Maríanna Pálsdóttir, beautician and make-up artist and owner of Snyrtistofa Reykjavíkur, is a columnist for DV. She comes to the door while fully dressed and writes candid articles about the beauty industry and other things related to it.
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In this week’s column, she tackles more personal issues and talks about childhood trauma.
Holy youth
In this column, I go back in time and speak to us women, those of us who were perhaps on the verge of being confirmed and who preceded us in the process of becoming a woman.
What I would say to my 14-year-old self: Protect yourself so your youth doesn’t wander off because being a lost adult tears you apart.
Write down your dreams – make them all come true. Don’t worry about what other people think. Keep being yourself and try to find out what you love to do and what excites you.
Remember that there is no car or sofa, dresses or makeup that will bring you happiness in life. You can do anything. Don’t let anything stop you.
I would also tell my toddler that problems that arise in life are there to be solved and best dealt with right away. Speak up and say if anything happened to you.
The reason for this writing is simple. I have regained my strength now, at forty. I regained the power I lost when I was a fourteen-year-old babysitter in Selfoss. I could watch it as my childhood was stolen from me, when I walked with my satchel on my back on the way to school, innocent and not knowing what awaited me 30 minutes later in the dumps. But I prefer to anticipate, take responsibility, pass on what I learned from this break to my children and guide them so that their childhood is not lost like mine.
I know there are so many of us who yearn to find peace in our hearts but just don’t know how to go about it. Some of us go to a psychologist, others to a psychiatrist, therapist or therapist, and still others embark on mind-altering journeys. All with the aim of understanding what happened, what changed the situation.
Unfortunately, some of us do nothing, and to those of you who still wear old band-aids over the wounds of the past, I mean: it’s not too late to rip them out. It’s not too late to let the oxygen in and allow the wounds to finally heal. It grazes under these patches. They mold us inside and weaken us in soul and body. The scars of the past are part of the game we are playing in – the game that is life itself.
Life is life and there is no getting around it.
