[reporting from Haiti]
This blog may come up as hypocritical, considering I am a man myself, but one quality that people should be proud of having is to accept their problems, without being arrogant about it. And that is one thing men will never admit. They say usually that it’s something that mostly wives and mothers do, belittling their husbands and their offspring, with the utmost goal of winning the battle or the argument. But men have a series of these problems that are quite similar. Arrogance, pride, immaturity, only to name a few problems that prevent today’s men from ever progressing. I’m not surprised that congress is mostly made of men, considering that pro is the opposite of con. Now, puns aside, it is something that truly annoys me. Hanging out with the guys and listening to the kind of shit that comes out of their mouths, it’s no wonder that women always have the upper hand on us. And it’s not just their fault. Pop culture plays a major part in this degradation. Every Sean Paul video, Daddy Yankee or any reggaeton or hip-hop video portray these over-powering men, maneuvering women barely wearing anything, with just a thong sometimes and having their ways with them, becoming the "playa" of the game. Every time I watched these videos, I always wondered how anyone could possibly stand this crap. But almost all the guys I hang out here with, including my male cousins, all react the same way. They start cheering and whooping and giving each other high fives. It’s all that testosterone (God bless it in the right moment ;-)) that’s going to waste for unnecessary endeavors.
This immaturity carries into the professional world as well, sadly taking a toll sometimes on other people’s lives, weaker than the oppressor. This relates to wars and other international or national conflicts that prevent our society from living a stress-free life. If our leaders were mostly women or gay men for the fact of that matter, I’d sit more easily in a high-rise office toilet, not thinking that it might blow up under my ass any instant. How do we go about changing this? One person asking that question isn’t going to solve anything. I’m just hoping that eventually, men will realize that all that ass-shaking, all those "fly bitches in my crib", all those 20-inch rims and all the other nonsense will get boring, since they haven’t realized it already has. It’s just the same thing over and over again. That is what is known as brainwashing, according to the Oxford dictionary on top of my fridge. All this just pumps up men’s testosterone more and more, thinking of no one else but themselves, degrading women, and constantly looking for power to acquire it by whatever means possible, hurting everything and everyone in their way. There’s only so much we can do but hope for some best in the near future……We’re in 2006…Bush leaves in 2008…that means we still have two more years of this shit…that’s some seriously bad fuck job!!!!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
To Be or Not To Be...is That The Question?
[reporting from Haiti]
Everyone around us judges us by what we do and how we think, most of the time getting a completely wrong idea about who we truly are. I believe a proverb that explains this is “Never judge a book by a cover”. Yet, sadly, we all do it, including me, I hate to admit. A problem I have is, and I judge people about is I tend to see people for who they are outside. Take my friend Ian for example: when I first met him in physics class, he had blue hair, with a spongebob squarepants book bag, and Capri look-alike pants. I mean, honestly, COME ON!!!! So naturally, I thought this guy’s going to be the next Timothy McVeigh or something completely out of the mainstream. But then, our professor sat us next to each other for the second cycle of the school year. At first, I was a little scared, thinking God knows what this kid might do to me. But then, as the days go by, I got to know him as he got to know me. We became good friends, to claim first prize in the physics bridge building competition. And all this happened because I gave him a chance as he did me, to know him, and see him for who he truly was and still is.
Now why is it so hard for us to just try and not perceive things as they seem? If people saw half of my friends, they’d think I’m crazy, as they seem they are. But they are in the top colleges in the country, studying physics, chemical engineering, law, nanotechnology, criminal psychology and so much more. Now if you told them this, do you honestly think they would believe you? Because of the world we live in, our society forces us to see everything in a completely different light…a terrible one. When we look down a dark tunnel, we do see light at the end of it, but it’s not an exit from the darkness. It’s an oncoming train, about to hurt us and cause us so much pain and sorrow. Thinking about it, it’s not our fault that we think about it. I mean, my mother doesn’t approve of half my friends. And it’s not that she’s close-minded of any sort. She’s just worried and again, has every right to be.
