Things I Should Have Known Before I Was Thirty - Vanessa França - E-Book

Things I Should Have Known Before I Was Thirty E-Book

Vanessa França

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  • Herausgeber: Viseu
  • Kategorie: Ratgeber
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Beschreibung

Adulthood is not an easy business. Not really. The moment you come of age, you're practically thrown into a completely different world in which you must be a mature person almost instantaneously. From love life to work environment, from friendships to behavior, from housing to daily stuff, this book will help you to get through this journey with lots of humor and personal experiences from yours truly.

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Seitenzahl: 122

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Copyright © Viseu

Copyright © Vanessa França

Todos os direitos reservados.

Proibida a reprodução total ou parcial desta obra, de qualquer forma ou por qualquer meio eletrônico, mecânico, inclusive por meio de processos xerográficos, incluindo ainda o uso da internet, sem a permissão expressa da Editora Viseu, na pessoa de seu editor (Lei nº 9.610, de 19.2.98).

editor: Thiago Domingues Regina

projeto editorial: BookPro

coordenação editorial: Blenda Castro

revisão: Vanessa França

copidesque: Julia Rosa

versão digital: Amanda Tupiná

capa: Gabrielli Masi

e-ISBN 978-65-598-5949-8

Todos os direitos reservados, no Brasil, por

Editora Viseu Ltda.

[email protected]

www.editoraviseu.com

Dedicatory

This book is dedicated to all people that currently are or have been in my life and have helped to turn this dream into reality.

My family had a huge impact on my writing skills too. They bought me books, were thrilled to see me reading and enjoying them. I couldn’t thank you enough, guys. You encouraged me to be strong, independent and successful. You were my role model to everything, and I love you all deeply.

My godmother Elides, which gave me the amazing opportunity to study English when I was just twelve years old. We were never a rich family, so having money to pay for a foreign language course was really a luxury back then. I knew she didn’t have much money to spare, so this attitude was incredibly generous of her. Thank you, auntie, very much!

Also, I would like to thank myself for not giving up and leaving this book unfinished.

Introduction

Introductions are quite boring, and just a few really read them. I know I’ve never read a single book introduction in my entire life. Usually it turns out to be a vague opinion on the book’s subject, maybe some flattering words about the author and occasionally a serious case of giving spoilers away.

Because I have to write an introduction (kind of mandatory because it’s a part of the book’s aesthetics), I thought of rewarding the brave geek warriors who will read every page of this book (including these words) to send me a direct message on Instagram with a picture of this page and in return, I would give you a fine discount on purchasing any of my upcoming books. Unfortunately, my editor didn’t like this particular brilliant idea, so that’s too bad. But hey, I will share your picture on my profile stories with a thank you note. That’s gotta be something, right? Right?

Now, let’s cut to the chase: this book is about the “wisdom” I gathered along the years, and I thought that if I knew about how to deal with a lot of troubles in my life before I went through them, I might’ve had less anxiety crisis, made less bad decisions and had less emotional breakdowns. I really think this book will help a good deal of you guys who are struggling to go through early adulthood. I will try to spare yourselves of scars and traumas as much as I can.

This book might also work as a guidance to unforeseen situations and/or as a soft remedy after a trauma. If you’ve been through rough times, this book will help you understand your path until now. If you haven’t been hurt yet, this book will help you avoid some tricky situations.

I really hope you enjoy your reading and I strongly encourage you to reach me on social media. I want to chat with you about your experience with this book. I’ve been (regularly) online since 2003, so I’m fairly familiar with technology, you know. Also, I’m a software engineer, which is quite nice, but not a boomer, which is also very nice.

Ok, enough rambling. I think you’re good to go right now.

LOVE

Love

Love is beautiful, love is blind, love is like going to heaven while still alive. To be in love is like... Well, I could give you a million examples and it still wouldn’t be even close to the real deal. Do you know why? Because love is a very personal experience, and everyone feels it differently. Although, one thing is very similar to everyone: love is peaceful. When in love, you feel like you’ve finally found a shore after a sea storm. When you get there, your boat would be nothing but chunks of wood, you’d be soaking wet, dehydrated (oh, the irony), your lips would be white, your eyes would be deep, and your hair would have more salt than a piece of jerky. When you hit the sand, a very relieving sentiment flows through your body. You’re safe now. You can breathe now. You can fill your lungs with precious air. Then, you look back to the boat that brought you here, small and shredded. You’ll think: “Hey, how could I’ve come this far?”. It doesn’t matter now! You did it sailor! You are finally here! Welcome to Love Land! Rest your weary head on our very comfortable sand and have a nice rest.

What our folks fail to teach us is that love goes further than the shore. Miles further, in fact. Think about our sailor that had just got there, he’s resting on the sand thinking his duty is over. He’s thinking that all he has to do now is to enjoy the view from the beach and let the days go by. What he fails to perceive is that he just hit the shore and now there’s a whole lot of land to explore out there, in order to set up a safe camp. If he stays on the shore, a new storm might come and drag him back to the sea. Although this time with no boat, which would be even harder.

To love is to compromise, share, give, understand and support. Most people do not grasp this concept because what we learn from the outside world is that love is enough and will stand on itself.

In my early days, when I was in my twenties and single, there were just a few tools to meet other people and they were mostly very suspicious websites promising to find your love among other sad loners. At first, there was this number you could call to make friends. You’d be in a “room” with eight other creeps talking at the same time. If you got lucky, there was an option to go to a “private room” and keep the conversation. Then, the matching websites came, but they were very ugly and limited. A lot of us ended up finding love through forums, chat rooms and other online humiliating ways. Then, social media came. Oh yes, I’m talking about Orkut. Ask your parents or older siblings, they might remember these good old days. People could evaluate your profile there by filling a three-degree “survey” consisting of three hearts to indicate sexiness, three ice cubes to indicate coolness (pun intended) and three smiley faces to indicate reliability. What smiley faces have to do with reliability I’ll never know.

