Hi, everyone!

It’s that time again, time to start counting down and getting to know another of my lady friends on her way to her 40th birthday!

My lovely friend Gina is also a blogger, a different kind of blogger, eventhough she lives in the United States, her blog is all Spanish and her topics are all inspirational and thought provoking. She is loyal to her blogging in time and in form, you can read her RAIN or SHINE every Wednesday, and believe me I know that there are many like me who know that early morning Wednesday we’ll find her new post in our inbox: GINADEWAR (click to visit her blog)

We met at that phase in our lives when friends are all that matters: IN HIGHSCHOOL…

We were four like minded girls: no drinking, no smoking, no boyfriends- though forever in platonic love, each one had a Hollywood boyfriend and a real life platonic guy…we’d watch American soaps whenever we could escape from class…and the rest of our time together went by daydreaming for eachother, we’d make up the most fabulous love stories for one another with the boy we were crushing on… we were just really GIRLY GIRLS and we liked it that way, we didn’t give our parents much trouble and we saw for eachother’s wellbeing…the kind of friends you wish for your own daughters…

But, let’s read about our chat and let her talk about herself…

ME: So, sweetheart, tell us about yourself… since when have we known each other?

GINA: Since 1987, the year we started Highschool.

ME: Oh yes, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start off that overly sensitive stage in my life but with my three lovely friends…Who would’ve thought, we had never even seen each other and we went from 0 to 100 in less than a month!!

From then till now so much time has gone by in which we did not see each other, so just to reminisce…

ME: Do you have a favorite decade?

GINA: No, I’ve had good and not -so-good times, but if you ask me when I’ve felt more intelligent I’d say NOW, but I can’t say I’d call this decade my favorite either.

ME: There is a kind of mental safety net that the years have given us, right? There is a kind of SAFETY IN NUMBERS (again with the phrase that had no use, suddenly I’m using it everywhere). I mean, that 40 years have given us, in the good and bad, a lot of experience, knowledge and anecdotes from which to learn. One would think that we would’ve had to be BAD girls to get the kind of knowledge that really FORMS a person, but we are proof that even being really well behaved we have learned…I dare say that in many ways we have learned from someone else’s experience, watching friends going down the wrong path and not being able to do anything for them…(teary eyes and all!)

Anyway, the good girl image and self-concept can become a bit of a limit as you grow up…

ME: How has your self-concept/image changed from when you started labeling yourself to now?

GINA: Oh, I’ve left behind the times when anything gave me a headache, I’ve come to an age where I can identify what’s worth my time and energy and what deserves my complete indifference. I focus on the intangible. I believe more in myself.

ME: I dare say that it was part of our personality to take EVERYTHING TOO SERIOUSLY maybe that’s why we did well in school… until health problems made us see that there has to be a better, healthier way to go through life…

ME: All humility aside, how do you describe yourself?

GINA: Expressive, Friendly, Dinamic, Deep Thinker, Procrastinator, Fun, Melancholic, Passionate, Well Prepared

ME: you forgot great CONVERSATIONALIST, I think that’s what makes us -Cristy, Laura, Gaby (who you haven’t met yet), YOU and I good friends…if we can’t say it in Spanish, we’ll say it in English, we’ll curse, we’ll act it out…and now that I think about it, it can even be a culprit in a relationship, specially if we’re in one with someone that avoids conversation…