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For over a month I have been seeing a psychotherapist (counselor) to deal with issues of mine that I have had since a kid. It is scary to think that I have had one unhealthy way of thinking because I didn’t ever have someone to say, ” No Chris, that is probably an unhealthy way of living, so I suggest you get some professional help for that.” I think in most cases, people would just think to themselves, ” Chris, you need to see someone to get help, you are messed up” instead of telling me. Either way, I need professional help and that is why I am getting it now. But what struck me  was the example my psychotherapist gave me about how I have been living my life when it comes to goals. I am sure it has been told before but here goes as if my psychotherapist would be talking:

“Imagine that you are driving a car and have been for a long time. You have been only driving on the easy road that goes straight and have not needed to go any direction. It is a road that you would see while driving in a desert , nothing on either side of you but flat road going ahead of you in one direction. Up ahead you see an intersection in the road with three options you can choose. You can go left, right or you can go straight. You end up pulling over because you are scared you might take the wrong direction. While pulled over, you just sit there frozen, not knowing what to do. Each direction will take you somewhere, but you would rather stay where you are because you are not sure. You might take a route which is harder than others or you might take one that is easier. The point is that you don’t take any because you don’t have confidence, don’t want to risk failing or have been enabled by others so you may not know how to make decisions on your own. So you sit there for a long time or you just hit reverse. People stop by your window and see if you need help and you just say, “No,I am fine( which in 12 step stands for Fucked up Insecure Neurotic Emotional).” Nobody is going to tell you what way you have to go, they will just be your support. That is where I come in, I stop by and see how it’s going. The thing with you is that you have been sitting at the intersection for a long time now. You haven’t made any attempts to get through the intersection. You are still sitting there waiting for some miracle. I will be able to help you better when you make the decision to take action. When you succeed, we will see how you can get through the next intersection. When you fail, I will be there to help you up to get to the next intersection. ”

Of course the first thing I said was ” I guess I will see you next week when I roll my window down in the same car at the same place.” He laughed but we both new what had to be done. There have been so many times I would just take the bad grade or result just because it was too hard for me. My whole life has been that cycle. So it is time for me to break it and go for what I want and need. My assignment was to name a few things that are intersections in my life. I also have to have a goal of how to accomplish each in order for my therapist to help keep me accountable.

You know, last week was a good little kick in the ass from my psychotherapist. It was good encouragement of course, but tough love.

Today, was the opposite. I was riding the bus to get to my session and I felt like I couldn’t breath. I had just gotten done with a great book by Anne Lammot that is pretty much all about her f’d up past and how she has this love hate relationship with God. She is comfortable enough to scream or tell Him how unhappy she is but always being humbled by how great He is.  For some reason I some how separated God from me and thought He was hers only. Yes it sounds strange, but I did it.   I had about 45 minutes before my appointment that I was walking by myself. I felt ALONE! All of my insecurities swamped me to the point of tears. My thoughts were of financial insecurities, father abandonment, self image, uselessness, hurts that I have caused loved ones, being unemployed..you name it, I had it. It was as if I would die if I didn’t make it to my session, or at least EXPLODE with all these emotions and thoughts stuck in me.  SO I made it inside..said hi..and then went for the tissues. It was so hard today. My life has been pretty unmanageable.  I have made horrible choices and will have to keep tending the wounds for the rest of my life. Sometimes it just feels like even when I try my hardest to tend them, they just keep getting infected. A bit hopeless I would say.  But my psychotherapist made a great analogy. He compared it to the Lord of the Rings( I felt a boyish grin come on since I FINALLY recently finished the Trilogy).

He said( give or take a few changes):

” Your life is like the journey in the Lord of the Rings.  The hobbits lived in the Shire, which was so safe, fun, loving, and mostly comfortable.  Your comfort was destructive. Frodo traveled with the ring because it had to be done. He knew making the journey would be the hardest thing to endure, but that it was the right choice and would save everyone else.  Once out of the shire, things were not comfortable. Things looked hopeless. Frodo was peaceful but the ring had a power over him that would bring out the worst. They would travel through the worst terrain, face huge obstacles and lose hope. But they thought about the end result after all of the sacrifices and hard work. They could have easily gone back to the Shire to be comfortable, but everything would have been  lost and destroyed eventually. That is why they keep going. Chris, the pain is a good sign. It means that your foot is in the place that is uncomfortable. You are making tough choices that you never had to do before because you were living a fantasy. It is real and it hurts. That is good.  You are making progress and you are feeling.”

