barbara. whitch in modern times

I am a 35 year old woman, I feel I am at the age where any decision I make in my life will lead me to a point of no return, as if every step I take will mark my life in two after I turn 35. When I am in my flat, in the classrooms, walking through the streets of Bogota in the city centre, I feel strange, as if I had been walking and touring them in another era, in another time, not in this time but in another far away from now, as if it were a past life that sometimes sought to come to light and show me the places I should not walk, as if I was about to make a mistake, situations that I had to overcome to not end my life and fulfil the purpose of my existence. I studied a degree in Biology at a university in the capital because in the city I come from there were no universities at that time and I had to leave my village to seek new horizons, when I arrived I had to get a job in whatever I could to earn a living, I didn't earn much but by working overtime and with a lot of effort I managed to finish my studies and specialise in Environmental Biology. I like nature for some strange reason since I was a child I was attracted to environmental literature, I was attracted to everything that had to do with plants, with medicine, ancestral knowledge to heal and search through plants, I wanted to know in depth the world around me, the food chain seemed perfect, the animal cycle spoke of the wonder of existence and I had very clear since I was a child to what I wanted to devote the rest of my life when I came of age. I began to carry out work experience within the university itself, reconstructing an abandoned wetland and recovering vegetable gardens that were in poor condition and little appreciated by my fellow students who cared little or nothing about the environment around us. My dedication was total, I was passionate about what I was doing and I felt from that moment that I was in the right place, a good decision in my life, quickly my professionalism was seen by the directors of the university and they began to appoint me to slightly better paid jobs that began to serve me to do my specialization, however my professional field absorbed me more and more and it became for me almost an obsession to raise awareness among others about the love for the earth, the ecosystem and everything around us, we have everything but we are destroying it, I thought tirelessly. I have not married although I have had the opportunity to have romantic relationships that turned into boring long relationships that have nothing to offer and that you decide to keep for the sole reason; habit, after a certain time I end up hating them and staying alone, it seems to be my destiny. Since my last relationship that didn't go well at all, because it had turned into a toxic relationship, with a narcissistic man that I almost didn't get out of alive, I had decided to dedicate my time only to my biology students. That decision made me move further and further away from men, they had lost their charm, they all seemed the same to me, like an inelegant copy, ordinary and predictable men who had nothing new to offer to an independent, professional and bitter woman like me. This way of looking at men was hurting me, I was getting old before my time, my face reflected that of a woman over 35, my complete devotion to my career was ruining the other areas of my life, little social life, no love and no purpose. I had built myself a prison from which my body and mind were now desperately crying out for freedom. Now realising the mistake I had made I wanted to escape from myself, to give my life a different purpose and destiny, I had everything to live for but I didn't know how to get out of my own prison. My days were routine, I woke up at four in the morning to get ready, prepare a simple breakfast that was the same every day, and leave very early for the university, check the places that felt like mine like the vegetable garden and some other places inside the university, then dedicate myself to teach my students. One day looking at myself in the mirror I realised that I had become a woman who would not be attractive to any man, my appearance far from attracting or seducing them quickly pushed them away from me, despite being surrounded by young people my hair reflected the first grey hair as if I was in my fifties. Surely there were interesting men, with a lot to offer and good looking with whom a beautiful woman could dream and think of a promising future, independent women but who had been able to have a balance between professional and personal life and could also go out hand in hand bragging about the good match they had as a husband, surely they saw handsome men capable of conquering the woman they wanted but that was not my case or at least what I thought at that time. That didn't mean that the lividity of my body had abandoned me, in reality my hormones demanded affection, a loving man who would give me affection, who would make me feel loved and that I was a woman who could also be loved by someone. I got used to going out alone usually on Friday nights to one or another bar in the city centre that was not far from my house, I would sit at the bar and order a drink or a cocktail and let equally or worse lonely men sit next to me and make small talk and spend liquor on me, looking for casual s*x without commitment. I would get lictor from their liquor glasses and let myself be seduced by their words after that I would agree to go with them to their flats, sleep with them and then like an easy woman who provided s*x without even getting paid I would let them take me out of their flats after having achieved what we both wanted, they would ask me for a taxi and I would go home to lock myself up for the rest of the week between students' exams, grades and biology readings except for Sundays, when I would go out to the main market square to buy endless herbs for my experiments and concoctions that caught my attention although I didn't quite understand where they came from, I would go out to the main market square on Sundays to buy endless herbs for my experiments and concoctions that caught my attention, although I didn't quite understand where this curiosity and instinct for something that no one had taught me came from and there was little reading to be found on the subject. Some of them I kept seeing for a while but then they bored me and I got lost of them without giving more information. Sometimes they were also the ones who got bored of me and looked for thousands of excuses to stop going out with me or they stopped going to the bar or discotheque where we had started "our relationship". This is the description of what I am. A routine, monotonous teacher, far from what I taught my students, who demanded them to be creative, expressive, not very shy and loving. I tried to advise them never to become the woman I was now. The older students or those who were finishing their university degrees noticed something strange about me, some of them I know were able to decipher me and felt sorry for me, I don't think they wanted to imitate me or envied my lifestyle. I wouldn't have done it in their shoes either. In some classes when a student would stare at me as if they were reading the diary of my life and end up looking at me with contempt or sadness as if the only desirable feeling towards me was pity for having a life stuck between notebooks while I missed out on all the beautiful things to live outside the classroom. I myself felt ashamed of the woman I had become, not exactly what I had dreamed of as a child, I was a beautiful girl and even in the depths of my face it was still hidden there, but I was so little dressed up that I had kept it deep inside me and would not let it come to the surface. Something that I didn't know where it came from, a sensation or instinct from beyond had made me wake up and I wanted to change my life, but I was so immersed in my grid routine that I didn't know which was the way forward or where to start. I was becoming more and more consumed and felt that I was drowning in a deep well every day. I had nothing to do with the beautiful, intelligent girl whose family predicted a future with a handsome, judicious and without vices of any kind, in my adolescence I was attractive and with a well-shaped body due to the obsession I had at that time to ride a bicycle as a professional sport. When I had just started my university studies I became the girlfriend of a university classmate, a handsome man called Joaquín Gallego, an attractive young man for the time, uncomplicated and willing to live each day as if it were his last, a risky lover of motorbikes and speed. I fell in love without realising it with his personality, with the risky and daring man who made me feel like living and by then I was not the boring and fearful woman I had become. I also liked the vertigo, the adrenaline of going through the roads of the country at the speed of his motorbike, thanks to him I got to know liquor. He taught me to drink at festivities, on university group outings and on sporadic occasions he would let me smoke m*******a with his group of friends. At the beginning we hit it off very well, we were attracted to each other and we complemented each other well, the problem was that Joaquin tended to overindulge in almost everything he did in his life, he overindulged in alcohol and drugs, he began to miss university and his states of anxiety and hysteria after a night of excesses affected his personality, he felt guilty the next day, he was somewhat aggressive and he could hardly control his impulses charged with anger that was increasingly difficult to control. He had had the opportunity to meet his parents, a cheerful, fun couple who did not miss any occasion to celebrate with alcohol, in their fridge there were more cans of beer and wine than food, his father and mother also exceeded in the consumption of alcohol but as it was a drug accepted by society it seemed normal, that it was common in society and that practically all families used drinks to get out of the routine of their jobs or the miserable life they led in their homes.