4 going on 40
My Italian holiday has been many things but also and maybe above all, the pleasure of seeing good old friends. In the hustle and bustle of the daily routine I had not realized how much I needed it.
This post is about four women, on the edge of their forties (don't worry I am not going to write about Sex and the City) who grew up with me during the nineties and early two thousand.
Paola (the bank manager) , Astrid (the anesthetist), Titti and Marina (the engineers).
Today the one thing that links their lives is me, the fifth woman on the edge of forty. But actually there is much more that makes us the expression of a whole generation of highly educated Italian women.
We grew up being thought that we could do everything and that the sky was the limit as long as we put effort in what we wanted. And we did, we gave all we had for our studies, for our careers for our families, for ourselves.
We all went out to conquer the world, each of us with her own style. Paola and Marina with their charm, Titti with her strength and self assurance, Astrid with her irony and critical eye, and me.....well you know me.
Our indomitable spirit was not put down by the decennia of economical crisis and recession that followed the glorious nineties. Growing up in the age of the mobile phone revolution we believed that everything was possible, we truly believed that our possibilities were infinite. We still do only in a different way.
For the ones of you that have a working knowledge of maths, you should know that infinities have different orders, in other words there are infinities which are larger than others. We are now living a lower order of infinite possibilities.
We still want it all, the career, the family, the great wardrobe. And we will not let anybody tell us otherwise! When we look at the future with our still wrinkle-less faces we see even more opportunities.
Many years in the Netherlands had kind of made me forget all this. Meeting my old friends brought it all up, and I hope it will stay. Hampering my integration but keeping my spirits up.
This post is about four women, on the edge of their forties (don't worry I am not going to write about Sex and the City) who grew up with me during the nineties and early two thousand.
Paola (the bank manager) , Astrid (the anesthetist), Titti and Marina (the engineers).
Today the one thing that links their lives is me, the fifth woman on the edge of forty. But actually there is much more that makes us the expression of a whole generation of highly educated Italian women.
We grew up being thought that we could do everything and that the sky was the limit as long as we put effort in what we wanted. And we did, we gave all we had for our studies, for our careers for our families, for ourselves.
We all went out to conquer the world, each of us with her own style. Paola and Marina with their charm, Titti with her strength and self assurance, Astrid with her irony and critical eye, and me.....well you know me.
Our indomitable spirit was not put down by the decennia of economical crisis and recession that followed the glorious nineties. Growing up in the age of the mobile phone revolution we believed that everything was possible, we truly believed that our possibilities were infinite. We still do only in a different way.
For the ones of you that have a working knowledge of maths, you should know that infinities have different orders, in other words there are infinities which are larger than others. We are now living a lower order of infinite possibilities.
We still want it all, the career, the family, the great wardrobe. And we will not let anybody tell us otherwise! When we look at the future with our still wrinkle-less faces we see even more opportunities.
Many years in the Netherlands had kind of made me forget all this. Meeting my old friends brought it all up, and I hope it will stay. Hampering my integration but keeping my spirits up.
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