Impact Zone

That feeling, when you’ve been holding your breath so long it feels like your lungs are going to burst. In a microsecond you’re contemplating just letting go…you’re going to drown if you have to hold any longer but something greater is waiting for you outside the impact zone.

 

You pull some strength out of thin air, long enough to make it up for air. The air is just enough to keep you from drowning but you’re stuck in the impact zone and another wave buries you, so at the same time you take that breath you steady your mind, along with your body struggling to tread water and propel out of the impact zone.

Your mind, you steady it, preparing for the worst possible outcome but fighting like hell to make it out to safe waters. This is the impact zone. The impact zone is a risk of surfing but surfers don’t go out to surf thinking that they’re going to get caught there. They just paddle out, paddle like hell to catch one, take the drop, set the rail and fly. It’s not a certainty but it is always there as a risk.

I’ve been caught in the impact zone once while surfing. It’s a scary place to be. You can’t make sense of up, down, left or right. The wave has you tumbling about like you’re on a spin cycle from hell. Pair that with not only the inability to breath but the fear that you may never catch a break to breathe and the potential inevitability that you may never come up for a breath again.

The last nine months have felt like I have been steadily caught in the impact zone. It has gradually waned with time and perspective but it’s tiresome and beyond my capacity of patience.

One day last July, it was a day like any other post divorce filing. Awkward but manageable. My rail was set for that day, I would pick up my car from having the brakes changed at Mercedes and head out to a Realtech and Tech Industry event in the city.

“Um…Mrs. Caballero there’s a problem with your card, it was declined.” My poor service advisor is looking at me hesitantly as his statement shakes me out of business email.

“That can’t be right,” I say as I pull up my banking app. As the screen produces zero balances across all my accounts. As I look into the account activity I see all balances were transferred to an unknown account. EVERYTHING WAS GONE. Everything but a small account I had the tax payments for my business in. I transferred the money to pay for the nearly $2,000.00 brake job as I saw red.

He had been threatening that if I didn’t drop the divorce proceedings he would make me pay, one way or another. Here was the first wave that would knock me off my board and draw me into the impact zone. I had no way to know how treacherous and long standing this impact zone would be.

The things I have experienced in the last nine months I would never inflict on my worst enemy and what’s worse, I wasn’t alone. What was inflicted on me wasn’t just inflicted on me. It was inflicted on my daughter as well. That didn’t matter. She didn’t matter.

The third biggest blow to my heart in my lifetime, came from the fact that the person I had invested nearly two decades in and hundreds of thousands of dollars on, who swore to me despite me leaving the abusive situation my daughter and I were in, he would never hurt the two of us. He did, bad, and he appeared to get joy out of it.

He hit me when I was rebuilding, after taking some time off to raise or daughter, homeschool, take care of our family and mostly his baby ass. What he failed to realize, in his egotistically driven power trip was who his opponent was. I built him. Plain and simple. Up until a few short years before I still had to show him how to use the balls he was ill-quipped with being raised by mentally ill, abusive, fraudulent drug addicts.

I bought my time. Put my head down. Hustled my ass off. I still am. He left me with all the debt, completely stopped paying for anything, including his child. He’s wracked up ten’s of thousand’s of dollars of attorney’s fees by not honoring court orders. Every time I felt like I could come up for a breath, crash…another wave blindsided me.

All good motherfucker…I was born with fins. I’m built for this shit. Hit me with another one. The good hearted always win in the end. You’re living on borrowed time. The chickens will come home to roost and it’ll sooner or later be time to pay the piper…and any other colloquialisms I can think of.  Even flaunting $600 dinners yet buying your child a sweatshirt and a bag of skittles for Christmas, purchased only an hour or so before you were supposed to get her. Which she saw through and decided to not spend the holiday with him.

How does one make ridiculous money and still live paycheck to paycheck? Spend, spend, spend…My daughter and I save, save, save. We find joy in the little things in life, in each other, in our family members and new connections. New traditions fill our time and our hearts. We do dancing in the kitchen, we do silly, we do fun.

He spends to fill his empty ass home and heart. Every pick up yields a new ridiculous looking outfit. He doesn’t know who he is and it’s sad. To the effect that in one enraged message to him after he did yet something else heinous, I asked him if he knew who he was because I was starting to play a guessing game of what village person would be picking our daughter up that week.

The turbulence of the impact zone lessens as perspective rises. He’s lost.  He’s alone. He has no one of value in his life anymore, just losers who have the same values and morals as what he was raised by. What you have makes people like you or think you’re something special. Pitiful, but what I’ve found is that the only people who care what someone has, verses what they have in their heart and soul, are broken and insecure individuals.

My daughter and I are moving on, out of the impact zone, only to come out stronger, more resilient and with iron lungs from holding our breaths collectively. Our strength only matched by the intense love we have for each other. The impact zone didn’t drown us, it made us stronger and bonded us for life.

Today- would have been the day that this divorce was final. I was pissed last night and most of today that something like COVID-19 could keep me legally bound to this individual for an indefinite amount of time. I was supposed to go into my 37th year of life without being bound to this person individual but it took writing this piece to finally smack me upside the head and beat me out of my self imposed pity party.

Whenever this ends, finally, it will be the absolute last time I will ever get caught in an impact zone because of this individual. Upon further reflection, while there were high times and good times, a good portion of my life since I was 17 years old was spent in a self imposed impact zone because I had vexed myself to raise this boy into something he is incapable of being..a real man.

In the impact zone I have found so much. I have found a strength I knew I had but was afraid I had lost. I found an even more unbreakable bond and love with my daughter so profound it defies anything constructed to break us. I’ve found standards for which I will never lower for anyone. Guidelines for what I will never settle for in life again. I’ve found grace for others knowing that while I have boundaries, their behavior is a reflection of the evil that they have inside them and the demons they fight with daily and will spend the rest of their lives combatting out of sheer indifference.

A couple weeks ago, when the realities of COVID set in for them and they realized that they had nothing, not even their money to keep them warm, and they tried to come crawling back, begging for another chance I found solace in my response.

Which was simply…I’m fire, you’re gasoline. I don’t like who I am with you. Even if I could get past all the aspects of life I hated while I was with you, the fact of the matter is that, no one is perfect. No couple is perfect. We are all broken and we all have demons that we wrestle with daily. The objective in love and life, if you will, is to find someone who’s demons play well with yours.

As the impact zone fades into the horizon for my daughter and I, it is just beginning for the other party. The old me would have jumped in and saved him from it. But I can’t and I won’t. By me always saving him I never enabled him to actually cope with life on his own and hence the premise of my own issues in the last 9 months. Everything in life is cyclical if you don’t learn to break it. So this is me breaking it. For all of our sakes.

Staying the course. Loving what life has brought to our lives and holds in store for my daughter and I. Letting Karma cash in on its debt. I freed myself when I started putting me first so I could be better for my daughter. Just like our marriage…it’s just a piece of paper decreeing my freedom. I was free the moment I chose me and her.

 

Pedestal Leadership

The stage is empty

Pedestal leadership is bullshit.

I may be the minority here, in fact I am sure I am. So many people work for applause and not the cause. Meaning that they are fueled by what positions or titles or notoriety they can get from the things that they do in life.

Granted we are supposed to feel pride in the things that we achieve and by sharing those achievements we allow others to see our achievements and shoot for the same. That I understand and that I celebrate.

However, those who speak of themselves as though they reside on Mount Olympus and are so condescending and conceited in their delivery alludes to the fact that they think they’ll never see themselves fall.

Those people make me laugh. Their insecurities shine through like sun on a freshly cleaned window.

The people who follow these sorts of “leader“ without regard to their own self-respect and how they are being talked to says even more about our society. We are so thirsty for true leadership we think it comes masquerading in the form of egotistical conceit.

