Author: Anca Dunavete

September 🍂 I’m so ready for sweaters, hot drinks and cosy evenings ☕ as September is my birthday month, in true Virgo fashion I reflected on my year and made some lists (obviously) 📝 I'm not going to share them this time, hopefully I'll be sharing the results soon. But I do want to share some lessons I have learnt, read and resonated with this year. Here's a reminder to myself, and a... list, for you. We all love lists, right? Right... ? 🤓 • Criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and contempt occur during moments of lost compassion (toward yourself and others.) • Whether or not it matters in five minutes or five years, feel what you feel. • There's no point in asking yourself, “What can I do to relax?” Instead, ask, “What do I need to feel safe?” • Only those who care about you can hear you when you’re quiet. • If they don’t chase you when you walk away, keep walking. • No level of exercise, sleep or eating right can create the wellness and vitality of secure attachment and emotional belonging [...]

Dear Diary, I am fucking terrified. There, I said it. Deep breaths and would you look at that, it wasn't even that hard – and I sure feel better for it. But wait, I'm letting myself off too easily. That doesn't fix it, and I can't leave it any longer. Sweeping dirt under the carpet only works until you want to walk back into the room and own your space again. And I do. I so do. So here I am, one year and two months later, finally writing this shit because if I don't write, I overflow. It's been one year and two months since my last post on this blog that I love more than any thing (I love some people a little more than this blog, so you'll understand.) I've opened it and looked at it and closed it more times than I can count during this time, but I was never brave enough to hit the Publish button, or even the Write button more than once or twice – and WordPress knows, those were bad drafts [...]

It's been another year. Let me pull you gently now and take one last look. You are vibrant and gorgeous, and your mind is insanely cool. But you say, "I am trying to be you, but I am not you," and your hands are too cold and don’t remember how to rub together, and your legs are restless and follow imaginary circles on the kitchen floor. And I swear I don't know what the fuck to say to that. "You stayed kind, smart, loving and badass, and your writing is like candy floss for the brain, and your raw and unfiltered is magical and meaningful," is what I want to use on you already, because it's a bunch of beautiful truths that should soothe your soul. But that wand wouldn’t work either. When your cup is empty, it’s really empty. 

I did the maths and the overthinking and then I went house hunting across the city, with my only condition being that the place was unfurnished. After all, it had always been my dream to decorate my first house – where I had, I just knew I had, to live on my own. The first studio was awful. Tiny, smelly, cheap in every way. I was close to taking it only because it would have been mine. That’s how badly I wanted something of my own. The second place, however, was perfection. A one bedroom flat in the city centre at a price beyond reasonable became my home for the next 12 months. I put all my energy and enthusiasm into furnishing it as quickly as I could while sleeping at my best friend’s house. I must have done it all in less than a week, though. Charity shops, friends’ generosity and some savings made this flat look like everything I had ever dreamed of. And then, I moved in. And I cried. A lot. [...]

You want to find more of your people, those who stand at the gates of your dreams only to break them open for you. Those who cut your lies short and ask for the real you to please stand up. Those who make your soul go, That one! Pick that one! Those who take off the veils shading pieces of you and don’t flee away. Those who make you say it, then make you think, Ignore it. But listen. Ignore it. But listen, but fucking listen, please fucking listen. They are such gold to carry and so you carry on living, because you know more of them are out there and you will find them. They see your spark’s gone but are not afraid of the darkness. "I beg your pardon," they will say, "I’ll just be here burning." "Ah, don't bother. The best parts of me aren’t even real," you will admit. "I think I’ve created this person for others to love and I’m a little too tired tonight to bring her out." And they will say, "Bullshit." [...]