Letter to a friend:How easy is my life?

Dear Friend,

How easy is my life? How free am I to express my creativity?
do you really think you know it?

You can see on the web pictures of me drinking cocktails on the beach...smiling or laughing in a fancy hotel or near a swimming pool...yes...this is a good life but I work sometimes too…I look for projects, I meet with clients, I build proposals, I do marketing, sales, accounting…I deal with vendors, contractors, designers, architects, owners….and yes…at the end I project and I have a good life.

You can see pictures of my work..and think how easy is for me express myself here...and yes this is a good country to express yourself but I had to fight many wars before to arrive at this point…and not always I won.

I know you know it...but it hurts sometimes hearing you forget who I am, where I come from, what I did to be artistically...professionally...emotionally free.

I build my path because I just wanted it not because I'm better.
Yes...I know you know it...but I feel like you don't really feel it.
Yes I know you love me...but which kind of love is this one if you don't believe in me?

Our conversation helps me to strength my believe in what I am and I want to be.
A strong woman with dreams that sometimes make me smile…sometimes make me fight…sometimes make me cry…
But I don't thank you for making me start this debate.

I would not like to talk about career, professionalism, ambitions...
I would love to talk about passion, yes I said passion again! because this is my life and I live it with as much passion as I can...and I salt each day with it!

Please accept my belief...my work is my passion.

This is who I am...and I would never stop to use this word when I talk about my work, life, family, friends, men, love...

I'm different from you friend...I know...I don't wake up at 6am in the morning as a classic blue collar...I don't have a fast breakfast at 615am...I don't rush at 630am in the traffic and put my make up in the car at each light.
I don't work in a cubicle or even in a nice office from 8 to 8...I don't talk about work during lunch time with my colleagues..I don't have a blackberry with millions of emails...I don't arrive at home late at night thinking my life is hard...and so?

Do you want to judge me for that? which is your accusation?
Is my life too easy for you…friend?

I'm just different.
You are just different.
We just chose different paths.

I never thought to compare what I'm doing...building...dreaming to your projects and dreams.

I Thought we were friend not winners on the same podium...

I believe obviously that comparisons with other people are the normal and easy way to understand at which point we are in life.
We can use them to learn something more about different experiences.
I usually choose to work with people who are on the same page as me not because I feel I’m a better architect or person or designer...just because we are different nothing more or less.
We are not kids anymore fighting for who is the best...or who has the nicest toy..we are adult and friends so let's keep our friendship out of this comparison if it has to turn into a balance of skills and feelings.

I would like to tell you about a small portion of my experience…for sure I didn't find my creativity, freedom, ambition in a glass of Mojito (maybe sometimes freedom :)

I found them when I decided to live 8000miles far from my country...far from my family, friends and food .
It’s hard but I chose it so it make s my life easier.
I found them when I started to deal with visas...money...people....bills....nostalgia..loneliness...
It’s hard but I chose it so it make s my life easier.
I appreciated them when I started to be a woman...a young woman... trying to build her own design firm.
This is even harder hard but I chose it…and makes my life easier.
I never asked you to think about it or to understand.
This is my challenge...and I never even thought about which life is harder...about which career is better...or which one is the most successful one.

My life is easy: I do whatever I like to do…
But not always.
What I do always, it's to do it for myself.

Yes, like to share my successes, fails and adventures with friends and colleagues...why?
I don't know...maybe it's all about this passion I love to talk about.
And is this passion making my life easier? probably yes...

Let's live a simple life without paranoid flight of fancy...that as you know.. don't take anywhere...and we want to be always somewhere even if that somewhere is in a dream.

Everyone has his/her own path and this path has the same value of the others, even if so different and it looks like harder or easier.

I love you too,

S.

I draw Tonight

Sometimes i like to draw my thoughts with a pencil...
sometimes i just try to write them...

I Draw Tonight
Because it makes me feel alive
but drawing makes me think too much
beside
thinking makes me stare the stars and cry
and crying makes me feel miserably alive
but miserable is not accepted
in the dictionary of my life
while crying is accepted
but just sometimes
and suffering is rejected
because I've suffered so many times
and thinking...
thinking is something i can't deny
so i draw also tonight.

My work...my life

I thought it was better starting this new blog in English..even if it would be so much easier writing it in Italian..

Before to start this new trip in the world of a young woman who would like to be a successful architect I apologize for any mistake, grammar horror or miss communication i will create with my English.

I usually communicate my work trough images, pictures or drawings but i love writing too.
People usually look at my work...and they think I'm talented but they don't know where all this talent is coming from...actually sometimes I don't know it too.

How do i really spend my day? how can I get clients, how do i deal with contractors and vendors?
who are the clients who don't want to pay or clients who pay immediately?
How do i deal with clients who steel my ideas, thoughts, creativity? how do i deal with the anger?
What is the meaning of living so far from my roots?what is the meaning to work by myself?
how can i survive?
why the decision to step out of a office and live on the edge instead to have a stable salary and a stable life...

And first of all why do i decide to restart a blog about my work and life?

I was sitting on the couch...staring at blogs...website...interesting articles , extreme makeover was on tv...and i was thinking that so often the design world looks so cool and easy  trough a screen...but my life sometimes is not so cool...and easy although I'm a designer.
I felt the need to explain or just tell how i spend my day between the dream to become a famous and rich architect and the reality to be a humble woman who work hard to survive and pay bills.
but what is the difference???none... the design always looks cool trough a screen ;) None if nobody would explain the backstage of all this work.

I think would be interesting for architect and designer see how a colleague deal with the decision to be an indipendent professional and start her/his own design firm and i guess it would be interesting too for friends and less-friends reading about a curious and strange life.

S.