A Letter to Self

Dear Self:

I hope that when you get this letter you find yourself in good spirit and in great health.  I am writing to you to tell you something that I don't often say to anyone, or that I had held back on vocalizing for quite some time and that I should say more often:

I love you.

I do.  And along with this confession, I am writing to also ask for your forgiveness.  I want you to forgive me for the many years of neglect that i have put you through.

Please forgive the many years that I neglected loving you because i was too busy loving someone else - or thinking that i did.

I am sorry for changing in my attempts to become the person I thought others wanted me to be, instead of the person that i wanted to be.

I am sorry for all of the bad things that I put you thru in an effort to distract the mind and sedate the heart.  I am sorry for all the booze; for all the men, and for the many ways in which I neglected our body which include poor eating habits and lack of rest and so on.

I am also sorry for allowing myself to be foolish and give strangers more importance than the family.  Your family is amazing and they are there for you.  In good and bad; they'll be there for you.  You should too.

I am sorry to keep on torturing you with thoughts of what is no longer.  I know you are ready to move on and you want to be happy - i am sorry for being an asshole and always finding ways to revert back to square one.

I am sorry for holding you back and for inventing a myriad of excuses and threats to keep you where you are.  You deserve so much better than this and your potential is endless.  You should ignore me and tell me to shut the fuck up and go seek your life.

I am sorry for the anger.  I am sorry for the fear.  I am sorry for the sadness.  I am sorry for the many times that I made irrational decisions that had huge impacts on your future, which I often masqueraded as "You only live once" but in reality, I was acting on a level of self-destructiveness and unconsciously working on sabotaging your positives steps forwards.

I am not a good self.  But you are.  I am empowering you to fulfill your outmost possible potential!!  Please forgive me for all the wrong i've done to you.... and please, go on.  Quit nurturing me.  Take the reins of your life and gain complete control.  Leave me behind to wither and perish; like a cancerous tumor that must be cut off from the blood supply.  Go, make our life.  Make it happen.

Again, I am sorry for any ache and harm I've caused.  I love you and wish for nothing more than the very best for you.

Sincerely,

Your other self.

Why I am embarking on a #sober 2014.

Today Wednesday 1/8 is my 8th day of this self imposed sobriety period of one year - with the intensions to not return to it.  I know that making a commitment to a year's abstinence from ANYTHING seems pretty damn lengthy, but...  

There are several factors that led me to this New Year's resolution, and at the same time, it sort of just happened by accident.  I had been considering it, and I even wondered if committing to a whole year of sobriety was setting myself up for failure given that so much of my social life and my relationships evolved around alcohol.  Honestly one of the things that kept me from taking this step was the fear of the how my relationships would change if I chose to be sober.  I guess the true friends will stick around.

From time to time I have taken"sober" periods during which I do not drink and I allow my body to heal and my mind to clear; but it sort of always ends up back in the same old habits:  Weekends at the Karaoke bar drunk off my ass singing the ballads of tortured-bleeding-heart-abused-dead-from-OD-or-alcoholism divas (Amy, Billie, Edith - and so on.)

When you are in your twenties, the drunkenness looks "cute" on you, but when you get older, you do not wear it so well (this is a quote from one of the radio hosts on Alice 96.5, but don't remember whom.  Sarah?  Vinnie?  The fuck.)  And so as I began to get closer to my 40's, waking up with a hungover and committing by default to a Sunday in bed and Gatorade - just simply isn't cute anymore.  It's a shame.

