Pulling apart what has intricately come together

The following piece was requested in belief that among all things some virtues are worth fighting for.

She sat there working on a vessel a few months ago and she needed a specific color of thread, but in her effort to get it out… all the threads got tangled together. Frustrated she sighs deeply and rolls her eyes. “Just what I need, more work.” She says out loud. Knowing that it was worth the work and both necessary she started the tedious work of untangling the threads one by one.

It wasn’t easy to say the least. It required slowly taking apart what had intricately come together. And though at first she felt her time would be better spent doing something else… something told her to just sit there and keep at it. After all it was her mess to fix; no one else would do it for her. And though frustrated when there was no end in sight she took a few hours to pull them all apart. All the knots and the loops, all the ties and the bonds.

And she got to thinking about honest virtues like friendships, love, and family. The things we try so very hard to hold onto. She thought of how at times our lives could get so tangled it was difficult to think of a way out.

And it’s true. Threads can be so thin and knotted that the actual task of coming undone can seem like too much work. To the point where popular belief is that it’s easier to discard and start anew with a complete different piece. It happens to the best of us. Life and its challenges can put so much strain on us and our relationships that at times it’s easier to give in and give up than begin the task of mending. And there is also the fact that sometimes we attempt with all our hearts but pull the wrong string and all of a sudden it’s double the work and double the trouble.

Mending a broken relationship is not an easy task. There are at times so many twisted lines and so many matted feelings. It might take us a long time to actually restore what has been broken. But the truth is that it’s the delicacy and the patience that we actually use to untangle ourselves that takes us to an actual solution. I suppose the real question is: “Am I willing to put forth the effort? Are virtues like friendships, love, and family worth it?”

It is said that anything worth having is worth fighting for. We have to understand that nothing in this world worth having comes easy. That it’s a rude awakening at times to learn that lesson. But in reality, sadly, we just get so trapped in this system that instant gratification is all we look for.

But the truth is value is only added to something after we realize how much worth and effort we have to put forth to gain it. And that among all things what is said is true… “The only place success comes before work is in a dictionary”.

Through the finish line

My writing comes in bits and pieces these days. I can’t quite put the words together. One thing is true, it’s the stories not spoken that we have the most to say about.

With time we all learn to cope with what is going on in our lives in different ways. We pull out our heart and invest all our time to something to get us through. Some have hobbies that they turn all their attention to. Some retire to the darkness of four walls and memories. Others search laughter in the abundance of friends and things. Quite often than not, not sure of how or why you got there but in a way accepted the reality.

I personally diverge my attention to many things. And though recovery has been long and very strained I’m finally in a place where my endurance can be tested. So on those days when everything wells up inside and I have not a way to express what I’m feeling. I blink back the thoughts. Tie my hair back. Put on my tennis shoes and I run.

Running to me is a bit freeing and truly peaceful. It leaves no room for thought. It’s just you and the open track. Breaking the wind and the space. Withstanding the time and just trying to stay focus on what lays ahead. It allows the mind to be cleared of all that is stressing so that the only thing from ear to ear is your racing heart beat and the thumping of your feet against the asphalt. The best running to me happens at midnight when the moon is high in the sky and the rest of the world is sound asleep or at the break of morning when the sun is the only one there to greet you.

Today as I did my morning run about ¾ of the running completed it started pouring rain and for a reason it stopped me dead in my track. I looked up at the sky, with my hands on my hips, breathing heavily. As if puzzled by what was happening. It’s not like I hadn’t ever seen rain, it’s not like I had never felt it on my skin, it’s not like I hadn’t noticed the sky was cloudy when I walked out of my house. But in that moment, it was unwelcomed by me; it was a distraction that startled me back to a reality. It didn’t matter the speed I ran in, or the distance I spanned I was getting wet and my step was getting heavier. I put my hands to my face and let out a deep sigh.

