“You’re not twenty anymore; you can’t afford to let yourself go. You’re forty now.”
That’s what she told me.
I’m not forty yet — not even thirty-seven.
Thirty-six on paper; somewhere between twelve and eighty-nine in spirit, depending on my mood.
Yes, of course, I’m aging — who isn’t? Maybe faster than others.
I don’t know. It seems my eyes aren’t old yet, even if the light in them has grown sadder.
Maybe I’ll cut my hair. Maybe I should dye it.
I’m past the age when gray hair looks cool — now it just looks old. It highlights the wrinkles.
I’ve never had it this long. One day, I simply stopped cutting it.
I’ll do it again — either when he comes back into my life, or when he leaves my head.
Ten years ago, in January 2009, I left Palermo, my city, full of bright hopes.
Still convinced I wouldn’t disappoint the child I once was.
Who hasn’t imagined what they’d be when they grew up? Imagination saved me from a life as a lawyer.
I’d seen myself in many ways — all different from how things turned out.
Or maybe I’m just wearing a dress cut from another fabric.
I don’t know what the me from thirty years ago would think of me now.
She’d probably scold me, tell me I used to be far-sighted, and now I’ve become repetitive — stuck.
“You’re crazy. You’re selfish. You’re a bitch. You’re ungrateful. You’re smart. You’re rigid. You’re a spinster. You’re hot. You’re a failure.” That’s what they say.
Then there’s my inner world — which, with age, has turned glittery. A small tribe of objects that’s been with me for years, growing over time. I have a story for each one — a memory. They’re the passport photos of my imagination, where I tell myself who I am.
I don’t know who that is anymore. Everything feels so far away.
I know I’ve been afraid of happiness for too long. Ashamed of myself. Feeling inadequate.
Ulysses said he was Nobody, out of cleverness; Vitangelo Moscarda, out of confusion.
Between Homer and Pirandello, I choose the latter.
Anyway, I’ve decided to cut it. ‘In the end, what counts is how it ends.’
