Author: Carla Doria
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Feeling empowered…
I´ve never felt more empowered, let me tell you how this happened:
I was discussing with my family about the reasons of why I had desisted to go to an end-of-the-year trip to Istanbul and Dubai (personal reasons nothing to do with the beauty of these cities which I will visit but in another opportunity) and why I should consider other possible destinations instead. I came with the same strong opinions from my family: why do I waste money on trips instead of saving to buy a house, a car, or anything? And I my answer was more or less like this one:
“Because I don´t want to get a loan to buy something that is going to torment me for years until I pay my debt. I don´t want to live like that, I want to be able to enjoy life as if I was going to die tomorrow. I don´t have personal obligations yet, children or other dependents and I want to be able to take advantage of that while I can.”
It was more or less like that, and it is not the first time I use a similar answer to the members of my family but to friends as well. It seems that I´m surrounded by what I call: “negative traveling souls” and I really hate that!
Then we discussed with my family about my way of thinking, etc., etc. and I won´t tell you the details but let’s say that my way of thinking is miles different from them.
But I felt empowered, because I love the way I am, and I feel so proud that I´m able to think like I do, even if I mistaken, because it just feels right in my heart. And at the end, it is all about being content with your heart, right? Would I be happy being a slave of my work knowing that I have to work for years in order to pay a mortgage? No, definitely no.
I don’t want to think that much in any financial difficulties that could come when I´m old (as my mother points out), because maybe I won´t get that far!!! And I know many of you will say “how irresponsible way of thinking”. But I think that I´m actually very realistic, I know life is a gift meant to be lived as it were the last you were going to receive, and that people is realistic!
I don´t dream of living forever, I don´t dream of saving until one day I become wealthy and then can travel the world. Even if you become wealthy with your savings in years from now, who guarantees that you´re going to be physical able to travel?.
I feel more real than ever, doing what I like, living how I want. How many people can say that? I feel empowered by accepting and being who I am…. Damn I feel so good!
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Terrified of chiropractors and the power of suggestion
And here I was lying on a bed waiting for the chiropractor to come in. My doctor had referred me to a physiotherapist, something about some column vertebrae in my neck joined together and the cause of some strange tinkling in my arms and hands. It was not the first time I was required to go to a physiotherapist, but this time, the intended physiotherapist was also a chiropractor.
Image source: www.npr.org
Good memories of Alan in ‘Two and a Half Men’ first came to my mind. But then, images of chiropractors making strange movements in people´s bodies, rustling bones sounding like they were about to break, and the idea of having somebody make a kung-fu movement-type on my neck was spine-chilling and terrifying. Images from movies of people dying while somebody broke their necks or somebody from behind twisting them to death, were not helpful as well. My main question was why of all places that a chiropractor could work on, it had to be my neck? What would happen if he twisted my neck that much? I´ve been afraid of surgeries and dentists, but never that much of a chiropractor.
You know, people would twist their fingers until they crack? Not me, never liked that, terrified as well. It seems I´m a complete coward when regarding to bones cracking and twisting.
So my first instinct on my first session was to tell the doctor: ‘You are not going to twist my head around until it cracks right?’. The doctor laughed a little bit and said ‘Why you don´t want that?´ I nodded nervously ‘Of course I don´t, I´m terrified of that’. He then added ‘‘We´ll see what happens with the first days, it won´t be that traumatic…’
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I think the chiropractor got conscious of my fear, and the first sessions have only been about massaging and applying electricity, no sudden twisting movements until now. The good news is that my muscles have yielded and I´m not that tense anymore. The bizarre tinkling in my arms and hands has almost disappeared. And it seems that the fear of having my neck twisted and cranked has caused all my symptoms to go. I´m not sure anymore if I will still need the creepy twisting, but I feel much relaxed now, and I have faith that if I still need to have my neck twisted in the right place, it won´t be that ‘traumatic’ anymore.
What I have concluded is the power of suggestion in my mind. It seems that my fear of a “kung-fu movement’ in my neck has made my mind send a signal to the rest of my body to make all symptoms disappear. Was that what happened? or did I just needed a couple of sessions of massages? I won´t never know, because the power of the mind is overwhelming.
Image source: www.marrichchiro.com
I was also experiencing some bizarre tingling in my face, but my head doctor said that it was mainly due to stress. I told him about my peaceful job and the point in my life where I was really satisfied with doing what I liked most. Seriously, this year has been fantastic for me, for the first time, I feel that I am on the correct path, doing what I like and in the direction of achieving my goals. So why would I be stressed? Additionally, as the loner I am, I don´t face problems with people, because I mainly don´t hang out that much with people. And truth to be told, life at home is quite nice. After watching the family disturbances in Game of Thrones, I believe my family situation is heavenly like.
