When you hear the news, you begin hoping the doctors are wrong. You rush home from work while making bets with God. Just another day, month, year, please, anything. I’ll wash myself in my regrets and make up for them. You’re told a few months are left and for awhile you think it will pass. That the doctors are wrong and you’ll see her walk again. You’ll get to enjoy those last precious moments outside in the world with her and not waste them in silence at a hospital bedside. You begin lying to yourself, but it’s never enough because you’re sitting bedside to the truth. That’s when you realize how stuck you really are. I am a blank page with eraser marks all over. You face Death even though it scares you, ready to throw a punch, but all you send him are secret winks with her or kisses on cheeks and foreheads.

We all laid there in dull hospital chairs as shadows were forming all around us. We filled the room with laughter as her story was passed around like ghost stories at a campfire. You remember seeing the look on her face as she laid there, listening silently on the bed while her soul chuckled. I always thought laughter could cure anything. Face it all with a smile. But the shadows are still there and soon the laughter dies away. I spent too much time in tears. Vampires nipped at her fingers and the machines were nothing but monitors of a heart beat counting down. Drip, drip, drip. There’s the alarm, where are they? In those moments it almost becomes too much. Family leaves the room to cry then comes back in to tell you how handsome you’ve become. You’ve become such a man. Grown past all the lies I’ve told and the same ones fed to me as a child.

Despierta, estoy aqui. Wake up, I’m here. Mira. Look. Te quiero mucho. I love you. Te quiero mucho Abuelita.

Rain fell the first day and made me feel at home. Ironic, was it not, that when I first walked in nothing was there? In the end it all becomes nothing. Skin and bones will dissolve to become the atoms that created us. All of our grand designs are wasted on a concept man created to control themselves.

Veni aqui. Come here. Dame un beso. Give me a kiss. Que lindo eres mi nieto. Look how pretty you are my grandson. Te quiero mucho. I love you. Te quiero mucho Abuelita.

We remember the wedding in the valley, taco trucks in the driveway and how she danced to a mariachi band with her sister and too much tequila in her bloodstream. Drip, drip, drip. It’s all different now. It always has been. Drugs that hide the pain instead of alcohol. Paralyzing tumors instead of dancing. Nobody ever talked about the silence that filled the room. How the time spent by her side felt like time that was wasted in silence even though you know it’s not a waste at all. There’s the alarm. Where are they? It all becomes a haze. You hear static and conversation come through the intercom. We’re sorry, it’s a problem with the system. It can’t be fixed. She can’t be fixed.

In all my honesty, I was begging for lies. Hand gripped hand to show that there’s still life hidden beneath. I have to stay, but I have to go. I have to stop myself. I have to stop moving forward. Family comes and goes. It gets better then it gets worse. Everything is left in suspended animation. That’s when it all changes.

It starts when they get cold and nothing helps. Their breath becomes slower and they look at everything with a gaze of wonder. She is surrounded by her daughters and son. Last minute prayers are pleaded to no one in particular. Please, just one more day. Something, anything. You know it will be over soon, but nothing prepares you for it. She is surrounded by her daughters and son. You know that this last moment is important. That she is happy and at peace, even if you’re not. She is surrounded by her family.

Que linda, a donde vamos?

Then eyes close. Breath crawls. Sleep passes. Everything fades. At the viewing and funeral those with the words you lack say she’s at peace now, but you immediately know different because none of that matters to you. She’s gone and everything breaks or is already broken. You can’t even remember what the word peace stood for. All you know is now gone and all you’re left with is Death and all of his friends. You continue moving forward because that’s all you can do. Days become weeks that become months. Finally, when Spring comes and all the flowers around you somehow bloom a little bigger and brighter, you begin to accept she’s at peace and maybe even watching over you. You realize you can still tell her all the stories of your day and she’ll listen intently as always. Only now her laughter is replaced by the wind, the rain her tears, and the sun her smile. And you know there is life in death even if you don’t understand it.

Que linda. Te quiero mucho Abuelita.

As of today I start working for Bleacher Report! Paperwork signed, sealed, delivered. My job is gonna be awesome: production work mixed with sports. I honestly cannot complain about anything in my life right now.

Tim Tebow

I got hit in the mouth yesterday (figuratively), so I needed to remember this moment and what it means to me. You will not see anyone go harder than I will this year.