So, for 2014 i decided to be #sober for the following reasons:

1. My body is my temple; not my flask.  
2. I am diabetic and I really should not be drinking (bad for kidneys, liver, heart, nerves).
3. As an old woman, I am now on a myriad of medications which don't mix well with booze - or should I say:  They mix too well.  
4. I am poor and spent way too much making someone else richer.
5. I am a driver now - Don't nobody need no DUI.
6. My children depend on me.  Coming home on the last BART train to Concord to my children welcoming at the door with a "Bitch!  Where you been?!" expression on their faces is just heartbreaking. 
7. Alcohol fuels the other Jose (the destructive one) and I need to dry that bitch up! 
8. Being sober allows me a clarity of mind that becomes dormant if I consume any level of booze.
9. Alcohol makes me fat... well, fatter.
10. Alcohol facilitates an excuse to behave recklessly and voids accountability.  
11. Too many wonderful things are happening to me and I wanna be 100% present for all of it. 
12. I want to build relationships with people that are based outside of the bar and that are not based on alcohol. 
13. I've been called a drunk and an alcoholic; mainly because I drank the Kool-Aid and behaved like I thought I was supposed to as a "gay man in San Francisco".  I acknowledge that I allowed for things to get out of hand and I am now ready to get back on track. 
14. I am going to prove to those judgmental mother-fuckers (from number 13 above) that they are mistaken.  
15. This is about ME; not about you.  So don't freak out.  I know sobriety makes people uncomfortable; but, i don't expect you to make lifestyle changes.  I am making the changes for me.  So step away from the wagon bitch!!!  
16. You will need someone to drive your drunk ass around.  
17. I want to be in complete control of my person and being at all times.  
18. To put an end to drunk sexting; drunk Facebooking and possibly even drunk tweeting.  
19. I want my weekends to be productive.
20. To get to know the "real" me a little better.

And so there you have it.  i am sure I have a couple more items that I could add on there.  

A lot of good things are happening this year; but the best thing happening is loving myself - and not working to chip away at my own core.  And, I'd rather sing the ballads of the tortured-bleeding-heart-abused-dead-from-OD-or-alcoholism divas sober, so I can remember the next day just how bad I was.  LOL  

#Om_Ganeshay_Namah

Divorcing San Francisco

It's been two years since I left the city to come live in Concord in the house that Peach and I bought.  These past two years were heavily loaded with emotions and challenging sentiments.  For the entire 24 months, I will admit that aside from my separation from Peach, the other challenging emotion I had to face was my long-distance love affarid with San Francisco.

Within each one of those 24 months, I probably spend 20 days missing San Francisco and plotting my return.  I think that if it wasn't for the unbelievable spike in rent prices in the city, I would have probably returned - regardless of how unwise of a decision it may have been.  I missed the city so much that I was willing to leave the financial comfort of our real estate investment behind just so that I could be in the hustle and bustle of the over-populated city.  I wanted to be able to feel the pride and joy and excitement that I would feel before every time I said the word "I am a San Franciscan."

In all honesty, part of me just wanted access to the party, to be able to get pissed and then just be able to stumble my way home after the bars closed at 2 AM.  This behavior was a large part of my previous life in San Francisco.  The city; along with a serious of drunk friends, turned me into somewhat of a boozer.  Well, Concord has pushed to rethink everything.

It took 24 months for me to realize, that I am not a San Franciscan anymore.  There was one particular weekend when a series of events led to realize that I was certainly welcomed to visit the city; come to work, come to party, leave your money there... but that I was no longer a city boy.  I found myself; this very specific weekend, feeling like my ties to the city had finally snapped.  I was now a suburban boy who got flustered driving in circles in SF, weaving thru mobs of pedestrians who showed no respect for traffic lights and crosswalks.

On this said weekend, I went to one of my favorite bars in SF:  The Mint.  I saw new and old faces, good friends, frenemies and flat out enemies.  Nothing new there.  The Mint had always been; for me, a place of excitement and joy, but somehow my plate of fun was always served with a complimentary side dish of drama.  Drama that either involved me, or simply other people's drama.   Anyway, the bar was always fun until this day when I, for the first time, was made to feel like an total outsider.   Yes, I know that I don't go there as much as i used to, specially now that I have began to question the role of alcohol in my life and my relationships; but, I don't understand how it is that meaningful influential relationships can die or be weaken by a separation of three weeks or 30 miles?

