Leaping forward


I could feel my blood boiling when I picked up the phone.  My subconscious reminding me wether this was the right decision.  How would I pay for my rent?  What about my family?  Fuck it, just do it.  I called my boss who was visiting her family in Michigan…

“Hey…[enter small talk here] ….so anyways…I just wanted to let you know that Friday will be my last day”

“What!!!!???” said my boss.

“Yep…I am leaving the company”

It all started during my four year performance review.  I informed my boss that I had been underpaid for the past 2 years and my expenses were beginning to rise.  I could no longer afford to live where I was and help my family with my current salary.  I also informed her that while my job responsibilities has dramatically increased, my pay surely had not.

She informed me that the company would be reviewing my request and that they would get back to me.  I soon began looking for another job.  While I did receive 2 offers, I was still patient in waiting for my current employer to come back with an answer.   I wanted to continue working there, but also needed the raised.

A week after my request, my boss called me into her office.  She explained the situation about the company, but the message was clear…a simple, yet firm…NO.  I immediately called one of the offers only to find out that they had given then job to someone else.  FUCK!     I immediately emailed back the second offer and waited.  I waited and waited.  Finally I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I decided I would just leave my current employer.

Its funny to think about it now when my friend asked me why I would quit before having another job.  To be quite honest, I am not really sure.  I guess i was a bit upset that my current employer would sit on something like this for so long.  Maybe it was pride.  Maybe it was stupidity.  Or maybe..it was fate.

I am still a bit fuzzy as to what happened after breaking the news to my boss but I know that I had to answer a whole deal of questions as to why I was leaving.  She was not happy.  She was also not happy that I was giving them a week and a half notice after being there.  The first in my company to do so.

I walked back to my desk and put my head down.  While my first reaction would have been – ” How could you leave without having another job!!! You fuck!!. ”  I instead let out a heavy exhale.  It felt good.  Somehow I was not scared.  I felt liberated.  Scared but at the same time excited as to what was to come next.   A wave of emotion came over me as I opened my email to find in my inbox the offer letter from the second employer!

If you ask me now how and why it all happened, I could not tell you.  I am still trying to figure it out myself.  I guess its kinda like a friend of mine said – “…sometimes you have to leap forward with your eyes closed in the hopes that you will eventually find your footing and open your eyes to see a brighter future…”

Preach brother, preach.

2 months of change

While I dusted the dust of my keyboard, I began to think when was the last time I had written here.  As I have recently learned, a lot can happen in 2 months:

I MOVED. I received the phone call around 9 pm at the end of February.  It was my brother.  He informed me that due to the lost of his job and the lost of my mother’s job, the house was now under foreclosure.  And so, in an attempts to help la familia, I gave up my studio apartment and moved into a room.  Thats right, I have said goodbye to my barrio in the Bronx and said hello to my new neighborhood – Washington Heights.  While I packed my things I now started to count.  This will be the 5th apartment I have lived in since I moved to New York City in 2006.  My friends laughs at me.  Not even he, who is a born and raised new yorker, has moved around so much.  He has only lived in 2 apartments in his entire life.  Guess I am winning.

I GAVE UP HALF MY LIFE when I moved.  It was a decision that took a long time to fruition.  “Half my life” weights about 14 pounds, has big ears, and the eyes of an angel.  Chimi.  I gave up Chimi.  While some may say its only an animal, and yes part of me knows that he is happier with his new owner.  I still cant shake the feeling that I lost some part of my life.  I had him since birth.  The 4 years we spent together are one that I will never forget.  He is my little soldier.  He was there with me through the tough times.  Through the good, the bad, and the funny.  When I felt down, he looked up at me and made me smile.  He made me angry.  But through all this, he was mine.  My chimi…. (Picture taken by Chimi’s new owner. I would never buy him a Harry Potter sweater.)

If you asked me 4 months ago if I would be living in uptown manhattan, alone, in a room without Chimi…I would have laughed.  I notice how time happens and how life has a way of changing things on you.  I can only hang on for the ride.   I hope that I have a good grip.

interim soul mate

“I am so glad we found each other.  He is my soulmate” I heard my friend say as I somehow swallowed my soon to be jaded comment. I wanted to speak to bad, but knew that his was not the right place nor the right time. Why fuck up someone’s happiness with all your jaded baggage? Um…maybe because it need to be done?

Soul Mate.  Two words, yet so big of a meaning. Is there really just ONE person for each one of us out there? Are there multiple soul mates? To be honest, my answer is..no. How can there be MULTIPLE people in this world that you share that one divine connection with? And also, is a soul mate a person? feeling? thing? spirit? WHAT THE HELL ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE?!

Maybe its my jadedness talking, but I just cant move past that notion. But I ask myself…is there an “interim soul mate” that can be obtained on the way to your real soul mate? Taste tests, wine tasting, Pre-martial sex, they even let you try all the flavors in Cold Stone Creamery before you buy it. So why cant I get the same service for a soul mate?

“We even have the same zodiac sign…” my friend said.

If you dont have nothing nice to say, dont say anything at all. Isn’t it my duty as a good friend to smack my friend in the face and have them face reality? Have them answer, or at the very least…ask, the questions above ?

Blame me, but I took the cowardly way out…I smiled back and said…”Wow..that is sooo great! (insert cheesy, uninterested, phony smile here)”

predicting the unpredictable

No one can really predict what our life path will lay out for us. Some believe in destiny while others believe in fate. But why is it that as hard as we like it to, some things in life can not be and/or do not want to be…controlled?

