December 28 2025

It took me 2000 hours to reach Diamond 4 as Support, but somehow I’m Diamond 4 after only 166 hours as Tank???
Like WTF is going on???
Am I accidentally a Tank “main”???

December 23 2025

Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy a ticket to Spain!
So excited I cried 😭

December 22 2025

Just as I decided to move on from my current role, a different company reached out through LinkedIn to poach me for double the pay and half the responsibility.

December 10 2025

All good things must come to and end, and as we near the end of this year, I prepare myself mentally for the closing of this chapter in my life.

For the past 2 years I’ve been doing this role with all the responsibility and not even half of the expected pay. When I was promoted I was promised “The BIG Bucks” which two years later have failed to materialize. On today’s performance review for the year, I was hoping that after saving my company millions and “proving myself”, I would finally be promoted officially and receive market rate for my role. Well apparently after 2 years of doing this work they just “forgot” (???) I was due for the promotion. Loyalty and hard work sure pays off, am I right?

This was the last sign I was looking for to stay here in PR. The promotion going through would have definitely made me think twice about moving. Now it just seems like all roads are pointing to leaving for Spain.

December 1 2025

That’s why I couldn’t be happier
No, I couldn’t be happier.

Though it is, I admit
The tiniest bit
Unlike I anticipated
But I couldn’t be happier
Simply couldn’t be happier.

Well, not “simply”
‘Cause getting your dreams
It’s strange, but it seems
A little, well, complicated
There’s a kind of a sort of, cost
There’s a couple of things get, lost
There are bridges you cross you didn’t know you crossed
Until you’ve crossed
And if that joy, that thrill
Doesn’t thrill like you think it will
Still

With this perfect finale
The cheers and ballyhoo
Who wouldn’t be happier?

So I couldn’t be happier
Because happy is what happens
When all your dreams come true
Well, isn’t it?

November 22 2025

Closing in on Thanksgiving trying to focus on being grateful for the privileges I’ve been given; some I’ve earned with hard work and others due to sheer luck:
– Health
– Love, both in our marriage and our family
– Remote work with great coworkers & boss
– A home we own and that we’re safe in

And I’m still a snack, so there’s that 😆

November 19 2025

Great. And now today they announced that they closed airspace in PR. I told my husband “This is how it happens, slowly then all at once”. Lives will be needlessly be lost just to serve as a distraction to the things that really matter…

November 18 2025

The electric SUV I’ve been wanting to buy for 2 years now. In PR it starts at$66,100!!! That is more than twice what it costs in Spain, at 27.160 € pre government incentives. With the incentives included it costs around 22.260€. I can literally buy almost 3 SUVs in Spain for the price of just one in PR 🤬. For context, the median income in PR is about $25,000 vs the median income in Spain which is equivalent to approximately $26,000.

Living in this place feels like a freaking scam.

November 16 2025

One of our favorite restaurants just went out of business. One more small business added to the list of business closing down left and right due to tariffs, raids and an overall terrible economy.

November 14 2025

So we spoke with my daughter’s teacher to have my kid do a diorama instead of participating on this year’s activity to celebrate Puerto Rican culture. I was straight up honest with her, that we are not going to attend and that I don’t even feel very Puerto Rican this year with all the bs this place has done to my identity and sense of self.

So we decided to do El Viejo San Juan due to its direct Spanish culture inspiration. I had planned for my daughter to do most of it and whatever. However when I started helping her, It felt unbelievably therapeutic. Painting ‘houses’, creating ‘buildings’ and decorating polymer clay objects and animals was very relaxing. I think it might also be because it “tickled” certain natural skills of mine: finding and correcting other people’s mistakes during work, and wanting to create something that feels ‘perfect’.

Now I’m seriously considering if I should pursue dioramas as a hobby.

November 10 2025

Made a new friend.
I hate drinking alcohol. I somehow find its taste repulsive, but I’ve discovered that having some in small quantities make me really nice to be around. I used to drink socially when younger and I was never a jerk or a violent drunk. It made me really nice and chill so I’ve decided to “self medicate” via wine in the meantime. Am I officially a “wine mom” now?🤔

“In vino veritas”
In wine there’s truth. I probably am a really nice person on the inside, just not so much when under the heavy weight of anxiety and responsibility…

November 9 2025

Gift from work finally arrived

November 8 2025

My daughter is off with her grandma this weekend, which has allowed me to do adult things I rarely get to do. I’ve had quality time with my husband, ate brownies & ice cream for dinner, and lounged all day. Then my husband said “oh that’s our daughter, she’s texting me again“. WTF what do you mean texting you again? I check my phone and I have no messages from her. All the messages she responded to what because I initiated the conversation. “I love you, have fun!” met with “Ok”. And that’s when I realized, my kid doesn’t like me…

November 1 2025

I’ve missed you, old friend.