People with fame and fortune either inherited it or they achieved it through hard work. What I will never forget or ever succumb to is forgetting exactly how hard I had to work to get what I have in life. I also will never forget that life has a way of happening and a way of humbling. I never stray far from remembering that, because of what I’ve been through, what I’ve sacrificed and for whom I’ve sacrificed for in my short lifetime.

Most of what you see about me is surface. I don’t share everything, especially the biggest highs. I don’t need to, those are for me. What I do share, are the things in life that have given me the most strength and those are the things I am most proud of. The things constructed to break me and didn’t. I celebrate that. I share that.

I have been told in the past that I would do well to toot my own horn and put myself out there in the same manner as what I’ve described above as pedestal leadership. Perhaps I could have made more money that way but fortunately for me that isn’t what drives me. Money is something I can make no problem, peace of mind… That’s something money can’t buy and I like rare shit.

The days of being an “influencer” will meet their demise. Our current global pandemic is already showing us that. Hopefully the ones who rise as leaders are the ones with dignified strength, humble intentions & unyielding determination

COVID Christmas Cards

It’s not that I am enjoying this pandemic. That’s not it. The lives lost. The economic loss. There is a hard road ahead of us as the world heals it’s immunity, economies and communities.

In a strange way I am grateful for this pandemic. I know we’re are all suffering in our own ways and it’s testing humankind. It’s testing our limits, our kindness, our sanity, everything…

Some of us were struggling bad though before this pandemic hit.

Some people who have been stuck in such a deep dark hole for an indefinite amount of time and perhaps no one really noticed. Or if you’re anything like me, hell may freeze over by the time anyone sees you admit you’re struggling.

Maybe there are people out there faking smiles and gritting their teeth through some of the most immense pain they’ve been through just so that anyone watching doesn’t think they’ve won or any onlookers who were struggling as well would see strength in adversity and be able to carry on in their own struggles seeing your immense strength.

I’ve learned some of the hardest lessons of my life in the last couple years. Some of the biggest slaps in the face and heartache has come in just the last 8 months.

Learning that you had absolutely zero positive impact on someone even after nearly two decades of exposure to your unconditional love and undying support.

That would somehow be translated into something negative and you’d become enemy number one. Become painted as a villain and evil person.

Everything you’ve sacrificed, your sanity, education, body, health, mental aptitude…was for nothing and even more, given the opportunity to do right by you, they’d choose to inflict as much pain on you as they could out of pure spite, anger and feelings of abandonment.

Keep looking up my love

Your child…a mere pawn and collateral damage in the quest to “make you pay” for walking away from a situation that was lose/lose for you.

Simply put…you look at what you could/should/would have been had you chosen to invest as much in yourself as you have others but you can’t even fathom that thought because that picture wouldn’t include your most valued asset, your only baby. So you’re left feeling like a fool. Like the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.

Everyone else saw it. Hell…so did you but being a stubborn ass and not willing to quit because of what that may look like. That jarhead didn’t raise no quitter. But quitting saved my life.

These past 8 months have tested every fiber in my body and of my mind. It would be easy to let the events of life unfold before you and let your child believe that what they’ve seen or experienced be the truth.

I don’t shield her from what has happened entirely. I don’t want her to be disillusioned. I don’t make excuses for people and their behavior but I also do not let my child believe that behavior dictates who that person truly is. Call me naive but maybe the shock of abandonment is the culprit of the behaviors experienced. Maybe it is in fact, who they are. But as a mother I will never lead my child to believe anything except the former. She may begin to believe the latter but that will never be at my insistence or coaxing.

I didn’t have my dad growing up. I will never rob her of that opportunity. Hate me. Beat on me verbally. Spit venom and try to ruin the reputation I’ve worked so hard to build. Rationalize abandonment by saying I just wanted to be a whore. Kick me in the teeth every time the law sets you right. Commit multiple acts of fraud to shortchange your family. The ones who were there day in and day out while you created your career. Deny till the cows come home that we had anything to do with who you’ve become, on paper, for paper.

Even then…nothing…nada. Actions are open to interpretation but they beget behaviors. Behaviors repeated become patterns. Patterns become life and before you know it…life becomes an empty soul sucking abyss where no matter what you consume, material goods, food, alcohol or otherwise will never fill the void you feel from the loss of unconditional love lost.

THIS…this is what has consumed my thought process and psyche for the last 8+ months.

In the last 8 months you’ve seen me publicly launch a new global real estate company. Run national committee for global non-profits, close business deals, sell real estate, be Vice President and become president for my region of said global non-profit. Throw some epic industry events. You may have seen posts where I refer to caring for my dad through his shoulder and knee recovery. Being super mom and her #1 softball fan. I’ve done all that and then some with everything I described above hanging over my head, plaguing my heart, mind and soul.

So you see before this period of isolation for us all, I had been plagued with my own. It dawned on me today when I was going through my mail and filing for the last 8 months.

Christmas Cards From Our Friends & Family

I came across all the Christmas cards that my amazing friends and family sent to J and I. I had stacked them in December not having the ability to process them. Yes it was my choice to end our family, based on some jacked up circumstances, but with every Christmas card addressed the Nicole & Jaiden was one that was addressed to “The Caballero Family” and while it wasn’t all bad, all the time, the ghosts of what no longer was or never would be haunted me. So I knew, when time came I would process them and the thoughts that may come from them.

Today, was that day. I am no longer bothered by Caballero Family title. There are plenty of salvageable memories there but what I am actually excited for is what could be.

I am very content in where I am these days. Rome wasn’t built overnight and I have been a work in progress since the day almost three years ago when I decided to change my life forever and do what was best for me and not everyone else.

I’ve been through hell in some semblance for nearly 20 years by someone I didn’t realize was kryptonite to my heart and soul. I don’t necessarily think either of us knew it, but once I knew for sure I had to walk away or that would have been the end of me.

Most importantly…I want to thank all of my amazing friends and family who thought of Jaiden and I during this past holiday season. We thank you for your patience while we have been figuring out our new normal and where we both fall in our new world. We’ve been through the ringer, but she’s a tough as nails and I’ll never quit on her or on us.

My world

You all, have the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The light may seem as big as a pinprick right now, but rest assured it will continue to grow in mass, until before you know it’s upon you, encompassing your entirety and burning the heck out of your eyes.

Stay the course. Keeps your wits. Laugh through the tears and know you’re not alone.

Confidence- Tribute to the Men who Made Me.

They say that girls get their confidence from their father’s. I believe this to be true. With every status quo there are exceptions to the rule, but not in my case.

Father’s may not even be present, but somehow circumstances or genetics kick in and whether you want, you are your father’s daughter somehow. Most know that my father passed away four months before I was born. I never met him but he’s lives, in me. A intense family man with a heart of gold is what I hear most about him. That runs rampant through every inch of my being. I always say, family over everything. I mean it. That’s him.

I’ll be the first one to tell you I am not the type to sit around for decades and mourn losses. I get this from the loss of my dad prior to my entrance into this world because I see that his life was cut so incredibly short, it’s too short to be obsessing over facts that you cannot change. Not to say I am robotic. I have my days, but I don’t unpack and live there. He nor any of the men who had a hand in my confidence development would condone that.

My Grandpa Hal: My dad’s dad. I didn’t get to spend a ton of time with him as they lived a good hour and a half from us in San Jose. But when I did, it was always memorable. He was a jokester. Loved to piss my grandma off. His smile went from ear to ear. He was who developed our family’s love of multiculturalism. He was filipino but fell in love with my Grandma’s Native American culture. He was always bragging that he was Native by insertion…Yeah. Uncensored. That was Grandpa Hal. NOTHING was off limits. He was crazy! He loved his grandkids unfailingly. There was somewhat of a hierarchy though, if I’m telling the truth. The boys ruled the roost because I come from a family  of sports studs. I was the only girl and from his deceased child so of course I was high up there.  I was also his only granddaughter in our generation up until recent who wasn’t impregnated as a teen or addicted to drugs. I used to live for the days when he and his buddies would get together for a jam session that would last for hours on end. My love for music, most definitely perpetuated by Grandpa Hal. Hats off for a diverse musical education early on.

