my life – Page 12 – Anthony Otero

Afro Latino, Barnard College, Columbia University, mother, my life, New York City, Novel, Syracuse University, writing

The Next Chapter

As I literally write my the next chapter of my novel, I am thinking about the next chapters in my life. My first school year is coming to a close here at Barnard and I have set certain goals for myself that will be set in motion before school starts back up in the fall.

I have the prefect opportunity to start school again and I would like to take full advantage of taking course at Columbia University. The process may be slow since classes are not free and I do work full time but I owe it to myself to get my Master’s Degree. I frequently tell people that I ultimately didn’t want to get my Master ‘s at Syracuse because I was tired of the SU point of view of the world. The other reason is that I would still be there right now if I went all in on that program.

Now that I have an idea of what my work schedule is like, I can plan to take classes accordingly. This will effectively change my life to be able to attend an Ivy League Institution. I had already investigated the possibility of this happening last summer when I was getting ready to be interviewed for my current position so I know what CU has to offer. I think going down this road will allow me to turn the page to the next level of my career.

Speaking of turning the page, I feel the need to say that I have resigned from the Latinegr@’s Project. I know this will come to shock to some because everyone knows how passionate I am about Afro Latinos. I am not going to get into the how’s and the why’s. They are a great group of people that are doing some amazing things. As proof from when I left SU last year, there are times when you just need to move on. I did wish them luck with pushing their agenda and ideas forward into the future. When I think about it, they really don’t need luck, they will be successful with anything they do, I can feel it.

I have also been thinking about the Syracuse University Commencement that just happened last weekend. I truly had mixed emotions about this day. I felt bad that I could not see the students that I’ve been in the trenches with for years. They made it very hard for me to leave and I wanted to show my appreciation. However, this Mother’s Day was the first time I have been with family in a very long time. Graduation weekend has pretty much always fallen on Mother’s Day so I spent 11 years in Syracuse on that weekend.

So it was VERY hard for me to look at all the ceremonious pictures on Instagram and Twitter because there was a part of me that wanted to be a part of that celebration. It reminds me of the discussion and arguments with the knuckleheads. I do miss them. Of course, since most of them live in NYC, I am sure it is only a matter of time until I see them.

I wont even mention that I am turning 39 in less than a month. The big Four-Oh is right around the corner which means all types of cancer tests that I am so not ready for.

The reality of it all is that writing this novel had been a another journey for me. The funny thing about turning the page on an old chapter is that is hard to go back. The story that I am creating draws from so much experience from me as well as the vivid imagination that I was born with. It has opened up some old wounds but also spawned some great ideas for future text. Writing this has been a mixed bag of feelings that has allowed me to think about everything in my life.

One thing is for certain, all this writing has given be a new appreciation for people who do this for a living. I am not even sure what I am going to do about it when I am done, but I suppose I will figure all that out in the next chapter.

my life, writing

Fiction

As I embark on my literary journey, I find it interesting how real life plays out on in fiction. The one lesson that I truly learned in all my English classes was that all writing is autobiographical. I didn’t really understand it at the time but as I truly begin to redefine what writing means to me, I see the meaning of that statement clearer than ever.

I have always thought about writing a book. Lord knows that I have talked about it for way too long. A few years ago I start writing short stories sporadically. Nothing fancy, straight to the point. Most were sexual in nature and all were based, in part, on the fragility of relationships. To date, I have written 11 stories. One of these stories, however, is missing. I have no idea where it went. It may have died in one of my failed hard drives.

Out of those stories, I converted one into a potential novel that I have not finished yet. Most of that story is in my head and every so often, I will add a chapter to it. However, there is a part of me that feels that I am simply not ready to finish that book yet. The other short stories are something I have been tinkering with. Maybe I will combine them into a larger book and called it a day.

Right now my main focus is to finish a story that I have been working for a little less than a month. It is the most I have ever written in one document. There was a point where I was thinking about a page number that I wanted to reach all the while knowing that a page in MS Word is not the same as a page in a book. For example, I know that roughly 30 pages in Word is close to about 60 pages in a novel. So my goal was about a 110 pages in total. But then I started thinking about it differently. Pages themselves may not matter because it all depends on the content and the words being used.

