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Welcome to my blog
Nobody's Wife
Nobody's Wife:
My Transformation Journey
There is a woman behind these stories.
Me. I'm 49, Portuguese, living in The Netherlands for more than 20 years, a mother, a woman who has loved deeply, built a life, lost parts of it and is now learning how to build something new.
For a long time, I defined myself through the roles I carried: wife, mother, daughter, professional. I was good at being what everyone needed me to be.
Then life changed.
A marriage ended. A career shifted. My children grew. And somewhere between letting go of the life I knew and figuring out what comes next, I started meeting myself again.
I'm softer now but not weaker.
I've learned that staying is not always strength, that boundaries can be an act of love, and that changing my mind does not mean I failed.
I still want love. I still want passion, laughter, travel, music, dancing, beautiful conversations and someone who makes me feel alive.
But I no longer want any of it at the cost of myself.
Some days I have clarity. Some days I have questions. Some days I get it completely wrong.
And that is the point.
This isn't a blog about having life figured out.
It is about living it honestly while it is happening.
So, this is me. Still becoming. Still learning. Still laughing. Still dancing. Still making mistakes.
And, perhaps for the first time, simply becoming myself.
The Woman I Was No Longer Lives Here...
Today I caught myself thinking about something strange. About a year ago, in Tarot, I was represented by the Queen of Wands. Now I am the Queen of Pentacles. I don't know if I believe that Tarot predicts anything. Sometimes I do. Other times I think Tarot is simply a beautiful way of forcing us to look at what we already know but still can't quite say out loud. And maybe that's it. Because when I think about the woman I was a year ago, I recognise her immediately. But I no lo
Aug 165 min read
I'm not Lost...
Today I felt the need to remind myself of something. Changing direction doesn’t always mean I chose the wrong path. Maybe I simply changed. It’s strange to realise that. I spent so many years building a life, making plans, believing that some things would last forever. And then life happened. Some things stayed. Others disappeared. Some choices simply stopped making sense. And for a while, I confused that with failure. As if I had failed somewhere along the way. As if I had m
Aug 72 min read
Today, I Realised Something Beautifull...
Today, I found myself thinking about a conversation I had. One of those conversations that seems simple in the moment, but quietly stays with us for days. We were talking about life, about paths, about choices, about all the things that transform us without us even noticing. And, in a moment of true honesty, a sentence came out of me that surprised me with its simplicity: “For the first time in my adult life, I feel that I am not in love with anyone.” I said it without sadnes
Jul 283 min read
Celebrating Life...
For months, I rowed against the current. There were days when I believed that if I rowed harder, the river would eventually give way. As if life could be persuaded by persistence. As if destiny would change course simply because I refused to stop. Today, I understand that the river was never against me. It was simply a river. And I was simply someone learning that not everything needs to be conquered. There are moments when the greatest courage lies not in fighting, but in le
May 252 min read
The Quietest Wars Are the Ones No One Sees
There’s a strange moment that happens when someone asks, “So… what’s new?” Because the truth rarely fits inside a socially acceptable answer. No one is actually expecting you to say: “Well, I’ve spent the last few months unpacking decades of trauma, trying to teach my nervous system that not everything is a threat, grieving old versions of myself and learning how to exist without constantly living in survival mode.” So instead, we smile. Shrug. “Nothing much.” And I think it’
May 152 min read
To me...
My sweet girl, Come a little closer… there’s no rush. Rest your head against my chest and stay here with me for a while. Can you feel it? This is a place where you can finally rest. I know… I know how hard you tried to be brave when everything inside you just wanted to be held. I know how you smiled when you felt like crying, how you acted strong when, deep down, you were just a little girl needing tenderness. You don’t have to pretend anymore. I’m here. Right here. If you lo
Apr 222 min read
Loss…
Resignify It’s not forgetting. It’s not painting over it until it sounds good enough to tell. It’s looking at what hurt, straight on, without flinching, and deciding you’re not going to live there anymore. Not because it didn’t happen. Because it’s no longer yours. It took me a long time to understand the difference between carrying the past and learning from it. They’re completely different things. One weighs you down. The other holds you up. There are things I lost that are
Apr 181 min read
67
Today he would turn 67. He left at 63, with all the irreverence that was so uniquely his. As if he had walked out in the middle of the party, before anyone could say it was time to go home. The tears come. Missing his voice, those laughs that asked no one’s permission, that filled every room they entered. The silly jokes delivered with the seriousness of someone revealing the secrets of the universe. His perfume, which i still keep with me and spray every now and then, just t
Apr 112 min read
Holy Saturday
On Easter Sunday morning, the day Christians celebrate resurrection, life returning, death being defeated, I was choosing my father’s coffin. Alone. While bells were ringing somewhere, I was looking at wood. Running my hand over different finishes, listening to someone talk about prices and details as if any of it made sense. As if there were a right way to do this. As if it were possible to choose “well.” It’s hard to explain what that does to your head. The disconnection. T
Apr 41 min read
Many lives. One me.
