Dare gioia – give joy. Dare to be happy.
Some of you know that this word is more than a word for me. It is also a vision statement. A name.

I chose gioia to be my word for 2012 – and it was no coincidence. I do want to choose joy this year, but bigger than that is the fact that I am finally getting to open my very own, organic hair salon: Gioia. Gioia was the original idea that got me into this hairdressing business in the first place. Gioia has existed within me ever since that cold January day seven years ago when my life got a whole new sense of direction.

My thing? It happened. I got my Plan A. The little shop across the street from where I work now, the shop I almost rented three years ago, is mine now. I signed the lease today. I will get the keys next week. My thing will soon become Salong Gioia.

my secret garden
is not so secret anymore 

I didn’t remember this, until when a week or two ago I got a sudden, unexpected urge to buy beads and started to thread them.

ba-da-bing, ba-da-bang, ba-da-bum-bum-bum
ba-da-bing, ba-da-bang, ba-da-BAM

is the pattern, the rhythm, the melody of my beads.

I do this, always. I find rhythms and patterns where other people do not even think to look for them. It is part of what makes me who I am.

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I thread sparkling beads on a string for no particular purpose, but because I think they are pretty.
I melt soy wax and make scented candles.
I paint chairs and sew furry lampshades.
I make a thousands hours long lounge music playlist on Spotify.

I am ready, waiting.
My thing can’t not happen.

Fast forward two years and nine and a half months, and the thing became available again.

Oh, I said. Dang. Now what? Eek! I WANT IT!!!

Before long I was back in that crazy desperation that sent me into full-fledged panic every time the phone rang because I was so worried that someone would say that I wouldn’t get my thing this time either.

Then someone said that maybe I’ll get it, maybe not, they can’t really say. And I panicked.

I turned to my friends, my wonderful circle of amazing women.

- You have created the basket that holds only one egg, one said.

- Find something else… you never know, it might even be better! said another.

- Annika, wanting something that much throws everything out of balance. Don’t ever be afraid of an answer being not the one you want. Things work out the way they do for a variety of reasons that we cannot know, said the third.

- Get away from it. Let it come back to you without forcing it – and you will find that in having moved away from it a bit, you’ll see things more clearly.

So I did. I got away from it. I looked for something else -

- and the weirdest thing happened. By leaving my Plan A to its own for a while, by exploring the idea of a Plan B or even a Plan C, the panic and desperation left me. I rediscovered my serenity and my faith in fate.

To be completely honest, if I end up actually getting to choose between plans A and B, I might choose B. Not because A isn’t good, but because B might be even better.

I love my thing, and I can’t help but feel that it can’t be a coincidence that it opened up for me again now that the time is right, but maybe its purpose was not to be mine, but to act as a catalyst. If it hadn’t offered itself to me again, I might not have found the other thing.

And if I end up not having A nor B, I am fairly confident that a C or D will present itself and turn out to be just perfect.

- Let things come to you. Good luck and breathe, a fourth friend said. For now, that is all I can do.

And you know… if nothing else, all of this has taught me so much about friendship and the importance of reaching out for support and advice.
That is quite fantastic in itself, and I am so, so grateful.

My oh my, what a year.

So many things have happened, in and around me.  So many things that I can’t or won’t write about, that changed me forever. Cracked me open, if you wish. I have been exhausted, stressed out, terrified. I have cried harder and longer than ever before. I have smiled, smiled with my whole body, smiled with my liver.

I came out happy, open, with a newfound peace and calm deep in my soul. I finally, finally understood what it means to be here, now.
I came out totally and completely overflowing with love.

The word for 2011 was dare.

I have dared more than ever this year. I have given more of myself to myself and others. Dare is Italian for give.
I have dared to give. I have given myself permission to dare.

Rather than making New Year’s resolutions, I have a word for 2012. A word that goes very well with dare, in both English and Italian.

Dare gioia – give joy. Dare to be happy.

Some of you know that this word is more than a word for me. It is also a vision statement. A name. More on that, hopefully, in 2012.

Happy New Year, darlings. May the new year bring joy and happiness.
Most of all, I wish you love.

Then I changed, and I set up a whole lot of goals. I went from doing nothing to doing everything at once, more than I could ever handle, still feeling terribly restless, still chasing towards something I didn’t know what it was.

Then I changed again.

Finally after years and years of over-commitment and meaningless information overload, I began to see those things for what they were: Daily Distractions. And with much regret, I realized I’d been holding on to “distractions” tighter than I had been to my own family, my own health, my own happiness… my own “things that matter.”

http://www.handsfreemama.com/?page_id=30

Life is not about getting other people’s admiration. Happiness does not come from the things we own or the places we go.

