the social version of me

"O que sabes fazer agora
Veio tudo de nossas horas
Eu não minto, eu não sou assim"

be sure that your umbrella is upside down

If you want the things you love
You must have showers.
So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree.
There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me

2010.

Great new friends and a handful of good old faithful ones. A thriving new business (I'm so fortunate to be completely in love with what I do and have a partner who's also my friend). My own apartment, again. A family I can't even begin to describe. A grandmother/mother who's gone. A huge heartache. Lots of books. Lots of therapy. Tons of living. 2010 was absolutely full, difficult and amazing, with the intensity every year should have. I couldn't have asked for more. May 2011 remain everything but dull. Amen.

Isn't it sad...

how you began to almost suck the moment you stopped moving me?

Ana

"Ana não se sentia esgotada, cansada, destruída nem nada do que lhe acometera nos ultimos meses. Depois de muito tempo, Ana sorria feito boba. Sorria sozinha. Porque sentia seu coração no lugar, sua cabeça no lugar e não demoraria muito pra sua vida entrar nos eixos. Ana e somente Ana, conseguia entender o que se passava e sorria sozinha. Um riso leve, um sorriso solto, que não se pode segurar só pra si. Nem ela sabia, que guardava tantos sorrisos. Era muito bom estar de volta."

[tirado de um canto lindo da internet]

numbers, you take my breath away

Not sure how I survived 29 years without creating a spreadsheet, but Numbers is completely rocking my world. I feel so secure, so grown-up. It almost feels like I know what I'm doing, and we all know that's a pretty rare feeling. Nobody should start their 30s as a spreadsheet virgin.

guardei. eu sempre guardo.

Guardei sem ter porque, nem por razão ou coisa outra qualquer além de não saber como fazer pra ter um jeito meu de me mostrar.

note to self

May I have the strength and patience to pretend I don't know. May my days be happier with the fact that I chose to accept, even though acceptance requires me to die a little bit inside. May you wake up one of those days and see that - eventhough you're oh so lovely - that part of you just ain't right.

old

não tenho mais idade
pra brincar de esconde-esconde
vem me pegar

- Martha Medeiros

**

I'm his switzerland. He's my sarajevo.

total blindness

You know what the irony is? Everyone tells me that being with him would be settling for less, but all I can think of is how a person like him is ever going to like a person like me.

on how ducks can teach you a lesson; or on what I should have but did not learn from that duck

I once lived in an apartment building in Indianapolis with a really cute lake view. Everything was absolutely great, except for the fact that a huge duck used to hang around the front entrance. HUGE, with a big tongue and everything. I mean, did you even know ducks have tongues? That just goes to show you how big that thing was. SCARY. That was the kind of duck that starts planning the chase of death once it sees you coming two miles away.

I remember planning my day around that duck's schedule, always making sure I didn't come home with bags of groceries late afternoon, because that was usually when he was standing right by the front door, as you can see from the scheme above. Leaving that building involved a whole exit strategy. I have once cried because of the duck. I lived in that building for 2 long years, timing my life around that bird.

All of a sudden I find myself in a somewhat similar situation.

Except now it's not a duck.

.

I was reading old posts from this blog, as I sometimes do, just to remind myself how life changes fast. Then I found this post I wrote about 3 years ago, which also reminded me of how I've become such a professional at forcing myself to get over people and things:

...It's about people who come to your life for a certain period of time but they don't come to stay. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't give them your best, that you shouldn't jump in head first, that you shouldn't hold on to those memories as much as you can. You love them, you build stories together, things go wrong and you see your castles fall. Then you learn to love better, and build stronger castles that will more than likely fall again, and you keep moving on until you have a long list of places that are hard to revisit because all you can think of was how happy you once were there. How much you wish you could put that feeling in a bottle and take it with you wherever you go.

Then one day you bump into that person that at one point meant the world to you, and now he's almost a stranger, and it just so happens that the person you were back then is also long gone.

It might sound sad, but seriously, isn't that a nicer perspective?

It's easier to deal with things that way.

You love, you live it as hard as you can, and you move on.

And it's not the end.

“Olha, eu sei que o barco tá furado e sei que você também sabe, mas queria te dizer pra não parar de remar, porque te ver remando me dá vontade de não querer parar também.Tá me entendendo? Eu sei que sim.”

- Caio Fernando Abreu

(Dri, esse sim é autobiográfico.)

I'm happy.

Like I hadn't been in a long time.

It turns out that we get used to everything in this life, and that includes bad things; poor treatment; people who don't lift you up. I have the best group of friends one could ask for, and a person who came into my life and brought along what I can only describe as sunshine. A person who challenges me everyday to become the woman I know I can become and who I already see myself turning into. I'm throwing myself at the idea of being cared for, of being vulnerable sometimes. He's dared to push my buttons, he makes me mad, he touches on areas of my life I'm not at all comfortable with. He's making a mess and I'm completely grateful for it.

The lady on the picture is Sophia Loren. But it could totally be me.

phd

Guess who's going to be a doctor in Psychoanalysis soon?

Yup, the smartest girl in the house.

I might be funny and all, but we all know that I'm really just "street smart". Plus I also learn a lot from mistakes.

Parabéns, Dri! Orgulho grandão de você.

missed call

30

Saturday was my brother-in-law's 30th birthday party. I had a little too much fun. Cheers to him, who's pretty much an older brother to me, even though he's probably just as immature as I am.

Parabéns, Flor! Você bomba!