I look back and i can’t count how many times i’ve died. I’m not talking about drama. I’m talking about the real thing: that moment when one version of you simply stops existing. Without ceremony. Without warning. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence, sometimes in a dawn you never asked for. Every major change in my life has brought a death with it. And i, naively, sometimes thought it was just a transition. A phase. Something that would pass. But it doesn’t pass like that. I
Mar 82 min read
No Permission
Today, in the warm silence of the shower, a thought found me without asking permission. And suddenly, the tears came. Not the kind you choose, but the kind that fall on their own and steal the air from your lungs. How is it possible to live twenty years with someone... twenty years!... learning how to be friends, how to be shelter, how to be a team? To be a whole woman. To be a wife. To help each other cross life. To raise children side by side. To invent routines, memories,
Jan 272 min read
Mother & Daughter's Love
I need you to hear this first: I love you. I love you more than anything, more than words can hold. I hope you feel it, even when i’m quiet, even when life gets messy, in the way i think about you, in the way i worry about you, in the way you’re always in my heart. This past year has been so hard. The separation, the divorce, moving… trying to figure out a new way to live. That’s a lot for anyone. And for you, my sensitive, kind, amazing girl, it must have felt like the groun
Jan 182 min read
Time...
There are seasons when it feels like life is quietly undoing everything you worked so hard to build. The plan you trusted no longer fits. The timeline you committed to stretches beyond recognition. What once felt certain now feels strangely out of reach. It’s tempting, in those moments, to believe you’ve missed a turn, that you’re behind, off course, or somehow failing the vision you held so clearly. But what if this phase isn’t a mistake or a setback? What if it’s a refining
Jan 112 min read
How was my year?
It didn’t destroy me. It exposed me. It showed me how often i was outsourcing my grounding. How easily i handed my center to love, to attention, to being understood. How much weight i expected other people to hold for me. This year wasn’t about heartbreak. It was about responsibility. I lived intensely. I loved fully. I didn’t dilute myself to be digestible. But i learned the hard way that intensity without self-rooting becomes survival mode. That passion without internal saf
Dec 30, 20252 min read
Christmas
Christmas arrives this year like a slow, aching melody, layered, textured, alive. Not a song for the radio, a song for the chest, for the places that cracked open and learned how to breathe again. For so many years, Christmas carried a weight. A deep, dragging gravity. I blamed the empty chairs, the missing faces, the names that no longer answered when called. And yes, absence leaves a bruise. Silence has its own language. But that was only the surface harmony. Beneath it liv
Dec 25, 20252 min read
I stay...
... with the ones who feel until it hurts to breathe. The ones with no skin, only nerves. Hearts exposed, beating loud and reckless, no mute button, no safe mode, no exit. I stay with those who love like it’s a crime they’re willing to commit. Who fall knowing it might destroy them and jump anyway. Who cry in public, in private, in the middle of the night, not to be saved, but because holding it in would kill them faster. I stay with the ones who laugh like they’re mocking de
Dec 21, 20252 min read
You...
It began before names. Before words. Before thought. A rhythm unspoken. Slow. Insistent. Impossible to resist. Minds brushing, leaning, circling. Hearts daring what bodies had not yet known. A gravity pulling without asking. A language only in pauses, in breaths, in the space between pulse and silence. And then… it shattered. Raw. Sudden. A weight cutting through everything. The rhythm trembling. Closeness dangerous. Trust fragile. The current faltered. Distance became mercy.
Dec 15, 20251 min read
7th December...
Some dates have a way of lingering in our memory, returning year after year like quiet reminders. The 7th of December is one of those days… a marker of journeys, choices and chapters that shift the course of a life. On a 7th of December long ago, someone set out to reconnect with their roots, to search for a sense of belonging that had been missing. A departure that left an empty space behind, teaching early lessons about distance, time and the stories people chase. Years lat
Dec 10, 20251 min read
How are you?