So the main question remains, do we know ourselves who we truly are? Who are we living for? For others? Do we have to change who we are to fit into an ever-changing society that doesn’t even recognize its own identity? We change our behavior so much, our lifestyle, our friends, that at some point that we reach, we don’t even recognize ourselves. We start doing things that are indignant of where we were raised. And who is to blame for that? Not just the society that we were raised in, but the main culprit remains nobody else but us. I witness this in my own family as one of my cousins constantly detaches himself from the family, to a point where his friends know him better than his own mother. Where this is a problem, I know these friends and they do not mean well. They are still young, immature and have absolutely no idea what the meaning of life is. Of course, none of us really do, but others who are older and are more experienced have a better idea than 14-year-olds do. His excuse is that if his family knows him better than his friends, they will use his weaknesses against him. He makes his own family the enemy. He completely misses how his own family will use those weakness “against him” for his own good, while he will get hurt, if not harshly, if those friends use those weaknesses against him. It would be a contradiction for me to just turn down any possibility that his friends may mean well. But what I am arguing is that at such a young age, his friends cannot possibly know better than his own family, especially one like the one I was raised in, as he was.
What we need to do is live for ourselves and not for others, do what pleases us, and not what pleases others, avoid what makes us cry, and not do it because it will make this person happy. What we also need to think is that the stranger that can become a potential friend may be following the same dogma. Sure, we live in a crazy world today…but is it wrong to be an optimist? Is it wrong to see the goodness in others? I believe in it…and so far I haven’t been wrong. Others may not have been as lucky as I have, but at least I gave it a chance, which is something others refuse to even ponder the thought of.
This blog is written in dedication to my little cousin Daniel, in hopes for light at the end of the tunnel and not an oncoming train.
Everyone around us judges us by what we do and how we think, most of the time getting a completely wrong idea about who we truly are. I believe a proverb that explains this is “Never judge a book by a cover”. Yet, sadly, we all do it, including me, I hate to admit. A problem I have is, and I judge people about is I tend to see people for who they are outside. Take my friend Ian for example: when I first met him in physics class, he had blue hair, with a spongebob squarepants book bag, and Capri look-alike pants. I mean, honestly, COME ON!!!! So naturally, I thought this guy’s going to be the next Timothy McVeigh or something completely out of the mainstream. But then, our professor sat us next to each other for the second cycle of the school year. At first, I was a little scared, thinking God knows what this kid might do to me. But then, as the days go by, I got to know him as he got to know me. We became good friends, to claim first prize in the physics bridge building competition. And all this happened because I gave him a chance as he did me, to know him, and see him for who he truly was and still is.
Now why is it so hard for us to just try and not perceive things as they seem? If people saw half of my friends, they’d think I’m crazy, as they seem they are. But they are in the top colleges in the country, studying physics, chemical engineering, law, nanotechnology, criminal psychology and so much more. Now if you told them this, do you honestly think they would believe you? Because of the world we live in, our society forces us to see everything in a completely different light…a terrible one. When we look down a dark tunnel, we do see light at the end of it, but it’s not an exit from the darkness. It’s an oncoming train, about to hurt us and cause us so much pain and sorrow. Thinking about it, it’s not our fault that we think about it. I mean, my mother doesn’t approve of half my friends. And it’s not that she’s close-minded of any sort. She’s just worried and again, has every right to be.
So the main question remains, do we know ourselves who we truly are? Who are we living for? For others? Do we have to change who we are to fit into an ever-changing society that doesn’t even recognize its own identity? We change our behavior so much, our lifestyle, our friends, that at some point that we reach, we don’t even recognize ourselves. We start doing things that are indignant of where we were raised. And who is to blame for that? Not just the society that we were raised in, but the main culprit remains nobody else but us. I witness this in my own family as one of my cousins constantly detaches himself from the family, to a point where his friends know him better than his own mother. Where this is a problem, I know these friends and they do not mean well. They are still young, immature and have absolutely no idea what the meaning of life is. Of course, none of us really do, but others who are older and are more experienced have a better idea than 14-year-olds do. His excuse is that if his family knows him better than his friends, they will use his weaknesses against him. He makes his own family the enemy. He completely misses how his own family will use those weakness “against him” for his own good, while he will get hurt, if not harshly, if those friends use those weaknesses against him. It would be a contradiction for me to just turn down any possibility that his friends may mean well. But what I am arguing is that at such a young age, his friends cannot possibly know better than his own family, especially one like the one I was raised in, as he was.
