C’è stato un momento, lunedì mattina, in cui ho capito che qualcosa in me, nella mia vita, nella mia visione del mondo e di me stessa, si era incrinato. Era il mio terzo caffè, la luce artificiale già accesa anche se fuori era giorno, e io seduta a una scrivania che avevo desiderato per anni senza averla mai immaginata davvero. Vent’anni. Primo lavoro. Parlamento Europeo. E una domanda che non avevo previsto: e se fosse questo? Siamo (o almeno io lo sono) cresciuti dentro una

Everyone who knows me knows about the bag. The brown Roberto Cavalli shoulder bag with a (very bratty) hot-pink interior. The outside is covered with metallic buckles, small ornamental traps that immediately caught my eye when I first saw this (very) unique accessory. I found it last year in a vintage shop in Le Marais that I entered casually, mostly because my friend Bruna and I needed a break from the unbearable February cold of Paris. I made the purchase proudly (encourag

Stanotte vado a dormire ragazza e domani mi sveglierò donna. O almeno questa è la frase, più o meno drammatica e spettacolare, che mi sta...

Per gran parte della mia vita adulta non mi sono considerata una persona felice. Non perché la mia esistenza fosse priva di gioie, anzi,...

C’è un momento specifico in cui un oggetto smette di essere oggetto e diventa misura del tempo. La mia casa sull’albero, per anni, è...

I used to think the low vibration under my skin was just part of being alive, like a second pulse no one else could hear. It was there in...

In every half-decent thriller movie, there’s that one scene near the end where the villain says something slightly off. Something too...

Questo mese non ho scritto nulla. 31 giorni senza il rumore frenetico delle dite senza tastiera. 31 giorni senza “Anna mi è venuta...

It’s a strange thing, how pain becomes a background hum in the life of a woman, so quiet and constant that we don’t always notice it anymore. Pain is handed to us, from the moment we are born, as if it’s just something that belongs to us. You don’t question it. You don’t protest it. You simply endure it. But at what point do we stop and ask why? Why am I expected to suffer without question, without relief, without acknowledgment? For women, pain becomes a part of our identit

I’ve always thought "seize the day" was bullshit. It’s one of those things movies and authors have been selling us for decades, making us believe it’s the answer to everything. They wrap it up in pretty, neat packages with catchy lines, acting like that’s all you need to fix whatever is wrong with you. "Carpe diem," they say. "Live in the moment," they urge, as if one click of the clock can transform everything you’re feeling. But it never works that way, does it? Because whe

I spent most of my life believing that independence was the final proof of adulthood. A refusal to need. A refusal to be beholden. I thought that was strength: moving through life without attaching too hard to anything that could leave. I think if you know me at all, you know of Anna. Not because I’ve ever made a point of talking about her, but because she tends to appear anyway, threaded through almost every story I tell. Over time, I’ve understood that she’s stitched into t

People love to put you in a box. Mine was obvious from early on. When I was eight, I learned the word “feminism” and immediately decided it explained everything. It made sense of things that had been bothering me, things I didn’t know how to talk about. From that point on, it became the framework for how I saw the world. Not just an interest, not even just a belief, more like a lens I couldn’t take off. I was feminist, and I was angry, and that combination seemed to make sens

One month from today I will leave Reims and France. In a few months London will take over, six months there, then six in Brussels. After that, a blank page. Or maybe the kind of page that bleeds through when you press too hard. I’ll have a degree, a couple suitcases, and a more accurate sense of how long a goodbye really takes. Friends keep asking what comes next. I tell them I don’t know. I say it so flatly the sentence sounds true, even to me. What I really mean is that I’v

I’ve always believed in an invisible system behind things. Not fate, not karma: something subtler. A kind of emotional economy. You give something honest, something soft, and in return you’re held. You speak, and someone stays. You show yourself, carefully, clumsily, sincerely, and you’re met with warmth. That was the deal I thought I understood. But that logic failed me more times than I can count. And still, I kept going back to it, the way people return to locked doors jus

It hit me in the most ordinary moment: sitting on the metro, headphones in, pretending I wasn’t there. That’s what we do, right? We board the train, pull ourselves inward, and wear our public faces. Not angry, not sad: just blank enough to disappear. A silent agreement: don’t look at me, I won’t look at you. I was in that mode, halfway between nowhere and wherever, when I saw her. The girl across from me, head leaning against the window, lips moving faintly. It took me a seco

I’ve been that person, the one who smirks when someone names Harry Potter as their favorite book or rolls their eyes when someone says they love Taylor Swift. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with either, but because they’re popular . So popular that their ubiquity feels like an affront to individuality. And I convinced myself this reaction came from a place of discernment, a sharper understanding of what “good” art should be. But it wasn’t about quality. It was

At some point, you learn to shape yourself into whatever will make you easiest to love. Not consciously—there’s no defining moment, no...

Non ho mai fatto la maturità. Non ho mai vissuto la tensione elettrica della prima prova, l’ansia che si scioglie nelle risate nervose...

Sometimes I wonder if the most profound kind of pain is the one you’ve never met. That thought wouldn’t leave me the other night as I...

She’s already there when I walk in, sitting at a small table by the window, fingers wrapped around a cup she hasn’t touched yet. She looks up as I approach, and for a second, we just stare at each other. I know exactly what she’s thinking. That’s me? I sit down. She’s dressed in all black, of course. She always is. Not because she particularly loves it, but because it’s easy, because it looks polished, because it gives her a sense of control over how she’s seen. Silver jewelr