Lately, I’ve been looking at myself and thinking:

Fuck. I’m actually really pretty.

I know.

Very humble opening.

But stay with me.

I’ve been looking at old fashion references, especially from the ’80s, experimenting more with my hair, clothes, jewellery, makeup — all these little things — and I’ve started noticing features I’ve had my entire life as if I were seeing them properly for the first time.

My eyes.

My naturally defined lips.

My long eyelashes.

My moles.

My big forehead.

My hair.

Even my height and the shape of my body.

And I’ve been thinking:

Wait. I really like all of this.

Which is funny, because for most of my life I felt like I didn’t really know what to do with myself.

Not because I hated how I looked.

I just didn’t have a map.

Nobody taught me these things

I didn’t grow up in a family where women passed things down.

There wasn’t a stylish aunt whose wardrobe I raided.

There wasn’t a grandmother giving me jewellery and telling me the story behind each piece.

Nobody sat me down and explained which colours suited me, how to choose good shoes, what kind of coat was worth investing in or how to build a jewellery collection.

We bought what we could when we could.

As I got older, my mum was sometimes able to buy me clothes from brands I liked.

But we were both figuring it out.

There wasn’t a family aesthetic.

There weren’t objects being passed from one generation to another.

There wasn’t a particular perfume all the women wore or a beautiful coat waiting for me in a wardrobe.

And it wasn’t only about clothes.

I’d go to friends’ houses and notice little traditions.

Their family always did this on birthdays.

They cooked this at Christmas.

Someone had inherited something from an aunt.

Someone’s mum had taught her how to make something.

There were stories attached to objects.

Rituals.

Rules.

Ways of doing things that apparently everyone in the family just knew.

And I’d quietly think:

We don’t have any of that.

For years, I saw that as a negative.

I don’t have this.

Nobody taught me that.

I don’t know how to do this.

I don’t have anyone to copy.

And then, literally this morning, I saw the exact same thing differently.

Wait a minute.

I have a blank page.

A blank page sounds romantic until somebody gives you one

We talk about freedom as if it’s automatically exciting.

You can do whatever you want!

Great.

What the fuck do I want?

Give someone a blank piece of paper and tell them:

Draw anything.

And watch what happens.

Sometimes they freeze.

What should I draw?

Where do I start?

What if it looks stupid?

What am I supposed to do?

A blank page contains infinite possibility.

Which is beautiful.

It is also mildly terrifying.

And I think I’ve experienced that feeling in many areas of my life.

Being the first person in your family or environment to do something sounds empowering when you tell the story afterwards.

While you’re actually doing it?

Sometimes it just feels like:

Can somebody please tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do?

There are no footsteps.

No blueprint.

No person three years ahead saying:

Don’t worry. This bit is normal.

You have to make decisions without knowing whether they’re good decisions.

And sometimes you envy people who inherited a map.

But inheriting a map also means inheriting its borders

This is the part I hadn’t considered before.

Yes, having traditions gives you something to follow.

But following something also means somebody got there before you and decided how it should be done.

When nobody decided?

You get to.

Nobody told me what my style had to look like.

So apparently I’ve spent my life combining colours, textures and things that interested me without worrying too much about whether they belonged together.

Nobody handed me a jewellery tradition.

So now I can create one.

I’ve recently decided I want to start buying myself a piece of jewellery when something meaningful happens in my life.

Not because I need another object.

Because I love the idea of being able to look at my hand or neck twenty years from now and remember:

That one was when I qualified as a Pilates instructor.

That one was for my birthday.

That one was when I accomplished something I wasn’t sure I could.

Maybe one day those pieces will be passed down.

Maybe they won’t.

That’s almost beside the point.

The point is:

the tradition can start with me.

That’s something I’d never really thought about.

Somebody had to be the first

Every family tradition we romanticise started somewhere.

The Christmas recipe wasn’t always the Christmas recipe.

At some point, somebody cooked it for the first time.

The necklace wasn’t always an heirloom.

At some point, someone walked into a shop and bought it.

The birthday ritual wasn’t always a tradition.

Someone decided:

We’re doing this.

Then they did it again.

And again.

Eventually another generation inherited something that once was simply one person’s idea.