The thing about life is that is as surprising as unexpected rain fall. Our lives may be going at full speed, but all of a sudden a brick wall appears and it has the power of knocking the wind and the fight right out of you. We find sometimes we run a trail where the road is bumpy and the obstacles are many. Where it takes jumping over many hurdles to make it to the finish line. That there’s a startling reality when you trip over obstacles you didn’t see coming.

To be honest as I sat here writing this I began to think of everything I’ve been through in just the past 3 years. The way life changes unexpectedly, and the way the pace just gets you to the next moment. I think sometimes we forget that there is a huge difference between getting by and living.

Take my life for example. The moment I realized I was out of the woods with my health. Instead of returning to the old routine, I retracted to the minimal amount of energy. Its not that I wasn’t thankful, or that I hadn’t learned many lessons, it’s just that the fear of it all falling apart was bigger than my will to move forward. So I made the mistake of doing just the necessary to get by but not really pushing myself past it. My routine was by the book, ordinary, and plain. And in doing so it’s as if I slowed down from a full jog to a steady walk. To me it didn’t matter the pace just the fact that I was moving. Recently though something hit me like a bucket full of water. It startled me back to an undeniable reality. That life itself will not wait for you to arm yourself with courage, the clock on the wall will not wait for you to count all its seconds, or that even the people around you will not wait for you to decide to start living again. That it is an internal choice what our pace is and what we can handle but that it is also true that in setting it we can become mechanical.

It shouldn’t take a life threatening experience for us to be able to grasp what surround us, what we are capable as human beings. It shouldn’t take an ultimatum of any kind, a loss, or even a sudden down pour of things to let us know that there is life out there past it all. That the track doesn’t cease to exist when we choose to stop running. But if it happens that way, if life chooses to teach us that way, we must not take the lesson for granted.

There is no life truly enjoyed where there is no passion, where there are no risks, where there are no stories. And though it will be most of the time unwelcomed it will be what brings out the most sincere and inner person within us. That inner strength that you didn’t know you had. That voice that doesn’t whimper to a whisper.

For when you feel you have nothing left to give. No strength or breath in you. It will give you that necessary jolt, those last few or many steps to get you through to the finish line.

Love never returns void

Many years ago I wrote a piece on a dear friend of mine. At the time her story unraveled with a heartbreaking ending. But if anything remains true from that story is that she is and will continue to be the eternal optimistic… who always, always believes in love.

She paced back and forth, looking at the door and back at her watch every few minutes. She was nervous and her hands were sweating. Finally to catch a breath she sits down and lets out a deep sigh. And she closes her eyes. It’s surreal to her how years ago this was the exact same spot she last saw him. Where he promised he loved her and that love was everlasting. The last place before their story crashed and unraveled. She never thought shed be back here again after the way it ended. Years had passed and life and time had taken their toll on their story. One she thought was signed and sealed, shelved on a book case and had become dusty with time.

She got up at the sound of the announcer saying the flight had arrived. She looked down at her watch one last time. And said a quick prayer before looking up and walking right into his arms. She looked beautiful he thought. ‘Gosh I’ve missed you’ crossed her mind. But instead they just hugged and looked intently into each others eyes. It had been so long. They laughed and he held her hand as she began to speak nervously.

The next couple of days they spent pouring their hearts out. No longer spreading the blame for what happened but discussing their understanding and their true grasp of things. And just like that their hearts began to beat once again and the story they thought had ended showed instead an intermission and now miraculously a second act.

Their love had failed at a certain point. Failed so bad that it broke them both for a very long time. But here life was giving them another chance. And though statistics pointed otherwise there was love in between their gaze, in the way they talked, in the way he held her. For them love had returned once again. And a couple of months later surrounded by their closest friends they sealed their love with and I do.

We often hear the quote- “When you love someone let them go, if they return to you it means so much more”. My grandmother had her own version of it telling me often “el amor nunca regresa vacio”. Now I can’t say I am a believer of the fact that if you let someone go they will come back to you. But I do believe that love itself will never return void like my grandmother said.

