Gorgeous Summer Nights of New York

Don't fear being alone; fear bad company! Don't be afraid of the dark, but be wary of false individuals who seek to destroy your inner peace. I early learnt from the philosophy of Schopenhauer, "the more a man has in and of itself, the less need he feels of others." I was reading the German great by the time love knocked me off my feet and I ended up in very bad places. All due to leading a life defined by raw emotion. Lately, I'm working on diminishing my anger, although I can express my frustration, I will do what is in my power to take the edge off and don't push the accelerator. What works for me is spreading a lovable aura. It's more simple than it seems, really. All you need to do is exercise good manners, good habits; that's what happiness really is about. You develop the habit of staying active, of getting strong, and you lead an independent life. You don't take anything and anyone for granted, and you stay far away from negative people. Deal with difficult individuals with indifference, sort of agree and don't think you can talk your way out of an argument. The minute the conversation dwindles, it is best to find better things to do with our time than talk more than not.

Don't be angry, it sounds almost like a dream. Episodes of anger are comparable to states of madness. No logic, hurtful things are said. What you train the person to do is adopt a more positive outlook and take some physical activity towards a very concise goal: learn how to dance salsa, play an instrument, how to swim, go for a run every morning, spend time at the gym. Change can only happen when we change we do things, and let go of toxic people, situations, places, even family. Try to do something that you have postpone doing lately, and do so again, and again, until that thing becomes habit. Happiness is all about adopting and consistently executing good habits. Sleeping good, meditation, relaxation music, weight lifting (once a week), pace a few miles a day with a 30-plus pounds backpack, everyday, on your to and from work. Read interesting articles on whatever subjects fascinate you: science, health, fitness, politics, comedy. Don't pick up a cigarette, I have done it for the past three years. In fact, I went back and smoked for almost three years, after having quit for seven years. I have transformed my body, and rid of emotional ties for the time being. I love spending quality time with good friends and read a good book, take a vacation somewhere, go camping, running, biking (soon), watch combat sports (no other sports, really), do sit-ups at work and chin-ups at home, maybe meet a friend for a drink, go out in the gorgeous summer nights of New York. You want to celebrate people who want to be in your life, go out and mingle with beautiful people, take a ride in the interstate train to a nice private beach (Long Beach) on a hot day. My sister is in town and though we had a recent episode of anger (well, she did), I forgave her for her mistakes which she recognized. It almost got out of hand, involving others and all, but sometimes conflicts are times of opportunity and we ended up more together than we were before, a relative of mine and me. It's really a surprising experience, and all because we forgive and we stay out of the way of people who just wants to be in the way, like a wall between you and peace of mind.

Putting the Puzzle back together

Let me come out and say that there's no doubt in anyone who knows me that I love you, including you. Anyone who has come in contact with me I am grateful for having met you, and that I respect your decision, to an extent I even welcome it. The way I see it, things are happening for you. You went back to college, work out, look stunning, and you're not crying on the phone. I may have been acting out of pain whenever I've been mean, initially I was so emotionally fragile and nowadays I feel less needy, more focused, like my old self. I have you to thank for, that I would go on suffering like we were all because of love. And I know we love (or loved) one another, except we showed it in different ways. To me, loving you meant many good things and I'm not an angel, got a temper, get angry and have a take-no-prisoners attitude. If I were to insist in the possibility of something between us, I would've ran over there by now. I, too, needed the space and the time to work on my own self. Like I said, I've been under a lot of stress at work, my mind has been wandering for way to long, men too get hormonal with their babies. It impacts both the father and the mother, and I may have been neglecting my body due to all the unnecessary stress and melodramatic fights we had, full of drama and shame. Of course, I see now what I couldn't have seen before: it wasn't a bad idea. Yours was an extreme version of mine. It hasn't been easy on either one of us. We used blame and ridicule and shame and guilt and jealousy and mixed it up with anger and then we'd blown to pieces. Now we can pick up our pieces and really settle once we put, independently, the puzzle back together.

Keep Your Cool

What a great gesture my friend had to offer a truce, put aside our emotions, keep the peace in order to celebrate the family coming together for a baptism. My sister and her family is coming too, and it's a time to forget all our differences and move on. We should avoid drama above all and we know who these people are, so it's best if you stay away or disengage. Do not think that you can talk your way out of an argument or an impertinent question just to dig into your business. I simply care less for gossip; if I'm to hang, it better not be about talking shit about someone else. If they say something negative about someone I care for, I won't stand for it. I have to say in my defense, that was the first time I took it in my hands to say anything, but this person later admitted to being wrong and apologized, and I waited a day or so before I accepted her apology. You give others the chance to see that you have mercy. No need to go on a crusade against whatever it is others want us to change into. And we should desist of trying to change anyone but our own selves.  Don't fight it either: you don't pretend you can make people change their minds?