Sure, I can write “fuck” and copy it over and over for 120 pages on Word, but does that make it a novel? I read somewhere that Stephen King writes 5 thousand words per day. That seems like an insane amount that is necessary for him. That is a full time job to just come up with that number of words everyday. Then it really got me thinking that I need to focus on the amount of words that I feel I need to have. So I looked up the average amount of words that are in a novel and I came up with this:

Romance Novels ranges from 50,000 words to 100,000 words
Science fiction minimum is 80,000 words
Mystery minimum is around 70,000 words
Mainstream averages around 100,000 words.

The number of words don’t scare me. I see this as a goal. As of this blog post, I am at 28,440 words (52 MS Word pages). While this is a fictionalized story, there is a certain cathartic feeling that I get with every page that pours out of me. It gives me hope that I can finish this goal and yet tell a pretty decent story. I suppose that I was always meant to move past a blog to a book since I have written so much over the years. I just didn’t know when I was going to get to that point.

As crazy as it seems, I do have an alternative motive behind this. I feel like I need to leave something behind. I think that this blog and blogs of the past are great but what tangibility does it really leave? Who reads past words if they aren’t relevant anymore? It is not like there is a library that someone one can look up blogs a hundred years from now. I want to leave a piece of myself when I am gone. Something that perhaps my children and thier children can look back at say that they can find a book that I wrote in a Library (whether that be a physical one or a virtual one).

I want to be able to be an old man in either a rest home or a hospital and see actual book with my name on them. True immortality is based on the legacy that is left behind. I can only achieve that if I write.

Ficton or not.

my life, NYC, Syracuse, writing

The Redefinition

Many lessons learned. I’ve been in New York City for 7 months now and I can honestly say that reaching one’s goals is not enough. Just like sports teams will say that is not simply enough to make the playoffs, achieving goals mean nothing if you do not follow through.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be back in my hometown. I’m not lying when I tell people that I love being back here. What I never expected was how hard life can be even after setting all the goals and meeting them one by one. Which then makes me think about how my life has changed and how I need to redefine my life and the things I do.

A move like this isn’t just a physical move. I had been used to a certain life and a certain way of being. I was in Syracuse of 11 years. I was married and divorced within that time. I started at the bottom of the latter and moved up. I started a blog and a help start a community. I built relationships. However, this move is also psychological. NYC is different with a way of life that is at a whole different speed. Adjustment to it may seem easy at first but that is only if you do not take into account the rest of your life.

That is why I need to redefine everything. The definition of friendship is the first thing to change, because this is sad to say, no one is ever really who we thought they are. I’m also pretty sure there are people who feel the same about me, perhaps they thought I was someone that I’m really not and that is ok. More and more I begin to realize that I need people in my life that are about something, even if that something is not in line with my own goals. Most of my friendships have been based on an affinity for one thing or another, but not always on success. Which is why, other people who I have been friends with who share an affinity to being successful seem to be more likely to check in on successes and provide more encouragement and thus I end up doing the same for them.

I also have to redefine my finances. This is something that is more of a life’s work. It is simply not that easy for me to put on my shit in line, however, I have been getting better at it with each passing month. The one lesson that I seem to learn over and over again is that money is the root of all evil. Money may make the world go round but, it can destroy relationships. Getting friends involved with money matter is a dangerous road to go down. It will make you redefine what friendship truly is.

There also come a time to redefine affiliations. I have take steps to make sure that all my affiliations are in order. I have left some and cleaned others up

I just need to focus on myself. This phase of redefining my life comes a time in which I’m being reflective on my past and my future. My journey is far from over and I need to figure out what is best for me and the projects I am dead set on.

I am writing a book and I have been tending to it like a plant. Watering it every day until it is fully formed. I will then clip when it is ready and see how it turns out when all the leaves turn green.

my life

Me, Me, ME. Me Too…

Imagine if you will, being Neo in a world where people are blind to the ways of the world. Only you and and like minded people know what is going on because the only power that you have is critical thought. Perhaps you can take that a step further and say you are Neo in a world filled with doubts so large that they can attack and multiply at any moment. Your sole purpose to is survive and live until the next day.

There is no secret that this scene is my favorite scene in all the Matrix Trilogy. So many parallels can be made with that movie and the present world, weather it is world around us or just our personal lives. Someone is bound to be an Agent. This can be someone who is embedded with a belief that is either different than yours or a doubt in your mind that can take over your thought process. Either of these can be very dangerous and shut your central hardware down.

