Just what I need now

This place is just what I need now.

I am spending a lot of time alone and this is what I need now. I met a few people I really like here and from time to time I hang out with them. But I mostly need to be on my own, do things I like, and especially walk and run along and on the beach. It is like when I was in Costa Rica....long walks on the beach, just me, the sea and the beach. I can feel totally isolated from the rest of the world, focusing only on the sound of the waves, the feeling of the sand under my feet.

I don't know, I still have quite some issues with work, with some of the people at work, I still feel very insecure of what it will be of me and my work next year, etc., etc., but when I go for my long walks, I just feel in peace and I feel relaxed and I feel that I am doing exactly what I need for my mental and physical health. And it feels good. Totally good. It doesn't matter how much stress I pile up during the week, the week ends are just for me and I love the way I get to spend them here.

So far, this place, the long walks along the ocean, my apartment (I still have some issues with it, but I just love it) are exactly what I needed.

I don't want to let you go

My closest friend just sent me a nice email with written: "I understand how you feel, but I just want to see you happy".
It was nice. It is nice to know that someone wishes my happiness and look out for me, to try to protect me from suffering and being hurt. But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes the same people who want our best are the ones who hurt us. I did the same too to people I deeply loved. Sometimes we don't realize how our actions can hurt another person. We don't mean bad, but the result can be very damaging for the other.

Anyway. My life in Portugal is not settled and I keep having huge mood shifts depending on the days, depending on work, depending on my interaction with the others, etc. I am constantly frustrated here because there is no way to get to the end of anything or have an answer to anything in a reasonable time. I am spending my time doing actually nothing for my own work, but just talking to this person and that person and this other person to try to figure out if we need to buy some materials, if we already have it and where it is, etc. It is a continuous loop in which people just talk, talk, talk.

I am definitively more a person of actions instead of just talk, talk, talk.

And I am Mediterranean, but I don't share the tipical Mediterranean mentality of "don't do today what you can do tomorrow". My motto is more "do what you have to do as soon as possible at least that thing is done and you can move on".

From here my deep frustration of living in this country so far. To get anything done, I need to ask the same thing over, and over, and over. I am already sick of it.

On top of this, there is my personal life, which is not at the top either. I always have huge problems in letting people leaving my life. When someone matters to me, either a friend, a colleague, or a past important boyfriend, I like to keep these people in my life, because they are the people who make a difference to me. My friends are few, but they are the same since longtime and when I meet new people, I keep only close friends when I move from one place to another. And I try my best to keep them as a part of my life, no matter how much time and energy I need to invest on it. They are the ones who make my life meaningful and much better.

Love and friendship mean a lot to me and to my mental health. I can't do without those.

The thing is that I don't get close to too many people. I am very protective of myself, because I know how vulnerable, sensitive, and how easily I can be hurt by people who get close to me and became important in my life. But the ones who make the cut, I wish they would stay there, in my life, forever.

I know that this doesn't work well with past boyfriend, especially if the relationship has been very intense and meant something to both. I know that this is also not easy when people live in different countries. Also because I am not able to go from a close relationship to someone to something very superficial. I have never been able to deal with people close to me who faded away in some way from my life. I always, always suffered very much because of that.

And it keeps happening. I never accept this as a fact of life. I am not the kind of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I am happy to be left with the memories of the good time we have". I am more the type of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I don't want this to be over".

But of course, this does not depend only on me...so what is the solution since I am clearly not able to let people go out of my life if they had/have an important role in it? I don't think that at this age I will ever learn how to deal with it. Should I close myself off even more to get close to people until I am 100% sure that they will play a role in my life and stay there? how can I know that in advance?

How can you avoid to get hurt since you cannot predict the future?

On cars, ecology, environment and an healthier life

It is not a secret what I think about the topics mentioned in the title of this blog, since I wrote about them many times on this blog.

Just to resume: we should drive less, have a better, cheaper and more efficient public transportation system, and take better care of the environment.

I just read one of the opinions on the NY Times who just shares a similar way of thinking to mine when it comes to these topics. It would be wonderful if everyone would start just contributing a little to live in a greener way.....I believe that little by little in every day life of most people of Earth could make a difference even on a global scale.

Me.....I guess I should fly less often if I wanted to be "greener"....I try to use the train as much as possible within Europe, but it is true that sometimes taking the train is either too long and too stressful, impossible (e.g., if I have to cross the Ocean), or too expensive.....

I try to make up to this very polluting behavior by walking a lot, consuming little, recycling anything I can.



......about walking....I just use this post to write that since I love walking because it helps me to calm down and clear my mind, today I went for a long walk on the beach (really on the beach, on the sand). It was beautiful, because it was windy and the sea was very rough. I love walking on the beach in these conditions, it makes me feel very alive!