It is all here, within us. It is about savoring each moment of our lives. It is about finding a sense of peace. It is not so much about where we are, but what we do.

It is about letting go of all of our defenses. It is about tearing down all of our walls and throw away our masks and be open, wholly open.  To dare to feel, really feel. To surrender ourselves to raw, naked emotions, and embrace all that life has to give. To let go of our ego and love selflessly, without restraints.

Life is not supposed to be a constant hunt for something better. Restlessness will eventually wear you out.

Let go of the meaningless distractions and focus on what really matters.

- Now, Ferdinand, why don’t you play with all the other little bulls, and butt your head?

But Ferdinand would shake his head.

- I like it better here, where I can sit just quietly and smell the flowers.

If this was your last day, and for all we know it might be… wouldn’t you rather spend it in loving harmony than chasing some undefined, materialistic goal?

Take a break. Smell the flowers. Live today, not in a tomorrow that might never come.

And for all I know, he’s sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly.

He is very happy.

Exactly 7 months ago I decided that my word for 2011 was to be dare. I gave myself permission to be courageous. I decided to stop letting fear rule my life.

7 months later, I have quit my job and become self-employed. I have finished one basic Italian course and am about to begin a new one, this time on the intermediate level. I decided to shut down my web shop. I have seriously cut back on my time on the computer.

More importantly, I have also gone through some intense emotional turmoil that forced me to take a long hard look at all of my goals and dreams and personal goals and ask myself what I really want, and why, and as always the why proved to be more difficult. I took all of the decisions I’ve made in the last twelve years or so, examined them one by one and asked myself if they are still pertinent to the person I am today. I dared to ask myself what if. 

The answers baffled me. It is hard to let go of things you have freely told everyone who cared to listen that you did or did not want. It is hard to let go of the pride and admit that you changed your mind as  you changed. All the same, it felt liberating.

It was – and still is – a long process, but it had to be done. As a result, I am left quite confused and yet I am so much happier and my life feels much richer.

This photo is symbolic in so many ways. It shows roses in every stage of life. The rose’s name is New Dawn. The roses in that photo are me, now.

My man. The love of my life. Who would I be, what would I do without him?

Nobody challenges me like he does. Nobody makes me laugh and cry and feel like he does. Nobody brings me more joy. If I could crawl under his skin and merge our bodies into one, I still wouldn’t be close enough.

For too many years I have focused only on myself and what I want. It wasn’t until I thought I was about to lose everything, that I finally came to my senses and found out what really, really matters in life. I am so sorry. I wish I had seen it long ago. All those things I wanted, the dreams I painted for myself, they mean nothing.

All that matters is us and our life together. Our family. That we live and love, every single day.

Some of my happiest childhood memories involve fishing. I married a man who loves fishing, but who sold all of his fishing gear shortly after we met.
For some yet unknown reason it took us twelve years to go fishing together.

- I didn’t think I’d get to do this again, he said.
- But why?
- You never wanted to go fishing before.
- You never asked!

Every person needs a hobby, and every family needs something they can do and enjoy together. I think we finally found our thing.

We have been sidetracked, lost, for so long. We have sought happiness outside, when it was here all along, within us.

It wasn’t until I started to ask myself all those why’s and stopped being so freaking stubborn and proud, that I finally realized what is really important.

I guess we all need to sit down and reflect on ourselves every now and then. It is the scariest and  bravest thing we can do.

Funny how just as I let myself off the hook and told myself that I didn’t have to choose, I went ahead and made a choice anyway.

It feels good and it is the right decision, don’t worry.

The day after my decision, I read the most amazing blog post that in so many ways describes my feelings. Isn’t it funny how that often happens?

I stopped being careful with my wife because I saw an imaginary finish line to a success, and like many people before me have figured out, there is never a final finish line, the horizon just keeps changing and there is always a new big thing to run to, and you can run over people forever trying to reach it.

http://pacingthepanicroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/right-ship.html

Click the link and read the whole post. It’s amazing.

I am still going to be self-employed in only two months time, but in a very different kind of way.

I am so looking forward to having our home as a home again, and not as a warehouse/office/cardboard box storage area.

Do you really have to choose *one* thing to do professionally for the rest of your life – or even now?

Because I can’t choose. Every time I try to choose, I find something new that sparks my interest and so it goes round and round. If I actually go through with it and make a choice, I end up miserable and restless and thinking “what if..”.

I have so many ideas. I often describe myself as lazy, but heaven knows my mind isn’t lazy. In fact, I think my mind never rests at all. I have a thousand simultaneous ideas, and I often want to try them out, all at once, so I dibble a little here and dabble a little there, I start new projects and order things only to forget what I was planning to do with them once they arrive, or maybe I have already lost interest. I make lists to remember and then I make new lists and forget the old ones.

