Everyone loves to say that things have a way of falling into place. For me it's always been a faith filled phrase that helps me accept the everyday while staying hopeful for the future. Hopeful for the moment that those certain things that keep you up at night, and constantly revolve around your head like chirping birds on a cartoon princess' head, finally decide to find an unexpected and beautiful way of slowly falling down ... softly and subtly, like a flying feather, towards the exact spot that they belong. For me, things falling into place feel like finding the right pice of a puzzle in the first try, so satisfying and reassuring, making me believe they have always been this way and wondering how they weren't before.
But the most amazing feeling of them all, is when you fall right into place. When the piece that finally fits is not just a small one, like putting together an effortless vacation, but a big one, one that feels like Cinderella's slipper fitting in, simply life-changing; Putting you in the place you needed to be, a feeling so strong it may also be known as "finding the one". The one person, the one path, the one job ... and lucky for me, I've just professionally fallen into place.
It's funny how this happens, how the world constantly reminds us that yes, there is a universal plan written in our stars, a plan that manages to unravel and magically match our hearts' desires; or maybe it's the other way around, and our hearts' desires are the ones that sketch our plan and create the magic ... either way, the realization of being where you yearned to be and discovering your heart was right all along is simply precious.
I guess by writing this, I'm set to share the unexpected yet amazing turn my life took this last month, maybe just because it feels just so important to left alone without any reflection or something to reminisce what I feel. So I guess I'll tell a little story about what brought me here, and that begins with a simple fact that everyone who knows me well might know, I've loved two important things for as long as I remember, fashion and words.
When thinking back into when or where my passion for fashion began I can only travel to a specific memory, I was on my first year of elementary school, barely 6 or 7 years old when a special date appeared on my school agenda, the First Graders Retreat, the retreat was a day when you ditched classes and participated in fun activities away from the classroom, but the most special thing about it is that you could wear anything you liked to school, instead of the boring uniform we always did.
I remember thinking for days what outfit would I choose, trying on clothes and styling them differently with my mom rolling her eyes at me and making fun of such a small girl worrying so much about what to wear "you're only six! imagine when you grow up just how long will it take you to get ready to your first party?!" but having studied Fashion Design herself I guess she realized it just came natural to me, to care about clothes and what they communicate so much. I ended up picking a denim skirt with a pink and orange flower brooch and subtle frill at the bottom, paired with a classic white t-shirt. I obviously woke up three hours before school because I was just so excited to sleep, and everything needed to be perfect. No piece of clothing do I regret more for giving away than that skirt, a classic staple in the fashion archive of my life.
As I grew up, when I was around 10 years old, I discovered books. Not just silly little books from the pre-school library where I used to rent a fairy story over and over again, but actual grown up kid books with little to no illustrations and lots and lots of words. Miss Vicky, my third grade teacher, told me she believed I was a reader, and sent me a special assignment to write a book report about any book that had more than a hundred pages for extra credit, a hundred pages!? that just seemed as so much for me, but as soon as I was done with the first book in just about a week, I discovered that I actually was a reader, and kept going and going, using my library card more than half of the other kids in my grade.
(Now when I think about it, I know everyone that can read is a reader, just as anyone that can walk is a runner, I believe it just takes a little curiosity to discover that you have it within you, and I wish everyone would be curious enough about themselves to become this two very fundamental things.)
So there I was, a small girl that had just discovered two very important passions that were about to forge her life, just as the little souls in Pixar's "Soul" do right before setting off to earth, my main passions were unlocked, and along words and fashion, was illustration and music. A native creative some may call me, and yes, I proudly am. Sooner rather than later, just as any human being, I discovered magazines. At first the concept simply enamoured me and I tried to start a school magazine when I was in fifth grade at elementary school. I collected a group of friends to write it with me, every one had her own topic, from school events to studying tips, and paired with my self taught design skills in well ... Word and Paint, and my mother's dismay after learning I printed a color set for every girl in the classroom at home, this magazine project successfully lasted, drumrolls please, two months. Yay!
Then fashion magazines came into my life, just as they do into every teenager's. Special, good smelling shiny paper filled with pictures of the latest fashions and articles that taught me about the world out there, and managed to guide me through my very first and very disastrous smokey eye.
