Seven years ago, I surprisingly met someone.
A complete stranger.
Someone whose company I have appreciated each and every day since we met.
Someone I love to discover.
Someone who is my longest commitment.
That someone is me.
Noone else but me – myself and I.

Yes, I met myself at the age of thirty.
You may wonder, how on earth this could be possible?
Well, let me explain you what was going on in my life before that grand meeting.

I was born in Ankara -the capital city of Turkey- in 1978.
I was raised in a loving, caring and a quite conservative family in the same city.
I went to school and finally graduated from the College in the very same city.
This was the first era of my life – in which I was someone’s daughter.

Then came the second era – in which I was someone’s wife.
In fact, the story of this era is much more interesting than the first.
In his book “Justine”, Lawrence Durrell says “A city becomes a world when one loves one of its inhabitants”.
Well, in 1999 the “21 year old college girl” version of me reads this very romantic sentence,
It makes a lot of sense to her,
By the courage of this sense and the level of love and romance, she accepts to marry her 23 year old college boyfriend.
The proposal comes with a clause of moving abroad to the boy friend’s homeland.
She does not hesitate even for a moment and accepts to move to an island called Cyprus to which she has never been before,
And she has never seen before – not even on TV, literally…
Because you know “A city becomes a world…”!
Yes, we got married in 2001 and moved to this beautiful Island which indeed became a world for me as I very much loved one of its inhabitants truely and deeply.

Then somehow, after ten years of marriage came a divorce – but don’t worry,a smooth one…
By the last years of my marriage, the third era of my life had begun, in which I had been trying to be myself.
At that time, in 2008, I felt miserably alone for the very first time in my life and I met myself in that loneliness.
And I found the opportunity to ask myself about my ambitions.
The answer was simple: To be happy and to find out and realize my potential.
And so, I made a very simple decision: I decided to move away from all negative people and all negative thoughts in my life.
At the very same time I also made a strong wish to meet only inspiring people from then on for the rest of my life:
People who will inspire me to bring out the best in me,
Who will encourage me to share my blessings with others,
Who will lead me to speak up,
Who will keep introducing me to new beautiful people like themselves.

It has been seven years since that I have made that simple decision and that strong wish.
Since then I feel like I am on a consistent journey to myself.
And sometimes I feel I am like Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian mountain climber from the movie – “Seven Years in Tibet”. His adventurous climbing journey suddenly leads him to meet and become friends with the Dalai Lama in Tibet. This friendship and the journey he takes make him face himself and find his inner peace.

Well, through the seven years of my own journey I have not met the Dalai Lama yet but I have met some inspiring people on my way just as in my strong wish.
One of those people made me feel beautiful again,
One encouraged me to share my writings with others,
One appreciated my potential and promoted me in my job,
One introduced me to a life time friend,
And that friend lead me to speak outloud and introduced me to all of you.

And now, after seven years in my journey to myself, I feel that the third era of my life is slowly closing and something new is about to come.
I do not know what it will be for the time being – it is just a strong feeling…
But there is one thing I am sure of:
This time, me – myself and I are ready and there to welcome anything that comes along…

15.05.2015

TM-SP1