Luck is knowing how to throw the dice. Once I was asked about how to get lucky, and I said: "It's simple, don't rely on luck." A thought crossed my mind: there's no tomorrow, just now, and maybe putting a few dollars in a safe won't hurt.
I want to have a good time with my family and not relive some gruesome aspects of our past and bring back the bitterness and pain. No need for that, and I feel awful for having let my feelings get the best of me. What I'm more proud of is, I kept my cool and I tried to put out the fire. Next time, I'll just try harder. It's imperative to keep the peace, it's not like we have to see each other again anytime soon. Oh, well, let the show begin.

Little Good Things Life is Full of

With him, it's as if time had come to a standstill. He's in a world all of his own and sometimes he emerges to show us he's there, from time to time he visits us. He loves cars and I love him; he's my first born autistic son, Esteban. Life has dealt us all, no exceptions, some blows, some harder than others, no doubt. The darkest hour in my life has to be the day I learnt of my son's condition. It took me years to recover, and I regressed: I started to smoke cigarettes after quitting for seven years, but luckily only picked it up for two more. I haven't touched a cigarette in more than three years, and I am no longer as sad as I used to be, not by a long shot. Initially, what affected me most was uncertainty. Having been raised by a woman who was abandoned by her husband, my father, when I was five years old, it felt like irony with a side of tragedy had hit me in the face: a man who had a stranded relationship with his son was now destined to have a limited relationship with his son. I thought it was like a cruel joke. My love for my first son blossomed, even though there were severe, that is to say, real challenges to our relationship. I wanted to see him grow, not worry about his fate once I was gone, and have that special bond I lacked with my predecessor. 

For all the knowledge I had amassed with respects to autism, I was in for a rude awakening. First, it does get better, at least in his case; never to the point that he could pass off as a normal kid, even though in some cases such had been just the case. What regular people with average to norm kids, the fact that their kids say so much and grow so fast, you can hardly detect the passage of time. One day they're born and the next they're bugging you with questions, and the next thing you know they're off to lead productive lives. Or so we'd like to think. 

Yeah, I speak from experience. No, I didn't have any other kids before Esteban, and Julian comes a long second, seven years apart sibling. But I did have the experience of raising my stepson, and it seems like the other day he was eight years old and now he's all grown-up, showing the depressive tendencies of his surroundings. And still living home. 

What happened with autism was, first I found I wasn't unlucky or cursed. Nothing that extreme. The probability of having a son (or daughter) be born with the condition had increased throughout the years. It had actually multiplied from the incidences reported back when it was first diagnosed. Secondly, I saw once first-hand the amazing people who dedicated their life and time to these incredible children, and I was put to shame. Initially, I had just assumed that his condition would remain more or less the same, but nonetheless I fought to make a positive impact on his life. I taught to count up to twenty both in English and Spanish, and I also taught him the alphabet. He learnt it and then from there, things kind of stayed the same to me. I retreated and got depressed, and then suddenly, that day, in his school, I saw him come alive and do all sorts of things while being surrounded with people who encouraged him to express himself. He danced, sang, made hand movements in coordination with his peers, and it then hit me: I had stopped being his hero. These people were now his hero. And I felt shame. I had no reason to be depressed when he looked so happy, and I started to cry. As a man, I've cried more for him than for any other cause or person or pain or anything else all combined. But most of those times, like then, they were tears of joy. Sometimes, when dark thoughts of death, of life after us, shook me, I felt compelled to cry and did not hesitate to do so. I am crying right now. 

I loved my son and I changed since that day. Actually, I was never too far off from this realization. I just needed the proper mood to set the machine moving on. I taught him cars, I took him for a walk without holding his hand (of course, in quiet parks where no danger of traffic or people), and I took him with me everywhere. He learnt how to walk with me without running off, learnt to kiss, to hug, to thank and to say goodbye, to understand simple words and spell them too. He learnt more cars than I had originally taught him. And he learnt many more things at school. And he still amazes me. But nowadays, the man I was, I no longer am. For a man who grew up reading Schopenhauer when I was just 19 years old, feeling like a fourteen year-old Beethoven who had recently discovered the love for literature, I learnt optimism with my son. And it's simple, really: optimism is patience, song, dance, little things, pacing, and finding pleasure in the little good things that life is oh so full of. 

