Being a girl in my forties

By Ana Cecilia Pérez

Every April 30th throughout my more than 40 years of life I have identified that my perspective on this "celebration" or commemoration has changed radically; Of course, age, point of view and experience are the ones that obviously modify it, however this year after watching a video where they recommended taking a photo of our own childhood between 6 and 10 years old, they suggested talking to that photo of us and tell it all the nice things that probably at that age the people around us did not tell us or we did not recognize and tell it how the passing of the years, the experiences we have lived have led us to where we are today.

In doing this exercise, which I simplified in detail, came to my mind those voices that I have stopped hearing, those smells of people and food that are no longer there, those caresses and hugs that I miss so much and those feelings of security or fear, frustration or joy, but also of confusion of not understanding certain situations, family contexts, events that affected us as a family and that was not in our hands to control, of course all the above with the feeling of the lump in my throat and tears in my eyes of so many emotions.