RIP J.D Salinger

Three years and a month ago, I moved to Miami in the pursuit of true love.

Two years and 10 months ago, that "love" went to shit.

Two years and 1 month ago, this "love" he felt was given elsewhere.

One year and seven months ago, I started my MBA to try to remember who I was before this love that nearly killed me.

In three weeks I finish my labor of self-love with nothing more (aside the accomplishment) than a bunch of scars [deep in my heart] to remind me of this love that was so great it hurt me.

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I moved to Miami from NYC three years and one month ago. At that point I decided that this was where I needed to be. After all the tribulations, it was necessary that I stayed here to finish my MBA. This was my North. The goal, the purpose, the reason. And almost eighteen months later, this is where I am and where I am slowly but surely becoming certain that I need to leave.

Fate is a powerful thing. My mother always says that "cuando algo esta para ti hasta el universo se compone" (That translates [loosely] to when something is meant to be for you, even the universe makes it so). I think she read this in some book…

Anyway, Lately I've been seeing myself in other places, seeing other things, fleeing to the imaginable…and a few days ago, I got a sign.

As if this sign wasn't enough, I got another sign.

And then I got a most obvious sigh in the form of the most clear of all statements.

(I can't elaborate on the details)

The fact is, the time has come for Annush (soon to be) MBA, to leave Miami. And for once, I'm not the only one who thinks so. The circumstances are good, the heart is willing and more than that, it is time for me to reinvent myself.

This is exciting.

Au revoir 2009!

Tomorrow I fly home for the holidays

I don't know if I'll get a chance to write again before 2010 so suffice it to say THANK GOD 2009 IS FINALLY OVER!!!!!

Okay...maybe I'm being overly dramatic and in my year wasn't so bad...but still. The good (no matter how good) was trumped by the bad and it sucks. Lets replay the highlights:

January: Started with a bang. Met awesome guy and almost got swept away to Capetown. (Thank God I didn't have my passport with me!)

February: I had a meeting that was years in the making (and I thought would never come)

March: I woke up at an ungodly hour to a good friend stroking my hair and then had the best conversation EVER.

April: Uneventful.

May: I had the best impromptu vacation I have ever had- 10 days in Positano.

June: I got promoted. YaY! I also met my best friend's babies!!

July: I went to Boston and saw my BFF for the first time in 4 years.

August: A mediocre friendship turned into an awesome hook-up. I found out HWMNBN was having a baby with that girl.

September: I turned 30. I got evicted. (not in that order)

October: I moved. HWMNBN married that girl.

November: I was in love again. It ended shortly thereafter.

December: I decided to take a break from school.

I don't think this year is going to go down in history as my worse year ever but it is nowhere near my best. It had highlights, it had low points. I gained 15 much needed pounds and I learned about myself more than I thought possible. I laughed, I cried but above all things, I loved a lot.

About love I learned that it never stops. No matter how the cookie crumbles, no matter how you try to detach, love always remains. I also learned that love changes and that platonic love can become passionate love or simply a physical thing that can work out great.

I laughed. A lot. I lived practicing what I am always preaching and I tried to live a life filled with laughter. I laughed with friends. I laughed alone. And I laughed at the possibilities...Possibilities that even though they may seem endless, are really not; however, we each set our own limit and I learned to push mine.

I was sad at times. Of course I was. But I have learned to live with the things that make me sad and make them part of the whole. Sure, I was sad over certain things but it was only because there was a time when those things meant something to me. You can't miss what you never had and for me it's been important to learn to pick my battles because you can't control everything.

The fact is that life is full of surprises. That people never cease to amaze me. And I'm so lucky. I am lucky that for every up or down, there were people around me who loved me and no matter what the test was, they always found a way to make me laugh and managed to laugh with me.

I wish for a 2010 full of laughter and love for myself and those who know what I mean when I say that sometimes it pays to dance in the rain-even if when it rains it pours.

Does anyone have a lighter?

My brother always says that unless it's on Facebook, it's not true. There is something somewhat disturbing about this concept, but the fact is that this statement is true. Facebook knows everything and if at times there are truths you don't know because people are smart enough to set their privacy settings to private, sometimes you find these truths because people are not smart enough to follow directions and know that their profile is now public.

Whatever. I will now drink to Francesca Andrea.

Cheers.

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I was just watching that episode of How I met Your Mother where we find out that they all smoked. It cracked me up. But it hit so close to home that I found myself twittering about this as I tried to explain to my non-smoking roommate why I laughed at this. After all, I don't laugh at the thought of someone tying a rope around their neck or putting a pistol in their mouth.

Yes, I acknowledge that smoking kills. And it will probably kill me too.

The day I smoked my first cigarette at the tender age of 12 I nearly fell out the window. One would think I would have learned my lesson but no. I picked it up again at 14 while living in England and never looked back.

