On Rising

Dear pyjamas, sad mental loops and depressing songs, rip. I am over you. Ιn the mornings I will get up and I will wear my sharpest clothes, I am putting my best face on because for a while now I have been doing it for myself. On the hardest of days I am still showing up for me. And fick dich to the things I used to tell myself. The you are small, you are unworthy, you are bad have been replaced by you are strong, you are brave, you are kind, you are compassionate, you are WORTHY. As beautifully as Glennon Doyle puts it in her latest book Untamed "you are a fucking cheetah". 

                                                                                                                                                                                         MIKE HILL/GETTY IMAGES

Even on the saddest days I can still come up with three things I am grateful for. At times it can be the beloved friend that supported me, the cat that made me laugh by chasing a tiny moth up and down the apartment, the sun that is shining bright shedding its light on my insides. Other times it can be my lungs that are breathing lively, my legs that carry me with joy, a heart that is feeling deeply. 

Feel, shed, expand, repeat. 

I might have to turn this into a T-shirt. 

Rise girl, rise. 

Thoughts come streaming when I lie in bed at night. All the things that went wrong in life, all the why's that will never be resolved. I tell myself you are better than this. I am better than this. And I switch. I start imagining all the beautiful things life still holds for me. I envision my future, my best case scenario for a change. The content and beautiful days that are awaiting me. I get to the scared little child inside me, that little almost forgotten cheetah cub, I hold her telling her everything is going to be alright. I stroke her and bathe her with my heart like mother cheetahs bathe their babies with their tongues. It's a safe place to be, it's a fun safe warm playground. I've got you now babe, we've got this. 

                                                                                                                                   www.sciencesource.com

This morning my inner critic asked me "Where do you think you are going, Mel?" and I replied "Some place better, old friend. Take care. I am loved by more important people now. I am loved by myself".

Sometimes life will be a hard teacher, especially to us, the ones who are soft inside. However, we are also strong and very much equipped to pull through everything that comes our way. We just have to remember to close our eyes from time to time, call for our inner cheetahs and let our wild souls rise.

I 'll always be by your side

If you know me, you most likely know Spot. Or you knew him, whatever. The reality of him not being with us anymore has been hard for me to grasp. We had to put him down a few months ago at the old age of sixteen. My mom had to make the hard decision as I don't live there anymore and only found out the next time we talked when I asked her how he was doing.

Spot was a jolly dog and lived a happy life. Playful and goofy, sweet loving and sociable, loyal and always up for anything fun we could do together. He was my friend. I will not forget the first time we took him to our beach house in Plaka, Elounda. He must have been around a year old at the time and must have thrown up a dozen times by the time we got there. As soon as we stepped out of the car he run up to the edge of our porch. It was the first time he laid his warm brown eyes on the sea. He eagerly placed his elbows on the concrete fencing and just stood there staring at the vast blue water expanding past the island of Spinalonga till it met the horizon. He was stunned. I must have a photo somewhere of the two of us on that porch where he sits on that concrete fencing while I am sitting by his side holding his paw. Me and him, my friend and I, both so young and content in each other's presence, frozen in time.

                                                      Edit: I managed to find this photo of our holiday together.


I remember at the end of the summer each year on the day of the first September rain we used to go out in the garden together. It was our little ritual, like the ones friends have, just the two of us celebrating the transition of nature.

                                  Spot at the back. Rita (left) and Laura (right) at the front.

Spot passed away in September.

Every animal that dies leaves us with an internal void. The one we didn't know we had until they came to fill it with their presence.  

Last night I dreamt about him. I could feel him again, sliding my fingers through this soft black fur thinking "Could this be real? I thought I had lost him forever".

Two months ago a black and white long haired kitten showed up at my doorstep. He came and never left kind of like what happened with Spot. He had, too, chosen me. He was around six months old at the time meaning he was born around the same time when Spot passed. I like to think that it is him returning to me in a different form. When I told my aunt about it she said "So you think there is a spirit that has been following you throughout your life?". "I guess so", I replied. Fioggos is fun and loving and goofy making me laugh all the time like Spot did. He meows and goes hiding, expecting me to go look for him. And I do go look for him, it is our game after all, our new little ritual. He's brought so much joy into my life. And so much hair everywhere. Every time I turn around he is up to something new. This funny sweet hairy ever moving creature. My new old friend.

This reminds me that there is so much more out there than what we can see or prove or measure by fitting it in complex mathematical equations. It reminds me that life flows and transforms in similar ways to the ones nature is changed by the first September rain after the long dry Cretan summer. I know that to some people this will all sound totally insane, but I really can't deny that it does indeed make some kind of a soothingly incomprehensible sense somewhere deeply inside my heart.

He is still here, living through Fioggos. I have not lost him, I never did.

Sweet boy always coming to say hi and lick your face.