No Comment

There's no innocence at 19 years old. Now, I'm not saying you should know all there is to know at 19 years old. But by then you should probably already know that you shouldn't pick up someone else's phone, argue with a complete stranger, curse, be homophobic and racist over the course of that conversation, threatened physical harm to me and in the middle of getting nowhere with me, telling: "You know what I'm gonna do now, I'm gonna play with Julian" in a morbid tone of voice, enhanced perhaps by the heat of the moment, no matter how cool you want to play it, sometimes you lose it. But this time, I am proud to say that I have conquered my anger once again, I listened to what he had to say about no one in that house liked me and how he'd buy me a ticket for my poor ass to go visit them so he can kick my ass. I asked him out of curiosity if he thought he could intimidate me over the phone. That's when he decided to change tactics and get me where it really hurts. I didn't like it but I didn't think too much of it either. I thought he just wanted to get into my father pride, getting me jealous but whatever his intention, it wasn't well-intended. I decided to tell her a couple of days later. I communicate with her through email, but only expect monosyllables in return. 

Like the other night I wrote her if she had ever talked about me to that guy she was seen talking with one night at the bar; I don't think any man would like to see his girl talking to a guy she was involved with at the local bar where they all know us, and get that drunk and not get home until passed 4am. Okay, that's in the past and I never raised my voice at her over it or said anything about it until she came and rushed Julian into my arms to answer a text some cousin had left her. It turned out to be crap, and I didn't give her crap about it except because she put the baby in my arms to go tend to that shit. Somehow she manages to make me look like the domineering, macho type who at the same time is closet-case, who deceived her by telling her he couldn't have kids and ruined her life. She doesn't say it often but initially she even wanted to have an abortion. Nowadays the fact that she didn't have one, she says, it's because of her beliefs. I gotta refrain from commenting on that. I told her, "It takes two to Tango, and I never forced you to have sex with me. You were only worried about STD's, I remember, because you could have either stop having sex, use preservatives (we went through boxes and boxes of them, at some point we had to just do what people who has been doing it for a while do: we slipped. I didn't think she'd get pregnant, but I wasn't naive as to think that she couldn't. I knew it was a risk I was taking and so did she, because it doesn't matter what the guy says in order to get you into bed, it is up to you to believe it. Yeah, I slipped, I didn't do it with the intention of ruining your life, and look at what we have: a precious boy. She threatened to have an abortion only once (because she'll never have a child with a married man), I couldn't have judged her if she chose to but I told her I wanted it. And since she loves me, and this baby believe it or not was the love child of our love. Many women won't admit to it, but it is part of being a responsible woman, but we are ruled by emotion, not logic, and so we made the most perfect and beautiful mistake ever. Seriously people, that's just verbatim: I love my boy and I don't think it's a mistake. Or a lie. Or a deception. I think it's crass to express yourself like that. Julian was meant to be, I just had to find the right specimen to do it with and she happened to be the closest to good candidate, and in the end it was all about him, not us. I think we came to be because our son was to come, sort of like that selfish gene theory: it wasn't the chicken who made the egg, it was the egg who made the chicken kind of conundrum. 

So, what it's the need to have someone else pick up the phone and curse me the fuck out (I am laughing now, out loud). She says it was a neighbor first, then her brother's friend who had come to stay with them for summer. When I tell her I don't like the way that went, I get more monosyllables: "Ok???" was her two hours later reply to my text informing her that I had left an email for her two days ago. By then I had even forgotten the issue, just no answer at all is better sometimes. I didn't know what to make of it so I gave her the short version of the email. She didn't call, just text that he was an innocent 19 years old kid who was doing what all 19 years old do. That he never said that he was going to hurt Julian. I told her, I didn't say that. I said he could have implied so, because why say so in the middle of a tense argument? Why would I say to another man that I'm going to go play with his kid over the phone, tell him I'm gonna kick hiss ass, and why in the world would anyone else in your family think it's okay for a 19 years old kid to behave this way. No answer. I was fed up, not so much because of that kid incident but how she decided to handle it, like she has everything else: by dismissing me. I text her and tell her all the time she could call, since she's always busy to answer the phone even though I don't call her because in the past that never ended well. And I love video-chatting through Google Hangouts, but she rarely gets the time since she knows how much I enjoy it. She wants me to go to Michigan, and I will but first I have to take care of all the bills and the training at work and all the silly games she plays. Of course, I decide not to text because it gets boring, I find it childish that we can't have a normal conversation. In the last few conversations, episodes of anger have been decreasing, and I am the one who pushes because she will never come back to New York. 

