Letter to my teenage self

Hello, darling

I’m writing you this letter because I know how insecure you are, and to let you know that things will sort themselves out just fine. Not in a regular way, but in your own kind of way, and that’s part of what makes your journey awesome.

Who am I? Good question, yet funny answer: I’m your ten years older version. And I will drop here some spoilers about what this timeframe will mean for you.

You will discover what makes you happy

Yes, you will be happy. And, of course, there will be some things that will bring you happiness. You will find them early and respect them. You will build little routines around them that will work as small but effective pills for the dark times that will come.

You will like yourself more

Of course, there will still be days when you’ll feel like you’re a total failure, but, as a difference from today, you’ll be able to see your good parts as well. You will like yourself more than you do now, and, obviously, less than you will like yourself when you’ll be 35. You will also stop belittling your accomplishments and will understand that a bad day is not a bad life. And, unbelievable, you will actually get to like yourself. Sounds pretty much like a fictional character, eh? Just give yourself some time, and watch.

You will talk about the things you try to hide now

For now, you try your best to seem as normal as a teenage girl could. But in less than ten years from now on, not only that you will talk about your disease with people without feeling ashamed. You will even write about it, and you’ll see people coming to you and sharing stories of their children having the same diagnosis as you do. And this will empower you, as well as your community.

You will still have friends from your childhood by your side

And they won’t be the ones you’d think. But they will be there for you when you’ll have good news, bad news, and whenever you’ll need to be slapped with that hard to swallow truth pill. They are not that many as you’d hope, but they will be there, and that’s what makes them living wonders.

You’ll make peace with your body

And this will be a game-changer. You’ll get thinner, you’ll learn about what kind of aesthetic you match best with, and will allow yourself to finally be happy in your own body, not in a future, perfect version of it. You will learn to stop postponing goodness for later, and that will help you a lot. Even so, you still won’t be able to see yourself as a beautiful woman, but you will only get to care less about this aspect.

You’re gonna do things your way

Maybe things won’t make that much sense seen from the exterior, but you will remain faithful to your values and your determination of walking on that one path, instead of the easier ones, will often seem like stubbornness at first. But it will also be the one thing that will bring you other people’s respect- the fact that you will never quit on something just because it’s hard.

You will keep your priorities aligned

This means you will put on hold anything that won’t give you the chance to grow, learn, or be yourself. You will keep learning on various domains, will keep writing, and will become a volunteer.

Volunteering will help you learn about how to be useful to others while not emptying your own cup of well-being. You will learn that you can give to others and receive at the same time, and the moments you’ve made those children smile will remain some of your most precious memories.

But this also means that you will cut people out of your life just because they don’t allow you to grow your way. And you won’t be sorry for doing so.

You will become your own kind of woman

It’s not very clear how will that woman be, for now, but I only can tell you that you’d love her if you’d met her. She’s funny, passionate, smart, relaxed, and smart. But I can tell you that she won’t be the kind of woman your family hopes you’ll become. She won’t care this much about how other people see her. She will have learned, by now, to put herself first. Do you know those lists with personality traits from the drawer? She checks them all and adds some more bullet points.

You will learn to say no

And you’re gonna love it! You will reach that point where you will learn that saying no is not an insult, but a proof of self-respect, and you will act like it. You will start to say no to whatever you feel like it doesn’t suit yourself: people, opportunities, everything that feels off.

You might not always know what you want, but you will always have a clear sight of what you don’t want, and that will do just fine in the long run.

You’ll bring magic up to your life

Not only that you will learn how to work with magic, but you will also learn to trust your inner voice, not other’s opinions about how you should be doing this or that. And every time you will listen to that inner voice, you’ll win. But it will be some hard to learn part of the journey, even for you. You will, as time goes by, discover that you are stronger than you’ve thought you could possibly be. And the thing that you can find happiness in the smallest things is one of the traits that root that power of yours.

These are only a small, small part of what your journey will be like. A teaser, if you want to. Because, by the way, you will be a pro at teasing people, too. Even if now it does not really sound like you, it will. Just be patient.

I think this will be any teenage girl that will trust her personal journey more than other people’s opinions about how her life should be, but today is not only about them, it’s especially about you. Because one of the most important lessons that you’ll be learning during this decade is the fact that a woman will only succeed if she will help other women, too. You will be empowered and inspired in your journey by wonderful, astonishing women, and you will find the power to give the same gift back to the young girls.