I was looking for something yesterday and I found her pictures that were only meant for me. I had spent half the day running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and the other half not knowing what the fuck I was doing, but I ended the night with some jazz on 4th Street. I learned a lot of lessons that day. Like how to deal with people repeating the same things over and over again. How to use my connections in making things happen. How to plan better. What I’m trying to say is that I’m still learning the ups and downs of being in this city. How some nights I stay in cashing in my bad luck or how some nights I call it a draw. But last night left me feeling fulfilled. I keep suggesting that I have the feeling back where I know I can conquer anything and some nights I really want to believe it. No, some days I actually believe it. Between the the unknown and what my gut tells me, it’s there. Waiting for me to accept what I know and fulfill all the promises I’ve left hanging on my lips. Last night was insane. For a moment I was in a basement by myself with over 200 people getting drunk above me and the thought crossed my mind that maybe I didn’t know what I was doing or what I was doing here. I sat there sulking not wanting to face the truth of what was moving above me within all these 200 other people. Then I shrugged, said ‘fuck it,’ and walked upstairs. Figure it out as you go along right? Fake it until you make it? By the end of the night I’m almost begging the train not to come so the jazz can continue filling my lungs as I inhale. I had read her letter a few days before. The one that was meant for me, but wasn’t for me. I shrugged, said ‘fuck it’ and moved on. I’ve been learning my lessons. Things are always looking up. It’s all about perspective. I have a good job, good friends and I’m meeting good people. They tell you New York is a place you’ll never be able to get away from. That it sucks you in and doesn’t spit you out. I wouldn’t want it to. Even if it’s only for these nights where I’m drunk on 4th street and the guy on piano ends the song by killing his keys. I really don’t want it to.

OR How I Moved to New York City from LA with Only One Bag & No Place to Stay and Changed My Life

2012 had been an interesting year, to say the least. It truly was not what I expected it to be. The year prior, on 11/11/11, I made a wish - a most powerful wish that I knew (at the time) would come true. I wished for 2012 to be the best year possible, for nothing to hold me back and to make it everything that I thought it could possibly be. To say it all went as planned would be a lie. 2012 was, for me, a year in which in changes were forced onto me that I never wanted or thought I needed. To recap, hopefully shortly and succinctly only because I’m drunk as I write this and my train is here:

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Charlotte Bacon, 6

Olivia Engel, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Jesse Lewis, 6

Ana Marquez-Greene, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Emilie Parker, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Jessica Rekos, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Josephine Gay, 7

Madeleine Hsu, 6

Catherine Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

James Mattioli, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Benjamin Wheeler, 6

Allison Wyatt, 6

Nancy Lanza, 52

Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47

Victoria Soto, 27

Rachel D’Avino, 29

Lauren Rousseau, 30

Anne Marie Murphy, 52

Mary Sherlach, 56

—

Every day I am continually more saddened by the Newtown shooting. It’s been hard for me to comprehend something like this, as I’m sure it has been for everyone, most of all the families involved. When things like this happen I begin to continually replay the events of that day trying to place myself within it and imagine, even for just a moment, what anyone involved feels like. What it would feel like to know your child would murder countless people. If you would love your child still after something so horrific. I’m finding myself mad at people for complaining about trivial matters, as if they do not have the proper perspective on the things that are happening in the world nor care about them. I’m conflicted about this sentiment because it’s such an outrageous assumption that I am somehow more ‘in-tune’ with the tragedy than most of my peers. I see this, I recognize it, but still - it perturbs me. The day it happened everyone was outraged, stricken with grief or fear or despair. The world revolved around a singular moment in which a 20 year old murdered 27 people. But they were more than people. They were your family. They are your son, daughter, brother, sister, cousin, niece or nephew. I didn’t even know anyone affected it by personally, but it’s really been bothering me. Yet what I think has been bothering me the most is how the world continues to spin madly on. I hate how the right-wingers began exclaiming that teachers should be armed at school or that this had happened solely because God isn’t taught in our schools. I hate that the NRA waited days to even release a simple statement because they actually have a plan for when things like this happen. I hate people blaming video games or bullying. I hate how the shooters become celebrities in their own right. I hate that the conversation is not becoming a national conversation about health care. I hate how later the top news story quickly became about the ‘impending doom of the fiscal cliff.’ I hate when I speak to friends and all they can think about is how someone didn’t respond to their text or email or phone call. I hate how this isn’t the first time a shooting like this has happened. I hate how it keeps happening. I hate it all. All of it. Every single part of it. All I can think about lately are these kids. These children that were murdered and how they all no longer have any future ahead of them. Their dreams of becoming sports stars, president, mothers or fathers, teachers, anything and everything they did not have time to understand -  it has all disappeared into thin air. They will not be able to kiss their moms goodbye or hug their fathers goodnight. They will not be able spend the night with their friends; make up excuses to their parents about homework or tell their teachers that the dog ate it. There will be no school dances, no proms, no first kisses and no crushes. No anything. Their lives, their dreams, are gone. It has all been taken from them. And I just don’t understand it. I’m still struggling to understand any of it. 

