My Cult Is to Be Myself in Every Situation

I invariably and with a curious bitterness strive for self-perfection during times of emotional tragedies. It accords with my nature somehow.

Perhaps the first tokens of love we felt were only gratitude for pleasure. The year we spent away from each other was dark as the grave and enlightening as the heartfelt prayer.

When he left me, it was just half of me left, the better half. I reinvented the other half from scratch, transforming myself. My effort gave our love a heart, and his affection taught it to beat. Our passion only gained in strength by the mutual desire to understand and accept.

When I recollect that lonely year, I more often smile than scowl. And smiles are the foundation of beauty and expansion.

It seems almost criminal to be silent about what I've learned. I will confess to you, pour out all the treasures of my experience.

I lost nothing, in truth, by spending that time alone.

I had no distractions in my life during that year and had a lot to say to myself. This experience of being away from the person I loved was painful but enriching.

My life used to be written over in a variety of hands. It squeezed me into insignificance. Every word I said struck a note that sounded false because those words were not mine. I repeated the opinion of my mother, who genuinely didn't like any boy I met. I echoed the tales of my friends. The lot I was hanging out with was all either divorced or separated and they had nothing else to say but for 'couples destined to be unhappy' stuff.

Today I can say 'thank you' to every person who used to say 'he is not good enough for you'. I can bow to the others who continued to repeat 'he won't love you'. I can shake hands of the many who told him 'she is too selfish and can love only herself', and even 'she will be unfaithful'. These people had a fixed determination to regard our union as a failure. We've proven to the world that our family is a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible passion, of unconditional love.

What do I care now for the erroneous judgments of distant people?

Thanks to the opposition coming from all fronts, I could look intently into the inside of myself. The moral shock I received was odious to my soul. I was well-nigh foolish with 'what would they say?' and 'will my decision upset them?'. With much belief in myself, in my right to be happy, I cleared my path from the turmoil of other people's judgments. I elbowed my way through my doubts.

It is the most engrossing! Never in all my years had I enjoyed anything so much as being frank in saying 'mind your own business'. My assuredness of the choice I've made permitted me to invent a thousand tricks to change the topic, to take no notice of threatening comments of other people. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, I take it and ask to wrap some more 'to go'.

Self-love is a religion, and my cult is to be myself in every situation.

Shutting myself up face with my present and past, I learned to tell beautiful compliments to my reflection in the mirror. I hung on every syllable and received as oracles all I said. I have a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering, for love - and these fortunate developments of my personality resulted from the pain I'd felt.

Today I live in a frenzy of gratified vanity and make my husband happy, my kids smiling contentedly, my friends longing to witness every significant and not so much event in my life. Because I make every moment special. I live in a bright dream, and the cup of happiness I offer to people I care about leaves sweetness on their lips, and they crave for more.

I will let you read my heart and see between the lines what I used to miss in the first year of our life together:

• Time alone can leave you with a light heart and bright visions of yourself. Exposure to the positive loneliness, the time when you explore the mines within yourself brings on prosperity in love.

• Self-love makes loveliness and virtue watch over you. Shed your richest, love-saturated words on everything you do. It is your duty to be in love with yourself. In this state of self-affection, you will feel such freedom, such peace, and beauty in everything.

• Don't be ignorant of your mind. Don't mistake the impulses of your soul. Give a set-down to the opinions you disagree with today. If you change your mind tomorrow, give a hand to the same ideas, lift them up. But only be possessed with YOUR intellectual gaiety. In this case, your relations with your mind and soul will be always at peace.

• Do not let life worn you with use, rather let every human contact enrich you, change you for the better. Some people say hellish things. It teaches you to ignore what is insignificant. You master the art of filtering information with some unfiltered language. To hold no grudge, better say what you think right away: 'oh, shut up… please, let us talk about something else'. It always works and leaves no bruises, neither on the body nor on the heart.

I feel the grandeur of my happiness every moment I spend with my family.

I never let a torturing sense of weakness and captivity enter my life. There is no place for the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. I live with no unnecessary prefaces. I am convinced that people that do care, will stay in my life even if I disagree with their opinions.

I can describe any event in my life with accuracy, relate a misfortune with humor, and laugh at my silliness with spirit because I always stay true to myself. I recovered my balance by an effort of will-power and with the help of fate that cruelly, as I thought at the time, separated us. Every trace of my weak-and-silly self disappeared save my true self.

When I recollect in my memory the year of separation, I cannot help breathing a sigh of relief that it is over and lift my eyes to the sky with a whisper of gratitude that it was present in my life.