October 31 2025

Not where we were supposed to be.

I had hoped that by this time we would be celebrating our second Halloween at our business. Instead I gamed all night like the addict I am, went to bed at about 6am, slept all day, missed work and didn’t take my daughter trick or treating. And then it rained all day too.

October 28 2025

This year we somehow dodged the bullet but our sisters Jamaica and Cuba did not. This is the strangest hurricane I’ve witnesses in my life, forming under the Caribbean islands and traveling north east. Everybody is talking about it here, how this is the strongest hurricane to ever hit Jamaica, making history and making us really uncomfortable. I keep telling everyone that as time goes by and climate change gets worse, some of these Cat5 hurricanes are going to start wiping out our islands one by one, like it happened in Granada. Every time one of these touches land on an island, it sets its progress back 10 years. I really don’t want to be here by next year to witness it.

October 22 2025

Had to speak with my daughter’s teachers today cause I don’t like where this school year is going. On one hand, my kid is somehow failing Spanish (!!??) and on the other hand, the books the school is using are now evangelizing my kid. Why are the books introducing my kid to prayer, “G*d” and bible verses? If I had wanted her to be taught religion, I would have sent her to a religious school that’s literally right across the street. And the problem is, not being religious here is so taboo that people look at you like you have 3 heads when you say you don’t want your kid involved in religious activities. I even had to go back to the book and change all the religious crap in the story they were going to test her on. I had to make it look like they were actually thanking the vet for her hard work instead of the imaginary sky friend. And then explain to my kid why I was making those changes: because the vet deserved praise for her love and commitment to helping and healing pets (and because she was the one who actually did the work).

Also, if we are moving to Spain soon, my kid cannot be failing Spanish as she will be held back for it in Europe. How is my kid failing Spanish (and only Spanish??) when it’s the language we all speak here? We studied together during summer vacations and I got her Duolingo (the paid version) so she could practice and I’ve seen her do it and do it well. I wish something would go according to plan for once 😒

October 20 2025

INTP—Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving – Assertive
“People with this personality type want to understand everything in the universe, but one area in particular tends to mystify them: human nature. As their name suggests, INTPs (a.k.a Logicians) feel most at home in the realm of logic and rationality. As a result, they can find themselves baffled by the illogical, irrational ways that feelings and emotions influence people’s behavior – including their own. They can’t help but imagine how things could be better than they already are. INTPs are constantly on the lookout for problems to solve, topics to learn, and new ways to approach things. Approximately only 1% to 5% of people have an INTP personality type.”

October 14 2025

Had to go to the food truck park to continue emptying my food truck. Out of the 12 of us who opened back in 2024, only 3 are left currently barely operating. This gives me a little relief in the sense that I get reassurance that the date we chose to close was probably the best, but I still feel grief seeing it mostly empty like this. All our hopes and dreams crushed – all that work and effort with nothing to show up for. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose. And I fucking loved and grieve our little bubble tea truck.

October 10 2025

Took our daughter to the pediatrician and we both ended up giving each other an accidental therapy session.

She (the Ped), like me, has been paying attention on how our healthcare is being dismantled by cuts from the BBBullshit. We spoke about insurance increasing costs but reducing her payments, denying medication, how I miss healthcare and how she says I should stay away from it, the push against vaccines, all of that. I told her we were planning on moving to Spain, and her response was to not think about it twice. Like myself, she has lost all faith in our system and if she could flee she would. We surprisingly found in each other a safe space to vent and feel validated. The best part is it happened with my husband present, which also gives him validation that I’m not going crazy and that, again, I’m not the only one. It was all unexpectedly therapeutic and much need for all of us involved.

October 7 2025

I can’t go on living this way
But I can’t go back the way I came
Chained to this fear that I will never find a way to heal my soul
And I will wander ’till the end of time half alive without you
My heart is broken

October 4 2025

The best tile in display at my favorite Spanish restaurant:
“Today is going great, you’ll see how someone comes in and fucks it up”

September 23 2025

Just woke up at 12am here in PR, 6am in Spain. I’m feel well rested, energetic and ready to start my day. The problem? I wont be able to go back to bed and my clock in hour for work is still 8 hours away. Every fucking day is the same bs. I’m extremely sleepy very early here and wake up at midnight to start my day. I dream of what my life could be if I were in Spain and not here. Being an early bird there and not having to force myself to either try to sleep or stay awake to meet PR’s light hours that directly conflict with my internal clock sounds amazing. What is life like for early birds? How would it feel to not be socially stigmatized for being a night owl?

I dream of what my life in Spain would look like. and I want to save this as hopefully in the future I can look back and say “I was right all along” or maybe “I was naive and had no idea WTF I was talking about”. Whatever it is, I welcome it. I just crave change and hope at this point.

