(warning: This content was 100% Human written, if too much realness is bad for you, do not read)
I have worn many different hats, different roles, I have lived many lives. I was once a child in Venezuela, a person. Then I was an immigrant in South Florida, in my new country I learned to view myself as an other, I was "different" Now I was a "Latino", "Hispanic" before then I never thought about my identity based on my culture, but then I learned about what that meant, that I was not "white". Then at 18 I did not just join the Marine Corp, I became a Marine, there's a difference. Later on I became a "war veteran" and to the Federal government I was a "disabled veteran" thanks to PTSD and loud explosions aimed at ending my life.
All my life, for as long as I can remember I just knew that I wanted to be a father and a husband. I don't remember ever deciding, it was sort of the thing you were supposed to do, grow up, get an education, get married, have kids, those kids then will go and do the same as the parents, they will also grow up, learn a profession and also get married and have kids. Never questioned it, it's how it is.
In 2002 I became a husband, less than six months before putting my boots in the Iraqi soil and taking part in an American history fiasco. In 2005 my wife made me a father to Jolyne, then in 2007 again, a father to Gaby.
This year I will no longer be a husband. Martha and I are splitting up.
All my life I used to think that if you were married it meant you were successful and, if you were divorced, something was broken, you were unlovable or had a dysfunction. Divorcees were losers, not good, married people, they got their shit together.
Now I know, that those two things happiness and marriage don't always go together. Martha and I were struggling for a while, but we both really wanted things to work, we tried to stay together, we really did. At the end it did not work out. Ending it is what we both want, we both agree that going our separate ways is the best for everyone.
There were many happy moments, in fact I'm willing to say that if you were to count the minutes we were married I'm willing to bet more than 90% of those were happy times at least not miserable. I should not be speaking for Martha on that assessment but I want to believe she'd agree.
But we had our issues and we were not able to resolve it. I take ownership of triggering the end of the marriage, but at the end she had the last word and I respect that.
Going forward, I am going to spend all the energy I had invested in trying to salvage the relationship back to me, I thought that if I made my wife happy then I would be happy, now I know that's a mistake. I am now focused on making myself happy, with the understanding that nobody can do that for me, but me.
I no longer think that I have to be in a relationship to be happy, I used to have this deep fear of loneliness and dying alone and all of that. Today that's not a fear I have, I look forward to being my own person again and forging my own path, I am going to do whatever I like to do because I want to and because I like it, only. I'm no longer going to do anything in order for somebody else to like me or approve of me, because I realized that wanting approval, love, affection validation from other people without approving, loving and validating yourself first is a recipe for toxic relationships.
As far as roles, hats and shoes, I will always be a father, with my own repertoire of dad jokes, infinite unconditional love for my girls, and my full presence, they are my first priority always. Thankfully, they are both well-adjusted adults. I want to believe we did a good job in raising two amazing human beings, Kudos to Martha for fiercely protecting our girls from potential threats and bad situations. I'd like to think we set a good example in that front.
In the near future I am going to be focused on healing, grieving the loss, owning my mistakes, and then finding my way, my plan is to live well, to find happiness, meaning and purpose not on external things or achievements but in how I am engaged in the moment.
I really like my profession, my career as a software engineer has been rewarding (emotionally and financially) but that's not all that I am. Yes, I am a brown immigrant from a hispanic country to my fellow Americans of the caucasian kind, but that's just a fraction of who I am, same goes for being a Marine, a grunt that can still fire every weapon in the NATO arsenal and can still run 5 miles without collapsing. The infantry grunt is still there but it's also a fraction of who I am, the war in Iraq made it so that I cannot forget that phase in my life, but again, that's not all there is to being me.
I've been thinking about that, what is my purpose, how do I give meaning to my life?
I can tell you a couple of things, being a father comes easy to me, reading books happens almost automatically, it's like, what I do by default? lol. I love baseball, I stopped following it every day because I was busy, busy with work, school, kids and as of late, doing everything I could to make my marriage work. Now that I have more free time, my love for baseball resurfaced, it wasn't buried too deep. I like to run and work out, I might be a bit more intentional and systematic in my personal fitness, after all, I will be 50 years old in less than 3 years so I want to live healthy so I can enjoy my time left walking this earth. Those who know me might be surprised to learn that I have a deep, wide love and appreciation for music. I want to go back to playing the piano/keyboard, maybe even play for audiences in a band somewhere. I've always wanted to learn how to dance, I've always been stiff, with no rhythm, my dancing is so bad, my latino card was almost revoked. I've always had an issue with that, and I want to do it, I know I can do it, when I was a high school freshman I was the nerdiest, skinniest, clumsy 14 year old in my high school, and someone made a remark about how "I could never make the baseball team" I set out a goal to try out for the high school baseball team and make the cut, and I did, same goes for USMC boot camp, undergraduate degree in engineering while working full time with no support from my parent, just Martha and me. Same for grad school, worked full time and went to school after work every night until I dropped dead tired on top my laptop and notes and cups of coffee. I know I can do hard things, so yes, I can learn to dance salsa, merengue and bachata to the beat.
But here's the thing, the real me, my life's purpose.
I've known I wanted to be a writer since I was an early teenager, Stephen King, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ann Frank writing her diary from an Attic in Holland all gave me not, the inspiration, but the knowledge, the certainty that I am one of them, not as talented, prolific or successful, but I honestly don't care about any of that. I have enough money to live with all my needs met, I don't really care that much what other people think about me, I am going to write for me and only me at first. If I write something worth sharing, I'll share it with the world but that's not the point, the point is that I HAVE to write, if don't write, I will burst. I am not afraid of dying alone, I am not afraid of nobody loving me or whatever. My fear is that I will die without saying what I have to say, without finding my voice. That would be the real tragedy.
So today I say, I am a writer, but I have not been writing, so I have work to do.