The very interesting thing about friendships is that you learn and get to know everything about that other person; their weaknesses and their virtues.  Unfortunately, when a friendship or relationship ends, one has a boat load of ammunition to attack the other person with.   At the same time, when one is attacked by an ex-friend, you know it... because you know their tactics and ways of manipulating others.  So when the broad got up to sing "Back To Black", everything fell into place - I recognized all of the times that I had been manipulated to sing a song that someone else loved or that they could not perform to the crowd's liking or whatever; a request that was made simply to press someone else's buttons.  And now, the tactic had been used against me.  And bitch, it worked.  It worked because I nearly puked - I nearly vomited from the revelation when I realized at that very moment that I was no longer part of this place.  I was on the outside and even more interesting is the fact that; after some thinking, I was okay with it.   That act of treachery and manipulation, was something I needed to see and feel, to realize that my place was no longer in the city, but back home in Concord.

A second event took place that said weekend.  My supposedly "best friend" sent me a Facebook message to advise me that he was fucking the guy I had been dating just the weekend before.  Nice.  Very nice.  The night that the ex and I had our drama; which we never even discussed, that night the cunt moved right in and made my ex's acquaintance.   I was ready to move on from the ex after having witnessed severe personality and attitude changes towards me after a few cocktails.  Ex reminded of some drunk i used to know and I realized I didn't need that bullshit in my life - i was ready to move on because not only did I not want to deal with a drunk; but I had just gotten out of a five-year dysfunctional relationship and I was SO NOT ready for round two.

I will say that i certainly was not ready for my supposedly-best-friend's "We need to talk."    Again, the funny thing is that when we are friends with someone, we get to know them, we get to see their good and bad behavior.  So that when the "we need to talk" popped up on my computer screen, part of me wasn't surprised.  I was okay with it... at first; but 15 minutes later I was angry.  I was angry because I had trusted this person, even though he had given me enough signs to NOT trust him - i told myself how everyone deserved a chance, even if they cock-blocked you every single time you both went out to dance, even though they got you drunk as fuck and left you alone at the bar to go have sex with a trick.  Ahhhh, city girls!

The "We Need To Talk" put into prospective my relationship with The Castro.  I used to be there always, desperately trying to keep a hold of my relationship with San Francisco; this relationship that in essence boiled down to booze and dick.  I was having a hard time breaking away from the drunken reckless nights during which i would feel hot and sexy and desirable and then rinse and repeat.

"We Need To Talk" translated to:  "You Ain't Got Shit Here!"   That might not have been the attempt of the perpetrator ex-best friend, or the alcoholic-ex; but to me, it translated to that.   Those two things outlined to me the inevitable change that was to take place and that I had kept on delaying for god-knows-what reason.

So, here I am in Concord.  Finally making peace with where i am; what I have and what I want to be doing.   Yes, it's really nice to have quick access to all of the wonders of the city, and to have access to culture and diversity... but the bottom line for me is that I made a conscious decision to leave the city and I now have to make do with the consequences of this decision - the biggest consequence actually being a very positive one:   I get to restart my life; and I am in a place where I can start new relationships with people that will be of a more positive impact to my life; break with those that only brought negativity and I get the space to sit back and question just what it is that i want to do - and if I ever were to return to the city, it would need to be for a very positive and valid reason.  The alcohol and dick, are simply not reason enough.

Thank you San Francisco.  Please sign the divorce papers and return to them to me.

Sincerely,
Inked.

This Spicy Flavor Called Anger

The past year has been a journey of self discovery.  It has been a time of facing or suppressing emotions and ugly truths.  I have been successful at dealing with some of them; but i would be lying if I said that I tackled all of my emotions with flying colors.

Part of addressing my emotions has been done through conversations with my ex.  Part of me wants to feel sorry for him because any time that we get together, the conversation always reverts back to our failed relationship and us.  It never fails.  And yet, part of me doesn't feel sorry; part of me wants to ensure that he hears me and that he is aware of my pain and all that jazz.  Well, the conversations always end the same way, with an "I'm sorry", a hug and we both go on our separate ways.  I want to say that I get more "good" than "bad" out of these chats; but every time that we talk, I walk away feeling abandoned and with the gash on my heart torn open again.

