I recently did a post on New Year’s resolutions (or lack thereof!) and at the time I wondered whether it was a good idea to regularly talk about personal stuff on my photography blog. What if it’s annoying people? But I really enjoy writing those bits, so should I even care? 🙂 Then my friend Shelley commented on how much she loves that I do; she said it was so “very me”. And every time I share a thought here, or cope with a dilemma for myself, express joy or gratitude, there are always people who message me saying it touched them in some way. Making meaningful connections to human beings is one of the best thing in the world to me, so I’m hitting that “publish” button again, despite the slight uneasiness I feel every time I post something that makes me feel vulnerable. But I’m not on Earth to gain everybody’s approval – not that I know what we are supposed to do exactly mind you, but I’d be willing to bet that fulfilling expectations you think others might have of you isn’t “ It ”. Today I’ve also decided to only use photographs of my daughters, mostly everyday snaps and a few creative frames from dress-up sessions (like this one) – because to me, my girls epitomise beauty and innocence. And since this is about to get ugly, I figured a little grace wouldn’t hurt…

Alright then, let’s talk about fat, shall we? After all it is the beginning of the new year and I hear ads on the radio for Gyms and Diet companies specifically designed to make you feel awful about yourself. They promise you the dreamy life you so deserve… All you have to do is sign on the dotted line. No need to give up your first born, they will feed on your shamed soul or more likely, a lifetime commitment of direct debit. I have lost count of the number of mentions of weight loss and exercise regimens I have seen in the past 2 weeks on my facebook feed. And you know what, if it means everyone is getting healthier, I do think it is wonderful – I really do! In any case I’d like to tell you this little story…

A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me about holidaying in Mexico with her family. Their hotel being an all inclusive resort, most of the guests were North Americans and a fair chunk of them were in their 20’s. My (soon to be 50 years old) friend was sitting by the pool when she noticed that all the young girls there were slender AND awkward in their bikini’s. They walked concealing their tummy or their thighs. Hid behind the lounging chairs. Crossed their arms in weird ways in front of their chest. Their bodies were beautiful yet they appeared to try their best to hide them. Why would those young women seemingly display so many signs of shame? And then arrived this Mexican girl with stunning long hair in an itsy bitsy tiny white bikini. Now you’re all having the James Bond Girl vision, I know you are… Except the girl is according to my friend “rather chubby”. This particular friend is the kind of woman who weighs every word she says and always gets her point across without ever offending anyone – I’ve often thought of her as “Switzerland”. So I’m going to guess that a lot of people would have said the girl was “fat” – god I hate that adjective (the noun I’m ok with). Anyway, there comes this “chubby girl” in her tiny white bikini walking by the pool with not an ounce of discomfort. She jumps in, plays about, flips her hair, flirts with a few boys, flaunts her body, curves and all – fat and all. And my friend smiles. The girl who by today’s society’s conventions has the “worst” body (I know, I know, “worst” is nonsense and that’s the point of this post!) is the one that is most confident about it. By far! I thought: how upside down the world can be! Someone told me the other day that the default setting for human behavior should be one where we love ourselves and it ought to be really really really hard to deviate from that. Yet people more often loathe things about themselves and find it hard to cherish who they are. The white bikini girl should be the standard and the other girls the exception. Not in terms of shape or size, I don’t give a flipping damn about that, but in terms of self acceptance. Why is that not the case??

Ok, let’s get personal now. Let me tell you about my own private relationship to fat and body image, what it was until a few months ago – and how it has drastically changed. I always wondered why other women had problems with their bodies but I always knew why I did – since I was about 7. I won’t explain here why, not because I am uncomfortable doing so but because it involves other people. But I don’t think anyone would find it surprising that I ended up not liking my body. Even when I was thin I thought I was overweight – I was regularly told so and I believed it. At 22 I also learned I have an hormonal syndrome that, among others, causes severe fertility problems and messes up with my insulin, putting me in a regular state of hypoglycemia – this in turns makes me feel hungry just about always – 80% of women with this condition are obese. I am ALSO an emotional eater, no doubt about that. I was probably a rather healthy looking girl up till I was 23. That year I left my depressive suicidal boyfriend and in the process gained 50 pounds (I did say I was an emotional eater too…). Since then I’ve been oscillating between the 2 extremes. I don’t do fad diets, I know what healthy eating is (and since I share a house with 3 celiacs we have to eat “real” and healthy food) and I do it 80% of the time – the other 20% are spent battling chocolate – and my syndrome I suppose. I’m not big on exercising every day but I’m not out of shape. I once completely stunned a trainer on our first meeting because after 80 really deep squats without a break, I didn’t seem tired – clearly she has never photographed a full Catholic wedding mass walking in a crouch for 1h30min! Guess what, under fat, there can be muscle… I know very well the nasty “inside voice”; I have heard so many women say theirs tell them you’re fat; or not that pretty; you have thunder thighs or your arms are too big, your breasts are too small, your pregnancy stretch marks repulsive, your face too wrinkled and all kind of other craziness… Mine used to say “your body is disgusting” – after a while it’d get shortened to “you’re disgusting”. Suddenly this crosses my mind: if you’re a guy reading this, I wonder, is that something that happens to you too? When I was 24 I had a male friend who was 35 or so who used to “explain men” to me (in retrospect I think he must have taken pity on me for being so clueless!). Once he told me “You girls worry too much about your looks. We don’t really have that problem. All those guys you see walking by? Doesn’t matter much to them what they look like – on most days they all think they’re God’s gift to women”. Was he right? Dunno… I also think a lot people have body dysmorphia to some degree – for the better or the worst. Some days I would look at myself in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good (probably because despite the extra pounds I still have a waist to hip ratio close to that “magic” 0.7) but some days I would think I looked like a woman from a Botero painting. I think you get the picture – I’m not the girl who says grabbing an imaginary fat roll “I really need to lose 5 pounds!!” – no, I’m the girl who knows she should lose 35 pounds because her hormonal imbalance gives her a 50% chance of getting diabetes by age 40. And I am STILL in denial because 40 is just around the corner and I’m eating chocolate. Like just earlier.