September 12 2025

So apparently a MAGA extremist offed another MAGA guy and the 🇺🇸 is losing it. The suspect had not even been caught yet and people were all over the place speculating that he was left wing and killed the MAGA guy because of his beliefs. I honestly had to google the guy cause I didn’t know who he was, but it seemed like another typical A2 ammosexual, who was offed by one of their own. The suspect even has pictures of himself in social media with long rifles and anti tank weapons. So basically MAGA on MAGA violence. There were even talks about “civil war” before it was brought to light it was one of their own. I hate all of this and want no part on any of it.

September 5 2025

Preparing for a potential disaster…
Informed my manager that I needed to take off today so I wouldn’t have to compete with other people for food or water. The third party managing the transfer said no, apparently something going on with the tax implications here in PR and they won’t let me transfer directly from here. If I were located in the US it would be a different story…

September 4 2025

Sometimes I wonder if I will miss this place when I’m gone.

September 2 2025

My daughter’s passport finally came in,
Now I can breathe a little easier.

September 1 2025

So I spent my entire long weekend like a piece of 💩 playing videogames and ignoring my family. Time I’ve could have spent with my daughter. Time I could have spend doing literally anything else. I hate myself. Hours upon hours wasted just because I want to see a number go up, as if it had any real life value. Using this as a coping mechanism for the fact that I’m a goal-driven competitive person and I don’t get to have a healthy outlet in my daily life. I am no different from an addict or an alcoholic that ignores their family to get their fix. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow or deal with the aftermath of closing the business. I didn’t even want to have to close it. And I don’t care about money either, we already have enough. More wont change the fact that I hate my life right now and wish we could just move away…

August 29 2025

More delays, feels like we’ll never leave.
My husband got a salary increase from his manager trying to keep him from leaving. This means we wont be leaving soon anymore. I cried and felt ashamed cause under other circumstances this would be an amazing thing, I can even leave my job and stay home full time now. I’m proud of him and he deserves this. However to me it feels I’m trapped here: no transfer, no job prospects, debt, our kid’s school year already started…
So now we have to go pick up our kid’s passport tomorrow and cancel my husband’s visa, we are not going anywhere soon.

I guess the new plan is:
1. Get rid of all our combined debt
2. Save for a year of expenses in Spain
3. Save for a house down-payment

So excited to be stuck here for another year…yay…

August 27 2025

🎉 Finally made it to Diamond 🎉
As a full time working 34 y/o mom,
Now I’m in the top 10% of all OW players

August 25 2025

It’s been a month since I’ve gone full gluten free and my health has improved significantly. I have more energy so its easier to get out of bed in the morning. I’ve felt incredibly hungry lately, for the first time in years, which I’ve supplemented with extra protein. I’ve gone back to exercising since my joints are not painful anymore. I’ve been doing so well that I haven’t had an IBS episode for a month! I truly believe the inflammation has gone down so much now that I don’t feel full as fast and there is less resistance in my intestine reducing the IBS-C symptoms. Also my mental health has drastically improved, though I’ve noticed if I’m not eating enough I start feeling depressed again. Now all I need to do is get my circadian rhythm to cooperate and stop waking me up at Spain hours…

August 16 2025

I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.

Woke up to a power outage. Began doing my round around the house turning stuff off so we won’t drain our battery. I turn off my kid’s TV. My husband starts arguing with me about it, like I have any say in any of this or even a choice. It has been really dark today so we are generating zero energy from the sun, that means everything must be turned off to make sure the battery lasts at least 24hrs to keep our fridge operating.

I want to scream that we could be eating boquerones and visiting the science museum on a Saturday in Madrid, but we are stuck here.

August 15 2025

Picking fruits and veggies with my daughter from our backyard before the hurricane blows them away. Another one of my failed “poner mi granito de arena” attempts, by planting food trees in our yard. I think this is probably a thing I’ll miss from living here, all the different things we’ve planted as a family: Bananas, acerolas, avocado, guava, soursop, oranges…

August 13 2025

Had my monthly one-on-one meeting with my manager.
No news yet on the transfer request.

August 11 2025

When my coworker called me on teams, I asked him how he was doing. His response? “I’m still here”.
It broke me. It reminded me of myself on my birthday. “Well, I’m glad you are still here with us” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything feels wrong”

I felt that. He then went on to talk about everything that’s wrong in life and work… After the call I cried from empathy and grief, but also a little of relief: I’m not the only one. If the toughest people I know are struggling like me, then its not all in my head. I’m not Alone.

