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 I was never a political kind of guy, haven't voted in many years, don't see the point of voting in people one doesn't believe in and don't trust.  One might argue that the voting process has been one of struggle and of personal sacrifices.  Living in modern times, we tend to take out the importance of many things that are basic rights and obligations as citizens and become stagnant and stop doing things that are inconvenient or could affect our Sunday brunches.  The process of voting is time-consuming and should be changed to make it easier to vote. Nowadays we have so many things that can be done using our phones and our pcs, some systems can be applied to ensure the safety of voting our representatives. If we can present our taxes online, why can't we vote online? But I digress. My point today is about the distrust of the political community and their agendas.  Over the years, we've seen an increase of right-wing movements crawling up in the political theater

 It's hard for me to recognize this world we are living in.  As you grow up, the things that shape your reality keep changing, either through your experiences or your environment, the people you meet, the jobs you take, the trips you make, your relationships. Everything becomes an experience and also expands your learning curve.   I grew up in a small town on the outskirts of Lisbon. I played a lot on the street with my friends; it was a challenge and a learning opportunity every day. Older kids bullied us, and we assumed that that was normal.  Through those interactions, I've learned the hard way; I've learned how to hide and run away from danger. My senses were very acute when it came to detecting danger, like a spider-sense kind of thing.  My school was nearby, and we could walk there with no problems; it was a safe path. Nowadays, we drive our children to school and pick them up the same way. Kids that live in big cities will never experience walking to school by themse

 Today is Friday, it's one of those days that you just want to spend time at home, it's raining, it's cold, and I have to pick up my daughter in a little while.  Yesterday, something happened that filled me with great sadness, a person that was dear to me passed away. Passed away unexpectedly and not in her time. She was young, very young, too young to die.  This person was close to me, we've gotten closer my last year of working for the company that we both represented and she was an integral part of the process I went through that ended up me leaving that said company.  When I say that she was an integral part of that process, I mean it in a good way. The tough conversations we both had where I've expressed openly my disgust and sadness by the way everything went down after so many years of working in the same company. She always asked me every time we reached a dead end, what does it make you feel happy? What do you want to do with your life? Think about your dau

What does Ta Moko mean? Ta Moko is the permanent marking of the body or face practiced by the Maori, the indigenous people from New Zealand.  Its practice has changed over the years, now it's done using a tattoo machine, but in the old days, bones or a stone chisel were used to cut the surface of the skin and then a pigment was applied to the cuts.  Moko formed an important part of the visual culture and identity of Maori and was a rite of passage for both men and women. It was also a source of identity. This idea of tattooing my body has been around my head for many years. The last 5 or 6 was when I really started figuring out what I wanted to do. I decided that I wanted a tribal style tattoo, but hadn't landed on the Maori style yet.   When my daughter was about to be born, I realized that I wanted a style that could be translated into the symbolism of birth, family, strength, hardship, overcoming difficulties.  That's when I started to investigate it and found out about

As I write these lines, 96 days of confinement have gone by and I've been struggling with the ordeals of wearing masks every time I'm in a public place, emotional ups and downs and not knowing what's going to happen in the months ahead.  Since March 14th the Spanish government imposed a State of Emergency to deal with a pandemic never seen in the modern age that affected and still is affecting the lives of millions of people not only here but all over the world.  Jobs have been wasted and lives have been lost to this virus. The current reality of the worldwide economy is uncertain and the world as we knew it, no longer exists.  Governments talk about the new reality all the time, the population is being educated to this new vocabulary.  I recently started watching a tv show called "The Handmaids Tale". The plot revolves around the premise of some sort of pandemic, in this case, sexually transmitted diseases that consequently had an impact on fertility. A new milit

The title says that! I'm back!  Back from what?  Well, back to writing that's a first. To going back to sleep at decent hours and waking up at 4 in the morning! Trying to be productive and jump-start the day! That's what the pundits say that we should do to be successful  To try and make some sense out of what's going on. Not knowing what the future holds.  To starting doing exercise and feel better about myself in a while.  My last post was on March 25th and ever since I've become more numb to the current situation. Going through different emotional stages, from anger to tiredness, frustration, to little moments of happiness and joy.  People have been struggling out there, there are people losing their jobs, starving and I'm complaining that I'm going through different stages of grief. Well, suck it up! Because I'm actually pretty fortunate. There is food on my table every day. I have a beautiful daughter that lights me up every day. I can go out now an