Agent-Smith-51855554478 — Me…me…me. Me too.

But here is the thing that I learned recently, we are the ones who can take things into our own hands and determine the course of our fate. We can either choose to fight and a take stand for something or we can succumb to fear and doubt. I choose to fight everyday for the sake of my own existence in this world. I choose to learn about the things that are around me so I can be better equipped for what is to come. I do not believe in everything I read or hear because I do believe that people are generally disingenuous and have ulterior motives than what is presented.

The last thing I want to do is to become part of the problem but rather part of the solution. I know what my problems are, I deal with them every day. I can be part of that problem by sitting around and doing nothing and watch them slowly destroy my existence or I can choose to be the one and solve these issues by facing each one of my doubts and fears as they multiply.

We can re-write our code and be something that the world does not intend. This is something that I intend on doing.

Blogging, my life, writing

Back to Basics

I need to get back to my basics. What brought me to the game four years ago was my basic need to express myself. This need developed from a feeling of silence that entered my life. Now four years from the birth of my greatest literary creation and a silence has some how returned.

The blame is all mine, as it was those years before the blog. There was a point where I wrote anything and now I write next to nothing. In between this was feelings, emotions, poetry, educational texts about Afro Latinos, and a bunch of vagueness.

So now I have to go back to basics. I started by writing this on a pad with a pen to remind myself that I am indeed a writer at heart. I have to get back the vagueness because anything more or less is just not acceptable to me. It took a mistake to recognize a power that I didn’t know I wielded. It took another mistake to recognize that all friendships are not created equally. It took yet another mistake to realize everything in my life is fragile.

Frustration is knowing that I cannot write the way I want without a certain sense of accountability. It is then that I remind myself that what I write has always been for me and yet (another mistake) there is a certain delusion in that. People will read and reading most times means judgment (not that this is a bad thing). But, what is written and published can stay forever and will always be up for interpretation.

It’s like when a Facebook post gets 80 likes and then gets deleted for some reason. Sure, you can delete the post but people know they read it and that type of literal memory can carry a lot of weight. So living and writing in a world of the vague has its benefits, even if no one knows what you are talking about (although, they think they do).

Getting back to basics mean getting in touch with myself. Being able to put aside those things I feel have kept me from being a better writer…and constant writer. Doing this will make me shift me priorities to what feels right for me. Writing just feels right. Conforming and acting the way people or society wants has never felt right.

It took four days of watching a slam poetry competition to realize the need to get back to the basic premise of scribbling thoughts on a pad. Now, I am working on a series of short shorties that may turn into something else…and while this is something that I have said before, I proved to myself last year that I can do exactly what I set out to do.

inspiration, lessons learned, my life

Things will get Better

A few years ago I felt that I was beginning to sound like a broken record. I talked about fate many times and how everything happens for a reason. I still believe this. No matter what happens to me or no matter what dumb things I do, I know that some where down the road I will be in a better place.

I am not talking about death. I am talking about being able to deal with things that occur and moving on in a positive way. There should always be a sign somewhere in our line of sight that we see everyday that will say “things will get better.” Clearly this is a statement that can be meant for those going through rough times, but I think it serves a purpose for those going through good times. Thing will get better can represent anything from getting better grades, to getting a better job, or finding a soul mate.

We all have the capacity to get over ourselves and our own bullshit. The universe has a way of letting us know that we are not a smart as we think nor are we as dumb as we may appear. Mistakes are always supposed to be made. That is how we get through life and become better people. Regrets are for those can’t seem to forgive themselves. Not all mistakes are regrettable and not all regrets stem from mistakes. The real issue is when does regret stop you from moving forward.

I suppose a better question is, what is moving forward look like? Every 7 years our bodies regenerates itself..or simply put, it takes 7 years for our bodies to renew itself. We basically shed our skin, our cells become new and we go through a metamorphosis that last 7 years and then starts all over again. We become our personal Phoenix. But does moving on mean we have to become different people? I think that depends on the paradigm shift that happens in our personal lives. (Ironically, it is not lost on me that 7 years seems to be big thing…like 7 years of bad luck for breaking a mirror or even worse…it takes 7 years for bad credit to leave your report)

Yet, every bad thing we experience and how we handle it, defines us. We may think that our personal world is coming to end but what we do not see, is how good most of us have it. There are people in this world going through worse than us. Our lives of privilege can become pretty laughable when comparing it to the problems of some else, especially when we take certain things in our lives for granted.