Now let’s throw in a few reported stats. I read that the average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds (for my metric friends, that’s 53kg for 1m80 – omg that can not be true, can it?). Thirty years ago, Marilyn Monroe, a size 14, had the “ideal” body shape and size; today we’re supposed to wish for a size 0 (a French 32/Dutch 30 – wait, that exists?? in what European store???). 3 out of 4 women find themselves overweight when in actual fact only 1 out of 4 are. 2 out of 5 women (and 1 out 5 men) would trade three to five years of their life to achieve their weight goals. I’ve seen many different numbers but it seems between 80 and 98% of women are dissatisfied with the way they look. And this is where this sh@t gets scary (sorry, I curse when I’m really upset): In 1970 the average age a girl started dieting was 14; by 1990 the average dropped to 8… What is it in 2013??? 81% of ten-years-old girls are afraid of being fat. I have a ten years old girl – this concerns me. A lot. But it doesn’t surprise me. Amy was 5 when she first was called fat at school, Mathilde was 4. I asked myself – where would the 5 years old little girls that called them fat get the idea that saying that is an insult? The answer is, most likely from home – and that is truly the problem.

To a certain extent, we are all prone to judging each others based on things that have little to do with how connected we are with another human being. Many people say they don’t really care about looks – but less than 30 min later (or sometimes in the same sentence!) they will make a comment where the opposite shows. We know “we shouldn’t”, but plenty of people think beauty and size are correlated. But what we perceive as beautiful is just that – a perception. Taste is highly personal but is also massively influenced by our environment, our culture (ever thought a specific fashion was ugly only to rock said look a year later yourself?…). In Mauritania, only very large women are considered beautiful and as a result girls as young as 8 are forced fed, made to eat up to 15.000 kcal a day, in fear of not being fat=pretty enough to find a husband. In the Western world, 8 years old start dieting to be thin=pretty. Different beauty standards, same madness. The fact is some people think fat is ugly – or wrinkles, or red/blond/brown/purple hair, or whatever. Some will actually tell you! You might even be one of them (in which case might I suggest rereading the Mauritania story and reflect on that for 5 minutes once in a while). There’s probably only one question you really need to ask yourself: Why do you care about what those people think of you? Honestly?! I get that the opinion of 3-4 persons really really close to you would matter, it would be hard not to – but ignoring all of the others’ negativity is really easy if you try it. As for those closest to you, it’s ok to hear their take on things and respect it without letting it define you either, you know? I used to care about what people thought of me when I was 20, but not really when it came to physique – clueless as I was, I knew (and this is going to sound cliché but it’s true!) that someone who actually judges me for just what I look like instead of what I bring to the table doesn’t deserve a second thought… F* them… And of course F* stands for Forget…

I’ve spent quite a fair chunk of my life telling women – and absolutely believing it – that the size of their “skinny jeans” really doesn’t matter. Inner and outer beauty are so strongly intertwined and what shines through is what makes you beautiful to the world – and ALSO to the right man/woman if you’re concerned about that, trust me. Cause somehow that is when we mostly worry about our bodies, no?… But if you connect with someone truly special and there’s a spark and it catches fire, if you’re really going to rock each other’s worlds, if it is love – your pants’ size isn’t going to matter to them now, is it??? (like my friend says, they’ll just be happy to be inside them, ahum, sorry… But she has a point!!). And if he or she doesn’t think you’re just great the way you are, then clearly they’re not “the guy”/”the girl”. The problem for me was that I had given myself permission to be the exception to this belief – no logical explanation required. This past year though something clicked and it changed everything. No magic formula that can be replicated, it was a combination of uniquely personal factors – but for the first time ever I feel beautiful. Like, for real. Also when looking at my body. Don’t get me wrong, I can see the fat. I just don’t think it’s that ugly anymore. It’s just my body and it has served me well. I should probably be kinder to it and treat it with more care. But in the past few months, I’ve had a rather incredible amount of compliments from people, some I see regularly and some I hadn’t seen in years. They all say something like “You look fabulous, my god, what are you, 25? – what’s your secret?” And I can tell they mean it (well, not the actual 25 part but I get the gist) – I see it in their eyes (I’m a photographer, I know how to read people’s emotions in their faces – that’s how I tell if someone is “genuine” in a picture or not). So at first I was very confused – I’ve gained 10 pounds in 6 months, I’ve got an incredible amount of stress going on, I have to make major life altering decisions this year and some of them are totally outside of my control… I have had better days to look good! 🙂 And then it hit me – ah yes, but I’m not ashamed anymore, I feel great about who I am and I’m unapologetic about it. You can’t rain on my parade 🙂 . Serene confidence is everything, isn’t it?… Maybe everybody thinks I look amazing, younger and happier because I see the beauty in me. So much so that I’m writing it on this blog, in “public” – not that I’m read by millions but still, I’m read, and also by people that I know and know me and that is actually quite confrontational and scary! I hesitated a long time before putting this all down. Sadly it’s rare enough to hear a woman say “I love myself and my body”. For a woman my size, maybe rarer – and I understand it’s possibly harder to believe. Most women call women who do vain or arrogant or they say they’re trying to hide their insecurities behind a front of confidence. As if loving oneself is something bad, something to be ashamed of. So I thought, if I talk about beauty so often yet I don’t have to guts to stand here and say what I really feel, what kind of an hypocrite does that make me?

And so you might need a trigger – I did. I really like “To this day” by Canadian poet Shane Koyczan (this is a link to the TED talk he gave – the preamble to the poem is really good too if you have more time). There is this verse that always made it hard for me to repress tears “And if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little longer”… If you feel you’re not beautiful, if all you can see are perceived “flaws”, please find yourself a better mirror – please do! I recently talked to one of my gorgeous clients who told me she did, literally! She hated herself as a teen. At 19 she stood in front of her mirror determined to find something she loved about her body. After 35 excrutiating minutes, in tears, she finally found one thing – her collarbone. She made herself do this day after day and changed her perception until little by little she found herself beautiful. You can also learn to love what you see in photographs – stop deleting all pictures of yourself! I’m not even talking about having professional portraits taken – start by learning to appreciate what you see on your iPhone. This past year I allowed people to take pictures of me – trust me, that’s hard cause I know how to take great photos of women but my friends don’t! I also allowed them to photograph more than just my face – I’ve even allowed bad light… I’ve forced myself to take “selfies”. You know what – I hated myself in pictures last year, but in the past 3 months, I don’t think I felt the need to delete any.

