I changed my last name when I got married last year. I always wanted to do it, because my maiden last name is so long and difficult that even in Poland people are pronouncing it incorrectly. And when I started living abroad, no one even tried to say it, so I was always called by my first name. Sometimes I would not hear or say my last name during months. So I knew that one day, when I get married, I will adopt my husband's last name. Actually, it is a tradition in Poland. It's not obligatory, but still very common. It is not typical in Italy though, so I'm the only woman in Luigi's family carrying his last name.
So when it finally happened and I did have my passport I would stare at it thinking: 'Am I a different person now? Who am I? And what happened to the other Iwona? Where is she now?' My last name, Tascino, literally translates as a 'little pocket' and it felt really strange for me to identify with it. It was also so much hassle to change all my Spanish documents, that sometimes I regretted having made done it in the first place. Never-ending bureaucracy made me think that I was just not supposed to have that new identity. On some days it felt great though! Receptionists would finally call me with my first and last name at the doctor's waiting room!
I feel I have always carried a seed of self expression through writing inside me. I wanted to write as it has always felt easier than talking. However a difficulty to choose the language I feel most comfortable with and the fear of being judged and misunderstood made me discard a blog in the first place. I tried to write a journal, but I ended up having 5 and not being consistent. I tried Instagram, but I felt it's a platform for a short form slash hashtag only form and I like stories more. Since I was a child I loved reading and listening to tales, short stories, I even wrote a few myself. Luigi was the one who kept on encouraging me to start a blog. Whenever he would see my long IG post, he would say: 'why don't you write a blog? You should have one'. I suspect it's not because he likes my writing so much, but because he gets easily bored and overwhelmed by long texts on social media. He's this kind of a guy who doesn't start an article, if it says it's more than 5-min read. Too long. A 3 minute whatsapp voice message is too long too. Forget that he will listen. Regardless of his intentions, I'm writing my first post, so... thank you, baby!
I think one of my biggest struggles was to decide what I wanted to write about. Travel? Would be an obvious choice for someone who loves traveling and who works in tourism. I did write a couple of articles for my last company's newsletter and it was fun, but deep inside I knew I don't want to write a travel blog. Mainly because I associate them with people who travel constantly. And I do not like to travel all the time. I like to go on vacation. 1-2-3 weeks - sounds perfect to me. A city break over the weekend? Here I come! But travelling for extended period of time? Not for me! Tried it once, a 2 month back-packing trip around South America (10 years ago. I remember watching samba parade in Sao Paolo, so it must be exactly 10!). It was exhausting. I've always preferred to go live in a place. Get to know local people. Immerse myself in a local culture. Be part of the community. So no, a travel blog was not for me.
Then I thought about plant-based diet. Such a trendy topic now. I've been vegan for 1,5 years and I really like what I'm eating. I'm exploring vegan places and food options in Barcelona and I can see how quickly vegan community is growing here. One day I woke up, jumped on my mat and when I was in the middle of a Warrior 3 I almost fell, when a thought struck me. I will write a vegan guide book of Barcelona. My mind started spinning so much, that I had to stop the practice, take a notebook and write down all my ideas. 'Brilliant', I thought! I had a mission, a purpose. Next thing I did, I googled the name I already had for my book and... it already exists! Darn human consciousness! We are more connected than we think. So I dropped the idea of a book. And a blog. I thought: 'It's probably just not for me. If I have nothing (new) to say, then maybe there is just nothing to share.
And then something happened. I believe that things are meant to happen, if (and when) they are meant to happen. Sometimes we just push too hard. We obsess and overthink and we get into life's way. And as much as we try, we do not see the results we were hoping for. And suddenly, when we relax or even forget about our plans, the life flows naturally and bam! We get exactly what we wanted. In my case, the inspiration that I needed to start a blog.
It was a book. No, THE book. Few month ago I started a therapy to help me with my anxiety and panic attacks. Well, I actually started 2 different ones. Plus my master's in personal development. Plus coaching sessions. It's a lot, I know, but I desperately needed help. Last week, one of the therapists recommended me a book about the true purpose of experiencing anxiety. "Las alas de la mariposa" by Ariel Andrés Almada. I found it only in Spanish, the translation to English would be "The wings of the butterfly". It's a short, 100-page book that tells a story of a girl who experiences anxiety. One day she faints in a park and a man leaves her a note asking her to meet him (ok, it sounds a little creepy that a guy leaves her unconscious in the park, but there is a friend of hers, who is tracing her steps and finally finds her). During several meetings that not-that-creepy-anymore guy explains to her the nature and the role of anxiety in human's life. I felt identified with everything I read from page 1. When I reached a part in which the man explains that behind the anxiety there is always a fear, but in most cases not a fear of a real danger, but the fear of death, of life, of life without living, I wept. This book was about me and for me. At the end of the book the author gives short advices of how to deal with anxiety. First one is to find a meaning in it.
And then I knew! No, I felt! No, it was beyond my mind or my feelings. It was just so clear to me that I took a wide road to recovery and I want to share my findings, experiences, thoughts and feelings of this process with other people. With my husband, my family, my friends, other people who might just want to read my blog. People who might be struggling with anxiety and looking for answers, comfort and hope themselves. Who might be as lost and hopeless as I was last year. People who might have a loved one in a situation similar to mine and feel as helpless as Luigi did. This blog is dedicated to all of you. I will be writing about, why I believe I suffered from the anxiety. About what has helped me to start the recovery process. About the little life hacks I'm using to get up every day and stay grounded. And as I'm on the way to feeling better, it will be LIVE!
As a side note I want to mention one more synchronicity related to this blog that made my heart beat faster. The man in the book compares people suffering from anxiety to butterflies trying to come out from a chrysalis. He explains that it's a long, difficult and painful process, but it's the only way the butterfly can emerge to its final state. If it receives help, it will not be able to fly. When I created this blog and I was deciding on a name for it, I wanted my new last name to represent it. But then I wanted to give it a Polish touch to remember my origin too. In Poland we use masculine and feminine version of most names, so Tascina sounded just fine. And then I googled it to check if there were no other blogs under the same name and... I discovered that Tascina is a genus of moths! And now I know who I am! A moth trying to emerge from its chrysalis.
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