Because, if it’s anything that you are certain of, by now, is the fact that it needs a whole community to raise a woman who is unapologetically herself, capable to share and put boundaries as well. But, in the end, it is always worth it.

The word that frightens begins with C

Last week, I had a talk with a good friend that asked me, Lucretia, why are some people always complaining about their lives, but they refuse to make a change for the better? I admit, I’ve been taken by surprise by her question, as nothing from our little chit-chat was pointing to it, but it also made me smile.

Truth is, even if all kinds of words have all kinds of powers, one has the particular power of scaring people more than everything. Its name is Change. Of course, we’re told that change is good, that we need to look for it and embrace it with all our being, but the truth be told, for most of us, change ain’t pretty at all.

Change is not frightening by itself, as most people understand that it is nothing to be endlessly avoided. What makes it frightening, though, is its complexity and, even more often than that, its costs.

Because change is, before anything else, a process. A long-term process, involving being put in front of your own mistakes and flaws, and asked Do you like what you see? The real answer is, usually, no. And this is where the fun begins. Choosing to change is the first step, and the easiest to take, even if it doesn’t feel easy at all. The root of change, however, of noticeable change, is giving up. You give up whatever you notice that is holding you back- beliefs, habits, relationships. You might even have to give up on perspectives, and that’s a tough one to be done, I admit.

If you think about this, the existence of people who fear changes becomes understandable. No one likes the process of changing, but we all want the results of it. It sounds foolish and naïve, but it’s called being human. Evolutionary talking, change was never something good, or something to be hyped about. It meant loss, uncertainty, anxiety, maybe even danger. That’s how our brains got wired, during a long, long period, to resist change. That’s also the reason why we fear more social changes than we do fear the technical ones.

This is also why it takes so long for an individual to actually change something that bothers its life. It is, above everything else, an inner battle- a battle between your current dissatisfaction, and your amygdala, telling you that everything is fine just the way it is now, but it might not be as good if you’ll make changes. Maybe things will get worse, instead of getting better. That’s how your close ones dismissing changes think. This is how the change resistance sounds like.

It has never been about laziness or dreaming small dreams. It has never been about not wanting to be a better version of yourself, either, we all want that. It has, however, always been about fearing the process and the costs. Costs that are not small at all, if you give them a second thought. If you add to this some past traumatic events, the resistance to change is bigger than one could possibly expect. And, at some point in our lives, any changes, however big or small, involve the risks of new traumas. So, once put in front of this eventuality, the ordinary individual will make the safest choice, which is, usually, stagnation.

Because after the moment of deciding to make a change, confusion is coming. Ok, I have to change something, this is not what I want my life to be like. But…what should I actually change about my life? And this is how the whole process, anxiety generating and pretty painful, begins. There is a good reason behind the old saying the first steps are the hardest to take, and it applies the best when it comes to the trauma survivors faced with an urge for change.

This is something that personal development didn’t have the courage yet to tackle. Everyone tells you how wonderful the changing process is, and what a wonderful person you’re gonna be at the end of it. Somehow, nobody talks about the ugly fights that happen before one takes the decision to engage in a changing process.

About the self-monologues one has, that tells you to keep what’s working not as a way of seeing what could serve your purposes and what should be changed, but as a way to keep everything. And that also includes the things, beliefs, routines, and relationships that brought you up to that point, too.

Another reason why we have to battle our tendencies of resisting change is attachment. Yes, the good old emotional attachment. We have finally figured out a way of doing things that work (ok, ok, it could be improved, but it works out fine just like it is, too!), so we got attached to it. We like it. And you come and tell us that it should…change? For the sake of the better? The answer will be, most likely, a big no.

Because we like things as they are, and we want them to remain that way for as long as possible. We like our good evening routines and our good morning habits. We like having certain persons around us, even if we are aware that our lives would be way better without them around. This is how it works- we figure out something, we notice it working out in a decent way, we get to like it, and then we dismiss the guys that keep preaching change over and over again.

