The 27th floor.

27 years old. That age which according to many “standard” opinions of society, you’re supposed to be right in the path of settlement, transforming yourself into a total grown up, combing your hair everyday, having or seeking a good job and of course a stable relationship; some are getting engaged, married, even with kids. FB status and pictures saying “YES” or “I DO” everywhere. It is also a stage where people say stuff to you like “AH you’re just one step closer to the 3rd floor!” or “27? oh god, well do you remember that list of things to do before you become 30?” and my personal favorite “27…and you’re single?”. It is indeed a very annoying social pressure that goes straight onto your shoulders and plays with your mind since it defines you as “old”. My personal opinion? I don’t give a shit about that and ask you to listen “I just want to celebrate” by Rare Earth right now.

Furthermore, by my age, most of the great genius minds of history already discovered and developed revolutionary ideas like gas turbines, black holes and quantum mechanics theories, and made the world a better and more technological place and yeah, as an engineer, when you remember your last job as being 8 hrs. sitting on a chair in front of a computer well…it is sometimes a bit overwhelming; I do want to make the world a better place but…what if there are other ways to do it?

I confess to you my dear “lectores” that I actually had a recent age crisis and a whole emotional breakdown because I did feel totally lost about my “stable” life (back to the point expressed in previous paragraphs). After coming back from the magical wedding of my brother in Mexico, I spent a couple of entire days in the bed watching “heroic” and motivational movies, just eating nutella, using breaks for aeroelasticity HW and figuring out WTF was going on; then the reality kicked in and understood that my absolutely non-conventional way of thinking and living life is grand. In fact, it is just brilliant. Well, sometimes at least.

For me, a birthday is what for others might be new year’s eve. It is a day in which I look back and review what have I done right, what have I done wrong, what I liked, what I didn’t. For me it is a deep reflexion time and helps me to see where I am, and where I want to go. It is also the perfect excuse to party hard and drink my favorite alcohol.

Despite exactly a year ago, a beautiful mexican girl also known as “J” got me drunk and asked me to be her boyfriend for a limited time contract, I won’t bore you with what happened during the last year, and instead, I will focus on some facts about my present and show off a little bit:

Today I live in Stockholm, Sweden, I don’t have a girlfriend, I certainly don’t feel the need of getting married and the kids window has not even being discovered #fuckno. I live with a student scholarship and struggle with it at the end of every month, sometimes have to study 10 hours for a test and get pissed because of a mediocre grade, perform 8 hour aeromechanics simulations while the sun shines outside. Sometimes I dance and move in the subway when I’m in a good mood while listening to Sex Machine of James Brown in my iPod. I have a loud and honest laugh. I sing while walking on the street, smile and wave at strange people and steal coffee from the professor’s machine. I cannot say I’m not open for love, you never know what will happen, but for now let’s say I’m stimulated in knowing interesting people. Out of and in the bed of course.

Sometimes, it looks like I truly don’t care, like I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, like I’m just letting myself go into the mainstream. #honeybadger. Not entirely true though (although sometimes I don’t give a fuck about some people).

I might not be one of the 21st century great minds, not even close, but it is also true that at my 27 years, I’ve had the incredible chance of visiting 14 different countries and more than 50 cities across the world (and counting), I speak 3 different languages fluently and another 3 with good survival skills, I can cook, dance, play 2 instruments, really appreciate exotic and good food and drinks, prepare delicious cocktails, make people smile with simple stuff, have a decent muscled look and have an IQ of 142. I can box, give awesome massages, appreciate good music; I can give mind-blowing kisses, have received mind-blowing kisses and have shared and done some more with international beautiful female beings (physically and emotionally). I even have lived a couple of times during/aftersex,  that eye-look that drills into your soul and makes you feel totally alive and in peace. I live in the country with the most beautiful women of the planet. I am the fucking 3rd mexican of my whole country that studies a program in aeromechanics and turbomachinery and 6th or 7th of the whole american continent. I have survived 2 times to death events and I know what it is to have fear of dying, I cherish my life with all my strength. And I’m convinced Donald Trump is a complete dickhead.