I bought different types and loved different things about each one, in Glamour or Seventeen (when my mother would agree to buy me a grown up magazine or I managed to sneak it at the checkout in the supermarket) I always read about the Hollywood gossip and discovered which whatever was best for me in their funny and entertaining quizzes, in more serios magazines like Vogue I discovered more interesting fashion trends and designers, and in my pass-me-down grandma's Hola's I always ended up choosing a picture of a royal as my next haircut inspiration. (Tradition that still lives on, thank you Amanda Cook Tucker )
I kept and treasured magazines and fashion catalogues under my bed, religiously buying The US September Issue at Books Books Books, the local bookstore that had all the international titles, and kept marking my favorite advertisements to use as notebook covers for the following school year. (There's no way to mistake your notebooks if you knew Miss Dior was chemistry and Ralph Lauren history, right? )
It was around that time, while watching with my friends The Devil Wears Prada and Gossip Girl over and over again that I couldn't help but to dream about someday working in the fashion industry and meeting the legendary Anna Wintour, or becoming an intern in a fashion magazine just as Blair Waldorf did at W. But everyone grows and realizes that teenage dreams are set to stay so ... or not?
Fast-forwarding into my senior year with a defined style and several velour garments finally out of my closet for good, I chose marketing & communications as a major. Fashion still in my mind but my close encounters with fabric while my mom taught me a thing or two reassured me that my approach to that world was definitely not as a designer. I guess since I already admired so many talented designers and followed so many amazing brands, the path was clear, I was to graduate, apply constantly and then magically land a job at Ralph Lauren, Kate Spade or Vogue ... easy peasy ... NOT AT ALL!
Every fashion related interview I had ended up in "sorry but we need someone with experience in the industry" and calling in favors from friends with sisters in Tommy Hilfiger or in wherever other brand were not enough. So my plan grew a little, graduating, studying a master in fashion marketing and then finally landing the fashion job ... so in the meantime while finishing college and waiting for my masters to magically be sponsored by dad, I took a parenthesis time and started creating my professional career with jobs in places that were fun and great and filled with amazing people ... but had nothing at all to do with fashion or magazines, and oddly a lot to do with snacks.
In the eve of my 25th birthday, just a couple of months back, I realized that my teenage dream was most likely to stay so. At least for another good couple or more years until I could manage to afford my master's degree, which was not going to be magically sponsored by anyone apparently; but so much could happen in between and I could drift away from my passion so fast, as so many people do. In a blink I'd be turning 50 and wondering what if ... while living in a completely different life and going down a completely different path ... While I was drowning in a riptide of anxiety for the unknown future I just wished so badly for a change, for a lucky break that could find me that open door into the fashion world before I let my dream die completely, any door would do really, I was not to be picky at this uncertain times, but I needed to move and hustle and try to find that door A.S.A.P ...
Opportunities show up unannounced, glance directly at you and leave just as quickly as they arrived, so you either jump onboard the opportunity train as if you were living in the Divergent movie and wish to enjoy the ride or you might get old waiting for the next one to come, wondering if sitting there staring at the empty tracks is where you really belonged ... so as the greatest opportunity ever stopped for a second at my station, I jumped onboard, realizing soon that this was not just any door as I had wished for, but a huge golden one with a pretty mat and a nice porche surrounding it.
Today I am working at Condé Nast, the same company I dreamt about being a part of someday while watching Andrea Sachs become a fashion girl as a little kid, and that has for years published those magazines that I collected and read and helped me become myself, from the ads and trends in Vogue to my very favorite short stories from The New Yorker.
I still have to pinch myself everyday when entering the 8th floor and when crossing paths or conversations with the editors. The teenage girl that still lives inside me, does a little crazy dance whenever I look at my company's card or log into my mail, screaming "you're making it all come true!" with a grin that I can't help but draw on my face everyday. I somehow work in the same company as Anna Wintour does, yes, THAT ANNA, and meeting her someday doesn't sound as impossible and crazy as it once did, all those years back.
I guess that with this story, I am urging you to take that leap and stay real to your passions and desires. Sometimes you see things happen to others and wonder if they'll ever happen to you, or worse, doubt they ever will. I am trying here to really make you believe that what you hope for ... you deserve, and you should chase that actively, after all, sometimes taking that leap of faith will simply mean you'll fall ... right into place.
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