Marie Gonzales

Who is Marie Gonzales? Welcome to my personal blog, a space where I share my passions and experiences. Here, I aim to inspire you to embrace life fully and find purpose. Originally from the Philippines, I moved to New Zealand just a couple of weeks before the world was impacted by COVID-19. At 25, my family and I made the bold decision to start anew in a different country. Time has flown by, and I am now approaching 29. In the Philippines, I pursued various certifications and training: Certified in Caregiving Registered First Aid Provider Completed a course in Computer Secretarial Studied Electronics (Me, training for first aid). Part of the First Aider Training includes: CPR (adult, child and infant), AED, Choking or also known as foreign body airway obstruction, treating minor injuries/cuts/burns, bandaging Me, volunteering in an Aged Care Facility in the Philippines. I studied Caregiving for my grandmother, because she keeps on going in and out of the hospital for 6 continuous month...

(From left to right: Ash, Kayla, Ashish, myself, and Udip.) They say that in a world full of insincerity, those who find loyal friends are truly fortunate. And I couldn't agree more. Six months after my grandfather's passing and just before the world was overtaken by COVID-19, my parents, two of my siblings, and I moved to a new country. For the first two years, I felt like an outsider. Transitioning from having a close-knit group of friends to having none at all was profoundly depressing. To fill the void—the time I would have spent with friends—I worked two jobs for nearly three years. I indulged myself, developing a spending habit I dubbed "Treat yourself, because no one else will." While not inherently bad, it was a coping mechanism. Despite my efforts, I struggled to make friends. Each attempt was met with silence or non-verbal rejections, which left me deeply saddened and eventually exhausted. I stopped trying, learned to prioritize my own needs, and gradually s...