I believe that we never truly hold the ending of a story… that life does. And I believe in love, in pure and honest, deep, and unconditional love. I never did, as ironic as it seems. Me the blogger of love? Yeah, I know. Till now. No, not for my own story, but for others. The truth is that love IS capable of overcoming obstacles, of forgiving deep wounds, and erasing heartbreaking tears and pain. Love is that powerful, that immense, and that glorious. And not because we are extraordinary people who extraordinary things happen to but just for the simple fact that we are blessed to feel and to need it so desperately bad to survive.

And my grandmother in her infinite wisdom is right. Love never returns void in any case. It teaches us lessons, makes our hearts a little bit stronger and our skin a little bit thicker. It pushes our boundaries and breaks down our walls. Makes pride fall into pieces and humbles us to just let it happen.

Now it would be amazing if our fates were sealed, if that person you are missing could just magically reappear and all those bridges that you burned where reconstructed, but well we all know that in our dreams of a happily ever after a dose of reality must be kept to keep a balanced point of view. But it is also true that if it happens, if love knocks on our door again whether it be with your long lost love or with a new beginning we just have to stop running and render ourselves to the most bittersweet feeling of human nature. Who knows? Life might surprise you and instead of a curtain falling and “the end” appearing… all you will have to do is turn the page.

Music and Lyrics

“Music has the power to move a person between different realities: from a broken body into a soaring spirit, from a broken heart into the connection of shared love, from death into the memory and movement of life."

Dr. Deforia Lane

I sit swinging back and forth. I haven’t been on a swing in a long time. The breeze is blowing and for a moment I get lost in yesterdays and its like I’m there again. On that old tire swing, in the middle of the courtyard, at my grandmothers ranch house. Where there is nothing to do for a girl but what is expected of her - clean and help cook. I was too young for either task so I played outside most of the time. Entertaining myself.

In the morning when all the men were gone to the fields, and all the women ever did was cleaned and cooked I sat out on the swing out of the shooing of my aunts who never seemed to stop sweeping and mopping. So swinging, very close to the opened kitchen window, while the aroma of fresh corn tortillas and my grandmothers humming filled the air.

My grandmother never sang words, just a tune. And depending her mood, the tune. I can still hear her now, humming a melody, never the words. I could never make out the songs, they were songs before my time, songs her heart new and her mind held. Songs that didn’t need words, were the melody itself was enough to make you remember. To make her remember.

At times they made her smile, at other times they made her pick up the side of her rebozo to wipe off the tears. But they were her songs. Songs from her heart, the ones that told her story.

On the nights when the moon was high and the house was too hot and dark we’d lay a blanket and sit around under the stars. The women talking and gossiping, the men relaxing and telling stories of their dreams and their ambitions. The kids running around playing and chasing each other.

But not me. I was never one for running around. Instead, you’d find me on my stomach perked on both elbows listening to their tales about lands and people I knew nothing about. And the guitar would be brought out and the singing began. And my mom would belch from her soul songs of lost loves and deception. Songs of lies and frustration. Songs of the soul that could only be cured by a bottle and the deep and hollow sounds of a guitar. It was then when I learned every sad note, and every long string. Every deep twang and every hollow lyric. Where I learned about anger, and how jealousy could kill a man. How love could overcome mountains, and sweet words could bring up laughter and joy. I learned about lost loves, and reconciliations. About mistakes and redemptions.

Today, my mother is so much like her mother that most of the time she is singing. With every chore or from room to room. She sings her songs, songs that make her smile or remember. Her sweet voice fills the room as her soul speaks the words and the melody carries the memories.

Generation through generation, every fringe of a rebozo, every string in a guitar, every open window, and every space in time has been filled with a melody that reaches deep into every corner of our souls and has the influence to move us. One song has the power to take you back to The Moment. To that place. Hearing a familiar melody can bring a sudden surge of emotions you weren't expecting to feel. One song has the power to make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you miss someone, to make you remember. Within a song you can lose yourself in memories of days gone by. Sometimes saying the things we dare not say but very much believe. Sometimes being one of the many songs on the playlist of our lives.