He used to love to poke and pinch me in the ribs. He never seemed to stop telling me how beautiful I was growing up. He’d say, “You’re beautiful like your mama.” He referred to me as “Beauty” and never by Nicole. When we would go to sports events that he was refereeing or working at he’d introduce me around but there was a definite tension in the air…especially as I got older. Don’t even try to eff with his granddaughter. No one ever did. Even in his old age, you didn’t want to catch his wrath.

He inadvertently contributed to my confidence upbringing by just little every day acts. He was admiring his sons and daughter in law’s genetics when he told me how beautiful I was all the time but that built me up. Especially in those “Ugly middle school/teen” years  all previous generations before these young kids now knew. You can roll your eyes when someone tells you you’re beautiful, especially when they’re family, and I still do…but somewhere that seed implants that someone out there thinks you’re genuinely beautiful. In looks, in heart, in soul. He did that for me. He made me feel valuable and loved, always.

My Grandpa John: God this man hung my moon and I am pretty sure I hung his when I was born. I have a vision in my head of this picture, that I sadly cannot find, where he’s holding me as a baby. cradled in his forearms, resting in his lap looking down at me. His face was beaming. So prideful. The same face he wore when we danced my Father Daughter dance at my wedding reception. Adoration. Love. Respect. Pride. So much of it too.

I will never forget the day I walked in his front door and walked down the long hall to the great room, I had flown in late the night home from Hawaii, for Thanksgiving the next day and he had no idea I was coming home but I couldn’t stay away being that my grandma was just released from the hospital from her recent hip break. He was on the phone with his back to me, he had heard the door open and close so he paused to wait to see who was coming in (Our house was pretty much an open revolving door to local politicians, police staff you name it, the door was never locked.) The minute he saw my face, THAT smile. It caught my breathe to see it. He NEVER smiled like that. Ever.

Now Grandpa never quit a conversation, you usually had to make a run for it, but he told whomever he was on the phone with, “I have to go, my granddaughter just came in the door from getting her master’s degree in Hawaii and I have to go!” Pride, Respect, Love, Adoration. Never had to be stated or inferred. I knew how he felt through his actions.

This man is the largest force in my confidence development hands down for a couple reasons. First, we were soul mates of the greatest kinds. I was the only one of the his kids/grandkids who was basically a replica of him and that fact that we inarguably understood each other without even words made both of our worlds. His examples of leadership, advocacy, class, grace, citizenship, community, family and pride of homeownership made him a hero in my eyes.

He never uttered the words, “I love you.” I grew up not needing to hear that from anyone. His actions spoke true to who he was and what he felt. It never had to be stated. Which is why I could hear those words a million times and if the actions aren’t there to match well…deuces. Grandpa didn’t raise no fool but I can’t say that the intense sense of loyalty and family he instilled in me didn’t help me stay in situations that made no sense. But we live and we learn for ourselves.

I didn’t ever say that our father’s make us. They grow our confidence. They show us how we should be treated but that includes conflicting values and that’s where confusion sets in. We fight between values that worked for previous generations that don’t work for us because our situations aren’t identical. We must learn to change and adapt ourselves and not be afraid to break out of the dogma that we create through those who helped instill our values.

“Joe, ” Pops, My Step-dad: I hated him. 10 years old. My mom worked retail and already had a slim schedule. I barely got any attention because my brother was front and center and I required very little tending to. Then this opinionated, head strong jerk comes in the picture and snatches up what little time she had left. He is the reason why my bedroom had so many holes in the walls. Trophys, cordless phones, you name it…busted that damn dry wall. He was infuriating. He would get pissed when I rolled my eyes. So rolling my eyes became a way of life, juuuuuust to piss him off. He would get mad at me when I would roll my eyes at him, so he would say, “Roll them again and I’ll knock you so hard they’ll never roll back in place.” I knew he would NEVER touch me so I would look at him and roll them as hard as I could to prove a point. He’d get right in my face and stare me down, knowing he couldn’t do anything. I’d stare right back at him like “Whats up homie?” Yeah…I was an asshole.

He taught me to never back down. He was from Oakland and very “City” and a bit “Hood” compared to what I was used to with Politician, Union President, US Marine Corps Grandpa. He had a rough life and it showed. He’s a bit rough around the edges but people love him for it…or hate him. Just depends on who you ask and what side they caught him on.

He used to tell us, “If you get in a fight, I don’t give a sh*t, if you start it or not, you win. If you started it, and you don’t win better not bring your a$$ back home.” That biting wit I have, that thick skin I have (I call it duck feathers: where someone can rain down on you and it slides right off your back like water off a ducks back) where I can sit and let someone hang themselves with a smile on my face knowing I can destroy them if I want but that the choice to take the high road is always my best route…that’s him, through and through.

While him and I fought I began to notice that while we fought, he fought for me. There wasn’t anyone he wouldn’t drop in a seconds notice for me, including my brother. He held me and still holds me in such high regard. He had a strict rules, no boys in the house when he wasn’t home. Including my brother’s friends. He and Aldo fought like cats and dogs when we started dating because my dad is old school. Meaning take your damn hat off in the house, men walk on the street side while the woman walks in the inside, men open doors, they pull out chairs. My dad instilled the concept of chivalry in me. Despite me now deciding it’s something I value having not ever experienced it in my 18 year relationship, I knew it was important but never felt it was a make or break thing. Regardless if I chose to accept that behavior, it was instilled in me and it was most prevalent with him.

Respect. This man has always lived with a ghost (My dad) and he’s never been anything but respectful of him, his memory, his place in ours and my mom’s hearts. At my wedding, he knew I was conflicted about having anyone walk me down the “aisle.” It was supposed to be my brother but he didn’t agree with who I chose to marry and he didn’t come. My step dad walked me and I felt it was perfect. We had come full circle. We fought a ton, he fought for me and he still does to this day. While making toasts at the reception dinner, my step-dad get’s up and toasts none-other than my dad. He left himself out of notoriety despite having raised me since 10 years old. That’s just who he is and I love him more than words can say for that.

While I was shorted a dad, I had no shortage of “father’s” who loved me and helped shape me into the person I am today. Each with their own experiences and point of views that helped mold me.

I am undoubtedly my own person, but these amazing men all have a hand (among my mother, aunts and grandmas) in who I have become. Our father’s show us their strength and courage, even when I’m sure they’re just as scared by life as us. They give us the notion that we can do anything. That we can become, anything.

I have conquered so many things, on so many different playing fields and I know at my core that these men have been there with me, in one way or another. In my subconscious. In the back of my mind. Right beside me. Right behind me. They’re all there. So on days like today, when the love is gushing for everyone’s father’s I may be missing those who have left me (All but one) but I graciously appreciate the fact that I even had them in my corner to begin with.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…our feeling of loss is merely a reflection of the intensity of love that was there to begin with.

Alone

Wait…are you going to Maui alone? Who does that? Isn’t that sort of lonely?

Lonely. I’ve learned that lonely is a word that is entirely subjective. It’s merely a feeling…or choice.

I am no stranger to being and feeling alone.

Two separate things, being and feeling alone.

Being alone: constitutes the mere act of being by yourself. Lonely is a feeling. You can be alone and lonely. You can be alone and feel entirely fulfilled. You can be standing next to someone through a lifetime and feel completely alone and lonely.

I figured out the difference a few years ago when my global business took off and I had to start traveling across the U.S. alone. I had been on my own plenty of time before but I actually forgot for a great while that I was capable of being on my own…alone.

Growing up, I was an odd one. Different. Wasn’t quite aware that it wasn’t natural to live with your grandparents. My mom was a workaholic and I didn’t get much of her time seeing as I was so advanced and my sibling needed a lot more care and time. I spent a lot of time alone, only sometimes lonely.