I was a bad example to my brothers and a bad example to my friends. But like that box of English cigarettes, I always said-as if it made a difference-smoking kills. I still say that. And I don't smoke so much that it actually bothers anyone but still, I smoke and I like it.

Smoking I have made friends. Smoking I have made business deals. Smoking I have gotten to know people I otherwise wouldn't have. And even if later on I have to pay with a lung, so far it's been worth it.

I've been asked if I'll ever quit and for me this is a no-brainer: Of course I will- should I ever get pregnant. Yet, after a day of trying to protect my fertility and having things inserted in my body that I'd rather not discuss, the only thing I can think of doing is have glass of wine and smoke a ciggie...why? because at the end of the day I have nothing to protect. Francesca Andrea exists. The world is not better than it was yesterday, and well, this is one of the few things in life I can control...

So I smoke.

I hate this!

I love him so much

that when I think I don't anymore

it overcomes me again.
Even if there's distance,
even with companionship,
even when I DON'T WANT TO.

Tonight @ WPB...

I have had a ticket for months...
I know it's a huge venue...
if only I could bring myself to go...

secrets.

Every Sunday, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is read Postsecret. Sometimes, I take some of these secrets and post them here because they ring true or could simply be one of my own. It's kinda funny how for someone who would rather "not go there," I have manged to share quite a bit.

Catharsis is good.

Last week, I received a comment from a reader telling me that he hoped I was just taking a break from writing. I saw it and I felt a little uneasy because I couldn't come up with a really good reason why I had stopped writing in general. I had not written a blog post since January, my manuscript has been on hold since February, and my journal has far too many blank pages.

Yesterday I posted a secret I saw in Postsecret last week: "When you stopped loving me I stopped painting." I even gave it a title: "for me, it was writing." Then I shut off my computer and went on my merry way.

Then it came to me.

I stopped writing because he didn't love me.
I stopped writing because I had to learn to not love him.
I stopped writing because I forgot who I was without him.

After almost 4 years, I ultimately lost the guy. And not only did I loose the guy, because of this loss I stopped doing the one thing I've always truly loved doing: writing. I let the last thing I ever wrote be an angry goodbye email that I wrote because I had no other choice. I let it be something I am not proud of.

I am going to change that. I already lost enough. No need to loose myself in the process.

Again I'm thinking of the wrong person...

a holiday dialogue...

Annush: HWMNBN left me a x-mas voicemail...I can only imagine how much money he spent on roaming calling everybody...
Vilma: Why do you have to always include yourself with everybody else? You are special to him, you know that. He probably just called you and maybe his sister.

5 days later...

HWMNBN: i called you at like 3am...i mean, normally you would have been one of the first because I call everybody usually from A to Z but this year I started from Z to A.
Annush: I see...good thing my phone was dead.

The freaking "clavo"

Recently the expression “un clavo saca otro clavo” has become extremely popular. Apparently everyone around me with even mediocre mastery of the Spanish language has felt the need to say that to me these past weeks and lately I’ve started to listen…

This past month I’ve cried a lot. I’ve lost weight. I’ve left my home looking like death warmed over. Needless to say, the demise of my “relationship” with HWMNBN is something that I’ve grieved in ways I never thought possible…I guess that I really did (do) love him…

But life goes on. And I’ve come to realize that I have to recover from this so when the “clavo” showed up the other day in the form of an IT developer who shares a moniker with a famous athlete and my love for books and interesting conversation, I said “YES YES YES!”

So we went out and shared some laughs over beers and bar food.

For the first time in a month, I found myself enjoying male company. I examined the curves of his face. He said he felt my heartbeat when holding my hands and I blushed. He flirted, I flirted back and at the end of the date I agreed to see him again.

Of course, I didn’t think that “again” would be at 10:00am the next day…but it was…shortly after I arrived at work I got an invitation for a mid morning coffee and again I was like “YES YES YES!” and it was then, during this coffee break that he blushed, and talked and talked and talked and started by saying that he was seeing some girl and concluded by saying that he was living with the aforementioned girl.

But he is in an “unhappy relationship” and he “really does like me” and he hopes we can “work around this” so we should “go out this weekend”.

NO NO NO!

There went my faith in the male species…again…

I should have known he was full of shit when he said he could feel my heartbeat when he held my hand…I’ve been told things such as that before and there was a time when my heart beat so intensely you could feel it in my hair but I don’t want my heart to beat like that…not for anybody else anyway.

and the million dollar question is...

if I am too good for him then why am I not with him?

G.

You won... and I didn't even know I was in competition with anyone- let alone someone I didn't even know existed.

I wish I had found out some other way.

3 days later
-2 pounds later
a box of tissues later

it hasn't gotten any easier.

Saturday night I died and you were what killed me... and to think that you seemed nice enough that we could have been friends.

But I love him.
More than he has ever known.
And as you kissed me hello and goodbye, you didn't know that.

And I probably will never stop loving him
But you are the girlfriend
and I'll respect that.

