Home Away From Home

The sun is shining on my face as if telling me it will be my light, I am having a somewhat unprecedented moment. Reading in the terrace, sitting in my red chair, dwelling between the reading, a small game and my lazy email. C sleeps and I can hear her wake up as I start typing. But the sun keeps shining. It is telling me to be in peace. I don't have the ocean to do that here, as I did on my former lemon teas in the afternoon in Praia Grande, the ocean can counsel me no further even though I live in an Island. Funny. So today the sun brought the message and is forcing me to enjoy my day. Do you ever relax, asks my coach - yes, if I schedule time to! Well this was not scheduled, for the first time in a long time, but it feels nice. Even C went back to sleep. Maybe I shut my eyes too.

For those that face faith as a personal experience rather than a purely religious institution, Easter is time for renewal. That is why giving up on something makes sense, because it makes you think what you value and could leave without, as a way to focus your mind on transformation. No, I don't think God will give me praise for making a personal small sacrifice, but I do think it gets me closer to inner peace.  So now Easter is drawing close and as many years before this year calls for transformation. Last year I had the biggest transformation of all with C being born on holy Thursday. This year, my day needs to change. I need to gather the strength to admit that this just does not do it for me anymore. Challenge, making a difference and everyday kindness are indeed the most valuable things for me. And I am certain they are available all in one place. I even found them already. So I am putting it on 'paper' so I don't loose focus and my Easter has a real life meaning, ...

Last night, a post formed inside my head as I was commuting in Westminster but the crowd did not allow me to balance myself, ipad and writing all at once, which means this will probably end up a totally different thought process. I have not written in a while, I have not sort out my life, I have not wom the euro millions and I have not gone through the massive back log I have developed at work and at the NGO. I have also not yet accepted well that our volunteers house got robbed in Mozambique, including the external drive with th work they had done the last 2 months. I just thought I would leave that out there as I focus rather on the positives. What I have done though, even if it does not feel like it, does really outweigh all the have nots. I have come to realize that, as expected, there are good sources of life in the same building and away from my seat as I start questioning that some things are maybe not worth fighting for and you can't always fix what is broken, especially if...

I guess I never gave t much thought. In fact, I never even believed most of it when I heard people talk about it. It could be that people talked about it in a way I did not relate to and now I do. So did people change, or did I change?  I want to find out, because the block on believing in gender inequality over the last 30 years was a good and a bad thing. It was a good thing because I believed I had no limits, and it really did not matter - I excelled at school, I excelled at my work, I was given all the opportunities, by my parents, my employers, my professors. Believing you have no limits is on its on, the first step not to be limited. But then I recognise it was also a bad thing, because I failed to notice whether around me other people felt differently, I failed to stop myself for being even stricter at interviewing women, I failed to dedicated more time at recruiting women.  And then it hit me, just like a cliche. Maybe it is like those self help books people talk ab...

The word has different meanings at different points in time. At first, I thought it meant my self driven turnaround, taking back control and stop commiserating. Sooner than expected, the rug 'got pulled' from under my feet and it was explained to me that after all I would be given no room to do a turnaround.  Tears turned into anger, anger into frustration, and one more turn into a 'whatever' attitude that will clearly require another turnaround? But perhaps a real one this time.  In the meantime life goes on and funny enough the world keeps going around. Sadly I did not make the euromillions yesterday, I played hoping sometimes luck could hit home. That would be a turnaround!

A wise man once said - people may be nice to you but they may not always be kind. For someone like me, who likes to assume the goodness, or should I say the kindness in people, that is not inate.  I guess I never really stopped to think about of all those people who are nice to me, who would really step up the game and still be kind in the absence of a clear win win situation. Less absurd inverse correlation if you think of it like that.  Still, it does not mean I like the thought, it makes you second guess people, second guess thoughts and intentions. And even though this may be how a lot of people operate, it still messes with my mind. I guess my coach was 'spot on' when she said I am extremely values driven and I operate on the basis of what is right or wrong, as per my own values, naturally! That means multiple, somewhat persavive things - first, when other people operate under a value driven approached but based on a different set of principles, I find it just plain wrong...

Yesterday, in a day when we felt luck plays a bigger part in life than we would care to admit, the day was topped with the clear evidence of it. As we watched the final of the women ice hockey, with the US winning since 20 seconds of game, we saw the last 5 minutes bring a turnaround, with the Canadians scoring 57 seconds to the end, as the ball (I know it's called something else) deviating by hitting the leg of the US defender and going straight in from there. Luck? This was just the beginning. As Canadians are playing without a goalkeeper, and the ball is hit without anyone else to the Canadian goal, it magically hits the bar and keeps out. Really lucky. And then as the Canadians are hit by a penalty during golden goal stage, the US also gets an unexplainable one only 16 seconds later, and a more explainable one 1 minute later. And that's it, Canada scores and I can't help but feeling upset. I don't even care about who wins, not like I was rooting for the US, not that...