Morning Edition - 11/30/07

Hand In My Pocket - Alanis

Tanto Nadar Para Ahogarme En La Orilla
I’m always in awe at how poignant some Spanish sayings are. “Tanto nadar para ahogarte en la orilla,” basically translates to, “So much swimming to drown at the shore (edge).” Although I’ve heard this saying all my life, it has never meant so much to me as it does right now. Mainly I’m feeling a sense that now that I’m pretty much where I need to be, I’m inexplicably drained and despondent. I have a comfy job, a good man, a great apartment and most important, good health and I’m drowning at the edge of good fortune. First, I can do my job with my hands tied behind my back and my boss sitting on my lap, but I’m not challenged, am often bored and am feeling that what I do has no impact on anything relevant. I’m a firm believer in the theory that when you feel you’re about to complain about what you do for a living, it’s time to move on, but I sit anxiously waiting for an epiphany of some sort. It’s also fair to mention that I’m encouraged to sit down and shut up since my job treats me like Paris Hilton at the opening of a new club – which is to say, they worship the quicksand I walk on; I’m afforded the opportunity to keep comfortable work hours and put-it-down at the gym in the middle of the day. What is a Puerto Rican man who can easily live the no-work-all-play stereotype to do? Onward and upward to issue #2: my man. Let me preface any of my rants about BD with, “He is a great man.” He’s brilliant, gorgeous, caring, affectionate, sexy and the list goes on and on and on. The issue I have with him is that he appears to lack the basic intuitiveness that naturally occurs after a year of dating. Repeatedly I get the sense that although I’m not a jealous man, he should have a sense of how BIG I am on feeling respected and valued. Give me my respect at all times or I turn into a monster of fork-tongued, poison protest. It seems it’s difficult for BD to determine what scenarios could send my Code Green mood, into a fast and furious Code-Red-don’t-fuck-with-me-fella mode. All said, the issue is as easy to correct as sensing my apprehension when I mention something that bothers me and squashing the concern with reassurance. No relationship is perfect and my present concerns are whether we can grow beyond the point where we are now – especially, since this involves a complete change of our lives as we know them to be with regard to establishing a family unit. More important, are we even ready to take the next logical step in a timeframe we both feel is acceptable? Finally on the list of perishing at the edge of the tides is that I moved into my apartment in June and still have a living room littered with boxes and a sense that I’m not making a genuine effort to make my apartment “home.” I look around my place and see so much potential, but once the weekend hits, the voices in my head resort to unanimously chanting, “Its my place and I’ll get it together when I’m good and ready…let’s rest!” That said, I’m disgusted at the realization that my friends (and now neighbors) who moved into my building a month after me have already organized their place AND have had their housewarming party. Note to self: You will get your apartment together before Christmas – PERIOD! So folks, as you can see, no one has a perfect existence and not everything is as it appears. As someone who is often seen as the life of the party and unfazed by the little things, you’d be surprised how, of late, I feel like “Tanto nadar para ahogarme en la orilla.”

On Blast
The jury is still out on how much of what people believe about me is actually true. For example, I’ve been called everything from a gut-busting regular comedian to a cold hearted bitch. The real question is, where in the middle of this chasm, my reality resides.

That said, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. What comments about your personality have you rejected as ridiculous, only to find after closer inspection, that some of those comments are either true or that you have fed the fire of allegations with your actions?

Keep passin’ the open windows…