What we need to do is live for ourselves and not for others, do what pleases us, and not what pleases others, avoid what makes us cry, and not do it because it will make this person happy. What we also need to think is that the stranger that can become a potential friend may be following the same dogma. Sure, we live in a crazy world today…but is it wrong to be an optimist? Is it wrong to see the goodness in others? I believe in it…and so far I haven’t been wrong. Others may not have been as lucky as I have, but at least I gave it a chance, which is something others refuse to even ponder the thought of.
This blog is written in dedication to my little cousin Daniel, in hopes for light at the end of the tunnel and not an oncoming train.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Grandparents
[reporting from Haiti]
Grandma and grandpa…remember them, those old guys who walk at one mile an hour, who never stop talking, a lot of times mumbling because those fake teeth-gum sets are falling out, can’t control their anatomical emanations (pick your hole, whichever), yet still manage to make a mean dinner, leaving the whole family speechless. They’ve seen a lot, they’ve endured a lot living on this planet. So why doesn’t God spare them and let them join Him once their purpose has been served? Maybe it’s because their purpose will never be fully served. Grandparents are able to teach us the lessons of the past better than any history book that has ever been written about anything. Why is that? Because they were there and they know their family and they know how to apply the past to the present for a better future for their descendants. And as much as some of us may hate to admit, we all want some of that knowledge and wisdom. I witness this when I come home from work as there is always some stranger in our house talking to my grandmother about their past experiences with someone, something that happened to them in their homes, troubles with their offspring, anything that comes to mind. Some of these stories seem utterly absurd to me and I find no solution to them at all. But somehow, my grandmother always finds something, either from a dream, or from her past to relate to them and give them advice. Ever since our grandfather died, my grandmother has endured a lot, losing her life partner for more than 50 years. She went through a stroke, blood pressure hikes and such. Yet, she always comes out stronger and even wiser. We can see her suffering from time to time and we wonder why God doesn’t take her away. The reason is none other than that God knows we still need her and that we cannot fend for ourselves without her as much as we try to prove we can. We become wiser as we grow older, as we learn and experience from life. The fact that we continue to learn can only come from those who have been there before us. Just because we declare our independence from the house we were raised in, something always brings us back, whether it is the comfort, that home sweet home feeling, or the nostalgia of childhood memories that always finds a way to get back to our heart. That feeling is what is left of little humanity still exists in the insane world we live in today. This is a tribute to grandparents all over the world, as they are one of the main reasons we haven’t self-destructed yet. Another proof God still loves us? Why not? You’d be surprised
Grandma and grandpa…remember them, those old guys who walk at one mile an hour, who never stop talking, a lot of times mumbling because those fake teeth-gum sets are falling out, can’t control their anatomical emanations (pick your hole, whichever), yet still manage to make a mean dinner, leaving the whole family speechless. They’ve seen a lot, they’ve endured a lot living on this planet. So why doesn’t God spare them and let them join Him once their purpose has been served? Maybe it’s because their purpose will never be fully served. Grandparents are able to teach us the lessons of the past better than any history book that has ever been written about anything. Why is that? Because they were there and they know their family and they know how to apply the past to the present for a better future for their descendants. And as much as some of us may hate to admit, we all want some of that knowledge and wisdom. I witness this when I come home from work as there is always some stranger in our house talking to my grandmother about their past experiences with someone, something that happened to them in their homes, troubles with their offspring, anything that comes to mind. Some of these stories seem utterly absurd to me and I find no solution to them at all. But somehow, my grandmother always finds something, either from a dream, or from her past to relate to them and give them advice. Ever since our grandfather died, my grandmother has endured a lot, losing her life partner for more than 50 years. She went through a stroke, blood pressure hikes and such. Yet, she always comes out stronger and even wiser. We can see her suffering from time to time and we wonder why God doesn’t take her away. The reason is none other than that God knows we still need her and that we cannot fend for ourselves without her as much as we try to prove we can. We become wiser as we grow older, as we learn and experience from life. The fact that we continue to learn can only come from those who have been there before us. Just because we declare our independence from the house we were raised in, something always brings us back, whether it is the comfort, that home sweet home feeling, or the nostalgia of childhood memories that always finds a way to get back to our heart. That feeling is what is left of little humanity still exists in the insane world we live in today. This is a tribute to grandparents all over the world, as they are one of the main reasons we haven’t self-destructed yet. Another proof God still loves us? Why not? You’d be surprised
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Shall We Dance?