The question came, soft and ordinary: are you ok? and the truth rose, trembling, like a pulse under the skin. It didn’t escape. Yes slipped out instead… a word too small, too clean, carrying none of what it should. Another yes returned, polished, certain, hollow. And just like that, the world was “as it should be.” But beneath the surface, something cracked. Not a crash, not a roar… just a quiet collapse, the subtle giving way of what was real. Two lies met in silence, brushi
Dec 10, 20251 min read
100 years
Today my heart celebrates what would have been my grandmother’s 100th birthday. It’s impossible to put into words what it meant to have her in my life for my first 20 years. She was passion, strength, courage and charm all wrapped in one unforgettable woman, with a touch of sass that made everything brighter. She loved red, she loved to dance and she loved life with a boldness that taught me what it means to be truly alive. “Dance is life, my sweet heart!” she would say, and
Dec 3, 20251 min read
Protection...
“This girl I know needs some shelter She don't believe anyone can help her She's doing so much harm, doing so much damage But you don't wanna get involved You tell her she can manage And you can't change the way she feels But you could put your arms around her I know you wanna live yourself But could you forgive yourself If you left her just the way you found her? I stand in front of you I'll take the force of the blow, protection I stand in front of you I'll take the force o
Nov 24, 20252 min read
Healing
I don’t even know what “healing” means anymore. Everyone talks about it as if it were light, but to me it feels more like an open wound. Like tearing the skin off, layer by layer, until only the pulse and the truth remain. It isn’t peace. It’s violence. It’s chaos. It’s the sound of old versions of me screaming as they die. The parts that kept me safe, the ones that made me small enough to be loved, fight to survive and I am the one killing them. I thought trauma was pain. Bu
Nov 8, 20252 min read
5th November
Today, November 5th, i celebrate 23 years in this country i now call home. 23 years ago, i was a 25 years old woman full of dreams, starting a new life from scratch. Today, at 48, i find myself doing it all over again…rebuilding, rediscovering and reimagining my life. The past few months have been tough… but also amazing, beautiful and full of growth. Beyond my children, my greatest treasures, i’ve been blessed to find incredible souls who walk this path with me. To the one w
Nov 5, 20252 min read
Me...
It's not your anxious attachment It's your emotional avoidance Not theirs...yours You don't attract avoidant people because you're too needy You attract them because you're unavailable to your own emotions You want someone to hold your emotions But you can't even hold them yourself You want deep intimacy But you abandon your sadness the second it shows up You numb your rage You spiritualize your grief You analyze your pain instead of feeling it And so you call in partners Who
Nov 5, 20251 min read
The Dance of Life...
Lately, i’ve been thinking that life isn’t something we walk through… it’s something we dance. And the truth is, i don’t always know the steps. Some days i glide forward like the music is inside me. Other days i trip over my own feet and lose the rhythm completely. But somehow, even when i stumble, the song keeps playing. Two steps forward. One step back. And still… i move. There are days that feel like tango… heavy, close, slow. The kind of days where everything matters too
Nov 1, 20251 min read
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
I’ve been carrying this book with me these past days, and it feels like a quiet mirror. Each page asks me to look closer… at life, at death, at the spaces in between. I notice how much I cling, how much I resist, how afraid i’m of endings. And yet, there’s a strange relief in reading that letting go is not loss, but a form of living fully. Reading it feels like being guided inward, to the quiet place where acceptance begins. It’s teaching me that to live fully is to let go ge
Oct 25, 20251 min read
Ahsoka
He called me Ahsoka, the Star Wars legend. At first, I smiled. But then something inside me went still. Because it wasn’t just a name, it was recognition. It was as if he saw through me, into the quiet spaces I keep hidden and named something I hadn’t yet dared to claim. Ahsoka Tano. Once a Padawan, bright, impulsive, full of belief. She followed the light, even when it led her into darkness. She trusted and was betrayed. She lost her place, her people, her faith and still, s
Oct 17, 20252 min read
Haarlem
2002, i landed in the Netherlands, no friends, no plan, no clue. Just me, a bike and a head full of noise. Weekends were my escape: long rides through Haarlem’s narrow streets, wind in my face, music in my ears. And then, i found Kane - the Dutch music band. That sound. That fire. Raw, electric, untamed. Rock that felt like the pulse of the city itself, my city. Haarlem. Haarlem, where i learned to live alone and love it. Where i shared nights of laughter, wine and way too mu
Oct 14, 20251 min read
The Mailbox
A mailbox does not define us. Nor does it divide us. It’s only a place of passage, where words pause to breathe before finding their way to us. A quiet symbol of all we have endured: the distance, the silence, the pauses between our days. And still, we go on… with a kind of serene grace, with the lightness of those who have learned to care without the need to hold. That, perhaps, is empathy to see both pain and beauty reflected in the same gaze. They once said we were alike,
Oct 11, 20251 min read
I'm alone...