August 10 2025

Today we finally -regretfully- closed this chapter of our lives, leaving 4 amazing young women unemployed. I always dreamed of doing my part, or as we say here “Poner mi granito de arena” into helping build an amazing Puerto Rico. Today I finally faced the music: there is nothing left for me here to build. For every protest I went to, every abusive government decision I condemned, every insult and death threat I received by “my own people”, for fighting so hard to make PR a better place. It was all just me fooling myself into believing I could love and help build a place that actively hates me.

I used to naively think I “loved” this place and think I could help make a difference. I wanted to stay and fight, thinking others would rise to the occasion with me. I thought I could lead by example. But the truth is I’ll never fit in and I have to stop forcing myself into places where I’m clearly not wanted or appreciated. I’m done fighting for a better country. This place does not deserve my struggle.

I’m GTFO.

August 8 2025

🌧️What a shitty day🌧️

I just had to tell my employees we are most likely closing down as the franchisors, who said would buy the franchise and continue it, are ghosting me. I informed these franchisors back in February of my intention to close due to the lack of sufficient income and increased costs, since I predicted this would get worse as the 🍊💩’s decisions would make it harder on everyone. Well I was right, actually, more than right. When I visited El Morro a few weeks ago, Old San Juan was a ghost town during peak July summer.

What boils my blood is the fact that I couldn’t tell them earlier, because their jobs would had been safe had the franchisors bought the business. I don’t know what I was expecting from people who told me I shouldn’t lose sleep over my employees losing their jobs. Thankfully I had a plan to help them get new jobs in case these people flaked, and god was I right again. Every time I expect the worse out of people I’m proven right. Breaks my heart that this is the life my employees will have to face here at only 18 y/o.

August 6 2025

Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Und wird nie vom Himmel fallen

August 4 2025

Today we went to the consulate to finish the documentation from my daughter’s passport. They asked me if she could write her name, so she could sign the documentation herself. I’m really grateful they did, I thought it was incredibly cute to have her sign her own passport even when she is only 7. Spain never stops impressing me on how inclusive they are of children 💖

August 2 2025

🎉 Grateful to get to live another year 🥳
These past few years have been rough. Many times I thought I wouldn’t make it, either due to sickness, or from voluntary uninstallation from this simulation. But thankfully, after 34 trips round the sun, I’m still here. Happy Birthday to me 🎂

August 1 2025

I was at the supermarket today with my husband when a lady pulled her toddler be the arm and yelled In front of everybody: “Deja de tirarte al piso canto’ e’ cabrón”, which roughly translates to something like “Stop throwing yourself on the floor f*cking b@stard/motherf*cker”. I can’t imagine being so disgusting and disrespectful to your own toddler. I wouldn’t dare to say something like this to a stranger, let alone my child. Then people ask themselves why have we lost all values. Some people just don’t deserve to be parents.

July 30 2025

So this is my proof on how my Thyroid healed after unknowingly moving to a low gluten diet. I drastically changed my diet when we came back from Spain, moving from USA produced foods to European produced foods and accidentally to a low gluten diet, since many European products are low on/free of gluten. Here are my lab results each year:

2021 – TSH was 1.53
2022 – TSH was 2.09
2023 – TSH was 3.23
2024 – TSH was 4.49 (High)
2025 – Diet change
Now my TSH is at 2.50 and back to normal.

I went from needing an endocrinologist referral by the end of 2024, to a completely normal thyroid function in a span of 4 months after returning from Spain. More motivation to GTFO of here as gluten free foods are really hard to find here and extremely expensive, vs Europe where its common to have these types of food due to the genetic predisposition of Europeans to be gluten intolerant.

July 28 2025

This is my life now, Gluten Free everything. Can’t complain about this brownie though, it was really good.

July 27 2025

I haven’t been able to post in a while cause I was feeling really sick. After lots of lab tests and doctor visits, I have been referred to a Gastroenterologist as we suspect Gluten intolerance or straight up Celiac Disease.

So after I came back from Spain I had adopted a “USA food” free diet. That meant not eating anything that its label said was made in the USA. I bought all European products since I felt so good in Spain and the food didn’t make me sick. It basically was a low gluten & low preservatives diet. Then I fucked up:

July 20 2025

At El Castillo San Felipe del Morro, teaching my daughter about her Spanish heritage before we move to Spain.

July 18 2025

This is the crap they sell in Sam’s Club in PR. A bag of rotten lemons for over $5. And somehow we are supposed to be grateful for the opportunity to buy this, twice as expensive 💩 that Americans rejected back in the USA for not meeting food quality standards.

July 17 2025

Thought it would be interesting to compare my generic distribution to a sample from other people in Puerto Rico. Seems like the typical Puerto Rican has a distribution closer to 33% 🇪🇸 , 33% 🇵🇷 & 33% other, compared to mine which is closer to 66% 🇪🇸 & 33% other.

