Some you might lose, but some you definitely win

I wished upon a star again... and it came true... again...

A few months ago I dreamed of the future. I hoped, without realizing that there is a possibility for my wish to come true, for stability in my life. I promised that if I will have the certainty of the work place for a few more months, I will focus more on my personal development: studying French with more interest, go to the pool to swim, read more books etc. And now I cannot keep my promise. I always believed (strongly) in: there's no "I cannot", but only "I don't want to". So, according to my beliefs, it's not that I cannot, but I don't want to keep my promise.

I wished for more light, because it was dark outside too soon. A few months ago, when I used to get out of the office, it was dark outside. Now, I'm home, close to falling asleep (because I'm tired) and there's still light outside (9:30 p.m.).

I wished to go to a rock concert and opportunities are showing up like mushrooms after rain.

I wished (even more months ago) to get my own apartment, to cook, to be able to do anything I want without explaining to anyone why I want to do that (eg: read a book all day Saturday), to drink wine and listen to my music. I'm only missing the Audrey Hepburn painting and the vacuum cleaner.

But today I realized I wish so many years ago for that boy... blueish eyes and brown hair, playing the piano and listening to rock music. A man that can take care of me, one that can make me laugh every day, one that can share some (if not all) passions with me. A boy that knows when to act childish and when to act mature. One that loves travelling, reading, cars, IT, mathematics, wine and music. One that can actually read me and understand me without me explaining to him anything I do, say, think etc. And so many more qualities, characteristics and descriptive things. I never pictured how I will meet him, nor how the situation will be. I just always truly hoped that I will get to be one that will prove to the world that is possible. And now, it's for the first time when I'm thinking I might actually want to settle down in a few years... and it scares the hell out of me.

I wish many more things, don't get me wrong. I don't feel I developed sufficiently, the need of evolution is still in me and it's huge. I want to learn how to play the piano, to do bungee jumping, to read a lot more books, to get a permanent position in a company, to visit the entire Europe, parts of Asia and Latin America, to have my honeymoon in Alaska, to go on a roller-coaster, to buy a car, to learn Flemish, to perfect my Spanish and French, to practice yoga and swimming on a constant basis, to buy a house with a huge pool and to do many many more :)

Did it ever happen to you to be happy (not all day, but every day) constantly for 4 months?
I wished upon a star... and it came true...
Slowly, but surely, all parts of the puzzle are coming together. Maybe in a few minutes, hours, days, months or years I'll not be happy anymore (during one day) and that continuum will be broken. But, at least, now, I'm happy. And hopefully, this "not all day, but every day" happiness with stay with me for more :)

maybe the "I don't want to" is because the feeling of happiness is the most intense I ever felt it in my whole life....

Right person, right moment, wrong time

I met so many people in the right moment of my life, but at the wrong time of theirs. Or in the right moment of their life, but at the wrong time of mine.

I met my first love when I was 16; unfortunately, we felt we are too young for such strong feelings. We decided to wonder around the world for a few more years and hopefully, later on, we will come back. So far, nothing else than a nice romantic movie. But the ending did not happen; or it did not happen yet.

I met a very nice guy right before I left the country for my first international experience. I was too difficult for both of us to try a long distance relationship. So we decided to stop before we got too involved.

I met a very good friend 9 years ago. I did not talk to him more than 5 minutes in the first 4 years. After a weird night and 4 years of not talking, we ended up talking about many stupid, little, insignificant things; we realized we really like the friendship developed between us and we want to hold on to it as much as possible. I left the country for my first international experience and we promised to keep all our promises and work on our friendship even more. Unfortunately, the timing was wrong again and a stupid accident took him away.

Today a conversation took me in the past again and made me wonder about how sometimes it is the right person in the right moment, but at the wrong time. Someone asked me today where I was 6 years ago; just because 6 years ago I was in my rock time and because I love wine, cars and piano. But 6 years ago I did not like wine. I loved cars and piano and rock music, yes, but the wine was added a few years ago. Actually, I realized how much I love wine last year, when in Dominican Republic the wine was pretty expensive and I did not recognize any of the brands. I still remember when I went home, after one year and 2 months, when I went out with my girls for the first time; it was so hot (summer in Romania gets sometimes too hot) and I ordered wine; their reaction was amazing: why did I drink wine on such a hot summer day? Because I realized I love wine and I missed it for the past year. Anyway, today he answered in such an original way to his own question "Where were you 6 years ago?" "In the wrong bed" Don't take it out of context, it's a (also) cute way (if you don't take it our of context) to answer.

But my question stands: how do you know, that if you would not have been in the "wrong bed", you would have been in the right one? Would you? Or it was just not meant to be? And how do you know that it is/was the right (wrong) bed, if years did not pass by and you saw the results of that specific "bed"?

Or sometimes we just have to wait? Another friend told me in December 2010 (after 6 months in Dominican Republic) "good things come to those who wait". And my typical answer would be "haven't I waited enough?" But maybe sometimes we have to wait...