It's like learning to ride a bike

It’s a hot summer Texas day. The sun is shining brightly and the sky is the prettiest shade of blue and clouds as fluffy as marshmallows fill the horizon.

And there I am, sitting on the front porch, watching as my dad tries to teach my niece how to ride a bike. She’s so determined to be able to do it alone but she keeps falling over, and at one point runs right into a tree. And we get up frantically to help her every time but she just puts up her arms in the air and says “it’s okay. It’s okay. Otra ves abuelo”. And they reset and restart again. Over and over again. By the end of the afternoon she’s bruised, scraped, and very tired. But even after all that when my brother gets home she’s determined to show him what she’s accomplished. So she mounts up her bike. And proudly screams “I can do it, I can do it” just as she runs right into the fence and gets hurt.

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over expecting a different outcome. It’s in our nature to reset and restart. We are determined to prove otherwise time and time again.

Love sometimes seems a series of unfortunate events. We love, we give our all, but we still fail. We get bruised and at times scraped. We bleed and we cry. And with all we lose we can’t help but wonder if after every failure we ever truly recover? Or are parts of our hearts chipped away every time a relationship ends?

When a breakup occurs, especially the ones that leave you with eternal scars you find yourself jaded. Tired, and worn out. At times it might even seem like we’ve lost our ability to love and to be loved. We question how we get back here time and time again. We question if we’ll ever get it right.

But even when it seems like we just can’t seem to catch a break life happens and we are there again. Mounting up. Gearing up. Ready to convince anyone that we are okay. That we can reset and restart once more.

Maybe we do have to lose all our inhibitions. Maybe we do have to lose a bit of our sanity, to mark new pathways and defy all logic. Go against the current and let down all our walls. Put everything on the line to reset and restart once more. For otherwise if we don’t, if we don’t learn to get up each time we fall we will only remain shattered in pieces on the floor. Never whole again.

After a break up we are left at times so delirious that sometimes it takes us a bit to recover from the fall. Our lives might have been going at full speed, but when you run into a brick wall, it has the power to knock the wind and the fight right out of you. We just sit there looking at our lives not quite sure we remember how to get back up. But when the time comes we must wipe ourselves off, shake off the fears, reset and restart. We must mount up and hope that once we are back on it’ll be like riding a bicycle and slowly but surely it will all come back to us. And that in the pursuit of happiness we will always find a will and a way.

We try not to crash... but we still collide

It was a late afternoon, the sun was long gone and the rain was pouring. I was tired and worn out. After a long day at work the drive home seemed endless. Maybe my mind had wondered off or I just wasn’t paying attention but within seconds my car found its way to the other lane. I swerved quickly as bright headlights flashed.

There I was on a Monday afternoon, in the pouring rain, at 8 pm, completely spinning out of control. And though the wheel was in my hands I didn’t quite know where I was going. And just before I was about to hit the side rail it all stopped, my car, the sound of screeching wheels, maybe even my heart. I had come to sudden halt right before crashing.

I sat there with my eyes closed, shaking from head to toe, slowly I felt my blood rushing back in, and my heart began to beat again. I frantically looked all around me and nothing had really happened. I didn’t crash into anyone, nor made anyone crash into any one else. But if you’ve ever been in a similar situation you know you still can’t shake the feeling like you just did. Regardless I straightened up, let out a deep sigh and found my way back home.

Later that night as I was in bed going over in my head everything that had happened that day I couldn’t help but still feel shaken. I found it silly that after two years of being terminally ill many times, and having survived through all of that miraculously, my life could have ended within seconds thanks to something completely irrelevant.

But I suppose that’s life… We spend most of it trying desperately not to crash. Letting what happens not strip us down to where we have nothing left. But at times it doesn’t matter if you take all precautions, if all your air bags are turned on, sometimes we still collide.