July 13 2025

With my hat, 100 SPF sunblock and 50 SPF rash guard trying not to burn under the brutal☀️Caribbean Sun☀️

July 11 2025

Bless me now as you blessed us all those years ago
When you gave us a miracle
Am I too late for a miracle?

July 10 2025

F*ck this 🏝️
The monopoly that manages Puerto Rico’s shitty grid wants to charge customers with solar panels more than their regular customers, even though they are using our PVS to generate clean energy which they sell 3 times higher than what they pay us back. We got no incentives or funds from them to install our system yet they think they are going to keep leching off us. We rather go off-grid than give them one cent more. This has even made us reconsider the decision of not selling our property. At this point I don’t see any reason to come back here ever, other than maybe a quick family visit.

July 9 2025

Today I ate 🍣 and almost 💀

I asked my husband to take me to a sushi place we’ve been a few times before which I knew as safe food. 15 mins later I start getting itchy all over my body and I start turning red. My face felt on🔥. I told my husband ” we need to leave now for the pharmacy, I think I’m having an allergic reaction”. By the time we got there, the allergic reaction was undeniably visible. I grabbed some Benadryl gel 💊, and just took one right there. By the time we got to the 🚗 I was pretty sure I would need to be 🚑 to the🏥 . Thankfully the Benadryl worked really fast and like 10 mins later the redness was starting to fade slowly. A really scary experience! I think they just cross-contaminated our food with soft shell 🦀, since I’ve never eaten real crab in my life and that was the only ingredient in their menu I’ve never had before. Came home and passed out for like 14 hrs. FML

July 8 2025

Today one of my worst fears came true.
We visited the Spanish consulate to submit our marriage registration and we were told that there has been an amendment to the law. On May 20, Spain started requesting the non-European partner to have their residence visa approved before moving to Spain, when just a few weeks ago they had advised us to just leave for Spain and sort his visa over there. With this change, we can’t do that anymore. This means our departure date is now delayed indefinitely due to his visa pending. This also means in case of an emergency, say for example another catastrophic hurricane (like Maria in 2018), only our daughter and myself will be able to leave for Spain and my husband would have to stay behind.

Me being the anxious person that I am, I’ve been warning him that we need to hurry up with this because the doors may close on us and I fear our family will be separated. Like a recent example, during the Israel-Iran bombing last month, Israel prohibited its citizens from leaving the country, but as a dual citizen myself I do not worry about this. I do worry about my husband being held back or conscripted for whatever bull💩 this admin might come up with. We will try to submit the visa ASAP this Friday and hope we get a response soon.

July 7 2025

Thinking about chopping all my hair off and letting it regrow again, but I’m having a hard time deciding which one looks better:
(Naturally) Curly or (Chemically) Straight?

July 4 2025

Celebrating “El cuatro de Julio” (“Julio’s Cuatro” day). The picture depicts an older Puerto Rican named Julio, holding his Cuatro. The Puerto Rican cuatro is the national instrument of Puerto Rico, which is like a violin shaped guitar with only 4 strings and thus its name Cuatro (“four”). The expression “Cuatro de Julio” sounds exactly like the Spanish pronunciation of fourth of July, and is a common phrase used by Puerto Ricans who do not wish to acknowledge the USA’s 4 of July celebration. Why? Because we refuse to celebrate the independence day of the country that has systematically denied ours.

July 2 2025

Now that it seems like the big beautiful bullshit may pass,
I’m fully engaged in my debt cutting phase with ChatGPT helping me stay grounded and focused on my goals:
-Sell (or close down) the business
-Transfer (or find new) job
-Rent out our home and move 🇪🇺

June 29 2025

Say her name:
Adriana Smith from Atlanta GA.
Her symptoms ignored by a paternalistic medical system that downplays women’s concerns and pain. Braindead due to clots missed since nobody bothered to further test her headache complaints during pregnancy. Her body violated by being forced to carry a fetus while dead and visibly rotting, all due to retrograde forced-birth laws. This is not the Handmaid’s Tale, this is America under the dictatorship. Our bodies are no longer ours. No right to dignity, not even in death.

June 27 2025

So I have this little plant I kept in the office that I decided to move outside today. It was sold to me as an indoor plant, that needed little sunlight and to be watered just 2 times a week. Well the poor thing is dying. After months of it being inside, I finally decided to move it outside to see if it recovers.