“It must be your pride. Give it up. Your not looking foolish. In the end you will end up alone. Give…it..up. ” were the last things my friend said to me as he walked away infuriated. This has happened on more than once occasion. My unwillingness to give up control. Why is it that I find it hard to give up control? Had I been raised this way? Could it be, that over the years my selfsih need for constant control has built itself to be some sort of a defense mechanism?

I play these scenarios in my mind over and over to try and make sense of them. I always end up on a question rather than a solution – was it really my fault?

A friend once told me that I should resist trying to make things happen. To listen to the universe for whats its telling me. I know sit back and try to listen to it. I hope that it speaks my language.

judging love

It is said that Love will conquer all.  It will defy any obstacle. Move any mountain. Sustain any relationship.  But I wonder – does it really?  Above EVERYTHING else, does it???

My mother used to say that when Hunger comes through the door, Love will leave through the window.  I didnt know what she meant by that, but as an adult – I now do.

Every potential lover, relationship, date – we judge them.  The attraction is there, however we can’t help but look at the “rest”.  What is the rest?  Well, the job, the status, the dreams, the passion, where they live, what they do for a living, etc. etc.  The things that love does not see and does not judge.  In the end you go with your judgment and not with your heart.

So you question yourself and ask if what you are doing is right.  Whether you should listen to your heart.  Your chest begins to hurt and your mind starts to wonder.  Your left with a feeling of shallowness and selfishness.  You begin to judge YOU.

Why is it then that we can’t just allow someone to enter our lives without judgment, with soly just LOVE?  It sounds a lot easier than done.

So gone, so long

cellphoneIt’s often when we least expect it that we are faced with dilemmas that are beyond our control. How we deal with these issues depends soly on the person, however one thing is certain – the dilemma.

On a otherwise slow night, while reading, I heard sound I had not heard in quite a while.  It came unexpected. The origin – my phone’s pre registered memory ring tones.  While I shuffled in my mind to put a name to the sound, it came to me.  A name, a sound, I had not heard from in a long time.  There it was, deeply stored in the corners of my mind’s memory.  It came to me – my ex’s phone number.

I let it ring for quite some time before the ringing finally stopped. I stood there looking at it, wondering, admiring and all the while thinking – “what the F$@!??”  It dawned on me then that while most of my relationships had ended in a good note, this was the only one that had not.  I picked up the phone and tried to dial back, but quickly hung up.  I dont know why I did or what I would have said if I had called.  Strange because it is often rare that I find myself in this situation.  But here I was, unwilling to dial a number.  Unwilling to have a conversation.  Unwilling to come to terms with someone.

Not yet, too soon.

20 feet from safety

It was finally when I wiped the blood from my forehead that I could not help but laugh.  Laughter felt better now than fear.  Altough temporary, it offered a way of coping with what has just happened – I was assulted at gunpoint.

It was 8:43 pm when I got off the subway and started my 5 minute walk home.  On the walk home, all I kept thinking was about doing my laundry but figured it was too late and that I had to go to work early the next day.   When I entered my building lobby I noticed a couple waiting for the elevator.  They were concentrated in their conversation, and I into my ipod.  As we got on I noticed them press floor # 5 and I asked for them to press floor #2.  They continued their conversation.

The elevator stoped on floor M.  (M is the floor where the laundry mat is found in my building).  As the doors open I noticed a young man standing there about to get on.  As he was getting on, he waived to another guy to get on.  2 guys got on and one of them pressed the number 5, although it was already pressed and lit up.  When the doors opened on the second floor, still listening to my ipod, I walked out.  As I walked down my hallway, I felt a shadow upon me.  From the corner of my eye I could see it.  2 shadows.  My heart stopped.

“Give me your wallet” one of the man from the elevator yelled out.  I stooped. I froze.  Holy Shit!  Was this really happening?????  Wait this cant be happening, I thought, this is my building and am 20 feet away from my apt door.  “Give me the fucking walllet!!” they yelled again.  Still frozen, I could only muster the words, “Wait, are you serious??”  He reached for his gun.

I can’t really explain the feeling but it was something that seemed to play out in my head from a movie.  I mean shit like this dont really happen in a hallway, does it ? ??  I could not say anything.  To my surpise I was not scared.  All I can remember was a conflict in my mind as to try and figure out if this was real or not.  Was this really happening?

They came for me and tried to reach into my pocket.  I struggled and my coat was broken.  I was struck in the forehead with the edge of the gun.  “Stand back ama shut this muthafucka” yelled the older one.  I quickly grabbed the young one and put him in front of me.  I could hear my dog barking from my apt.   I wonder now if he knew what was going on or if he was simply excited to hear my voice and for me to get home.  “Dont shoot”, yelled the young one as I threw him down and ran up the stairs at the end of the hall.   “Lets go”, yelled one, but by them I could not make out who was yelling.  I was two flights up.

I noticed something red on my shirt.  My blood.  I knocked on a door and tried to ask for help.  “Call the police man”  i yelled out.  To my surprise there was no answer although I could see a shadow beneath the door.   I grabbed my cellphone and dialed 911 all the while still thinking….wait, did this really happen?  A neighbor opened the door and asked what was going on.  Noticing that I was bleeding form my head, she offered a wet paper towel.  I held it against my bleeding head.

It feels all to strange to think that something like this can happen.  But it does.  But it did.  The most stricking thing of all was that it happened 20 feet away from my apt door.  That feeling is something that I can’t seem to shake. Can”t seem to deal with.  Can’t seem to forget.  A feeling that will be remembered when I get home tonight.