Most of the time it happens in an instance. We make decisions that eventually lead to heart breaking consequences and we choose paths and directions that lead us down dark and rainy days. I suppose even if our whole lives were mapped out with arrows pointing us down the right paths we would still find a way to get lost. And when you hold the wheel, and you don’t know where you are going, no time or space will help the reality… you’ve lost all direction.

Reality is startling that way; it can shift the ground beneath you. Shake your faith right where you stand and make you question everything you ever thought you knew. When it comes to love, it’s no different. When love fails, especially when you had no say in the matter, you find yourself stripped and bare… left with nothing. A traveler, lost, with no sense of direction. Nothing hurts deeper than when the person that you trusted the most breaks your trust, breaks your belief system, breaks your heart. The wounds and the pain it creates is nothing you can protect yourself from. Because no matter how much you believed, how many castles you painted in the sky, and how many happy endings you found yourself writing all of a sudden it feels like you are spinning out of control. And with no end in sight… you find yourself terribly afraid.

You can’t drive away from this scene no matter how much you want to. The damage has been made. You are left exposed, trembling, and completely vulnerable to the turmoil that is deeply cutting into your heart. It is then when you will cry more tears than you’ve ever cried and feel more pain than you’ve ever felt.

There’s no real advice to how to deal with this kind of incident, every heart is different just like every situation. Many witnesses with different versions of the story. But even when we are torn to pieces, we have nothing to do but sit and wait to be made whole again. And though in the wreckage of it all we find ourselves shaken we must begin somewhere.

Through all the tears and the rain… we have to restart our engines. Look forward and hope that eventually we will stop shaking, that our blood will begin to flow, and that our hearts will begin to beat again. And that with time we will find our way once again.

Writing happy endings

I’m sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office passing the time by listening to music. But as my mind wonders off this woman’s voice, next to me, keeps rising. She is nagging at her husband like we women do. “You forgot to take out the trash. You never help me around the house. I do everything.” --- You know those one way conversations were everything is generalized and exaggerated.

At the sight of her husband not responding she asks exasperated - “If I fell off the face of the earth you wouldn’t even notice would you?”

“YEAH!” says the man loudly “Hello! You’d be on the news. “Woman who fell off the face of the earth.” I’d be on the news too! “Husband of such said woman”.” At the sound of this she starts laughing. And he gently grabs her hand and kisses it as she tells him she loves him.

And I start to think how sometimes we get so wrapped up by life and its daily strain we forget the most important things. The things we so badly try to hold on to in a moment can cease to exist. People seldom say I love you and when they do its too late or love goes.

It seems to me that from the moment we are born a time stamp is placed on our foreheads. Everything, from the moment you

take your first breath is decided by time. When you are young it feels like time is long and far. We spend our whole childhood waiting for “first moments”. When it comes to relationships - it’s no different. We spend our time waiting. Some at the end of a table waiting for a date to arrive. At the end of the phone waiting for someone to call. Or at the end of a lifetime waiting for love to appear.

Writing this I was asked to center on one piece of advice. And this is it- the thing that is so precious, so rarely grasped is what we have very little of. After facing so many life-threatening moments in the past two years, I’ve learned that time is a luxury we cannot afford to lose. And that no matter how torn things seem to be there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome as long as we still have time.

See it is true a single moment, person, can define our lives. Every person is a life experience and every story has a different ending. And you could be 8 and an “I love you” follows sharing a pudding cup. Or you can be 80 and an “I love you” follows a lifetime of commitment. But true love, deep, and honest, pure love is the only thing that will get you through all the ups and downs, all the twist and turns of a story… and therefore it should never be gambled or taken for granted. Whether it’s the love you feel for your family, your friends, your children or maybe even for that special someone in your life right now. It makes everything fall into place, every moment worth enduring at the end of the day, every story worth telling.

