This year birthday
Recently, I turned 41 and like the Iron Maiden’s song, Hallowed Be Thy Name, says “Reflecting on my past life, and it doesn’t have much time”, I was thinking of my journey so far and what I’m hoping to achieve in the time that I have left.
Birthdays and other family celebrations like Christmas or New Year’s Eve have always had a bittersweet feeling for me, especially after my mom and grandparents (on my mom’s side) passed away almost 4 years ago. On these dates, you tend to analyze what have you done and what are your expectations of the future, and you missed your loved ones and feel nostalgic for the past, when you were happier and with fewer problems.
What’s my story
I am the oldest of three sisters. My parents got married very young, in their 20s, because my mom got pregnant with me. They were young in the 70s, they loved classic rock music, and they were hippies at heart. I grew up listening to all the 60s and 70s bands, like Santana, Pink Floyd, and Janis Joplin. I was born in 1982, so I was surrounded also by all the 80s pop bands like Duran Duran, Human League, Madonna, etc.
My classmates liked pop or Latino bands, but when I was 12 the older brother of a friend lent me a CD that changed my world, Iron Maiden’s Live After Death. I listened to that, and I immediately loved the music style, the artwork, and the lyrics. Being a history fan, it was so mesmerizing for me to hear about WWII as if Bruce Dickinson was telling me a tale.
Then I discovered more heavy metal bands like Judas Priest, Saxon, and 80s glam like Motley Crue, and Cinderella, and I became more and more obsessed with all of them.
When I turned 15 I needed something more aggressive, as I was in my teenage years, so I used to listen to a Chilean radio show that played a lot of thrash bands, so I came across Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Pantera, Kreator, Sepultura. I liked their heavier sound and that their lyrics were about current events like the Gulf War, Israel- Palestinian War, and racial and religious problems.
Later, at the end of my school years, I began to listen to power metal, bands like Blind Guardian, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Rhapsody, Angra, and HammerFall, among others. But after a while, I got tired of the same keyboard sound and the story of the dragon and the princess, so I returned to classic heavy metal and a little bit of everything (always within rock or metal genre).
Career
Since my passion is music and history, my dream was to work in something related, but lacking musical abilities and thinking of making a decent living, I studied law. My other option was journalism, but at that time it was a saturated field (later the same happened with law, but that’s life). At this time, in my 20s, it was also the beginning of the Internet, social media, and chats like IRC or ICQ. On these platforms, I got to know some friends, in my city, that were very passionate about black and death metal and most of them played in local bands. So I started to hang out with them and support their shows. In that way, I listened to some of these bands and grew fond of a few such as Death, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Borknagar, and Arcturus, among others.
Since then, I’m always listening to rock or metal bands, also blues and 80s pop, depending on my mood.
I’ve been a lawyer for 14 years. My goal with my career was to study Diplomacy then, and in that way live and experience other cultures and countries, but after 3 failed attempts to pursue that path, I tried different things, like family and civil law and environmentalism (my current path). However, it lingered in the back of my mind that I should do something related to my passion (music) but I couldn’t figure out exactly what.
The first time that I lived abroad
In 2017, I lived in Brisbane, Australia for 6 months, to improve my English and to see if I had the chance to stay there. It was a great adventure for me, to be able to live alone in another country where they speak another language different from mine. But almost at the end of the 6 months my mom was having health problems, so I decided to come back to Chile. Even though I loved Australia, it was very “beach and outdoor style” for me. I prefer to visit older cities, churches, historical buildings, etc. Besides, I thought that AC/DC being from there, there was going to be a huge rock scene, but realizing that wasn’t the case, I promised myself to search somewhere else for my place in this world. Likewise, I know that maybe I would have had to stay a little longer there may be, to be used to the place, yet the circumstances forced me otherwise.
Germany in sight
In 2019, I started to learn German. I’ve always admired a lot of things from Germany’s culture, like some metal bands, soccer, writers, movies, and beer too. I identify myself with that gloomy way of thinking they have, of course for different reasons (theirs come, mostly, from war and mine from existential questioning). So my goal was to someday be able to understand the language and use it too, and if I could, live there as well.
At the same time that my journey with German began, my mom’s health got very bad, and she passed away, followed very soon by my grandparents. I think studying the language kept me sane those days.
Then, when I was feeling a little better, and hopeful, the Pandemic began, and it was all crushed again. At that time, I continued to study German and analyze what I would do with my life. I thought about the fragility of our existence, and I was determined to be happy for the rest of my life and to do something music-related, anything.
I volunteered for 1 year in an online Chilean rock magazine helping them to schedule music videos, music news, and other tasks. However, I needed to earn money somehow, and since I don’t want to depend on the typical lawyer work like court and sues, I continued investigating to find my purpose.
I also applied for a Master‘s in Germany, but my German is intermediate level and to go to the University you need advanced. The English Master’s wasn’t an option for me either because I wanted to study Journalism and due to the fact that my Bachelor’s is in Law, I got rejected.
Later, I had some dreams about writing music-related articles for a living. So I thought that maybe that was my calling.
Writing
I kept on watching YouTube videos and reading about other ideas or jobs that I could do, and I started getting interested in Copywriting and Content Writing, so I built two websites in which I offer my writing services (greenlegalwriter.com and metalbere.com). The first one is for environmental and legal topics and the second one is for music, especially about going to concerts and making reviews and interviews.
My idea is to become a Digital Nomad and live in Germany, Portugal, France, or wherever I want, or maybe for a while in one place, then change location and so on.
I’m 41 now, and here I am rethinking my life once again, but it’s never late. Every day it’s a new start and as long as I’m alive I will try my best to follow my dreams and live the way I want to.