I'm alone, but not necessarily lonely. Inside me, there is a silence that no longer screams, it simply breathes. It’s a strange feeling… not bad, just new. For twenty years, I always knew there was someone there. A presence. A familiar voice with whom to share coffee and the day’s news, to discuss the weather or the chaos of the world. It was the certainty of not being alone, even when I felt lonely. After the separation came the whirlwind. A restlessness that wouldn’t fit in
Oct 10, 20251 min read
Pain...
It still hasn’t passed. No matter how often I tell myself I’m fine, there is a part of me still stuck there... hands reaching backward, heart caught in a love that slipped away. It was real. God, it was real. So strong it felt eternal and yet so fragile it shattered the moment I needed it most. I gave everything. I loved without armor, without hesitation, like someone who truly believed forever was promised. And then... nothing. An emptiness so sudden it stole the air from my
Oct 5, 20252 min read
White Page...
He told me that he was reading me. Curious, i asked: “And what do you see?” His answer was simple, yet it struck deep: “I see a white page. The chapter number one is completely empty and you can write everything you want. Go for it.” Since then, i’ve been holding onto those words. A white page… mine to fill. It feels both frightening and liberating. I am scared. I am fragile. Yet i know, that i am the one holding the pen. I can write a new story: A new life, A new job, a new
Sep 30, 20251 min read
Let them...
At first, I was skeptical. I thought “Let Them” was just another American hype. But on the recommendation of a good friend, I bought it and it surprised me. I remember opening the first chapters with a bit of resistance, almost reading to prove myself right, that it would be nothing new. But as I kept going, something shifted. The simplicity of the message hit me harder than I expected: you cannot control people. You can’t make them love you the way you want, treat you how yo
Sep 28, 20251 min read
The MailBox...
This week, I saw something I never thought I would see in the 21st century. A mailbox with paint on top… trying to erase words… revealed the weight of racism, revenge, stalking and vandalism. I knew such cruelty existed, but seeing its mark in real life was devastating, it felt like a punch to the heart. And yet, in that same moment, I saw the person. The person who rose above it all. Who chose courage over anger, empathy over hatred, humanity over destruction. Seeing that st
Sep 27, 20251 min read
The Red Leather Jacket
I was 16. He was 19. He wanted the skies, I wanted stories. Somewhere between the edges of the map, we would meet… laughing, daring, teasing each other as if the world itself was ours to flirt with. He was wild, uncontainable, brilliant… sun tanned skin and those eyes that seemed to know every secret before I did. And that red leather jacket… his signature, his courage stitched into every thread. I used to watch it from afar, imagining the fire it carried. Now I wear it. More
Sep 23, 20251 min read
The Rider
One of the first and most important lessons you learn as a rider is to keep your eyes up and not look at the ground. Why? Because you end up going where you look. If you’re always looking at the ground, that’s where you’ll end up! Keep your gaze on where you want to go, look toward your future, toward where you want to be. If you’re about to jump an obstacle, don’t look at it. Look at the horizon, at where you want to be after the jump and trust your horse to take you there.
Sep 12, 20251 min read
Water
I learned how to swim. Without logs. Without support. Alone. Free. I flow. I flow with the current that is mine alone. The nights on the balcony…cool, silent, wine in hand, the laughter of my children inside me, my warmth, my sun. Even alone…I am whole. Complete. A stillness that wraps around me, deep, gentle, infinite. Nothing binds me. Nothing diminishes me. Nothing. I am learning to like myself. I am learning to love myself. I am learning to be my own favorite company. I a
Sep 4, 20251 min read
You...
They were painful months without you. Months in which I walked alone through my shadows, in which I lost myself in hurts and silences, in which I didn’t know how to breathe whole again. It hurt not to have you, but it hurt even more not to have myself. And it was in that absence — yours and mine — that I began to find my way back. Pain pushed me inward and there I discovered a place I had never inhabited: the center of myself. Today I know that this is where everything begins
Aug 28, 20251 min read
Friendship
More than 30 years of friendship… and what a journey it has been. We’ve grown up together, crossed borders and oceans, built new homes in new countries, celebrated marriages, welcomed children and supported each other through heartbreaks and divorces. We’ve fought, made up, laughed until our stomachs hurt and cried on each other’s shoulders when life felt heavy. We are not the same people we were 30 years ago… we’ve changed, we’ve evolved, we’ve taken different paths. And yet
Aug 17, 20251 min read
Dear Me...