I know what you are thinking:   "Girl!!!  It's been a year!!  Let it go!!".     I know.  I am trying to let it go.  I am still working on repairing things, healing parts and to make sense of the puzzle that was left behind know as my life.  I'm working on it.  I really am.  Don't forget that I am Mexican (we savor our heart ache like a shot of good tequila with lime and salt), and I am also a Scorpio (we never get over anything - we dwell until we rot.)

One specific conversation that the ex and I had was followed by a text that said:  "When will you stop being angry?"   My initial response to that was "Bitch, what the fuck do you know about my anger?"   I put the phone away after that and did not reply.  I wasn't happy; although the lengthy text was meant to be supportive, it just made angry.  That's right.  It made me angry, but it also made me think.  The text got me analyzing this anger that I supposedly would not let go off.

It's been days since this conversation took place and a couple of days ago I realized that it was true.  I am angry.  I am very angry.  Fuck, I am very fucking mad crazy angry actually, if you ask me.  I think I may have masqueraded my anger under a mask of "heart ache", or maybe it changed from ache to anger, because right now, if you ask me again how I feel about my separation, I am actually quite bitter.  i am angry that (although I love my house) I got left behind with the house 30 miles from the hustle and bustle.  I am angry (although I love my children) that I was left behind with the cats.  I am angry that I am not the one who got the chance to just throw my shit in a suitcase and walk away.  i did not get a fresh start.  I am mad that I have to sit here and figure out what i want to do with the house; how to get back to the city, if I should even move back to the city... where to go?  why to go?  Who to go to?  Etcetera.  Yes, it's true ladies and gentlemen:  I am a mess.  But that I never denied.  When I started dating last month, the first thing I told the man I was seeing was that i was a mess and that he was welcome to date me... at his own risk.  Oh lord, that's funny.

Anyway.  I am officially an old-angry-broken-and-damaged queen.  However, they do say that in order to fix things, you must first acknowledge that things are broken.  I am working on it.  I will continue to acknowledge my emotions and work on these - if anything, at least I will resurface from this mess a much stronger person, and wiser.   And I will work on no longer being angry and just simply letting go of negative feelings of resentment towards anyone.

Remember; in the end, the only one that ends up losing with anger... it's the angry one.

The Yellow Room

As I have shared with you before, the house talks to me.  Most of the time she likes to chat about Michael and remind me of the many things that took place here, both good and bad.  I guess eventually the topic will become shaped around me and the cats.  We'll see.

There is a particular place where she likes to corner me and emotionally abuse me.  It's that Yellow Room.  I don't know what it is about it, but a lot of emotional things seem to have taken place in that space.  Maybe because that was the place where I used to go and write.  Or maybe because that was the place where I went and bawled my eyes out after that night when Michael and I decided to part?   And where I had actually prayed to God to watch over him and bless him in his new life.  And I also prayed for the strength to get by.

I was in there late this evening on the exercise bike.  Once finished, I lingered for a minute to give my body some time to pull itself together.  I looked at the nearly empty space, with it's bare bright walls.  This room is empty because at one point I thought of renting it out and get a roommate.  I never really pursued the roommate thing.  I looked around and began to remember all the things that I have had experienced in that room.

Because it's empty and because it's winter, I keep the door to this room closed to avoid wasting energy heating an empty space.  So, over the past few months, it has sort of become a foreign place.  Like a dark place in the back of one's mind where you put all the things you don't really want to think about.  And this room has sort of become similar to my "memory" of him; I know he is there and he was really... but was he?  Yup, the room is there... I know its there, but... sort of not?

The Yellow Room was where we slept that very first night once we had officially moved in.  We had dragged in the mattress into the small room and slept there.  Gosh, the quietness of suburbia had freaked me out so badly that first night.  I recall turning off the light and being shocked by how quiet and dark it was - I was scared.   I had become so accustomed to the bright lights and noise of downtown San Francisco.