My husband asked about it and I told him that sometimes we need to move to thrive, and that having a new environment might help her recover. He knows where I’m going with this (me pushing my agenda) so he asked about a special notebook I have with the phrase “Grow where you are planted”. Unfortunately I bought it back in 2016 to help cope with the fact that I was going to be stuck in the same place and basically living in hospitals for years as I finished my nursing degree. Trying to force myself into “growing where I was planted” brought a lot of pain in my life, as I was treated badly and abused for my chronic conditions back in nursing school. Then I decided to start my business thinking we could survive long-term here in PR, which has also been a nightmare. And to make things worse, I had a little bit of ice cream yesterday at work since it was free and ended up in tears and a lot of pain with another IBS-D episode.

I’m done trying to grow where I was “planted”.
I don’t want to be sick anymore, I want to thrive.

June 26 2025

We had a work party today, which was really nice since we got to see everyone again. We hadn’t been able to work from the site since November due to remodeling. We got free food, music, time to gossip and we took tons of pics. I pulled up this sign as I thought it was really funny:
Si ya saben como me pongo… pa’ que me invitan!

June 25 2025

After the earthquake thing yesterday, I barely slept, and when I finally woke up today, I felt extremely weak and couldn’t get out of bed to work. Slept most of the day due to the extreme fatigue and joint pain. I think it’s probably a reaction to something I ate, most likely the Puerto Rican-style sushi I had.

I hate that food is always a fucking issue. I have to eat and pray it doesn’t make me sick due to some obscure ingredient I didn’t take into consideration. I could eat literally anything in Spain without getting sick, even my favorite candy: sour gummy worms. I even had a tres leches cake (the first time in years) in the airplane which I was sure I would Instantly regret, and surprisingly nothing happened. I didn’t get excruciating intestinal pain or bloating. Not even a IBS-D episode. I refuse to believe Spain’s airplane food is so much better than restaurant-grade sushi here in PR, but reality doesn’t care about my feelings.

Oh, and guess what time is it here in PR while I post this rant. Yep 2:45am. So I again woke up to 8:45am in Spain.

June 24 2025

Just woke up scared shitless to a 5.7 earthquake here in PR,
Can I get off this ride now, please? K Thx bye 😭

June 23 2025

Decided to learn German, because why not?
I’ve always loved German Heavy Metal, so this feels long due and might even help future job prospects.

June 21 2025

What do you want? ‘Cause you’ve been keeping me awake
Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake?
Or are you someone out there who’s a little bit like me?
Who knows deep down I’m not where I’m meant to be…

June 20 2025

So I finally got the response from Airbus. They said I don’t have the requirements to do the same job I’ve already been doing at my current company for the past 4 years… So at this point I have to believe I’m just getting filtered out by location and receiving generic responses from AI. I read on reddit that I will need an address and phone number from Spain to even be considered for an interview. I guess I’ll just wait and see what my company comes back with regarding the transfer and go from there.

June 19 2025

We lost power again last night. Thankfully I was already up at 4:45am to go around the house turning off appliances and the AC to make sure we don’t overwhelm the battery. Since we never know how long the outage is going to last, we have to make sure we use as little charge as possible, so that we can survive up to 24 hours without power. Usually when the sun comes up the battery gets recharged again, but if the day is cloudy or rainy, which is typical of a tropical island, the battery may not fully recharge.

My manager encouraged me to reach out to a different team and make my case to see if they could accommodate a transfer for me. He knows my struggle, as just last week we lost power during our one on one meeting. When the power goes out so does our internet service. Using the phone as a hotspot is useless as we get terrible reception here since AT&T left the island after Hurricane Maria.

Now I just get to sit and wait…

June 15 2025

I am team #ConCebolla

June 14 2025

You know you have IBS-M when you are running on the treadmill at 4:50 am and chugging plum juice to try to combat the C episode after spending a week recovering from a debilitating D episode…
The worst part of all of this? IBS is not considered a disease. It’s just our bodies reacting to our food being constantly poisoned with unpronounceable preservatives, red 40, Titanium dioxide, etc. All which are banned in the European Union…

June 11 2025

Lately I’ve been reconsidering going back to Healthcare. With Spain’s significantly lower cost of college, suddenly my dream of becoming a doctor could be a possibility again. Not having to get into $250K of debt to be a doctor sounds amazing. Apparently in Spain I could study medicine for as little as 10k €. On the other hand, I feel like it will be too competitive for me at this point in my life and my time has probably passed. I would be finishing residency at 40!

Maybe I can go back to nursing? I loved working in NICU and nursing is such a high impact career, compared to the email pushing I do all day now. I am incredibly grateful for the privilege of being able to work remote (and how it protected my family during covid), but at the same time I struggle with purpose, like I could be contributing so much more to Spain as a Nurse. People say I’m crazy for even considering leaving a remote high paying job, but at the same time I would not move to Texas for example for a salary as high as $150K, so money is not a priority for me. All this second guessing makes me feel like I’m definitely going through the Millennial midlife crisis.