[reporting from Haiti]
The past few weeks in Haiti have been quite eventful for me and my family as we’ve been taking dance lessons, revolving mostly around ballroom dancing. For those of you who have been spending too many nights at dark facilities, with throbbing techno music and waking up at someone else’s place, most of the time, not even knowing who that person is, ballroom dancing is the classical form of couple’s enjoyment, where the woman faces the man, creating a more intimate relationship, not her humps, facing and dry-humping his hump, as I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, creating an erotic “I wanna penetrate you this instant!!!!!” one-night stand. Some see dancing as a pastime, some see it as foreplay, while others see it as a conversation. I firmly believe in the latter. As one dances with his partner, what needs to happen for that beauty to resonate between the couple, is a constant flow, a communication of body language, telling me to move this way or that, telling me that I’m about to be dipped, telling me that I’m about to be touched in a most unexpected and if done right, exhilarating way. This is what makes dancing such an orgasmic experience. We take the tango for example, a passionate dance about love, lust and every feeling that turns on every hormone in our body about the attraction and the chemistry between two people. As the couple engages in this dance, the ones watching witness a transformation, a poetry enfolding as this couple tells us their story, their fate, their destiny and ultimately their climax or their doom. The vitality with which the couple expresses their emotions will correspond with the level of attention the audience decides to spend watching them. And if that couple expresses an unprecedented ardor, the audience will be captivated, trapped in an uncontrollable trance, unable to move away from this phenomenon that is blooming before them.
I’ve realized that everything I do nowadays, everything I think about seems to revolve around my relationship with my mother. The relationship I wish I had with her seems to be happening with everyone and everything else around me, but her. But the problem is, this isn’t entirely her fault. I am to blame for this also. Every night, I pray that my relationship with her gets better, especially for my little brother. But what I always fail to ask Him is for me to want that relationship to get better, for me to have the will to solve our problems…But why do I not want to? Why is it that whenever I have problems with everyone else, whether it be friends or family, I can’t live with myself until I ask for forgiveness or I rebuild bridges but when it comes to my own mother, I honestly don’t give a shit? Is it because she has been pushing me away without realizing it? Or have I been contributing to this pushing away as well by not talking to her, by not opening to her, by not being comfortable with her…all because…I don’t want to…
Is it possible to fix a relationship once it’s been broken for such a long time when there isn’t much effort from both sides? Is it honestly possible for me to be able to dance in one flow with my mother, to be able to create this amazing phenomenon as two becomes one, expressing an infinite love that can withstand whatever storm without sinking…I want to want to be able to do that…but I don’t know…the future looks bleak and my physical and mental body can only withstand so much…
The past few weeks in Haiti have been quite eventful for me and my family as we’ve been taking dance lessons, revolving mostly around ballroom dancing. For those of you who have been spending too many nights at dark facilities, with throbbing techno music and waking up at someone else’s place, most of the time, not even knowing who that person is, ballroom dancing is the classical form of couple’s enjoyment, where the woman faces the man, creating a more intimate relationship, not her humps, facing and dry-humping his hump, as I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, creating an erotic “I wanna penetrate you this instant!!!!!” one-night stand. Some see dancing as a pastime, some see it as foreplay, while others see it as a conversation. I firmly believe in the latter. As one dances with his partner, what needs to happen for that beauty to resonate between the couple, is a constant flow, a communication of body language, telling me to move this way or that, telling me that I’m about to be dipped, telling me that I’m about to be touched in a most unexpected and if done right, exhilarating way. This is what makes dancing such an orgasmic experience. We take the tango for example, a passionate dance about love, lust and every feeling that turns on every hormone in our body about the attraction and the chemistry between two people. As the couple engages in this dance, the ones watching witness a transformation, a poetry enfolding as this couple tells us their story, their fate, their destiny and ultimately their climax or their doom. The vitality with which the couple expresses their emotions will correspond with the level of attention the audience decides to spend watching them. And if that couple expresses an unprecedented ardor, the audience will be captivated, trapped in an uncontrollable trance, unable to move away from this phenomenon that is blooming before them.
