DAY 307

the foreigner

When I was a girl and later on, when I was a teen and a very young woman I usually spent part of my summer vacations in a tourist village by the sea, where there were tourists from all over Europe

 I always noticed middle-aged women who looked secure and happy, charming and carefree, those whose behavior indicates a certain maturity. They were quite different from the women of the same age I knew, who were much more traditional, and often, more old-fashioned and very provincial in their outlook

I imagined them to be strong, independent, passionate and unconventional. I also imagined how wonderful would be to stay in a place where you could be anything you wanted to because no one expects nothing from you

Of course, I didn´t know them personally, and they could be anything, but they represent something I aspired to: freedom, self-acceptance, no need to please anyone,  a deep  and appealing personality, culture, determination, character, wisdom, calm  and  joy 

A whole life has passed since I was there having my vacations and telling stories to myself about my forthcoming life and the kind of woman I would be in the future

Now that future has arrived and has almost passed. I wouldn´t imagined life to be so tough, complicated and interesting. I wouldn´t imagined myself to be so wounded due to things which in that time I considered normal. I wouldn´t imagined my uniqueness could be so harmful. I wouldn´t imagined myself struggling against my own experiences so hard and emerging after this wonderful journey...

I hadn´t thought about all this for a long, long time, but when I saw my own reflection I had the feeling that I had achieved what I was in pursuit of. Maybe the path has been twisted but now I am like I imagined those women to be.

Now I am the foreigner, I am not what I was meant to be according my context, my circumstances, my family origins and so on,  but I am  not a foreigner to myself, not an outsider in my inner space.

I fully belong to this moment, to this life I live, to this place

I fully am the person I am


PS:  I took this self portrait a while ago. Since I edited it, the content of this post started to go round and round in my head but I haven´t been able to materialize what I was thinking about in concrete words till today. When I found it again going through my files, the ideas dealt with in this post came to my mind in one go