Legal Alien

Sting's song suddenly fell into place: I too am a 'legal alien'. 

In fact, I had to repeatedly state so by checking the box beside this new denomination of myself when filling in the never-ending number of forms and documents required to come to the U.S.

I won't lie, at first it felt weird to be classified as such. Then again, I can't remember the last time I felt such an outsider as I feel now. So I guess I really am an alien. Now that all my paperwork has been correctly submitted and processed, I am here legally. Thus: I am a legal alien.

The journey has been more arduous than I had anticipated. People blame fairytales for setting false expectations on love. I blame the whole film industry and media for portraying America as the model every nation should pursue. I was expecting some language particularities, but came to believe that things here worked smooth and flawlessly. These few months here have surely debunked my assumptions.

Banking system

When opening my account I was repeatedly made aware of the fact that my new account awarded me with 4 (exactly 4) checks! But I was to fret not, cause I was able to request more when needed. As I listened to the sales representative, my head was nodding politely, but my mind was having a hard time remembering the last time I had ever seen a check. I'm pretty sure it was at least 30 years ago.
In the country where the internet was invented, people still use checks daily.

Public Transport
I wondered why in a smallish city like this one, people still owned cars. The short answer is: unreliable public transport. Why is there even a bus schedule? One thing I'd say, though, all of the drivers I've encountered are super nice and helpful. So much that they seem to stop wherever it suits the person getting out. True story. 

Home Appliances
The kitchen is the biggest room in every house. Some may argue this allows to accommodate family and social gatherings. I have come to the conclusion that it's rather to accommodate humongous home appliances. No matter how much food I store, my fridge always looks empty. I don't even bother using the dishwasher, the sum of all of my table, cooking and kitchenware fail to load it fully. Yet, I'm still to make sense of the fact that apartments come with no washing machines!

The list goes on and on: prices (I'm talking $9 for 4 kiwis!? $5 for a small coffee!? and I won't even mention what I pay for my poorly-proportioned-with-huge-kitchen apartment...), size of cars, online orders left outside apartment buildings...

And yet, there is no other placer I would rather be :)

Bad Karma

Disclaimer: I do love this city. I'm enchanted with its beauty and I'm keen in making others see it as well :)

Living in a big city is really getting to me. It's draining all of my positive energy. The same one that I've taken years to nurture. It was easier  when I lived in a cute little small city where everyone was full of 'thank you' and 'thanks' and 'grand'.  

Ever since I moved here I sense this pervasive flow of negative energy in the air. We're all exposed to its non-discriminatory force. Once caught it spreads from person to person instantly. The most immediate reaction is the urge to give out. About everything. About anything. Vision and perspective of life is concealed by a dark layer and a strong impulse of sharing it with others grows. Soon those around mimic this attitude and so on and so on.

The lovely warm sun rays become unbearable hot weapons.

The atmosphere cleaning rain confine people between walls and awakes joint pain.

The colourful mood-boosting spring triggers allergies of all sorts.

... And like this with everything. 

I don't want to get caught in this! I'll continue with my fight for immunity, counteracting with smiles, good thoughts and better actions. 

I need however, to be extra careful! Just the other day I caught myself swearing when a car in front of me did a weird turn that forced me to abruptly brake. 

In a jungle of noise, lights, children shouting and grownups rushing around, how does one feed and grow inner peace? I'm determined to find out.

The Proud Misfit

I am

• ... a woman
• ... self-sufficient
• ... in my thirties
• ... single
• ... left-handed (but that's a story for another day)

Long story short, I am a MISFIT.

Living in a city where I am the living exception to the rule. This fact grants me the privileged position of being the target of awkward (and quite frankly, in many cases rude) comments, questions and moments all around the same theme: 

"What am I doing with my life??"

And although at the beginning all these comments made me want to climb under my duvet and cry myself blind; wisdom (actually, no, not wisdom, but rather, not giving a damn - for the use of a better word) has made me realise that not being like others is what gives me an identity.

I have accepted that I am where I have to be and made my mission to make others accept this too. Listen up:

• the only babies/toddlers I like are the ones I share some part of DNA with. And even those, I am happy to give back after a while
• no, I'm not worried about finding someone - last time I checked I hadn't lost anything
• the time when I felt the loneliest is when I had (the wrong kind of) someone by my side

• stop asking me whether I have a partner! Not having one does not make me a defective person and it certainly does not define me
• defining me by my relationship status says more about you than it does about me
• yes, I might be picky, but shouldn't you be with the person you decide to share your life with?
• I'm not sure if destiny has something good waiting for me, what I do know is that the best way to predict the future is to create it. I wouldn't be where I am if I had left things to chance instead of working by butt off!
• in the past 10 years or so I've lived in 5 different cities, met people for more countries that I know existed and seen places I had only dreamed of visiting. No, I don't feel like I'm throwing my life away
• I've found a passion and I'm pursuing a dream. I'm not trying to get you to follow my dream, so quit trying to single me out for not wanting to follow yours.

