Showing posts with label support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label support. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Update: Switched to Wordpress

Hello everyone,

For those of you who are not on my Facebook page, I have recently hit over TEN thousand reads overall in this blog and I feel so proud and lucky for having you participate with my content. With this community growing in capacity I want to make this community be able to connect with each other and with that being said I think by switching to Wordpress I am able to produce stronger connections with you, my fellow readers. I will try Wordpress for a month and if I do not like Wordpress then I will continue to use Blogger. Please let me know what you all think, I do value everything you do and say to me. Also I want to thank you all for being such a lovely audience for the past two years! Chavelita Stories did turn two a few days ago and it is quite the honor that I am still able to write to you all! I really enjoy writing and I look forward to what comes next!

Wordpress Chavelita Stories

Heard any good things about Wordpress?

xx Chavelita

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Day 25: To college graduate Isabel

Dear college graduate Isabel,

Reading this you are probably thinking I had too much time on my hands to be writing a letter to myself and then posting out on my blog for everyone to see. Yet I know you are secretly thanking yourself that you did because now you have something to look back and measure how much you have strove throughout the years. Either way I am giving you props for sticking it out to whatever it is that you decided to major in college with you decided to stick primarily to clinical psychology or branched out to the medical field in psychiatry. Then I bet you are also laughing at all the small things that I right now is freaking out like, who am I going to eat lunch with at college? Will I ever be comfortable enough to play my music out loud or sing in the communal showers? To be able to achieve that full college experience that I have been constantly been told about?

In the past you must of had a lot of pressure to carry with you, making your parents and carrying on the family name. The constant reminder of how many people wished you the best in college and already knew that you were to do just fine when in reality that would just make you freak out even more. You weren't looking for an audience to cheer you on, you wanted a group of people who you can fall apart to whenever you needed to. I already know you didn't need anyone to be used as your competition because ever since you were little you would already compete with yourself to see if you can be the best person you have ever been. You were tough on yourself before anyone could tell you twice what to do. Always a step ahead than what others may see you as and even through the struggle you find your methods of pushing forward. Late phone calls to mom and dad. A FaceTime every once in a while with your best friend just so you could hear her voice as she plants puns and stories on you. Crying whenever you would feel homesick or stressed. You surprise yourself in everything you do, and I hope you continue to see that in yourself as you continue on with your desired profession. The world is not an easy place as I imagine it to be right now, but just know that you did it and you were able to prove yourself and the world that you are ready to take the wheel.

Now just know thought that after graduating from college this is just another step you have to take in order to be under the career of your choice. So all those friendships you have made among your peers and with your professors are indeed your ticket into entering the real world because they will be the ones who boast about you and push you to get to where you want to be. So remember when you felt out of place that you were friends with your teachers in high school but then you learned that there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting to know your teachers more in depth? In fact that is one of the best decisions that you have made? Well that is the same thing the professors are there for, to support you, recommend you to certain institutions in hopes that they will accept you to work for them, have an ear out for you. Yeah teachers and professors may be a little different, but they are educators and for the most part would want the best for you. But knowing you, you would have already became friends with incredible people and have been moved with certain professors.

Just promise me that you will not give up? That you take life seriously but also be spontaneous to remind yourself of your teenage years of being carefree? To give those you decided to date a fair chance and when you do find the one, that you hold on tight with him? Smile often, don't hold yourself back, and never forget to call your parents. When you find yourself saying that life is not fair, do not get discouraged to continue because I know as soon as you land that job you are going to feel a million times better. You are so bright, you shine wherever you go!



xx Chavelita

PS. You better have studied abroad and had taken some wicked pictures to show to your future kids and family!

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Life is precious

As something that is expected, could easily be taken advantage of such as life. Not everyone is guaranteed a life, but those who were blessed enough to be given one chance at this confusing but amazing living time on Earth are not appreciating this wonderful gift. I have found myself many times of not being grateful for this life I have and as awful as that sounds it's like I am living in a mode where I live to just see the next day. Everyday living to reach the next day and some part of me feels like life is much more than that and that there is so much more to offer that I am clearly not seeing.

