“A woman looking for her own place in this world”

Ana Paula Morais Caldeira Bernardo was born on April 19, 1964 in Algés, near Lisbon, to Maria Luisa and Manuel Caldeira.
Being an only child, which she did not like, her infancy was spent mostly between adults and it was “not very enjoyable”.
Ana was quite quiet and shy, characteristics that would define her throughout her childhood and teenage years, despite her efforts to become more sociable. She was also very insecure about her appearance and personality, especially in comparison with her mother, who she considered to be beautiful and to have a strong personality. She was definitely “not a rebel, [and she was] very focused on studies”, being a very bright student.
However, it was during her adolescence that she became very determined and fond of her own opinions.
Very early on in life, Ana revealed a strong sense of justice and, though she was afraid to talk in public, she would always speak up to defend what was right.In her 7th grade, she represented her colleagues in front of the teachers in order to avoid an unfair suspension. She was able to persuade them and felt good about it. This was a defining episode because it led her to decide what was to be her career: she wanted to fight for her ideals and really make a difference in the world. Therefore, she decided to become a lawyer.
Even though she had strong complexes, this phase of her life brought her the realisation that she was able to pursue her objectives and affirm her ideas.
After that period of struggle to define her personality, came what Ana defines as “very happy years [in her] life”: her college years. The transition from high school to college was difficult: she felt frustrated because she was not able to maintain her usual grades; however, once she realised that this was normal, she relaxed a bit. It was to be a period of transformation for her, as she made good friends, became more confident, having learned to trust her decisions and to value the positive aspects of her personality and looks. Therefore, her insecurities mostly went away, due to the help of her friends and boyfriends.
Those five years were so incredible that she misses almost everything about them: the lack of stress, the fact that life was easier then, allowing her to spend time with her friends and to study the different subjects deeply.
In 1987, that would come to an end. Ana was a passionate law student, who had gained maturity and confidence over the years, and was eager to start practising law.
However, her career-start was not as auspicious as she had hoped. She began working as an intern at a medium law firm, where she was confronted with the slowness of the legal system, which was particularly disappointing for someone who had dreamt of “changing the world”. She was to continue working there until 1993, despite her efforts to enter the corporate world.
Two years later, she got married (but not to the right person) and, in 1990, she had her first daughter, Joana. Marriage and motherhood brought her a sense of fullness and emotional stability, as well as a huge sense of responsibility. Not long after her daughter’s birth, she went through a painful divorce. Despite that, she was very happy with her child, as she had always wanted to love and nurture children. She says that motherhood made her “a better person” and describes the experience as “challenging, because a parent needs to learn, to reinvent himself, to grow along with the children in order to face the challenges of parenthood”.
She would fall in love again in 1993, with Rui, a colleague and friend that was to become her husband a year later, as well as the father of her children. Marriage is, in her opinion, “even more challenging than maternity. No matter how in love you are, it is never easy to share your life with someone.” Going through daily life together requires compromise and adjustment, learning to live with each other’s qualities and imperfections. Besides, Ana considers that it is difficult to deal with a family, a demanding professional life, running a house, and still find time to dedicate to the marriage and prevent it from being affected by routine.
Still in 1993, Ana and Rui were invited by a prestigious lawyer in Macau to work for him and accepted his proposal. She did not feel that she was evolving as a lawyer, nor did she feel stimulated at the office. Moreover, she had financial and personal reasons to accept the job. This change was very welcome, as she wanted to leave a complicated part of her life behind (her first marriage).
So, she moved to Macau and it turned out to be “the most important experience in [her] life, so far”. Moving to a different part of the world is not always easy; it has its obstacles, such as the cultural differences, which are not easy to understand, especially because the Chinese people are not open and are difficult to get to know. Professionally, it was a huge step. It represented an opportunity to work with a very demanding but also very intelligent boss, the best lawyer she has ever worked with. She was forced to change her work habits drastically: she began working 6 days a week and doing extra-hours whenever needed. But it was worthwhile, because it allowed her to learn a lot and to grow as a lawyer.
At a personal level, living in Macau was also a good experience. For the first time in her life, she felt completely independent; she had only herself to rely on. She had her closest family with her, which was very important for her to feel good, and she was responsible for managing their lives without any help or interference from relatives or in-laws. In order to do that, she had to boost her confidence on her own ability to run her life and to make good decisions for the family.
Their financial life improved considerably, allowing them to buy the house they wanted and to travel to some amazing places. Contacting with different cultures and people constituted a very fulfilling experience.
She had been there for five years, when her happiness was completed with the birth of her second child, Patricia. It was a delightful event in the life of the family. She felt less insecure and anxious about taking care of a baby than she did with her first child.
In that same year, the family decided to return to Portugal. With the delivery of Macau to the Chinese administration approaching, those were times of uncertainty about how the Portuguese people would be treated from then on and they had to think about the family. In retrospect, she repents that decision: the transition turned out to be peaceful, they lost a good financial situation and things in Lisbon did not go as well as they had planed.
When they returned to Portugal, they decided to start their own law firm, as they had always wanted. This was a risk, with advantages and disadvantages. It was the accomplishment of a goal for her and her husband, which allowed them to handle their cases with more independence, without having to deal with unethical attitudes of colleagues or with the bad temper of a boss. They could take their practice in their own hands.
On the other hand, it is difficult for a small law firm to deal with the competition: there are big law firms, that detain all the connections and lobbies, and there are also some lawyers without an office, who can offer cheaper services because they do not have expenses to pay.
Therefore, and because some clients do not understand the differences in terms of quality of service, a small law firm has difficulties in thriving.
At the moment, Ana is I at a turning point. She needs to make some decisive changes in her life: at a professional level, she is looking for ways of making her law firm evolve and achieve a different kind of clients; at a personal level, she wants to get time for herself, to dedicate to her own interests, to follow and guide her children in their growing process, and to prevent routine from interfering with her marriage.
Ana doesn’t have many projects for the future; she has goals that she wants to achieve: she wants to orient her children, to help them in the process of becoming successful and well-adjusted individuals; she also wants to pursue and succeed in new career challenges; most of all, she wants to dedicate time to the personal interests she has been neglecting for the past decade (travelling, spending time with friends, reading, appreciating music, dancing and writing a novel…).
One can only hope that she gets her dreams, in order to live the rewarding life she deserves.