling. Unexpectedly.

I guess everything does happen for a reason.

Criminal Minds – S03E09

P.S.: Bonus points if you have seen this scene before. If not, you can see it here. And yes, you can still get the bonus points if you watch it now.

 

Of name changes and refrigerators.

I woke up this morning and I just knew her name was Ginger. I tried to name her Phoebe yesterday, but who was I kidding, I can’t name her, she names herself. And that’s how I woke up thinking “Ginger. Ginger is her name.”

Maybe she was whispering that in my ear during the night. Who knows? I just know that that’s her name, just like I know that she picked me when I went there to adopt a cat. She adopt me, and not the other way around.

So after I woke up this morning I went looking for my mini purring machine. She saw me passing in front of the kitchen and gave me a meow. She was on top of the fridge, hiding behind the cereal boxes.

I went on with my morning routine, got some coffee, took a shower, got dressed, etc. When I was brushing my teeth I heard a noise. “Great. Did she drop my cereal box behind the fridge?” Just imagine the mess. Plus, if it was one of the opened boxes, I’d have cereal under the fridge and that would be a mess I didn’t want to clean up. But no, all the cereal boxes were still there. Weird.

It only took me a few seconds.

I started pulling the fridge away from the wall, yelling her name (the right one, mind you) and nothing! Not even a tiny meow. When I pulled enough I looked and there she was, not moving. I know the poor thing was scared to death, but couldn’t she at least let me know she was alive?

When she finally summoned the courage to jump out of there I hugged her tight and didn’t want to let her go. Then I pushed the fridge against the wall as best as I could.

She hasn’t been there since then. We’ll see.

Look at me. Do I look like anything other than Ginger? Of course not.

 

E as in ‘Ello there, mate!

Everyone, meet Phoebe!

Phoebe. That’s P as in Phoebe, H as in hoebe, O as in oebe, E as in ebe, B as in bebe, and E as in… ‘ello there, mate!

She’s the most adorable little thing ever! She’s been walking around the house, making sure everything meets her expectations, I guess. But the place she chose to spend her time was under the couch. Sure, because who doesn’t like to take a nap on a hard, cold floor during winter?

Anywho, she’s adorable! Did I say that already? She is! She lets me grab her even when she doesn’t want me to, and she doesn’t even try to jump from my arms all that much. And when I talk to her she comes from under the couch for some snuggles. And she purrs! A lot. And they are loud. Love it!

P.S.: If you don’t get the title, click here.

P.P.S.: You can also click on the link if you get it but want to relive the moment. Seriously. Go on. Don’t be shy.

P.P.P.S.: Name change: Phoebe is now Ginger. I don’t really know why, but I woke up and somehow I knew her name was Ginger. I guess most of this post won’t really work now… Oh well.

 

New Year Wish

I love new years. They are brand new notebooks full of blank pages just waiting for us. And we fill their pages with new stories, new dreams, and new mistakes. Yes, mistakes, lots of them. Because life is not life without some good mistakes along the way.

I remember once looking for quotes on the internet and stumbling into some really great ones written by Neil Gaiman.

Gaiman’s new year wish for 2005 (written in 2001):

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

For 2008 he added:

…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be,  be wise, and that you will always be kind.

And for 2012 his wish was:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

I guess my New Year Wish for 2013 is very similar to the ones Gaiman made, only with my own twist:

May 2013 be full of magic, dreams, and lots of good madness – because nothing is complete without a touch of good madness in it. May we read great books full of wonderful stories to inspire us. May we make mistakes, lots of them, and may we also make art – any kind of it. May we write, draw, dance, sing, act, paint, create. May we never stop doing something we’re afraid of doing. May we live brand new adventures. May we learn the magic of dancing in the middle of a supermarket. May we embarrass ourselves and live life to the fullest. And may we never forget to be furiously happy!!

 

Say WHAT?

I’m about to leave the house and I notice I’m a couple of minutes late. Okay, that is not that big of a deal, I know, especially because I always leave the house with enough time to be where I’m supposed to be at least 5 minutes early. Still…

So I start looking around for my keys. I can’t find them. They are not by the back door where I always put them. I pat my pocket. Of course, they’re in my pockets. I left the house earlier in the morning (as in still-too-dark-outside early) and kept them in my pocket.

I reach for the door knob to open the door. It doesn’t open. Well, this shouldn’t surprise me, since I didn’t even unlock the door yet.

I unlock the door and leave. Then I remember my cell phone. I go back in. I can’t find it. I look at the normal spots where it should be and nothing. Then I look at my left hand. Oh, there it is! I’m already holding it.

I finally leave the house (for real this time and by now I’m really late) and shake my head.

Apparently waking up at 3:30 a.m. can transform you into a grandma looking for glasses that are right under her nose.

P.S.: I arrived at work 3 minutes late. Say WHAT?