While waiting for the police to arrive, I stood there, in my living room and following in my mind’s eyes the perpetrator’s actions. I had forgotten the upper part of one window open. Whoever came through that window must have been desperate for some quick cash, because it would not be easy to get to the first floor of the building. He must have been a tall, lanky guy, rushing to get his hands on some cash.  Apart from a couple of golden earrings, everything was untouched: my laptop in plain site, my wallet in the hallway, my only expensive watch, lying on a book shelf. Nothing was damaged, nothing valuable was missing. Apart from the uneasy feeling of being terrified, vulnerable and exposed, everything was alright.

Now, I am the kind of person who attaches meaning to everything that happens in her life. I’ve been experiencing all kinds of “invasions” or freak happenings lately and I don’t believe that they are simply accidents. When people go through changes or are having to take difficult decisions, various weird things are manifesting in their realities.

One thing my friend told me that night on the phone stuck with me. She said, “It wasn’t a breaking and entering, it was more of an invite. You left your window open…”. Where else in my life am I doing this?

You see, although I am constantly working on slowing down, the truth is, I am rushing through life like a high-speed train. I constantly need to be somewhere, run from one place to another to keep up with my appointments, I don’t allow myself enough time to process things and I am driven by this sense of duty, of having to do things that are expected from me. The emphasis is on I HAVE TO.

I used to be worse, spreading myself thin to make everyone happy, for fear I won’t be liked if I turned someone down or worse, fearing I would disappoint them by not showing up. I am slowly learning to say no to things, to stop before committing to something, and check in with myself and ask myself if I really feel that meeting or that activity would truly benefit me. Like everyone else, I am a work in progress. I don’t have all the answers, but I am learning every day to adjust my external life to my inner guidance. And not the other way around.

This whole experience scared me, I admit it. But once the initial shock was gone, it put me in a state of calmness and observation. I was able to detach from the feeling of being “raped”, of being a victim of my environment, of being wronged. I took a step back and allowed myself to evaluate the situation and I ended up counting my blessings and being grateful that it had actually happened.

I was robbed, but nothing was taken away from me. We are both safe, our belongings are almost untouched. I had friends holding space for us during those moments and my son’s dad driving in the middle of the night to be with us in those moments. If anything, I need to be thankful to that guy for pointing out yet again how fortunate, how blessed I am. This experience was a warning sign. A reminder to be happy in the present moment and stop projecting fears and goals and expectations on an uncertain future that will become all those things if I keep feeding it with my anxieties. It is a reminder to live in the present and cherish my life as it is right now. No buts.

In this case, I literally left the window open. And then I started to ask myself what other parts of my life I was leaving exposed, while rushing to cram in as many experiences as possible in tight schedules. Where do I make myself vulnerable by not having healthy boundaries? Are there other instances where I allow people to barge in so that I finally learn to put these healthy boundaries in place?

To wrap things up, my taking from Friday night:

1. What am I learning about myself?
2. Always look for the silver lining. We are both safe and nothing of value has been stollen from us.
3. Slow down and allow myself to absorb things, to let them sink in and enjoy them.
4. Where am I leaking energy? What actions and behaviours am I constantly performing that leave me exposed to attacks of any kind? How can I change these patterns?
5. Practice gratitude religiously.
6. Build healthy boundaries with myself and the world around me. I am not doing anyone a favour if I am constantly going against myself. No one will build me a statue if I always say yes, even when I want to say no.
7. Have faith. I am always protected, safe and taken care of.
8. My life is a perfect package. There is nothing and nowhere else I need to be.

A  big hug and thank you to all my friends who were my rock that night. And thank you to the handsome police officer and his lovely partner who came by to file a report. Talk about that silver lining.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Maria

A full review of my stay in Valamar Lacroma Hotel and my whereabouts of the three days spent there is available to read on Hashtag Life.

