My introduction to the community and the platform.

First of all, I want to start this publication with an immense THANK YOU!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be part of this team of ideas and experiences, thanks to my friends, to the people who are always with me, to @carolinacardoza for opening this door and guiding me in my first steps, with so much love and patience. Also to @oizaguirres, for giving me support so I could publish here, on this platform and to God, who gives me the grace of being alive, the possibility of smiling and waiting for that new sun that comes after every darkness.

My name is Alicia, but I am affectionately called Purrix. I was born and live in the north of southern Latin America, in a country where the sky gives us every day, beautiful palettes of colors, where friendship, laughter and good vibes are the order of the day.

In my country, they make jokes about everything, even about problems. I guess it is our way of coping with the terrible economic and social crisis we are currently going through.

This country of which I speak to you, has a woman's name, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, where it is not necessary a season of the year, to enjoy the snow, the coppery tones that autumn gives us, with the leaves of the trees on the ground, crunchy with our footsteps.

Do you already know which country it is? Yes, that same one: Venezuela.

I am divorced, but fortunately, I have a fantastic relationship with my ex-husband. In fact, he is my best friend. And from our marriage, we have a beautiful legacy that is now 11 years old. His name is Gabriel.

Gabriel, is my life engine, my light at the end of the tunnel, that unconditional love felt from the moment I knew I was pregnant and that grows day by day. I never thought I had this great capacity to love.

This child is funny, analytical, loving. He likes to help me cook and is the best in his classroom. He is also a member of the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra.

I am a publicist by profession, but for years I worked as a sales representative for the pharmaceutical industry. I was a medical visitor for Wyeth Laboratories, specifically handling the women's health area (hormone replacement therapy and oral contraceptives) and the pediatric line (infant formulas).

I have three brothers older than me (I am 44 years old). My oldest sister is a second time breast cancer survivor. She is a fun-loving, cheerful and hard-working woman. She is an interior designer by nature and a psychotherapist by profession. She also lives in Caracas, very close to me.

My other two brothers (male), one lives in Mexico and the other in a beautiful island called Nueva Esparta.

I also have beautiful nephews. Ricardo, Michelle, Miguel and Andres. Ricardo lives in Colombia, Michelle in Barcelona, Spain and Miguelito and Andres, here in Caracas.

I am very excited about the idea of having something to share with you. It motivates me to get to know each one of you through your stories, experiences and emotions. You will be my window to the world and for you I will be a very small window to my inner world.

This has been a year full of contrasts for each of us, of new experiences, of reinventing ourselves as entrepreneurs, of tears, and of loneliness.

Despite the confinement, I have made the best of this quarantine: I enjoy placid awakenings with my son, warm orange-toned sunsets, with the leaves of the trees on the ground.

Alicia, the same? improved? who knows, it's just me, the same tall skinny girl who doesn't know how to walk barefoot, who is afraid of cockroaches, the same girl who once had a dreamy look, that carefree girl who wrote little pink novels and then turned them into cartoons.

I love to read. The genre of reading I like is crime, trial, horror and suspense. I also like a little romance. What I don't like is science fiction.

My favorite writers are Sidney Sheldon, Mary Higgins Clark, Agatha Christie and Stephen King.

Someday, when I live in that house overlooking the sea, that I so long to have, while painting some beautiful landscape, with white hair, wrinkled hands, walking along the shore of the beach, listening to the sound of the sea and letting the sun warm my wrinkled skin, I will hear my grandchildren, my son, his wife coming from afar and I will tell them the stories that my head right now treasures, those stories that young people love to hear from the elderly and you know what? I'm sure I'll still be writing around here, whatever my tired eyes allow me and each of you, with whom I manage to establish a nice connection, will be present in those stories, especially my dear @carolinacardoza, who has been a blessing in my life.

From the depths of my heart, I thank life, the universe and God again for allowing me to be a part of you.