I’m back. Not as I left, but as I needed to return. I brought with me a heart full of knots to untie, the grief for the father who no longer waits for me at the door, the end of a love that ran out of breath, the weight of cycles that hurt me but that I was afraid to close. Landing here felt like diving into a living past: embracing friends who know my soul, stepping on sidewalks where I once was happy, recognizing scents and sounds that remind me of who I was. I cried. I smi
Aug 15, 20251 min read
Coimbra
… after all these years 23 years later, and I find myself back where it all began. Four years of my life unfolded in these streets… carefree, untamed, golden. We lived like the world had no edges, laughed like the nights would never end. Here, the air still carries the echo of serenatas, the kind that made your heart pause mid-beat. Here, I loved deeply… people, moments, possibilities… and maybe, just maybe, almost chose forever. But time has a way of carrying us forward, eve
Aug 6, 20251 min read
Marriage...
September 2009. I left this house to get married. Not with doubt, but with a heart full of hope and hands open to the life ahead. Nights before, I’d sit on that old balcony, glass of wine in hand, wrapped in silence and soft questions: “Are you ready?” And I was. I loved fully. I chose with faith. It’s no accident that my entrance song was Only Time by Enya. Because only time knows what we can’t yet name. Only time reveals what love alone cannot carry. Now, almost sixteen yea
Aug 2, 20251 min read
Keep Swimming
I am still adrift. In this river I did not choose, but that carries me anyway. I don’t know where it’s taking me. I no longer try to know. There is a part of me that grew tired of asking. I fought against the current too many times. I spent my body. I spent my soul. And what I received was silence, water in my lungs, and an exhaustion i don’t know how to put into words. Every time I tried to resist, I sank. Now I let myself go. Not out of weakness, but out of clarity. Because
Jul 22, 20252 min read
Impossible loves
Impossible loves carry a unique beauty, almost poetic, that seems to exist between dream and reality. They are like stars: distant, untouchable, yet always shining deep in the chest. These loves teach us what it means to feel intensely, even when logic asks us to retreat, even when life gives us reasons to let go. They remain there, like a silent secret, pulsing in every memory, in every “what if” that never came to be. There is something eternal about impossible loves... not
Jul 22, 20251 min read
Dance
Tonight, I slipped into my dancing shoes the ones that know me, know every sway, every silent ache and craving. And when the Latin beat hit… I let go. Hips led. Eyes closed. I danced like the music was made for my body alone. No performance. No apology. Just raw, feminine energy spilling out, unapologetic, unfiltered, alive. I needed this… to remember who the hell I am when I stop shrinking and start feeling again. Tonight, in my red leather and unapologetic skin, I didn’t ju
Jul 21, 20251 min read
Lion Tamer
I am not a lion tamer. I was not born to subdue the untamable, nor to reduce the wild nature of those who became fierce in the world. Life, yes, taught me to rise with an invisible whip in my hands… not to wound, but to endure. I used it against the days when I almost lost myself, against the fears that tightened my chest, against the temptation to give up on myself. But that whip… I do not raise it in love. In love, I lay down my weapons. Because loving is not winning, nor l
Jul 19, 20252 min read
A letter to me...
I feel like I need to write to you now, while I’m still in the middle of this river, tired, soaked, confused. I haven’t reached the other bank yet. I don’t even know if I will. But I’m here. Swimming. Trying. And that alone is already more than I ever thought I’d be capable of. I dared. Against everything that told me to stay still, not to move, not to take risks. I dared to cross. Not because I know what’s on the other side... because I don’t. What drives me is a stubborn, a
Jul 16, 20252 min read
My Wingman
This may not be your best picture, but this moment will remain etched in me like a mark, an echo in my heart. I saw you stripped of your armour, naked in your deepest vulnerability... not the body, but the soul exposed, open, sincere. In that surrender, I found a brutal beauty, a rare courage that made me shiver and reminded me that the next three weeks will be hard for me without them, but that I too will manage… You translated what you felt into images. I gave you my music.
Jul 13, 20252 min read
Shall we dance?
Red shoes on, night dress flowing… I don’t wait for the dance, I am the dance. Showing up for me, loving me, no permission needed!
Jul 13, 20251 min read
My Girl...
Today, my little girl becomes a teenager. 13. A number that somehow holds more weight than all the others before it... because with it comes strength, growth, beauty and the beginning of becoming who you truly are. My love, we’ve danced through life in a way that no one else can quite understand. Through the hardest storms, we’ve held hands, tightly, sometimes silently but always together. Even when everything around us felt heavy or uncertain, we found a way to laugh, to smi
Jul 8, 20251 min read
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