It's been 11 days of lockdown here in Madrid. Although the government did not officially announce it on March 14. We have been confined at home, only to go out for basics, like groceries, for work, to take your pets out. We cannot go out for walks, do exercise, and everything else that does not apply to the established State of Emergency protocols. Things one has always taken for granted have been stripped away by the government due to the circumstances, but it makes you think, doesn't it? All the countries one knows have authoritarian regimes or dictatorships live under these circumstances every day of their single lives. Stripped away from their freedoms and freedom of speech and free-thinking, we take things for granted in free countries. The current situation has imposed a social distancing that some experts have expressed concerns in the past, referring to the adverse effects of social networks and it's addiction to modern society. Now everybody is confined,

I was talking the other day with one of my old-time friends. We came together to Spain for work. He was recalling the time he started at the company he is still working for after 22 years!! Wow. Congratulations!! He was telling his students that when we started back in 1998, we were still handling stuff pretty manually. The fax was still a thing to send copies of documents and proof of payment. We were collecting payments over the phone with credit card data flying around. We would send documentation to clients via paper mail. Everything was still paper. We were a small team, we were all in our 20s, and we were happy. We were very good at what we did, and we had fun while doing it. So rare these days. Every time I hear people talking about work, they just complain and complain. I cherish the moments we laughed so hard only by looking at each other's faces. We were in the middle of the transition to electronic. The online business model was bubbling, and our role as salespe

The fear of dying has never been so much in my thoughts as it is now. The fear that something may happen, some kind of disease that will put you down. When you have kids, something changes inside of you. Your protective instincts increase by 10 fold, and it is exhausting, living in fear that something may happen to your kids. Since I've been dropping Olivia at kindergarten the guilt of leaving your kid, so little, so defenseless, crying, and clinching to my arms every time I had to leave her before going to work, it was the worst feeling! Ever! The teachers would tell me that after a while, she was already fine and happy playing with the other kids. With that idea, I left every morning feeling less guilty, less worried that some strangers would take care of your child for the next seven or 8 hours, but that tiny little tear on the corner of your eye is there. And as you move along the halls, you try to put on a straight face, but it doesn't matter, because everyone knows. And

Traveling to my hometown is somewhat traveling back in time.  I like to go for breakfast at a place right across the street from my parent's house.  They make the most buttery toasts you'll ever have.  The other thing is that I'll end up meeting someone from the past.  Either a friend, a neighbor, every single face is a page of the history of my past life.  The conversations are usually concise. Most people don't recognize me.  I sometimes have to remind them of who I am. It's normal, I've been away for 20 years and visit my hometown a few times a year. A lot of things have changed, the people have changed, they're older!  Some have passed away.  It's melancholic to come back. It also creates some temptation of coming back due to the familiarity, the sense of routine.  I was going through many old photos of me in my fourteens up until my nineteens when I realized that I had that part of my life completely blocked from my memories. There were moments tha

Hello again! Where did I leave you last time you were here? Last time we spoke, I was telling you about some rough shit. I was going down a rabbit hole that literally took me almost a decade to recover. When I came to Spain for work, I really was just running away from all the bad things that were happening in my life. I was starting to accumulate some debt, had to get a second job because I couldn't pay my bills anymore on one salary. My girlfriend at the time had lost her job, and we were running on fumes. At about the same time, my parents were going through a rough patch and eventually got separated. My mother was a stay home mom and she took care of me and my sister while my father was the one bringing any income to the house. When he left, everything started to crumble. My mother was totally lost, my sister and I didn't want to get involved. We never talked much about those times.  They met at a very young age, got married, and had me when they were in their 20s. My

The way we raise our children nowadays is very different from the way our parents raised us, and even more how they were raised.   Things that were socially accepted then, are no longer acceptable now.  There is no one right way to parent a child. Different parents have different beliefs, values, and goals for their children. Some parents are more strict and authoritarian, while others are more lenient and permissive. Some parents are more involved and supportive, while others are more distant and detached. Some parents are more traditional and conservative, while others are more progressive and liberal. Each parenting style has its pros and cons, depending on the context and the personality of the child. However, research has shown that some parenting practices are more beneficial than others for the child’s well-being and development. For instance, studies have found that providing emotional warmth, setting clear boundaries, encouraging autonomy, fostering curiosity, and promotin