We all search for happiness as if it’s a moment that is sure to be outlived by the next. But what if tomorrow never comes? What if your life ended the minute you stopped reading these words? Or 5 minutes from now, maybe in 5 days or 5 years even... To be truly happy in this system, in all honesty, is not defined by the quantity of time we have but by the quality that we spend it on. But what is all the time in the world really worth if you spent all of it longing and searching, planning and hoping?

Eventually the clock will stop; a hello will be met with a goodbye. You might spend a lifetime never being able to say what you wanted to say. Never being able to love how you wanted to love. Because once a loss is eminent you have run out of time. You won’t get to say I’m sorry. Or even have time to fix what maybe, you, yourself unraveled. Life, death, its bound to happen. I’ve learned that nothing in this world makes us more powerless than death. When it happens, its over, and you have no say in the matter. You won’t get a second chance or third or fourth even. There won’t be a grain of sand left to count. And the “I could have, would have’s” in life will never even get a chance to be written.

This life is fleeting right in front of us and we have yet to find a way to be content with how we are spending it. It is said that sometimes we have to forget who we thought we were and really acknowledge what makes us truly happy. My advice to all is simple - Why must it take a drastic turn of events for us to evaluate our lives? Stop reading fairytales and watching others. Live freely and happily, love passionately and purely. Because father time waits for no one. Because life it self will not wait for you to arm yourself or even begin to waste it. It will write in pen. And that ending you thought you had every right to write will be written for you.

Round 2 or 3 or 4 or a more

I watched as with her hands she wringed the handkerchief in her hand, trying to hold back the tears. “

I feel shattered. In pieces. Like he just took my heart and let it break. And all I can do is sit here asking “what if” for both the future and the past.”

I sit there talking to a friend and listening as she’s telling me about how much her first love left her hurt and how the healing seems complicated. My friend finds herself completely jaded by her past relationship. The failure of it left her feeling unsteady, fearful, and a bit drained among other things.

Which gets me thinking if every reaction is the same when it comes to failing at love? When given a harsh blow do we lose confidence and gain fear? Are we ever really ourselves again or do we with stand the time by building up walls and dodging the punches?

I agree that love is a bit of a contact sport. Just like boxing. At the beginning of a fight both opponents seem to be completely invincible. They go in with total confidence. Both fist in the air as if they are completely sure of what is coming. Knock them down once, and if they arise, their eyes are wide open. And they frantically squirm as that confident grin turns into clenched teeth.

First loves are full of new rush of emotions, dreaming, and believing with out consequences. We learn that when it comes to love – we are only so strong. Like a boxer we have our limits. Our hearts are only so whole. First round, we give it our all. What love was, what it should feel like, what we should expect, we thought we knew. We go in with complete confidence fully devoted to the cause. But when a few upper cuts are thrown at close range they do more than cause physical damage. They make the ground beneath you shake. After receiving your first harsh blow you are never the same. It shakes your belief system right where you stand.

In boxing each opponent will do anything to come out victorious and with the least injuries as possible. In relationships we can only wish for the same. Clean breaks allow us to turn the page, move on to the next opponent. But if left with a lot of baggage even the most hopefully romantics of souls will do anything to protect their hearts for the future. But with time protecting our hearts becomes both a blessing and a curse. For even though we are no longer naïve, hanging on to every word, and or promise we also don’t allow ourselves to be completely devoted to the cause. We live in frantic fear that things might go wrong again. That every relationship is doomed to fail. So we lose valuable strength in blocking what may or may not happen.

I agree that love is capable of knocking the wind right out of you. That it has the ability to knock you down when endings unravel. That it may take a lot of time and processing to heal our internal injuries. That just like a fighter looking back we will have regrets. That we will see our mishaps and our lapse of judgments and have many “what if” questions left unanswered.

But why bow out completely when things don’t seem to go our way? Why must we allow our emotions drain us to the point that we stop believing? Regardless of the round we find ourselves in, regardless of the past, the missteps, and the occasional broken hearts there’s one thing that we must know for sure that every fight has a purpose. And past the bruised egos, the battle scars, and the statistics that point other wise - love is worth fighting for…