But make him happier than I ever could...
it'll justify the sadness I feel now.

Fix me

My friend shattered my heart while trying to fix me.

For the past week I've been living in slow motion: taking steps just a little too slow, taking breaths just a little too short, my eyes open just a little too small, my heart beating just a little too slow. And it's happened before. And I hoped that it would never happen again but it has...this time with a vengeance.

I believed things would fix themselves. I hoped that things would sort themselves out. I trusted that the words were true, that the feelings remained, that the emotion would never fully be gone. Despite my faults, I kept going. Regardless of the way the cookie crumbled I remained there. I was hopeful.

But things changed. They changed and I was so blinded by hope that I didn't notice. And my friend told me. And I fell apart.

At first I hated my friend. I spent days laying on my floor staring at my ceiling. The hours slowly passed while my vision was clouded and I miraculously survived the salty taste of loss. Those tears that streamed down my face, the puffy red eyes that gave away my loss.

What kind of friend would make you hurt like this?
What kind of friend would shatter your heart?

For days I cried because I was sad. Because I wasn't someone who could be trusted. Because I broke HIS heart. Then I was angry. Because for years I trusted him. Because he repeatedly broke my heart....because through all this, I never walked away.

What kind of friend would someone be if they knew this and didn't tell you?
What kind of friend would look at you and lie?

These days I am sorry over what has happened but I am grateful I have a friend who loved me enough to make me cry-even at the risk of losing my friendship. Someone who has called me everyday to ask me how I am pulling through. Someone who forgave me for walking away from him when I didn't want to hear him. Because truths hurt and it's harder to ignore them when they are factually conveyed.

My heart is broken but I trust it'll heal. Because if I was blissfully ignorant a week ago that's no longer the case. And I may cry sometimes as I still do; however, that love I lost, his love, is something I will carry with me when I no longer think of it- when I no longer need it.

He is a lucky man. He really is. He has everything and more. And even if I grow to hate him, and even if I eventually wish him the absolute worse, he will still be lucky because even if it ends, there was someone in the world who loved him more than he will ever possibly know. And even if he never finds this again, if this is something he had and lost, he had someone who loved him with everything she had and more...so over all the material things he has, he really has had EVERYTHING.

Three.

Three years.
Thirty minutes writing this.
Three hundred ways to look at it.
Three thousand dollars worth of therapy.

...and still, it continues.

I am sick [again]

Apparently I really have grown allergic to HWMNBN!
[don't ask]

Anyway, I have been talking it over with Princess Pandita, and I am now certain that the only thing that would make me feel better right now is this.

Anyone want to get it for me?

The very thought of you makes me want to clean my apt...

For what is worth, welcome home.

Love actually...

Today I found this post in one of my favorite blogs and it reminded me of this article I read the other day when I was dropping Nic off at the airport...so much truth in both dspite the fact that one talks about love and the other about sex.

So I started thinking, fairly globally though becauseI had both the post and article as reference this time, about a question that I have been asked repeatedly since I started this blog and felt the need to bitch repeatedly about someone I should have ocassionally sang praises to...

the question: Why are you so into HWMNBN if he is such an asshole?

I always chose to ignore this question because you know what you know and sometimes it's hard to answer something one can't even answer oneself. Maybe because it doesn't sound pretty enough, though often times it is because those moments that count aren't easily described. But just now, reading this, I think I found the answer and in the hopes that nobody will ever question my affections ever again (which they better not because it's none of their business) I will tell you this:

Love is inconvenient and that day at the Delano I didn't exect to fall in love; yet I did. Ocassionally I wake up unable to breathe or to someone kissing my shoulder and I think that there is nowhere else I'd rather be. Sometimes I have arguments over my eternal need to eat and then sometimes when I am pissed off because spending a Sunday together implies that I have to be woken up at 7am I think about that argument and smile. I think about obscene amounts of money spent at the hairdresser and then an hour later ending up soaked because being wet (no pun intended) is simply fun and then there is, of course, that issue about ESPN when all you want to do is anything but.

...but when I am unwell (though it may be his fault) and I need taking care of, there he is.

I think about the bad but then there is the good which is so much more. SO much more intense. And it's easy to point fingers and say "it's him" and when I think of our history, I am not so sure. Before it was me, then there was him, then now nobody knows but it's okay because I dont' want any more than I've got. I like to be fed stuff I don't eat like those beef empanadas that kept me sick for 2 days. There is a certain comfort in finding a random email reminding me that I am "la nina bella". Even if I know deep down that I may not be.

Perhaps we don't have the perfect relationship, and maybe we never will. Maybe he'll find someone better or I'll find someone better. Either way, despite the fact that we've hard our issues and that we've both wished that the other was with someone who could maybe make them happier, or simply that we had never met, I know that our lives when intertwined they are good; and drama or not, even when I know that right now I'd much rather be alone, I wouldn't have it any other way.