I think I used to imagine traditions as things you either had or didn’t have.

As if families were issued them at the beginning.

Apparently mine missed the distribution.

But that’s ridiculous.

Traditions are just decisions that survived long enough to become stories.

And decisions can begin today.

I’m starting to notice the life I’m building

Once I saw this, I started seeing it everywhere.

Jewellery.

Perfume.

Skincare.

Movement.

Pilates.

Clothes.

How I want my home to feel.

Whether people will wear shoes inside my future house.

What happens on birthdays.

What food I make.

What I celebrate.

How I celebrate myself.

What I spend money on.

What I don’t.

What objects I want to keep for twenty years instead of replacing next season.

These things can sound superficial when you list them.

But I don’t think they are.

They’re tiny decisions about what kind of life feels like yours.

Maybe that’s what I’m doing now.

Not simply buying earrings or figuring out which colours look good on me.

I’m creating references.

For myself first.

Maybe for someone else later.

You can learn what nobody taught you

There’s another thing I forget sometimes.

I’ve already done this before.

Years ago, I wanted sushi in a small town in Argentina where, at the time, sushi wasn’t exactly something you could casually order.

Nobody in my family knew how to make sushi.

Nobody taught me.

So I watched videos and figured it out.

Eventually I got good enough that I started selling it.

People who had never eaten sushi before tried it because I had randomly decided one day:

Well, I guess I’ll learn.

That’s kind of hilarious when I think about it now.

Because how many times have I said:

But nobody taught me how to do this.

Okay.

Nobody taught me sushi either.

And apparently that didn’t stop me.

Maybe nobody taught me is sometimes a fact.

But it doesn’t always have to be the end of the sentence.

Nobody taught me.

So I learned.

Nobody showed me.

So I looked.

Nobody in my family did it.

So maybe I’ll be the first.

Being first is lonely sometimes

I don’t want to romanticise this.

Sometimes I would still like the map.

I’d love to call someone and say:

How did you do this?

What did you buy?

What happens next?

Is this normal?

Did you feel scared too?

Sometimes being the first feels less like freedom and more like walking through a dark room with your hands stretched out in front of you.

You make mistakes.

You buy the wrong thing.

You trust the wrong person.

You spend money badly.

You realise three years later that there was a much easier way to do something.

And yes, sometimes you think:

For fuck’s sake, it would’ve been nice if somebody had explained this.

That’s real too.

But maybe the absence of a blueprint doesn’t mean there’s something missing from your life.

Maybe it means some parts haven’t been designed yet.

I used to look at what wasn’t there

I think that’s the perspective that changed for me.

For years I looked backwards.

No traditions.

No inheritance.

No family blueprint.

Nobody who moved in certain circles.

Nobody teaching me these things.

Nobody showing me the next step.

And all of those things can be true.

But I was looking at an empty page and reading it as evidence of absence.

Now I’m starting to see space.

Space to decide.

Space to experiment.

Space to get things wrong.

Space to say:

Actually, in my house we do it differently.

Space to create something that feels so natural twenty years from now that maybe I’ll forget there was ever a time when it didn’t exist.

Maybe inheritance can travel forward

When we hear the word inheritance, we usually look backwards.

What did I receive?

What did my family give me?

What was passed down?

But lately I’ve been wondering whether inheritance can also be something you look at in the opposite direction.

What am I creating that could be passed forward?

Maybe it’s jewellery.

Maybe it’s a recipe.

Maybe it’s a way of celebrating birthdays.

Maybe it’s financial knowledge nobody taught you.

Maybe it’s the habit of travelling.

Maybe it’s exercise.

Maybe it’s affection.

Maybe it’s the way people are allowed to speak to each other in your home.

Maybe it’s simply giving the next person a reference you never had.

And suddenly being first doesn’t feel quite as lonely.

It feels creative.

I spent years thinking:

Why didn’t anybody give me these things?

I’m starting to ask a different question.

What do I want to be the beginning of?

Because maybe a blank page isn’t evidence that your story has nothing in it.

Maybe it means nobody has written this part yet.

And if that’s the case, I suppose I get to pick up the pen.

What would you create differently if you stopped seeing what you didn’t inherit as an absence — and started seeing it as space?