My first tattoo

          So today was a very crappy day for me, my car was busted, I didn’t find a parking space, work was awful, my head was completely in another place and made a manifold of mistakes. I felt like quitting everything and crawling back in to my dark place.  Time just seemed to run so slow today, but finally the day came to an end. During work hours, one of my friends was speaking to me about going in to a tattoo parlor and give some support to another friend who was getting one. 

    I’ve been contemplating getting a tattoo for around a year now. I’ve contemplated it before, but not as much as I did now, plus I didn’t know what I was going to get back then. I researched meanings, positioning, tattoo care, techniques and colouring. After all that pondering and contemplating I made, I finally reached the conclusion of what type of tattoo I’d want. I chose a simple small heart on my left wrist. 

        Simple and small: expressing my simplicity, not needing much, not wanting to be ostentatious. 

        Heart:  self love and care. No one should be more concerned for myself other than me. Therefore I should love myself                   unconditionally. 

        Left wrist: following the imaginary line of the ring finger. Portraying a connection to my heart. 

        I don’t believe in getting tattoos just because it’s fun. I don’t believe in getting tattoos without a personal meaning under it. If it doesn’t meet any of this requirements, it’s a waste of a precious canvas: my skin. A tattoo is a permanent reminder of something that can be either beautiful or something awful. 

        To avoid any feelings of repent, I researched “Things to do before getting a tattoo”. One of the guidelines I found stated “A tattoo is a permanent scar on your skin. In order to be completely sure you want this, draw your design on a piece of paper and paste it somewhere you can see it everyday, all the time. This way, if you ever get tired of it, you’ll know you really don’t want it and no harm done”.  So I started conducting this experiment on myself; everyday, for months, I drew my little heart on my wrist. I never got tired of looking at it. It just made me smile. And it indeed remind me of the things that I should be thinking of myself.  

     And well, this is how I got my first tattoo. My simple small heart, a self love reminder, so that I always know that no one can undermine me without my own consent. That I should always love myself. My own personal way of demonstrating myself some love. 

       

My little heart ❤ 

One that I won’t be having to draw on every day anymore. 

Valentine’s Day

     Ah, it’s that time of the year again. The time were malls fill up with last minute shoppers, restaurant reservations are booked full and isles turn into an ombre of reds and pinks. Valentine’s day is here. I have to say I’m not very fond of this particular day. Why limit yourself to one day to express how you feel and treat that person you love or like? Why not do it everyday? People limit themselves to give gifts or cards on “special occasions” like birthdays, christmas, valentine’s day, mother’s day, father’s day and anniversaries (well maybe anniversaries and birthdays can be the exception of that list).  

      Why wait for a specific day to tell someone “I love you” ?  DO IT NOW, DO IT TODAY, DO IT TOMORROW AND EVERYDAY! (ha ha, that even rhymed). ‘Cause you never know when the bus is coming. What bus you might ask? One day while sitting on a bench in a park with my boyfriend and a friend, the most random guy approached us. He was selling books. It was almost midnight, so the only thing we could think of was “why are you selling books at this time dude?”, even though we didn’t say it out loud. He was selling two books, a spanish-english dictionary and a motivational book, each one for RD$100 pesos (which is like US$2.32). He seemed harmless, wasn’t begging or anything, so we decided to help and we bought the motivational book. We started reading it and came to the conclusion it was more of a pocket psychology book. One of the theories it stated was “Don’t be upset if you miss this bus, another one will come”. We thought it could be applied to many situations, so we did apply this theory for any unexpected result in whatever random situation we were in. Then one day I watched a sappy video in which “person A” didn’t tell “person B” how he felt, then he died, and his undying love, sadly died with him.  So then I came up with the “Tell everyone you love them everyday, cause you never know when the bus is coming to kill you”. Tragic, but true. As cliché as it may sound, the things that most people regret in life while laying on their death bed, is not having taken those risks in which the result was unpredictable. Declaring one’s love to someone, in fear of rejection, is one of those risks. And I’d rather be rejected a hundred times before living with the “what if”.  

         So say what you are feeling today, don’t waste another second. There is nothing more exhilarating and filled with adrenaline, than being close to discover that which you’ve yearned for or were terrified of trying. 

 

 Pictured here is (was) my fear and my risk. I took that leap of faith despite of the possible negative outcomes I feared, but boy was I wrong, and boy it turned out okay, GREAT. 

Happy lovers day ❤ 

 

*Picture taken in “Cabo Rojo, Pedernales, República Dominicana” *

Throwback Thursday?