But my head doctor said ‘Maybe it is being you that stresses you that much’. Both of us laughed at that remark, but it stuck in my mind. I later found out that it was actually true.
Image source: www.healthworks.my
The idea of arriving on time to meetings, of looking at the hours in my work, of knowing I have to commit myself to my writing goals every day, and even the idea that I should finish the novel I´m reading, stressed me. I found out that little things like hurrying to the drugstore to buy the doctor´s recipe and finding the place closed, stressed me a huge deal, because of the idea of having to return again and having precious time wasted.
When have I become so meticulous with time? Many times I have said that we have to make the most of every day, and I do that, but at the same time I can´t handle the idea of losing time doing nothing or doing something not productive. Maybe it is stressful to be myself.
Image source: theprospect.net
I believe all these realizations happen for a reason. And this is a wakeup call, to loosen myself a little bit more, to do some relaxing activities, maybe some sports, to not take things that serious. To find a balance again. After all, life is about challenging you all the time, isn´t it?.
There is no right point in life where everything is perfect and works well, let´s face it, it would be boring. Perfect people would not push any further, and they would be left stuck in their comfort zone. I love my new purpose of not being that stressed for being myself anymore. I´m hoping to get good outcomes of this and find myself towards a more relaxed path in the future. Believe me, everybody experiences stress, there is no perfect happy person stress-free person anywhere. And you, what stresses you in your life?
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Soap Operas create different people and why I think I don´t belong to this ‘specie’
I stopped watching soap operas when I was fifteen. I used to watch as many girls of my age did, Mexican soap operas and the Brazilian ones. We got ‘tons’ of them on national TV here. If you turn on local TV at 9:00 pm for instance, there is a soap opera on each national channel. You can´t escape them, there is nothing else to watch. Now they got Colombian, Peruvian, American and even South Korean soap-operas. That´s unless you have Cable TV. But believe it or not, there are still out there many people that even with Cable TV still choose to watch soap operas, and even worse they look for the Mexican soap opera channel on Cable TV (soap operas the 24 hours!!!). My aunt arrives at home at evening with the sole purpose of turning on the TV and catching her 7:00 pm soap opera, there is another one at nine, and another at ten. I think she also watches one in the morning… but I won´t go into boring you with my aunt´s TV habits.
Image source: mysoapoperaaddcition.blogspot.com
Sometimes, I would sit for some minutes at the kitchen while making some tea and watch glimpses of my aunt´s soap operas. She would try to explain them to me but I won´t pay any attention because I know I won´t get attached to them. But when I watch for some minutes, I only see fakeness. Soap operas are supposed to be realistic, but they aren´t. And the worst thing is that people watch them and take them as reality and even apply them to their daily lives. For instance, all these Latin American soap operas featuring female actresses that are so perfectly presented, esthetically I mean that it makes me want to punch the TV. Perfect hair, all the time, perfect makeup, clothes and bodies. They all look like a version of Sofia Vergara. Not once have I seen them wearing sneakers, trainers or sports clothes or a hair put out of place. And what about the ‘Evil bitch’? Because all of these soap-operas have one, so full of hate and vengeance, that it makes her so unreal.
I went to the movies with one friend the other day but we´ve become so apart that I failed to sync with her. She told me about a soap-opera she was seeing and how “different” it was from the others, having sensed my total disconnection with the genre. I listened to the story and it was more of the same but I didn´t tell her. I came to understand why we were so disconnected now as friends. The truth is that most of the people that watch soap operas believe in what they are presented with, they believe in these perfect “Sofia Vergara’s” and intend to copy them.
Image source: tobiasmastgrave.wordpress.com
They believe in these “evil characters” and therefore are apprehensive of the people that surround them, always thinking the worst of everybody´s intentions. They intend to spot these characters in their real lives. They make a drama of their lives.
Why am I different? I never expect to spot evil people. Of course, I´m aware of the existence of criminals, murderers, but I´m sure they are nothing like that the soap-operas portray them.
Does this mean that the rest of TV shows are good? No, but they are better, I can confirm that. Everything is better than a soap opera, from my point of view. And I believe that it truly influences people, especially children, who watch them from very young age. I am sure that girls age 10 in my country most likely watch at least one soap opera a day. Since society does not tend to condemn this TV-genre for violence or mature content, children of all ages watch them and their parents allow it. A distorted sense of “real life” is showed to them. A child, age 8, can tell that Pucca is not real, but how about if you ask him about the things he watches in a soap opera? He/She won´t be able to discern.