As I sat there, I saw Michael painting the walls.  That had been his project.  He was so passionate about it at the beginning.  Painting; although highly therapeutic, it is a lot of damn work!!   I know that I have made peace with his departure, but I have yet to make peace with the void that was left behind.  I still have a hard time believing that he left.  Somehow; although he drove me absolutely fucking crazy, he was my friend and my partner, and we had done so much and were moving in a positive direction... so that when it all ended, it was really hard to accept it.

The Black Box Of Lazy Sundays

Dear Ex:

I know today is not a Sunday; it's Monday but it totally feels like a Sunday.  Sundays are hard days for me because for some reason, it is on Sundays when I miss you the most.  I am not sure if these overwhelming emotions are triggered particularly on Sundays because of being hungover from Saturday's debauchery and my brain chemicals are all out of whack, or simply because Sundays were our best days together.

I miss our lazy Sundays.  We never got anything done other than stuff our faces with bad food but that was okay.  We sat around watching TV or totally absorbed with our iPhones, not necessarily interacting with each other, but to know that you were right there next to me was an amazing feeling.  I often thought about those moments when we would just chill and not say a word; and I asked myself if this was an issue, but I never really identified as such because words don't always have to be shared for a moment to be meaningful.  Yes, our lazy sundays were special.

No matter how hard I try to steer away from getting caught up in reminiscing of us on Sundays; something always just pops out of no where and reminds me of you.  It's weird.  These reminders make me ache - it's an odd type of ache.  It's an ache that has changed and evolved, and one that I certainly cannot say has started to fade allowing me to heal and move on.  The ache has changed and it has become a more torturous type of ache.

When i think of you now, the memory of you is almost distant; like a dream that you had one night and then you remember bits and pieces of it throughout the day.  I think of you and you seem so far away and I even have to ask myself if what we had was ever real?  Or is it all a figment of my imagination?  Crazy, I know it.  But that's how it seems... and the hardest part about it, is realizing that now, the ache that lives in me now, hurts more than when you left.  

Part of me; I think, fears facing what this ache will evolve into.  It might just turn out to NOT be an emotional scar; but instead... some sort of permanent void left behind aching to be filled.  I don't know. I simply can't explain it.  It's not an ache that burns or sizzles; it's simply... an empty box, so quiet and so dark and small but huge at the same time, with a silence so powerful that it hurts.  It has a loud quietness that echoes off from the walls of the almost empty house.

And so now it is that I don't like to think of you, because the thoughts of you open up this dark little box and I just don't want fall into it and possibly get trapped.   God only knows that evil creatures lurks inside the deepest darker corners of this box.  I just simply have to keep it sealed.

So, yes.  Sundays are hard for me.  Because Sundays were our days.  For me, Sundays will forever be marked by the things we did.  Things that I dearly miss.  Good things and bad things that occupied our Sundays and our lives that are no longer there that I dearly miss.  I miss them so much that the feeling starts to claw at the lock that holds the lid on that dark box I keep tightly closed.   I've almost sort of forgotten all of the good things, and the bad things have become good things.  Bad things that used to drive me absofuckinglutelly crazy, but that now I wish were still part of my life; for example, the sound of the french doors opening and closing when you went out to smoke; followed by the smell of the cigarette in your breath and you hands - who knew that one day I; who hates smokers, would say that i missed the smell of cigarette on you?  Or who the hell misses seeing an ashtray packed to the rim with cigarette butts?   And then some.  LOL.   I miss those Sundays during the spring and the summer where we would go sit on our bench and just sit there and look at OUR house.  It was ours.  OURS.  (Oh shit, the black-box lid is starting to come loose...  Need to reinforce it).

I've thought a lot about us.  I want you back but I don't want you back.  Why don't I want you back into my Sundays?  Because leaving was probably the best thing you could have done for yourself.  I am so so so proud of you.  I am so happy to see how much you have grown and all the things; however small or big, that you have accomplished.  And I look forward to seeing all that you'll achieve in life and I know it will be TONS!  Although I miss you like crazy and want you back but don't want you back, I gives me great joy to see the great person you've become!  I know that a little bit of the person that you are today was shaped by me; and the same goes for me:  you shaped part of me.