Well, it might have made more sense at the time than with me trying to remember it and write it out. That to say, my session was nurturing and encouraging. I have a sense of what I need to do again. Will there be days that I don’t follow through? Yes but it is progress, not perfection!

“Thank you grandson!!” This is one of my favorite memories I have of my grandfather. My grandfather has a huge part of my heart. We lived with him as far back as I could remember while we were in NY. I probably remember the most at Ozone Park in Queens, NY. Below is where we lived and the way it was set up is like this..

mom and I lived on the second floor and my grandfather on the first floor.  So back to the intro of this post, my grandfather had a sneeze that could be heard next door. Unfortunately I have the same force of a sneeze that he has. While upstairs playing or whatever it was, whenever he let one out I would hear it. Everytime I heard it I would jump to the floor, cup my mouth to the rug and scream, “God bless you grandpa!” and that of course is when he would say ” Thank you grandson!” with his little Spanish accent.  I think it was my grandpa who showed me how to be happy and love things. He is always happy and jolly when I am around. He is still that way even though I am 28yrs old now.  I was his first  ( and favorite) grandson! He adored me and I was his little buddy.

I think this post is going to be reminiscing of the good times more than anything else. My grandfather started me on coffee pretty young, I think I was about  6 if I am not mistaken. Grandpa used to watch me while mom was at work. He used to walk me to my school that was just around the block and pick me up as well. But I remember the days when he used to make me a breakfast of champions which consisted of coffee that was almost white because of all the milk and sugar in it, sweet bread that I would use to dunk in the coffee( he is the person who showed me the valuable skill of dunking in coffee!), french fries and fried eggs.  Now that I think of it, that is probably why I love eggs so much. It is a comfort food for me. After I was done eating my breakfast, it was time to watch t.v..Grandpa always had his “chair”. Now that I think about it, I think all of his brothers had their own “chair” as well.Before sitting down to watch I Love Lucy or Matlock, he would pour some rubbing alcohol on his head and slick his hair back.  I have no idea what the purpose was but can only guess that it cooled him down really quickly if he was hot.  He always wore his “wife beater” and  tan shorts around the house. He has always had a belly but he is a strong man. He has had a life of hardships that had made him have to be a man too young. Unfortunately I don’t know all the details but what I do know is sad.  He reminded me of Curly from the 3 Stooges.  He always made sounds like ” Oooch ooch ooch ooch ooch” or “Woof woof”. Hehe, that’s my grandpa, always trying to make people laugh.He was always getting in trouble by my mom. Whenever I was in trouble or was punished from watching t.v., he would always let me watch it and tell me not to tell her. He is so funny!

This picture which could be used for “Feed the Children” shows my sad face and some bandages on my forehead. If I am not mistaken, this is when I was playing with my cousins and was jumping on a bed and took a tumble. I fell on the metal frame of the bed and gashed my forehead. My grandmother from my father’s side is from Peru and was watching me at the time. She did what was common for wounds like that in her home. She put salt and vinegar on my gash to help it heal faster. Can you imagine the pain! I guess it worked so well that the doctors had to re-cut the area in order to effectively stitch it back.

Grandpa is also an animal lover. Where ever we lived, he had dogs. He had a german shepard in my mom’s time, a poodle, a pekingese, pekingese mutt, lhaso apso and a cat. The cat we had was named Lucky. I named him when we caught him. Yes, I said caught him. My grandpa had this strange way of feeding the stray cats in the neighborhood. He would buy the cheapest cat food, place it on the yellow tray that chicken bought from a grocery store comes in and then place it on the stairs to the backyard with a bowl of water. There were several generations of cats that came to our place.  It was great for me because I would see all the kittens and play with them if I could catch them. That is how we were able to get Lucky.  The sad thing is that since I was able to see basically all the cats that lived in the neighborhood in my backyard, I was able to pick them out and know the ones that were struck by cars. They were usually kittens that were hit.  Sad…

All this said, my grandpa never cried in front of me. The only 2 times that I have seen him do this was because of his animals. The first time was when we were living in Richmond Hill in NY and he was on the phone with a vet about his poodle Papa.  He ended up having to be put to sleep at the vet’s and grandpa was sad. He was crying but didn’t want me to see him. I was pretty young then so I didn’t really remember the feeling.  The other time was when we were already living in Florida. I was in high school and his dog Fluffy was dying.  The dog was having a seizure, howling and whimpering while my grandpa was holding him all helpless and crying. I was there with him and had to leave because he asked me to and because it was the most heart wrenching thing I had ever been through. To see my grandpa sad this way when he was always happy was horrible.  It was like someone just snatched away what I thought of him my whole life. He was there to help me feel secure and loved and now he was someone who needed it. Gosh, back then that was one of the worst memories in my life.

