Of homecomings, and new begginings and returnings and finding ones' self where one was once lost


And so, here we are back home. August is barely gone, September crept in silently as it does, bringing with it a promess of renewal, new begginings, celebrations and a return to routine and normalcy. Or so we always hope! August is always somewhat bittersweet: my husband finally begins his yearly vacation, we take off on holiday to our own paradise, our boy has his birthday, we enjoy longs days of doing next to nothing except lazying on the beach, playing around, filling our tummies with barbecues and the freshest most wonderful produce that we get at the market, taking walks in the afternoon, or in the evening, watching the sun go down, resting and resting and resting all we can, like we are somehow powering up our batteries for the months ahead. Funny how my life is filled with fresh starts, all year long. There's is always a possibility of a new beginning for me, somewhere around the road, be it in September because of the rentrée, be it on my birthday in October, on the first of January when the new year comes round, or in Spring, because... well, much like the rentrée, life always seems to begin anew every Spring.


But August has a way of always going off with a huge bang, at least with us. For the last three years, whenever we return from our vacation, we seem to be greeted back home with problem after problem, be it financial, domestic, or health related - from unpaid salaries to cockroaches to family members being hospitalized, it's an array of minor stuff that ends up seeping the energies and happiness we stocked on while at our happy place. So August is always bittersweet. We kind of already know by now that the return will hold some sort of problem, or worry. This has actually been a constant in my personal life, and I do ealize I have a strange habit of catching myself whenever I am feeling happy, hopeful for the future, full of energy and rearing to go, I catch myslef whenever I am in one of those moods and have a tendency to restrain that happiness, that hopefulness, because my brain simply associates those feelings to some sort of impeding disaster that is about to descend upon me. As if the fact that I am happy and hopeful and feeling strong will somehow attract doom to my life. And I always force myself out of those feelings of joy. Just in case, you know?


But at the same time, September runs after August in such rapid succession I hardly have time to linger on the less than goodnews that seem to greet us at every year's return. September brings a crispness to the morning air, and a return to daily chores and daily life and daily routines. HUsband goes straight back to work on the first, kid still has a few days off before school begins but he is already prepping for it - and longing for it! I'm back at my exercising routines, my writing, my blogging, my photographing. I always begin September full of ideas, and making pillowcases - or some sort of sewing project, at which I honestly suck, but hey! - and trying to cleanse my body from the excesses of Summer food. I get back to my beauty rountine, I get back to wearing make up after a full month of going fresh faced, I do my nails again and start looking for more Autumnal shades of nail polish - currently swooning over a nude and warm brown set I bought yesterday and H & M - I start thinking about what everyone has for Fall, in terms of clothing, what needs to be bought, what needs to be chucked, what look, what style I am in the mood of donning myself in for the season ahead. I take stock, a lot.


This year is no different, and has it tends to happen every Summer sale, I always catch myslef buying stuff that I will only wear come Fall. A pair of denim jeggings in a dark wash, a pair of faux leather skinny jeans, a pair of PU leggings, a jacket that has a whole of a pajama flair to it, a pair of two toned shoes that will go great with mye ever increasing collection of white blouses, another white blouse that has some sort of a victorian/edwardian feel to it. I'm all stocked in for Fall, I believe, and I know quite well what I will want to look like this season. I always do this, as if I am constructing some sort of a character that I will get to "play" for a whole season, before renovating it when the following season comes round. And this time it feels like I have somehow come full circle. I can see in my choice of garbs and ensembles the girl I was when I was nineteen, twenty years old. The leggings and jeggings, the faux leathers, the white blouses looking so vintage and old. The not too high heels, the boots. The bangs, the shoulder lenght hair. The return of the darker hues for my hair. I've gone sans dying my hair for three whole months, and the sun and the beach have left it so light, honey coloured and coppery, but now it's time for a change. It's time to feel like myself once more.


I haven't quite felt like myself in years. I have played around with being this and that, after my son was born. When He was born, a few months into it, I felt like I needed a change, like I needed to find myself. I wasn't who I had been before any longer, and I wanted the world to see that. I was a mother now, and that difference, to me, was rather significant - as it was something I had never desired before - and I needed it to show. I wanted to wear brighter, lighter colours. I wanted to wear colours, actually. Bright greens, and light blues and pinks and yellows. I wasn't myself. I wanted lightness, I needed lightness, and I wanted to somehow turn away from that person Ihad been before, self centered and selfish. I wanted to be a new me, a better me. Also, my body had changed so much, none of my previous clothes suited me anymore. So I went all out and changed myself. I started by buying clothes that were not quite my usual style, nor my usual colours. Then I dyed my hair blond. I felt like a different person, I felt like a woman, not a girl. I felt sensual and sexy - and that is somehing a woman has a hard time regaining after she has given birth - and I felt I looked amazing in my blond hair. Others didn't, and I heard a lot of criticism. But I had always wanted to go blond, just to see how it was, and I was happy with it. Only it's quite high maintenance and I could scarcely afford it, so after a couple of years I went bright red. I loved it as well, but it was still so harsh on my hair! I had a lot of fun with my bobbed red hair, though. I had a lot of fun with my bright colours and my rainbow outfits, as well.