Okay, I better wrap-up this entry and go tighten the lid on that damn black box before I accidentally get sucked in and eaten by whatever dark creature that lurks in it.

Yours truly,
the other lazy one on Sundays.

Have you accepted Death as your exit door and savior?

And so Amy Winehouse died from her alcoholism and drug addiction.  Amen.  Rest in peace girl.

And somehow, it just makes sense.  Of course I am upset because I love her music and her voice; but in a way, I am sort of okay with her death, because something tells me that at a certain point, she was done... and so she lived her short life the way she wanted.  And Amen again.

I say that it makes sense because recently it occurred to me, that we all come to a point in our lives when we make that conscious decision of just how long we want to live.  And each of us makes this decision at different times - some young, some old; but once the decision is made, the rest is history.  Some of us decide that we want to live to be 80 and leave behind a legacy of American consumers; others of us... although we don't kill ourselves, we simply... accept it.  The inevitable.  And so I guess some of us die without the body dying?  LOL.  I know, I know.  Makes no sense.

And so when I listen to Amy's music; with that achy voice drowning in sorrow and heartache, I personally hear that "Fuck you.  I'm gonna drink and just curl up and die".   So, she did just that.  The Fame, the money, her family... nothing mattered to her other than love and her substances.  Love came and fucked it all up and the rest was history.  Same for Billy Holiday.  And Same for Edith Piaf.  Sweet Jesus!

I know a lot of people that fit this description.  Young and old, people that have lived; at different paces, and then they make peace with their death - however far or close it may be, or in whatever form that it may come.   At the same time, I know tons of people who live every day in fear of the unknown, avoiding danger and risk at all cost.

So, when I started thinking about Amy's death making sense to me, a lot of other things simultaneously made sense to me.  Writing about this is a little uncomfortable only because people tend to take things out of context and interpret them in different ways.  I will say this right now, loud and clear:   No, I am not suicidal.  Please, don't expect to come find me in a tub full of blood and lavender bubbles.  Go find your fun elsewhere bitches!!

Anyway, when I was a kid, I had a very intense interest in death.  I have no idea where that came from.  So passionate was I about death that I even attempted to kill myself at the age of 10 by mixing some lemonade and some "liquid" my mother had in a jar.  I remember adding tons of sugar to the potion to  make it taste good as it went down.  I drank the minty substance and then went to say my farewells.  As I approached my mother, crying my eyes out and confessing what I had done... she rolled her eyes and embraced me.   I fell asleep and then woke up hours later.  My mother wasn't happy with my efforts to encounter death at a young age, but she knew that what I had ingested (herbal ointment) would not off me!  So, she didn't panic and allowed me to rest.  Amen and bless her heart.  (She was a great mother, btw.)

I never forgot that episode, particularly because I had, without hesitation made that decision to go at such an early age.  I had lived.  LOL LOL.   Now, a lot has happened since that day.  It's been some 26 years and I have done and lived so much and there is nothing I have done in life that i regret doing, both good and bad.  My life has been amazing so far and it would not have been such an amazing ride if anything was to be changed.

When I got diagnosed with Diabetes at the age of 20; I gave myself 20 years to live life before I died.  Damn it, that's only four years away.  BUT, I am okay.  I have made peace with death and when it comes, I am ready.   I only ask for death to come fast and quick, and that there will be someone to feed my cats.  I have no children to leave abandoned behind; nor a wife or a husband to leave with the financial burden and a broken heart.  I have me and when I leave, I will be taking me with me.  Pack light bitch!!

So Queen Death Diva... bring it!!  I don't fear you.

In the mean time, while I await her arrival, I will just enjoy life, travel, have some Cabernet Sauvignon and enjoy all the wonderful things and people that surround me.

Amen.