I’ve realized that everything I do nowadays, everything I think about seems to revolve around my relationship with my mother. The relationship I wish I had with her seems to be happening with everyone and everything else around me, but her. But the problem is, this isn’t entirely her fault. I am to blame for this also. Every night, I pray that my relationship with her gets better, especially for my little brother. But what I always fail to ask Him is for me to want that relationship to get better, for me to have the will to solve our problems…But why do I not want to? Why is it that whenever I have problems with everyone else, whether it be friends or family, I can’t live with myself until I ask for forgiveness or I rebuild bridges but when it comes to my own mother, I honestly don’t give a shit? Is it because she has been pushing me away without realizing it? Or have I been contributing to this pushing away as well by not talking to her, by not opening to her, by not being comfortable with her…all because…I don’t want to…
Is it possible to fix a relationship once it’s been broken for such a long time when there isn’t much effort from both sides? Is it honestly possible for me to be able to dance in one flow with my mother, to be able to create this amazing phenomenon as two becomes one, expressing an infinite love that can withstand whatever storm without sinking…I want to want to be able to do that…but I don’t know…the future looks bleak and my physical and mental body can only withstand so much…
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
[reporting from Haiti]
What is religion? Some see it as faith. Some see it as ignorance. Some see it as salvation. Some see it as a refuge. Others see it as a union that gives us that security that we are not alone in this world. We all have our own definition of religion. Coming from a gay man, I guess that definition may be suspect as alteration or even seen as invalid at it would be utter contradiction for a sinner to tell the righteous or anyone else for the fact of that matter, what God’s institution truly is and what it was designed to be. I must admit, being raised in a conventional, conservative catholic family, I was "brainwashed", for lack of a better word, to think in the same way. But during my transition from my 9th to my 10th year alive on this planet, when I started to feel attracted to other men, growing older to realize that I was indeed one of those the Church shuns, I realized that absolutely nothing is what it seems and that absolutely no book should ever be judged by its cover. On top of that, I am a scientist, studying engineering and architecture, the former being a science that completely contradicts our origins than what the Bible says. Yet, even then, I still see God’s Hand in what I’m studying, in every experiment that I perform, in every equation I concoct, in every formula that I learn. So now, as a Catholic gay scientist man, I ask of you, what is religion? What is the definition of faith? Why is that we believe in a being that is more powerful than us, yet that none of us can honestly we have any proof that He exists? Every miracle that happens in the Bible, science tries to disprove it as a miracle, stating that any human being can perform these same wonders with complex equations and formulas, disproving the existence of a higher being. But what is science? To quote one of my favorite authors, science "shatters God’s world into smaller pieces in quest of meaning…and all it finds is more questions." Right then and there, we witness more of God’s awesome power, the fact that we will never be able to learn all of life’s secrets. Even those secrets that we learn, we never learn them fully. As much and as hard as we try, scientists haven’t even begun to touch the tip of the iceberg that is our universe. Now, they attribute all sorts of reasons as to why this happens: money, time, sex life (yeah, right!) and then some. But they will never admit to the ultimate and real reason: that higher power that will never truly give all His secrets…or Her secrets, none of us really know. And that’s what drives us all to believe and to have faith in those miracles. The fact that science can never reach that upper echelon of divinity is what still keeps what little faith exists in the world. Fact is, science may be able to prove a lot and teach a lot, but it can never teach us how to use such power, it can never teach us morality and acknowledging that we are not alone in this world, that we have to take into account that our actions may have consequences on those that surround us, even on our loved ones whether we want to or not. This is where religion, faith and God come in. Men are too corrupt to be able to be convincing enough to prevent an evil, to show its immorality. Only God and some of his servants can truly show us that path. And those that succeed, even though rare, show us that miracles are possible, only if we believe. I mean, God can only expect so much of us. We’re merely humans, right? And what are humans, but "a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control"…Is this truly what God saw His world becoming? Some say that God doesn’t exist because there’s so much suffering. But picture this: if you have a child and he rides a bike, you have the power to prevent him from doing so and getting hurt. But if you let him go and he gets hurt, he learns from his mistakes. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn. It’s not who we are, but what we do, that defines us. And once that definition is initiated, we grow closer to the divine, not only God-willing, but also self-willingly. If we can do this much, then this world can truly be a better place for every single one of us.