This is my life and I am working on being happy to be living it.

Stages in Life

My extended family only get together in two yearly occasions: Christmas and my Grandma's birthday. With still some months to the former, we met this week to celebrate the latter. Four generations around 86 candles, which were heroically blown by the woman who has given birth to no less than 10 children! You can now more realistically picture the amount of attendants to the event (and know the reason why we don't meet more often...). With four generations present on the night, there were representatives of all ages, giving me the opportunity of seeing life through their eyes for the duration of our conversation. All having a completely different view of the same world we all live in...

After gathering bits and pieces of the night, I reached the conclusion that life is lived in 4 different stages.

1. Flowing Life

Ages: newborn - 14

These are the years where you 'go with the flow'. Your parents determine your days, when and where you come and go, what times you eat or what you buy. You have little sense of time or perspective. Life is lived through others. At the end of this phase and after a bad hormonal kick, your environment becomes your war and you take up arms against literally everything. 

2. Theoretical Life

Ages: 15 - 29

Not liking anything in your life, you begin to imagine the great things that you fail to have and start to cook up the great plan that will lead you to a life of rainbows. You make being a free spirit your life purpose and firmly believe that all you want in life is to burn bridges and travel around the world with no other baggage than your own soul. And because anything that remotely resembles a responsibility is a clear threat to your plan, you run away from any form of commitment. You picture yourself leading a successful career doing what you love to do.

3. Fall-Rise-Fall-Rise Life

Ages: 30 - 69

But then life gives you a reality check. You realise how difficult things are, the amount of unfairness in this world. And you fall and rise again because there is no other option. And then you fall once more and have to come out from the deepest holes to stand back on your two feet; until you're knocked right out again. And rise. And fall. And rise...You become wiser and gaining a privileged perspective that leads on to the following stage.

4. Observant Life

Ages: 70 and above

With a tired body and an experienced soul, you become to live life through others (family, friends, acquaintances, actors, strangers...). Your only problems are theirs and your happiness is to witness their own bliss. 

Summer Expectations

Summer officially started a few days back.  The season of long days and warm nights, of holidays and sun and beaches and blue skies, happiness, smiles... or at least this is the picture many of us paint in our minds, whilst being faced with a different reality.

They say that the secret of happiness is low expectations. But let's be honest, we get carried away more often than not. And perhaps more so in Summer :)

Lunch on the Beach

· Expectation: sitting under the shade of an umbrella, looking over the blue horizon with the soundtrack of the waves coming in and out the shore...In summary: this.

· Reality: umbrella blows away, sand gets all over the food and inside the drink, which by the way is all heated up by the sun and resembles to mulled wine.

Happily Strolling
· Expectation: clear skies, long days, time to walk everywhere, enjoying the warm kiss of the sun.
· Reality: 6pm 40ºC A 20m distance to the nearest bus stop takes 20 minutes. It's a miracle that your muscles are responding under such heat.

Summery Clothes
· Expectation: goodbye tights, sleeves, trousers, jumpers... hello flowery dresses, sandals, t-shirts!
· Reality: it's going into supermarkets, shopping centres, cinemas, public transport and well, any building really, and you are transported to the Arctic. What's with the air-con, people?

Months of Sunshine
· Expectation: you've survived months of rain, wind, cold, dull days and finally here is the longed for reward. Weeks of happiness ahead.
· Reality: and suddenly shops start putting up the Christmas decorations. Where does time go?


Nothing lasts forever. Make the most of the things you love because you won't be able to enjoy them forever; and don't let the ones that do harm bring you down, because they too will disappear. Happy Summer!

Ignorance is Bliss

There is a magnifying mirror in my parent's house. Not a normal magnifying mirror, but one where I swear you would be able to see the deepest layer of your skin if you stare at it for more than a minute. I haven't been able to look into that mirror for that long. The second my eyes caught sight of my face in it, I turned away. Scared.  