But even beyond all that, even more importantly for me, I know the meaning of true friendship and true brotherhood. I have a family that loves me and supports me as crazy as I am. I might know what true love is, at least close to it (including chocolate cake and tacos). I know what it means to be surrounded by 200,000 people in a massive music festival and also to be totally on my own thousands of km away from everyone I know, and still feel happy and enjoy it. I have fulfilled many of my dreams and won’t stop now. I’ve felt what it means to be happy. I am happy.

I certainly don’t care about having millions of euros in my account, having a nice loft and a porsche at the garage. Even if that sounds nice and might be feasible one day, it’s definitely not the 1st priority of my life now. At my 27 years old, I have learned that living life is about knowing yourself, accepting yourself, loving yourself and just enjoy that ride. Is about waking up, look yourself at the mirror and say “HEY…YOU’RE DAMN HOT” and believe in yourself, believe you can achieve whatever you want, whenever you want. PLUS it is also about sharing. I might have repeated this a thousand times but people, energy is always transferred and if you’re happy about yourself, you will definitely start a contagious effect and people around you will notice and might feel happier about themselves as well. A matter of energy equilibrium. Next time you’re on the street try to make someone truly smile with a simple detail. A smile, a chocolate, a flower. That is my simple and maybe stupid idea of making the world a better place. A happier place.

Today I feel privileged of driving on this road and I’m more than thankful with my life for everything I’ve experienced, everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve learned and of course I know there is way more to come. So today, in my birthday, I invite you to be strange, to be weird, to think outside the box and to think that “life begins at the end of your comfort zone” (Courtesy of “Z”); to take that risk you’re always been afraid of, to fight for that thing that makes you’re heartbeat sound out loud, to pursue your dreams and not give up.

Life is not always bright, in fact it is sometimes a passive aggressive bitch; so for me it is more a matter of looking the brighter and good side of life. That is what makes me happy, and yeah, maybe one day I’ll be able to share my crazy stuff with another crazy partner, keep traveling the world together and look after baby pandas for a day. Even on a far faaar away day I might be holding a baby that carries my DNA and commit my life to that being. But today, just now, I will enjoy my Glenmorangie 18, smile to life and share this happiness with all of you. I do hope you smile back, that celebrate this day with me and for those also having a birthday today, felicidades cabronas y cabrones.

P.S. Free mind-blowing kisses for my birthday.

The one who stopped taking risks, stopped living life.

Anonymus.

The nuptial engagement from the bench seat.

Weddings. A good excuse to gather the most beloved and most annoying individuals of a family. A very good excuse to eat, drink and dance “la culebra” until you cannot feel your toes. The perfect excuse to legally and spiritually become one with that person you’re very in love with and establish a sacred commitment of respect, love and faith. Qué pinche miedo (google might help you with that spanish).

Life gave me the great chance of flying from Sweden back to Mexico for a very expected and nice event of my family: the wedding of my brother.

My brother is 8 years older than me; an intense, charming, efficient, grumpy as fuck and smart as hell human being whom I consider to be the best man I’ve know in this life. A man whose laugh and sense of humor is so freaking ironically funny that it is impossible to not crack up; especially with stories involving the deadliest spider in the world being hunted with a broom, french police accusing him of being a terrorist or help coming from a mexican commander code cougar. Brilliant.

His now eternal companion, a 1.60 m beautiful woman from South America, with more guts and strength than the majority of women and men I’ve met. A woman whose oil & gas industry experience mixed with her peculiar accent, big heart and mind, conquered my brother and makes him smile like I’ve never seen before. Meant to be.

As you may or may not know, we mexicans are either very ridiculously religious, or superstitious, or both. Latinoamerican society in general falls also into this area. I personally have stopped believing in the catholicism and similar paths of thinking; I’m not judging, I just choose not to follow the institution myself. I am not an enemy of religion itself; in fact I’m a very spiritual person, more interested in the likes of Buddhism and knowing the inner-self, trying my best everyday to expand my mind and become as conscious as I can be. I believe we humans are capable of achieving incredible and amazing things when we combine our spiritual and rational sides.