It’s been a while since my last post…a lot of changes, of discoveries, of moments of letting go of old habits and embracing new things…

Back in 2011 when I started “Every You Every Me” I knew one thing: that I wanted to write and let you in a corner of my world, hoping that the things, places, people I was enjoying, meeting and experiencing would help me and you – my readers – have richer, more informed and meaningful journeys.

“Stop fighting it,” you whisper. “What good is it anyway? After all, this love of ours has ‘Eternity’ tattooed deep in its flesh.”

I have run out of places to hide. And still, each morning I run away from you, knowing you will find me again as soon as the stars wake up at night…

That was 10 years ago…two dreamers immersed in feelings, self-absorbed, oblivious to anything other than that sweet dream of theirs. We were those innocent victims of a love which felt eternal. We were the youngsters we half smile at today, while we pass them hurriedly in the street…We say to ourselves we’re too busy for romance. In reality, we’re too embarrassed to look at them. The gripping fear of having to acknowledge our failure stops us in our tracks.

I looked for us at Camden Lock. We were not there…The ghosts of our laughter kept ringing in my ears. They haunted me for many hours after. We’ve grown up. Forgot to laugh and hold hands. Forgot how love whispers sound on trembling lovers’ lips. When did we stop feeling our way  through life? When did we start thinking our downfall?

Italian Coffee

Spanish Wines

&

English Boys

Pam, pam…

They recognize me from a thousand others. For centuries, we have been dancing together among the stars and on Earth. I belong to them and they know only me. Forever and always through eternity. His eyes are soft and loving. My inner light guides their way in the dark, gives them the reason of seeing. Fuels them the love they’re seeking.

drum rolls….

the #Tweetheart campaign

Notonthehighstreet.com invites YOU to tweet a romantic message (or comment on the notonthehighstreet.com Facebook page) using the #Tweetheart tag, along with your declaration of love.

Notonthehighstreet.com will select five messages to bring to life with teams of musicians and artists in London. Just to make it that bit more special, each message will be tailored to the content of the selected tweet.

What your sweetheart will get: a bespoke ‘live gift’ that will be sent wherever in London he or she is to be found. Yes, they will get it even while walking in the park or lifting weights in the gym!

Just imagine the look on their faces! Priceless!

Last year notonthehighstreet.com created personalised music videos from romantic tweets. Needless to say, the campaign had a huge success, the videos made priceless and totally unique gifts, resulting in some super happy lovebirds!

For this second year, notonthehightstreet.com wanted to go one better, by lining up some amazing surprises during the week leading up to Valentine’s Day.

So, in order to enter the competition, here’s what you need to do: simply tweet @notonthehighst using the hashtag #Tweetheart or post it on the company’s Facebook page. If you are among the lucky ones, you will then receive a private message from notonthehighstreet.com to get more details on where your Valentine will be on a certain day and the ‘live gift’ will be delivered during the course of the week starting 11 February.

What do you say? Original enough for you? Then tweet away, my friends, and bring smiles to your beloved lips!

I am hanging out at my friends’ eatery, lounging carelessly on the back decked private porch, rejoicing in the privilege of being between hawk and buzzard. It’s almost midnight and the thermometer doesn’t budge from 32 degrees Celsius. The city buzzes like in plain daylight, with many finding refuge in places such as this. We’re all running away from torrid homes and burning mattresses.

Sitting next to me at the wooden table are the four owners of the restaurant – two sisters and their husbands, my longtime friend who’s come home for a short visit from Brazil, and another brunette, a friend of the owners. Jumping around – as if oblivious to the heat that makes everybody else huff and puff – Zara, one of the family’s five year-old girl – is preparing for us make-believe oven-cooked chicken breast with salad. Next to the porch, on the grass, the other couple’s five month-old sleeps peacefully guarded by the family dog. We sip cold juices and cocktails while speaking about our kids and childbirth, about diets and habits, about my life in London and their lives in Romania. We talk and talk about everything and nothing, anything to keep our minds away from the heat.