I grew up a politician/community leaders granddaughter. Always in plain view. Keep your grace and smile. Never let them see you sweat. Never bring shame to your family. Walk that tightrope girl. Ours was a home that was frequented by law enforcement, politicians, community leaders…I grew up conversing and relating to adults. It made me less able to relate to other kids. I had friends but wasn’t a typical kid per se. I kept a level of solitude being labeled a “brain.” It wasn’t until I got older would the playing field be leveled and deeper friendships forged. An incredible socially selective butterfly is what I term myself. It’s one of the many dualities I have.

Loyal as fuck…but when pushed…a runner. Another duality. The next time I felt alone for the absolute best was when I opted to leave the mainland for college and move across the ocean to Hawaii. I was drowning. If I didn’t make a run for it, who in gods name would know what could have happened to me.

I was working full time 40+ hours between Starbucks, The Tutoring Club as well as had my own tutoring company. Somewhere in there I went to school full time. My boyfriend at that time was going to vocational school and felt he couldn’t work and concentrate on school so I worked for us both. Well… us both and his young brother we had taken the responsibility of.

I applied to school in Hawaii secretly. The day my acceptance letter came I told the boyfriend, he was on his own. I had to do this for me and I…ran. I didn’t look back.

I was alone…finally but strangely didn’t feel alone. I felt happy, fulfilled, independent.

As fate would have it, my grandfather would need my help and I didn’t get to finish school in Hawaii. I left the life I was utterly in love with and came home to be the dependable one. Old habits die hard. I ended up engaged, cohabiting and back to my old self destructive life. The one I had so desperately wanted to run from before. I convinced myself I was happy. I convinced myself I wasn’t lonely since I was with someone. I got so busy trying to be everything to everyone in my life that before I knew it, seven years passed. That time is a blur. Marriage, bought a house, lost the most important person in my life but gained a little earth angel, lost job, husband lost job, pulled every ounce of strength I had in my being, put my head down and hustled my ass off. 2015, after turning down a buy out of my company I looked up and took a breath and found myself incredibly lost…alone and lonely.

Let me be incredibly honest about something. I was ALONE those entire 7 years. Even with someone standing near me during that time. I just didn’t have the time or Luxury to feel lonely. When he lost his job he crumbled. Reduced to ash. FUCK-N-A…here I go again. Let me pick up all these damn pieces myself and put them back together again.

Never mind back on December 26 2008 my own heart shattered into a million pieces and my soul drifted away for a good 9 months. A few pieces were restored after Jaiden came into this world but I’d be lying if I didn’t say It wasn’t fully restored. After a loss like that you never quite go back to being the same, you just learn to adapt.

The day we had my grandpa’s services I went alone…lonely and lost as fuck but with a plastic smile plastered over pure devastation.

The politician was gone but the granddaughter still had a role to play.

My counterpart grew up in an abusive and toxic environment and he just doesn’t know how to support someone. I know that now. Then…it broke my heart even more. The ideals I held for a healthy marriage were already fractured, a whopping three months into marriage.

*SNAP*

Back to present day and over ten years later.

So much has happened, yet it feels like 18 years went by in the blink of an eye. I didnt always feel alone and lonely. For the important stuff…for the shit that mattered…I found I was always left on my own. I fought like hell for so many years, in so many situations…utterly alone.

My ex would joke and always call me a red nosed pitbull. He would joyfully watch me lock my jaw on something and fight until whatever it was, was rendered lifeless. I didnt have a flight response. It was ALL fight.

Bring physically present isn’t being a supporter. That’s being a spectator. Even makes you the sick fuck benefitting from the dog fight at some point. But companion? Nope. Not in the least.

He never once fought for me. Not…Once. I’ve racked my brain lately. Trying to find one instance. Just one that proved that he was in this as much as I was. Nope. Can’t find one. But then again, how could he ever fight for me. For the longest time he wasn’t even willing to fight for himself. A little under two years ago he started to fight…but solely for himself. J and I were on our own. Ego is a bitch…but only if you are.

When it came to the vanity of the relationship and the benefits he was there. When going got tough…the tough went it alone while the spectator pointed out where the strong stumbled and could do better.

Alone…lonely…became a way of life.

Almost two years ago I started traveling by myself for my business. At first it felt odd. Oh my god was I going to be looked at like a freak and judged for eating alone? Would something as social as having a meal be lonely?

No. On all levels no. Traveling alone became something I looked forward to. It beat being alone and lonely in someone’s presence. There is a sense of peace and even confidence I get from being lost in a crowd.

When I have a meal alone I can enjoy it. Not listening to impatience, judgements about those surrounding me, perpetual negativity. I fell in love with being alone again. Alone but far from lonely. There is an absolute confidence in being alone and being genuinely secure in that space.

I’ve said it a million times but I love being lost in the moment alone in New York. It’s my favorite thing to walk the streets alone any time of the day or night, lost in my playlist and just plain smiling and singing along like a fool. It’s empowering. I feel like I can move mountains and scale skyscrapers. I thought perhaps it’s easier to be secure in alone in a bustling place Like New York. It’s the truth. It is. However learning to be alone in a place pegged as a family or romantic destination takes a perspective check for sure.

Enter my trip to Maui last week, all alone. Maui, where we got married. Maui, where we’ve had so many family memories it’s hard to fathom ever enjoying it the same post war. Im glad I was wrong.

Everything in life is dependent on personal perspective. I know it sounds simple but it is just that simple. Emotions are what complicates our perspective. Easier to stay uncomplicated when your emotions are near non-existent. Trust me I’m not heartless, I’ve just been strung out for far too long to have not gained some realistic perspective.

On this trip, aside from business, the mission was to find my Maui again. The islands had been mine before I included him. I invited him into my world. A world that existed before him and will exist without him. That I know for sure.

Sitting at the highest point on the island, watching the sun rise through the clouds was restorative to my soul. It wasn’t just the sunrise. The entire journey was reflective of life up until now. The road up to the top was long, dark, shrouded with switchbacks and unanticipated road hazards. Had I not ran my ass to the summit, with less than ideal conditions of thin air and steep climbs I would have missed that moment that gave me solace of the sun peeking up over the clouds…a new day dawning. Reflective of the hope I felt for mine and J’s future. I had to pull the lead out, leave my excuses and make a run for it. I didn’t stop to think or settle. I ran my ass towards what I felt in needed and once I was seated, happily on my favorite rock, as the sun rose a part of me snap back Into place. Like…”oh there you are…we’ve missed you…welcome back.”

I was alone but far from lonely. I have my baby girl and my soul restored to the most complete level that it’s been since it was shattered nearly eleven years ago.

Being alone is good for us. It allows us time to reflect and keep our wits about us. Some people never find comfort in alone. Some need companionship like they need oxygen. There ain’t nothing wrong with that. We are all different creatures who need different things.

I am strong and content in alone. I am because I’ve learned to be. I’ve been alone at the hardest milestones in life. I’ve done life alone with someone standing near me. It’s exhausting. It’s elusive. It’s a cruel lie that I refuse to tell anymore. Do I want to be alone forever? No way. Who does? I am actually a super social person. I LOVE people. But I absolutely refuse to go through life alone & lonely with an anchor latched to my ankle and call it companionship because that is what is assumed.

My time is reserved for those who bring value. People who support me. People who hold a mirror to my face and lovingly call me out on my shit but don’t judge. People who will tell me the god honest truth. People who I could joke with one minute, have a deep conversation with the next and then sit comfortably with in complete silence. These are the people who make you feel fulfilled. I have spent 18 years of my life trying to translate my soul to someone who never saw me for who I was. True relationships exist when you don’t have to translate your soul and spend your life walking on eggshells.

