A Nuyorican Vision - Thoughts in Motion

So, I have officially moved. I need to categorize a lot of the posts but the blog is up and running.

The new site is http://nyricanvision.wordpress.com/

Rican and The City is also defunct due to the fact that I don't need to do a separate protected blog for personal entries.

If you subscribe to the feed on this site, please visit the new one and subscribe to the new feed.

Come over to my new home and stay for a while.

My blog will be heading to a new home soon. I changing over to Wordpress.com. There are many features that I like about Wordpress such as blog stats and the ability to make certain posts private and therefore eliminating the need for 2 blogs. One of the things that I don't care for is that the user name is the name of the blog. I had to do several tries to get a user name and finally had to take the name Rican. I, prefer, A Nuyorican or any variation of nuyorican. Also, I had to play with the url of the site until I found one available.

Either way, I will be exporting this blog to the Wordpress one soon and post the new url here. As you know the curtains need to go up and new furniture is being delivered (setting up the new blog).

See you in my new home soon.

In a previous post, I talked about a private blog titled Rican and the City and how to obtain access. I have since decided that no other persons should really read this blog. I am sorry to all those who have requested access. But the blog as become much more personal that I had intended it to be. Some of my thoughts may, at some points, spill over to this blog as in the case of the Insensitivity post below. But the deeper emotions and thoughts will be recorded in Rican and the City and remain for my eyes only.

I hope my readers understand my decision in making Rican and the City a personal journal.

Today, I did the most insensitive thing I could ever do to a person I love. I called him and left a message that really should have waited for another time. I have no explanation for doing this. All I can say is that I thought about this message prior to leaving it. I did wrestle with the insensitivity of it all. But my emotions were overpowering. I am not offering any excuses. I was wrong.

The strongest emotion that I was feeling was being pushed out of this man's life yet again. It seems to me that every single time, I become one of the "others" as opposed to one of the "us". I know there are many people who do this in life but with a long distance relationship this causes a big strain. On Wednesday, while texting I felt this distance, this "other" category that I am always put in. I decided to stay quiet due to recent events but that did not by any means made me feel as if all was OK for now. I just snapped when I saw the name that I keep seeing all the time. I just could no longer, as much as I tried, restrain myself. I guess the lack of sleep did not help me either. This name just tormented me. Plus the cavalier way in which I was basically placed in the "other" category made me to lose it. Something has to give is all that went into my head. I keep telling myself wait not now but by Thursday morning, the emotions were too strong, I put the phone down so many times but I finally did it. I finally caused the dam to break. Unfortunately, how the message was delivered was wrong. Actually, the message was never communicated effectively. How could it be when it was done illogical and in such an insensitive way? Again, there is no excuse for my behavior. None. Although, all these emotions were running amok inside of me, I am a logical adult and as such, my actions were deplorable.

So, what should I do? After much thought, I can't believe that I am now becoming so insensitive to others and their situation especially to someone I love. This is NOT me, at all. I have decided to really walk away this time and not look back nor look forward with this person. He will be completely obliterated from my life.

Update: I spoke to my friend who has known me for more than 18 years. She was extremely surprised and concerned on what would cause me to react this way. Then she actually went step by step with me on my actions and what I was thinking at each step. It was very surprising what I learned when she did this practice. My insensitivity was definitely a reaction to all of these pent-up feelings that I had - this week's and the past several months. We both agreed my actions were not my normal response to my emotions and that I was extremely insensitive due to the rage that was building. So now what? Well, I need to examine and work on a solution so that I get myself back to a healthy emotional state and prevent this from ever happening again.

I have a unique last name. Unfortunately, my father's family is scattered and it seems all over world. I know all of my mother's side of the family but my father's none.

According to my mom, my father's family came from Spain and moved to Puerto Rico. But I have found people with my last name in China, Phillipines, and Columbia. I don't think they are related to me at all. It seems that my family tree comes from at one point from Africa but history I was given is Spain - Puerto Rico - New York. But that's all I know.