In 1996, school was over for me and I desperately needed a job. I didn’t want to live under my parents’ roof anymore and was feeling a bit lost. I worked in construction for a while, but it wasn’t for me. I needed something else. At the time, I was in a relationship with my girlfriend. We’d been together for almost 8 years and hadn’t talked about getting married or anything, but it seemed like the natural next step. However, it still didn’t feel quite right to me. A long-time friend of mine managed to get me a job at the airport working for a security company with TWA as its client. It was great! For the first time in many years, I felt like I had found the right job for me. Little me, who had barely left my hometown, was now dealing with passengers and people from all over the world. It felt right. It didn’t matter what time I started work. I was pulling 6 am shifts and coming home a few hours later with the rest of the afternoon to myself. Living at my parents’ house and earning my o

I was starting to write about why I never liked playing football when I started thinking about my friends, my childhood friends, those friends you make when you are so little that you don’t recall meeting. At least that’s how I remembered it. We were a group of kids that grew up together in a small town near Lisbon. It had a steady growth in the ’70s when many people from the former colonies returned to Portugal after civil wars started breaking there. The farthest memories I have of getting to know any of my friends are so blurry, I can’t travel back that far. But there we were, our street was separated into small groups of buildings, and we'd made friends pretty much depending on which street you lived. For example, if my building block was part of street A, I would probably spend most of the time playing with my friends there, but would eventually play with friends from street C, but would never play with kids from street B. They were terrible, so bad! Ahahaha, just ki

After the birth of my daughter, my wife and I were sucked into a life that we have never anticipated, and it was hard, let me tell you. As humans are never prepared for what comes along with the birth of a child. Friends, family members can tell you everything about their or their friends' experiences about parenthood, and it really doesn't matter until you're faced with your own child, in your arms, waking up at odd hours, every 2 hours pretty much! The tensions that build up between couples due to sleep deprivation is something to consider, it can be your happiest time, but it can also become a living nightmare. Going back to the day Olivia was born. She was a beauty of a newborn! I'm not saying this because I'm her father (well yeah I am!), but she was delivered through a c-section and did not have to endure the struggles of a natural birth, yeah babies go through a lot of trauma when they come out of a womb and then on through a tiny hole called vagin

Hello again! Still there? Well, I’ve decided to give it another go and write a little more about myself and my quirks (lol, little). Parenthood and Life: What Does That Mean? For me, parenthood wasn’t part of my plan for a big chunk of my younger life. I later realized that this was partly because I hadn’t found the right person - someone I could trust to be the mother of my children. Having a child was something I never expected and I had no idea how much it would impact my life. I always had a vague idea of what becoming a father would be like and how hard it would be. My daughter was born three years ago and she was such a beautiful baby. She looked like a porcelain doll with smooth skin that glowed from all the fluids still in her skin. And then the nurses brought her to me and asked if I wanted to hold her. Puff! What a feeling! I immediately realized that she was my responsibility. I was so overwhelmed that it didn’t seem real. I felt like I was experiencing an out-of-body thing

Hello again! Drivers and the Art of Being Nice I’ve never seen myself as a particularly nice person, but it seems that the image I project to others is different. In a social environment, this isn’t a bad thing - it allows me to socialize and interact with others. According to the 16 Personalities website (www.16personalities.com), I’m a “Virtuoso.” What does that mean? Well, according to their test, I’m 67% introverted, 71% observant, 69% thinking, 66% prospecting, and 64% turbulent (ISTP-T for those who love acronyms). You can take a free personality test here: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test/fd37ee1e857dd. I went through this process to understand some of my personality traits. Most of the time, I feel out of place in the world around me and like I don’t fit into the system. It’s like Neo in The Matrix - feeling like life has to be something totally different than what he’s been experiencing. And so do I most of the time. I don’t always understand social conduc

At 44, I thought I should give blogging a try as part of my midlife crisis. Some say it’s therapeutic. For me, I feel it will help improve my writing and reduce mistakes with autocorrection. I’ve been alive for 1,401,164,252 seconds (and counting), but the reasons behind blogging are still a mystery to me. The concept of putting my ideas into words always makes me question the whole process… but I digress. Being born… this is the topic that brought me here today. I was born in Portugal as an only child, until my sister came along three years later. My parents were very young when they had me - think of Portugal in 1975 with two newlyweds and a child on the way. My mother quit her job to stay home with me while my father worked in construction or as a driver. My mother mentioned he even drove a funeral car for a while. They were so young! Now that I have a 3-year-old at 44, it seems crazy to think about. I recently watched a homemade video of my parents when they were younger than I am