These days, after many days, Saturday night, I sat with friends around a table to share a dinner and a therapy conversation. That's what we call it, hahaha to catch up.

We talked about everything a little bit, among many things I told them that when I was young, it was very important to "be trendy" in relation to glamour, class, and fashion of the moment ... but now at 60 and more I have understood what my mom defined as "class", and the process of fashion bowing to it.

Class is not pure theater, plotting, or scheming, and as opposed to the social stigma it has nothing to do with the socio-economic sense of the word. That's perhaps why my mom's other aunt's sister called it social "class".

Which is to overcome the worst experiences with dignity and gallantry. The more you display these two energies in your life, the more class you have...is it...?

When you help someone, and you don't show it, you have class. When you let someone talk and talk, and you don't have an opinion (because you don't have to say everything you know), you have class. When you're wrong and admit it (in a blacksmith's house, to err is human) and when you're right and don't ask for recognition, you've got class.

The best trick my mother taught me - she says - to live with class: start the day by asking my "inner self" how I can be of help instead of asking for what I want to achieve.

The best teachers will be the heaviest to deal with class

The gathering was prolonged with an after-dinner conversation of laughter, toasts, and deserts, the art of sitting at the table should become a therapy for healing... and this is also to be classy.

Let's give ourselves time to digest life ... So that it does not become "the weight of life" ... Let's not use the "we have to talk" to give bad news or make decisions ... during meal times.

Total ll! Life is about moments, MANY times just sitting down and enjoying a coffee, a meal and a good "conversation" changes the rest of your day, especially today we were also talking about "yes" a monosyllable of affirmation (with a tilde) that is wonderful to hear and enjoy... and that is also being classy. Indeed, there is nothing tastier than saying "Yes" to opportunities and adventures. But yes can also open the door to undesirable entanglements and commitments we don't have time for.

I define them as "criminal yeses"

Obviously, at fifty-something you start to work "the NO muscle"... and at sixty... when I see or feel that life is successfully discovering me, the "no, thanks". Because the power of my time and my agenda must be mine. Nothing more satisfying than to adjust to one's own rhythm...that represents for me having the class to say "No".

At 50, and 60 we really start to live and enjoy our optics, accepting what we want and saying "no, thanks to what we don't want", I love this very on-trend, and classy perspective I have of my life.

Homework For Me...

"I am at that moment of life that I love to say NO with a smile" because cultivating that ability to say no, politely but firmly, makes me consistent with myself. That's where I'm at this moment in my life. Saying "no" should not affect anyone's reputation for being nice. Because to be so is to add thanks 🤣.

And, to meditate on over the weekend, my girlfriends and I made a list of the most important no's...the ones we've said to ourselves and internalized and etched into our life story.

Here's to more Saturdays like this one that we enjoy and that changes our conception of life, and broadens our mind, thought, word and deed. It is the best university to become a first-class human being.

We close this Saturday night with a golden brooch, toasting to the reunion and the rejoicing of the soul for friends who add up. Let friends always be the best therapy. We are "comadres" among ourselves, we come from years of paying each other and giving each other the change of love.

Let's be grateful for the opportunity to meet and share at a table... and let's use this time to generate good news, do you agree?