#at46

My mum is my first role model. At 46 she is at her ‘peak’ - driven, confident, full of life, beautiful and the happiest she’s been. She has started several businesses in Lithuania and UK, and is now finishing a degree in architecture. Here is my drunken conversation with her.

Damien Hirst once said ‘I honestly believed when I was 18 that I would live forever’

And no one ever tells you that life in fact passes very quickly. You asked me how I am doing. I am doing really well, but I am also realising that life is very short. And that you have to live it. The worst is being a vegetable, when you know life is so short, and it is so big, and it is so full, and so delicious.

And also no one ever told me that sex is wonderful forever (laughs)

And music… And in my mum I saw a natural wish to look good, and my father loved music… that joy doesn’t age or die. Everything fundamentally is the same. It’s not fashion or age, it’s all the same.

But it also depends on the individual

I have some friends that have aged, but then when I think back they were also “old” when they were young.

Why did I go back to studying architecture

I was famished, I was looking for a purpose and an intellectual challenge. I realised my surroundings were not feeding me. And when I started studying I came to life. And it solved a lot of my problems.

To my 18 year old self I would say

You will be 46 years old. 30 seemed old. 46 seemed already on the other side, the world of the dead. If I would have then seen myself now I think I would have been happy. It would have been a revelation that at 46 years old (such a huge age! Nearly 50!) I would feel more beautiful than at 20, A LOT more beautiful, while not being young.

When I was 20

I felt completely ugly. Like an animal.

Your dad was like a god, a good person. He didn’t care I was less good looking. And I was an animal. A frog.

Everyone used to say to me that I was ugly, my brother, my aunt. I think you need to tell a young person that they are beautiful, especially girls. Especially with the media putting such pressures.

Having children

Many women think bringing up children is their purpose, but then you exhaust yourself, and eventually you start demanding something from them. I definitely didn’t sacrifice my life for my children. But at the same time I think I did my best. I think for me when I was growing up, and generally, it is really important to have someone you can talk to about bigger topics.

At 65

The biggest priority will be health. My biggest concern is how do I make my body last. Not beauty, but capacity.

Have you seen ‘Fashionistas’? They’re all 80. I would love to look like them. They are not trying to look young, but they look good. It is about inner energy.

I like Galina Dauguvietyte. She was a devil.