I am afraid of loving someone this much

Romantic love, unconditional parenting love, sisterly love... Isn't it something that we've been listening, reading and thinking about since forever? At least I have, and maybe it's because I'm a girl. But my interest in love relationships grew more profound: I'm searching to learn about and understand every possible way beings might love each other, being them lovers or family, or whatever else. Movies opened up great new perspectives. The more of them I saw and as diverse as they got, the more I realized that movies find inspiration in real life - not that trying to live "like in the movies" is a wrong thing to do. 

There has also been this long theorizing about what is to be in love, and what to really love someone... When you're in love, you wear pink glasses and when you really love, it will last forever - ever heard anything like that? As if forever existed. As if the butterflies in your belly are not the most exciting thing one can ever feel.

    

The main reason why I am so driven to the gay world is that, out there, there are no boundaries. Open-mindedly it is understood that love is a universal feeling one doesn't, shouldn't and needn't try to control nor label.

But, when I'm trying to understand my actual interpersonal experience of love itself, all the divisions from above come to a level of hard-to-comprehend words. Because when I felt love, it was little important that the person that I loved was my "sister", or my "friend", or my "boyfriend". (Your sister is your mothers daughter, but what if there's someone who understands you as if you were of the same mother? Is your boyfriend not your friend, too?)... 
All I know is that my life is a set of moments, and so far I have experienced those in which I felt like I loved someone. In these moments, because of the person that I loved, my life was so much more worthwhile. I was happy. I felt like I know where I'm going and that there I'm not going alone. Not this time. Not anymore.

How I feel about my daughter is unlike any love I've ever experienced. I'm so intensely happy. Her presence makes me fulfilled and I have a need to be next to her so much that I am afraid... what would be left of me if one day she'll need to be away?

I've only had her for two months. Restlessness, but I mean literally not being able to allow yourself to go to unconsciousness of sleep because of the constant need to take care that all with her is well. The feeling of total impotency when there's something going on with her and there's nothing you can do about it. Profound, overwhelming worry you can't just simply let go of, even if they tell you there's really no need for it, after which I understood my parents and all other parents out there at once... I did feel all of that.

Having her little self in my arms and looking at her beautiful little face in disbelief of a miracle that life is, I feel that too. And it's disarming.

Feeding her, taking care of her entire baby-life is like doing the most meaningful thing life has ever put ahead of me. Having a child of my own is the most beautiful something that had ever happened to me. Because I look at her, and I miss her when she was even smaller. And at the same time, I can't wait for the moments to come: to see her hair grow longer, and her teeth to show up. The day I'll see her running around the beach in her little colorful bikini, playing in the sand and jumping with the waves. I'm imagining her talking, not to mention reasoning, and I can't wait to hear all the brilliant ideas that will come from that little mind of hers. I am so looking forward to learning everything she came to this world to teach me. 

And I realize it's a lifetime relationship, unlike any other. Maybe forever does exist. A connection that will never go away. It will only grow deeper, stronger, fonder and take direction I probably couldn't even imagine, and no movie has pictured yet.

 

One day old baby Malina and one day old mama Višnja

Why all moms are warriors

I guess that no matter how or how much you prepare, expecting a day you will give birth is scary. Scaaaary, every time, for every woman, because you never know what to expect because you never know how it will go.

But a few days before, you find yourself in awakened readiness, the kind any man feels right after jumping off that cliff. You know something scary is waiting for you, yet you know there's no turning back and there's no escape, and you just collect all the guts you've got, and you go for it! And that's why every mother is a hero. A warrior. A lioness.

The day that Višnja asked the stranger on the street for some change

Today I had this awesome day of driving around Miami, cruising new neighborhoods and discovering cool locations. It was very enjoyable... until, at one point, I found myself in front of a parking ticket automate. My ticket is $1.75. The automate doesn't give the change back, and I only have a one and a twenty dollar bill. 

Trying to figure out what to do while getting a bit upset for having to face such an unnecessary complication at such a joyful day, I hear this person behind me telling to this other person behind me, who he is with, something like: "...yeah... let me just pay the parking first!".

Thinking how it's in the best interest of both of us that I get this over with as soon as possible, the first and only thing that came to my mind was to ask him if he could break the bill of 20 for me.


And so I literally turn to the guy and say: "Hey! Do you have some change?"
And so it happened. The day that Višnja asked the stranger on the street for some change!
Wroooong question! 

Wrong person! 
"No, I don't have cash. I only have card." - the hipster behind me replied (#nojudgin! You can easily tell a hipster when you see one!), with this hipster look on his face (we all know this "that-is-sooooo-2014!!" look). Of course he had no cash!

It did make me realize, though, that I too, stupid, have the invention of the newest centuries. So, I finished the transaction trying to act cool and ran my blushing cheeks down the street as fast as my rounded, 200-pounds-body, allowed me.

AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT! or How I got my Brazilian tourist visa

To prolong tourist visa in Brazil, as you can only imagine, there are a bunch of pointless processes and papers (probably no more than in any other country, but still, POINTLESS), among which one absolutely nailed me:


There is this certain document by which a Brazilian person who is your friend states s/he will be there for you if you are broke or need to go to the hospital. But it's not that easy. The Brazilian good friend needs to go to cartório, a notary's office, to validate the signature. 

To get this information in the first place, you need to go to the office of Federal Police. You need to go there, because there is nothing about it online (of course not).
I need to underline the fact of HOW big a city São Paulo is: 20 million people. 
So, "going to the office of Federal Police" is no joke! You need hours to go and come back - just to get the information! AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!!



