But It Did Happen:

The last 7 years had been a continuous up, down, and upside-down emotional rollercoaster. The burden of this loop and camel-hump experience had begun to make me queasy. The ride had by all means not come to a halt but during the last several months it hit me hardest, hence the lack of entries and people asking about my whereabouts and happenings.

My first year in the Big Manzana was spent trying to deal with getting laid off by the company that just recently moved me here and trying to find a roommate that wouldn’t suddenly ask me to move out because they were attracted to me. That happened four times by the way. I was an urban nomad that first year, preoccupying myself with packing, unpacking, working part time gigs, and the city’s nightlife, that welcomed fresh meat with open arms.

It was right around Christmas time that I met C. Ah, C was a great, honest and loving person but was seemingly incapable of getting past a "difficult” phase. I waited around for about a year and change didn’t come. To make a long story short, I asked him to move out of the beautiful Manhattan apartment. I then, headed to Jersey City in search of new beginnings…

Jersey City February ‘01. Twelve horrible months, hundreds of arguments, zero rent money, one swollen hand, and an overnight prison stay later, I got out of a one of the worst experiences of my life. It was an impossible to escape, communal living relationship(situation) with the epitome of a bad decision. Like so many times before I didn't heed life's warnings because the act of falling is at times our best teacher. I fell, hard, but it was the kind of fall that’s anticipated and so dusting my self off came very easy and looking back was not a worth while option. So, I abandoned my problem, leaving it. I cried a few tears but none of that heavy water works shit. It was easy to let go. I moved forward rather quickly as I normally tend to do when I am pretending that this-and-that did not just happen.

Then one day while on my bike I saw M and knew right away that he was the one. I then, loved, harder, faster, and stupider than I ever had before. It was a feverish love, the type that blinds you and keeps you holding on for a lifetime. I, continue to visit the ruins of that far away greatness now being covered by the sands of time. I sometimes rummage through old memories and relics of something that was once great. In our heads and hearts we built up our personal hopes of each to the catastrophic heights of a monument without a foundation. We allowed ourselves to endure more than we’ll ever make allowances for again. It was the type of relationship which was a never ending back-and-forth of forgiveness but not of forgetfulness. Our fear of losing that love and of maintaining it at all cost drove us in all directions but the right one. He became watchful and untrusting to which I responded with animosity and behaviors that only reinforced our cycle of propagation. Everything was a reason for break up, he loved control and I hated losing it. We were both victims in our own right, endlessly professing love while ever so slightly pushing the other one further. The more we gave each other the more exposed we felt and the feeling of nakedness comes at a cost because we live in a world of insecurities, hard falls, and a complexity of reasons why we say and do the things we do or don't. It is close to two years since our breakup and despite our few momentary laps into remission, we grew apart. It came to be that my other half was perhaps only meant to be an interim soul mate. I felt cheated by God, fate, lover, and, most important to own, self. I soon grew tired of the limitations of shady bars, substance animated after hours clubs, and the digital limitations of an online world. I saw myself broken, unloved, invalidated, and at the whim of a typecast stereotype that my subculture has been corralled into.

I turned my ailment towards the affections of R, he was always there, waiting, bidding time, ready to catch me and profess that it would all be better and it turned into a year long fixation. In him I found a best friend of relentless and uncompromising alliance, . He possessed many characteristics that I always suspected not to be safe in a lover. He was young, inexperienced, too cute for his own good and in his youthful inexperience, seemingly incapable of self sacrafice. He ultimately manifested an overall Yin that was very different from my Yang. As the proverb goes, “opposites attract” and so the Yin and Yang came together and Chi began to flow. We each gained from each other. It went great for a while given the natural unavoidable trials that many relationships endure.

Ultimately, our differences became an increasingly difficult barrier to overcome. The pink elephant grew larger and less transparent. It was a sad day when I saw him pack and leave. I questioned myself a thousand times whether or not I was wrong and mislead? I deeply meditated on whether or not selfless compassion was the only yellow-brick paved road to follow or was the enough-is-enough mentality starting to conflict with my inner Buddha? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I was even losing my religion. I wanted to run out and save him from the world I was casting him back into. It was I however, who need to feel like a savior not for the sake of saving but rather for my need to be needed. After all, he wasn’t going away, he was going “home”, where family love comes unconditionally and where salvation only came in the form of the martyr saints without expectations. I on the other hand always seem to be demanding of the universe and yielding a scale. Be it right or wrong I couldn’t shake the very real sense of emptiness that brought us to that crossroad and I thought, “Oh God this-and-that can not be happening.”

By now, it was December 2004. The coldest and longest winter I’ve ever known. Christmas was around the corner, presents weren’t in store and the only sure thing was my lay-off. I found my self trying once again to make sense of the surrealistic denied ownership of the actual. I thought, “Welcome to Oz, jump into the rabbit-hole, and take the red pill”, because this is way too much drama for real life but ultimately art imitates life. This was an art-nouveau movement of my own making, intended or not. Life’s ups and downs occur and if left ignored, they do catch up. And so they did and an overwhelming sense of depression and solitude came over me because my heart remains stuck in the past, as my feet, time and the world continue to move forward around me. I think that it is perhaps due to the recent aftermath of unfortunate events like getting laid off, breaking up, turning thirty, or just the long repressed reaction to pretending that this-and-that did not just happen.

I find myself right back where this story started trying to make sense of everything and not really knowing where I am heading but finally taking time to accept that these things happen. We all undergo similar experiences that shape and guide a world of personal making. The road less traveled leads to never-ending crossroads. Take responsibility for your left and right turns and whenever you see a chance to leap keep in mind that practicing caution is optional. If you fall it’s up to you to decide whether you want to stop and put on a Band-Aid or dust yourself off and pretend it didn’t happen.

Will I ever take the leap again? ‘Plaster of Paris and cotton gauze, anyone?