And other times, we just want things to fall in the right place... and we ask ourselves

The secret... you...

When you go away for a long period of time, one of the most wonderful processes is taking place. Some secret ingredients are: to be far away from home, almost no option of going home, talking even with very close friends only once per month.

When everything I mentioned and a lot more happens, you discover yourself, your true self. But a small details: most probably, all the people around you will not discover that (depends on each person, but you got the idea). When you go far away from home, for at least one year, you will automatically put yourself in a bubble, trying to protect yourself or to enjoy as much as possible without judging anything and anybody. From my point of view, that is the moment when you are making it very difficult, for people around you, to get to the core you and discover your true self - they need to break that bubble in order to find you.

I thought about this in the last week, mostly because of a lot of things that are happening in my personal life, things that forced me to think about what I want to do, who I am and why I want to do all the things I wanna do. Meanwhile I was talking with very close friends from home about our plans for the future year and I realized that I really need to start thinking a little bit more about what I want to do. And while talking with my friends I discovered that you might present a person to the people around you, but the circumstances of being so far away from home, from your friends, from everything that defined you for more than 20 years, are presenting you as a different person. Even if you don't want to do it, the circumstances are not helping you to do it differently: you many things that define you might not be close to you.

You might lack the support, your friends, the money, the power, the knowledge, the familiarity, the places, the music, the food, the coffee, the cars... or you might just lack the moments that are bringing the true you to the surface. And then I had another AHA moment. This is the perfect situation to meet people exactly the same as you...that are acting the same as you are acting home.

No, I did not meet anybody like me here yet. I had the opportunity to meet that person at home, in my safe environment; here I had the opportunity to meet people that have the same behavior that I have at home, when people do not know me. That's the difference: at home when I met that person I managed (I hope) to spend enough time in order to "break" that person and manage to see the true self; here I see the behavior of a person acting when the other person does not know the core self and when they think they can act however, because the other person cannot read them completely.

Back home the circumstances are helping me to be myself, are helping me to not not to fake, but to do/be/act exactly how I am. I used to talk with my girls about guys coming with different cars to pick us up from home, just trying to impress us; but we were doing the same: going to clubs with different cars, just to show off. That's childish, but it happens. Or how some of us are attracted by foreigners, just to talk a little bit more English or to see how a different culture thinks. But being home, in your self environment, with all the right circumstances, make you act in specific ways, ways that you would not choose as a way to express yourself when you are away from home. Because you don't have everything you have home to rely on; sometimes you know so clear that home you would react differently, but away from home you simply... cannot...

That brings me in front of a very important question for me: if you need all of those things to be able to express your true self, then how do you know everybody is true? How do you know you do not take a wrong/good decision based on circumstances which would forces you, that in a safe and know environment, to act different? I'm not lying, but I know that in some situations I might have acted differently if I would have been at home... so, am I true or am I lying, just because I don't have the right circumstances? Personally I think it's ME all the time, but sometimes I wish some people could see me at home...

PS: this is for a crazy girl willing to pursue a crazy dream with me, which is reality for us already... this is for discovering a new country, a new culture, a new experience, this is for discovering the true us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsSNrSEONc

A promise made too long time ago...

I remembered a promise made by 2 kids years ago... 2 kids that did not know enough, 2 kids that were trying not to make plans regarding the future, 2 kids that wanted and felt there's a too big world to discover.

I think this memory is almost 3 years old by now. I always envied people that could remember exactly the age they had when something happened; I was never capable of doing that. But I admired those people. But I was always envied by my friends because even if I could never remember the moment when it happened exactly, I could always remember all the small details from any event/meeting. Anyway, I think this happened 3 years ago. It was a cold summer/autumn night, 2 o'clock at night and we were in a place which was about to close. We were the last customers and they were trying to make us leave. We did not talk until that moment for some months and we needed to catch up with everything that we lost.

But again, just like 2 kids, we were always back to the same subject: us. It all started like a game, we were trying to have fun and discover new things. But as always, things got complicated and before we knew, we were in a different story that we knew we could not deal with at that age, in those conditions. And in that night, 3 years ago, we end up talking about what we are doing. In that weird night we made a promise, we were too young, we wanted to discover the world, new friends etc, so we could not be together then; but we will meet and talk about that in 5 years from that moment and maybe, start a relationship or whatever.

Now, when that memory came in my mind, it made me think about how we acted as kids actually. Because now, a 24 years person in a few months, I'm not seeing what happened with the same eyes. God, life is passing by and moments don't come back for ever... And that promise made me feel always comfortable with my life and my feelings, because I was always hoping that I have that as my back-up. Now, something changed and I cannot see it with the same eyes. To believe in that idea from now on, it seems for me that I need to believe, really believe in a destiny. But I always believed that you also have an influence in what is happening, not just that the destiny is being fulfilled.