They would leave scraps which were a way to send a message to you (in “today terms”, it was like making a post on someone else’s timeline) but these were also public. Everyone would see these scraps, so they were a hit among jealous couples because leaving a scrap would also be like marking your territory. I mean, if someone else left a naughty scrap to your babe, you might as well leave a rude scrap to assert dominance.

The more easy it became to meet new people the more it led to disappointment. Have you ever read The Hobbit? If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly recommend it. To illustrate how it’s like to search for love, I’m gonna use a passage from the book in which Bilbo must cross the Dark Forest of Mirkwood. The path is not always clear, the forest is very dense, and he must pay attention to not move away from the path no matter what the cost. Gandalf gave Frodo a stern advice: “Don’t stray off the path—if you do, it is a thousand to one you will never find it again and never get out of Mirkwood; and then I don’t suppose I, or anyone else, will ever see you again.”

So, midway he feels discouraged to continue, then he climbs a tree to see if this forest ever ends. Of course, he can’t see the pathway from the top of the trees. He proceeds to come down and walk a few more miles when he sees lights glimmering ahead. “Ah, a village at last!”, he thought. In order to get there, he must walk out of the path. Tough choice, huh? Not for Bilbo, though. He walks towards the “village” only to find feasting elves which immediately disappeared when he got there. He felt disappointed and hungry, so he fell asleep dreaming of the dinner he just missed. Next thing he knew, he was bound up in sticky webs way above the trees and guarded by giant spiders. Bad day for Bilbo, isn’t it?

Now what I meant by bringing up this story is that there’s no shortcuts towards love. If you haven’t reached the end of the road and even though knowing it, you still decide to take a detour, the result won’t come out pretty. Those lights ahead are very tempting, but deep down you know you haven’t found your safe place just yet. Those lights are very often nothing but a mirage, just like in the book. “Does Bilbo ever get out of this forest?”, you might ask me. Well, I’m not gonna give you any spoilers.

Although there’s obviously a designed path to love, it is not the same for everyone. For some of you, this path might seem way longer than for others. Take me for an example: at the time of writing these lines, I already had seven long term relationships. They took almost half of my life which means I’ve spent nearly sixteen years pursuing love. This is literally more than the time some of you have lived on this planet. Being that long on this road is quite exhausting. When I notice my other friends, some of them are already married WITH children and very happy. Sometimes I wonder why I haven’t found the end of that forest yet or even that shore. This makes me feel like a lifetime hiker or a sailor. I could easily be just in the middle of the sea as well as in the middle of Mirkwood. I hope either my boat or my Sting (sword) would help me get through it.

Anyway, even though sometimes I feel very discouraged to continue and would like to set up camp in Aloneville, I also feel like I should not give up. Not just yet. I mean, I’m still in my thirties which means I’m very young to quit the road right now. And you, my fellows under thirty, should not give up at all. Maybe you feel like quitting because you have friends in the same relationship since high school. Well, they are the lucky ones, because for most of us out there, it’s gonna be very rough.

Maybe you feel like quitting because some other friends of yours are getting married while you’re still going to nightclubs. Maybe you feel like quitting because this is simply not a fair game. Well, life itself is not fair so why would love be, right? To be in love is like adding a DLC to your game. It means new quests, new textures, new clothing but same old monsters to deal with.

I went a long way up until now. Sometimes I ask myself if I ever found love and simply gave up on it. But you know what? I think I’ve found it a couple of times. Maybe even love found me first, but I just ignored it due to my low self-esteem and lack of confidence. What I’m doing now, in order to maintain sanity, is to not blame myself. I mean, I stopped believing in soul mates a long time ago. Like Monica on Friends, I believe that there is no such thing as a right person for everyone, destined to end up together. I think I will fall in love eventually (like I did in the past) and will work hard for the relationship to grow. Sometimes in the past I worked really hard to maintain a relationship and it still broke up. Mostly because I was the only one busting my ass off for it. This personal report is here for you to see that love is great and beautiful but is not enough.

What I learned from being broken hearted so many times is that being in love with someone should be worth so much more than the peace of my own solitude. I wish I knew that before. If a relationship costs more than my peace of mind, then it’s simply not worth it. I wish I knew how to love myself and to forgive my flaws before I tried to love another person. I mean, it’s almost inhumane to demand someone else to fill the void that your self love should occupy. This is simply because this person has no obligation to accomplish this. Have you tried to dry up ice, push back ocean waves with a mop, squeeze a camel through the hole of a needle? Of course not! These are impossible tasks! These tasks are the same when compared to being in a relationship with someone who lacks self-love. No matter how much love you put into the relationship, it won’t last because that person will always feel like they are not loved enough. What they will fail to perceive is that they always feel like shit and will blame you for feeling like this. They do not believe in compliments, they do not trust you, they victimize themselves when confronted, they’re often very jealous and also insecure. Is it their fault? No, of course not. But neither are you a rehab for messed up people.

For my future relationships I will follow my grandma’s advice: “Search for a person who will walk by your side. That means you won’t have to push them forward and you certainly won’t be pushed by them as well. You two must walk side by side because that’s the only way this partnership is going to last for ages. That’s what makes a good person to marry, my dear”.

Memories