In the dimmed porch light, we’re patches of colours enveloped in cigarette smoke. The girls are wearing floral dresses and skirts, the guys shorts and t-shirts, while I have a turquoise tube top and a pair of light baggy cotton trousers, the kind the Turks used to wear a few centuries ago.

Tonight I give into the temptation of lighting up a flavored cigarette. With everyone smoking in this town, it seems weird and unnatural not to. Even after all these years of quitting, there is something about the slow burn of a cigarette that always lures me. The way the thin ring of fire mutely consumes the brown paper, going up towards the filter in perfect symmetry.

I keep still, while my arm travels towards my lips in lascivious moves. Puff. Back down towards the table. The brown filtered cigarette looks elegant and sleek between my tanned, thin fingers. The sweet vanilla flavor lingers on my lips, soft Spanish music fills up the hot air. I can almost picture myself on a beach in Acapulco. My mind is drawn into the cyclical, automatic movement of my hand. Another puff. The ring of fire is up a notch.

Cigarettes are more or less like our lives. Every puff we’re taking is a day we’re living. And we live puff by puff, until we’re nothing but ashes carried away by a whiff of wind. It’s all about the flavor and the size. Some of us choose to consume ourselves in dry, choky smokes, while the more refined go for lighter, more sophisticated experiences.

Imagine having the choice of buying from a life shop, a movie-like format of your life, manufactured from snippets of endless possible futures.  Just picture human kind queuing in front of a life store, as if at a tobacconist’s. Could it be that simple to have a perfect life? Browsing the shelves and picking The One?

“What shall it be, sir? Would you like to try a long, fat and stinking life? Or would you rather go for something lighter, longer and slimmer?”

“Make it flavored for me,” I hear myself thinking. “When I put it out, I want to feel the satisfaction of a good ride.”

He loves his coffee black and strong. I gave up coffee because I was drinking it too milky & sweet. He always has a glass of wine at dinner and he constantly complains about me not having any. One of his greatest complaints about our relationship is that I don’t like wine, or alcohol for that matter. He always points out I rarely unwind and relax and he is mostly true. He blames it on me not liking wine.

He hates shopping and sees no point in surrounding himself with expensive, useless things. It’s ironic because when I met him he used to wear mostly designer clothes. He blames it on the silliness of his young age. Instead now he is more likely to visit a charity shop, not because he is cheap, but because he loves the humanity behind the buying gesture, the idea of recycling and never wasting. I, on the other hand, indulge in shopping frenzies and love a bit of glamour. To my complaints about not having enough shoes, clothes and bags, he rolls his eyes and makes a remark about my empty piggy bank.

He’d much rather give me a wooden engagement ring than a diamond, because he thinks it’s different and special and nobody gets exploited for it. I am still expecting the bling, of course. He finds little satisfaction in owing things, and would rather go for experiences that enrich his life. I find my security in things that I own.

I love romantic comedies and happy endings and I often find refuge in my own little world, away and hidden from everyone, including him. He loves dark movies, with complex stories. He finds the rom-coms a waste of his time. I find them comforting and lovely.

I admire his oratorical talent and wish I could be just as articulate and easy going as he is. I lose myself when faced with a crowd. His greatest love is music. I am just a dilettante. He is opinionated and always likes the challenge of a good argument. I shy away from speaking my mind for fear of offending the person I am addressing.

He likes to tell stories, I love facts. And I always correct him when I think he’s going over the top, which annoys the hell out of him. Because he says I am killing the magic in the telling. He loves to chat to random people while queuing at a club entrance or when we’re out and about. I am reserved and will never start a conversation with a stranger. It’s not that I don’t like people, but I always think I would be ridiculous to just pry like that.

I care too much about what people think or say and get very upset when I feel someone is dishonest. He is light-hearted and always tells me to take people as they are. He rarely judges, almost never gossips and sees the good in everyone. I sometimes go astray.