So this new trend, the famous “throwback thursdays” has been a complete hype for a while. Or at least for me it’s been a while; (Pardon me if TBT is way much older, but hey, I’m barely starting my life right now. I promise I will get to this “starting my life” in a moment). I’ve decided to follow the throwback thursday trend through this blog. Maybe at some point I might run out of throwbacks since I really haven’t done much in my life, not until I reached my 20’s at least.  This will probably be the longest post I make, so bare with me.

Ladies and gentleman, here’s the throwback thursday of my life. 

Well, now, this is the story of a very ordinary girl: me. Ever since the day I was born, my parents excelled in giving me the life anyone would like. Great school, nice home, a pet, a maid, a nanny and every possible thing I could desire (well, maybe not everything), but at a very high cost: my liberty.  My sense of adventure, curiosity, creativity were all fading away very slowly as I made my way through my teens. I stayed home most of the time watching cartoons, sleeping or playing video games. Luckily for me, at least I didn’t end up like the “posh” kids at my very “posh” school. I was the outcast, the nobody, the one who wasn’t invited to quinceañeras nor had many friends. But this also took its toll and led me to a dark place. This dark place I will reveal in another post.

Anyways, as a teen, I didn’t have much expectations from myself, I didn’t care about my grades, I didn’t care about the people at school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life (every teenager’s drama while in HS). I was feeling very lost. So lost, I ended up missing 4 months of college as I didn’t know what to major in and we don’t have the “undecided” option here.  Early January 2010, I enter college as a pre-med student. My first year was great, I had a new start: new friends, new goals, good grades. But as every happy story has a sad part, mine didn’t come immediately, it came 1 year later. The storm had just been collecting little clouds throughout the year. A cumulonimbus cloud was in my near future. Once I entered Med school, everything came falling down, little by little. The more I made my way through the program, the more rain it poured. My grades started falling, I didn’t have any motivation. I noticed I really didn’t have friends, since they kept skipping on the golden brick path to the land of Oz (pre-internship) and they didn’t even hand me an umbrella. I fell back into that dark place. I fell so hard I ended up failing a class and dropping college for a while (I’m still out, but I will return in May).

But between all those dark clouds I did have my small silver linings. I joined an NGO called TECHO (means roof in English). In which I’ve been investing my time for the past 2 years. To clear things up a bit, I’ve only been out of college for 6 months now. Anyways, TECHO is a non profit Organization, which is on the run to fight poverty in 19 countries of Central America and South America.  Dominican Republic is one of those countries, with a 42% of people living in poverty and 10.4% living in extreme poverty ( I will also make a post on TECHO later on).  Being in TECHO has changed me, in a good way. It’s made me happy to help those who don’t know how to use their voice and live under the oppression of a sadistic government which buys their votes with boxes full of food (And again, I will make a post later, I just get a bit excited talking about this NGO).

Being in TECHO has lifted my spirits, I’ve met new people. I’ve met 2 of the 3 boyfriends I’ve had in my entire life (yes, lame, I know). I have really started living. It has made me a new person. Sure I still have some clouds over my head and many issues to keep working on, but now I have a healthy spirit to keep me moving forward.

Here’s a polaroid of the house my team built with TECHO.
(I’m the one bending down, next to the blue certificate)

Independent

If I were to wake up one day to be independently wealthy, I’d say It would be a complete weight off my back. First of all I’d move from home. Being home gets me depressed. I believe living on my own would be the push I need to go ahead and jumpstart my life. It would be the pressure I need to get back on my feet and make things right with the life I lead.  Having my own place would mean a sense of liberty, of not being watched by a guard dog EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF THE DAY.  I would not feel like a burden for my parents, since I’m already a disappointment to them. Or at least that’s what I think I am.

I dream everyday of the things I would be doing if money wasn’t a problem. I’d have a medium 2 bedroom apartment, in a neighbourhood that calms me. I say “medium” and not “small”, since I would like the space to have people over. I would always have my friends over. Watch movies, have lunch or dinner, sleepovers and small get togethers.  It would be nice, my place would be some sort of haven and escape from reality. Only it would be my reality, and I’d be very happy indeed.

After having my own place and settling down, I would start planning trips. That is if the wealth i’ve got is one of those that are hard to spend in years, THEN I’d start planning trips. I would visit all the places I’ve always wanted to go to. And I’d bring my friends of course, ’cause in the end, it doesn’t matter where you go, it’s who you go with, right?  But, there would be places were I would like to be alone, and just absorb their greatness and meditate about who I am. Maybe I’m a bit silly or naïve to think some sort of epiphany  in the right place will occur, and I will somewhat  be a complete new person. But it won’t matter, I know who I am, I just need to learn to embrace it.