What are my options? If I fail the examination required for a license at work, I could jeopardize my employment. I have been focused on the wrong issues here, instead of writing about her and our crazy ways, I should stick to studying the FSD material and ace that exam. That's what I told her, and it's no excuse, going to Michigan will require some planning that may take me up to a few weeks. Look, initially I was being stubborn but now I don't have a doubt in my mind that this will be the only way to hold and kiss Julian again. I dream of that day, but our nerves have to cool and our tempers have to simmer. And we gotta have less episodes like that with that kid. Especially when a simple apology would have sufficed. It worried me that you later said your brother and your sister were also present when that kid went off over the phone. So, it was almost like a family event. How could I go to a home where I'm not welcome? Look, I can get passed anything when it comes to deal with difficult people, I wasn't raised on Rambo movies and if I can get out of an argument, I walk away, but the truth is no one should condone behavior like that and I wasn't the one at fault here. If she choose to see it any other way, that's her choice. I'd think you want to put that kid in his place, but I bet they celebrate that sort of thing. I remember how her mom came to stay over for a few days, every few weeks or so, and in one instance I heard her son shouting over the phone that they had to teach some "nigger" a lesson because he had stepped out of line with some girl. Did your mom warned him against violence? Did she react as mine would have, worried that her kid might get into physical harm? Or trouble with the police? I remember her chatting with this same brother over Skype where he was showing her an electric cigarette (by the way, the next day she forgot she had had a conversation with her brother over Skype because when she has a few glasses of wine at home, she calls everyone but me), and the voice of that kid over the phone sounded very territorial. I bet it was her brother, their voices are too alike and what's with putting family men over the phone? Her uncles once commented on Facebook that I shouldn't forget that she has uncles who I'd have to answer to, because she'd spend her time painting this abusive prototype of me and fed it to her holy friend, the pornstar, who deleted me off her Facebook and places pictures of her and my ex on her page for me to see, and you know for a person who works in that line of work she sure is judgmental. Don't get me wrong: I love the girl. She's not my type, but she's hilariously fun and extroverted, and I can only assume she has heard a thing or two from her friend, but what are friends for? Getting emotional support from a pornstar, who's gonna turn that down? Don't tell me it isn't better than sex for her to gossip and talk shit to her talented friend about how much of a bad ass I really am. Isn't some of that what attracted her to me in the first place? I'll never be an angel but I'm no man for texts and long distances relationships either. I'm too Latin for that sort of thing I guess, and she relies heavily on her special friends opinion. What can a girl who has a boyfriend status change every six months teach her anything other than bitterness towards men. A woman must have a hard time trusting men when she does what she does for a living. I appreciate all the good work of girls like her, they got us through our puberty and continue to feed the fantasies of us men everywhere in those lonely nights when the wife doesn't want to put up or the girlfriend is off partying with her escort friend somewhere in a bar in Michigan. 

But she has also very fine friends like that Richie guy for whom she stole my less than half a bottle of Vodka for, you know the one who'd hid beers from my fridge in his pockets and drinks gallons of wine without passing out. Unlike my friend, who'd decide that mixing Xanax and fall asleep sitting on the chair, and me with all my strength couldn't hold her figure to the bedroom and left her on the living room sofa. I laugh at our flaws because they made us blow off some steam, and face a life full of real burdens and so long as it made us happy, so be it. No need to slander one another, or make up fables, only gullible people believe in the tale of good and bad. We're capable of both. 

These episodes do not define us. Of course, I thought these were little caricatures of a greater painter, so I don't blow out of proportion these episodes but you either have a relationship with a person, not a device like a phone, and you could have compromised a little more and be less childish and pick up the phone and call sometimes, and you can't have our relationship like an open book for anyone in your life to see because I have nothing to hide from. Even if it were true the atrocities she's been saying about me (ask her how she denied going into my email and yet having copies of emails of mine, from Craigslist, I mean you gotta have a face to go into my email or bank accounts for that matter when she hasn't even had sex with me in months and lives in another state. But whatever I said out of anger, the fact is she has done far worse, and what's sad is, she can't admit it because she's not even aware of it. Like a zombie, she doesn't know how much of a monster she really can be. Everything she did, according to her, was in response to something I've done, so in other words my actions prompted her to act. We should act, not react. And we probably shouldn't encourage our son or brother or neighbor to be homophobic, especially now that you have a gay little brother. It's probably not good either to slander and be ethnically racial when your father is from the insult land Colombia (he called me a Colombian, I think he thought that was an insult). 