And here comes the punchline:


Once you've reached the Federal Police office, they give you the infamous paper, but THE EXAMPLE. The real one, that you are actually going to fill in and validate, you need to TYPE YOURSELF!!
Say whaaaaat?!? 
Wait, did I get this right?? So, I WENT to the office to get the information and they GIVE me the paper they already had to print and prepare, but not in such state that I can actually use it?!? 
I need to TYPE it, seriously???
Nothing online?!
Nothing online. I looked all over the place. It's nonexistent.
I, as a foreigner, a TOURIST, need to type a document in Portuguese!

 I shit you not.

I had like a little nervous breakdown yesterday about all of this and then I had to eat a lot of chocolate to come down.



But then today, I decided to always look at the bright side of life. 
Why not type it? I've never typed a document in Portuguese before! It's a whoooole new experience for me! Maybe I will learn something! (And I did. Now I know how to write letter "ã" and "ê", for example). I am sort of learning Portuguese anyway! (Are you getting the vibe of an always-positive-person - ticking-time-bomb, that is always so happy that you wait for her to explode any minute? Damn right.)
And to crown the turning of the horror into something you can benefit from, I've decided to see all this struggle as the way to my spiritual growth and give to the world! And so I made the draft pdf of a bloody document and it is now in my public Dropbox folder. Hopefully whoever next needs it will be able to find it there and copy-paste it, as befits. 



PROLOGUE


As I finally found myself back in the Federal Police office with all the receipts, certificates, copies and nonsences, inevitably I got a FT1P - a formula, probably invented in Serbia, by which the lovely lady teller working there is always going to find that one paper you are missing which makes the procedure absolutely impossible to proceed! 
It was 15 minutes to closing time of the last day of my visa, and the counter boss, an elderly guy wearing the Brazilian football team shirt you could easily imagine selling the delicious corn at the street to you with the smile on his face under that mustache he has, apparently wanted to go home. He and the lady discusses my case a bit, I could overhear: "What? She doesn't have this-and-this-paper?! Well, she doesn't have anything", and at one point he just looked at me seriously and asked (in Portuguese): "Are you with Corinthians?"

OF COURSE I AM! THEY ARE MY FAVOURITE TEAM IN THE WORLD!

I got a: "Woooooo!!" from the background of the office, a smile, and a stamp in my passport for another 3 months in BRAZIL.

Kad porastem biću DJ... na sahranama.

Imam želju da postanem DJ.
Zvuči smešno, jer zvuči kao "kad porastem biću pevačica", ali u mojoj glavi to je sada vrlo jednostavno: želim da podelim muziku koja mi se dopada sa drugim ljudima... osim što se svaki pokušaj toga do sada završio, pa, fijaskom.
Ljudima se ne sviđa muzika koju ja slušam.
A bude i da pokušam da "prepoznam i prilagodim"... a onda to bude potpuni fijasko, tada niko ne uživa. Ne umem ja da puštam regeton na žurci. Niti dobru čil-aut muziku. A ni muziku za kola.

Ali, potom sam otkrila jedno zadovoljavajuće moćno oružje da se otarasim tih ljudi oko sebe, kad je za to dobar trenutak.

Evo nečega iz epizode: "Višnja želi celu trpezariju hostela za sebe, a tek ponoć je".

What is BEING ME... and why the blog?

The truth is, I have no idea what "me" is. Do you?

If you're likely to even ask this type of questions, and if you think you have the answer, you might have probably given yourself some sort of label: "I am Serbian.", "I am an accountant .", "I am a homosexual with passion for straight men", "I am a Lopez", "I am Aquarius with the ascendant in Aries", "I am (his) girlfriend", "I am a punk rocker, I am nothing you want me to be!", etc. People need to know who they are.

You might have gone one step further in contemplation of self and said: "I am a universe experiencing itself through my existence.", "I am all."... which... you probably are... 
But, how does "a universe" wake up in the morning and go to work? How does "a universe" get hurt by a friend it confided in? How does "a universe" get its whole world around a new person it brought to earth as its child, to feed him, feel him, know him? How does "a universe" get fatally sexually attracted to a person it has looked in the eyes only once?


The truth is, we are all of that.
We are both "geniuses" and "saints" with the power we have within our minds, as we are physiologically animals. Mammals. 
And most of the time, actually, we are something in between.


And there goes a person I wake up every morning to be, wandering around this world wondering (or wondering around this world wandering). 
Trying to understand us humans.
Our labels. Our acts. Our grouping. 

Trying to find the balance between learning and concluding.

Being compassionate, but trying to keep true to herself.

Balancing between being safe and trying everything.

Balancing between genuine value of things and values my labels brought to me, genuine value of things and the value constantly commercialized to me by the media I am a daily consumer of.

Trying to understand what "me" is better and what all of this is about and what for (I mean, life).


And therefore the blog.
I walk through life experiencing lots of stuff: I meet people, travel places, watch movies, read, listen to music, consume art and it all is a part of my life and about all of it I am having this thoughts and polemics in my head. 
I write them down to my diary (for about 15 years now I've been keeping one).  
Finally I decided to share parts of it with you, World.

It was about a year ago that I started traveling, and somehow the travel blog was expected. 
And the truth is, I am actually making one. 
About my own journey.


I'd be happy to have you on board!
Share your thoughts, express your opinions, make your comments, I want to hear where your Rambles take you!