I was about the age of thirteen when my life was shaken for a moment. On the bus heading home from middle school, I typically spent the bus ride goofing around with my two closest friends and singing along to the latest tunes of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga that the bus rider was kind enough to play loudly on the speakers. When I reached home I called out, "MOM I'M HOME!" as I normally do to announce that I made it home safely. Only this time I was not getting any response. Strange enough if my mom were to go somewhere or leave she would of told me something, right? Trying my best to stay calm I go check to see if my mom was sleeping in her bed, my dad at the time he was out of town in a training to prepare for another deployment he was going later in the year. I should explain that without warning, because that is just how life likes to take action, my mom was feeling ill a few days before and as to this day I have no idea to explain the pain she must of been to not be able to button her own pants or change her clothes.

Back to story, at this point I was beyond terrified because now the only thought that was on loop was that she was in the hospital and that somehow her condition worsen. My mom wouldn't pick up the phone and I had no way to contact my dad to ask what was going on. He was not even on the island at the time, and both of my brothers have not made it back to the house. I turned on the television in my mom's room to calm myself down but I wasn't even paying attention to what was airing, I felt frozen with fear and I began to cry. Not one of those pretty cries, not that any cry is pretty, but it was one of those uncontrollable cries where you shook so much and that at that moment is where I felt like my brain wasn't working. Several minutes have passed and my phone began to ring, it was one of my mom's friends who lived just a few blocks from us. In Spanish, she asked, "You know that your mom is in the hospital?" and there was this silence and this awful pang of disbelief and anger that my conclusions were correct. Drawing conclusions should be the total opposite of what is happening and for once I did not want my conclusions to be right. Took so much to hold myself together on that phone call, where I mainly listened but when I had to answer back I would swallow profusely to hide the fact that of all things, of course I wasn't fine. All I wanted was someone to be there with me to just hold me and remind me of how life could play some cruel tricks but that things would or could get better. I remember my mom's friend telling me that she was coming to pick me up so she can take me to the hospital to see her and I said okay, hung up, and cried.

I picked myself up, wiped away the tears, popped a piece of gum in my mouth because I have learned that keeping my mouth closed to fight back the tears will not work but if I had something occupying my mouth that I would fight through it, and waited for her to come get me. On the way there I did not talk much, not that I speak much as it is, but my mind was roaring with questions. What happened to my mom? Was she okay? Did they find out what was wrong with her? Is she coming home tonight? Was anyone able to contact my dad? This was the first time I was allowed to go to the side of hospital where they kept the patients overnight. The sensation was foreign, I felt that I was not supposed to be there and that someone was going to tell me that I couldn't enter and redirect me to the same entrance. Only I wasn't and now being lead to the end of the hall, my mom was in the second to last room to the left side of me. Memories like these do not just disappear with time but are just faded scars. They're enough to be seen but not a deep wound that everyone questions. She laid there in the hospital bed wearing the typical hospital gown and socks that had grips at the bottom of the feet to prevent her from slipping if she were to get out of bed. This was definitely the moment where I realized how much of my life is revolved around my mom and it upsets me how terrible things have to turn out in order to take full appreciation of what we may have. No one wants to see their parents in a hospital bed with an IV running through their veins.

I thank God so much that now that I am about to turn eighteen that I still have this chance to spend my moments with my mom and with my loved ones. She is indeed my everything and without her, I wouldn't be the same person I am today. I also cannot thank enough for my mom's friends for taking care of me and my brothers. For letting me have a place to stay so I wouldn't be left alone in the house, feeding me when I did not have the motivation to eat and for giving me a ride to school (and for also teaching me about my worth and value on that car trip to school but that is another story). Your support and love will forever be remembered and if you are reading this I am certain you know who you are and how much I love you all.

Life comes unannounced and most certainly life comes quick. Your life is valuable, you have the power to do anything that you want, and most important that life is precious. A gift that not everyone receives. If you are going through some tough times remember that you have the ability to make the tough times your steps in success or the anchor to your ship. Depends on how you want to take life by the reins and there is definitely support out there, ask for it and the help is all yours. Lastly just like the sermon I heard at church yesterday, your life is right in front of you if only you are willing to look up from the distractions.

What are you most grateful for?



xx Chavelita