For many years, this has been a moment I’ve been trying to get over lightly, to create for myself a state and a holiday context.
I read a long time ago that you will do well by someone when you do well by yourself. I do not know how this works for other people, however, for me it was years of struggles, unrest, questions that have yet to be answered, running from something and someone (anything, including myself).
I have come to be better alone, to know how to be happy, to be excited, to cry, to go to a movie, to travel to Paris (or to many other countries) and to live these experiences to the fullest. Sometimes I think that I could do it my whole life, if I had the same energy, state of mind and health for the rest of my life.
However, I look around and I can see that this is not the case for everyone. When we think about products, companies, we talk about their life cycle. They all reach a plateau beyond which they can reinvent themselves or start to fall. I want to believe that I can reinvent myself. But not even this can last forever. People I care about, friends are no more. Their absence brings me down to earth and makes me think about the most important things; the choices I made and if I made the right ones; and what I would like to do in the future.
It makes me think of the poem written by Robert Frost: The road not taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
(…) Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I have always thought about what it would have been like taking another road (if I had stayed in France as a student, if I hadn’t got married, if I hadn’t broken up, if I could have done something else in the last few years and much more). Now I am thinking of another road (or many more actually). Whatever I chose, I know however:
That I have learnt to be alone;
That the absence of those that are not here anymore rips me apart;
That I will put in the effort to show the ones that I care about how much I appreciate them;
That I will leave behind those who want to stay at a distance and do not care about me until they need something from me.
That I will continue to preoccupy myself with what fascinates and makes my mind and soul happy
That I will try to keep up with our times, trends keeping at the same time the essence of who and what I am
That I will still appreciate decency, and those who learn continually, and I will continue to reject arrogance, ill-breeding, the opinions formed from hearsay without prior checking, the ignorance and lack of experience disguised in flashy clothes, foil, vanity.
That I will appreciate the ones who can stand up straight and will reject those who steal and boast by preaching values, trust and ethics
That I will travel alone or with someone either way
That I will write, even if I am the only one reading
That I am not going to waste my time on those who look at me in anger, who envy me, talk behind my back, do not appreciate anything
That I will choose people who like me, inspire me, make me happy, make me laugh, know how to tell me when something is not ok with me or between us, and know how to say it when they appreciate something.