This revealing mirror got me thinking that more often than not, it's better to live alien to certain truths. I don't mean that we should all lie (not even white lies), no, I'm a very honest person. What I mean is that, occasionally, ignorance is a direct cause of happiness. A few very personal illustrations of this point:

1. Dental surgery - I truly believe I am a happier person without knowing the details of what happened in the 2 hours I was anesthesised
2. Santa -  the confusion of finding a Barbie hidden in my parents' wardrobe a few days before seeing it under the tree and the consequent revelation of years of false beliefs
3. Sales - they can ruin the excitement of owning a pair of gorgeous shoes, when seeing them half price a few weeks later
4. Food - I trust that you're all familiar with the ingredients that go into the very Spanish black pudding or outrageously expensive French foie? And I don't want to know any of the translations for the delicious plates I tried in Tokyo...
5. Relationships - if he ever stupidly slipped, he can live with the guilt. I'm not a priest, you won't be forgiven upon confession
6. Judgmental people - I prefer living not knowing what you think about me. I don't care
   
   and of course, the thing that started this post in the first place..
7. Magnifying mirror - my happy little world of ignorance perverted by the blunt truth

So trust me when I say that:

"The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with."

Let's badge it!

Walking down the streets on any given day, a stampede of working souls, who can't seem to get home soon enough, rush in every direction. All with a distinctive feature: a label hanging from their necks. Literally, not metaphorically. Call it label, call it badge, call it what you want... It all serves the same purpose: openly displaying information.

Here is my proposal: if we are to disclose information, do it in a way that it'll benefit society as a whole. Tell the world something that will help them. It would save so much time and efforts! Efficiency, people, efficiency.

I'll illustrate this using myself as an example. My chest would proudly exhibit the following (not exclusively, but enough for you to get a sense of what I mean):

• Good with faces, terrible with names
• Don't care about the size - or number, for that matter - of your house, car, [enter material possession]
• People who are happy all of the time scare me
• Sometimes a glass of wine is the high of my day
• Happiness is a good book and a milky tea
• If you think you're better than someone else, don't come closer
• ...

Are you in? 

Think that it will work both ways. I sure know that my my life would have been so much better if I knew up-front some of the things I only got to learn the hard way... 

• "can't keep promises" 
• "will lie behind your back" 
• "my life is build around smoking"
• "fake"
• "will betray"
• ...

 

Let's make the world a better place, let's badge it!

New Year's Resolutions

It is the time to think about them, to plan them, to write them down, to do whatever you think will work this time around, because, this year, you are going to stick to your resolutions. Or are you?

Today, 28th December, we Spaniards celebrate el Día de los Inocentes. It's what you might know as 'April Fools' Day', but in Spain it is celebrated in December. 'Spain is different', they say. A good day to think about 2014's resolutions, because who are we fooling? Most of them will forever remain as good intentions.

This year I am not making any lists, I won't trick myself into thinking that a new year can trigger a new life. After all, every day is a fresh start, every single day is an opportunity to become a better version of myself. 

This year I aim to stick to my sole and only resolution: do more of what makes me happy. 

As simple as that. No unachievable idealisms. No becoming someone that I am not. I'll water 2014 with white wine, clear it of toxic people and fill it of shared moments with family and real friends. The soundtrack will be that of the loudest laughters.

I hereby commit to investing all of my energy, time, effort and other resources in being happy.

My Weekend Plans

When the end of the working week approaches, I fear the moment when I'll hear the foreseeable question: "Doing anything exciting this weekend?". I honestly need to think and mentally prepare for this from Mondays to be able to have something to casually drop as an answer that won't brand me for the rest of my days as being boring.

The truth is that the best of my weekends involve: a book, a cup of tea (or glass of white wine), a sofa and not much more. 

This, however, will mean my response to the dreaded question is: "Reading, drinking, lying and little more". 'Bliss' in my eyes; but I'm guessing 'exceedingly dull and uninteresting' for the listener. Not even when I go over the top and treat myself to a play in the theatre, succeeds in making a conversation out of my weekend plans. 

Let's be honest: sadly, more than half of the time, the person asking you about your weekend plans isn't the least interested in what you answer. They are either a) being polite; or b) longing for the cue "what about you?" to talk about themselves (oh, don't do people love talking about themselves...) 

This is why I have decided that the next time I hear "Doing anything exciting this weekend?" I'm going to completely ignore the social pressure around this topic and offer a frank answer that mentions all of the things I have no intention of doing (e.g. waking up early, making the watch rule my day, run from meeting to meeting) and all of the places I won't even consider setting foot on (e.g. the office, claustrophobic clubs).

I love weekends!