Well grandpa has had heart surgeries, diabetes and everything else that comes with that but he is still ticking. He has been there for all of my milestones like this picture after my kindergarten graduation all they way up to being my best man at my wedding. I am now starting to realize that these posts are therapeutic and help with my memory. It is nice having good things to think about of people who love you as much as you love them.

God bless you Grandpa!

Last week was very fun and painful for me. I was dropping the family off at Mama Zen in the morning so Vivian can get ready for her yoga class and Ethan and Verity to play . As I was getting ready to leave for the tea house, which is what I usually do when they are at class, one of the instructors of the class was teasing me to take a class. I told her I was not wearing proper Yoga attire etc… but every excuse I threw at her was followed with an ” Oh it’s ok, you don’t need to wear anything special.” So I ended up sucking it up and doing the class. It was a class with only my wife and I so there was less feelings of embarrassment. Let me tell you, I have been away from exercise for a couple of months, and when I actually did do yoga, it was with the Wii Fit. That really did help me but it is nothing like a real instructor who is able to correct your posture, put some pressure points on muscles that are being stretched or even rub some of the soreness out. I was expecting a relaxing time thinking it would be cake. I was wrong! My body is like a tree stump, it does not bend at all. I am STIFF! I kind of feel bad about the class because I was complaining and grunting(more grunting) the entire class. I was definitely holding back some F-bombs because the burn was so intense. For the next few days, my body felt like it had just finished an Iron Man competition. Even though it hurt, it was a good hurt of getting healthy.

This yoga stuff isn’t that bad at all. I can admit that I am very excited to do this again. They will also be having a “Couple’s Yoga Class”! If it wasn’t for my wife, I would probably not attempt yoga. Doing stuff like this together really brings us closer together plus having childcare makes it feel like a date..sigh, the good ole’ days when children weren’t always saying they were hungry in words or by screams!

Here are a few pictures that I found of my dad and I. They are from when I would visit him during the summer. I was also able to find some of my family at a birthday or retirement party for my grandfather. They look like the Peruvian mafia if there was such a thing.

As some may know, this is the Bronx Zoo.

At the airport during a summer visit.

Here you can see my aunts, uncles, grandfather, and little cousin.

This is going to be a tough subject to talk about since I have only just started dealing with it. That said, I want to apologize for my memory having a lot of gaps.

The picture above is one that brings me joy of being a father to a son like Ethan. It is also an assignment from my counselor that will help me see Ethan in a non threatening way by looking at it as much as I can when away from home. My tendency with my son is to push him away by withholding love and being critical with him because I see him as a distraction and nuisance. I am so conditioned to treating him that way, that even though I know the way he needs to be treated, I find a way to keep treating him the way I described. I remember being the person who felt sick and angry when I saw a father talking to their kid without respect or spanking them. I would want to be the person to go up to them and say ” How about trying to talk to me like that Bub (sorry-just watched Wolverine last night)?” And wouldn’t you know, I have become that person.

The last 7 years have been VERY exhausting, not to mention all the years before that. A huge part of my life has been lies, unfaithfulness, denial and anything else that sounds like it would fit in there. I will eventually get to every part but I will focus on the biggest struggle for me that I am trying to get help with now, Fatherhood. Let me tell you, I have suffered and destroyed with my addiction even though now I am recovering, but being a father is the hardest to manage. As some of you may guess, being a good father usually ties with how your father was with you. That is something I am starting to realize now. I could have gone my whole life without even starting to question my relationship with my dad or lack of. But apparently, from the weeping in every counseling session, there is a lot of pain from that experience.

I have had 3 father figures in my life. I will start with the first one. Again, I apologize if anything I write here offends people, but it is MY BLOG..enough said. My memory has been shit with all of my addiction in fantasy. It saddens me that I don’t remember half as much of reality as fantasy.

My biological father was a cool guy to me when I was young. He used to get me anything I wanted. I will get back to that. From what I remember is that I basically only knew my father part time. He was in my life on weekends and during the summers. It sucks knowing that I could actually say that. I was raised as good as I could have been by a single mother who tried to fill the mom and dad spot for me. My dad was a playboy (loved woman) and he was not shy about it. I am using some words that my counselor used when relaying things back to me. I remember being in the Bronx with my cousins who I love dearly, and basically being loose on the streets. There are memories of my dad being with the guys in the basement of a building watching a boxing match while smoking marijuana and drinking Corona until he was wasted and then he would become a ticking time bomb with his temper. The kids would be outside on the stoops of the buildings watching people go by and yelling the “watchem” command to our family pit-bulls in order to get their sights locked on the person to show how intimidating they were. We would be wandering outside getting a beer or two for the adults from the corner store and getting a slice of pizza from the pizzeria a few doors down. I remember one of the times where he was sticking up for a friend who was picked on and roughed up by some other guys and my dad took out the pin that held the spare tire in his Chevy Tahoe and smacked the guy who started everything in the face and knocking a few teeth out. My cousins called me to tell me that I need to take him out of here because the guy who was hit in the face said he was coming back with a gun to kill my dad. So I drove him illegally back home before anything worse happened. These are times that my dad was around.

