You're stuck on me like a tattoo

In bed, before going to sleep, I hug him tight and then ask "Do you love me at least a little bit?" (I hate myself for doing this)

Husband: "Stop nagging me"

"You've never even said it once this year"

Husband: "C'mon, we've been together for 16 years"

Sometimes I find myself wishing he would at least lie. I do believe he's going to spend the rest of his life with me, and I know that feelings change over time. I do not expect his heart to go boom every time he sees me, I do not want drama or anything. And I do want to spend the rest of my life with him - I know this year my life is a little hectic but I promise this has not changed.

But I do show my love and affection in different ways, that go from physical ones, to telling him, to cooking thigs he likes (and I would add cooking dinner every damn night, baking fresh bread 3 times a week, washing his clothes and generally speaking running the household), to making sure he is well stocked with clothes etc, getting him small gifts and so on.

I just want to feel loved, and mostly I do not. I am conscious I have issues to this extent - I guess what happens in our childhood does leave marks, and even when we are aware of it it's impossible to completely get rid of things. So I know that I am a person that needs reassurance and validation, and I know it can be tiresome, but trust me, I do not spend my days asking "Do you love me?".

The cat certainly gets more physical affection and love words than me. I am aware S makes coffee every morning, takes the trash out, comes home every night and goes to work every day. While he feels he does more than his share and shows his affection this way, I do not believe taking the trash out and hitting the button on the coffee machine in the morning qualifies as "more than my share", but I knew who I was marrying. And I know how much my professional success is difficult for him to accept as he will always make a comparison and I know it chafes. We may be in 2026 but I married an Italian man coming from a very traditional, patriarchal and catholic family - I understand it is difficult for him.

But then, there's this: when I go away for work he sulks and he calls me all the time. And this is probably something I should keep more into my mind. Granted, he may just miss someone who washes the clothes throughout the week rather than waiting for the weekend when I fly back home, but S is not someone who cares about his clothes, so I do believe he truly misses me (or at least the bread and the dinners) while I'm gone. So this is what I shall keep in my mind.

Song for this post: "Birds" by Imagine Dragons

best day ever

 Yesterday I did something I had not done properly since 2018.

I went running. Well, first I went to the gym, and then I went running outside with S, 4 miles (6km) at a pleasant pace (36 minutes overall).

It was amazing. I had not felt that good in so long. Fort those who were not reading, I used to run a lot, doing longer distances on weekends (12 miles usually), and then I screwed my left knee in 2018 and had a less than perfect surgery at the end of 2019. There have been previous attempts at running again, but none has gone well.

Yesterday I felt like flying. I stopped because I was afraid of overdoing it and of waking up today with a smarting knee, but I could have continued for further 6km without problems. I did not know I was this well trained honestly.

And today my knee does not hurt.

I do not think I can convey how I am beyond myself with joy.

Song for this post: "Runnin' (Lose it all)" by Naughty Boy and Beyoncé

A sunny breakfast can fix a lot of things

 Not much is happening or at least this is what is seems like to me.

A couple days after my last post, Mischief sent me a long text that I'll partly copy here (I cancelled some things that include details on our clients):

Just wanted to say hi and hope all is well there. I am coincidentally in Seattle and had dinner with [our firm] Telco leader who is from Rome which was fun. I liked him. Didn't know things were crazy there like in Paris or so he said. Nothing new here. Been doing a lot of longevity stuff. I also heard your client [my main client for whom I do a lot of work with -us West Coast] on Bloomberg the other morning and was surprised. Oh you'll be surprised to hear I pinged [long piece about an investment he wanted to make a few months ago on which I gave him a bit of help in my professional capacity]. They said everyone we met is asking all about me and what happened 😬! Felt bad but the data center stuff was the right call. Anyway, I hope you're well. ♥️

To add some context, this was after the weekend where protests spiked to a riot downtown here, but I think media put more hype on the story than it deserved. I consciously let the text simmer for 12h before giving a short reply ("hey! so did you meet [name of Telco guy]?"). he went on with long texts and I gave in and resumed the conversation. We discussed how I am currently not very happy with the firm and that I should explore other opportunities, among other things. I am probably reading too much into the fact that he resumed the conversation.

