Dear Oprah

Things are pretty bad here in Brazil.
I am very depressed despite trying very hard not to be.
I pray and pray and pray because there's nothing else to do.
Translations are very sparse and I have money issues. As long as I can I don't leave home so I am not going to spend any money.
But for me, the worse is feeling useless. When I work I don't have time to worry or to feel anything.
But I am trying to be positive. Praying and reading good books.
Yesterday I went to my student's home and I feel so sad for him because he's going to be forced (because of the economy) to leave his fiancée here and move back to his hometown, which is quite far.
They are wonderful people and I love them dearly.
Also, my friend in San Diego is having a hard time. Her dog died and her husband is travelling abroad do she has to deal with her three grieving kids alone.
The older kids (11 and 8) can understand but her 3-year-old boy...
I guess we are all having a hard time lately.
What makes me even more sad is that without money I am not going to visit my son.
I miss him so much.
He gives me the best hug a mother could ask.
When he hugs me I feel like nothing bad can touch me.
In fact, I think that it's like when his father hugged me.
Sometimes all we need is a hug, isn't it?
I have a trick, tough.
I close my eyes and imagine Jesus hugging me.
Jesus taking me in his arms and making me feel better.
Assuring me that everything is going turn out fine.
And it is.

Dear Oprah

There are some things I am jealous of you.
For example, you've got to know some incredible people personally, like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and I don't know if you have met James Taylor and Carly Simon but if you did I am certainly even more jealous.
But, the people you've met and see frequently that I envy the most are President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama.
I deeply admire them not only because they are the President and the First Lady but mostly because the people they show to be day by day.
Every time I see President Obama speak I think:"Why I wasn't born in the USA?", "Why can't I have the honor to say that he is "my" president?"
You know, every day I pray for Trump not win the American elections. Your people don't deserve I jerk like him.
America does not deserve a clown as president.
Here in Brazil, we are so screwed.
The worst feeling is that we cannot see the end of the tunnel. It is like we are always going to be this country full of possibilities administered by thieves who are empowered by people who just don't care.
I wish I could just go away.
Every day I thank God that my kids they were able to run away. To find a better place to live; a place where they can develop themselves.
Another weekend is coming.
Tomorrow my friends that's the double wedding I told you about.
I don't want to go but I am going anyway.
It's my God-daughter and I love her and I love her family so...

The YouTube Interview with President Obama

Dear Oprah

It's been a while since the last time I felt paralyzed by fear.
Yes, it happened before and it is happening now.
I don't know how to live without a thousand things to get done at the same time and no translation, few students, no money, and the weight ever problem.
Is it going to be different at least once in my life?
If only I had money I would travel.
Yes, I would go to Quebec right now visit my son.
It's funny because last year, this time, I was struggling to make my mom healthy, comfortable. I was like crazy going from a doctor to another.
She wouldn't eat and we tried everything.
I would work as crazy and yet prepare for her the soup she loved.
It was hard. It was terrible.
Sometimes I feel like my life went from super fast to too calm and I really don't know what to do.
Most of the time I don't know what to do.
I tried praying. I ask God to show me a way but nothing comes. I know He is answering me but I don't know how to listen. Or maybe I don't know how to decoded his message.
Sometimes I hate being me.
I've been alone for so long, taking my decisions all by myself, without anyone to help find the good path.
And I'm getting old. How am I supposed to star anew for the hundredth time at 58?
I don't know.
Pray for me Oprah.
Pray for me!

Dear Oprah

I'm sad!
I am very very sad.
On Saturday my God-daughter and her sister are getting married. They are my dear friends' daughters and, of course, I am invited.
Buta I am fat.
I am obese.
I have nothing to wear and even when I find something I look like a mattress with a rope in the middle.
It's so unfair.
I don't eat a lot. I swear.
I don't eat hamburgers and french fries on a regular basis, only occasionally. I don't eat a loaf of bread, or butter, or even mayo.
I love sweets but even that I don't eat as a crazy person.
I don't eat a box of chocolate.
Not even a bar.
Ok, I don't exercise. I hate exercises and I am lazy.
I have a slow metabolism and I should eat as a bird for not exercising and don't be fat.
As I told you before I am a widow, my kids live in another country, my mother passed away last year and I have few friends.
I love my life. It's not a burden for me to be single or to be alone.
I love reading and watching movies and I do love my work as a translator and as a teacher.
So I don't understand why I have to be so fat.
Why do I have to pay this price?
I tried everything and of course, for a while, it works.
WW? Yes, I tried.
And medicine and all the crazy diets you can imagine.
The only thing I've never tried was to spend the day in the gym.
My arms are like a mass of cellulite and my thighs... They look like an old tree with all the trunk full of nodes.
I guess I have cellulite even in my brain.
So, yes, I am unhappy. I am disgusted of myself, I am sad and desperate.
And on Saturday I probably won't go to the wedding. I probably will stay home feeling miserable.
My mother used to say that I have breasts on my back.
I love her but she could be mean.
She used to say that I shouldn't wear white from head to toe because I would look like a refrigerator.
Before getting married I was on a diet so strict that I was extremely thin in order to be able to wear my wedding dress and not look like one

Dear Oprah

You have no idea what it is to live in a country where you know you are being robbed by those who were supposed to provide you education, health, a home.
We pay our taxes and they just make schemes to pick our money as if we didn't need it.
It's disgusting.
I live constantly in fear of how am I going to live tomorrow.
I don't have fancy clothes or shoes and I don't care. I really don't.
But I would love to have money to visit my son.
I told you I miss him so much.
My daughter is coming visit me by the end of the month.
I can't wait to hug and kiss my baby girl.
She's a brave young woman. I admire her a lot.
She's so much smarter than I am.
And I love my son in law so much! He's a wonderful husband and I'm sure he's going to be a great daddy one day.
Yes, you guessed right. I don't have any translation to do today and I am here, struggling not to go to the kitchen and eat something I should not.
How hard it is to be on a diet.
I hate dieting. I hate not being able to eat whatever I want and drink and just be happy.
Tell me, what do I have left?
I have no money, few friends, my kids are living far from me, something a don't have much work so...what do I have for me instead of eating?
Sometimes life sucks.

Dear Oprah

It's been a while but as you know I was working.
I was working but not enough.
Not enough to keep me from my thoughts, not enough to bury me under the craziness of deadlines that I love.
You know why I love it, don't you?
The more I have free time the more I feel lonely.
I am fat. Obese. My friends always want to go out to eat something or drink something which is going to make me fatter.
I miss my children.
Especially my son. Because I talk to my daughter every day and even if I talk to my son on the phone is not the same.
He needs some time to open up.When we are alone, maybe drinking some beer or wine and smoking a cigarette. Then he'll open up.
I also have money problems.
I work and work and work and I swear to God that I don't buy clothes, shoes, nothing fancy. I only buy food and dog food and pay the bills for the house and when I look all my money is gone.
I would like to travel.
I was thinking what would it be like to be you.
To be able to say: "I'm bored so I'm going to Thailand for a few days".
You can do that. You have more than enough money to do that.
You also have lots of projects that consume your time.
And a husband.
It's funny because maybe you love your husband but I don't feel you do.
I'd say he's more a good friend you live with than a husband but what do I know?
I have never been in the same room with you.
Anyway, you have a husband, and dogs, and houses, and projects, and probably lots of friends and family.
You are not the big fat teacher/translator from nowhere in Brazil who spends her free time writing a silly blog nobody reads.
Yet, it helps me put things in perspective.
Tomorrow will be another day.
Maybe with some more bills to pay, maybe with some more work.
But as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow I will still be lonely.