The Woman I Wanted to Be

by Diane Von Furstenberg

Living is learning,

As a girl, I did not know what I wanted to do but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be. I wanted to be my own person, independent and free. I knew that freedom could only be achieved if I took full responsibility for myself and my actions, if I were true to truth, if I became my very best friend.

Life is not always a smooth ride. Landscapes change, people come in and out, obstacles appear and disrupt the planned itinerary, but one thing you know for sure is that you will always have yourself.

“God has saved my life so that I can give you life,” she used to write me every New Year on my birthday. “By giving you life, you gave me my life back. You are my torch, my flag of freedom.”

“Fear is not an option.” “Don’t dwell on the dark side of things, but look for the light and build around it. If one door closes, look for another one to open.” “Never, ever, blame others for what befalls you, no matter how horrible it might be. Trust you, and only you, to be responsible for your own life.” She

In spite of what she endured, she never wanted others to feel that she was a victim.

She loved books and taught me to cherish them.

Before I had learned how to read, she had me memorize and recite the seventeenth-century fables of La Fontaine.

“Fear is not an option.”

Independence. Freedom. Self-reliance.

As I grew older, I understood. Independence and freedom were key to her because she had lost both. Self-reliance had kept her alive.

“you never really know what is good for you; what may seem the absolute worst thing to happen to you can, in fact, be the best”

You never know how something that seems the worst thing turns out to be the best.

I wanted to be a woman, a sophisticated woman, a glamorous woman. I wanted to be important.

The biggest gift my father gave me was not to be needy. I had so much love from him that I didn’t really need any more. In fact, I sometimes had to push it away because his display of affection in front of people embarrassed me.

She always told me to trust the goodness of people.

One door closed, many others opened. I

I say “OK. I don’t like it, but I can’t change it, so let’s find a way around it.”

Then I find a different path to a solution, which

so satisfies me that I forget what the problem was in the first place. Of all the lessons my mother drummed into me, th...

“Don’t blame your parents, don’t blame your boyfriend, don’t blame the weather. Accept the reality, embrace the challenge, and deal with it. Be in charge of your own life. Turn negatives into positives and be proud to be a woman.”

My son, Alexandre, benefited greatly from her financial skills. She taught him what stocks and bonds were, what kinds of companies were good investments, and about yields and dividends. Every afternoon when he came home from school, the two of them studied the stock market pages in the afternoon edition of the New York Post so he could see which stocks were going up and which down.

I saw a flash of something white, almost like lightning coming out of my mother and going into Talita. I believe that that day my mother’s energy and spirit transferred to my granddaughter. I saw it happen, that white flash going from my mother into Talita. I saw it.

but she was strong and courageous, always curious to discover new horizons. She lived fully and will continue to do so through her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren and her friends who loved her so.”

Love is life is love. There is no way to envision life without love, and at this point in my life, I don’t think there is anything more important—love of family, love of nature, love of travel, love of learning, love of life in every way—all of

I agree with George Sand, the nineteenth-century French novelist: “There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved,” she wrote. I’ve enjoyed that happiness many times, but what I discovered with age is that true love is unconditional, and that is bliss.

Love is about relationships, yet the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. Who else is with you at all times? Who else feels the pain when you are hurt? The shame when you are humiliated? Who can smile at your small satisfactions and laugh at your victories but you? Who understands your moments of fear and loneliness better? Who can console you better than you? You are the one who possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.

💜💜💜

You cannot have a good relationship with anyone, unless you first have it with yourself. Once you have that, any other relationship is a plus, and not a must. “Take tim...

“Become your best friend; it is well worth it. It takes a lot of work and it can be painful because it requires honesty and discipline. It means you have to accept who you are, see all your faults and weaknesses. Having done that, you can correct, improve, and little by little discover the things you do like about yourself and start to design your life. There is no love unless there is truth and there is nothing truer than discovering and accepting who you really are. By being critical, you will find things you dislike as well as things you like, and the whole package is who you are. The whole package is what you must embrace and the whole package is what you have control of.

Beware of your thoughts for they become words, beware of your words for they become actions, beware of your actions for they become habits, beware of your habits for they become character, beware of your character for it becomes your destiny.

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

It is easy to lose oneself when you are with people all the time. I need silence and solitude to create a buffer against the daily barrage of information and challenges. Sometimes,

Once I love, I love forever, and there is nothing more cozy and meaningful than old friends and lovers.

Landscapes change, people come and go, but all the landscapes, all the experiences, all the people weave into your life’s fabric. Love is not just about people you had affairs with. Love is about moments of intimacy, paying attention to others, connecting. As you learn that love is everywhere, you find it everywhere.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” as I learned in Oxford when I studied the English poet John Keats.

I have tried not to lie my whole life. Lies are toxic. They are the beginning of misunderstandings, complications, and unhappiness.

In Bangkok we dined with Jim Thompson, a famous American who had settled in Thailand after the war and had organized all the independent silk weavers into the huge business he owned, the Thai Silk Company.

Hemingway so eloquently described as a “moveable feast.”

Egon was a real traveler, inquisitive, full of energy and curiosity, eager to meet all kinds of people in whatever country we were in, keen to eat into the adventure—sometimes literally.

Parting ways does not mean erasing entirely someone from your life. The relationship can evolve, and be nurtured, but in a different way. Not an easy task, but as anything meaningful, well worth it.

“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity,” wrote the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu in the sixth century BC.

In my new Parisian life I rediscovered my first love, literature, and was living yet another fantasy—having a literary salon and founding a small publishing house, Salvy, where we published in French the great writers Vita Sackville-West, Gregor von Rezzori, and Bret Easton Ellis, among others.

All probably would have continued except I came to realize that Alain was having an affair with my good friend Loulou de la Falaise, muse of Yves Saint Laurent.

I trusted my calm attitude would diminish the lure of the “forbidden fruit” and eventually destroy it. I was right. The affair soon lost its appeal and ended. Alain and I stayed together a bit more, but I knew it would soon be time to move on.

No one goes through life with one rigid personality. We are far more complex with various needs and desires that present themselves at different stages of our lives.

I now realize that Barry was already like my husband and Mark was my secret lover. I could not give up one for the other. I must have been cruel to both, but I did not think I was at the time. Barry was waiting patiently, secure of the outcome.

“He deserves you.”

I ironed it on an ironing board at times, and had it blown out by hairdressers all over the world, convinced that straight hair was the key to beauty and happiness.

It was not until I was almost thirty that I discovered my curls could be an asset.

Counting too much on your appearance limits one’s growth. Looks are fleeting and cannot be your only asset.

Though I believed personality, authenticity, and charm were what made a person attractive, along the way I did have many moments of awkwardness and insecurity.