I have a lot of these people in my life now. They’ve been there…just hidden and intentions manipulated by the anchor I have untethered myself from. Waiting patiently…and for that patience and grace I know I will never be alone and lonely in this life again. These are my people…and I love them dearly.

Ideal Conditions

Hold on…wait until the next wave comes in then I’ll paddle out. The sets keep coming. There isn’t a major break. So you wait, and you wait…and wait some more. The ideal condition never comes and before you know it you’ve grown defeated, you pack up your board and say you’ll try again tomorrow. Perhaps the conditions will be more ideal then. But here’s the thing about that tomorrow you idealize…it will never come.

Ideal conditions are only that. Ideal. They exist strictly in your imagination. They’re perfect and entirely unachievable. We love them though. We love them because they’re the perfect little scapegoat. As long as we’re “waiting” for these perfect little conditions of whimsy to happen we buy ourselves excuses. Excuses to not seize opportunity. Excuses to ignore our dreams. Excuses to not lend ourselves to love. Excuses to not live that big life we would, if only the conditions would be ideal.

I know all about ideal conditions. Prefabricated excuses NOT to do something out of pure fear. Comfort is ideal right? But is it?

We become comfortable enough in life to convince ourselves we’re happy…content…secure. But are we really that comfortable? Depends on the person. All of us have ambitions and our “ideal” life. Not any one model is right. It’s what’s right for us. Based on our own wants, desires and joys we find out of life.

Compound that crazy web of weights and measures between wants and responsibility with those of another person that you’ve decided you love enough to make a life together and comfort takes on a whole other shape…for some of us.

Are you comfortable in lying in wait for your own “ideal conditions” or someone else’s? If you’re truly evolved you’re usually lying in wait for a collective list of “ideal conditions” which seem to get longer as life evolves and adds more responsibility. That finish line becomes further and further away. Sometimes you can’t even see it, it’s so far away. Sometimes it disappears altogether. It’s when this happens, I believe that is when people just plain give up.

Giving up can be either a good thing or a very bad one. When we meet this threshold we could either give up on life and give in. Or…we can give up our “ideal conditions” and say…Fuck it, I’m done waiting.

I am the queen of ideal conditions…excommunicated. 17 months ago some harsh realities smacked me across the face. My ideal conditions weren’t even my own. I had adopted a way of life that the 16 year old me, the 21 year old me and the 27-31 year old me would have said…”Da fuq are you doing girl?”

I didn’t even recognize who I was anymore. Some fucking robot in someone else’s idea of what perfect should be.

Fetching, compliant, unnecessarily apologetic. The dynamo who once was a twice published writer, aided in rebuilding a depressed Bay Area housing market, known by local police enforcement as a bad ass, young budding start up acquisition, who acted first and asked for forgiveness later had been reduced to ash.

It wasn’t just him. Life had made a point of making me strong since birth and after high school life was on a mission to make me superhuman strong, like I should be able to bench press a Buick strong.

At this moment of realization I decided that the road that brought me to this point was a long one. The road out wasn’t going to be nearly as long, the way the real me drives, but it was going to be tumultuous. Hold on baby…it’s going to get rocky.

It has been. 17 months down since I made the decision to make some significant changes, that started with me first, because you can’t fix a situation until you fix yourself first.

I’ve found “fixing” me isn’t the correct framing. Working on ourselves is a lifelong journey and we have to find someone who likes who the real us is and will support who we want to become.

Mine doesn’t like who I am. Who I truly am. Too much of a whole lotta shit he doesn’t want in a partner. He wanted me but only the way he wanted me but funnily enough the more I tried to become that the less and less he respected me. So 7 months ago I decided to go it alone. Oldest lesson in the book for women learned.

My “ideal conditions” are my own. They’re detached from anyone else’s now. It’s gotten to the point where they’re nearly non-existent. Responsibility and safety aside. I want to be that model for my daughter who shows her, not tells her, to face fear and do things in spite of “ideal conditions.”

There is always a chance we could get hurt. Broken bones heal. So do broken hearts. Scars remain but they are the indicator that we showed up for life.

To live in a state of paralysis to make someone else secure and happy is just plain suicide. When you’re staring down the barrel of your own undoing to appease someone else you have to decide…is it going to be me or them? I choose me…All…fucking…day…long. Do me a favor, choose you. Choosing them first will never make them respect you. It has the reverse effect.

If you won’t choose you. Who will? You have to choose yourself first before you can make anyone else happy. Whole on your own. Then realize happiness is unobtainable for some mindsets or for some happiness is found in misery.

So what now? Now…I say paddle. I have been paddling against the waves for the last year or so. It hasn’t been ideal but I’ll tell you it’s making me strong. Stronger than I’ve ever been marked by many moments of weakness.

Moments of weakness are necessary. They’re proof that you’ve been strong for too long.

They’re usually followed by reckless abandon…when I get my nerves about me, bear down and duck dive underneath a massive wave just to pop out on the back end out of the impact zone and in the calm.

Some days that sleeper wave comes out of nowhere and wipes me out…but you get back on that board and keep paddling knowing damn well you’re going to get rocked again at some point but it sure beats standing on the shore wishing conditions were ideal enough to truly live.

Self Graciousness

Losing those who we learn the most from in life is pretty much a double edged sword. If they accomplished their lives work where we are concerned they’ve taught us how to not just survive, but thrive in our own lives. They worry about us. They give us tough love when we need to learn the hard lessons, so that when disappointment or loss happens we know how to take our lumps gracefully, acknowledge where we failed and come back stronger. What they don’t teach us, is how we’re supposed to live, without them. Or so I thought.

Yesterday marks 10 years to the date that my “Superman” (Grandpa and for intents and purposes, the man who raised me in wake of the sudden death of my dad, four months before I was born) left us.

Reading back from the blog post I wrote 10 years ago I can feel the sting from the words written. It was the closest to an out of body experience I’ll probably ever experience. It was if my world had stopped spinning. I still feel that it did. I was helplessly lost. Not knowing what to think or feel. I knew that the day he left us there would be a rupture in my space-time-continuum.

It’s not like I was dependent on him. He saw to it that I wouldn’t be. But the thing is, he’s the closest to a soul mate I would ever have. We were cut from the same cloth. We spoke the same language. Both so passionate about the things that mattered most in life. Conversations were always high level. Small talk wasn’t something we did. Every single conversation left me with wisdom and new perspective. He was who I went to when I had a problem. Not because he would fix it for me or even tell me how to fix it. He would somehow always figure out a way to make me think for myself, even if it meant silence with an expectant look and time for me to hear myself and find my own solution.

Much more, he was the cornerstone of our family. If he wasn’t there, who would counsel the chaos? I already grew up feeling responsible for my big brother because he needed someone to be extra strong for him. I felt protective of my mom. She was strong but in some ways her strength was over abundant and what I perceived as a facade. She needed looking after. Her heart was so badly damaged and the dogma from losing my dad at such a young age and with such trauma, she needed my strength as well. With my strength divided amongst us three most of my childhood, then split my remaining third between my husband and his young brother, I helped raise, my strength was renewed frequently through visits with my Grandpa. He kept my faith alive and was my sounding board.

Imagine not just losing the person but losing your sole renewable source of faith and strength. That would be enough to make you feel like your world has just spun off its axis and crashed into oblivion. It is the loneliest feeling in the world, and that alone carried enough weight to crush your soul.

Looking back now, at the last ten years, I have to shake my head in disbelief. Here all this time I’ve told myself I would never survive without him. That somehow I would just lay down and die too.

That is so far from what I actually did though. In the past ten years I’ve have admittedly experienced some of the biggest losses, acts of disloyalty from people I never thought would be capable of hurting me or letting me down the way that they did, some of which as recent as this year. I’ve come close to losing everything I had (which wasn’t much at the time but to me it was the world), I’ve defended what I spent years trying to build from some of the most formidable entities and come out just and victorious.

