The doors

Dear diary,

   I've been thinking about a new concept that came to my mind for a while now. I find it interesting how the important people in our life unlock different doors inside us. It's like we're all wonderful castles that carry their stories of the past with them... some happy, some sad, but all as important to the beauty and the mystery of the castle.
   As castles, we all gather bits and pieces of information that has been given to us and we keep it in different rooms along the time. And when the right person approaches the castle, it enters it and it finds a new key that leads to a new room. A room with wonders and unexpected beauty. With secret books they never knew existed but which apparently were always there. 

   New people open new rooms of the beautiful castle and in the end the whole building will be open to visit for it has reached the age of wisdom when it can give forward what it has received over so many years. 

   How wonderful can it be to know that at an unexpected moment, an unexpected visitor will open up a new room in your beautiful castle, a room that will be a wonder for both the visitor and for the castle itself!:)

In wonder,

D.

Bits of stolen soul

Dear diary,

   The other day I discovered that, just like Augustus in "The fault in our stars", I'm an insatiable soul. I'm never satisfied with an answer, I always want to know more and analyse everything. So even when I'm laying in bed with my eyes closed before falling asleep, I think about something. I analyse, I try to understand. I'm also never satisfied with just reading one book by an author I love. Actually, when I fall in love with a writer, I'm the worst "girlfriend" ever. I suffocate him with my attention buying all his books that saw the light of paper and then I get lost in his universe until I finish the last book written. I love underlining my favorite quotes and transfering them in my life. I identify with his characters and I forget who I am. I let him steal a bit of my soul and I never look back. 

   I realized I developed a deep, complex and consuming relationship with my favorite books. Not in the sense of feeling the urgent need to read them over and over again. (I don't remember if I ever read a book twice.) No. It's consuming in the sense that my life feels empty whenever the book ends. I find myself missing the characters and wondering how their life might be, just like Hazel (the other character in "The fault in our stars") did after reading "An imperial affliction". She made me remember life is damn short and we'd better live it. She inspired me in thinking that maybe when we're born we each receive an hourglass. Some are huge, others are tiny. An anonymous pre-ordered hourglass. And when the sand is finished, we end our beautiful journey. Just like that. Without further explanation. 

   Augustus feared oblivion. I fear the exact same thing, but then my friends said that the smallest gesture we do towards somebody might change his life and so he'll change somebody else's remembering how I changed his. So maybe, just maybe, we do matter. Even when we're stardust, we still matter. And that's the most comforting thing ever. But until I get there, until my dust finishes, I wanna go out there and continue what I started. Keep falling in love with beautiful writers and spread bits of my soul to the ones who earned it. Because, oh, how good does that feel!

Forever in love,

D.

   

   

The other pieces of myself

Dear diary,

    You know that cliché saying that goes something like "they fit like two pieces of a puzzle"? Until some days ago I thought it meant "they fit like the only two pieces of a puzzle that go together and their encountering is so rare and fortunate". Which is wrong. That's only true if it's a 2 pieces puzzle for "3+ months". Otherwise, we're all just a random middle piece of a 500 pieces puzzle and we match between 2 and 4 other pieces either to our left, right, above or below. So no, in that big pool of 499 pieces left, we don't match just ONE, kids. Look around, we're incomplete without the other neighboring pieces! The big puzzle will only be complete after all the pieces are found. 

   Some pieces are smart and hard-working and they don't give up so easily because they love puzzles so they find their mates easily and they'll be soon ready to get matched up with other puzzle groups. Other pieces are waiting to be found. Some wait a lot. But in the end, the world is a small place... uhm, puzzle. So they will eventually be found and the puzzle will be complete. Thing is, today we might encounter the piece that fits to our left but tomorrow we might as well find the one that fits to our right. And we'll feel just as awesome. But remember, the puzzle isn't complete until all the missing pieces are in their right spot! 

   So look around and enjoy meeting the other pieces. They might be "the sky" and you might be "the grass" but I bet you'll have things to share. In the end, we're all part of the same puzzle.

Puzzled,

D.