As any typical wedding that takes place in a church, in this case a catholic church, the father is in charge of the ceremony and gives some words of advice and motivation to the newly-weds. Despite the fact most of the times you hear only religious analogies and a bold religious guy giving out to the whole audience, this time was actually quite  interesting.

The father used the following analogy; he said that love is like wine #Purewisdom. When you drink wine, you become chatty, relaxed, smiley, charming, funny, sometimes you even go to the main stage, give your best James Brown impression and rock it all out. Wine is tasty, sometimes strong, sometimes sweet, sometimes smooth, sometimes unexpected, sometimes exactly what you need. Like love. Eventually and unfortunately, you finish the bottle and the wine is gone. Maybe you drank it too fast, maybe it was not what you expected, maybe it was too good and you couldn’t control yourself, whatever the reason, sometimes it’s just gone. Yep, just like love.

So then you either keep buying that same bottle which you think is your favourite, even get the special limited edition and drink it on unique occasions, or…your mind breaks, you get a totally different brand and you magically get a permanent forehead tattoo saying “I’m a bloody basterd”. You got a knowing smile there, didn’t you?

So there was I, sitting in the church on the bench of the groom’s honor men, watching my brother wearing a custom tailored made suit, receiving blessings and words that encouraged him and his wife to walk through life and seek happiness together. Sharing good and bad, happiness and sadness, anger and joy, light and darkness. It is such a strong commitment that made me shivered to the base of my spine.

I’m known for being kind of insensitive in terms of love-relationship management, but don’t get me wrong, I do know what being in love means, what it requires, what it demands. I’ve been in both sides of the court, the one who loved the most and the one who was loved the most. I certainly hope that one day I’ll be able to be on that utopic and surreal path of unconditional, mutual love. I guess all I need is guts and to be conscious enough of taking that high cliff jump. And maybe more guts.

A part of me says that we human beings just know when it is the right time and the right person. We feel it and it reveals as a shaking leg, as an authentic smile, as an infinte hug, as a look in the eye that drills directly into your soul and makes think “holy shit, I’m fucked or would like to be at least“. It is not common, it is not an everyday event, it might happen twice in your life. And then what? we panic, we chicken out, we think it’s not the right time. It is complex sometimes yes, maybe impossible due to circumstances beyond our control, but those are isolated events. So next homework, if you truly like/love someone? Tell her/him, even if it will last one day, one hour, one minute, tell them. Life is too short to not enjoy this kind of emotions and trust me it’s fucking worth it; in case you have not done it, it’s a very good way to start knowing who you are, and who you are dealing with. There’s no such thing as “ruining friendship because of love”. Don’t be a coward and just fucking go for it. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. #love #orsex #orboth #foreverhappy.

I must now reveal that about 75% of my relationship skills were taught by my brother. The deadly combination of the dancer, the player and the lover. Even that very day of his wedding, I had an awesome emotional blast because of his last bit love advice.

I guess the point of this emotional blog is to share with you that I’m thankful of having a brother like him. He taught me how important family is, how important it is to think before you spit shit out of your mouth, how to be funny, spontaneous and ironic. He encouraged me to be an engineer, to focus on details and to learn as much as possible about everything. He taught me how to drive and how to play video games. He taught me about incredible music, to sing and to dance. He took me to my first racing car competition, to my first electronic music concert (Paul Van Dyke 2008) and to my first rock concert (AC/DC 2009). He was with me for my first tattoo. He taught me to fight, to defend myself and to never back down. He taught me about movies, about politics and about hilarious comedy shows. He taught me respect and to respect. He taught me love and to love. He taught me how to be badass. He taught me how to be a man.

I’m more than certain that he will be a great husband, father and partner. I know he will drink and share the same wine and love with his better half and I definitely could not be prouder to have a family member like that. I respect and honour him, for who he is, for what he fights for, for what he lives for, and hope that one day I manage to find the key of the door that took him to where he is now.

To my brother and to his wife.

Que vivan!