What I learned about myself from my own stories

And why writing is the most valuable thing I can do for my future.

I was twelve when I started writing. Back then and in my teens, it was mostly silly rhymes and poems, random stories and thoughts, and sadly, a lot about my struggles with my parents and myself. Oh, how glad I am that my teens are LONG gone! I was both depressed and depressing. Reading my old journals from that time makes me cringe at best and feel concerned or full of regret at worst. But I can forgive myself for it. I was a teenager after all and the immature thoughts are also endearing in some way.

Digging into my writing from my twenties and thirties is way more interesting. It gives me a much better understanding of who I am, what my reasoning was back then and why I did or didn’t do certain things in my life that may puzzle me now. Sure, I remember a lot of that anyway, but reading something that was never meant to be a clue for myself in the future, gives a more honest and untainted view of what was going on.

Saving notes and journals or looking back at previous results is always a good way to measure progress, but going back to an old story, to random thoughts and posts, is a completely different thing. Reading my old writing has been a way for me to see if I have moved forward mentally and to understand where I was at emotionally. Even when I feel that things aren’t really moving forward and that the progress or success I am waiting for is still miles away, I look back and notice how far I have come.

Change always starts in your head. Long before there are any results to show for it, a shift needs to happen internally. For me, that shift happened exactly ten years ago, in 2007, in Barcelona. I found happiness then. But that’s another story…

A few months after my happiness shift, I was sitting in a café in Barcelona, just as I did every Sunday. I was thinking about my life. I was hoping to meet someone, but I was feeling quite good overall. I sat down at Starbucks and wrote a story. I wrote it in third person, but it was obvious that it was about myself.

When I read it now, I can feel and see this woman. I know her. She’s okay, but a bit melancholic. She’s contemplating life, as always. She lives a lot in her head and she’s still a bit worried. She hasn’t learned yet to become friends with her fears. She hasn’t taken real action yet to improve her life. She has the right feeling now, but not the plan. She has taken a big step, but is still frustrated, as she doesn’t quite know what to do next.

Let me share her story with you.

Here she is, unedited and raw:

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A Sunday coffee

Couldn’t it be like that instead? A different life, a different world all together. That would be something. That would be a dream. She gazed out the window. The raindrops were running down the glass. Nothing mattered in that moment. Nothing was for real. It was just a moment in time, a breath of life. It would pass, but it would still have a meaning. It will still have added something to her life. It gave a sense of fulfillment, a depth. It dug right into her soul — it touched her.

Everything was perfect, she was genuinely happy in a way she hadn’t been before. There was really only one thing missing. She wanted someone to share it with. Just to make it richer. Just to be able to tell someone about it and know that they would understand. To have a companion when she traveled, someone who would take care of her and sometimes let her be small, be vulnerable.

She was always so strong, always doing everything on her own, always making decisions and living the consequences. Never being able to lean on anybody, to trust somebody. And frankly, she was fed up with it. Hadn’t she proven herself enough? Proved that she could do it? Didn’t the world know that she was strong enough to handle pretty much anything? Hadn’t she deserved to just be able to relax now, to let go, to let someone else take charge? Was that really too much to ask?

She stared at the people walking by on the busy street outside. The rain had stopped, at least temporarily and it showed. It was getting more and more crowded by the second. She loved the feeling of being in the center of all the action. She lived in a place where others only dreamed to go. Probably ninety percent of the people walking by were tourists. They took their precious holidays and spent them in her city, a place where she spent all her waking hours and all her sleep.

The city had it all. She couldn’t think of anything missing. It had sun, culture, shopping, a beach, great restaurants and cozy cafes. What more do you need? She wanted to bottle it all up and save it for rainier days, for days when life was tough on her. But moments never come back, you can’t save them, can’t relive them. And that’s why it’s so important so live them to the fullest as they come to you. Don’t regret, don’t look forward. Just suck up everything around you and treasure it. Treasure it now and treasure it in your memory, because it’s the only place you can keep it.

Every single person walking by had their story. And she had hers. Her treasures, her memories, her experiences. And with all of them, good or bad, she had landed happily right here, with her cup of coffee, sitting on a chair by the window, observing life on a touristic street in the heart of Spain’s most cosmopolitan city, Barcelona. It could have been anywhere, but for her it was here. Not a place that she would call home forever, but a place that made her happy now. And that was all that mattered, there was no need to make plans, no need to know where she was heading. She just lived, right here and right now.

She wished that all days were Sundays. She loved them. They inspired her, made her feel creative, made her sentimental, but happy. The Sunday power. No other day had that ability, only Sundays. Every day came with an emotion and they all had their charm, but Sundays touched her the most, they shook her world, they answered questions, they gave hope, they moved her forward like no other day could. They opened her mind. It had always been that way.

So she couldn’t lock up time or moments, but she really wished she could lock up the inspiration she felt now. Keep it and let it out in the evenings, let it help her be creative. Because she really needed more creative moments.

A man walked by. Alone. She had always been fascinated with men who were on their own. Walking alone, traveling alone, eating alone, sitting alone reading. Why were they alone? What was their story? Would they want to talk to her if she joined them or did they want to be left alone? Men who were alone were always so much more interesting than men in a group. Noisy men with a lot of friends didn’t interest her at all. Somehow their stories seemed shallower.

She was hoping to meet one of these lonely men. A man with a story. A traveling man. A man that would share her love for the moments in life. She was wondering where he was. He could be anyone among these people walking by. He could be one of the guys she had already met or someone she had just seen. There could be hundreds of him, or thousands, or maybe even millions. And still it felt so unlikely that she would ever meet him. She had become so optimistic about life, so much more positive about everything, but somehow, she remained pessimistic when it came to men. She believed the good men were out there. She believed that they were close. She just didn’t see how she would ever meet them.

Sometimes she wondered if she was even supposed to meet someone. Maybe her creativity to write, create, search and travel was inspired by the fact that she was alone, that she was looking for something, that she was just a little bit miserable inside. If she met someone, maybe her life would be too perfect, so fulfilled it would be boring. What would she search for then? What would she long for? Write about, create for? Of course, the idea was ridiculous, preposterous even, but nonetheless, it was just a little bit true. Great artists, creative people in general, were almost always a little bit miserable and unhappy, weren’t they?

The happy people had settled already. They lived in the suburbs with their families and went to their office from nine to five every day and barbecued with the neighbors on the weekends. But the searchers like herself, they always had a completely different life, always on the move, always looking for something more. A cruel generalization of course, but still true. She could find someone to live in the suburbs with, in fact she had had a few offers to that effect.

But of course, she couldn’t do it. She would die. Sooner or later she would settle down, too. She wanted to. She just had to find someone to do that with, without killing herself. Someone who would understand her and let her keep on living and searching. Someone who would live in the moments by her side, instead of taking them away from her.

Maybe this was the summer when she would find him. Right then and there, she made a promise to herself. This summer she would be out there, she would open herself to all possibilities and even search for the right places to be in at the right time. Every moment counts, every moment could be the significant one, the one that makes all the difference. It only takes a moment. Nothing more. A moment of time when life turns a new corner.

And how she loved turning new corners.

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How could I not love myself a bit more after reading that? I feel privileged to get to know myself in this way. I am happy for her, the person I was, because I can feel that she is finally happy and she is making progress. She is on her way to something new.

I am grateful for my writing, for old stories and for all that I can learn from them. That is why I must continue writing, if for nothing else, then for future self…

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