The lessons

   Dear diary,

   I learned that life takes you by surprise. No matter how much you try to prepare yourself for what's coming.

   I learned that you never completely know yourself and that you have to be willing to play the beautiful unfolding game life is so you could get to know yourself a little more every day.

   I learned that we take so many things for granted and it's so hard not to once we're used to having them around.

   I learned that it's all an illusion. The mirror of Erised. And it takes a whole while till you figure that out.

   I learned that now is more important than yesterday or tomorrow, that I want to live it all before I pass away. 

   I learned that life gives us gifts of all sorts and shapes and we should always take them. Because they don't come back.

   I learned I needed 25 years to be a woman and I'm still a kid inside. I love that part of myself and I enjoy it every day.

   I learned we're complex beings, beautiful ones, full of amazing features we should use more often. We need to be true to ourselves first and then to the others.

   I learned that it's hard to have no expectations but you can train yourself not to. That life is a game where you have to accept that sometimes you win and other times you lose and know that the game always goes on no matter what... with or without you.

   I learned that life's short, so we should do what we feel like and regret nothing.

Still learning,

D.

The 3 magical days

   "Every miracle lasts only three days", they say. Some days are longer, others are shorter. But somehow miracles end and then you're all by yourself asking if that was just a dream or if it was reality. 

   You already knew that life is a never ending journey across calm seas and harsh mountains. You know the theory. But since you've been traveling on a calm sea for years, it was always hard for you to imagine that sometime you'd have to climb the Everest. And that's simply because you were used to living a comfortable life. All nice and cozy. 

   Your third magical day is now coming to a close and you can feel it. The wind is starting to blow. The sea is slowly becoming agitated and you're borrowing its state. You're starting to tremble in your summery dress and you close your eyes. Black and white gloomy images come into your mind. You will have to continue your journey up until the peak you'll be terrified about. You know you'll want to come back to the amazingly calm sea and clear water, but you also know you won't be able to. Cos the doors behind you will keep closing and you can only go forward. And then you'll want to stop and just lay down for a while and weep. Weep because you miss these carefree summery days, these times when you were just a girl. 

   When you open your eyes you realize you've aged. You're a grown up woman now. That's what autumn does every year. It takes away the innocence and gives back the same sorrows you had last year. She'll keep doing that till you get at peace with your destiny and you accept it. Ups and downs. Happiness and sadness. Sea and mountain. 

   You look away in the distance and you see the waves coming towards you. But you hold on tight and decide to live every day as it comes and enjoy every bit of happiness that's left until the great sorrow. You know the next 3 days will be mundane, cruel, ironic, anything but magical, but you remember you've been through this before and you prevailed. So you take a deep breath and shout to the waves: "Come what may, I'm ready!"

Day 327. Another day to remember

   This is the day. The day when all studying ends and we try to convince other people that we know what psychology is about. We let them come into our world and hope they will like it enough to give us a high mark and let us enjoy the next year of our life in a good workplace. 

   That's what teachers do. They take an exam each year and hope for the best. They get ready for it for months, so that's how friends and family forget how they look like. They all can't wait for it to be over. And one day, today, the loop ends. Anxiety is coming to the surface and worrying thoughts swim across the mind. Teachers don't know what lays ahead of them, they just hope for the best. And then something happens. Something that changes their day.

 

   I wasn't nervous this morning. Not because I studied hard and I was confident or because I received the opportunity to work in the same kindergarten next year... but because of her. The wise music teacher. One of the examination supervisors. One that knew psychology better than we did and that had to lose it all to reach wisdom and be able to teach others how to cool down and laugh their stress away before a big exam. One that gave us a life lesson. 

   We had to wait for a whole hour before the exam and in that time she took our minds off of it. We were no longer in a foreign class, in a foreign school, waiting for the exam subjects to be delivered to us. We were attending an awesome course about happiness. She told us that the key to happiness isn't getting attached to the people around us. Happiness is loving and setting them free. Free to be themselves, not the ones we expect them to be. And, among others, she reminded me that when we want something, we should believe in getting it and ask for it with all our heart. And it shall be given to us because of our faith:) 

   So when the subjects came in, I bet all of us asked to have an easy exam and get a high mark:) It's funny how we needed to meet this woman to psychologically prepare us for an exam on psychology:)  And it's awesome that we did. Cos in the end when the subjects came in we were all confident that we could be the best version of ourselves right there, on that paper, and I donno about the others, but I enjoyed that exam. Some interesting ideas popped in my mind, some that might pleasantly impress the teacher reading my paper, the same ones that made me smile during the exam because that teacher changed my life and I needed her there. I needed her to tell me that attachment is not love and that love is setting people free from our expectations:) I was already in that battle with myself lately and her verbalizing it meant I took the right decision.

   Everything does happen for a reason:)

Day 183. Like a woman

   Today, for the first time in my life I really felt like a woman. I was no longer a teenager or a student daydreaming about the perfect job. It was the first time really celebrating myself and not just my mother:)

   Working changes people, even though not completely. It can lead you through restless seas and it can even drive you nuts when you see you work for a month and your whole salary goes to paying taxes, invoices and things like those. But in the end you're satisfied that last month you had the money to buy yourself something that will last for a decade:) So it's all worth it.

   Even though feeling like a woman makes you feel powerful, sometimes being one is like being a girl in disguise:) The age and the fact you're working or maybe just wearing a special dress can tell them things are different now. In fact, we're all still in need of affection and protection. That's why we like flowers, guys. Because we bond with them. They're just like us, fragile and beautiful and needing to being taken care of:) You'll never understand this, but I wish you'd just go on trusting our instincts and still bring us flowers every 8th of March:) Because that's how we know you're trying to bond with us too, and what can be cuter than some puppy eyes asking you "Did I buy the right flowers?":)

Day 136. The hunger games

   Life's so tough to keep up with. I wish I would just stop needing stuff and reach a continuous inner peace where feelings not objects are the ones leading my life. That would be me reaching nirvana. Oh how I long for that!

   When you end up satisfying one need, Maslow's pyramid reminds you there is always something ELSE you need and then you end up being "hungry" again... always craving for something. If you have food and shelter, then you aspire towards a good job, a stable romantic relationship or peace within your family. When you have ALL these, you take a step further and you begin needing to be appreciated by the others and be confident. And how do you achieve that? By wanting a make-over. If you're a woman it all becomes very tangled up since you seem to need so many things to make you feel confident. I envy guys, really. They don't even care so much what they're wearing and they don't need earrings, rings and make-up stuff. Don't get me wrong. I love searching for the right "little pieces of me" out there and having that perfect wardrobe that would represent me well. The thing is that our roles continually change. From being a pupil you become a student and then you start working. You feel you grow up and you have different needs. Thus you want to change things around you. And that involves money:) In a consumerist society where you find something on sale at every step, you'll always feel hungry. In the given circumstances, maybe the best option is escaping in the wild... but we all know that's not a viable idea. So I think we have to face the world we're living in and move along with it while playing "The Temptation game" and trying to win from time to time. I have a feeling I'm gonna lose this one. Who knows, maybe I'll win the next.