Dear friends,
As I opened the letters this month, I kept noticing how much of life happens in contradiction. The prompt question worked its magic, it’s amazing to see these different examples of life’s push and pull:
What contradiction do you live with every day? What part of your life feels like it pulls you in two directions at once?
We want closeness but need distance. We love people who also hurt us. We crave change but cling to what’s familiar. Pride and guilt, hope and resignation… the list could go on.
Most of us live somewhere in between — not entirely one thing or the other, just carrying on with the tension. Sometimes we call it confusion. Most days, we move through these opposites without naming them; it feels ordinary, even automatic.
This month’s letters don’t offer clarity — just a little company in that in-between.
“
The first thing that came to my mind when I read your question was: I love my mother, but I don’t like her.
Even writing that feels ungrateful, but it’s the truth.
I actually resent her. There’s something about her — the way she speaks, the way she moves around a room and that takes me back to a version of myself I don’t want to meet again. Her way of interrupting, the way she sighs when I talk — all of it pulls me straight back to being a kid who never got it right. A small, uneasy child, always trying to say the right thing, to earn her warmth.
I thought growing up would fix that. That once I had my own life, my own home, I could stop caring so much about her moods. But it’s still there — the same knot in my stomach when she calls, the same panic before I answer. It’s like an old reflex I can’t unlearn. She’ll say something like, “You sound tired,” and somehow it feels like a judgment. Or she’ll remind me how I used to forget my coat as a child, as if that explains everything about me now. Every word of hers seems to reach backward, undoing years of distance I tried to build.
When I visit her, I catch myself going into old patterns like being agreeable, minimizing myself, pretending not to notice the small criticisms that she spits on me. I go back to being ten years old without realizing it. It’s strange that even now, as an adult, I can’t seem to unhook from that.
I know she tried her best, and I know her life wasn’t easy, that she carried her own disappointments and loneliness. But knowing doesn’t stop the ache, it doesn’t make her voice sound any softer.
It’s not that I hate her. I see her loneliness, the way she fills her days with routines, how she still tries to be needed. But being around her makes me feel small and guilty. Guilty for what, I don’t even know. Maybe one day I’ll understand her better, but for now, I just try to love her from far enough away that I can still breathe.
—RM
“
What a beautiful and profound question.
I’d say the biggest contradiction I live with every day is being, on one hand, a woman who is expected to be highly productive and professionally accomplished — to have a place in the corporate world, to align with a company’s values, to be seen as an essential part of a large economic system that expects results for the business, for society, for the country, and for the family.
But at the same time, I’m also a mother raising children in an international context — often with little or no help — juggling countless responsibilities: school, friends, sports, extracurricular activities, and more.
For me, this is a profound daily contradiction: we are expat moms, but we are also women, professionals, friends, daughters. And we constantly feel pulled between the desire to achieve and the need to be fully present for the people we love.
—Adriana
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Each day, I find myself asking how to “properly” approach the writing process. There’s a contradiction at the heart of it: I long to sit with my ideas as long as they need, yet the longer I stay with one, the more I feel mired, as if in muddy water. I want my writing to be swift—but also slow enough to ferment into something rich. What I find most fascinating about any creative process it that there are no prescriptions, no universal recipes that can be handed out and secretly applied. It feels frustrating not to have found my “own” recipe yet, even after so many years of writing, but perhaps I’m fixated on a wrong thing.
— Anonymous
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I found an old grocery list in my coat pocket: bread, yogurt, carrots, batteries, soap. I don’t even remember writing it. It made me weirdly emotional, seeing my own handwriting listing such small, ordinary needs.
There’s something comforting about how life keeps asking for the same things, no matter what’s happening on certain higher levels: food, cleanliness, something that still works.
—
Thank you
To those who shared their thoughts: thank you for your vulnerability. To those who read them: thank you for holding these stories with care. If something here resonated with you, or if you feel moved to share your own note or letter, I’d love to include your voice in the next collective letter.
Until then, may these words remind you that whatever you are carrying, somewhere in this chaotic world, someone else is carrying a similar weight.
Natasha
November’s Gatherings
If you’re in the mood for good company and a journaling practice from the comfort of your armchair, join us for this month’s Clarity Pages:
Thursday, November 6
10.00 - 11.30 CET
Online
Saturday, November 15
10.00 - 11.30 CET
Online
How to join?
Monthly paid subscription. If you value the intention behind Eirene Cafe and find it positively impacting your well-being, consider supporting it with a paid subscription. This gives you access to the Clarity Pages, and you’ll receive the meeting link the day before the gathering.
Payment per gathering. If a one-time payment suits you better right now, you can choose to pay per gathering. Your subscription to Eirene Cafe will remain free, and you’ll still receive the meeting link the day before the gathering.
Note: If paying isn’t possible right now and you’d benefit from the monthly gatherings, email me at eirene.cafe@gmail.com, and I’ll send the meeting link the day before the gathering —no questions asked.