One step at a time

As we enter the last few days of 2017, there are usually two things entering our minds: how time flew by so quickly and looking back on what the year brought. I am no exception. I find it hard to believe that yet another year is coming to a close already, it feels like yesterday that it just started with the preparation of my 40th birthday party. As I am home surrounded only by fur-babies, when most people are busy getting together with family and loved one, it gives me time to reflect and look back. Yes the year has flown by in what feels like a blink, but at the same time, it was a pretty full year. I kicked it off by gathering friends to celebrate my 40th birthday. It wasn't so much about the age than it was an excuse to assemble around me people I care about and who showed me it was reciprocal by taking the time to be there for my "crazy cat lady purple tea party". Friends from long ago and from more recent times came from near and far and it confirmed what I know

I like the feature from Facebook "On this day...", it usually brings a smile to my face as it brings back memories. However today it brought more of a bitter sweet one. Here I was, a year ago, in the City of Lights for work and intent on having a fun night with a friend with some live music. Indeed we had a fun night, the jazz dinner turned into an all nighter around Paris and it was fun, the kind of spontaneous fun that comes from unplanned activities and good company, complete with laughter and walk back to the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. Hard to believe that the next day would be such a dramatic one, hard to believe that the tragic events in Paris would enfold a few hours from all our fun and innocence and pretty much in the same parts of town we were that night. I have not been directly affected by the Paris shootings. I was driving between Luxembourg and Paris at the time and was unaware, until the phone call from a close friend asking if I was safe

Here I am on the eve of my first real holiday in 4 years, the eve of being away in a strange city on my own for 12 days. Yes I have a friend in that city and I look forward to catching up with her after many years. But she has her new life to sort out and her children and husband. So I am on the eve of being by myself for 12 days, the longest I have ever done that. I am looking forward to relaxing, catching up on my reading and resting. God knows I need it... But I am also anxious... When was the last time I confronted myself. Probably never or I can't remember it. How often do most of us confront ourselves anyway in the kind of fast-paced, ever connected lives we now live?  What do I expect from this time away? Rest, yes for sure. No alarm for this time away, no schedule, no plans, explore the city if I feel like it, read, watch some movies, day-dream... Relaxation, yes, looking forward to introducing some new routines to my live... Distance from conflicting and confusing emotion

"I will provide a safe harbour... You need a place to not be decisive and set agendas and rise to the level of accomplishments the world has come to expect of you. You need a place to fall apart. I will be that place" This was a few weeks ago in the latest Grey's Anatomy finale and it has resonated in the back of my mind since. It somehow put into words what I have been feeling for a while. It comes on the back of difficult few, many rather, months and a growing exhaustion. A feeling of crumbling down from the inside out. That the strength to hold it all together has disappeared. Of crawling into a hole and forget everything. Yet that nagging feeling that this won't solve anything and will only make the pile of shit bigger by the time you crawl out of the hole. So constantly wavering between letting myself crumble for a bit, allowing myself to feel weak and keeping it all together because I worry it will only make matters worse.

More than a year has passed since my last post... Time just flies, there is work, there is life together, there are less times when you are alone with your thoughts. Less me time, so you write less... You also have less of a need to write. I write again now as I am alone at home for once, as she travels for work. I miss her but yet I enjoy having the house to myself. It gives me time to think. And thinking is something I've been doing a lot recently since I started this entrepreneurship course. It seems to have gotten my brain working again. It seems to have gotten me excited again. My mind is buzzing with thoughts for the future and wondering how to manage it all. There are different plans that we have, that I have. A place of our own is one. A business of my own is another. How to reconcile them both? Money is the crucial point. If you're starting up a business, you are not saving to buy a place. But if you are saving to buy that place, you put your business on hold and might

This picture says it all I think about how we are. It's now more than 4 months that she moved and after the initial strangeness, we have fully adjusted to each other again. It is a pleasure each day to be together. It is comfortable. We are confident in our couple and our life and our future. Sweet Fairy, I love you.