I’m not saying don’t lose weight if you need to, certainly not if your health is involved. By all means, be healthy! Life is too short not to try to live as long as possible (note to self). Life is also too short not to enjoy it. Go to the gym or embrace that it’s not for you. Do whatever rocks your boat. But for pity’s sake, please be happy with your choice. Realise you are beautiful, truly, irrespectively of a number on a scale. Find a way – find your way. And once you have, please do the same for your kids. I don’t think there’s anything more empowering we can do for our daughters than to make weight a non-issue for them. Lead by example, show them, tell them you know you are gorgeous just the way you are (they think that by default, you know – until the day you tell them you’re too fat…). Because if you tell them you’d be just that much happier by losing a few pounds and that’s why you’re doing this month’s diet – well, I don’t need to tell you what they will learn from that, do I?
And if you’re still unsure about how to make it click, I get that. I told you, I always believed in this but it took me 38 years to “get it”. Well, the naked truth is: it’s all in your mind. You actually are the one that is in control of your thoughts about yourself! That’s exactly right. If you think you’re not pretty, it might because of all kinds of external factors, but you are the only one choosing not to see your beauty. In the end, the final decision lies with you and what you decide to think. You don’t need other people’s opinions or approval. You, that’s right, YOU are in control. So be happy with you are!
Be the girl in the tiny white bikini…

PS: If you’re a guy and you don’t think you can get away with the white bikini – what do you think of Sean Connery rocking this little number?… 🙂

I don’t remember the precise year that I stopped making new year’s resolutions (let me please abbreviate to NYR for the rest of this post…). It probably happened once I could sustain myself financially and moved out to my 12 m2 student room at 19 and no-one was around anymore to ask me the dreaded “Sooooo, what are your NYR this year?!” – or worse, suggest them to me… At the time it was purely an act of self-preservation; later it became a matter of principle; nowadays, it’s a non issue for me. But when I was younger, NYR always made me feel pretty bad about myself, unsurprisingly. Really, the concept is preposterous… First you have to take a long hard look at your personality and behavior to identify all your “faults” and “shortcomings” – ok, that’s not necessarily bad; as long as you are not too self critical or too self absorbed, a little introspection never killed anybody. Then you have to pick something bad enough to be worthy of some kind of rehabilitation program starting January 1st. You are told you have to make it public – so you are kept *accountable* because it will increase your chances of success – therefore making your deepest insecurities joyously advertised to the world. Finally you must establish some kind of Herculean routine going against everything you’d rather do (hey, otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this mess!). And of course, within a month, you must fail… Well, it’s not a “must” per se but it often is the reality… Cue the shame, cue the guilt. Yeah, I became allergic to NYR, especially since mine were of a chronic nature. “No, no, but this year I’m REALLY committed, it’s going to work, I’m going to […]” Feel free to fill in whatever rocks your boat: loose weight, go to the gym, quit smoking, drink less, get out of debt, spend more time with family…

All of the above goals are actually great ones to strive for, when needed – being more healthy for instance, that’s worthy of your attention. Without a doubt. But are NYR really the best way to make lifestyle changes? All I know is that it hasn’t been the case for me. The reason I personally failed at them had to do, I believe, with where the motivation came from. I’ve always been more of a carrot girl than a stick girl. And I’m not really a “woman of duty” so, I do something if I want to do it or if I see a big enough benefit, be it to me or to others that I care about. I’m very ambivalent towards things that I “should” do, especially when the “should” is dictated by others. So the incentive to do something against my natural preferences has to be intrinsic – and clearly, NYR’s underlying theme is more often peer-pressure oriented. Once in a while I will see a friend’s home being perfectly tidy with no mess whatsoever and think – wow, if only I could be so organised! But I’d never consider making it my new life’s mission because I know that’s just not who I am. Once my house is 80% in good state, I’m well aware I’ll get side tracked to doing something I love – edit a photo I’ve been dying to see on my screen, play Uno with the girls, read, take a nap or a bike ride or ski – go camping with the family if I can get the whole weekend! From time to time I do have a decluttering spree, like these past few days; nothing to do with 2014 but more with the fact that I actually have some extra time during the holidays – plus nothing beats Santa’s visit to expose how much stuff a family can accumulate, ugh, and I can’t stand that we have twice as many books as we have shelf space (don’t mention e-readers, just don’t – and why are Canadian houses built with so very little wall space? It’s all windows and built-in storage unsuitable for books!). I’ve given up a long time ago on appearing to be somewhat close to superwoman – it’s enough work to just be Me. I’m never going to be the girl that writes her Christmas cards in November – hey, I’d be impressed if I managed to do Christmas cards at all! But I’m ok with that.

I’m sure there are enough “experts” out there that would tell you their “truth” about NYR; why they might have failed in the past and how to make them finally work for you this year by following their tips. Personally I’m getting a little weary of people trying to tell me how to live my life and how to reach happiness by means of bullet points. Soundbites. Shreds of wisdom. There is this one author who wrote in 1988 an amazingly beautiful novel, one that made a lot of people stop and think about life – one that spoke to the Dreamer in me for sure. Since then, the guy has been churning out so many “feel good” quotes and books capitalising on what his fans are begging to buy from him, it has become, in my opinion, almost denude of meaning. But positive thinking sells, and sells well. I just watched this little video intro to a book called “Against positive thinking: uncertainty as the secret to happiness” by Oliver Burkman and – despite my shelving problem…- I’ve ordered it. I’m extremely curious because I do believe in thinking positively overall (I’m certainly an optimist at heart even if I occasionally have a cynical eye – btw, the irony that this is yet another book claiming to know the path to happiness does not escape me…) but I’ve become a bit skeptical of the whole “positive thinking” thing. Life isn’t all sugar and spice and all things nice. Sometimes life is just average. Just ok, just fine. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it hurts. Like, really badly so. And you need to have experienced all of that and reflected on it to also revel when it is breathtakingly sublime. If you don’t know your baseline, how can you recognise that your heart skipped a beat from pure divine happiness? If you haven’t experienced pain, how can you notice – and appreciate – that you have moved on from there and now have found joy or beauty instead? When I am down, I realise I have “first world problems” – I absolutely know I have a lot to be grateful for and I don’t need to be reminded, trust me. But guess what, I also happen to have a situation that is making me feel a little blue right then. Feeling bad actually helps me process the damn thing and that is part of how I get happy again – I’m an optimist, remember? I’m never going to dwell on longer than necessary, so hearing “buck up” does NOT help. And in such cases I’d rather eat tofu than hear about another step by step recipe on how to always be happy (OK, I lied, please don’t make me eat tofu!…). And so the mandatory fun required in the endless pursuit of happiness starts to depress me. My point is no-one, NO-ONE, has a one-size-fits-all / live-your-best-life happiness solution. Except maybe people like the Dalai Lama – but he doesn’t give instructions for average folks like me on how not to lose your mind while raising 2 kids and I can’t live like a Buddhist monk cause I have a life, so… So forgive me for sometimes being slightly doubtful when I see “7 ways to…” “10 habits of…” “13 things to avoid to better…”. Not that there isn’t good stuff in there but, Dude, if there were a formula for happiness, there would be no need for such blog articles or books, including your own!

