Hello Beauty, Hello 2016

 

I hate goodbyes. Like I run as fast as I can from them, I hide and remain unnoticed. And Well Well, the result is I am 14 days late from posting this article. I guess I am not quite relevant playing around with sparklers in the streets of Barcelona at 12 Am in the morning and trying desperately to rock a sassy jumpsuit with my beloved Stan Smith. Im irrelevant because you all know I am in Canada by now. I am not going to pretend I didn’t feel dramatic and oversensitive about leaving, because you guys know me.

But since a few days, I have been feeling differently. Departures are something I fear, something that terrify me even though if I try to act all grown up and that it doesn’t affect me that much anymore. But this time it is different, unlike other departures, I chose this one and have to face it what is coming. And even If I have been wearing overly warm clothes for the last 10 days, have packed my life in only 5 suitcases and started to settle in my new apartment: Nothing feels real.

So this article was supposed to be my Farewell.

To a decade in Barcelona for being that special place that carried me while I grew up from a 12 year old to a teenager to an adult and that witnessed most of the best moments of my life: From parties, to hard studies, to late night dances in the street, to the most dramatic heartbreak. They say that Barcelona is magic, that once it has embraced you, it will be hard if not impossible to leave. And it is true. Barcelona is somehow the place my family has always returned to, and while it felt like I felt stuck at a personal level there for a few years, I will always return to it somehow. It’s like family, you can’t ignore it.

Farewell to a year. God 2015: You have been shitty. I couldn’t be happier to start fresh from that year that has probably been my darkest and hardest emotionally. However, it has been my most complete year of all: Maybe the year where I acted more independently, more like a badass, more like an antisocial bitch and created content for the first time. 2015 is the first year I felt that I didn’t need any social approval to do anything in life which felt so difficult to achieve but that already feels like I have been acting like this during my whole life. Ironically, it is the year I have closed myself the most to people, only keeping the people I call my pillars around and ignored the rest resulting to a significantly reduced social life. I say Ironically because it is also the year I have shared the most and surprisingly: online.

It is the year I have grown to learn that social media is so much more than posting a picture per day, the year I got to meet wonderful people online that I now call friends.The year I got to get a better taste of Fashion and how I want to be as a person in that industry. The year where many people have inspired me to be a better version of myself and Yes, I am aware that it sounds like the biggest cliché ever. For some reason, It is also the year I have started a blog that connects me to all of you but also to my people that no matter what I decide to do and where I decide to live, support me unconditionally.

And here is when the scariest comes, the farewell to my people. The ones I categorically refused to say Goodbye to, because well I wouldn’t be standing up strong without. I am the luckiest chick ever (I am trying not to make this any cheesier): I am surrounded by people I consider my family, people I would do anything for and I see myself growing old with. After all, one of the perks of being a multicultural kid is that you are able to handle distance like it doesn’t exist. I feel safe as these connections are so strong and genuine nothing can break them. And as I said, family, you can’t ever forget.

So No. Au revoir is not something I have said nor will I say. Just like I refuse to set new years resolutions because if there is something I have learned during the last years is that the best comes unexpectedly. And as this year has literally gone all over the place and out of expectations in both bad and good ways: I will cheerfully say Hello. Sometimes it takes 14 days, a snowfall and no internet connection to flip things around. So, Hello to a new year, Hello to my new city, Hello to a new better me, Hello to a new decade, Hello to new connections.

Hello Beauty, Hello 2016.

Lots of Love always,

Neguine