Cosas Brillosas

Some conversations linger, echoing long after they’ve ended. A few days ago, I was talking to my friend Michael, and we ended up on the topic of relationships. He looked at me and said, “You’ve got good chemistry with all girls.” I paused, not quite knowing how to take the compliment. “My mother taught me,” I said with a half-smile. It came out like a joke, but it wasn’t one.

My mother has always had presence. Commanding. Unapologetically herself. From her, I didn’t just learn manners or how to be polite—I learned how to observe, to listen, to read between the lines. Especially when it came to women. It’s like she gave me a blueprint for emotional intelligence without ever calling it that. And yet, it’s only now—through my own missteps, connections, contradictions, and distance—that I’m starting to realize the weight of what she handed me.

There’s this girl. Latin, whimsical, magnetic. The way she speaks feels like cursive—elegant, winding, soft on the ears but hard to look away from. She commands attention without asking for it. She gets nervous around me sometimes and tries to hide it, but I notice. She once told me, “I flirt in Spanish.” It was a throwaway line, probably meant to be cute, but it stuck with me. It made me realize how much of myself I’ve kept hidden behind casual remarks and charm. How I too flirt in languages I haven’t fully mastered. I’ve always been intrigued by people who can be vulnerable without unraveling. She does that effortlessly, and it terrifies me. Because the truth is, I struggle with letting people in. I have this habit of keeping relationships at arm’s length—not because I don’t care, but because the closer someone gets, the more they can see the mess. And I haven’t always been ready for that.

As much as I poke fun at people who can't commit, I’ve come to see that I’m a hypocrite in my own right. I’m often guilty of staying halfway in, halfway out. I want the connection, but I also want the control. I crave depth, but fear drowning. And that internal tension—between wanting to be seen and fearing what might be understood—has played a louder role in my life than I’d like to admit. At the same time, I’ve been investing energy into my creative and professional growth. I’ve become obsessed with building—websites, projects, systems that reflect who I am. I recently launched a project called _My Life as Documentation_, a living portfolio that blends my passion for writing with my background in tech. It’s part personal blog, part digital art, part resumé. But more than anything, it’s a bet on myself.

Using tools like Vercel and Supabase, I’ve been learning how to deploy web apps, track performance with Cloudflare, and build front-end experiences that feel like me. Each line of code, each deployment, feels like I’m throwing another stone at Goliath. I don’t always know what I’m aiming at—but I know it’s better than not aiming at all. I’m building something out of curiosity, and that’s always been the root of my best work.

There’s something beautiful about momentum. The more I build, the more I want to build. The more I write, the more I want to say. It’s like every strength I lean into starts lighting up other areas of my life. Writing has made me more disciplined. Coding has made me more patient. Sharing my work has made me more honest. And that honesty? It’s starting to spill over into everything. Still, I wrestle with contradictions. A friend recently asked me, “Are you a serial dater?” I laughed, but the question gnawed at me. I’ve spent time in hookup culture, and I’ve walked away from it feeling hollow more often than not. And yet, something in me keeps going back. Maybe it’s ego. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s just the shiny promise of connection without consequence.

_Cosas brillosas_—shiny things—show up in all parts of life. Sometimes they’re people. Sometimes they’re titles or ambitions. Sometimes they’re distractions dressed as destiny. And the hardest part is learning to tell which is which. Not all that glitters is gold, but some glitter is worth chasing because it reveals something deeper.

There’s a strange grace in knowing you won’t always understand the purpose of your pain. But that doesn’t mean you stop working, growing, healing. It means you show up anyway. It means you work with what you have, trusting that the act of showing up is sacred in and of itself. We’re all born with certain advantages—gifts we didn’t ask for, but are called to use. I believe in pursuing those with everything we’ve got. Not because we’ll be perfect, but because it’s worth it. When you commit to one strength, the others tend to follow. I’ve seen that in my own life. Writing daily, posting weekly, sending newsletters biweekly—it’s not just output. It’s alignment. And in that alignment, I’ve found peace, momentum, and purpose.

In the end, I’m still figuring it all out. I don’t have all the answers. But I do know this: the shiny things in life—the _cosas brillosas_—they’re not always distractions. Sometimes they’re invitations. To look deeper. To grow. To move. To become. And I’m learning to stop being afraid of what shines. Not everything that glows is meant to be held—but some things, when held the right way, light up parts of you that you forgot were even there.

So here’s to the shiny things that humble us, haunt us, heal us. The ones that reflect our flaws and our future. The ones that ask us to aim higher, fall harder, and try again. May we always have the courage to chase them—not for what they give us, but for what they teach us on the way.