Meanwhile, I just spent two days in Taormina for my firm annual partners meeting, which is in my humble opinion the most beautiful place in the world (although I would not want to live there). Taormina is in Sicily and a number of movies were filmed there, like Aquaman 2):

The volcano was calmly erupting (it's almost always the case), it felt like summer with 24 Celsius, weather was amazing. We had dinner in the hotel of the White Lotus Season 2, everything was good. A colleague that was with me in Mountain View spent a good 30 minutes obliviously talking to me about Mischief and how the guy was interesting and how he spent all his time with me and am I still in touch with him, he's such a handsome guy - at this point I smiled and politely said I'm certainly better looking and I think he got the hint to stop buggering me.

I spent the night working after receiving a call at 1h30 in the morning (hello West Coast), had a bit of a stressful situation and at 7h30 when I was done I called my friend Cinzia, who was staying in the bedroom next to mine, and we went to breakfast. Breakfast was here:

Needless to say, this took away my stress.

I'm afraid my decisions about avoiding contact with Mischief were also taken away but hey, a girl can dream.

Song for this post: "Angel of the morning" by Juice Newton

October gloom

 After a long day, largely spent helping out California-based partners of my firm that I'm helping in winning projects with my main client, I texted Mischief

"How come I spend half of my days in calls with LA and SF partners and it is never you?"

I didn't have to wait long for a reply "Hey how are you? Who are you working with?"

And off we went chatting and gossiping a little.

 

At least this is how it played in my mind. In the real world, I did not text him in first place. I am thinking that he will slowly fade away from my thoughts, but after a vivid dream last night I am not so sure this is happening (in case you are wondering, in the dream we were walking and he was talking about his dog). In any case, I am still avoiding to reach out to him and I still feel it would hurt my dignity doing so at this point.

 

In other news, it's the time of the year where I feel frustrated and depressed. We close the fiscal year at the end of June and as partners we are notified our annual compensation at the very end of October/beginning of November, but at this point of the year everyone is anxious to hear the results. I've had (as always I would add) a great year and I'm consistently in the top revenue-making partners of my Group. Unfortunately, two factors play against me:

i) my boss does not believe in the industry I advice (tech & media, while he's a real estate person) and does not understand how I manage to deliver these results (he's very formal, I always show up in jeans and sneakers, and I've come to the conclusion that every year he thinks something very lucky happened and that the results I brought must be a one-off thing)

ii) while I lead the tech & media thing also at Europe West level, most of the work I bring in to the firm is in the US these days (unsurprisingly, given most deals I work on are companies selling apps), and I'm not rated based on this but only in relation to Europe West work.

Finally, the Indian summer we enjoyed is over, and the weather is gloomy. The streets downtown were burning over the weekend, with violent protests boiling (as all around Europe these days). Depressing.

 

Weight wise and goal wise, there is nothing to report.

I've had a chat with chatGPT explaining my goals and it bluntly told me that I'm eating roughly half of the protein I would need and thus thinking I can really improve my pull-ups or my 6pack is unrealistic. I always struggle with proteins indeed. And I am also not losing (nor gaining) weight, but TBH this is not a main concern right now.

I can do 3 unassisted chin-ups when rested (probably 2 pull-ups), while with an elastic band I usually do 3 sets of 8 during my training, and I would want to reach at least 5 unsupported ones. We'll see.

 

Song for this post: Someday (I'm coming back) by Lisa Stansfield

post scriptum

 and as silly and childish as this is: he shouldn't have kissed me. I was used to men not being attracted by me, it was okay. He did wake up the monster that had been sleeping for so long.

So I do blame him for this