Things will get better because more often than not, they do. Its really up to us to recognize when things are getting better. Life may have a way of throwing a monkey wrench into all your plans but life also has away of rewarding you. We may be our own worse critics and we may come down on ourselves hard but there is always an ending point when we can remake out selves and renew our sensibility.

Hopefully that will not take 7 years.

my life

Defense

There is a sports euphemism that goes…”defense is the best offense.” I find myself thinking about this statement in regards to my life. Also, with the Syracuse Orange continuing to struggle as they head into the NCAA tournament, that statement almost becomes a war cry of sorts.

Reality is that I don’t know what is going on with me. I feel that I am currently failing at life outside of work. There was a time when work was the thing that stressed me the most but that is not the case anymore. Now things are different and I have to take a deep look at myself. One of the things that come up is that I am always so defensive and it’s a problem.

For the life of me, I cannot explain where it comes from. Why am I always so defensive when confronted with something that is uncomfortable? In fact, why am I so defensive when it comes to basic shit? Have I always been this way?

The sad thing is, I think that I may have always been this defensive person who needs to explain himself. The problem is that I fear that this is getting worse. It is almost like a natural reaction to questions or situations. When I look at my strengths, I know that I have this thing called connectivity, which means I feel that we are all connected in some way. This quality gives me the ability to be really good at building relationships. The problem is that my defensiveness has away of deconstructing those same relationships.

I know that this is something that my dad has told me before. I know this is something that my ex-wife has told me before. This is something my current girlfriend is saying. I am just not so sure what to do anymore. Being defensive is not something I want to do. Most times, I don’t think I am being this way so when some one tells me that this is how I am reacting…I get more defensive.

The only thing I can really do is research this. I read this article and it shed some light on what may be going on with me. I think that most of my issues are based on fear. I have talked about this several times in the past that fear makes us do things we shouldn’t do and as a result we tend to react in ways that just not good. Too be honest, lately, I feel like I’m afraid of everything. My life has been good but what if I lose it all? What if I make more mistakes than I have already made in the past year? I have been parading around saying that I do not care how people see me but that turn out to be a lie; my defensiveness proves that. Maybe I am not the person I say I am…

This is all speculation. I realize this. For every mistake there has been an equal or greater success. I two people text me today thanking me for providing inspiration in their lives. I am so proud of that. But, ask me why I haven’t done something about my own life and perhaps my voice will raise and I will find myself getting into a defensive position. In the back of my mind I know there are people out there who want to see me fail. I just need to be honest with myself. I am too young to have a mid life crisis, so what is it?

Emotion rules my world way too much. But there is something wrong with feeling that I can’t to anything right at times. Yet, I am still confident in myself and all my abilities. I am not sure when I started being defensive. Was it before or after college? What I do know is that I need to find away to not push people away because of my stubbornness.

lessons learned, my life, overthinking, soul searching

Reflection: Perception is Reality

I have been (for lack of a better term) gun shy.

There has been much reflection going on in the last few weeks. I have questioned who I am and my place in this world. I have also taken myself to the brink of just quitting all of this. It comes down to one thing that was said to me along time ago, perception is reality.

When it comes down to it, this is generally my fault. Life has a way of dropping you down a few pegs when things get out of hand. But essentially I made an error in judgment a few weeks ago that effected a community of people. While I cannot take back what I did back, I can only reflect, learn, and grow from such a mistake.

I have been referred to as many things. What seems to come up the most is misogynist and elitist. I have spent most of these past few weeks thinking about this. I have consulted with those who know me. I believe that my actions were dumb and came from a place of anger and emotion. It would have been best to say nothing at all and just let things be. I truly regret that blog post but alas, sometimes apologies are not accepted.

Does that make me a misogynist? Am I an elitist? This is something that weights on me. These are not words that are to be taken lightly. Perhaps my actions from that one blog post makes it seem that way, but does that take away from who I am? Does that wipe away 4 years of work? I do not consider myself as a misogynist. But then, a racist doesn’t consider himself racist so my opinion on that matter mean very little in that grand scheme.

I understand my privilege as a man affords me access to things that are not readily accessible to women. I get that I use male pronouns, I get that I love hip hop (which can be the epitome of misogyny), and I also get and understand that I cannot speak for the plight and struggles of women.

