A. called me. ‘my grandpa passed away. he was 98.’
we went to the beach and walk 10 km to vent the pain.
‘i like my life in Melbourne. but i should be in the UK to say goodbye to him. i knew we are far away of everything, but today i realised how isolated we are’, she said.
made me think, as european, why we chose to come to australia. why we chose to isolate ourselves.
maybe to escape from a past life. maybe to forget and ex. or maybe to find who we really are.
i guess it’s all good until reality calls you back. and you can’t make it on time to a funeral.
it happened the same to me when i was just starting my professional life.
but it was not about the distance. it was about the money. couldn’t afford it.
money comes and goes. but some goodbyes, you just get the chance to have them once.
the day after i had dinner with B. was the first time i was seeing her since she gave birth.
‘postpartum is being hard. i guess i just realised i have to put my life apart’, she said.
for the ones choosing not just to be a mum, keeping a social life, exercising and having conversations beyond what the baby does, might seem like sci-fi.
made me think in how it was decades ago. when women couldn’t share what was really going on.
if society was telling us our propose in life was to be a mum, how could you share your struggle for accomplishing your mission in life?
and still today, when women share what’s really going on after giving birth, we prefer to keep lying to ourselves.
otherwise, who would keep on having kids if we REALLY knew how painful the process is?
‘when i go to the toilet i still loose pieces of meat. i don’t know if it’s part of my kidneys, uterus or some leftover of my baby’, she laughed.
the day after had some drinks with C. she was telling me about how it was to be back home in biarritz.
‘felt good to see family and friends. but somehow had the impression they were more sad or angry than usual’, she said.
‘i feel you. when i was in paris two months ago, everybody was looking pretty grey and low. i think it’s because they haven’t had sun in 180 days or something like that. the olympics prep is not helping as well’, i said.
‘i read the other day that france is the most pessimistic country worldwide’, she said.
i don’t know if pessimism it’s a bad thing. it can be heavy sometimes. but it can be linked to realism as well.
because pessimistics are hyper-aware of what could be the worst nightmare.
if pessimism is well driven, can allow you to anticipate, to plan. or just to not deny and confront what is in front of your eyes.
it’s painful. but it’s part of growing-up.
i wonder if being pessimistic is related in having high levels of sensitivity.
how could you be an optimistic today with all the horrible things happening every day?
‘it will be ok’, ‘it’s not that bad’, ‘you are amazing’ or ‘you will make it’ can be loaded words.
i wonder if toxic positivity denies reality sometimes.
and it puts all pressure on you. if you don’t make it, it’s because you don’t deserve it.
makes me think in that time when books, talks and tv shows were talking about how mindset could save your cancer.
so for all the cancer patients – mindset was the key.
and if cancer finally won, well, it was because your mind was not strong enough.
D. was feeling pessimistic as well. she went to a marriage and met the crush of her life.
it’s so rare to find real connection, that when you do, you better put all your intention.
and they did. they were all in. but she recently moved to madrid. and he lives in paris.
when planning the schedule to see each other, D. has overseen an important thing.
‘he is an ecologist. but a real one. so the carbon footprint of the flight is a no-go for his beliefs’, she said.
‘the option left it’s a seventeen hours train’, she concluded in a sad way.
where there is a will, there is a way, the say. but his will to save the planet was his biggest life target.
the week after i went for dinner with E. and G. at neighbourhood wine. E. invited a new friend she met the night before.
‘i was having a drink and the girl started talking to me. she was doing the black thing’, G. said.
‘what’s the black thing?’, i asked.
‘to greet when you see another black person’, she said. ‘here makes even more sense because we are not many blacks in melbs’.
the new friend join us. she’s from the UK. ten years in Oz. lives by the beach.
‘do you girls normally wear wig’, she asked us. took me some seconds to understand i was the only white that night.
‘i get my hair done every 3 months, it’s pretty expensive, but no wigs for me. i can give you some addresses’, E. said.
‘it’s just that nobody taught me how i should be doing my hair’, she said. ‘and to get it done it’s not easy as well. not everybody knows how to deal with it’, she concluded.
E. and G. agreed. there i was with two of my closest friends and I would have never imagined that part of their process of growing up was giving up in their hair.
next day i saw Z. at Monty’s bar.
‘what do you think about sharing the bill in a date?’, she asked me. ‘i struggle to know when we have to share or not. here, whey he pays, you have to get laid’.
‘i am dating this guy, and after four dates of sharing, the bigger dinner came’, she continued. ‘360 dollars for a seven dishes meal. who can have sex after a seven dishes meal?’, she laughed.
made me think about all this thing about sharing the bill.
next week i was with B. in Hope St. ‘when you check how much women have to invest in themselves, when we make it to a date, your bank account is the only one that is impressed’, she said.
balayage, mani-pedi, skincare, make-up, hair removal, pilates reformer class.
yep. our bank accounts are so impressed that maybe that’s why we haven’t invested in real estate yet.
it was my birthday two weeks ago.
sometimes it feels like there is something forcing me to be a grown-up.
but at the same time, it’s like the life i always wanted it’s just getting started.
i turned thirty eight but i feel like twenty eight. and i think society struggles with it.
‘you are so free’, ‘you go out a lot’, ‘you do what you want’, they use to say.
maybe there is a generational gap.
as a millennial, our mothers raised us to be the first of the class. to be smart. to be better than the other ones.
but just in case, do it without getting fat as getting married remains the big prize.
what they haven’t expected is that when you are the best of the class, then you start getting the jobs that were not meant for us.
and the system starts to break.
you invest in your career and you want to feel realised beyond having a couple, getting married or becoming a mother.
and here we are. a single man in his thirties with a nice job and a nice flat is a catch. but a single woman with a nice job and a nice flat is a cat lady for life.
i guess our mothers didn’t see coming this collateral damage. we managed to be the best of the class, but we might have got cursed for the rest of our lives.
so when you decide that you will make the most of the time you have, you get some backlash.
self-centred, selfish or out of reality are the common words some people use to describe my lifestyle.
but what surprises them the most is when you are not even trying to fit.
‘oh, you don’t date?’, ‘you don’t freeze your eggs?, they ask.
i guess sometimes it’s a relief to hear the horror tinder-hinge stories. because it reassures them their life has, after all, some glory.
i don’t know. most of the times is ok. and others it is not.
my gift of my thirty eight was to find a bunch of people who don’t care as well.
they are free as me. they don’t take life for granted and they indulge themselves as well.
most importantly, they are open minded. because there is not just one way of being or living.
It was some days ago. i was with P. and T. and i dont remember how many tequilas shots we had.
we wanted to dance at Angel bar but we decided to have a burger instead at 2 of the night.
‘we are so beautiful together’, i said. and we were.