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Sudden stop and readjustment
Well, yesterday was one of the strangest days of my life. It was a regular Sunday with nothing to do, no many chores at home, not many responsibilities but it was different as well since I also had a Baby shower to attend to. I´m not very social so I usually don´t have many social appointments programmed for the weekends and I really get excited when I find that I have one (yeah, sounds kind of little pathetic right…). I guess this loner may need to shake up her life a little bit more…
Friends are long gone, or at least I have lost contact with most of them. I only see them through Facebook and hear about their news, what they are up too, through the posts on Facebook. I guess this is the new era and I have to admit I have fall prisoner of this new way of making social contacts, really sad, right?
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So what is that I want? I’m hugely focused in my dreams in projects, which are growing big each time more. But at the same time, I have left the “personal life” falter a little bit. On previous weekends I would have gotten very excited to do “my stuff on my own”. This Saturday I got my embarrassed-guilty-passion books: Insurgent and Allegiant (yeah I know is really embarrassing but I was desperate to receive them on the mail). I had new stories to process (read and write) for my fan fiction TV Series (I know I´m such a geek). But nothing worked for me weekend.
The Baby shower felt really dull. I didn´t enjoy at all, people just seemed dulled for some reason. I´ve been to plenty of social gatherings were I don´t know people may folks around but I always find the way to cope it and I could be very good at small chit-chatting. But yesterday just felt odd, I felt like a fish out of water. And to top it when I arrived home, I found the latest episode “Game of Thrones” so boring that I didn´t know what to do after. I didn´t feel like surfing the net, reading or watching TV, nothing, I just switched off the lights and went to sleep. I woke up really early this morning. So what is going on then?
Image source: www.notesideideas.com
Do I need a complete makeover of my life? Why? I like everything that I´m doing, the job, the projects but the social environment is killing me. Unfortunately, in this little town there is no way to meet people, you may not believe me, but it is true. So do I need a change of cities, countries? I don´t know. Should I go out of my house and live alone? I have considered that, but it´s kind of dull when you think it very objectively, my salary is not high enough for me to pay a rent and live comfortably, should I sacrifice “comfortability and the possibility of traveling” for the sake of living on my own? I don´t know and you have to consider that the house is legally owned by my mom and me, so it sounds weird, but I shouldn´t be looking to suffer for rent when I own 50% of the house right? , I know it is selfish but pretty rational from my point of view. My Aunt inherited me the 50% of her share, so maybe I´m now trapped, in a good way. So if I ever move, it would have to be out of the city, definitely.
So all this mumble jumble, it is just to remind me that. No matter what your priorities, goals, projects are. From time to time, there has to be a sudden pause in your life and RE-EVALUATE. It keeps you fresh. Perhaps, I need to give it more importance to the social aspect of my life, well I´ll do it now. This loner may need to come out of her shell a little bit more. Not only on the “online world” but on the real world! Friends are already gone, so maybe I need to find a way to find other ones; another crazy travel should be planned? I don´t know…. Could be… should I join some team/course? Well maybe!
Anyway, I´m glad yesterday was yesterday. And that all the happenings (actually the fact that nothing happened) made me realize all those things. I´m glad that I´m a writer that never faces a “blank page”. I´m glad that I question the direction of my life every day. I´m glad that I´m self-aware and I know how I am and where I want to head to. I´m so grateful for that and for the chance that there is still room for improvement, if not life would be pretty damn boring right?
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Finally, I´m glad that I wrote this post because it makes me who I am. The writer inside me. The person that needs to write to make it to the next level. And I hope that I have managed to motivate somebody out there to look for their paths and struggle for it. To re-adjust their lives and to look for more growing. Life is a constant battle and I believe that there is never a top achievement at the end of the road. It´s the “fight in between” that makes our lives, and we must try to make of this fight the most exciting and fulfilling we can, even if we have to re-adjust it hundreds of times. So pause and readjustment?
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How many are out there that write? I thought almost everybody did it!!!
So I ended up taking a course in “Literature and photography”. I love reading and writing, therefore, the literature part, but the photography part came with the idea that I consider myself a very visual person. That´s why I love Pinterest!