What is religion? Some see it as faith. Some see it as ignorance. Some see it as salvation. Some see it as a refuge. Others see it as a union that gives us that security that we are not alone in this world. We all have our own definition of religion. Coming from a gay man, I guess that definition may be suspect as alteration or even seen as invalid at it would be utter contradiction for a sinner to tell the righteous or anyone else for the fact of that matter, what God’s institution truly is and what it was designed to be. I must admit, being raised in a conventional, conservative catholic family, I was "brainwashed", for lack of a better word, to think in the same way. But during my transition from my 9th to my 10th year alive on this planet, when I started to feel attracted to other men, growing older to realize that I was indeed one of those the Church shuns, I realized that absolutely nothing is what it seems and that absolutely no book should ever be judged by its cover. On top of that, I am a scientist, studying engineering and architecture, the former being a science that completely contradicts our origins than what the Bible says. Yet, even then, I still see God’s Hand in what I’m studying, in every experiment that I perform, in every equation I concoct, in every formula that I learn. So now, as a Catholic gay scientist man, I ask of you, what is religion? What is the definition of faith? Why is that we believe in a being that is more powerful than us, yet that none of us can honestly we have any proof that He exists? Every miracle that happens in the Bible, science tries to disprove it as a miracle, stating that any human being can perform these same wonders with complex equations and formulas, disproving the existence of a higher being. But what is science? To quote one of my favorite authors, science "shatters God’s world into smaller pieces in quest of meaning…and all it finds is more questions." Right then and there, we witness more of God’s awesome power, the fact that we will never be able to learn all of life’s secrets. Even those secrets that we learn, we never learn them fully. As much and as hard as we try, scientists haven’t even begun to touch the tip of the iceberg that is our universe. Now, they attribute all sorts of reasons as to why this happens: money, time, sex life (yeah, right!) and then some. But they will never admit to the ultimate and real reason: that higher power that will never truly give all His secrets…or Her secrets, none of us really know. And that’s what drives us all to believe and to have faith in those miracles. The fact that science can never reach that upper echelon of divinity is what still keeps what little faith exists in the world. Fact is, science may be able to prove a lot and teach a lot, but it can never teach us how to use such power, it can never teach us morality and acknowledging that we are not alone in this world, that we have to take into account that our actions may have consequences on those that surround us, even on our loved ones whether we want to or not. This is where religion, faith and God come in. Men are too corrupt to be able to be convincing enough to prevent an evil, to show its immorality. Only God and some of his servants can truly show us that path. And those that succeed, even though rare, show us that miracles are possible, only if we believe. I mean, God can only expect so much of us. We’re merely humans, right? And what are humans, but "a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control"…Is this truly what God saw His world becoming? Some say that God doesn’t exist because there’s so much suffering. But picture this: if you have a child and he rides a bike, you have the power to prevent him from doing so and getting hurt. But if you let him go and he gets hurt, he learns from his mistakes. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn. It’s not who we are, but what we do, that defines us. And once that definition is initiated, we grow closer to the divine, not only God-willing, but also self-willingly. If we can do this much, then this world can truly be a better place for every single one of us.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Family Secrets
[reporting from Haiti]
There’s nothing shittier in life than domestic problems, problems that arise within your own home, within your own family. These problems, unfortunately, reflect in our behavior in everything else that we do, how we act, how we perceive everything. One particular issue that can cause problems is marriage, which in turn joins two families…or at least it should. My mother and my stepfather got divorced, details as to the reason why being quite a blur. At the time, I didn’t really think about it. I remember us moving out of my step dad’s house, us saying goodbye to our stepbrothers, my mother crying in the front seat, and my little brother completely oblivious as to what was happening. That was then.
