I guess it's time to admit I am on my thirties.

Here we are, the day before my birthday. Again. How has it been one year already? Sounds fake. It has to be fake. I have last year's post opened up on another tab and I don't even dare to check it out. Because it was bad. And also because this year was not the best, but being slightly tipsy at a hotel room in Amsterdam, things look better. So, what happened this year?

I went to concerts: Crystal Fighters, Foals (TWICE), and a lyrical music ome with my boss and people from the lab. One of Foals was free so it was even better! I also travelled a bit, going back to Barcelona for Christmas and again in the end of May and in July. A couple of weeks after my birthday I fulfilled one of my childhood dreams of visiting the largest dune in Europe which is in the south of France and it was everything I expected it to be and more! Additionally I took the trip of a lifetime by visiting Slovenia, Treiste and Venice earlier im September. And finally here we are in Amsterdam! Otherwise, I have gotten two more tattoos, one on my birthday last year and another in April, and I have learnt to knit (stupid but relaxing (except for the moments I wamt to throw my knitting through the window)). And I am doing NaNoWriMo again. Because I never learn. And museums! All the museums!

My parents came to visit twice and I even had some friends come around. However, I also had friends move away which is specially hard when you really rely on them to have a decent social live. I did meet some new people, though. And reunited with some old friends. I also had two weddings, one kf them in Paris!

Work is exhausting but rewarding even if I sometimes feel I don't belong. I have experimentsthat don't work, but I also have had a paper published. So I guess it's just a matter of insistence.

Personally, it has been a hard year regarding mental health. I have had bouts of depression and anxiety and sometimes it's hard for people to understand that they may not have a direct cause. I have closed myself up too much, prefering to hide than interacting with anyone. However, I do feel that there has been some growth, with me learning to say "I love you" to people I deeply care about, so I think not all hope is lost?

Broken mirrors

There is beauty in broken mirrors. In the way they still fulfill their purpose of reflecting life back at you. Even if it doesn’t align at the edges. Even if it becomes a mosaic of unattached parts.
There is beauty in broken mirrors. Maybe because they are truer that they ever were. Maybe because in reality we all are as broken and normal mirrors just put us together again.
There is beauty in broken mirrors. Each piece a world on its own. Each piece it’s own note that when put together create a melancholic symphony.
They say that breaking a mirror gives you seven years of bad luck. I say not. Because there is beauty in broken mirrors as there is on the rain puddles on the street. A broken beauty, a dirty beauty, but a true beauty nonetheless.

The broken mirror that inspired this piece  

Blue

Blue. My skin, blue under the blue water. My flesh, blue beneath my blue skin. My soul, blue in a blue corner of my blue heart. Blue and cold and dead. Blue and dead and drowning. Drowning forever in these cold blue waters of the only sea ever to love me. A love that drowns, but love, nonetheless. It's been so long that I have sunk to the bottom of the sea where you can't see the surface. It's been so long that I have become one with the sea. I am the sea, yet the sea is not me. Not yet, at least. There are more like me. Thousands more. Thousands of eyes turned blue from the cold. Thousands of blue bodies. Thousands of blue souls. Of cold dead drowning souls. I can't see them but I feel them. Some are barely more than frozen bones resting at the bottom of this cold blue sea. House of crabs and food of fishes. They are one with the sea, as soon I will be. There are others whose soul is not blue yet. Or not blue enough. Who are still not dead or who think they are not. They souls still shine through, red, white, black. They are still fighting against the sea. Against the cold. Against death. They still haven't sunk into the depths. They still haven't accepted their fate. The sea took them and they want to go back, even though they have been drowning for a long time. I feel their struggle, I feel their desire to live, and I take them deeper. The currents, my hands, pushing them away from the surface. Showing them how the sea loves them. How much the sea loves me. How there isn't any other love. I show them that their soul has been blue all the time, that their flesh has been blue, that their skin has been blue. I show who they really are. Yet, they fight. I did not fight. The sea did not take me but welcomed me with open arms. My soul was already blue, my heart already cold and dead. My flesh and skin were not, but they were already filled with water and salt. Fate had put me on earth, alive. But I had always belonged to the cold depths of the sea.