June 10 2025

This is reason #657365743658 on why I need to get out of here. Every time I fall into the trap of convincing myself of thinking I should stay because its probably not going to be that bad, life makes sure I get a reminder to GTFO.

Here in Puerto Rico, a legal Dominican immigrant woman went to a government office to ask for a permit to start a small business selling ice cream at the beach. Instead of helping her, the officer called ICE and she was detained even after she presented all her legal residence documents. A domestic violence victim. They just took her anyway and nobody knows where she’s at right now, not even her lawyer.

I hate that my tax money goes to pulling this 💩. I hate that it funds killing children in Gaza. I’m tired of funding these criminals and their BS. I don’t want my daughter growing up thinking this 💩 is ok, or even worse, that this is normal. That this is how we should treat other human beings. I want to be part of and contribute economically to a country that actually cares about its citizens, so that my tax money goes to things that matter like healthcare and education. Honestly I’m counting the days at this point.

June 9 2025

7-year-old me with grandpa. He died not knowing he gave our family an amazing gift: the right to leave for Europe via EU citizenship as 💩 hits the fan here. Our family did not pay the ultimate prize to leave Franco’s right-wing dictatorship just so we could pay the ultimate prize again through the 🍊💩’s right-wing dictatorship here in the 🇺🇸.

June 8 2025

Another rejection, and I thought my background was a perfect fit for this one. I guess I was wrong. I’m starting to think that the only way I might be able to get into Spain with a job lined up will be by an internal transfer. Crossing my fingers now for an opportunity to present itself

June 6 2025

At my favorite Spanish restaurant, El Meson Español. This is where I celebrated my birthday last year. The boquerones are amazing, they taste exactly like I remember they did back in Spain. One of the few places where I can eat here in PR that won’t trigger my IBS

June 5 2025

From my beautiful daughter
“Mami te amo”

June 4 2025

Its been a month now since I submitted this application and I have not received a response yet.
Waiting on this to make big decisions about my life. If I get rejected again for not living inside the EU, I plan on visiting again in September to rent a studio over there and have my mom live in it and help me get a job as “a local”. Sometimes I fear I might be bombing my life with this decision but at the same time I vividly remember how I thrived in the 2 weeks I lived there that I just can’t justify my life here any longer.

June 3 2025

Can’t stop waking up at 2am.
It wasn’t until I decided to check against Spain’s time that I noticed I naturally wake up at their morning hours. All my life I’ve struggled (and been made fun of) for having a hard time sleeping during the night and staying awake during the day. I now believe it all comes down to my circadian rhythm being genetically adapted to Spain’s daylight hours. On a typical day I wake up at 2am (8am in Spain) and start feeling sleepy at around 3pm (9pm in Spain). No wonder I’ve felt so sick all my life, I’ve been living “jet lagged” for 33 years!

June 2 2025

Just in time for a new hurricane season, contemplating how I was born in a cage in the middle of the ocean but I’m constantly socially pressured into being grateful about it. To make matters worse, the Acting FEMA Chief told his staff he didn’t know the U.S. has hurricane season, like WTF!???

May 30 2025

Asked ChatGPT to generate a picture of how it thinks I look like based on common physical traits associated with my genetic mix. I think it got some of it right, like my natural hair type, the chin, the eyebrows, the ears, and the lip shape is pretty close too. On the other hand, the nose is closer to my mom’s (mine is a bit wider) and my eyes are hooded. What do you you think? Lookalikes or not really?

May 26 2025

My hubby brought me these from the store, he really knows my “weird” tastes. He knows I’ve been struggling hard since we returned from Spain but he’s been so gentle about it.

May 19 2025

A winner right here
Catchy and hilarious AF

May 18 2025

♫♪ Life may give you lemons
When dancing with the demons
No stresso, no stresso
No need to be depresso ♫♪

May 17 2025

♫♪ Una diva es valiente, poderosa
Su vida es un jardín lleno de espinas y rosas… ♫♪

May 13 2025

The company I work for rejected my transfer request so I have started looking for jobs in Europe. The first rejection just came in as I’m not a local currently living in Spain. Can’t believe being a EU citizen is not enough.

