
My main sources of wisdom are the TikToks I see in the early hours, romantic films from the 2000s, and friends who listen to me talk about the same topic 191,829,292 times without complaining.
Since April, I’ve been questioning things I never paid enough attention to, and when I discovered my favourite food wasn’t tacos but burgers, I cried in the bathroom for over half an hour because—besides crying over everything—I was scared to realise that, sooner or later, everything changes. Even the things we thought were even more certain than our favourite foods.
I like feeling in control of things: I make Excel sheets to decide what to wear when travelling, plan my weekends down to the millimetre, and allow myself to arrive 15 minutes late everywhere because I know it’s the exact time not to miss much (or almost nothing). When my anxiety is heightened, I like to go shopping and choose the same things as always or watch a film for the fifteenth time because I already know how it ends.
I also used to like being blonde. And having almond-shaped nails. And the routine of going to work, coming home during the week to spend Saturdays in bed and Sundays complaining about how close Monday was.
Until one day, I stopped liking it: I prefer dark hair, my nails look better square, and I don’t need to wait for the weekend to do something different. These all may seem like trivial things but they're symptoms of a deeper shift – a realisation that the person I thought I was or should be, no longer fits who I've become.
When I called a friend and told her I was leaving the city because I couldn’t take it anymore, I thought she’d say I was crazy, but she simply said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” that’s when I realised she saw me as lost as I felt.
It will never stop surprising me how volatile reality is and how malleable we are as humans: a decision as simple as “What should I have for lunch?” can change everything.
Women are taught many things: to stay silent so as not to make others uncomfortable, to cry in private, to put on makeup to look older, thinner, or fit any beauty standard that’s in trend, but we’re never told that inside us there are many versions and we shouldn’t force ourselves to be just one forever.
Sometimes we forget that we have the right to change our minds.
Every person who crosses our path is a seed: they leave something along the way that can mark us, whether for a moment or for a lifetime.
After all this time, I understand why I've been changing my habits. I don’t want to stick with the version you have of me; I’d rather leave it with the earrings I lost that night in your bed.
I also understand that my friend’s wish was genuine and my dad’s scolding was necessary. I understand that getting lost is part of the change and that we can’t always go shopping when life feels like it weighs more than the wheeled school bag we used to carry.
There are many things I have no idea about, and if I asked all the questions I have, I’d drive someone mad (and myself in the process).
I don’t know my next version, but I hope to love her with the compassion I didn’t have for the previous ones. I hope she keeps the sweetness of her surroundings, values her friends’ laughter as a gift from the universe, stops believing that every 000 licence plate is a sign he’s going to show up, and has the courage to heed the notion of last times.
I hope she embraces change, goes to the cinema often, gives lots of kisses, replies to WhatsApp messages more frequently, and asks so many questions that she forgets the answers.
Maybe then she won’t be afraid to say “to hell with it all” when she needs to, and can finally become the woman we’ve always dreamed of—free, like Barbie, Elsa, and all the princesses we’ve loved since childhood.
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