I heard on the radio this song by OneRepublic (and btw, I just watched the video for the first time, isn’t it rather fitting with what I just wrote about?!) and there is one line in there that made me want to slam the breaks the first time I heard it on the radio: “Everything that kills me makes me feel alive”. Not bad, eh? Isn’t that a lovely departure from Nietzsche’s original quote (which I also like btw)? I think I might wholeheartedly agree with that thought! Isn’t your experience of life extremely heightened when you bite off more than you can chew?? Ok, improvising for the recovery can be a real struggle, but aren’t those the moments when you feel tremendously alive – even if possibly painfully so as well? There is one article I read this year which I absolutely adored – it is called “Find what you love and let it kill you” and it’s written by concert pianist James Rhodes, a man with quite an extraordinary journey; please, read it. Those few hours a day to ourselves that he mentions? They should be utilised well. Not by adhering to an artificial NYR that is supposed to improve who we are but by doing something we so desperately enjoy doing. For the fun of it. For the love of it!

The past 5 years or so, I thought I was doing pretty darn well; I had it all figured out – “it” being what I wanted from life, I suppose. And then this year a lot of it went to sh@t. Some little things – they can add up – some bigger ones as well. Like choosing to continue to live in Canada in 2015 and beyond – or not. Like a fright I had on December 12 in a doctor’s office. Life can play little tricks on you, or hit you with a brick – or a grand piano! I now know that the next time I think I got my ducks in a perfect row, I should start to worry 🙂 The crazy thing is that I can intellectualise what I should be doing and aiming for. But like in the OneRepublic song, sometimes it feels right to do the wrong thing and wrong to do the right thing. There’s no amount of NYR that’s ever going to make this whole process easier. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do stuff, change, grow. I always have dreams, ideas, plans… For instance I’ve wanted to skydive since I heard my dad tell me about his jumps when I was 12 but I’ve never done it. It is actually the only thing I can currently think of that I am absolutely terrified of doing yet have a persistent nagging desire for. And so I’ve decided I’m going to do it this year, I even set a tentative date for myself, I just won’t tell anyone about it until I’m there. Because just about everybody is trying to make me change my mind or telling me I’m nuts and, reading the brochure about the 40-60 sec of free fall at a speed of 177km/h, I am tempted to agree (and I think I’m hyperventilating…). But getting past the fear and having such a radical experience, I can’t imagine many more vivid ways to feel alive. Not all my plans are that crazy. I also want to spend more time photographing private projects for instance – this month I released for the first time some of my personal work and have sold large limited edition prints. There are 2 videos I want to do for the website, one of them I have had in my head for nearly 3 years now. I’d like to be back in the dark room but realistically that’s not going to happen for a while. I’m going to have to go back to that doctor’s office in January, and in March. We’re going to make a decision about staying in Canada long term or moving back to Europe. And the list goes on. So who needs NYR when you have a life to live every single day of the year? I might be frightened by a lot of the choices I’m going to have to make in 2014 but I’m not afraid of fear. Ok, I’m not an Eminem hard core fan (I’ve listened much more to Mozart in my life than to him!) but I do like that in his song “I’m not afraid” he says
“I guess I had to go to that place, to get to this one (…)
It’s a game called circle and I don’t know how, I’m way too up to back down
But I think I’m still trying to figure this crap out
Thought I had it mapped out but I guess I didn’t, this fucking black cloud
Still follows me around but it’s time to exorcise these demons
These motherfuckers are doing jumping jacks now!
And I just can’t keep living this way
So starting today, I’m breaking out of this cage
I’m standing up, I’ma face my demons
I’m manning up, I’ma hold my ground
I’ve had enough, now I’m so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now!”

So as ever, I’m not going to bother about NYR (I know, I know, I’m totally taking you by surprise right now, aren’t I?!). I’m just going to continue doing the few things that I am pretty sure will work for me, because they have in the past. As much as possible, I will do what I love. And as for the things that I don’t love, I will do as little as I can get away with. And I’ll try – no wait, I won’t feel guilty about it and I won’t feel undeserving of it because life is too damned short. I will do things even when I am terrified, maybe especially when I am terrified. And I will aim to love and have my heart wide open, as much as I can – just because – love makes us all happy.

How about you?

Happy New Year to you!

 

I was  a bit quite mad when I first wrote this post. Please note that I am from France… I don’t know if it is the Latin blood or just a cultural thing but French people are notorious for being incessant loud complainers with very short patience fuses – think about it, the guillotine was invented so we could expedite cutting off all the heads of those that had pissed us off… Don’t get me wrong, I don’t go all crazy when I’m mad, I don’t scream at the top of my voice while dishing out insults or throwing dishes (I save that for friendly discussions about politics. Just kidding). But I have a bit of an on-off switch. I’m usually perfectly good with everything, including the very different opinion that you might have (I agree to disagree); but I  can go from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds flat (yup, I’m better than a sports car in that way too!) – straight to full on pissed off mode. On the positive side, I get really quickly back to normal once I made it clear I was upset, and I don’t hold grudges. I have been told I have a “very direct mode of communication” – well, that’s a very sweet way to say it, thank you… So anyway, I was mad and to exorcise it I wrote. If I sound too abrasive, it’s probably because I was in explosive mode – so mentally tone it down a notch for me if necessary, will you?

Oh, and I know this is a photography blog so there, a few photos I took of my girls looking mad. Feel free to agree or disagree with me in the comments box or to tell me what pisses you off today – then we can turn this blog into a soap box and take turns 🙂

So I would like to say this. I believe that everything does NOT always happen for a reason. And I’d like to make a plea for us to stop saying that. I’ve used that sentence in the past so I know we say it to comfort people and to comfort ourselves. I know it’s said with love. Something really bad is happening and so we think “everything happens for a reason”, as if it will make it more bearable to think that in the future, we might find a justification for the madness of the present. And we believe it, we really do!! We want to believe it. Well, I’ve come to realise that it’s major self-delusion if you ask me. Well meant, best of intentions and all – but still, BS. Pardon my French. A way to help us cope; to make up for not managing to make sense of something that actually never could make sense; a way to excuse ourselves from being unable to say anything else that might be of comfort. There before us stands someone in the eye of the cyclone that their life suddenly has become: “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY???????” – everything happens for a reason… NO!!!