I’ve thought about writing about New York since I first got here two months ago. I’ve thought about a lot of things. How I told my friends I was really going here for only 2 weeks when I knew it would be more. How when she didn’t eat the burger I handed to her as I arrived summed up our relationship to me. Waiting in line seemed like hours, when I should have just sat there and breathed in the hot air and marveled on how I got here. How when I did get here I had no idea what I was doing and for the most part still don’t. How I slept on couches, in offices, in the park, on the subway, hell sometimes not even sleeping at all. I’d be asked why I moved here, of all the gin joints in all the world, in interviews and I couldn’t tell them ‘oh for a girl whose heart I demolished and I’m trying to put the pieces back inch by inch.’ So I’d take a moment, breathe in and exhale and tell them how my family was out here. How I hated LA and what it represented and I needed a change of atmosphere. How this city never slept and how the hustle and bustle made me feel refreshed. All the reasons are true. All the whys, the who’s, the what’s, the where’s - they’re all true. Take them as you will and leave the ones you don’t want aside. 

I’ve even thought about not writing about it at all. That sometimes change needs to happen on its own, there’s no reason to record it. But then I thought if I didn’t, I’d be doing it for her. To give her, I suppose in the least way possible, some sort of peace of mind. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. I used to write everything down as a way to clear my head of all it’s thoughts, wants and dreams. I used to tell people how I felt regardless of what it meant to them. It was important for me to do that, to get it out and live with no regrets. In a way, when we were together, I started doing it less and less because more and more they became about her. And these things I wanted to say, I only wanted to tell her. But I became afraid of those things at the same time. Was it too much too soon? Was it too little or to grandiose? Why did the words never seem to do my thoughts justice? It was suffocating. Wondering how she would take them, if she would understand their meaning. Wondering if her friends would read them and not understand them. Wondering if the things she wrote about were at all in response to mine and why she couldn’t just tell me. For those reasons and more, wanting to say all the things in my head but not say them at all was truly suffocating.

Now I’ve been here two months and time has indeed flown by. I have an apartment, I live with my cousin and her friend with my own room, I live in Brooklyn and if it weren’t for my current lack of job I really couldn’t be happier. Happy that it’s finally over, happy that I can move on, happy that I have family around me and friends who help me pull through 3000 miles away, happy to be in New York. I have more to say about this place of which I now call home, the experiences I’ve already had, the close calls and late nights. The drinks, the parties, the food, the people. So much more to say about everything, but for now this is enough: I am happy and I am ready. Ready for life, New York and all of her endless possibilities. 

I awoke with a start. It’s been happening more often lately. It’s 6am. Or is it 3am? I’ve lost track of time. My life has been reduced to tweets and mind reading. I wake up hopeful for something and then all at once realize I could never have it. I find it curious that the dreams I’ve never had are now all coming back to haunt to me. Have you ever awoken to realize your senses have come back to you? Or maybe it’s that they were never gone, but you just never saw them coming. I find myself wishing for things I don’t have. People. Places. Peaches or bananas filled with cake. It’s the same consistency you know. I’ve always wondered at how you could replace something with anything yet it never tastes the same. I wonder if this is how my father feels when I dutifully ignore his phone calls. How you would do anything just to talk to someone you cared about deeply yet they won’t let you. What’s the word…ashamed? No, callous. Prick love for prickling and you’ll beat love down. Under love’s heavy burden do I sink. The world moves fast but not fast enough to not creep up on you and the space we put between. Words mean everything when you’ve lost the ability to speak. Lots of maybes fill the void where certainty lacked qualifications or merit. There’s something to be said for not having anything to say at all. That’s what I was waiting for, truthfully. I wanted to bleed again. I wanted to feel what it was like to lose everything and gain nothing back. What’s the phrase…how can a man gain everything and still lose his own soul? Destroyed, not defeated, I repeat to myself. My favorite part was asking people to understand when I could not even do so myself. I know we could be something if we just tried, but there’s the fault. You either do or do not, there is no try, and I’ve grown ever more tired of trying and failing. It’s 8am now. Or is it 5am. I fell asleep at the wheel anyhow searching for the signs to point me back home to you. There’s fog everywhere. Hurricanes that hail down rain. And thunder. So much thunder that it sounds like god is either laughing at you or with you.