Being older now, things started to slowly make sense, some of which I wish I had not known. In the “Da Vinci Code”, Sophie Neveu is disturbed in the novel as she discovers more and more secrets about her family, so much of which was hidden from her for her protection, as they say. Problems with my mother arising at an alarming level, the latter decides to send me to Haiti, to “straighten my acts out and think about my future”, as she so appropriately puts it. Another one of her goals is to start fresh, to solve the problems of the past, to try and forget them, if possible, including with my stepfather. My stepfather was great with me, representing a direct father figure that I never had, so, of course, I had no objection to meeting him and spending a day with him. Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life, and not the kind that usually involves a lot of moaning, sweating and a waste of millions of potential children (well, in my case anyway). I originally thought that the divorce was all my mother’s idea. But sitting down with my step dad, I realized that this was not a one-way decision. Now, I do understand that what he told me might be a way to turn me against my family. But for one, he’s just not the type and knows that no one can turn me against my family. Two, what he said made sense, because I witnessed what he told me everyday, when I lived them six years ago, and every time I come on vacation and again, on this very day as I write this. As a result of all that happened, his family and my mother’s family never got along and endures in a long and senseless vendetta. When I proposed the idea of joining the two families back together again as it was before, I got in my first argument with my aunt, the first in 19 years.
What is not said in a family always has consequences. Keeping secrets, not giving all of the information about a certain fact, turning into a lie, are all the ingredients for a dangerous meal, one that our poor intestines are not built to endure. Do people honestly believe that not telling the offspring is for their own protection? This is utter horseshit, the kind that cannot be cleaned easily and usually sticks around until the smell is quite unbearable. Understandable that at a certain age, the offspring won’t understand what the truth really means. But keeping one in the dark until he’s 19 years old? Those are issues that should be seriously considered.
There’s nothing shittier in life than domestic problems, problems that arise within your own home, within your own family. These problems, unfortunately, reflect in our behavior in everything else that we do, how we act, how we perceive everything. One particular issue that can cause problems is marriage, which in turn joins two families…or at least it should. My mother and my stepfather got divorced, details as to the reason why being quite a blur. At the time, I didn’t really think about it. I remember us moving out of my step dad’s house, us saying goodbye to our stepbrothers, my mother crying in the front seat, and my little brother completely oblivious as to what was happening. That was then.
Being older now, things started to slowly make sense, some of which I wish I had not known. In the “Da Vinci Code”, Sophie Neveu is disturbed in the novel as she discovers more and more secrets about her family, so much of which was hidden from her for her protection, as they say. Problems with my mother arising at an alarming level, the latter decides to send me to Haiti, to “straighten my acts out and think about my future”, as she so appropriately puts it. Another one of her goals is to start fresh, to solve the problems of the past, to try and forget them, if possible, including with my stepfather. My stepfather was great with me, representing a direct father figure that I never had, so, of course, I had no objection to meeting him and spending a day with him. Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life, and not the kind that usually involves a lot of moaning, sweating and a waste of millions of potential children (well, in my case anyway). I originally thought that the divorce was all my mother’s idea. But sitting down with my step dad, I realized that this was not a one-way decision. Now, I do understand that what he told me might be a way to turn me against my family. But for one, he’s just not the type and knows that no one can turn me against my family. Two, what he said made sense, because I witnessed what he told me everyday, when I lived them six years ago, and every time I come on vacation and again, on this very day as I write this. As a result of all that happened, his family and my mother’s family never got along and endures in a long and senseless vendetta. When I proposed the idea of joining the two families back together again as it was before, I got in my first argument with my aunt, the first in 19 years.
What is not said in a family always has consequences. Keeping secrets, not giving all of the information about a certain fact, turning into a lie, are all the ingredients for a dangerous meal, one that our poor intestines are not built to endure. Do people honestly believe that not telling the offspring is for their own protection? This is utter horseshit, the kind that cannot be cleaned easily and usually sticks around until the smell is quite unbearable. Understandable that at a certain age, the offspring won’t understand what the truth really means. But keeping one in the dark until he’s 19 years old? Those are issues that should be seriously considered.
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