14. Where are you?

Today, I´m not only sharing my thoughts, but also my voice.

Where are you? Yes, you. Today I woke up and you were on my mind, I want to talk to you. I wonder where you are. You, who are reading. I wonder where you are on this path, which we are travelling together. Where are you? I want to know if you connect or if you’re reading from afar. If you already know yourself or if you haven’t yet found the strength and the space to start getting to know yourself and reconnecting.

Since I started the blog and decided to share my journey, I have been thinking about you. Each time I write, and reread what I write, and when I think about the image that will go with the text and the message that I want to convey to you. I started this blog as a personal project to help me heal, grow, and become the version of myself that I want to be. And I have hope, I would even say intention, that while reading, something inside you awakens, if it hasn’t already, and makes you feel that you too can heal, grow, and become the version of yourself that you want to be.

I have a friend, Cristina, who always reads when a new post comes out, and then shares her thoughts and feelings with me through Whatsapp voice messages. She conveys what I convey, like a mirror that can give me back the love I put into each text. Cristina is a sensitive person, passionate about life and justice, a brave woman, who makes me connect with her while reading, in a true and transparent way. Sometimes when I listen to her, Cristina makes me think about you, those of you who also read my blog, yet I don’t know you. Where are you? Who are you? What do you know about yourself? What do you want to know?

Today I woke up with a strong urge to talk to you, to connect with you. I imagine a meeting where we draw closer together, recognising each other, smiling with joy and hugging. I imagine one of those hugs which makes us sway like a pendulum, in harmony. A long hug. I imagine you at whatever age, perhaps attracted by the aesthetic of the web page and trying to satisfy your curiosity, with the same thirst for knowledge that I have, even though you may not realise it.

I imagine you in a world that doesn’t stop turning, that whirlwind. A world that doesn’t leave you time to look after yourself. I think that, as human beings, we spend a lot of years living in, what I call, time poverty. We don’t have time. And here poverty doesn’t mean a shortage, time is what it is, always. Here poverty results from a poor distribution, from a lack of a freedom. We are ‘time poor’ because we have been taught to feel guilty if we stop, because stopping is bad. That if you aren’t doing something, you’re bored. That unless you do things quickly, you’re wasting time and you aren’t efficient. Time poverty must have something to do with focusing on quantity and not quality. With letting yourself be led by the noise from outside and not listening to yourself.

My world is also ‘time poor’. But gradually, I’m moving away from this and I’m learning to recover my wealth, to prioritise quality, to stop, and to feel rich because I can stop without feeling guilty. I’m entering a new world. Writing here has helped me to articulate feelings and emotions. And taking the time to do so helps me bring to life the entrance to this new world of ‘time wealth’, where I do what I do with intention and kindness, enjoying it and feeling it is correct. What about you, where are you? Is your world like that? I imagine you there, in that non-stop, hurried world, but maybe you aren’t.

Perhaps you also have or have had problems with your periods, with your hormones. Perhaps you have experienced the same imbalance as me. Perhaps you feel trapped in a body that doesn’t correspond to you. Perhaps you don’t dare to talk about what is happening to you and you carry that burden alone. If this is the case, believe me when I say I am by your side, even though I don’t know you, even though I don’t know who you are or what world you live in, even though my imagination can’t reach your reality. I think about you a lot, and I know you are doing the best that you can.

I don’t want to write much more. I want to thank you for accompanying me, no matter how close or distant you feel from me. I have you in my mind and you make this project mean more use than just the relief it gives me, being a way to convey the transformation I am taking on, and put my reconnection into words. I invite you to ask yourself where you are, and I hope that, in searching for a response, you find the place where you want to be, and that you are able to take the next step that brings you closer to that place.

PS. This post’s photo is taken in a special place, Naomi’s Corner. It is a place I discovered a few months ago and I loved it and thought I would be able to take a photo for one of my posts there. When I finished writing this text, I thought that this could be the perfect post for that photo. I’m telling you this, because before leaving the house, I searched the story of the place on the internet. The site pays tribute to Naomi Colcomb, a 28-year-old woman who died in a car accident in 2018. The car ran her over and fled, and they still don’t know who did it. Reading her story reminded me of my own (Packing). It made me feel that the connection I had with this place, even before knowing its story, has something to do with her. I think about her fear, her wounds. I also think about her family and the driver who, although they weren’t able to stop and help her, for whatever reason, I am sure also carries her with them, in the same way that I think that those four young men carry me with them. I thought it was worth sharing the story behind the photo, Naomi’s story, and dedicate this post to her and all the victims of car accidents who haven’t survived to tell their story.