Some background really quick, I was born in NY and moved to Florida when I was about 10. The moving part was not something I chose but rather an escape planned by my mother to escape my father. From what I remember, I had no idea until just before we left. That is more stuff that has been stuffed all my life. I never wanted to leave NY. I was just taken and all I knew was that I would not be seeing my dad. All the phone conversations between my dad and I after it all happened of us crying and saying how much we missed each other was a good way of showing love to me. Tears is what comes out of me thinking about it because it is still fresh and has never come out since then until now, almost 20 years later. Can you imagine how unhealthy that can be for someone to not deal with pain they have had for that amount of time? Cause I can..I am living it. And to top it off, I was going to have a step father! How upside down was my world turning. I will get to that part later because it is one of the best parts of my life.

Anyway, while I visited NY in the summer, my father worked most of the time. He is in retail and has been for over a decade, so he did not have the luxury to take off whenever he wanted. I remember most days either staying in his apartment until he got home or walking several blocks to get to where my cousins lived and waiting for him there. It was the first summer that I met my little brother. Yes, meaning my brother was baking in the oven of this other women WHILE we were still living in NY. It should sound crazy to most people but it was just what I was raised to believe was ok. Background on that is I have an older brother, 2 younger brothers and 2 younger sisters. All half siblings to me. Back to the father style, love was shown with gifts. I remember going there in the summers and always getting tons of clothes and electronics to bring back with me to Florida. It was his way of trying to make up for the lack of involvement in my life. The thing is that I took it. I started thinking that love was shown tangibly. It is even how my brain has worked recently. I prefer cool things as gifts of love instead of sentimental ones. And since that is how I think, I usually try to show love by doing the same thing. With Ethan, the best way that I think to make him love me even though I treat him bad is by getting him a toy or a snack that he loves. It is all I knew from a dad, so that is all I knew how to give to my son.

Reading all of this, you would think that I had a dad that was irresponsible and pretty bad. And yes, you are right but I didn’t think that until a few weeks ago. I know my dad now and how he has calmed down, stopped his partying and drinking and goes to church. He has two young daughters that live with him and his “wife” and he has shown a big change. I would use all of those good examples to defend him and kind of forget how he was with me while I was a kid. Thank God for my counselor who tells me how it is! It took me professional help to be able to say that he did a sucky job as a dad with me. He was not there for me. He was not a role model for me on how to be a good man and father. He did not encourage me and tell me things will be ok. I love him, he is my dad, but he was not good as a male figure for me. I am starting to come to terms with that and realize how the cycle is still going. But the reason I am going to counseling is to break the cycle. I do not want to be like my dad even though I have made pretty big mistakes in my life that mirror what he has done. I am young and there is hope for me, my counselor says so!

Next post will be about father number 2 which is my grandfather who I love so much. He has been there since the beginning.

While I am sitting here at work trying really hard to be motivated, which is not happening, I decided to blog about what is about to happen. The next 2 days will feel like the loooooongest days at my job. Friday will be my last day working with my current employer as a recruitment coordinator. [...]

This will be a few thoughts and experiences jumbled into one post. Here we go.
Wednesday, July 22nd I was getting up to leave for work. My usual routine goes like this(WARNING:This may be TMI):
5:55 A.M. alarm goes off. 6:00 A.M. alarm goes off again and I jump out of bed. I head into the [...]

I apologize ahead of time to professional poets. This is my first time and I don’t think it has to rhyme..oh..that just rhymed didn’t it.
Oh well, here goes!
Portland is my Favorite
Portland You are more than great.
You have all the things I like,
And some of the things I horrendously hate
I love to ride my [...]

I previously said that on July 17th, I would be getting a vasectomy. Well, that is not happening anymore, on that day anyway. My wife and I have agreed to use other forms of prevention that are not permanent. If I have this vasectomy there is no way to guarantee, if in the future there [...]

Since I have not yet posted any pictures on my blog, what better way than to start with some of my two kids Ethan and Verity. They are some beautiful kids!