I’ve raised a beautiful, in vanity as well in heart, little girl. A girl who is as creative and imaginative as she is brilliantly book smart. A girl with the most giving and gentle heart but the mental toughness of a warrior.

I’ve built a half billion plus, sellable real estate business. Had the opportunity to turn down a buy out offer from the largest real estate holdings company in the world so I could keep my name and what I built sacred.

I’ve built a private equity company that has taken major risks and has been handsomely rewarded for going against the grain and seeing opportunity where others see ruins. A company poised to go global next year.

I’ve built a reputation across the nation as a leader in business, leadership and most recently, global economic speculation. I see the respect given by most for being who I am. Honest to a fault. What you see if what you get, but in a world of “fake it til you make its” I recognize that real recognizes real.

So It just plain slapped me in the face yesterday…all this time I’ve been telling myself that I couldn’t make it without him and I’ve been doing the exact opposite.

He did teach me how to live, and he absolutely did teach me how to live without him. I was just so caught up in my grief to notice and give myself what I needed the most…Grace.

So today, ten years down the road, in lieu of my typical tear ridden idolization and recant of all that I lost when this man who taught me how to live, I choose a different avenue.

I acknowledge my own intense strength and perseverance. I relish in the love, respect and care I give to those who come into my life. I celebrate the wins I have made and even the losses incurred, as they too have made me wiser and even more understanding. With gratitude I am thankful for the patience for others, who unlike me, may not feel comfortable being vulnerable in their lowest moments in hopes others reading this would think “Thank god I’m not alone for thinking or feeling this way.” Finally, I rejoice in the grace I have found for myself. To not be so hard on myself all the time so that I can give some credit where credit is due, that despite me thinking all these years that the man who taught me how to live, didn’t prepare me for how to live without him, actually did. I just couldn’t see past my grief enough to give myself credit for it.

I will always miss him. The depth of grief experienced is a mere reflection of the love that was there. I am eternally grateful to have even experienced that kind of love in my lifetime.

If you’re going through this yourself…Remember to be kind to you. It gets easier but I never fully goes away. It’s ok to be sad, just don’t unpack and live there. That’s not what your loved ones would have wanted.

Blank Stares

Many take for granted the value of a memory. Until it’s gone.

I came to understand this value at a very young age, in relativity to life span. This is probably where my tenacity of experiences over “things” for our daughter is such a strong hold though I never really thought about it until this week.

Hearing Jay Allen’s “Blank Stares” brought forth a great amount of reflection this week after hearing it for the first time. I have, what seems like a never-ending brigade of stories and starts that pertain to what I consider the largest loss in my life, which was my Grandfather. His loss was monumental due to our connection but also because it was sudden.

By the time my Grandmother passed, it was 15 months after his demise but so much of her seemed to die slowly starting years prior.

Many times, when you’re in the middle of struggle you don’t have time to collect and deal with your thoughts. You’re just clinging to the now and trying to get theough the days as they come at you. Such was life once I made the momentous decision to abandon my college ambitions and come home to help my Grandpa with my Grandma and her rapidly advancing dementia.

Her dementia started years before her fall. I’ll never forget the day I realized her eventual fate and it came from the smallest exchange.

My husband (boyfriend at that time) and I had gone over to my grandparents house to visit. My grandma ran to the kitchen and was so excited to show us what she had gotten at Costco. She comes over with individually wrapped Rice Krispies Treats. I sort of looked at her blankly because it just struck me as odd more than anything. I wasn’t ready to jump to conclusions.

She said, “Look at these! They’re delicious.”

Me: “Uhh Grandma, you used to make these for Chris (my brother) and I for after school treats all the time when we were little! Like practically every week.”

She looked confused and said, “Ive never made these in my life.”

I looked at my Grandpa and he was focused on something else, or so it appeared. I truly think he didn’t want to acknowledge it. I see now why. He never could quite come to grips with her memory loss. I’d like to think of it as more of a perpetual optimism. Like Duke was for Allie in “The Notebook.”

When I got the call that she had fallen and broke her hip, I was walking into a Spanish class. I shouldn’t have, but the news caused me to drop where I was in the doorway. Its like the news just leveled me. I knew then something major was on its way, and it was. It was the end of October 2005.

You’d swear her hip breaking was actually pandoras box being split in two and chaos was released in her mind. The doctors said after it happened that it was somewhat typical of dementia.

By December 2005 I made up my mind that I would finish the 2006 school year in Hawaii and gear all my classes to transfer home to a commuter college so I could live close to them and drive to school and home each day. My husband and I got a house several blocks from my grandparents. Just so happened to be the same model as the first home my grandparents bought when they first came to Discovery Bay.

Her dementia was getting to the point of dangerous by then. A year after her original fall she was fading away into a different time in her life several times a day. She would revert back to her childhood most frequently. She would ask frequently, in the middle of a normal conversation, “Where are my ma and pa?” She’d ask where her brothers and sisters were. Easiest answer was to always say that they were out of the house, as most had passed on already and telling her that would be like reliving hearing the news for the first time. Very difficult for two people who root in reality all the time. (My grandpa and I). It was much harder for him to lie though. He wanted her to remember so badly he would tell her the truth and upset her because she “had to know the truth” because her hearing reality would somehow make her memory come back. It never did, and he finally started to relinquish his quest little by little.

Where Jay Allen’s song talks about how the times where the blank stares are so damaging, Id personally have to disagree. They were sadly welcomed after some of what we had to endure watching her slowly slip away from us. This next period felt like eternity because what was left of awareness left the biggest scars on my heart.

Living so close was a necessity as my grandpa’s stubborn heart did not want to relinquish Grandma’s physical presence despite the lack of her mental presence. When her sundowner episodes would ignite was the worst and they became more and more frequent. When she would go away it could take a split second and she couldn’t remember my grandpa and much worse she resorted to an intense fear of men. She would be screaming and crying thinking he was there to hurt her. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night and freak out because he was in bed with her and she didn’t know who he was. Many nights would yield visits to them 3-4 times a night.

One night, on the third or fourth call my grandpa called and was more upset than normal. When we rushed over there, my Grandma seemed to remember me immediately but not him. As she started to return to us I saw a look flash across her eyes that I’ll never forget. They were pleading. Pure anguish and pleading for me to do something. She turned to my Grandpa and sobbing started apologizing profusely. He was less receptive to her apologies this time for some reason. He excused himself from the room and I got her settled back in bed, praying she would sleep the rest of the night without incidence. I stayed the rest of the night and neither Grandpa or I slept.

He told me that she was in the middle of her sundowner episode and started to make for the back deck slider, opened the door and kept screaming that she was going to throw herself over the rail to the rocks on the levee below. I understood her pleading eyes at that moment. She wasn’t out of it by that point. She came to and saw his anguish and wanted to end it, by taking her own life.

Physically she could never succeed at this. She was tiny, frail and lacked muscles to even jump much less hurl herself over. Nonetheless it became a frequent response when she would come to and see how her episodes would affect my grandpa. His ability to be fully transparent worked against him in this regard. The emotional torture of the eyes pleading to help her end her life were far more damaging than the blank stares that would come next.

A few months later Grandma would have a stroke that would finally lead my grandpa to come to grips with the fact that he could not keep her with him anymore. She became wheelchair bound and would need to be in an intensive memory care unit. She slowly slipped into becoming mentally present less and less. But such was a joyful day when we would walk into the community room and she would smile and her feet would tap excitedly to see her best friend. My grandpa would visit her religiously. Always bringing something to her from home. Flowers and tomatoes from their garden made her the happiest.

He left us in the wee hours of morning after Christmas 2008. My world stopped spinning and all I could think of was thank god for the blank stares. I don’t think she could ever handle knowing he had gone. Once in awhile she would come to during a visit and ask where Grandpa was. For the next 18 months that she lived, he was always in the garage, working on a project in his wood working shop. She never stayed with us long enough to question it.