Yes, change is good. Sometimes, it is so, so needed. But the moment when an individual becomes aware of its need for change is something deeply personal. No book or workshop will ever teach you how to spot it, or how could you tell if somebody has reached that point. This is why most of the change missionaries tend to fail. Because there’s no outer clue to tell you if that the person in front of you needs a change in its way of lifestyle, or it is just your projection about it who’s talking.

So, whenever you feel the need to tell someone that they could just make a change take a deep breath and ask yourself which was the last remarkable change you have taken yourself. You might be surprised of the answer, and it might just as well remind you that every person has its very own life map, with changes and all the milestones marked accordingly. Learn to see the differences between their maps, and yours, as it is the only right way to choose for evolution.

#subsol

otrava-mi iese din sistem
se mișcă lent, lent, lent.
se prelinge pe retină
scurgându-se prin colțul
ochiului care privea departe,
spre nu se știe unde.

văd și ce e, și ce
obișnuia să fie.
dispariții.
granița dintre bine și rău,
azi și ieri, s-a eludat într-o sclipire
ce-a aprins instincte crezute moarte, a
luminat drumuri ce nu știam că sunt
și m-a întors de unde plecasem
fără să spun cuiva pentru cât plec,
umblătoare de drumuri care nu se spun.

mă împart între Eros și Thanatos,
doi chiriași ce parcă au luat în stăpânire
subsolul. ultimul spațiu care-mi rămăsese,
desemnat de cine mai știe când sau cine
ca fiind al meu. l-au luat
fără să caute, sau poate
să-ntrebe: “Al cui ești, maică, tu?”. nu.

e contrast și inegalitate în mine.
subsolul mi-e năpădit de valuri,
de unde, umbre și texturi.
mă autodistruge și reclădește fiecare
reîmpărțire a subsolului. fiecare moment
în care văd clar.

e contrastul între ascuțimea claviculei
și moliciunea șoldurilor,
între asprimea prafului care se depune
și umezeala rănilor care-l primesc.
contrast fatal între rupturi de stofe
grele, vechi, opace și lumina
care-și forțează intrarea în văgăuni
unde i s-au pierdut și numele, și rostul.

e urletul din miez de zi,
neputința din fiecare dimineață.
și e tăcerea fiecărei nopți, rece și grea
ca o piatră de mormânt cu care
te obișnuiești așa, zi după zi.

e amestecul jumătăților.
câte jumătăți poate să aibă un întreg?
câteva infinități asimetrice.
am învățat
că mă compun din jumătăți aranjate
de un copil extraterestru schizofrenic,
care iubește culoarea și imprevizibilul,
iubește viața, apropierea morții și ruina.

sunt
un amestec de jumătăți disparate,
lăsate vraiște, gir la ultima reîmpărțire
între doi străini a unui teritoriu străin.
mi-am îngropat sacul cu cicatrici sub un pin
în mijlocul zilei, în soare. iau cu mine
doar bucăți. amintiri. jumătăți.
de oră, de an, de zi. segmente
care n-aduc înapoi ce putea fi.

de azi, copilul extraterestru schizofrenic
îmi prinde mâna pe care tot el a pictat-o
într-un șirag de apusuri șamanice,
intense și intruzive ca o încantație
de aducere a trecutului înapoi
și se plimbă cu mine
pe drumurile despre care nu se spune,
în drum spre zorii vederii limpezi
peste oameni, întâmplări și răni viitoare.

de azi, eu m-am născut din nou.
alt drum se cască-n jurul meu,
pe cât de lung, pe-atât de lat
și chiar de vreau să n-am păcat
e o idee prea târziu.

azi eu nu vreau, dar nici nu știu
cum aș fi, dacă aș trăi
fără chiriașii mei plecați și ei
la război, în timp ce stau pe loc
și rup pe rând bucăți din mine
doar ca să le arunce-n aer, bucăți
de ființă în bătaia unui vânt
ce altcândva-mi suna a neputință.

dar azi n-a trecut, azi e, și astăzi eu
plec ochii-n fața vântului, mereu
cu el în spate, norii sfârșitului cunună,
îmi merg drumul cu un copil străin de mână
și îl privesc, și-i cânt, și sper
că va vorbi, c-are să spună
ce vede-n drum, în oameni, ce adună
în ochi, în zâmbet, în vârful limbii.
e vineri, azi noi nu mai privim același cer.