Ina's Place

Yesterday was one of my close friend’s birthday. She’s a young, pure soul with a kind heart and an intelligence you rarely meet today. She seems much older than her real age… and there’s a 10-year gap between us (don’t ask me how come I have friends much younger than I am, because it was really fate that brought us together). I congratulated her form the bottom of my heart and was excited to receive her reply back. This whole exchange triggered something more inside of me – a short overview of my life.

Beside this young friend of mine, I also have 2 more in the pack. The 3 of them are much younger than me and we met right before we had to get on a plane to Germany, almost 4 years ago. I genuinely thought that not much would work out between us, but boy was I wrong! All three of them are smarter than a 40-year-old, are cleverer than a strategist and have a heart to themselves that you wouldn’t expect to discover in high-school graduates. I fell in love with them instantly! They were so full of energy and they were so true to themselves, that I admired them for everything they did during that week in Germany. The wisdom and kindness they exerted were unparalleled. You really don’t find a lot of people like them around – and this is not an exaggeration! You need to know them in real life to understand what I’m talking about.

The “Joie de vivre” they emanate is contagious. They made me feel like a teenager again, and I liked it. I did things with them that I only do when I’m around my family (that is: when I’m being my true self). I laughed so much, I drank beer with them and ate pizza as if I’d never tasted pizza before, I stayed up until 4 am with them and chatted the night away, I watched movies with them and sang all kinds of songs, as if I was on a long vacation and didn’t have any problems or responsibilities back at home. Long story short – I felt like myself, something that I haven’t felt for many years before that.

My life consisted pretty much of going to work, coming back home, doing chores, catching up with my family abroad, doing courses, preparing for my future life (which took a waaaaayyy too long period of time), and…pretty much nothing else. I was in a place and in a state that I was not motivated to do more, when I had negative thoughts about one situation or another, when I was struggling to keep up with the world and be as cool as everybody else in real life or on Facebook (which, c’mon, we all know is fake as fuck!). I knew I had so much more to offer and I really wanted to, but I found myself in the situation where my wings would be constantly cut off. And I don’t blame anybody for anything (although the arrows still gravitate towards my former environment), because I know I’m very much to blame for the things I could or couldn’t do. I was the one to decide if I wanted to do something or not, which influenced my ulterior actions. As they say it: I laid my own path. And gosh, if you only knew how much struggle I put up with my everyday motivation, you’d think I wasted a lot of energy on God knows what! And I would agree with you.

You see, life isn’t a fair playground for everybody and we don’t always find ourselves where we travel (that’s a metaphor, if you get it), and because I had no help and no real support, I lost myself on the way. I wasn’t in touch with my true self for a very long time, and I hated it. If my teenage self would have seen me during those years, she would have slapped me several times, no mercy. And the fun fact is, that the teenage me was more courageous and more adventurous than my 20s self, which actually opened up so many doors for me, that some were eventual shut by the latter.

You’d say I went too far from my main idea, the one I started with, when in fact, I was just getting to it. Those 3 very close friends of mine reminded me about the fact that life happens now and that it’s not worth dwelling on something I don’t have control over, or take myself too seriously. They showed me that with passion and energy you can get to that place you were dreaming about (which, of course, applies mostly to realising your dreams). And you know what else, I actually understood that everything I was going through was OK, because I didn’t have anybody around to teach me what to do in one situation or another, so I baby-stepped into life, but got swirled into it and continued like that until I learned my lessons. And I don’t regret any of it! Not a second of that! Because I was learning LIFE. I discovered what I’m good at and what I’m terrible at, what I like and what I don’t, what I accept and what I’ll never ever agree upon or accept anymore. And this is the most important part in living your life true to yourself, in my opinion (as always, you, as my reader, have the freedom to believe and think what you truly want, because your life is yours to live and your opinions are yours to believe).

After immigrating to Canada and living here a little over 17 months, I learned to read my own clues and act according to what I think and believe is right. This is my biggest privilege as a human being, and I take it completely. In life, you don’t realize how full of shit is your life and how deep you are in your “routine” (which I chose as a very light word for what I actually want to say, but won’t) until you actually wake up, have a real talk with yourself (warning: this can take you many months, so don’t expect to have chit-chat and move on with your life), set goals, work a plan, and start living YOUR life!

If you have read any of my previous blog posts, then you’ve probably noticed a pattern, that I encourage you to live your life, no less accepted. And I will keep saying it on every occasion, because one day we’ll all come to our end, and we’ll regret so much stuff that we did or didn’t, but the worst one will be that we didn’t live the life we actually wanted.