A year after his passing I remember bringing Jaiden to meet my grandma. She was three months old by then. I remember everything about that day, including her outfit.

She had on a pair of OshKosh jeans with the little ruffles around the ankles. Red converse. A white turtleneck and a red Christmas sweater with a gingerbread girl on it.

I remember taking her out of her infant seat to show her to grandma. Blank stares. I held her in my lap, sitting in front of her for about 30 Minutes, just talking to her about being a mom and all of the things I could tell her about Jaiden. When it seemed like she would not be coming to that day, I stood up to put Jaiden back in her infant seat and grandma exclaimed…”Don’t put her back! I want to look at her some more.” That memory lives vividly in my mind.

Our memories. So precious. Taken for granted by so many. Some may think, “jeez does this girl have any happy stories!” Sure I do. Plenty of them. It’s the not so happy ones though that bring about the most reflection.

I constantly ask myself, “Would I be the person I am today if I had never experienced such rough life lessons?” The answer is unclear.

However I can say that I can appreciate the relationships I had and have based on the ones I have lost. I can appreciate my memories and experiences in life because I have had to be the one to hold onto them when others could not. I appreciate my memories because I still have the ability. We often truly don’t know the value of a memory, until they’re lost forever.

Toy Soldiers

My dad loved toy soldiers. You know, the little green plastic ones. He loved them so much apparently he was buried with a bunch, they were tucked into his coffin by a cousin of mine. I am certain of that.

There’s not much more that I am certain about when it comes to my dad.

I know: He was a U.S. Marine. He was crazy in love with my mom. That he always wanted a daughter, so much that my brother’s name was supposed to be Christine Michelle…not Christopher Michael. He was a big kid at heart. That he would do absolutely anything for his family, even if it meant compromising himself. He was misdiagnosed and killed by the ignorance of western medicine.

I know these things to be absolute truths, because these are common stories that I’ve heard growing up, no matter who the narrator was.

Now this isn’t going to be a story about how I struggled to find myself through life because my father was missing from it. It’s a part of my story, a part of my journey but while anyone could imagine, not having my dad present in my life was never the hardest part. As of recent I’ve finally been able to pinpoint what the harshest reality has been growing up out of such trauma and it’s that I will never know my own father based on my own perspective.

Much like the toy soldiers my dad loved so much, that is what growing up with nothing but the perspectives of others has been like. Watching someone else hold that toy soldier in their hand and talk for them, and about them. Different hands, different people, different perspectives. All living with their own forms of guilt, regret and anguish.

Now I’m not going to sit and pretend either side of my family is saintly by any means. But what I can say is that I learned who I wanted to be based on what I saw in between my three families. I definitely learned who I DIDN’T want to be watching the mistakes from my older cousins, step-siblings and through the stories we were candidly told about the family in general.

One thing I can appreciate is the truth and candidness of my family. No one ever tried to gloss over the truth and that absolutely helps credibility but that guilt/remorse is still a sonnuva-B that shrouds an unknowing person’s depiction.

My Grandfather, (Dad’s dad) was apparently known as Uncle Bear. As in he had a temper and you never wanted to catch that temper. I was also told that my grandparents liked to drink. Mix the two and you’re just asking for trouble. Apparently when my dad was young, my grandfather and my grandmother were fighting, my grandfather apparently struck her and to stop him from going much further my dad, who was only 10-12ish, went to my grandfather’s truck, grabbed his gun, ran back to the house and pointed at my grandfather and told him that he was never going to lay a hand on anyone in that house again. It’s my understanding that he never did again, and that drinking became a distant memory. I never saw my grandpa Hal with a drink in his hand growing up. I only saw this temper people spoke of once as an teenager and it was momentary and not directed at me. He will forever be the crazy prankster who used to always tell me that I was beautiful like my mama, poke me in the ribs and walk away, make up stories about my grandma within earshot just to piss her off and torture the “boys” my cousins by waking them up tickling their noses with dental floss after he ran and picked up donuts for us all.

It’s because of this I take what my grandfather spoke of my dad to be pretty legitimate. He talked about him with such pride. Pretty much everyone did, but that’s the thing about guilt…it makes you appreciate those you may not have necessarily appreciated enough when they were living to the point where you end up making them into a saint. To really know someone, I feel you have to know the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s all apart of our collective being.

My aunt Colleen was my dad’s twin sister. She talked about him the most. You could tell that they were twins, because the connection didn’t die when he did. When he passed she had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized. She wasn’t as strong mentally as my dad and my uncle. I remember loving my “Auntie Ma” the most growing up. She would always play Barbie’s with me, it’s like she was almost childlike herself. Come to find out as I got older, that is indeed where she was mentally, even until the day she passed.

The three oldest kids weren’t shy to beatings. I had it explained to me once as I got older and went into college that my aunt’s mind pretty much shut down development 12 or younger as a defense mechanism to abuse. She would tattle, argue and become affixed on one concept, much like a child. I got to a certain age, and started to “out grow” her mindset. I was confused for a long time until I started majoring in psych myself until I started to put the pieces together, then came nothing but understanding and figuring out to manage a healthy relationship with her.

She always used to tell me about how my dad would pick on her as a kid. How they would fight like cats and dogs but that when he got older he may have still picked on her, but she felt he protected her. Her son would be one of the closest people to him, as my mom and dad cared for him from time to time when she would take off. He is the one who buried him with his toy soldiers. Drugs and mental illness is a molotov cocktail.  So obviously, this narrative on these stories were a little more far fetched, patchy and guilt ridden.

My mom’s parents, never really spoke of my dad. I think they felt that was my mom’s place to talk about him. But she didn’t. We cannot judge those for their decisions if we’ve never walked a day in their shoes. I’ve only ever tried to put myself in her shoes and it wasn’t until I had a family of my own did I ever come to peace with the fact that she couldn’t, and to this day, struggles to talk about him. It’s like dealing with PTSD. No doubt living through watching what happened to him physically due to human error and then having to be the one to make such a decision at such a young age to take the love of your life off life support facing life alone with two small babies…it gives me anxiety just thinking about it. I cannot or will not say how I would have handled that because I physically cannot fathom it.

This is the god’s honest truth…when I was a kid I used to believe it was a typical family structure to live with your grandparents. I had such a secure family life that I never questioned why I did’t have a dad. I did not go wanting for what I didn’t have. My childhood was very secure in my mom and grandparents.

When I would visit my dad’s family I was always wondering…”Who is this Brad they keep referring to?” Which leads me to the only real life experience I have had with my own dad…

When I was 3-4 years old, I woke up in the middle of the night. The headboard of my bed was on the wall that ran into the doorframe. I saw a man standing in my doorway, he was just starting at me. It was a big, tall man. I thought it was my grandfather for minute, it started moving closer, my eyes focused and I screamed my head off. My mom came running through the doorway and he poofed into thin air. I didn’t tell anyone what I saw for quite a long time.

We didn’t keep pictures of my dad out at my grandparents house. One day I was visiting my dad’s family and a picture captured my eye. It was the man who was standing in my doorway that night when I was younger. I asked my grandpa who that was and he told me, it was my dad. Brad.

All of the points started to connect. I was scared. Not like I thought he was ever there to hurt me. Scared of the unknown. He was a stranger to me. I really didn’t know anything about him. All those stories I’d heard before were talking about a guy named Brad. Never did it dawn on me that Brad was my father and now that’s who I figured out had visited me that night.

I have seen or felt my dad’s presence a number of times in my life. More so when I was a child. I swear children have a better sense of these things. We as adults get busy, our minds fill with responsibilities and worry and we leave no room for these moments to be revealed anymore or when they are we are far too busy to notice.

As I have gotten older and my mom becomes more comfortable in talking about my dad, I hear a different man in her stories than I did in his family’s stories. Theirs seemed to resort to more juvenile moments, dating him back much further than the 24 year old he was when he passed.

