bulletproof ?

There are so many things on my mind today but one thought is particularly stronger than the others. Since last night, I’ve been thinking about how tough we can really be and how difficult it is to hide exactly how we feel…
It is well known that arts exist because of that human need of expression. The things we create speak for ourselves and there are many different ways of showing our feelings: music, writing, dancing, sculpting, etc but each one of them always speaks louder than words.
Arts make humans transparent for taking away our ability to hide anything. Those who really need to turn to any mean of expression become totally naked and helpless when their most sincere feelings are exposed; I guess this is exactly why thousands and thousands of persons around the world are closeted writers, composers or any kind of artists. I bet you have been surprised some time by any friend you thought you knew really well and then you discover that he or she have been a silent artist for a long time but let me tell you that expressing our most personal emotions is really hard because it shows that we are not bulletproof and that certain things in life can really bring us down sometimes, it may even make us weak to people’s eyes and that’s something nobody likes to admit. The weirdest thing about it is that most people need to see other’s acknowledge of weakness before they can acknowledge their own; in a funny way we may think of artists as sensitive and fragile for confessing their impressions but what it really takes to share your feelings is courage, so maybe artists are not as weak as we thought.

I used the term “bulletproof” above to describe people able to prevent anything from the outside to hurt them, but what happens to them in the inside? What happens to all those emotions they need to get rid of? Are they bulletproof from the inside to the outside as well? We hear all the time that it’s not very healthy to keep certain kind of negative emotions and thoughts inside so what happens when they fight so hard to keep them in? Don’t these emotions hurt them exactly as bad as some events in the outside would? I don’t really know, I haven’t been the kind of person who keeps her thoughts to herself, as much as I try to ignore or deny them, sooner or later they always find a way out… maybe it’s better this way.
Maybe artists and people who acknowledge their sensibility are the ones who are made bulletproof, because once they’ve shared their feelings they know they may be forced to deal with criticism and rejection…

What do you think my friends?

“…and I lived happily ever after.”

A few nights ago I saw this movie about reality turning into a fairy tale with a happy ending, good winning over evil and magic all over the place… I liked it, and then it suddenly hit me that in most of this kind of movies its children the ones that believe in magic not adults and I couldn’t help wonder why. The only reason I found is that when we are little we have no idea how cruel reality can be sometimes. We are trapped between innocence and ignorance and this makes us see life through naive eyes.
But when is it that we stop believing? Is it when something cruel shakes our reality and bursts our bubble? Or does believing just fades away as we grow older?

When I was little I used to be naive and easily fooled but I was hopeful…then a little piece of reality bursted my bubble making me realize that bad things can happen to me too. That fact made me grow before my time; it kicked ignorance out of my life and made me aware of things regular teenagers just don’t think about.

That particular event that changed my life caught me totally off guard and by surprise, ever since, I’ve found really helpful being alert of everything around me, this awareness is what keeps me safe and helps me protect whenever I feel insecure or in danger.

As a result I became a little cynical and suspicious for my age but that really worked out for me. For a long time it was really helpful to foresee things that could happen in life, but I’ve recently noticed that total control and monitoring isn’t good either, it's too exhausting...
Fortunately life has showed me that as hopeless and discouraged as I can feel sometimes, there’s always some happenstance that brings hope back. I’ve learnt that good events are the ones hard to predict and life is better that way because we wouldn’t enjoy them so much if we knew they’re coming.
I can definitely point out those sad events that have made me a little skeptical but honestly I can also point out those events that have brought magic back into my life and that have reminded me that magic does exist. I’m sure those are meant to exist in our lives to remind us that sometimes life can be like a fairy tale, even if it’s only for one night or just a couple of days… think about it, I’m sure that we can all think of certain moments that made us feel like we were living in a dream so never ever stop believing because there’s a fairy tale ahead, waiting for us to be ready to enjoy it.

Being able to see magic happen in front of your eyes is not a matter of age, it's just a matter of faith and trust.

"ghost"

Ren: I know you don't read blogs, not even mine but this post is for you... Thanks for knowing what this quest for the perfect ghost means...

A few months ago I read this quotation by Rochefoucauld: "True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen"... right after, I tried to remember if I'd ever seen a ghost, fortunately I can say that I've seen that ghost, that true love everybody wants for themselves yet doubt to be real...

True love exists, yet I don't understand why people don't want to believe in it, is it because they're afraid of it? Is it because they're afraid of getting hurt? Some ghosts can be spookier than others but each one of us has our own reason not to believe in something we might have never seen before but let me ask you something, has it ever happened to you that you're looking for something and it's right there in front of you but you just can't see it? Maybe love is like that, we might even be truly loved but we are not able to see it as we take it for granted.

Think about it for a while, we think that love is perfect. We have this idea that love has to be easy and if you're looking to find that out there, maybe this is why you'll never see this ghost, because you're looking for the wrong ghost. Love is the most imperfect thing you can imagine. It's filled with mistakes, lessons, forgiveness, anger, patience, sadness, joy and all these emotions that mixed together can result in something so pure called love, just like all colors mixed together make white.

To see love we have to keep our eyes open and we need to learn how to recognize it... We can't pretend to see this ghost everywhere because it’s not found that easily. Most of the times we don't know what it looks like, most of the times it doesn’t look like we want it to; there’s nothing else to do but to keep a hopeful light in our hearts that will guide this ghost to us, through rough and dark paths.

"geek"

do you ever wish you were someone else? well sometimes I do, especially when I realize that many other people have certain qualities I wish I had…
most of the time people think I’m outgoing, cheerful and confident, and I probably look like that but I don’t think that myself...
I like talking to people, getting to know them, hearing their stories and learning from them but is that really being outgoing? I love dancing and singing but that doesn’t mean I’m cheerful, to be honest, I tend to focus on the negative side of things most of the time…

all this makes me think that most of the time we judge based on the looks, we make assumptions not based on reality and when we think we know someone, we probably don’t have a clue about who they really are.
we are getting used to rejecting people without even getting to know them first. we expect a certain behavior based on the looks, if we see some beautiful guy or girl we expect them to be stupid or maybe easygoing and sexy. whenever we see someone who wears glasses and isn’t interested in fashion we refer to them as “geeks”, but this can’t be more wrong, I know this because sometimes people might get the wrong idea of who I really am; honestly I’m just a geek in the closet who wishes she could dance better to get the guy she wants.

I bet there are plenty of people out there wishing they were prettier, sexier, and funnier or maybe a different person sometimes but the thing is that we all want to be someone else from time to time, it’s only human to wish we had something we want and has been denied by any circumstance.
I’ve learnt that all we need to do is to stop focusing on what we lack of and value and appreciate what has been given to us, our own talents and qualities. this great advice I’ve been given by one of my best friends and it’s been helpful because geek or not I’m loved by many people just as I am.

"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