"home"

I was looking for a definition of "home" and a dictionary I found online states that home is "a place where one lives, a residence" but I don't agree much...
Home is not only a place that we choose to live in, I think home is a place we love, a place that makes us feel comfortable, a place where we can be ourselves and definitely a place that we're used to, that we know...

I was thinking about "home" because last weekend I went to this beautiful beach, about 7 hours away from home... A friend of a friend recommended this place because it's peaceful and quiet and people from the city can really use a relaxing trip like this... we got to this beach and the moment I got there, I knew that I was going to sacrifice comfort and convenience for a few days of calm and peace and I was ok with that, I knew it would only be for a few days...
We were ready to experience nature at its best, we had our tent, our insect repellent and our cell phones as a small part of convenience that we could carry from the city into the beach.
After driving around looking for a spot to park and set our tent, I realized that my signal was gone, I had no connection to the world I'd left behind and as soon as we set our tent, I realized that ants had occupied it before us and that our insect repellent, wasn't repelling anything at all jeje but I was willing to enjoy the experience anyway...And I enjoyed the experience indeed... I noticed that people there have a peaceful life, they aren't stressed or worried about anything, they have no deadlines, nor schedules or cell phones to disturb their tranquility. People just work for a few hours selling food to the visitors and then go back to their small houses to enjoy their quiet life.
For a moment, I envied their life... I wondered what it would be like, doing nothing all day long but resting and serving food from time to time... At the beginning, I liked the idea, the first day I stayed there, I really thought: "these people are lucky".

That same night, just laying on the sand I looked up at the sky and saw thousands of stars and shooting stars. I couldn't believe the night sky, it was so beautiful, majestic and mysterious. I fell in love with the sky because I'd never seen anything like that before and I couldn't believe that some people were lucky enough to call such a beautiful place "home".

The next day I kept analyzing the life of these people, I hadn't pointed it out to any of my friends but that night, one of my friends, Andy said out loud what I had been thinking through the whole trip... She had noticed their peaceful life too and we commented on it, but as we spoke about it, I realized that I have great things too back home...
I do have a stressful and busy life but I have other things that I'm already used to and that have made me the person that I am, with pros and cons; I'm used to my life and it has worked out for me because it has made me happy; even though I can't see that beautiful night sky from the city, I can always have signal on my cell, I need no insect repellent all day long and I have the most comfortable bed I've ever laid on. I love getting home after a hard day and watching some T.V., reading a book or just talking to my dad and brother. I love hanging out with my friends, seeing them anytime we can and dancing at our favourite bar, just drinking, laughing, enjoying life... To us, to me, this is home. My stressful and busy city is what I'm used to, this is the place I can call "home", this is what I know and where I feel comfortable.
Just like the people on the beach lack certain conveniences I do have, I lack of other things they have but I'm happy living here, honestly I don't think I could get used to living the life they do, I could just get used to visiting the beach from time to time for a few days and then coming back to the place I'm lucky enough to call "home".

mar
ps. thanks to mich and andy for the beautiful pics of our trip

"in times of adversity..."

Today I was thinking of all the hard times I've been through in my life: the loss of a very close member of my family, financial trouble, unemployment and a terrible break-up just to mention a few... I can remember the way each one of these events made me feel and I can see how much I've learnt and grown from all these negative experiences and it really makes me happy to realize that I have the strongest safety net to catch me when I fall: my friends.
I know sometimes they might have got tired of just listening and fighting against my negativity but they always stood by, no matter the bad weather and giving me their advice and strength, making me laugh whenever I felt like crying or just calling to ask how I was. Everytime they did something like that, I could just say "thank you" but maybe I haven't had the chance to really say what all this support meant to me.

I know sometimes it's hard to be a "good friend"; when you have too many things in your mind, it's hard to put all that stuff aside and just listen and give advice, it's not easy to forget about your own trouble to try and solve someone else's but humans have this beautiful thing called "empathy" and it makes us understand exactly how another person feels and as we make that feeling our own, we are able to provide the help we would like to receive. This is what makes friendship possible, that human side that helps us understand emotions and the way they feel.

Whether we choose to show them or not, we all have emotions and this fact shows us that we are not alone, that anybody else is able to feel like we do at some point and that real friends are the ones that choose to stick around to share our sadness and sorrow...
So, THANK YOU for being there, for trying to understand what I was going through and for providing the help that you would've liked to get if you were me. Thank you for being that sparkle in the dark and for sharing your light.
¡¡¡los quiero mucho!!!

"in times of prosperity friends will be plenty; in times of adversity not one in twenty"
english proverb

mar

"share it with the rest of the class"

This morning, while I was stuck in traffic and not moving an inch, I thought that every day is exactly the same as the last one: I wake up early in the morning, go to work, then I go to my second shift (teaching) and finally I get home too tired for anything else and honestly, I don't really like it... I want different things in my life, I'm scared only by thinking that this might be what I'll do for the rest of my life! I hate this thought, because if I don't like things right now, how can I expect different results if I keep doing the same boring things every single day??

The problem is that I don't know exactly what part of my life to change, I feel trapped in my own life just like so many people around the world do. I think a huge amount of us are stuck in shitty jobs that we don't even like and yet we have to keep them because there are no other options. If we work 40% of our time then we're spending almost half our time doing something that makes us unhappy, therefore our lives become something we don't enjoy. We are in this kind of jobs only for the money but is it too much to ask for an enjoyable way of making a living?

I know there are a few lucky ones who really love what they do for a living, but they're not lucky only because they can make money out of their likes, they are lucky because they have actually found that special activity, that "thing" they love doing.

I've seen some people who know from a very young age what they like, i.e.: my brother: he has always loved airplanes, now he's a pilot. He always knew he wanted to be a pilot, his passion has always been airplanes. I really envy people like him because once they've discovered their passion, they can build their lives around it...
On the other hand, I've seen people who haven't found what they like, that "thing" they're good at and that makes me wonder: Are we born to do something in specific or are we supposed to find that special "thing" on our way?

I don't really have an answer for that or for many other questions in my life, I just know that many of us are wondering the same thing as I write, I just hope that if anybody should find the answer, please share it with the rest of the class ;) he he

mar