to all the boys i've loved before

(como a ideia da festa pelo leszek, a organização dela e a foto aqui publicada foram iniciativas de pessoas não lusófonas, acho o mínimo da cortesia escrever em inglês.) 

i reckon a man only truly embraces a woman's word when he has a daughter. i first thought of it this way on the singaporean mrt when i was on my way to join monika for lunch. there was an indian guy with a son and a daughter. the son was sitting still and quiet, focused on his toy. the girl, she was all over the place. and constantly expecting her father to interact with her one way or another. with a partner, a man does not have to always give her his fullest attention; he can back off when things get too crazy, too oestrogen-packed, too confusing, or too overwhelming; he can afford not to follow or understand completely; his integrity remains intact (although many men would certainly argue about this part). with a daughter, there is no escape. they say you only become a man when a little girl breaks your will.

being a woman is a frame of mind. a sensitivity. a vulnerability. an apparent weakness. a courage. a renouncement. a protective instinct. a generosity. an intuition. a balance in state of total imbalance. a stem that contrary to all expectations resists a hurricane but gives in to a west wind. a mixture that is so insane, so baffling, so incomprehensible, so illusory, that not even the most illustrious of all alchemists would ever be able to prepare it. it contains all those countless irrational and obscure ingredients, that, if not counterbalanced by the capacity to think clearly, appear irritating and unbearable. are irritating and unbearable.

for a long time i wished i were a boy. i considered their lives more interesting, their challenges more thrilling, their possibilities endless. i felt labelled, misunderstood, diminished, cut down to some social expectations that were never close to what i was. i hated the patting on the back. it was ok for me not to be self-reliant, not to be able to cope with certain situations, not to have to think. there could always be an emotional or hormonal explanation to my behaviour. and all i wanted was to be treated the same. to benefit from no preferential treatment. i wanted the bar to be high, the expectations to be excruciating, the sky to be my limit.

and i got it. to all the important men in my life - those who taught me the most logical way to position a potato before cutting it into fries and how to precisely formulate what i wanted without beating around the bush; those who, when i was telling them that i couldn't manage to do something, would answer it was only a matter of practice and that i just needed to put a bit more effort into it; those who, when i came for advice, would listen carefully and then give me a little pat on my back and  say i only needed to think and i would manage to cope on my own; those who never imposed any kind of limit or boundary on me - you helped me to connect the dots of my life and made me into the woman i am - thank you. it's an amazing feeling.

dzięki zenek!