Pamela Cerdeira

The fourth floor

Someone like me who does not understand life if not with death looking over his shoulder.

By Pamela Cerdeira

We were in front of a glass of wine, I felt I was flying, I assured without a doubt, that the decade of the 30's was the best, of course, my naivety was explained by my lack of experience and my unhealthy optimism, also a greater economic freedom, job stability and more interesting questions in my head. But I took advantage of the company and asked Adriana.

-Is there anything interesting about the forties? Anything characteristic, special?

-That you've already become who you want to be. -he smiled.

I smiled too, not only because my friend's answer could be open to any interpretation, but also because I, who have lived my whole life chasing something I cannot name (because I don't know what it is), felt an immense peace: at forty the hunt is over, I've arrived.

Today is my 43rd birthday, and as the birthday freak that I am, of course I wasn't going to waste any space to say so. I like my birthdays. As a child I used to announce it weeks before, I painted the windows and all the glass available with the countdown; I celebrated before leaving school, during the vacations, and at the beginning of the school year. Someone like me who does not understand life if it is not with death looking over my shoulder, I can do nothing but celebrate, every year is one more won, one in my favor, one in which I am the one who looks at my stalker, I wink, smile and tell her: this year I beat you!

So, at 43, is the career of chasing after something you don't know what it is over? Yes and no. I always chase things, but since I reached the fourth floor I'm in less of a hurry. I've stopped despairing if it's my turn to walk, I've learned that everything has a time, and that clock is not always in my hands. If it happens, that's fine, if it doesn't happen too, I insist, but not too much, because today I know that if I dwell too much on what doesn't work, I take time away from everything else that could work. Curiously, I walk slower but I move faster.

I try to listen and learn better, or at least in more detail. On the fourth floor you are more aware of what is said, and what is silent, you understand the power of words, so you take more care of them.

The body tells you that you are already there, the muscles demand more attention if you want them to be in the right place, and they thin the wrong parts like hair, lips and skin, the eyelashes are no longer confused with crow's feet, those are crow's feet for sure! But if you listen carefully you will realize that the body also speaks to you, in this place/time I have learned to listen to it. My head stopped hurting when I got off TV, it hurt again all day when I asked if we should go back. My eye trembles when I don't attend to a concern, my throat hurts when I don't say what I feel, and I no longer fear my nightmares.

Downstairs I let go of my intentions to be a good mother, most of my compulsiveness to "be pretty" (that deserves a separate column), and I laugh harder.

I didn't get to the fourth floor alone, and maybe that's the most interesting thing about this decade. You know that you arrived with a lot of suitcases: some carry what you have learned, and others you don't even know what's inside, but you know that they weigh enough to have followed you here, and that they are there. And that's good too.

If I could give advice to my twenty-something self, I would tell her to make friends, more friends, that it is a lie that you can count them on the fingers of one hand, that friends are rather like stars, sometimes you can't always see them all, that it is easier to distinguish them when you are standing in a place of low light, and that there is no such thing as the best star, they are located by the constellation to which they belong.

I would also tell you that when you don't know what to do, don't do anything. And that everything, absolutely everything happens. And that the only uncomfortable thing worth putting up with is a nice pair of shoes.

I have learned that eternal love lasts a day. Every morning I decide that I want to be with my husband, and every night, when he is already asleep, I give him a kiss and thank myself for the immense fortune that he has decided the same thing that day.

I am still running after several professional goals, I have the enormous fortune and conviction to love what I do, and that is why I can never have enough; but now I also pursue sunsets, an out-of-tune ukulele, the abandoned singing lessons, an afternoon of wine with friends, the discussions between my children whom I have asked that if they are going to fight they should do it in rhymes, and I flirt with buying another telescope, because I have learned that "wasting" time is also the best way to live it.