Friends call me Viry.
I’ve spent most of my life being the first one in the room. First in my family to buy a house. First to travel internationally. First to walk into corporate America, into big tech, and try to figure out how any of it worked with no one to call who’d been there before me.
“Being first sounds like an achievement. Sometimes it just feels lonely.”
Lonely in my family, because my path looked nothing like anyone else’s. Lonely in conference rooms, because I was learning the rules in real time while everyone around me seemed to already know them.
As the eldest daughter, I understand that loneliness a little differently. I’ve taken care of my siblings. I’ve carried things for my family that weren’t really mine to carry. If I’m honest, I’ve been a parent for a very long time, long before I had any say in it.
Now I’m in my thirties, and for the first time, I’m taking control of the wheel.
That means therapy. It means learning what a boundary with my parents actually sounds like out loud (and messing it up more than I’d like to admit). It means figuring out how to be a sister, a partner, a daughter, in ways that are actually mine, and not just the ones I inherited.
It’s scary. I don’t have it figured out. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living for somebody else’s version of me.
So who is she, this version I’m getting to know?
She’s still exploring. She’s trying out hobbies she’s not committing to yet, just because they’re hers. She’s an extremely proud dog mom (if you know, you know… I’m fully convinced my dogs are my kids, and I’m not sure I need any other kind). She works in HR at Google, ten years now (wild, I know).
She’s also, somehow, a public speaker, and loves it more than she expected to (because she actually has severe stage fright and hates the spotlight). She’s also coach-trained too, and it turns out helping people find their own answers is just a thing she’s good at.
This is why Perfectamente in Progress exists.
Not because I have it figured out. Because I don’t, and I got tired of feeling like I was the only one who didn’t. If any of this sounds like your life too, you can find me on socials (below). I’d love to hear from you!