WOMAN OF MY OWN LIFE

Our whole lives they teach us and guide on how to do something.

And as much as this support seems like a safe haven, a problem arises when you realize that you don’t go through life with your own two feet, but that somebody pulls you along.

At this time we find ourselves at the crossroads of life, with two different paths to follow:

A new path without traces of anyone’s feet, without successes and without falls, clean as a blank sheet of paper and open for walking. The good side of that choice is the possibility that you take as many steps as you want. But the downside is that you don’t have anyone who passed that way and whose traces you can follow. You don’t know the ultimate goal of such a journey.

The second path is a lot safer. This is the path in which they are already traces made, where the steps are lined by making mistakes and making ventures. Those steps who have left their marks which tell you how far can you go and what are the consequences.

I know what is the most common choice: the second path.

Is it because of the security, because of those initial steps, when we expect to have some support, or because of the fear of failure or the loss of your own personality in it?

And that is when happens a thing called Life. The needle on the clock turns an enormous number of times, and here we are, where we never wanted to be. Bound by other people’s dreams, chained by someone else’s objectives and other people’s rules. Pacing through a path which others have chosen for us.

And all around us becomes louder, all the steps and choices become louder than the inner voice that tries to give its last twitches and turn on the alarm.

When do we become aware that the life we live isn’t the one we were chosen?

Frankly, there is no perfect moment for that. For me, it took place on the morning when I, perhaps for the first time after so long, stood in front of the mirror and began to question the person I saw in the mirror.

The person in the mirror had only a physical reflection of me, but it was a complete stranger in my life.

We stood one in front of the other and cried, screamed, but nothing could be heard. The walls around me already became too high for anything to be heard. In time, I became a fortress to myself.

I had a feeling that life goes by me. There he goes, he goes out to dinner, and I’m not moving. I stand still as the tallest structure and silently watch what to say and when to say it. Looking at whether I’m wrong, if I meet somebody’s expectations, ignoring completely my own expectations.

And this morning I asked the woman in the mirror:

– Do you know who you are?

I took red lipstick and started to print lines on the mirror. Behind the lines stood the female silhouette and red color has never been so intense.

Five key things stood between me and her.

A fragile mirror and several printed lines were the only things between us and it all seemed as if it will break at any moment.

But you know what?

It didn’t happen.

Suddenly the broken lipstick was the highest building, and written lines have become louder than all the surrounding voices. I shouted, ‘I know who I am.’

I really knew. I knew I was all but those silhouettes behind those lines and that it was -it. It was time to face life.

This was written in the mirror:

There are five things that you forgot about yourself, and they are yours, that no one ever took. Maybe they were temporarily seized in you, but that doesn’t mean that they are missing. And all that isn’t missing, is still close to you. Therefore, you should know that:

1.CHANGES never come late.

All that led to that had its course, it had to happen. There is no right time for a change, there is only a decision that you want to change, and the bringing of the decision itself. What may these changes bring? Something different from what you had before. And all you have is not what you really wanted. Isn’t it logical that the change which will happen is good only for you? This is not you and these aren’t your ways. I can’t say that all has to change now and I don’t have the ability to help you, but I want to say that it is not too late.

2. YOUR DREAMs may seem impossible, but it doesn’t mean they cannot be achieved!

The truth is that your job is noble and that it brought a lot of life, but it is even truer that you became a doctor because your parents wanted it. There are still drawings in your diary and your desire for art is still alive. While you put your books on the shelves occasionally some drawing drops out. I saw how fast you put them right back where they were, without looking at them. And then at night I see how you go through the books, and draw for hours in a small diary that you keep in your bag. You never leave it on the table and I think nobody knows you have it. Except me. I know everything.

I know that drawing keeps you calm and then you become what you really are. Think how nice it would be to do it all day in front of everyone like that! And it is possible. Dreaming is allowed, but you forget that it is allowed to pursue your dreams. So many things await you because the dreams already waited too long.

3. YOU ARE NOT SELFISH!

Everything that others have chosen for you, made them happy. You weren’t a part of that…Therefore the fulfillment of your own dreams will make happy only one person – you.

You have the ability to make someone happy – yourself.

This is not selfishness, it’s what everyone around you was doing when they silenced you and put themselves in the first place.

Last Wednesday you were eating pasta with hot sauce, just because all your colleagues ate the same thing.

You don’t even like hot sauce. You don’t even like pasta. And that’s what I saw! You know the world can be selfish, but you aren’t.

4. You are STRONg, but you can still ask for help!

You read so many novels and admire a whole constellation of female characters. I remember when you once said at a meeting, ‘Of course she will endure, she is a strong woman.’

So please do not forget how STRONG you are! The malfunction that took place in the bathroom last night might be better solved by a man, but you handled it. This doesn’t mean that you do not need help. Oh no! You need help! Always! You got all the power of this world, but you’ve got all the rights of this world to tell when you feel down and when you cannot go on anymore.

5. No one else will do it for you.

Yes, you are where you are, and many things happened. We could list all those who made our decisions and all the reasons that were wrong, but we have to be honest: They won’t rescue us from this, we have to do it ourselves!

Surely it would be much easier to buy ice cream this Friday, to tuck under blankets watching a marathon of favorite films, but it will not change things!

It would be great to have a manual for life, but life teaches us to write our own.

Therefore, stand in front of the mirror and ask yourself what do you want to say to the woman you are looking at.