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.

Day 354. Empathy gone wrong

   Today was one of those days when you empathized with the weather more than you had planned to. You let the gloomy clouds and the heavy rain get to you, so you were cranky and bored all day and you knew nothing you do could change that. 

   You wish things could be different and you could be like other people who just see rain as mere water coming from the sky and gloomy clouds as random weather. Today you wish that more than ever. You know everything is an illusion and it's all in your head as much as you know you can't really control it. You tried it before and it was always more powerful than you. 

   It is what it is. So maybe the only option available in this case is finding something that would turn your day upside down. A reason to smile, a reason to fall in love with today:) Guess what, when you want it hard enough, that reason reveals to you and even if outside it's pouring rain the sun inside will keep shining:) At least that's what happened to me, even if it was just a little movie which totally spoke to me. It was enough to make me go to bed full of hope like any other day.

Day 238. The perfect illusion

   You know that moment when you randomly go in a store and see something that seems perfect for you? 

   You're amazed when you see it but you don't have the money to buy it right then so you go home daydreaming about coming back and getting it next time. But after some days, when you do go back to the store and see it again you realize you had the illusion of perfection and that, in fact, the thing is not as lovely and amazing as you remembered it. 

   The next step is being disappointed or relieved (depending on how much it costs) because in the end all this "game" brings in a lot of tension. Sometimes you realize you don't need it right then, but you have an irresistible feeling you want to own it. So when you go back and confront reality you realize you were just temporarily blind.

   Today I felt just that. It's not the first time it happened to me and I realized it might occur because our whole life we're trying to find little pieces of ourselves and this kind of encounter is exactly what we need to feel complete... it's like trying to solve our own puzzle. So we're searching for the other pieces. Every time we find one of the right ones we're in 9th heaven, but sometimes the pieces are very similar and it's easy to be misled. That's when "the perfect illusion" happens:)

   In the end, you win some battles, you lose some battles. Today I was relieved. The dress was too expensive:)