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know how to love. Being in love can be a need, a fantasy, or an obsession, whereas loving truly is a much calmer and happier state. I agree with George Sand, the nineteenth-century French novelist: “There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved,” she wrote. I’ve enjoyed that happiness many times, but what I discovered with age is that true love is unconditional, and that is bliss.
    Love is about relationships, yet the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. Who else is with you at all times? Who else feels the pain when you are hurt? The shame when you are humiliated? Who can smile at your small satisfactions and laugh at your victories but you? Who understands your moments of fear and loneliness better? Who can console you better than you? You are the one who possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.
    You cannot have a good relationship with anyone, unless you first have it with yourself. Once you have that, any other relationship is a plus, and not a must. “Take time this summer to really get to know yourself,” I told a graduating class of high school girls as they were about to start their own journey of life. “Become your best friend; it is well worth it. It takes a lot of work and it can be painful because it requires honesty and discipline. It means you have to accept who you are, see all your faults and weaknesses. Having done that, you can correct, improve, and little by little discover the things you do like about yourself and start to design your life. There is no love unless there is truth and there is nothing truer than discovering andaccepting who you really are. By being critical, you will find things you dislike as well as things you like, and the whole package is who you are. The whole package is what you must embrace and the whole package is what you have control of. It is you! Everything you think, do, like, becomes the person you are and the whole thing weaves into a life, your life.”
    I finished my talk with an ancient quotation:
Beware of your thoughts for they become words,
beware of your words for they become actions,
beware of your actions for they become habits,
beware of your habits for they become character,
beware of your character for it becomes your destiny.
    I was lucky to start a relationship with myself very early in life. I am not sure why; maybe because I had no sibling until the age of six and I was alone a lot, or maybe because I was taught from an early age to be responsible for myself and for my actions.
    I remember discovering that little “me” person in the reflection of my mother’s vanity mirror and being intrigued by it. Not that I loved my image, but as I made funny and ugly faces at my own reflection, I enjoyed the control I had over it; I could make it do anything I wanted. I was absorbed by that little “me” person and wanted to discover more about her. Later, when I learned to write, I wrote stories about this character and the fantasies I imagined for her. The fictional stories became rarer as I turned to writing my diaries, recounting my experiences, my frustrations, my sense of cosmic emptiness, or my desire to conquer. My diary became my friend, my refuge.
    My teenage diaries got lost and though I wish I still had them,I rarely look back at the ones I do have. Their importance was in the moment, of having a friend to confide in. At this point in my life, I seldom write in my diaries. I have replaced the writing with a visual diary. I carry a camera with me everywhere and take pictures of what I want to store in my memory—people, nature, objects, architecture. Often I use those photos for inspiration.
    I also learned how critical it is for me to have time alone to recharge and strengthen that inner connection. It is easy to lose oneself when you are with people all the time. I need silence and solitude to create a buffer against the daily barrage of information and challenges.