A Beira de Mim
There is a Portuguese expression that doesn’t translate cleanly into English. A Beira means at the edge, at the shore, at the brink. De mim means of myself.
A Beira de Mim. At the edge of myself.
This is where I write from, the place where what I know about myself meets what I’m still discovering. The narrow shore between the woman I’ve been and the one I’m becoming. I’ve been walking this edge for a long time. I just didn’t always know it had a name.
Who am I?
I’m Fabiola. I was born on a Saturday afternoon in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, a neighborhood where the highway met a favela, where stray bullets sometimes found bedroom windows, and where love showed up loud and imperfect.
I grew up in a small apartment with too many people and too few words for what we felt. My family loved fiercely but didn’t know what to do with feelings that didn’t fit neatly into right and wrong. Emotions were monitored. Anger was sinful. Doubt was dangerous. I learned early that the safest thing to do with a feeling was to swallow it.
So I became very good at swallowing.
I swallowed my way through a childhood of comparison. Through an adolescence of strict rules and unspoken questions. Through a marriage I entered because I was taught it was the only path to happiness, and a divorce I chose because I finally believed I deserved to find out for myself.
I swallowed my way through a career change. I swallowed my way across an ocean, landing in Amsterdam with two suitcases, a savings account that had to stretch, and a love story that began with a snowstorm in Dublin.
And then one day, the swallowing stopped working.
Why this blog?
Because I spent most of my life performing a version of myself that others would approve of, and the cost was my peace. I was the overachiever who woke at 4am to study for exams she’d already prepared for. The employee who worked weekends to make deliverables flawless, then cried after promotions because they felt like more weight to carry, not less. The daughter, the sister, the friend who said yes to everything because no felt like a small death.
Somewhere along the way, I traded my well-being for worthiness. And it took therapy, antidepressants, a half-marathon in Barcelona, and seven days sleeping in a hammock in the Amazon rainforest to begin unraveling the knot.
A Beira de Mim is the space I’m creating for that unraveling. In public, in words, at my own pace.
This blog is about the slow, unglamorous, nonlinear work of becoming kinder to yourself. It’s about the patterns we inherit and the ones we choose. It’s about what it means to be resilient — and what it costs. It’s about the overthinking, the people-pleasing, the imposter syndrome, the guilt of living 9,000 kilometers from the people who raised you, and the quiet revolution of learning to say enough.
What you’ll find here
Reflections on the inner work. The kind that doesn’t have before-and-after photos. The kind that looks like sitting with discomfort instead of solving it. Like setting a boundary and surviving the silence that follows. Like allowing yourself to be proud without immediately searching for the next thing to prove.
I write about anxiety and what it teaches. About the tension between ambition and rest. About being Brazilian in a country that doesn’t understand saudade. About running, not from anything, but toward the version of myself who doesn’t need anyone’s permission to take up space.
Sometimes I’ll write about sustainability and purpose, because my professional life and my inner life are made of the same material. Sometimes I’ll write about love, the complicated kind that lives inside families and across oceans. Sometimes I’ll write in a way that makes sense only to me, and I’m learning that this is allowed.
A note on the name
A Beira de Mim. I chose it because growth doesn’t happen at the center of who we are. It happens at the edges, where certainty ends, and curiosity begins. Where the person we were meets the person we’re becoming, and for a moment, we can see both.
My life has been a series of edges. The edge of Rio and the world beyond it. The edge of a marriage and the freedom on the other side. The edge of a career that paid well and a calling that meant something. The edge of silence and the first time I said I’m not okay.
I write from these edges. Not because I’ve arrived anywhere, but because the view from here is worth sharing.
Obrigada por estar aqui. Thank you for being here.
— Fabiola
A Beira de Mim | On the Edge of Myself 