I love writing. That is a sentence that I wouldn’t have expected to ever mean. And yet I do. Another sentence I never thought I would ever say (or anybody who knows me in the real world) is “I like Taekwondo”. Life surprises you. I love that.

I went to a self-defence class, just because it was free, convenient and sometimes I walk my dog late at night in NYC. It was an intense experience. The idea was to find our voices and be able to say No. It was weird for most of the ladies in the class. I guess women are socialized to be of service and thus saying no without an apology is very alien to us. Or perhaps it is a generational thing. My daughter says No with a naturality that drives me crazy sometimes. Anyway, the person organizing the class also does Taekwondo classes, so I gave it a try. It was exhilarating. I had so much fun kicking and punching and the workout was good too, at least judging by the pain I felt over the next days. I will go back for sure!

Another thing that is very alien to me, but that I am trying to embrace is that of letting go of things. My office is moving to flexible space and that means that I need to bring home all my belongings. And those are many. They include the many books I have gotten over the years, animal figurines from my trips and many other miscellaneous, known as “tchotchkes” around here. This means that I need to have space at home for them. And that is the problem. I have very little space. Manhattan is a dream island, but clearly not because of the size of the apartments. I was thinking about that when, to my surprise the former Minister of Finance of Colombia mentioned Marie Kondo’s Netflix show in his blog. I must tell you: the method to store clothes like triangles is lifechanging!

But throwing out books is something completely different. How can I know if a book means joy for me if I have never opened it? The fact that I have never opened it is reason enough to throw it out? What if I got it overseas? What if it is a collection of more than 30 economics books that my grandfather gave to me AFTER I graduated from college?

I am struggling, as you can see. Bear with me.