Before you all get mad at me and argue fiercely against this, let me say that I suspect there is an issue of Language and mistaken causality here and that you and I, in fact, probably very much agree – I will explain in a second so stick with me. But first, consider this:

“Everything happens for a reason” does not help the couple that has been trying for years to have a baby. The girl is “the problem”, she never really cared since she found out in a white room at 22 as she had decided at 16 she would adopt anyway; she hadn’t anticipated she’d marry a boy who was scared of adoption. When you shoot yourself up with hormones daily, have blood tests every other day that ruin your veins so bad you wear long sleeves T-shirts in the summer so that people don’t mistake you for a junkie, when you have to undergo medical procedures that make your husband cry because he can’t bear to watch you go through the pain over and over again, you don’t want to hear “Everything happens for a reason” – trust me. Sometimes couples get lucky and it works but their child is NOT the reason – their child is the consequence. And what about the couple that never gets that lucky? It is unfair and it makes no sense but I sure as hell can not think of a “reason” for which they are deprived of something that their heart so desired and of which they would have been so worthy.

Do you see yourself say “Everything happens for a reason” to the new parents who find out their baby is born with a condition/handicap so severe that they will never be able for instance to reach an autonomous adulthood? A friend of mine dated this guy who did. He believed “God had made those children” so that they could remind HIM to appreciate how healthy and “perfect” his own children were. WHAT??!! I don’t even really want to go into how incredibly self-centered that statement is. Now, will the parents of that child know the same joy as any other parents would, as well as a whole other range of experiences that will enrich and possibly bring even more good tot their lives next to the hardship? I have no doubt – but it’s not the reason! Again, it’s the consequence… Btw may I state on the record I am kind of glad my friend broke it off with that guy since then, because can you imagine he and I sitting at dinner some day soon having a friendly discussion about politics (see above reference)? 🙂

When I heard Oprah say about the Sandy Hook tragedy that it happened for a reason and that the reason for the death of those 20 little angels as she called them was so that there would be a dialogue about gun control, I couldn’t help but think, you’re kidding me, right? Gun control talk = Yes! But I really doubt the families suffered any less reflecting on that or agreed with her for that matter… I’m guessing “Everything happens for a reason” isn’t really going to comfort the man who just lost his wife of 40 years either. Or my friend’s neighbor who woke up two weeks ago next to her dead 30-something years old husband who passed in his sleep, with 3 young kids in the other room. Or the wonderful family I know that I just saw last Friday whose precious daughter took her own life this summer. Because nothing like that happens for a reason.

Now if you believe in a God that has your fate in its control, if you believe Destiny is pre-established before you’re even born – well, clearly you will think I’m seriously misguided and we will just have to agree to disagree. If you think we do have choice and control of our actions and lives, then I know that still quite a few people will say – but things really do happen for a reason because bad stuff often leads to something really amazing that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And you’re right!!! But it’s the causality that is wrong here. Our brains often mistake causes and consequences, or even harder to distinguish, correlation and causality (you know the story of “the more ice creams are sold in Chicago, the more murders are committed”, right?… If you don’t, google is your friend). Let me try to give you an example here because I know that some of my closest friends will give me hell for this post if I don’t manage to get my point across properly to them.

You’re walking in the street with a brand new silk shirt. It starts raining (that’s the bad thing). Let’s look at 2 scenarios:

1) You forgot your umbrella. The sudden thunderstorm drenches your outfit and we all know silk does not like water. You look within seconds like a wet rat, you break a heel and fall trying to run for cover and feel pathetic. Suddenly this hot guy runs to your rescue, helps you out, offers his umbrella and coat. Fast forward 3 years, you’re married to your dream man. Everything happens for a reason (if it hadn’t rained and you hadn’t forgotten your umbrella, you would have never met him!!!!).

2) You thought of bringing your umbrella. You silk shirt is safe. Two years later you go out to a dinner party and sit next to your friend’s cousin who just moved to town. He’s really funny. Fast forward 3 years, you’re married to your dream man. Everything happens for a reason (if it hadn’t rained and you hadn’t thought of bringing your umbrella you would have never met him!!!! – cause you would have met the other guy…).

There is always something good that will follow any (bad) situation in life. Meeting the hot guy isn’t the reason that it started to rain. It didn’t start to rain for a reason. Meeting the hot guy is the consequence of it starting to rain and you having your umbrella with you or not.

Maybe we’re just slightly off the mark here, maybe what we all mean to say is something like “something good can follow something bad”, better yet “there’s a lesson to be learned from everything” – now, I’m much more down with that. I do believe you can learn something from (almost?) any experience in life, even and maybe particularly so from the painful ones; even if it sometimes takes a huge amount of time; even if sometimes you think, HEY, I could have learned that in a much less painful way, thank you very much. I’m sorry if it feels like I’m being picky with words – but language makes a big difference to how people perceive what you’re trying to say to them. It can be incredibly painful to hear certain things despite the best of intentions.

There were moments I didn’t really know what to say last Friday. Kind of, but I tripped on my own words, on my own thoughts… I wish I could have been more eloquent. Maybe this above expresses better what I had in my head. Maybe. Not so sure. There are times where you just know no regular conversation, no small talk, no cliche nor deep carefully though-out philosophical statements will do. What do you say to the mother who lost her child a few months ago? “How are you doing?” ?… I did (I know), immediately followed up by “Wow, well, that was probably the dumbest question ever, sorry”. She said “Yes it kind of is”… But she also said “That’s ok, we could use some laughter”. Sometimes there is nothing easy to say so we are out of our comfort zone or we don’t dare; we are afraid of trying; we give up. We say nothing. You know what, I might be wrong, but I still think we should try – failure is better than absence. If nothing easy comes to mind, how about any of these to say you’re just unsure of how to be, if you mean it of course: I can’t possibly know how much pain you are in. I’m in pain too. I’m here for you when you need me. I’m here for you whichever way you need me. I don’t know what to say but I don’t want you to think it’s because I don’t really care. I don’t know what to say, I feel so uncomfortable but I do care. I don’t know what to say. I love you. Or maybe you don’t say anything, you just show that you are there. To me, that kind of honesty is more meaningful than anything, it’s more meaningful than “everything happens for a reason”.

“Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY???????”    – I don’t know.

 

This week-end is Canadian Thanksgiving and everyone eats turkey with their families. Being French/British/Dutch-ish with no family in the country we don’t celebrate though we sure appreciate the long week-end – and it’s real quiet on mountain trails then… I do like the idea of “thanks giving” a lot though. I have a lot to be thankful for – and even when life throws a sucker punch or two, I like to think I still manage to stay optimistic and grateful overall (all the while catching my breath and possibly swearing like a drunk sailor for a bit). I’m thankful for my family, of course, here and back home and I hope I tell them often enough. I’m thankful for a lot of “circumstances” and “opportunities” and “things” I have but you know, I’m most thankful for the people in my life – and maybe because this year I particularly appreciated and called on friends, I thought I’d dedicate this post to the meaningful friendships that have influenced my life to date. And so in pretty much random order, knowing that some of you are in there more than once (great friends bring good to your life in more than one way!), here is my gratitude list.

Thank you to the friend I can tell anything and everything to. Thanks for being there for me and for always being supportive yet having the courage to call me on my BS on the (few? ahum…) occasions it’s needed, for having my best interest at heart without being blind. Thanks for holding me accountable. And thank you for never judging me nor the skeletons in my emotional closet – and trusting me in the same way with yours.

Thank you to my most creative nutty nut friend who is my occasional partner in crime, in Art and Life. There’s no-one in the world that I would rather bounce crazy ideas with – you’re simply the best. I love every journey I take with you.

Thanks to all my friends from University. For making me finally feel like this is where I was meant to be, where I totally belonged. For making me the kind of person that says being a student is for sure one of the best times of your life (I used to think only old people said that, oh wait, that’s me now!). When else do you get to be with your friends all day, learn exciting new things every week, be with your friends again at night and have not many worries – nor any responsibilities, other than maybe the university teaching assistant job you have to take as a 3rd year student to pay for your monthly rent (real fun job btw – I loved it, plus it entitled me to a desk in an office in the basement – hey I’m a simple girl and that was luxury…)?

Thank you to the to the friend I spoke with this summer sur les quais. If anything, that 6 hours long conversation and our chats since then have taught me that the universe has a real funny way of reconnecting people at specific times of their lives.

Thanks to the SGS friends who followed me every day around 3pm for our “Coca-cola light break” (even if we never saw that hunky guy from the commercial in the atrium- though clearly I would have been the only to care…) for the Friday evenings at the Halve-Maan, where you always did me the favor of treating me as one of the guys, the record you kept of my subtle mistakes in English at the time which for whatever mysterious reason always seemed to have really inappropriate adult rated connotations, the poker evenings where we laughed so much you’d all be in hysterics watching me get rid of my resulting hick-ups (don’t even deny it – it worked EVERY TIME even if it did look ridiculous…), sometimes talking about ducks (42.5cm!) which earned me a plastic yellow one for my birthday that still is somewhere in my bathroom – thanks for the memories; those were truly some of the funniest years of my life. And when I left and crossed over to the Dark Side (let me see if I can still upset you: geophysics, geology, it’s all the same, right?? Hey, geologists can’t map their way out of a paper bag either!…), thanks to the few new friends I made in AGI – you guys did a great job taking over and those were some pretty big shoes to fill…

Thanks to the friends who across the years have unknowingly helped me change my life. You, whom I met for a week at the faculty of Psychology in Oxford, second week of September ’98, those last 2 hours of intense conversation in the car on the way to the airport made such a profound impact on me, I changed on the inside that day. Or maybe I finally simply aligned the outside to the inside. In any case I got home that evening and 30 minutes later my life was drastically different. I don’t actually remember your name but I’m forever grateful. And You who told me, while battling those tagliatelle you were cooking, or at the restaurant before that obscure artsy French movie we were the only ones to want to see, or walking back from the Opera together, how you were going to go for your dream regardless of everyone else’s expectations and regardless of the risks – and of the fear… I got your postcard (I love when people remember I love getting postcards!). It took me a few more years than you to walk away. You don’t know it but you showed me there was a way; actually you showed me there was more than one way. I googled you the other day, you really did well – I’m impressed – but not surprised. And You whom I talked with this summer. Part of our conversation made me feel like someone shook around my snow globe or something, my god, how a handful of questions can make a big difference – good questions that needed to be asked and need to be answered!! I wasn’t sure at the time whether I should kiss you or curse you; now I know something has been set in motion. I’m working on making some stuff better, which you already know, but I also am considering two other ideas I doubt you would guess could have come out of our conversation. I have no clue if and how any of it is going to turn out but I will let you know all about it when I do!

Thank you to the two photographer friends that I can talk with about business in total utter honesty. We appreciate and build on one another without ever feeling like we are competitors (even if on paper we are) and without ever stabbing each other in the back (except for that one time where I got to hug a storm trooper and we actually do have photographic evidence of one of you “pretending” to stab me – maybe we need to talk about that another day…)

Thank you to the friend I have dinner with every 2 or 3 months or so – and not just for allowing me to make fun of you for being unable to read the menu! 15 years ago we used to go for regular walks at lunch time in Rijswijk – now we’re in Calgary together again and it’s cool to see how we both are different but still managed to change in similar ways. Plus we can drive the waitresses crazy with how slow we are – hey, we’re not there for the food but for each other’s company!

Thanks to the 5 girls that redefined friendship for me back in the Netherlands. It had been about a decade and a half that I pretty much only had guy friends to just half a handful of great exceptions – girls can be SOOO complicated… – and you changed that. You introduced me to multiple girl-friendships; I didn’t know it could run that deep that easily (plus girls night was hilarious). Thanks to you I also didn’t put my camera down one day. You’re part of the reasons I’m here today.

Thanks to the friends I see at school drop-off or pick-up every day who remind me that we all have lives that are both enriched AND messed up by our kids 🙂

Thank you to the friend who comes with me to most weddings as my second shooter and gets bossed around and has to do weird stuff like lift that diffuser above her head even when it’s so windy I’m afraid she might take off – thanks for putting up with me when I am the employer/slave driver holding the camera – and thanks ever so much more for still being my friend after I put it down. Actually, thanks to all my second shooters for putting up with me (don’t tell me it’s because I pay you!).

