Birthday letter to myself

A Virgo sending a letter of peace to herself seems like a huge contradiction.
Not only to send peace but also to wish herself a happy birthday.
Virgos, the shyest of them all, the most reserved people who always try to hide the very fact that it’s their birthday.
Well, as 2026 started as a year of revolution, both internally and externally, I could follow the wave and let this letter begin.
First of all, let’s declare the age, so we avoid the awkwardness which lies behind a woman’s birthday after the teenage period.
This is my 36th year alive on this Earth. So I wish to start saying that I am lucky to have had another year of being here, no matter the complications and harshness of the past period.
It’s been a while since I’ve become a mother, not to any child, but the mother of myself.
And the mother of my old father.
This type of motherhood makes you feel old, tired and drained. Exhausted most of the time.
Every now and then I ask myself how other people see me.
If the truth is visible from the outside, if they can see the struggle. Or if I hide it well.
And yet, no matter how exhausted I feel, here I am celebrating this day in Venice at the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica for the first time.
The first time in Sala Grande, attending la Prima of a movie, of course a French one.
The first time I had the impression I was in the right place, with so many directors, authors, screenwriters around me. The energy in the room was shouting.
Cinema gives us the greatest power: we can see reality as it is not. We can imagine millions of other stories. We can dream and we can feel better while reality is incapable of doing so.
Was I in the middle of a movie set? Was I dreaming?

( What I know after two days in Venice is that I am still in the fight. )

And as I was approaching Venice Santa Lucia by train yesterday at twilight, all of a sudden my eyes twisted on the lagoon, which appeared like it was under the train, and I felt a strong sense of wonder all over my skin and bones.
That sense of wonder, I wish never to lose it.
Even with the grief for my mum’s death, which never leaves my side. And all the sadness and melancholy that are now a part of who I am.
But they can coexist within me.
Grief and wonder.
So cheers to this one life and to another year for me.
A birthday is, after all, a miracle and a blessing.