react , but do it according to the american set of rules

It is no so great to learn from the man you love that you are a
complete failure in maintaing a relationship. to wake up thinking
that the best solution for your life is to be alone so you dont make
anyones life hell? To think that you are so bad that you are not able
to live on love and on hopes that things are going to be the way you
dreamed about. It doesnt sound to me that it is to ask too much to
have a man free for yourself. It is terrible to feel that you are
humiliating yourself and getting all wrong in trying to show him that
you feel sorry for the fact that he is not emotionaly free to be with
you.
It is not so great when you fail to understand that the reasons why he
cant get rid of another woman( dont worry, its not love, its something
else that has nothing to do with me) and that has nothing to do with
you. It is something else that you may never understand. You have to
be sane, you cant react bad and hysterical when you see a mental mess
and an ocean of contradiction( asking me to marry under a tree and
seing Grace one minute later...). It is not so great to learn that not
only you are so heavy that the man you love feels good when you get
out to go to work in the morning but his friends realized that you are
hysterical and crazy. Right. My reactions are disproportional and
incorrect. But what about the actions that cause my reactions? What
about the weight of that place? What about coming "home " every night
and having the same feeling, looking at a fucking piano and feeling
bad about because despite of all observations, that house being intact
and woth none of my personality or his does mean something and does
make me sad. Do I have the hability to be happy? I guess so. But not
with someone who call someone else "my wife" when lying in bed with
me. That is way off my limits and I am doing a shitty job in making my
point. does anyone thinks that he will stop that when he signs a
paper?
If its shameful for him to get the divorce, its more shameful to me to
live witha married man.
Not so great to have thrown in your face a list of nice things that
are done to you. You go away one weekend with the person you love and
this fact comes in every single conversation. How many times I make
lists of things I do for him? Oh, I brought home orange juice becasue
I want you to see how nice I am a to you. I go to basebal games
becasue I want you to see how nice I am to you. I think about you all
day and even though we have arguments, I never want you to be anywhere
else but with me. Arent you heavy? how many times I made sure you knew
how hard it is to live with someone who has no routine, whos life is a
complete mess?
I never expected a man to pay anything for me and now I see myself
messing up and humiliating myself just becasue my source of presents
are street vendors, bags of donations and my own wedding ring, which I
got from another boyfriend? That has a meaning to me and i am very
sorry that becasue I love and only becasue I love and I am not
interested in anyones money is that is has a meaning. Because to me,
it is the clear example that he is not free. I cant handle that. Cant.
misery enough and you have to feel worse becasue your reaction is not
appropriate? thinwing at yuor face that he listens to you,he does
your "funckin" laundry.
Please, behave in a way I can trust. Dont flirt with my friends, stop
staring at every woman in the street and get the divorce and I can
guarantee a better life and a more approproiate reaction.
you have a 3 hour conversation, you dont sleep and nobody feels any
better about it. what to do?

Welcome to New York (just kidding!)

My brother got a card from a colleague at work that had these words on the cover. I really liked it. A lot. New York is the most wonderful place in the world. It is really the center of the world. If you don’t find it here, you wont find it anywhere, that old news, right.
Salsa, Kabala, Buddhist Meditation, Christ of the Later Days, Pilates, Gay, Film Festivals of all sorts, foods for every pocket and taste, bikes, parks, you name it, really. But being Brazilian knowing that nothing is perfect and comparisons are inevitable, I am daring to suggest some cultural “improvements” and exchanges that would really add to NY.

There are some things that New Yorkers have to learn from Brazilians. There are some things that Brazilians have to learn from New Yorkers. Learning and exchanging with other cultures is obvious, in all fields. New Yorkers have to learn how to me a bit more flexible, to have a bit more of what we call in Portuguese “ jogo de cintura”, something like “waist game”( expression form Soccer), meaning one can giggle a bit more to adapt to different situations in life, not to get so stressed and sometimes, depressed when things don’t go the way they expect or they are used to. It looks like people here find it a bit hard to apply everything they study in real life.
Brazilians, on the other hand, should learn from Americans how to take studies seriously. Any pottery class here sounds more serious that my whole 4 year journalism course.
Work is valued here. Delivery people get paid more if they have to bring stuff upstairs. I n Brazil, they are hardly paid for delivering anything anywhere. People are always working for free and made feel obliged to do “favors” for bosses.
Services can be funny here (and if you can find it “funny”, it wont spoil you evening). You go to a restaurant and in many cases it will look like someone is doing you a favor and that it is not a professional relationship where you are at some commercial establishment where people are the to actually “serve” you. This would improve if Brazilians brought some of the culture here. It is always a pleasure to go to a restaurant in Brazil. People are happy to see you. Not always the case here. I went to a Restaurant near the river on the Upper West Side last summer and while I was eating my sandwich (bad) and having a warm beer, the waitress approached and asked me if I minded speeding a bit with that sandwich as there was a line of people waiting for a table.
Sometimes the restaurant is empty and they wouldn’t let you sit a t a table even if you want to have a drink. I find it hard to understand how things work, really.
Still in services, in NY, and in the whole of USA, you can exchange anything you buy, they will give you your money back requiring absolutely no further explanation. They and get a refund in Brazil. Just try. I bough a bag in a Brazilian shop here in Soho and not only they gave me the wrong price (there was a tag with a much lower price inside the bag), but they never gave me a receipt and after using the bag one day, it broke. You have no one to complain or to talk to…
Good thing here is that one can trust in most cases. People start form the principle that people are reliable, that is nice.
In New York, manicures are bad, but one is able to walk in Central Park, oh, that Jackie Onassis Reservoir is a “killer”, use the subway system to go everywhere, iced coffee, Film Forum, B&H, Whole Foods, Museums, Opera and a lot more…
Come and see it for yourself.