I had been to a previous class, and it was interesting enough, with me making a list of books that I should read most than anything. The 90% of the public that attends those courses in my city, are usually people who are studying either literature or journalism, so classes are at a very high level, and I feel myself a little bit intimidated by the knowledge that simply “flows” in these courses. The lecturer would usually say: “well of course you have read X and know that….” and I would feel embarrassed for not having a clue about X and would write it down in my notebook without anybody noticing… well I want to pretend I have read X as well!!! 😀 . The public would assent to the obvious question about reading X, mocking with their expressions those who have not read X. Well you see my point right? But at the end, I didn´t care that much´. I would just add them to my list and remember the things that I know as Industrial Engineer and as a Technical writer in a software development company they wouldn´t even know about. What! they don´t know the basics of SQL Server instances? 😀
Anyway, being surrounded by this highly intellectual group made me assume that most of them were into “producing” like the lecturer asked yesterday: “How many of you produce? paint, photography, writing?”. Of a bunch of 50 people, 5 rose their hands, I did of course. She added “How many of you write? anything diaries, stories, books, blogs?”. I was the only one.
I felt special. These people were very knowledgeable of the great writers and philosophers of the world, they could quote them without problems but none of them wrote?. If there was any doubt of what the hell I was doing in those courses, now there wasn´t, I was in the right place. As a result, the lecturer took the opportunity to address many of the topics to me. Many of the questions she raised would be finished with something like “this could be very helpful when you write, ask yourself the same question, it will help you” and I would feel proud.
Writing for me is a necessity, even If I don´t do it very well, even if I still struggle with English, since it is not my native language. It is something that I feel obliged to spend time with.
For some reason, I thought that there were many people out there with the same necessity, maybe they are, but they just avoid it or don´t pay too much attention to it. Gladly I don´t and feel very proud of saying that “I produce”.
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So what is it with young-adult fiction novels? I’m no teenager yet I can’t seem to drop Divergent from my hands….
Yes, when you hear about young-adult fiction novels, images of Twilight and other similar stories come to my mind. I know they are supposed to be directed to an audience of teenagers and young adults in general (say around 20 the most?), I don´t know.
However, I went eagerly to watch all the Twilight series and the same with the Hunger Games. I remembered going to the premier of one of the Twilight movies in my city (I think it was the last part) and being impressed by fifteen year old’s sighing when they either saw R. Pattinson or T. Lautner (well, let´s assume it, it was justified, but me in my early 30s was very far from being in their type of public, yet I was enjoying it very much).
But apart from the movies and all the fuzz that comes with the actors, etc. I really didn´t picture myself buying the books for these movies. I didn´t know very much about Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins, except that they were the authors responsible for these stories (Twilight and The Hunger Games respectively).
But the story with Veronica Roth (author of Divergent) was different. You see I was making a list of the books I may want to shop while I was in the UK for holidays. I knew I had to the take this opportunity to buy me some nice books written in English since they are very difficult to get them in my country. I don´t know how I came across with Divergent and the story of its author, I think she was only 22 or something like that when she first wrote Divergent. I read an interview about her online. It was supposed to be the next big thing, the next Hunger Games, but what came to my attention was that the author was so young to be so extremely accomplished. I decided to put the book in my list, just in case.
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Well, due to my endless activities in my trip, I only got the chance to look for books while I was at London Gatwick airport. I didn´t have my list with me in that particular moment, but the moment I stepped in WHSmith, the best sellers and the most popular books came to my encounter, and guess what? the most visible one was Divergent. The edition I ended buying already had the cover with the Hollywood actors on it and already said “now a major motion picture”.
Since I had no idea when the movie was going to be released (I hadn´t been able to watch TV or any internet site while travelling), I thought I was going to have plenty of time to read it before the movie came out. But when I got home, the first thing I saw on TV was the trailer of its release in 5 days.
I read a lot, but I´m not that fast when it comes to finishing books. I usually take between 3 weeks or even a month to finish a book with an average of 500 pages. Of course, I only read one hour per day, approximately and even less, and not every day, usually I forget about the book I´m reading in the weekends.
Image source: en.wikipedia.org
Friends were already telling me about their plans to go to see the movie next week (that is tomorrow). I was thinking that I would have liked to have read it first before going to see the movie. I decided to give it a try and see how much I could move forward with the book before I went to the movies, guess what? I´m about to finish it, surely this night I will finish it. Just on time.
I can´t seem to drop the book, I have been reading past midnight and even more these days. I dream and wake up thinking about the characters and the story. It´s unbelievable. I have read plenty of page-turner books, but this one can´t take my mind of it. The narration in itself is simple, and the plot once you get to understand is very easy to follow, so what is it then? An author so young capable of doing this? It´s actually very motivating for any person who wants to be writer.
The truth is simple, she knows how NOT to get people bored and she knows how to engage people to keep reading. I couldn´t seem to find a part in the book where I could put a halt and say “well that´s it for tonight, let´s continue tomorrow”. You couldn´t, it was like a crime to close the book when it was getting more and more interesting. For such an age, extraordinary, my sincere reverences to her…