Thank you to my clients – you are the best. I don’t know how you do it but I always feel like I’m just hanging out with friends when I’m with you. You’re really awesome!

Thanks to the friends that were on my birthing class in Den Haag for going through the whole “I hope I manage to keep her alive” thing together once our babies were born. Now you’re all over the world, New York, New Castle, New Zealand, Indonesia – but it still is really funny to see us all post on facebook at the same time about our kids birthdays… as we all managed to keep them alive and this month they are all turning 10!

Thanks to the friends who share memories of Keulen & silly Christmas hats, streetlights at 4am on the Suezkade, Guinness and Cider at the Firkin, wooden statuettes and drinking pants… It’s real good to have stories you’d be too embarrassed to share with most people!…

Thank you to the friend I was on the phone with when I heard my dad had cancer. You had just lost your mom the month before to the disease. You offered to say a prayer for me and for him, even though you knew it’s not my thing, really. But what you then said that day was unlike anything I had ever heard before and it was an absolute gift and it will stay with me forever. And thank you for last week.

Thanks to the friend who has lunch with me once in a while and talks to me about her love of fractals, Art, neuro-economics, literature, game theory, Love… I love our talks, even if sometimes my brain feels like it might explode – cause that’s the fun part!

Thank you to the friend that showed me how Bosch and PVC could be combined in the most beautiful wonderful way.

Thank you to the friend whom I told about my new big scary “project” for January, for not telling me “Say what?? You’re going to do WHAT????” as I thought one might (and some will) but for saying instead “I think you can do it – I can totally see you being great at that. If this is what you want – do what makes you happy”. Meanwhile I still think I might be insane… But it wouldn’t be the first time that I follow my crazy ideas and bite more than I can chew – walking the tight rope in life does keep it interesting and at least I know you got my back.

Thanks to the friend who helped me little by little transition from student life into adulthood. You weren’t always as chirpy as I was about life but since you were about the age I am today I can see your points better now :). You helped me grow up. Oh, and you made me go “topless in Oman” when I visited you in Muscat a few years later, that was very cool too (and for others that read that, maybe I should specify it means taking your Z3 for a spin with the soft top down…)!

Thanks to all the friends I made in crazy hippie Asheville, NC, 8 months ago, who have made me feel like part of a community or something like that. We all shared the same yearning of being more authentic as artists and that made our bond special. A special thought for two of you who at 1am in a hotel corridor introduced me to Sally Mann, Joyce Tenneson, Sarah Moon… as other examples of women photographers that loved photographing women and femininity – at the time I feared I was being assimilated by the current industry’s “collective”, and you showed me that resistance wasn’t futile!

Thanks to my FB friends, especially the ones that sometimes message me or tell me to wear a sumo suit or want to wrap me in a bubble when I hurt myself (again) or who offer to virtually eat nutella with a spoon to make me feel better by association when my website got hijacked, who share with me their Swiss meringue recipe, who recommend Dunbar, Deacon & Miller or who share something meaningful of their lives… I’m a people person and I love face to face, or voice to voice interaction best, but facebook friends can be real friends too!

Thanks to the girlfriend that always knows the right text message to send me at exactly the right time, including that one bizarre occurrence where “Btw, just wanted you to know, I noticed today, you’ve got a fantastic ass” actually didn’t feel out of place!!! You Weirdo! I love you too 🙂

Thank you to the handful of friends whose shoulder I have cried on over the years and thank you to the friends who have trusted me enough to cry on mine.

And so how do I end this? I noticed lately how I love to use quotes which worries me a little – cause it’s like, can’t I think of something smart to say myself?! There is an over-affluence of disposable sayings on social media nowadays for sure. On the other hand a lot of smart people have said very clever things in the past and it saves me reinventing the wheel 🙂 As I wrote this whole post and I thought of all those friends whose paths I’ve crossed I thought recurrently of two people. The first one is my grand-ma because when she talks of someone really special to her heart, like my daughters, she refers to them as her “petits rayons de soleil” – and so I want to simply say thank you to you who are my little rays of sunshine. And I also thought of Christopher McCandless. “Into the wild” is one of my favorite movies/real stories because I have such reverence for that young guy (and the landscapes are awesome). He was braver than I will ever be. He asked all the right questions and he actually dared to look for real answers- and he looked for them in pretty darn good places. And at the end of his journey, he writes this

“HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED” (Christopher McCandless/Alexander Supertramp)

And that, my friend, I believe is rather often true.

Until last May or so, I thought I was 38 and I had to be reminded I was actually 37. Then until 2 days ago I thought my birthday was tomorrow when in actual fact it is Sunday. So if you think about this logically, I am actually turning a year and a day younger than last year, right?!! 😉

I find it interesting to see how we all think differently about what it means to age. As I wrote in “37 vs 21” a few months ago I generally like who I am more and more as I get older. But a few things happened this year that make me pause for a second today and ponder, for the first time in a long while, what it means to have one more candle on my (chocolate) cake this week-end.

Clearly this is going to be another very personal post rather than a photography one – maybe I should buy myself a journal instead! Then again this is my blog so I can do what I want, ha! As I always write things as they come without a defined a priori structure, I think it’s rather funny that the first thing that popped into my mind now are the words of some blogger I read a few weeks ago – she said something like this “if I had known what pregnancies would do to my body at 40, I would have worn next to no clothes in my 20’s – I would have dressed like Madonna circa her Blond Ambition tour!” 🙂 LOL and isn’t that the truth?!!… So how do I prevent myself from thinking “I wish that….” when I am 60 thinking back about the years that are still to come now?? For instance, isn’t it time that you deal with your body image once and for all? I am talking to myself btw – but if you’re like 98% of the women I know, feel free to answer that one for yourself as well.

More generally speaking here is the core of what has been preoccupying me quite a bit lately, more than usual – what choices do I make now so that I don’t have any regrets later? And that is not just a question for women! Cause that’s just it, right? You can not change the past, you can only act on your present. I certainly had started to talk about that here when I shared a bit about my personal experience with fear and lost opportunities. I guess we all go through different periods of “identity crisis” in life though I think it’s more like “questioning” – it doesn’t have to be a crisis for goodness sake – does it?! Questioning is a good thing!!

