Mesonera Estrella

I've tried to find someone to blame, someone to hold responsible for being miserable day in and out for quite a while now. And after much thought and consideration I've concluded that it's Mater's fault.

You see, Mater Salvatoris is the girls academy that shaped me for more than a decade. I entered it when I was 4 and left when I was 17. My mum went there, I went there, and my future daughter was meant to go there - or so I'd always pictured.

And this is exactly what the problem is. I had - and still have - a picture of how my life was supposed to turn out, an ambition that has not yet been fulfilled. Mater girls are overachievers, queens of their own worlds, warriors.

I've managed to achieve several personal and professional goals, specially in the past 3 years, and yet I stand today, at 26, unable to shake the feeling that life is not going the way I want it to. My biggest commitment is to myself, and at the moment I feel like a major let down.

For starters, my life plan did not include waiting the tables of annoying drunk men after obtaining not just one, but two BA degrees. Neither I expected Mr. Cameron to decide I was not entitled to a work permit after graduation - one would think that 3 years and £45,000 in tuition later such right would be granted, but, hey, 'immigrant' and 'right' are two words that don't seem to go together in this government -

Doing a job for which I hold no passion whatsoever kills my spirit every passing night and it's affected my overall mood. I can definitely say I'm no fun to be around these days and I've become this joyless shadow that I don't care for.

I will never be able to fully express how difficult it really is to be an expat. To have the desire to triumph in a country that does not want YOU in it, and will make sure to reinforce that message through all possible legal obstacles.

This country I keep trying to hold on to does not want my hard work, on the contrary it wants to do without me. It is a nasty case of unrequited love.

And like in every other love story, there's a third party. Someone willing to open his arms and offer me the possibility to lead a semi-happier life. Unfortunately, this is someone who I cannot help to dismiss - at least 'for now' -.

And that is Venezuela. The place that gives me an identity and a name. But also the place that cannot currently provide elemental life conditions; freedom, justice and life itself.

The place that desperately needs my voice is the place I choose to deny it to.


Is being a waitress in London truly best than being a customer in Venezuela?



#tobedetermined