So now I am in pursuit in finding my family.

Stay tune.

And if you want to know my unique last name, email at anuyorican(dot)gmail(dot)com. Maybe you can help me in my family search.

Many years ago, Cinco de Mayo, was just a reason to drink my butt off. During those years, I never even knew the full story of the event. It was just another reason to drink with co-workers or friends and get stupid.

Today, I am amazed that if it was not for Yahoo!'s border picture, I did not even remember the event. And today, I do the significance of the day. Goes to show how much my life has changed.

The song and video, We Are the Ones brings out Obama's vision in a very powerful way. But is Obama becoming America's Jesus?

For some Hispanics and Blacks, he is one of us. For some, he is not, he's just part of the process. For some Caucasians, he is the answer we have been looking for and for others, America will get worst if he is president. The issue I have is, no matter who ends up being president, he is not and cannot fill the shoes of a savior.

Bush has done to this country what he has done to the business he had owned in the past; deteriorate it. Now, I am not saying that America was perfect without any problems prior to Bush. Racial inequality was and is alive and well in this country. Our school systems were failing our children - black, yellow, brown or white. People were losing their jobs to either automation or overseas. But Bush made the gap wider and added an unnecessary war with an alarming daily increasing debt.

But my fear is that America is looking for that one person to end the war, end racial inequality, save our environment, better the education of our kids, provide jobs,and financial security and let's not forget remind the world that America is not the oppressor that Bush has shown us to be.

Are we not forgetting that whoever ends up being president whether it is Obama, Clinton or McCain, that they can serve, at a minimum, only 4 years? Obama speaks of hope, something that America has forgotten. But hope is not for everyone. It is not a one-size fits all solution. There was another president in the '80s that presented hope for some and despair for others. His name was Ronald Reagan. For some, he was the hope that America needed. For others, Reagan brought homelessness to multiple families, allowed thousands to die and never said the words AIDS or HIV, caused the divide between the rich and poor to increased ten times fold. Even today, for those who are old enough to remember the Reagan years, you get mixed emotions when you speak about those years.

Reagan was America's 80's Jesus. Is Obama becoming America's new millennium Jesus?

I could have blog this in my personal blog but I like to receive some responses from women. So here it goes. :)

My ex-fiance called me today to give me some news. According to him, he wanted me to know before I got hurt. I found this to be very funny, a man's ego, I swear. What he and my other exes don't seem to realize is that no matter how much I loved them, I want none of them back. NONE. All had great qualities that I liked, admired or even loved, but none of them are worth me going back to ever. But if you voice this opinion to them, you are either bitter, nasty or just plain lying, according to them. The truth is that whether I broke up with them or they broke up with me, at one point, I will go over the relationship. What I have realized that in all my past relationships, whether they were good at the time or not, I really don't want to be with any of them now. Not one.

So my question to the ladies, you can email me if you like, do you tell them the truth or do you do what I do and say OK, as you wish?

Based on my previous posts, many of you know I was laid off. So, in between, getting my resume done professionally and speaking to a career counselor, I find myself with a lot of down time. What I have done with this time is pretty awesome. I have done spring cleaning and got rid of all, and I mean all, the clothes that do not fit me. I helped run errands for friends who don't have time to run their own because they are at work. And most importantly, I am working out and eating very healthy. I have time to prepare health conscious meals and have become very creative. So although I prefer to be working now, I am using my downtime productively. Yeah, me!

Since my blog is becoming increasingly popular based on the multiple emails that I receive and not by the comments left on this blog, I have decided to create a new personal blog titled "Rican and the City". The Lady & The City will hold more of my personal thoughts and can be accessed by invitation only. If you want to be invited to this new blog, click here ==> [link] and click the Email link under the Contact section. In the email, ask to be invited to Rican and The City blog.

A Nuyorican Vision will still be updated and contain some of my general thoughts including my twitter updates (see sidebar).

Thank you all who have been following my journey and looking forward to more interchanges.