For instance, one very big thing for me was my work and the creative process and the direction I seemed to be taking last year. In January I reached a turning point in my head and in my heart, in February I started to act on it and it has been evolving since. I talk a bit about it here as I have just received 2 awards for work from after that turning point. So 38 should be a great year creatively! I have even filled in the past 4 weeks pages and pages of my notebook with personal shoot ideas – honestly, until then I didn’t need a notebook; I had to get one because recently it felt like my head was going to explode, or if I have to be less dramatic, I knew I would forget a lot of them if I didn’t…

Also, though I made more time for my family this year, I seemed to have less time for myself because of a few unexpected circumstances. More time with family is great, less time for me, not so great – even if that might sound selfish. 2.5 years ago I came close to death from a massive blow to the head on a stupid icy parking lot and after I recovered from the brain injury, I decided I would do more things I love and less things I didn’t like. You only have one life and I know now, more than just intellectually, that it can end any random spring morning or change dramatically (the paramedics in the ambulance thought I had ruptured my spine). Sometimes we say or think we came close to death, like for me a day in June 1999; the rain was torrential and I had been driving 8 hours on my own, my wheels aquaplaned on a small country road in upstate New York, I completely lost control of my car and went on the opposite lane, another vehicle coming towards me thankfully managed to avoid me (its headlights pointing straight at me then swerving seemed to belong to a movie in a slow-mo scene) then I nearly crashed into a tree but managed on time to make a 270 degrees spin before coming to a stop in the middle of the road – and then drove on for another 2 hours (in total shock and sobbing like nobody’s business though!)… I could tell that story and say “I thought I was going to die!!!” – but I didn’t really, I realise it could have been a (fatal) accident potentially but I didn’t actually think in that instant I was going to die. On the parking lot, when my head hit the ice and I felt my brain somehow detach from my skull and jiggle in there, when I lost vision and it all became black and I felt like I was drifting and then spinning, for just a few seconds that felt like an eternity, I knew I was about to die (yet clearly I was wrong – I am not always right… Huh, who knew?!… :)). I can’t actually find the words to properly express what I felt as I have never experienced ANY emotional pain that came even remotely close to the tremendous hurt that took over my mind in those few seconds, when I thought all that I cared for – life – was about to be over. So when you really pause and consider that every second is a privilege that can be taken away so very easily, trust me, doing more of what you love makes perfect sense beyond the rhetoric of it. And so I am going to make sure I remember that this year again.

Another thing is that I seem to be surrounded by so many people that are undertaking identity quests themselves or going through big changes, voluntarily or not, so it is hard not to wonder about life in general – for instance I have a multitude of friends, clients, acquaintances that are recently divorced or contemplating it, changing jobs or contemplating it, engineering complete lifestyle overhauls, wondering whether they did the right thing with their lives so far or what it means to be happy… Those are all good questions to ask btw! I don’t think you should go through life without ever wondering about happiness in general and yours in particular. But I don’t remember having those friends when I was 30!!! By then we were just talking about how to best tell the creche before going to work that you really wanted them to please not keep your kid in diapers during the day even if it made the life of the caregivers easier; and we wondered in how many years we would again be able to make a phone call without being interrupted (I am STILL waiting for an answer on that one btw!…)

I have also learned this year that you can do something one day when you are just 20, something you kind of had forgotten, nothing that would strike anyone watching the scene as particularly noteworthy, and that it can come back to you and affect your life that many years later. You might need to be a nerd at heart, like myself, to appreciate that my world at the time was revolving around chaos theory, literally or rather mathematically speaking, yet I had never thought of the “butterfly effect” as anything that would apply to me and certainly not on that kind of time scale! And so that too makes me contemplate what I did and didn’t do, and what I do now and don’t do. And it’s not always easy to really look at that straight in the eye and to keep rational about it, for different reasons I suppose. Part of it I guess is that if you think too much about the fact that choices you make every day might affect who you will be in 20 years, you can start to feel rather paralysed… If you over-think it, nothing much will get done… – in a similar way as one of my favorite writer, Camus, said “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” I am so very grateful for at least 4 very different things from this butterfly effect and one of them is that it reminded me that I may need to consider some of my current decisions, big and small, with a bit more intent, a bit more often, rather than just going with the flow and letting life go by. And so for the things I choose to reflect on, I will give myself the head space, the time and the tools to do that properly.

And therefore I think it’s rather funny that lately I have been taking a few trips down Memory Lane. In my mind quite a bit, but also literally speaking. For instance I went to Paris last week and met one of my best friends from my conservatory years in France, a friend that I had last seen when I was 13. I got myself a hotel in the area I used to live in when I was 20; I went to have a stroll near Jussieu, a university I used to visit as a student when I was working with my research director at the CNRS. I even had a white beer there, something I used to do as a student as well, though in Leiden (in the Netherlands), on hot summer days on a “terrasje” with friends – if you know me, you know I have on average maybe one drink a month and it gets me very tipsy and very giggly VERY quickly so I had to stay at that cafe for 2 hours before I could walk in a straight (-ish) line! I’ve listened to songs I used to love 10,20,30 years ago and have had amused looks from my daughters as they catch me singing (and dare I admit, sometimes dancing?) in my office. I’ve been looking up a few old friends, thank you google. I had a lollipop… I’ve been telling my 13 year old brother some stories about my teenage years when he asked, I even thought it might help him possibly avoid making some mistakes, but of course I know it doesn’t work that way. I looked for shapes in clouds, more than usual – lately I saw a turtle chasing a jelly fish, a dinosaur, a duck and even a discrete mathematical graph (come on, it IS a cooler descriptive than blue skies with airplane trails crossing!). I’ve tried to “marvel” a bit more.

And though I realise all of this might sound extremely sentimentalist, it isn’t really. It’s not even nostalgic. I am not regretting the “good old days”, if anything it’s more like I am celebrating them; I am not thinking I made some bad decisions, I think I made pretty darn good ones overall; I am not thinking “my life would have been better if [insert whatever alternative I had to all the choices I made – like not going after a PhD after all – or things that happened to me beyond my control – like my family moving to the Netherlands when I was 13]”, it would just have been different. It’s like that movie “Sliding doors” (is that the name?) – you can never know what is better or what is worse; all you can say is “different”. And I do love so many things about my life today.

So let’s just say on the eve of the eve of my 38th birthday, I am taking stock; of the good stuff and yes, also of the stuff I sometimes wish had gone differently. I am reflecting on the past so I can better live my present and then choose my future accordingly, whatever that might be.

I will never dress like Madonna back then, even if I wish I did (kind of) – but I can be myself today, and tomorrow, and every day after that; and THAT is truly wonderful.

So happy birthday to me!!!