Being married only roughly a year and a half, with an 11 month old and a baby 4 month in utero gives a much different narrative to a man whom she felt she was going to build a family and future with. Her narrative is one of their collective hopes for the future, their struggles as a young couple and of a man trying to set himself free from the bonds of his past, demons and family to find a new future for himself and his family. I get that but it’s not how I would have seen him either if I had grown up knowing him.

When someone is missing from your life, that “Should” have been there it’s not that you struggle with who you are, or who you think you are based on who they were. The struggle comes from the loss of that connection, that relationship and what it could have been. That is the real loss. That is the real struggle.

You are so reliant on the narratives of others, who have these memories of them but who is really talking for the toy soldier? Is it a genuine story or is it one biased by guilt, wistfulness, longing, or despair? Or has time changed the narrative?

I would have liked to have known my father for who he would have been to me. No one can tell me this. It’s left to oblivion.

I would have loved to hear his voice and his laugh once, just so I could say I knew what it sounded like. I wish I could have seen his megawatt smile, just once, just so I could see it light up a room like I’ve been told it did. I wish I could known his heart and his immense love for his family, it would have made growing up a little easier. Instead, those traits must have transferred to me.

I have his heart…funny how you get things from your parents and you may have never even met them before. But I know I do. I’m the one who gives without limits or bounds. I am the one who considers all else before giving myself any consideration. I am the one who will go without, who will slight myself, who will do things in spite of myself. I feel that because I have always been this way, it is repaid to me through my successes in life. What you put out in the universe will return to you one way or another. A loss of this magnitude has the power to make someone effected rather selfish. I have always been the opposite. However, It would have been nice to be on the receiving end of our type of hearts and immense love and loyalty. Instead, I guess it is just mine to give.

Raising Peter Pan

We all know Peter Pan. He is the Forever kid, incapable of feelings and love. He lives in a place that rejects tradition and embraces an immortal lack of responsibility. He flies, with his head indefinitely in the clouds. He knows all, yet knows nothing. He defies reason. If you’re not careful, he’ll rope you in.

Lost Boy Found

One minute you’re watching his crazy antics with amusement, as he tries to catch his shadow. Before you know it, you’re following him into his world, thinking you’re going to save him from his own devices and “mother” him into an upstanding young man. Silly girl, Wendy Darling…Peter Pan will never grow up.

Expectations are at the root of all heartache. The naïveté spread through fairytales and feel good movies, always with a happy ending can leave us crippled once it gives rise to our perception of people and the real world we live in.

One of the biggest heartbreaks ever experienced in life, came from “Raising Peter Pan.” Rather, attempting to raise Peter Pan took me from age 18 to 25 in the blink of an eye and forever altered my life and perspective.

“I just want my freedom and to do whatever I want…I’m over 18 now, I just want my freedom.” Those are words that I will never forget. They were uttered as he kept his eyes affixed to his dirty shoes, standing next to his black garbage bag of belongings on my pristinely clean carpet in our new house. Over 18? He was a kid. God knows he isn’t as mature as his brother and I were at his age when we had decided to start working for and paying for his clothing, private tutoring (he was so far behind in his education when we got him and he had done little since he joined independent study to finish his education. But he thinks he’s “grown?” No driver’s license, because he hadn’t earned that privilege in our home by finishing school.

Of course he wanted to go live with his dad. There were no standards. No rules. He could smoke, drink, drive illegally without a license, he didn’t have a curfew, who he was hanging out with wasn’t being monitored. Why would he not want to live with his dad? His dad is infamously the original Peter Pan, 50 something and stunted at what seems like 12 and here I was, 8-9 months pregnant and the only thing that kept me from knocking his teeth out for smoking weed in our brand new house was the fact that his brother got in between us as I swung on him.

What was left of my heart (which was broken nearly 9 months prior having lost my grandfather and favorite person in the world blasted to pieces when I found this kid who would frequently joke around in stores and call me “Mom” to freak the sales people out thinking I had a kid at like 9 years old, would be so disrespectful to be smoking and doing drugs in our house. A house his brother and I worked our asses off for.

Something he’d witnessed….Witnessed…witnessed the hard times and dirt under our nails from clawing our way to where we had climbed despite the constraints of raising a teenager as kids ourselves. He witnessed it, but still “wanted his freedom.” It occurred to me then, that nature and early nurture…beat the living hell out of 8 years of support, structure, love and sacrifice we had laid before this kid. He didn’t care…and I did. Then, rage….this little mother fucker has no idea what I’ve given up for him and I’m not even blood. Fuck him…my heart hardened into stone, or at least I thought.

That was the way it’s been. I’ve seen him on the street a time or two. Strung out of his mind. I drive past and pretend it doesn’t bother me. Deep down my heart lurches every time I drive by where he’s known to roam. When I go awhile without spotting him I wonder if he’s overdosed or been killed because he’s gotten in over his head owing money.

When my husband finally broke his denial about his brother being a meth addict, we approached him about treatment. Sentiments echoed were the same as before, Peter Pan wanted his freedom and his freedom only. Freedom gave him his addiction. So freedom is where he laid his future. We are not qualified to help a drug addict. I’m not trained to do so. But it’s always been there, that if he willingly enters treatment we will help him however we can. A hand up, not out.

So of course, a few weeks ago when I got a call from an unknown number after a few years of radio silence, a half hour of apologies, regret and telling me that we were right and everything to him that he wished he hadn’t been so cocky about as kid…everything he thought I’d WANT to hear and I took that bait. Hook, Line and Sinker.

I was just so happy to hear his voice. I was relieved that he was alive. My optimism was reborn…until my husband spoke to him and found out he was still using. He told me he wasn’t. My husband didn’t buy any of the bs. Still I was convinced we could help him…until hit with the biggest apparent reality that made so much sense but wasn’t even a thought in my head until I was smacked with it.

“Always gonna fly away, just because you know you can. Never gonna learn theres no such place as Neverland, you don’t understand. Never gonna grow up, you’re never gonna be a man…Peter Pan.” ~Kelsea Ballerini

“One thing that you need to wrap your mind around, Mrs. Caballero, Is that the boy you raised isn’t there anymore. He’s long gone. You don’t know what he’s done for drugs, on drugs, because of drugs…you cannot think for a moment that he hasn’t been changed for life. Meth changes your brain chemistry and makes the addict engage in risky behavior. Behavior that could ultimately hurt your family in the long run if you aren’t very careful. He could have contracted HIV depending on his method of use. He could be violent. Meth addicts can be sexually promiscuous and forceful. You just don’t know.” KILL SHOT. to my confidence.

Reality comes crashing down. I see my daughter, her safety, her innocence. Decision made in that instant. She’s our gift from god. If I even thought for a moment that she could be compromised in any way from bringing this force back into our lives the answer would always be, “No.”

My husband. He lets me talk through what I need to walk through with him then tells me that even if I had never come to those realizations he would never allow it. He makes me realize that we don’t owe anyone anything. We gave ourselves fully for years. Decisions were made. We were shown no care or respect for our sacrifices. We moved on. We will stay that course as we’ve sacrificed way more than we ever should have for any one or four persons.

Everyone else…they made their beds and they can lie in them.

Peter Pan hasn’t been heard from since my husband laid down boundaries. No doubt he’s off, wandering Neverland looking for his next adventure. That lost boy, will always have a piece of my heart. I will always love and care about him, but I can’t want a lifestyle change for him more than he wants one. I optimistically hold onto hope that one day this lost boy will find himself and make every sacrifice, tear and heartache worth it. All I want is to see him clean…healthy…and happy, with a family of his own someday but I know that he will have to be the one who says when.

“Deep down I knew that you, were too good to be true. Every decent part of me, wanted to believe in you. Now it’s happily ever never, guess now I know better. You’re just a lost boy, with your head up in the clouds. You’re just a lost boy never keep your feet on the ground.” ~Kelsea Ballerini