 And yet, I could see my old style kind of creeping back in, very slowly. A bobbed hair, a kimono or two. A certain 1920's feel to it. Then faux leathers, black everythings, and the edwardian shirts. A lot of them. Now, I am going back to my brown hair, darkening it slightly, and I see myself going back to some sort of darker style, not quite gothic, but a very personal one. Like all has come full circle, and I have once more found myself. It is quite strange, to realize somehow seem to have lost myself - I didn't want to be perceived as the girl I had been anymore once I became a mother, but I also did not want to be seen only as the mother of said child, and I got my own self lost somewhere between juggling all that and the myriad of chnages I had to make in my life during the past seven years. I can hardly believe it has been seven years already. And so, I find myself going back to someone I always was, and I am glad for that, and excited to see where September will lead me, and also the months ahead. I feel so full of energy to begin anew, to start again, with my writing, with my blogging, with my nesting and homemaking and my cooking. I feel all revved up to once again become me!




Comments

  1. Eu não estou preparada para o Outono, mal saboreei o verão. Isto de trabalhar suga a alegria de uma pessoa, jeez. Mas olha, eu já pintei o meu cabelo! Estava tão cobre, tão cobre que todos me chamavam ruiva. Já lhe dei com uma tinta castanha para dar melhor com esta mudança de estação.

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    1. Ai eu estou!!! Lol, estou sempre preparada para o Outono, mas ainda não consegui ter tempo para pintar o cabelo, no entanto já lhe cortei as pontas - e cortei-lhes um boooom bocado lol!! - que a praia este ano deu-me cabo do couro ehehehe. Mas soube-me pela vida!

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  2. Voltouuu! Eu tenho uma relação boa com Agosto, mas gosto MUITO mais de Setembro. E o q gosto (gostamos) mesmo é do Outono. Nunca quis tanto o Outono como este ano!!!
    Não sabia que já tinhas sido loira. Que Setembro nos leve ao nosso antigo/verdadeiro EU. Apesar d n ter sido mãe, e d n terem sido 7 anos, csgo relacionar-me bastante c o q dizes

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    1. "conheceste-me" loura!! Depois é que comecei a escurecer o cabelo para cor de mel e ruivo lol. E sim, que voltemos a ser quem somos na verdadeira essência de nós mesmas, com o bom e o mau ;)

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    2. So beautiful! I would love to see how your hair turn out.
      I wish you a wonderful day dear.

      www.kelpasdiary.com

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  3. foi dos posts mais bonitos que escreveste, adorei a escrita "raw" na melhor aceção da palavra e de te reconhecer tão pura e verdadeira naquilo que escreves. senti tudo aquilo que disseste de uma forma tão íntima que até fiquei emocionada. que setembro e o outono nos traga o melhor dos recomeços, porque nós merecemos!

    ps - adorava ver-te loura de novo! eu, desde os 40, raismaparta se volto a ser morena! ;)

    bom fim de semana, babe!

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    1. Nope, não me parece que volte a loura, lá está, muito high maintenance e enfraqueceu-me demais o cabelo, por enquanto fico pelos castanhos claros e quentes!!

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  4. até me esqueci de comentar as fotos e o setting, mas naturalmente, adorei!

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  5. Gosto tanto de ler as tuas coisas, sempre tão bem escritas a sério! ''This has actually been a constant in my personal life, and I do ealize I have a strange habit of catching myself whenever I am feeling happy, hopeful for the future, full of energy and rearing to go, I catch myslef whenever I am in one of those moods and have a tendency to restrain that happiness, that hopefulness, because my brain simply associates those feelings to some sort of impeding disaster that is about to descend upon me.'' que carago, não estava pronta pra me lembrar que faço isto, logo assim de manhã!
    Quanto ao que falas sobre o teu visual e como isso é forma de nos sentirmos bem e/ou mostrar como estamos por dentro, farto-me de chatear com gente que acha que moda é só um capricho e não está relacionada directamente connosco próprios, enfim! Desde que leio o teu blog que te ''conheço'' mais dark, quer na roupa (btw, era tão giro ver-te mais vezes em outfits!) e pareces-me tu, you know?

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    1. bom, acho que acabo poer ser sempre "eu", mas há o ser EU - na total e completa essência da pessoa que sou, moody, dark, deprê, a gostar de visuais mais para o gótico medieval vampirico senhor dos manéis - e há o ser Eu, mais fashion victim, mais light, mais colorida, mais luminosa, menos dark. Há nestes últimos anos uma tentativa de "agradar" á sociedade - que só me ocorreu pós maternidade - de blend in, de ser mais comum, mais normal, mais aceite, de parecer menos distante e distinta, menos dificil, mais acessível e simpática. Isso não sou EU, mas não deixo de ser Eu, entendes? Não sou simpática e acessivel, pelo contrário, á primeira impressão sou a pessoa mais arrogante e mete nojo que te passe pela cabeça, e se pelo meu filho quis alterar isso um bocado - play dates e merdas dessas não ocorrem se os outros pais te acham uma espécie de psychokiller satânica - ao longo do tempo dei por mim a sentir que sim, tinha sido bem giro brincar e interpretar aquele personagem, deixar vir ao de cima esse lado mais leve de mim, mas já chegava, e aquela moça muito loura de calças verdes e top azulão tinha chegado ao fim do seu caminho, porque a mim só me apetecia era voltar a vestir blusas e coletes e calças escuras, e rendas e veludos e roupas pretas. A minha mudança pós ser mãe teve muito a ver com o eu sentir necessidade de ser de facto outra pessoa, completamente diferente de quem tinha sido até ali por me sentir a modos que "roubada" da minha personalidade, do meu estilo pessoal. Istoengloba muito mais do que só uma vontade de ser como os outros e ser aceite, mas este não é o local para falar de tais assuntos eheheheh.

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