What? 2018 already?

Today I woke up and realized that 2018 is in less than 15 days (I really don’t have any time appreciation).
At this moment a little anxiety is reaching me.
I didn’t have time for anything …
Me, who felt like I have plenty of time, such a naive woman!
And now reality hit me in the face:
No darling, in 12 days begins a new year.

So, like a lot of people, I stop for a while and observe, looking back, trying to remember how my route through 2017 was.

Actually, the main but hardest question to ask is:

2017: was it a good or bad year?

Hard to answer, right?
Let’s say it’s the general topic which needs to be developed, analyzed, with pros and cons and…
Ophé calm down!
Yeah right, I am getting carried away. So, I will try to think SLOWLY about some points of 2017 and try to see what kind of portrait I can draw.

Beginning of 2017: what was my goals?

You need to know that the two previous years were just SHITTY. Except some gifts life gave me, the previous years show mostly dark shades.

End of 2015: sentimentally lost, heartbroken, in an apartment invaded by rats, no more confidence in men, and lost in an awful training: the big loose. So, at the end of the year I told myself: « Well, 2016 can only be better that 2015, I will do anything I can anyway! »

2016 was literally more than worse (I know it’s impossible but you get the point right?):
It started with a kidney infection, I am still following my shitty training, an unwanted pregnancy, family issues and the coup de grace : my father passed away, my model, my strength, my everything and now my life breaks down and suddenly got a sad, melancholic, grey tint.
This is how finished 2016, quite sad, isn’t it?

So that means that I started the year invaded by a great sadness and a feeling of despair. As if, not so much things worth to fight for anymore.

Resolutions?

The simple idea of making promises for the year to come made me nauseous. What the point since in 12 months I will say that my year was more catastrophic than the previous one?
However it brings less pressure

The memorable events of the year

A reconstruction

I am not going to depress you talking about grieving (maybe I’ll make a post about this topic) but the biggest fact in 2017 was to start going forward.
Life can fade so fast, why should we wait for living it?
So many things in my life were put off until later for X or Y reasons but when I think about it, those reasons were not justified but feed by my fears. Today, nothing prevents me for having the life I really want, then at least trying.

How it becomes real?

Travels, a loooooot of travels

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January : Sofia (- 25C it hurts but seeing the city whitened by the snow was amazing),
April: Bourges, where the spring colors bloomed
June: the yellow sand, blue sky and red wine of Malaga
July: road trip along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast,
August: white dress and sunflowers bouquet for my cousin's wedding in Poland
And most of all, an Expatriation in Ivory Coast since October.
I always wanted to live abroad and waited for a life style allowing me to make that dream comes true.
But finally, the only reason that stopped me to take the plane was my fear. Fear of what? I don’t know, it’s funny isn’t it?
23 years old and never seen my father’s country or family, why?
Because there is always a reason to put the travel off until the next year. For 5 years, the tickets prices prevented my father to come home, now the prices are low but my father is gone.

Should I keep waiting? Waiting that there’s no more members alive to discover my roots? No-way, in 2017 I get rid of that toxic habit and fly to Abidjan

Define my way

I used to work in a bank: I loved helping people to realize their projects, organizing my day, being busy 100% of the time (can’t stay still), reading and writing in English. However, I started to be contemptuous on the field and the philosophy it involved.
Fortunately, everyone is not like that but I couldn’t feel comfortable in an individualist and hypocrite environment.
Surrounded by people who don’t stop complaining about their unsatisfying life but doing nothing to improve it and the worse of it, trying to drag down someone who dares making changes to feel happier.
You can’t trust anyone and you have to disguise into a conform and insipid puppy; hide your eccentricity….

Noooope, thank you but no thank you!

But the main, main, MAIN issue was: realize that your relationship with money is changing.
At first you told yourself it’s not going to happen, not to you and then BAM! You sponge a customer off outrageous fees and you get proud of it… Not very glorious.
Then you start to want more and more money and always feeling like you don’t have enough.
So that comes a dilemma: you keep working in a bank (job safety, money etc.) or you refuse, you ditch everything and you finally build your expatriation project, which have been already cancelled 3 times.
Which choice do you think I made?
First, I realized that I could live with much less income than I thought.
Then, it's true that both options frightened me. However, the second choice gave me butterflies in my stomach, just like when you are about to go on a roller coaster. The feeling before the adrenaline.
On the other hand, thinking about staying in bank made me fear about never make my dream comes true. And I was submerge by regrets even though I didn’t have accepted yet. A guilt of having follow the « norm », what « society » told me to do instead of my heart.
My choice was made!

To assume my ideas

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If I may describe the picture: I am a very committed, humanist, altruist, but mostly very emotive person.
It’s simple, I stopped watching TV because I got too furious about what was shown and what was hidden in the broadcasted program! My boyfriend call me the little righter of wrongs, or compares me to Don Quixote and the windmills. But he is right, what the point of yelling at my TV screen and stay sit on my couch?
I open my eyes and realized :
I have values and note too many injustices in this world.
Then what can I do about it?

Look on the other side and live in an unrealistic utopia
Face the truth and get upset by this rotten world;
Or I make actions; try to contribute in building a better world.
That’s it: obviously I can participate
I don’t pretend to save the world all by myself, but I would always feel better by trying rather than being chocked all my life but waiting for somebody else to bring the solution.
I will use my skills to develop a more responsible activity. In parallel I rethink my feeding, consumption, information habits. I decide to look « behind the curtains ». And even if it’s not always pretty, at least I know.

Consequences :

I want to know my roots and my family ; I want to work abroad in a responsible field ; then I decide to bring my face, my luggage and my ideas in Côte d’Ivoire.

Why not in France?

We have a lot of issues but regarding to Ivory Coast it’s nothing!
Here, everything has to be made, but there is a huge potential and the change is rumbling, we can hear its whisper getting louder and louder.
The revolution is tangible, consciences awake, projects bloom and it’s a big source of hope!
Then, for me; **I care as much about Ivory coast as France. **
Today ends my explorative phase in Africa after two months in the elephant's lands.

To conclude what the 2017’s landscape looks like?

My job perspectives are still blurred, my friends and relatives are out of the picture, I am not accustomed to the African lifestyle but I have a new family to discover, a sketch of business and the most important , a motivation and ambition that has never been that strong.
My vocation: I have a glimpse of it, I brush it, and it’s almost in my hand. I am invaded by a fighting rage that will allow me to make the final step and make my dream comes true.

Others events:

Alive

This retrospective reminds me every sparkles, and touches of color that made me feel alive. For instance:

Eat: I didn’t only feed myself but discovered the riches gastronomies from several parts of the world: Ukrainian cooking, Bulgarian tarator, Mexican meals, Senegalese thiep, made my first Chinese meals, discovered the wide palette of healthy recipes, tasted crocodile etc.
Attending tango class and build a choreography inspired by the Buenos Aires dancers
Go to a cabaret: « Does she have real or fake boobs? »
Go bungee jumping: the perfect metaphor of my life, an unforgettable experience, so intense, scary, and satisfying. How could you not feeling alive after that?
Smoke cigars
Create my own cosmetics
Be dumped : because even sad events make you feel alive. Feel your heart breaking it reminds you have one ( finally everything is ok) .
This is the portrait I made for 2017, I can say that I am very satisfied by the explosion of colors, textures, perspectives I had the opportunity to see. I am also very proud by having switched ON my life, and started designing it