Sure, I know she's better off in Michigan and though I miss my son, I think he is probably better off there. I miss him, but even that she doubts. She should proceed with the plans at hand. I know she always was goal-oriented and has wasted no time in pursuing a career, and that is not easy when you have a child to care for. And so I put my pride aside and tell her, regardless of all this nonsense I still love you, take your time, I am proud of you, Happy Mother's Day, and if it bugs her then I won't complain again. All I care right now for is some peace of mind, get the things I have to get done, done, and see my son again perhaps even before the time speculated. Next week I start classes again for that work certification, and Paula, my sister, is coming to celebrate her daughter's baptism. It's going to be a great event. 

I invited her long ago. She won't come. She can't. She doesn't want to. It's not her family. Etc. Unlike hers, mine does not trash her because I do not talk of her to no one and especially not to my mom. Or friends. My idea of a good time is far from picking up the phone when you had a few, and slander close ones. The way you talk about others is the way you'll talk about me, I always think. Like she did about her friends with me, when she had a fall out because she could no longer be the party girl she had been for them. Where were they then when you were pregnant? Now they suddenly are the best pals in the world, and she's proud to say that everyone in her family knows about how bad I treated her. Everyone in mine knows just how wonderful you guys are doing in Michigan and how we get along just fine, like all couples, we have our hiccups here and there that could have been avoided had she kept her phone and her gossip all to herself. But what good would be a phone for a girl like her then?

All in time will find its path. I am already on my way. 

Highway

Treat others well, but expect the same in return. If you don't get it, then retreat and don't spend much of your time trying to change others. Focus that energy on your own evolution. The greatest mistake we make is trying to change others or letting them change us. The key word for love is acceptance; you don't love something the way it will be; first you love what you have and then move on to more adventures. We had achieved so much in such a little time.
To a degree, we sacrifice some if we feel the return is worth it, and usually loving people can give up the single life and move right into a more intimate, sedentary way of life. Sure, not all but I do want that and that's what I will search for. If I cannot here and now, I'll find it somewhere else later. Not that I'm looking in particular anything more than just someone who loves me as I am, without having to change me or whatnot. The deal is, leave your job and move to her state and then we can talk, and no I will never go back to New York. I will continue to be civil, but I have my own mission and life here in New York. I just don't see myself in a place like that starting from zero, and what of my son, Esteban. It's not like I can just pack and leave him, or even take him. Later on, I'll have enough money saved, I told you many times. We had already moved the divorce papers, and I had overlooked the fact that you decided to go ahead and put your last name on our baby. Which is fine, I guess; why beat a dead horse, just something you don't see everyday. It's kind of fucked-up but I had to take it in the ass. And what of your refusal to ever come to New York. You should be able to do so, you have flight tickets and people and friends who care for you; and Julian is also mine, it can't be that the way you think this goes, is. It's my way or the highway.

You're right. Hatred isn't the right word. Disapprove*... But Obama isn't the government and government intervening in people's right, well that's just what government is all about. We fight for freedoms that won't mean you have impunity over others, therefore we punish crimes... conservatives as well as liberals have their own very biased agendas, but it is out of balancing these two extremes that we get near a center in the political spectrum. Lately that delicate balance between classes has collided, corporations and businesses are booming yet poverty is rampant. We don't come from a privileged higher class where we don't have to worry about our financial needs, so we should (at least from this front) fight so that the assholes don't end up inheriting this world. And by assholes, I mean mostly weird, illogical, true sophists Republicans who block every thing Obama has tried to push forward. You're not being deprived, you're freer as a citizen of this nation as no one ever was before in any nation before, but one thing is freedom and another is a childish pretense that borders on debauchery. Surely by seeing a red light you don't think, "Oh there goes the government trying to tell me what to do again!" Rules and regulations are not just political, but cultural.. you can see the result in children. Those who are raised with strict and rigid austerity are just as screwed as those who are raised with no discipline whatsoever. Extremes are bad, and we need a balance, a middle ground . Some of us are slaves to the ideal of freedom. Ideally, the concept of freedom is very appealing but we end up suffering for the same freedoms in practice, and we must use caution in exercising the ideal, seeing it through in practical terms, see if it's feasible. It isn't an easy answer, no one holds all the cards when it comes to the right answer. Usually when you hold on stubbornly to either side of the aisle, you end up being part of the problem, not the solution