love and other difficulties

I found love. I found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. This is a lot. It is not easy, though. We are uniting 93 years of history. One comes from a 30 year marriage which is not over yet. The other comes from a history of different relationships. We are both wounded and we want to find confort in each others arms. We are both troubled. I am difficult but I am nor selfish and I am prepared to give my life , to leave the past behind and to make one life woth him. He wants that too but he is still married and despite al the love the feels for me, he still refers to his ex-wife as "wife" and he still acts as if he was married to someone else. I feel I am holding a ticket to hapiness, but I am on line, waiting for him to be free so he can build a life with me. Will this ever happen? Too early to say, seven or eight months is nothing compared to 30 years.
i feel pressured to be "happy", but he is not. Theres not one day we pass without at least one reference to his past. Not one. Its still pretty much alive in his mind and this is disturbing.
There are million things i like about this man. I like being with him. Just that. Being next to him, sleeping and waking up woth him, doing nothing with him. This is what I like about him. But its really painful to be with someone who is covered in guilt and mouring a family he lost. There is a deal deal of contradiction and I get desperate sometimes becasue it feels I need this mans saninty and understanding of the way i feel .

Normal?

eu queria muito ser normal. nao sei se valeu a pena tanta ilusao. Quanta arrogancia achar que voce pode ser diferente da maioria. Que pra voce, aquilo tudo que serviria pra maioria das mulheres, nao era o que voce procurava.
Ta certo, nao da pra negar que eu tentei, que nunca fiquei sentada em casa esperando Godot. Mas o que foi que construi mesmo? Uma puta vontade de ser cuidada, de ser abracada, de ter uma familia minha, filhos, cachorro, casa. Nada disso e agora o peso da idade. Sim, porque volta e meio voce ainda tem que ouvir que aos 40 a coisa fica mais dificil.
eu tinha estilo, tinha forca de vontade, tinah sonhos profissionais. Nao mais os tenho. Moro num pais estranho, cheio de gente louca e nao consigo sair da posicao de quadjuvante, mesmo que quasjuvante estrela da vida desses seres que sao os homens.
Onde falhei mesmo ? em querer muito?

Felicidade e uma questao de programacao mental. tenho pensado muito nisso, e em varias outras coisas, pra variar. Sera que tem gente que nao leva jeito pra ser feliz? So e feliz quem e burro? Nao, isso e burrice minha. Tem que programar pra ver o lado bom sempre, de tudo. voce tem um namorado que te ama, mais do que propria vida. Ele so nao consegue deixar de chamar a "ex-mulher" de "minha mulher", o "ex-sogro" de "sogro" e apesar de dormir e acordar com voce todos os dias, se refere aquela gente toda como "minha famillia" . Uma amiga me disse que homem nao tem a habilidade de separar ex-mulher de "filhos". no meu caso, a dificuldade e separar "mulher' de "ex mulher". no meu caso, o cara nao consegue separar a casa onde ela mora da casa onde ele e EU moramos. O apartamento dela e o "nosso" e o nosso e o "studio". Facil? Pois e! E assim que tenho vivido. Imagino que o caro leitor deva estar sentindo uma certa contradicao no ar. Mas fique tranquilo, caro leitor, o que importa e o amor. A contradicao deve fazer parte do amor.
Tenho 40 anos, vim parar nesse pais por acaso, ha exatamente um ano. Tenho batido a cabeca por aqui, fazendo o possivle pra me adaptar, pra fazer amigos, pra entender a cabeca desse homem. Ai o erro. Tentar entender a cabeca dele ( deles?) so atrapalha.
Tenho grandes defeitos, sou temperamental, seria demais, levo tudo a serio. Pragrmatica. 9 horas pra mim significa 9 horas. Ponto.

Quem e a Lana?