Recently, my wonderful Brazilian friend gave me Monsieur Big mascara for my birthday. It came in a black and stiletto pink carton box, Sex and the City captured in a thick black paste for the lashes. A French brand, Émilie in New York.
It was the perfect gift, the result of a running gag between me and my friend. We were always talking of Sex and the City vibes, New York, the fancy, the successful, the stylish, the confident, the beautiful and possibilities endless as the city’s skyscrapers and Broadway productions.
In my fantasizing, New York became my model for the ultimate believing in myself, the not being afraid to put myself out there, to bank on my abilities and let the glamour come my way, shamelessly. The freedom of American dreams and the sky being the limit.
These vibes came with films like The Intern with Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, The Devil Wears Prada, same Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, more style, dreams and ambitions. Before my eyes, I brought back the beautiful sceneries and the gentle characters of When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail, Nora Ephron’s wit and Meg Ryan’s flowery yet independent city girl chiqueness. New Yorker covers (Jean Jacques Sempé!), New York Times crossword puzzles, modern coffeehouses, their interiors light and white and turquoise, or alternatively, business greys of blue and black and bricks. Bagels and pretzels. Everything big and bold.
During coffees with my friend, in the most beautiful cafés we could find around, we let our dreams and doubts pass. She listened carefully, then summarized what to her seemed to be the core of my story. Her reflections helped me, because she wouldn’t let me judge myself for not being enough, not doing enough. She brought me back to earth, when I was blocking myself by trying to do the right thing, making the right amount of money, being the right sort of person.
And I realized I had grown up in a country and time, where doing the “right thing” and becoming the “right sort of person” was supposedly achieved by following your heart, studying something that made you happy. Somehow, following my heart had become such a violent thing to do to myself, getting angry with it when it wouldn’t deliver. I realized I was putting a lot of pressure on a part of myself that I just wanted to let be. A career as the ultimate self-actualization and I was sick of it.
I thought back to New York and all the beautiful films and art and stories I associated with it. Real people, living real lives, making real mistakes, creating real beauty from real love. My happy feelings returned, and the ideas and eagerness to get started. Now that I was relieved from the burden to follow my heart, I wanted to learn to trust it a little more.
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