My little bubble

Dear diary,

   I had that aha moment again. So I remembered I HAVE to write to you. You know how every day we see dozens of new faces (or maybe old faces we don't remember) and we still focus on our little bubble full with desires, needs and emotions and we forget all about the presence of others? It's funny how one random day you just "wake up" realizing you're Not alone in the world and that you're actually Always surrounded by people but somehow, you can't explain how, you're so caught up in your own web that you feel you're living on your own planet. And that day, when you wake up and you look around you see thousands of other webs that interconnect with yours. And when you lift your eyes you see other eyes just as confused as yours. Hmm... so many people, so many life stories, so many webs:) 

   I remember that once, when I was younger I wished I had the power to just look a person in the eyes and know their entire life. But now I know that would be a too heavy burden to bear. Maybe our brain is focused on our own life because it has to preserve it and it knows how to. What good would it do if we constantly noticed the others and we compared ourselves to them? We do that anyhow, but just paying too much attention would be destructive, I think, especially since we probably won't see that person again. 

   So in the end, ignorance truly is bliss. But that doesn't mean we should walk watching our shoes. There's a whole world outside the bubble and maybe one day we'll want to "wake up" and realize there are people out there whose webs can influence us for the better... and we can focus on them. 

   The world beyond our little bubble is a wonderful place and we should never cease to be amazed. 

Awake,

D.

The art of traveling

Dear diary,

   I finished reading "Paper towns" at 6 in the morning and I had an aha moment. I realized life's an extraordinary journey (I said it various times before, but hear me out): every day is a new mile towards our destination. It's up to us if we take friends with or if we choose to be lone travelers. What's important is that we're daily given wonderful opportunities sightseeing and meeting people so if we wanna stay in the car at times we might lose a whole world out there. It all depends on us. 

   Also, when we start traveling we're not always fully prepared and it seems that we often encounter unexpected situations but the way we get out of them defines who we are and who we'll turn out to be at the end of the journey. Are we excited about traveling or ar we grumpy, saying "I wish I could just sleep today, it's pouring outside"?

   So, prepared or not, we're traveling so we should get in the right mood and start collecting memories! Some places will only be seen once if a lifetime and it would be a pity if we passed by them grumpily. 

Learning how to always smile,

D.

Turn it around

Dear diary,

   Do you remember how when we're little we desperately want to grow up and when we're grown ups we desperately want to go back to being children? Yeah, I'm there. In the second part of that phrase. I'm so tired of being stressed about everything since nothing really matters. It's all going to get lost in oblivion sooner or later anyhow so I have no idea why my brain wants to worry... to make everything so perfect. Maybe I didn't receive enough attention as a kid so I wanna gain it now through everything I do. Or my father is a perfectionist and he raised me to be the same... One of the two...

   I see kids around me every day, so joyful and full of energy, with no care in the world and all the love to give. They make me wish I was built differently. I wish I could just close my eyes and say "Fuck it, it's gonna be okay" from the first time when I feel worry walking around me like a sly fox. But unfortunately I swim in stormy waters before getting there cos that's what I do. 

   It's funny to see how being a psychologist doesn't heal the wounds. It just makes you be aware of them and have to live with them daily without being able to cure yourself really. 

   So I thought about this: when I'll have my own kids you bet I'll make their childhood and teenage period worth living so that there wouldn't be ONE single moment when they will say "I wish I would just grow up already". No you don't, kid, you really don't...

Pondering,

D.

Easter feast

   Dear diary,

   It's Easter time again, that time of the year when we're both sad and happy: sad remembering Jesus's great sacrifice for the whole humanity and happy because He won the battle over the evil when He has risen. Easter is also the time when I get to cook with my mom and bond over the little things, the same time when I get the chance to be creative again because a holiday like this also involves decorations:) 

   This year I've decided to go back to my Romanian roots and dye a part of the eggs the way my dear dear grandma used to: with cute leaves and natural onion dye. 

    But given that spring always brings a huge splash of color in my life, I felt inspired to dye some other eggs like this: 

   Add two or three more decorations and my room is invaded in a sea of eggs, green grass and bunnies:) Nothing new for Dana, huh? :)

   I should be preparing for my upcoming inspection but vacation makes me lazy and sometimes it's good to just lay back and chill. Deadline's not over yet, so there's still plenty of time to finish all my lesson plans. I'm following my inner instinct. And that instinct tells me to enjoy every day the best I can... in the end, it's not vacation all the year:)

Veeeery relaxed,

D.