See, when I am trying to think about everything at once, I also tend to forget things. If my task is not interesting enough I will get sidetracked and distracted by the littlest thing. On the other hand, if my task is interesting enough I will become completely consumed by it and forget everything else.

I once joked that maybe I have attention-deficit disorder. Maybe I do. Not to the point that it is a liability or even a problem, and I don’t care to find out because honestly it doesn’t matter, but reading on this site made me a little short of breath.

Adults with ADD/ADHD often have difficulty staying focused and attending to daily, mundane tasks. For example, you may be easily distracted by irrelevant sights and sounds, quickly bounce from one activity to another, or become bored quickly.

(…)

While you’re probably aware that people with ADD/ADHD have trouble focusing on tasks that aren’t interesting to them, you may not know that there’s another side: a tendency to become absorbed in tasks that are stimulating and rewarding. This paradoxical symptom is called hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is actually a coping mechanism for distraction—a way of tuning out the chaos. It can be so strong that you become oblivious to everything going on around you. For example, you may be so engrossed in a book, a TV show, or your computer that you completely lose track of time and neglect the things you’re supposed to be doing.

Whether or not the ADD part of it pertains to me doesn’t matter. I have no interest in a diagnosis. I am not looking to be cured from myself. All that matters is that this is how I am and maybe, just maybe, that traditional idea of choosing one profession for life isn’t really right for me.

Maybe I am better off doing what I do – write something here, design something there, cut, sell, color, code, communicate everywhere. Maybe I am a jack of all trades and maybe that makes me master of none, but I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t need to be the master of anything but being me.

I have a big heart and a slightly hyper-active mind. I love everything at once, and I can’t choose.

So I will spill my heart all over the place – a little here, a little there. The more it expands, the bigger I let it be, the more I am me.

I can’t choose, and I give myself permission not to.

A friend of mine posted this song on Facebook, and I can’t stop playing it over and over again.

I feel that I should write something about it. Write how this song makes me feel, the memories it conjurs, how it can be applied to so many aspects and events in life.

I don’t know what to write. I feel that I should write something. Write how sometimes the things that never happen linger in our hearts forever. How the fantasy so often is greater than life. How some things aren’t meant to ever be anything but an idea.

I don’t know how to write so that it won’t come out wrong. How to explain that I am not referring to any particular event or place or person. How this song just somehow reminds me of all those almost-opportunities that we let slip away.

I may be better off not writing anything at all.
It’s just that I feel that I should.

Check out A Fine Frenzy on YouTube. I wish they’d been around when I was a teenager.

Fourteen years ago today, I went on a schooltrip to France. We spent three days in Paris before continuing on to Orléans. It was my second time abroad, eight years after that first charter to Mallorca.

Orléans didn’t make much of an impact on me, but Paris.

Oh my goodness. Paris.

Paris was my first love. I loved Paris before even being there. We walked through Paris until our feet bled, but I loved every second.

Paris was my first experience of falling head over heels for a place. Of all the things I’ve done in my life, all the choices I’ve made, the only thing I really regret is not taking the chance to go to Paris as an au-pair when I was 18. I don’t believe in regretting your choices, but I regret that.

For years afterwards I listened to a classical music collection called L’heure bleue – named after that twilight hour when Champs-Elysées turns into pure gold in the most magical blue light. I don’t remember anymore what the music was, but it brought me back to Paris, and it kept the love alive.

Avenue des Champs-Elysées.

I haven’t been back to Paris yet. I got busy. I grew up. I was so busy growing up that I had no time for my love. In moments of solitude I listened to Edith Piaf and pretended to be that girl in Scruples, the French girl who decorated her apartment with red tassels and burned Gauloise Bleu even though she didn’t smoke because the scent reminded her of Paris.

From the Eiffel tower’s third floor.

Paris is and shall remain a dream. I want to keep my romantic fantasy image of it.

I have since found Italy, and if Paris is hazy air and romance and accordions, Italy is flesh and blood and home to me now. I love them both equally but oh so differently.

I came to Paris with 973 days to go to the year 2000.

Today we are 4139 days into the new millennium.

5112 days have passed since I took these pictures. My hair is longer, my dresses are shorter. How much have I changed on the inside?

That naive 17-year-old who drank cheap rosé wine on the brinks of Seine, who sang Céline Dion and Mireille Mathieu and Edith Piaf, who held on to that glossy French magazine she bought at Gare du Nord, who came to search for 14 years to find a perfume similar to the one she tried on along Champs-Elysées…

I’m still her. The dream of Paris is still alive.