April 21 2025

♫♪ And although I don’t know when,
I will reach these sands again
‘Cause I know who I am 🇪🇸 ♫♪

April 18 2025

Another 3 day total blackout happened in PR while we were on vacation in Spain. Came back to my business flooded due to the ice in the ice machine melting and overflowing, and hundreds of dollars in inventory inside the refrigerators completely rotten. I don’t know how much longer we can keep up like this, throwing away new food going bad due to outages. Can’t even enjoy a vacation in peace without PR going to 💩

April 17 2025

Found a lucky mussel in my Paella. Convinced my husband that this means we should move to Spain this year.
#Barcelona

April 16 2025

I love that Spain has very graphic warnings on its cigarette packs, but hate that everyone here smokes so much though. Smoking in public places and near children should be a big no-no. Now I know why my Spaniard grandfather never stopped smoking, Its too normalized here. He died from Metastatic Lung Cancer when I was 19 y/o.
#Barcelona

April 15 2025

I fed him and he bit my finger right after haha
#Barcelona

April 14 2025

Love this beautiful apartment complex right across the street from our hotel. Spain’s commitment to sustainability is truly a sight to behold. I honestly can’t wait to finally live in a place where I’m surrounded by people who share my values.
#Barcelona

April 13 2025

First time ever seeing fields full of Daisies
#Tarragona

April 12 2025

Retiro Park
#Madrid

April 11 2025

I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
and with every broken bone
I swear I lived
#Madrid

April 10 2025

I’m Home, Olé 🇪🇸
#Madrid

April 9 2025

I think what I love the most so far about Spain is how child-friendly it is. It has so many parks and green areas. The focus on family and including children in everything is also exceptional. I want my daughter to grow up in a community where I know if something were to happen to me, they would love and take care of her regardless. So unlike the individualistic, dog-eat-dog society we currently live in, where children are not a treasure but a burden. In 🇺🇸, I fear for her future daily.
#Madrid

April 8 2025

❤︎ Boquerones ❤︎
My Spanish genes are extremely happy with the food here in Spain

April 4 2025

♫♪ Are you the one I’ve been looking for all of my life? ♫♪

March 30 2025

Apparently you can’t even criticize this administration without being accused of inciting violence? The violence incited was…*checks notes*… a meme of the VP applying orange make up to the 🍊💩 using the cheese powder from a Cheetos bag…
Bye bye all social media accounts 🚮

March 22 2025

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Its true that this island is really beautiful. But living here is a constant struggle. Seems like over 12k people also agree, being that this is the top comment in the entire thread…

March 20 2025

So I make this Wish✨
To have something more for us than this…

March 14 2025

♫♪ What waits for me forever far from home
From everything and everyone I’ve ever known ♫♪

February 23 2025

Hoping one day we can find our family’s survivors of the Spanish civil war. My Great-grandfather died after being conscripted to fight against Franco in 1938. The story my family got was that after being wounded, he hid under a dead horse for 3 days where he caught an infection and died. What a heartbreaking way to go 💔

February 14 2025

Valentine’s Day’s cutest snack

January 28 2025

Beautiful Island to visit,
Terrible place to live.
#PuertoRico

January 26 2025

I just witnessed something sad on my way to the airport…

I decided to call an Uber to take me to the airport. The driver assigned pulls up in front of the hotel and I start speaking to her in English to which she responds she doesn’t speak English. Ok no problem, I start speaking to her in Spanish. Turns out she was a Cuban immigrant who just moved to the US about a year ago with her daughter. She mentioned the big issue for her that pushed her to leave was the instability of the grid in Cuba, where power goes out all the time. Yeah I totally understand, I can relate since we deal with the same BS here in Puerto Rico.

As we are on the highway on our way to the airport, a lot of police cars pass us by with sirens and stuff and she mentions that wherever they are going it seems to be bad since there are so many cars and they are making such a deal about it. As they get close, they turn to our right and she brings up that they just stopped at her daughter’s school. She proceeds to call her teen daughter to ask what’s going on. Turns out it was an ICE raid in the school. She’s now talking on the phone with her daughter reassuring her that she wont be taken, that they are legal, that only the illegal criminals get taking and so on. Oh my sweet summer child, I wish I could be that naive…

She dropped me off and left to check on her daughter at school. I really hope everything worked out for them but based on this administration’s lack of empathy and respect of the rule of law, they are probably on borrowed time. Sad times we live in…

January 25 2025

My amazing German coworker brough me a care package to the hotel since I’ve come down with covid. Name a more iconic duo than living in the USA and catching covid

January 21 2025

Stuck in Houston’s first snowfall in years, so its time to see snow for the first time in my life. This is not where I planned to lose my “seeing and touching snow for the first time” “virginity”. Bummer.

January 20 2025

Finally reaping the benefits of a corporate job: credit card & travel to mainland USA both paid for by the company.
#Texas

January 19 2025

What a depressing welcome to Houston.
Gray skies and dead grass everywhere.
#Texas

January 6 2025

After surviving yet another 3 day island-wide blackout, I can’t wait to have a break from the constant BS here. We deserve a vacation from the 💩show here in PR. On the other hand, I’m also really excited about this trip to Spain and finally getting to know the land of our ancestors.

January 1 2025

What a great way to start the new year… with another power outage. Just a little taste of what to expect this year.
Honestly at this point I bless the day we decided to go with solar ☀️