15 days to go until Christmas 2019 and 15 minutes ago I told Fabrizio (my best friend, the brother I never had, my partner) that I'm taking the whole month off in February. He laughed, saying that I need it. I think he laughed because he knows perfectly well that I can't not work for more than 10 hours straight. Here, by the way, I am in line today. I am waiting, more or less stoically, for my turn. I like to wait even though I am impatient and sometimes I want everything right away. Sometimes this impatience, with the fuse lit by boundless ambition, translates into a real recklessness in facing life. That is why today I have decided, for the first time, to get in line. Today I am aware that my turn is coming, I see my moment just a couple of people ahead of me. All right, today it is I who can wait.

Io ricomincio da qui is an article about me and not about wine. There, I said something else that is funny: I can't write more than 10 lines without mentioning wine. Here because now I want to take stock of everything that has happened this year. Here because it has been 22 days since I have written on my wine blog, and I miss it terribly. Here because a blog, by definition, is first and foremost a diary. 

I am 34 years old. Sometimes I feel 24 because I am enthusiastic about life. Sometimes I feel 84 because I am resigned to life. I am not a happy woman. In eight days it will be the first anniversary of my father's death, my everything, so I cannot be happy. But I can say of myself that I am an accomplished woman and, for that, exquisitely fulfilled.

In January I wrote an article dedicated to my father about 8 good intentions I wanted to realise in 2019. I am starting here again. 

1. Do today what I could do tomorrow.
2. Getting fit in body and mind.
3. Avoiding toxic people and not settling for mediocre relationships.
4. Create at least four good habits and be consistent in following them.
5. Making peace with bureaucracy and the administration of my work.
6. Learning to manage my time in order to have more time for me.
7. Learning to speak English fluently.
8. Create an editorial calendar and write 8 articles each month on my wine blog Perlage Suite. 

The resolutions are 8 because I was born on 8 May at 8. Because 8 is my favourite number. Because 8 is not just a number, it is infinity. So what happened this year?

I learned to do today what I could do tomorrow. Do I do it the last hour of the day? Often. But I do it. 

I have lost 10 kg since August and have gone through an important personal and emotional growth process. 

I ran away all the toxic people and ended the mediocre relationship I had settled for only because my father had died and I was afraid to face this pain alone. Today I only cultivate quality relationships that enrich my life and always bring me smiles and never tears. 

I created 2 good habits: take a long walk at least 3 times a week and start reading again. 2 new habits, not 4, but I have been consistent. 

I have learnt to carve out 1 hour a day to take care of myself in a thousand different ways and this makes me feel really good. 

I have not made peace with bureaucracy, but I have figured out how to make peace and I plan to make peace in 2020 thanks to a very patient accountant. 

I have not improved my spoken English, but in the two trips I have made abroad this year and at trade fairs I have been told that I am doing well. Maybe watching documentaries about the Napa Valley in English has helped. In fact it certainly helped, because the second edition of my book "How to Become a Sommelier" contains an in-depth look at the AVAs of the Napa Valley that makes me particularly proud. 

I wrote 36 blog articles instead of the 96 I promised myself. But I still have 21 days between now and the end of the year and, if I put my mind to it, I can get to 40, which is more than the 39 I wrote last year. 

I gave up so many times, but I always got back on track. In fact in line. Above all, I finally realised that I am not a quitter and that if I quit, even for a few days, the only result I get is to be a few places further back in the queue. 

Today I start again from here, from several places ahead in the queue, even though they alone were not enough to make me first in line. That is why I have learnt to forgive myself and adore my human imperfection.

The truth is that I am more fragile today than I was 10 years ago, even though 10 years ago I was told that as you grow up you become stronger. The truth is that as I grew up, I became, above all, more self-conscious and learnt to love myself as a unique and special woman who deserves all the consideration in the world not only for the results she achieves, but for the mere fact of existing. 

But here, let's face it... the results are a major olfactory bonus of my persona.

The results smell good. 

When I was eight I told my parents that I wanted to live by writing on a lake. Today I do. Precisely, I am part of that 4% of authors who live by writing, in a landscape described as 'desperate' as that of the Italian book market. In the emerging markets, publishing houses are courting me to win the exclusive rights to the second edition of my book 'How to become a Sommelier', which came out on 1 December and I will send it to you in a few days, time to receive it from the printer, and next year I will be holding it in who knows how many languages. Certainly in Italian and English. 

I have learnt that everything is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed. Even good intentions.

Because the only thing we do really wrong in our lives is to persevere in what does not fulfil us, thinking that we have time or that our dreams are just dreams and are not that important. 

We have no time. The good news is that only you can drive the car of your life... hold the steering wheel firmly in your hands and steer as far as you can towards your dreams because they really are that important. 

Two half persons do not make a whole person. Only one whole person makes a whole person. We are born and we die alone, but we live to make a fulfilling path to personal success to be shared with the people we love. 

Possibly with a glass of wine.

In fact, let's make it a whole bottle. And make it a good one, mind you. 

I am now going to uncork the bottle that will be the background to my next article. 

Christmas 2019 is only 15 days away, and I'm starting here again.

Where do you start from? 

Cheers🍷🥳🥳📕❤️

Chiara