I always saw myself, even if we made that silly promise, as a free person. We were never jealous, angry or over-protective. I always lived my life as a free person, with no strings attached and I was always discovering new persons, new cultures, new things about myself. Last week I felt that I maybe I need to get over and stop believing in that silly promise 2 kids made. This is the bad part of this story: I lost faith in him, I don't trust him any more and I told him that before I left the country. He promised again to win my trust back, but maybe promises are made to be broken.

We are leaves in the wind, who are you to tell that you are going to land in a specific place in the future? No matter how hard you try... you might not succeed. Who are you to tell that something is going to happen for sure? Why don't you take advantage of the present time, which is a present like all the saying are saying, and make the best out of it. Because sometimes we are kids that are making promises...

Last day

Today I remembered the last day I spent in Romania. The last 24 hours and what I have done.

I remember how I went to Ali to tell him goodbye and how I stood with him in front of my building for the last time. The discussions we had and that we said we will not say goodbye, how we promissed we will talk often and that he will answer my e-mails as soon as possible. I remember the last time I talked with Bogdan and what he told me, including the fact that he will not see me to tell me goodbye. I remember how I was running to do my insurance papers and the last meeting with my girls. That last time I drank my coffee at Starbucks and how it was. I remember that I was so pissed off about the insurance and that I tried to not think about the fact that I will not see my girls for one year, and that when I left I didn't want to hug them or kiss them or even saying goodbye, but that I left crying and they don't know that. I remember how I cried all the way home, thinking how much I will miss my girls.

I even remember the feeling I had when I was in the MC office of AIESEC Romania for the last time. I took so many pictures with all the desks and rooms, I was so so sad. I was already missing my team, my work, my Alumni. I remember the last look I took in the office, the last look I took from my window in my own room, the last look I took at my room and how I put very fast, right before I got out of the house, a picture with me and my mom. Just in case.

Now, I'm thinking about the feeling I will have the last time I will see the MC office in the Dominican Republic. My God! One of the most craziest years in my life, being MC VP and then being MCP, a wonderful team, a crazy team, a team that believed and strived for excellence, friends I will never forget and hopefully I will meet around the world in my future life, my bed, my desk, the rooms, the washing machine, the couch, the chairs, the building. And I'm on my way to the airport, I'm going home. Or maybe I'm going somewhere in Europe for one week for holidays. But I'm leaving... and I'm again sad...

Last night I had such a wonderful dream. I was so tired and I went to sleep early, but I managed to dream something. I was already home, after 1 year and he was there hugging me, telling me that this trip was so good even for him, because he managed to think and analyze everything. I don't know if I'm in love, I don't think I can be with a person I haven't seen in so many months, but what he was telling me there seemed so normal and natural. And I felt so protected and safe. Maybe I'm associating the home image with him and this is why I felt like that. Maybe it's wrong to think like that and maybe I should use this period in order to sort things in my life. Maybe it's good because I realize that actually I want him and I will never be able to change that. But it doesn't matter right now, I think... I think it matters that after that dream I felt more happy, more protected, more safe, more willing to do my job... I felt better. I think that's all that matters :)

I want to thank, again, everybody for your support. You know with what you contributed and that I'm thanking you for something. Thank you for your dreams, for my dreams, for your time, for the influence, for the good memories, for the conferences, for the coffees, for the "cico"s, for the nights and days spent together, for every every thing! Thank you!

Memories

Lately I tend to think very much about home, about what is happening in life in general, about what we do on a daily basis...

The other days, I was watching a video on youtube and I realized that watching that movie I was thinking only about home, about my country, about my friends, about... memories. And my mind was flying between all my memories... my entire life was flashing in front of my eyes.

I was in a concert of my favourite artist one year ago, at the seaside with my friends. Then I was in the plane, going 10.000 km away from home to conquer new mountains inside me. Then I realized I miss the guys in my life, even though I wanted to forget about them and think clearly just about myself. But then I realized that I'm so far away from anything known for me, I'm in a country with a different culture, with different personalities, nothing is anymore known... But I was in a plane with a guy and I was leaving to a new country... and I always asked myself, why did him took the same plane with me...

I'm doing right now so many things I would not normally do if I were home, I'm part of one of the most international teams possible, I'm thinking all the time in English, not Romanian, and I already started to switch sometimes to Spanish... But I wonder what I am going to do with my masters, am I going back after this year to finish it, am I taking one more year of break, what?

Oh... and then I remembered about how many interviews I had to give for my CSR project, how the PR manager taught me how to talk with radios and TV stations and what to tell in the interview. Or when we did promotion for our recruitments or when I talked with 200 people in a room about AIESEC and how nervous I was...

And then I woke out to reality. My friend is really gone, I will never see him again, but my life moves on. And that's so weird... I have so many reasons to be happy, but sometimes it seems so weird to do that. It seems so sad... life has to move on, life moved on... maybe he will always know that I will never be trully happy, but he will be happy that my life is getting better...