I want to be you

Seems like this is the week of the "I want to be you" - "I want your life" comments on my SNS', somehow this kind of comments make me feel uncomfortable rather than to make me proud of what my life is now, I don't want to judge those who have told me they wish they could have my life, but f'*ck it, this is my blog and I do what I want....

I guess I will have to explain why I feel uncomfortable with those comments, the only reason is, my life aint perfect and I've been through some though things to get where I am today, this is also not my ultimate goal, although I aree I'm closer now. 

You'll see, most of those comments come from young people, or maybe I'm getting too old and now I think everyone is very young, most comments are left on my pictures of Korea, noone bothers reading my profiles or my blog, so, I kind of understand they feel like I'm living the life if I post a picture of me and 2NE1's Dara, but how come a MEXICAN got to meet a famous K-Idol? 

If you are new to this blog I'll tell you a little bit more about me, I started this blog in 2009 as a cooking blog, by this time I was already into Korea (I've loved Korean language since 2008), but I started my blog after watching the movie "Julie&Julia", the story of Julie Powell's blog following Julia Child's cooking recipe book, shortly after watching the movie my mom got me a 365 recipes book and I wanted to challenge myself since I usually quit things 10 minutes after I start them, I started the blog and I had my fun cooking for a short while (lol), then I received the email that started this whole crazyness, an mail from the Korean Cultural Center in Mexico inviting people to joing their "Promoting Korea through SNS" contest, 2 seconds later my blog changed from being a cooking blog to be a  All things Korean blog, I submitted my application and got chosen, I was now blogging with other international bloggers and promoting Korea, each month we received points (I guess?...) and some months later I received an invitation to visit Korea, I was Ecstatic, I still remember I got the email while we were at the movies, my mom, sis and I were at the Opening of Harry Potter (5? 6?) at midnight when I got the mail, I couldn't believe it, ME, the mexican with a tiny blog was being invited to Korea!, of course I accepted, got my passport (with my mom!!!) and got ready for Korea, this was my 1st overseas trip and I was on my own, my mom was always very supportive, she would go with me to the KCC, Korea Town and pretty much everywhere, she was always looking for Korean related things for me to blog about, I would've loved to bring her with me, but I wasn't allowed to, my 1st trip to Korea was AWESOME, full of new things, new friends and until this day, there are things I still cant get over lol, I was even more excited about it because my sister was back from London and we were planning on openning a Coffee shop, a small business, something the 3 (mom, sis and I) always dreamed of, somehow while I was in Korea they planned the whole thing found a place, bought tables, chairs, and everything to open a Cafe, I would sometimes receive messages asking me what colors I wanted for the Cafe, I got lost in the process and felt like dreaming, you'll see, my goal was to decide what to do with my life, travel to korea and DO something with my family before my 27th birthday (I was 25 at that time), and got to do it!, I went back to Mexico on December 21st and after that we started working like crazy on the shop, I was still working full time as an Account Administrator so it was mostly my sis' and my mom's work, I still remember going to the shop on Dec 30th with my friend Beric to receive some things for the openning lol, the openning was on January 15th and it was a success, we worked a lot to get to that point and I couldn't be happier, "333 Cafe" was OUR thing, after that my sis and mom would open the shop and I would go there after work, but just 3 weeks after the openning, on February 7th something hit us, and it was quite a HIT, it was a Holiday (a monday), my sis and I were at home making Crepes when suddenly my mom came home running, she ran to her room and we didn't know what was going on, we 1st thought she was upset about something related to her work but it wasn't that, she was unable to speak, seemed lost and we got scared, VERY scared, as soon as she told us she was unable to speak/coordinate we got a cab and ran to the ER, can you imagine having to take your mother to the ER?, all I wanted to do was cry but I knew better than that, we had to be strong for my mom, once the doctor saw my mom she was admitted to the hospital for a check up, to make this story short, my mom was diagnosed with Kidney Cancer Stage 4, FYI Stage 4 is the worst, she had a tumor on her brain and that's what caused the episode on Fevruary 7th, she had surgeries, my sister and I decided to close the shop on march and started working from home, we took care of my mom, we basically became 1 hell of a close family (not that we werent, we just got CLOSER), we had family, but their support came and went, at the end of the day it was just the 3 of us, my mom got worse quite quickly, on August 2011 we were told she only had 6 months left, we decided to grant every wish she had, she had always wanted to travel and thats why she got her passwort when I got mine to go to Korea (Dec 2010), so, we planned a trip to Paris, it was her choice but we kept it a secret because we weren't 100% sure we would make it, the date came and the 3 of us flew together for the 1st time ever (Nov 2011), when we arrived my mom had lost more movement on her left leg and her arm, it was hard, she would cling to me or my sis to walk around, but everything was worth it the day we went to the Louvre, she was thrilled, her face was priceless (and still is), after the trip she got even worse, stopped walking and we knew what was coming, she became more dependant of our care, it was harder and harder each day, not because we didn't want to take care of her, but because we saw her suffering, something she would barely show to us, she became more like our child, 2012 came and we were happy to still have my mom with us, but things got (even) worse, by this time, most of our family was away from us, some would say it was because they didn't want to see my mom suffer, some others would give no explanation and we got to the point that nothing else matter, it was again just the 3 of us, "3 for 1 and 1 for all" as we used to say, on may '12 we made what would be our last visit to the ER, it was a friday and I left work early, I hate how can I still remember every momento of those days, on saturday my sis went out to meet a friend (after I kinda forced it to get some fresh air), I took this time to talk to my mom, I knew she was tired and sad and mostly worried because she didn't want us to see her like that nor to leave us alone, I assured her we would be fine and ask her to please take the rest she needed, later on I found out that my sister had almost the exact same conversation with my mom on that weekend, I say conversation but in reality it was just us talking since my mom stoped talking several weeks before that... and it was that sunday MAy 21st that we lost her, she decided to get the rest she needed... and as hard as (still) is to let her go, I was relieved she wasn't suffering anymore, I decided to change my (our) life on that day, decided to make her proud of us and to show her that she raised us well, I also detached myself from the people who decided to stay away from us for stupid reasons and to tresure those whom I trust the most... I guess that's how things started really....

Soon we realized we had nothing to attach us to Mexico city and decided to start a new Journey, we let go some people, things, the safety of living in your OWN country, leaving friends and things that make you feel at home, it wasn't really hard to decide what to do, and luckily me and my sister are more alike than what we'd like, we started our journey in Japan (my sister LOVED it) and next was Korea, where we are still learning, fighting, growing and still trying to understand why things happened.... I am so thankfull for the things we have, the people we've met and the friends we still have in our beloved Mexico (lol), a special Shout to our friends The Lalito's family because they became our family in the process :), we are having a blast in Korea and we know my mom is somewhere watching us and making this awesome things happen, although I would still change everything I've got to have her back...

I guess with this you'll understand why those comments kind of upset me, I can't stand when people can't value what they have in life, I still cry whenever I see older women, it reminds me how my mom always said "Can you imagine how will I look when my hair goes all White?", I still think it's unfair she was taken away from us, I still can accept the fact she is not with us, but that's how life goes, right?

I'm finishing up with that... as it makes me feel weird to go that personal on my blog, I'm sorry I'm not sharing stories about Korea or how Kpop-y my life has become, that would be a story for some other day...because luckily for us, we've been pretty busy in Korea :D

Thanks for Reading

Just a pic of my mom in Paris (Montmartre) being awesome <3 p="">

-Gisela V.