I also know that I bear no hatred for women. I love women and everything about them. They can do things men cannot do, such as bearing children. Women also think so much differently than a man. A (heterosexual) man tends to only think from A to B, whereas a woman things from A to Z. I admire the women that I consider friends because they make me see the world differently. I am tempted to add more about this, but then I am reminded about the “one black friend” arguments that white people seem to make when being called racist.

Being called an elitist is particularly disturbing because I truly feel I am better than no one. I am someone who is always humbled by recognition. I have always felt that my work is not good enough. I strive to improve myself every day. I do not have a higher social status than anyone else. I do not believe that society should be ruled by an elite class of people.

I will admit that I have met many of my goals over the past year and perhaps there is a perception that “I got it like that”, but the reality is that no one really know what is happening behind closed doors. While it is true that I show people portions of my life that I wish them to see, I think that taking a vast look at my work and what I have written is an indication of my views on life.

I think it is time that I do not let an error of judgment define me but rather learn from my mistake so that I do not make them again.

cancer, family, my life

Cancer: The Bigger Picture

This is a subject that is just hard to approach. I will begin with some truths in my life right now. I have 3 family members who have or had cancer. I have 2 close friends who have or had cancer. I know there comes a time when we start thinking about our mortality but when you feel that the people who are close to you are dying, it puts a whole new perspective on life.

Last week I laid in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about death. I haven’t done this since I was a kid in the mid 80’s thinking about who was going to push the button and start World War 3. I thought about how I have very little control in my life. At any point a meteor can come down from the heavens and lay waste. Maybe some nut in North Korea is going to do something dumb and start a war that the human race cannot afford. While those are scary options, they pale in comparison to Cancer.

Thinking about all the people who just recently passed from some sort of cancer makes me rethink everything. It makes me wonder what I’m really doing in this life. This is not to sound morbid at all its just that I am forced to look at the bigger picture. What do I really control in my life? I complained about the absurdity of getting a Flu Shot. These are one of those things that I just do not trust. Who really knows what they put in shots to people and yet, I had to get one so that I could visit a relative who has a weakened immune system. I gladly took that shot because I needed to make that visit.

I realize that there is an inner part of me that is angry. This is not one of those things where I’m angry at God or at anyone in particular, it’s this thing where I realize that I control nothing. In the grand scheme of it all we are just particles of dust in the universe and we are squabbling over labels and identities. In a blink of an eye we could be taking a very long sleep in which we hope to wake up on the other side.

I came back to NYC to be with family and I feel that I am beginning to lose them just as quickly. This whole pageantry of returning to New York City seems to be so self serving. I need to evolve again to a person that sees more of the bigger picture. This is not to say that I still don’t see the world in the same way, but I also need to understand that maybe we are all just too damn sensitive. Maybe, I am too sensitive.

I wrote a public apology the other day to a person that I slighted because I was so angry with someone else. I was angry because something was done to me that I thought I could not forgive. Why? Because my writing is something that I feel I control. But, with anger comes stupidity. So now, I have to live with what I have done. Perhaps I should not have been so angry and pig headed not see that I am not angry with the person who copied my work. I am angry at the fact that I feel that I don’t do enough in the time that I have.

People will argue with me and say that I have effected the lives of many people. Perhaps I have, but I feel that I’ve not been there enough for my own family and friends. It is not easy getting older knowing that there will be a time when the receptions I will be attending will be funerals. I’m not ready for that. That is why I need to refocus and try to be with the people who matter the most.

Of course, I cannot help but wonder about what Cancer has in store for me. Truth be told I give myself testicular exams 3 times a week. I know I have a colonoscopy somewhere in my future. I have been doing my best to exercise because it is Diabetes that has effected my family the most.

I’m not worried about dying so much anymore. I’m worried about whether I can make enough of an impression on this world before I go. I’m worried if I can make an impression on my family before they go.

This Cancer thing has a really funny way of changing perspectives.

my life

Public Apology

broken-pencil

I have to hold myself accountable for when I do something wrong. I slighted someone in my last post and It didn’t mean to. I was trying to express my emotions for something being done to me and I (unfairly) took someone else’s contributions and made them seem trivial. That was a huge mistake that I feel terrible for.

I came across as someone who is better than other people and I am not. When I wrote that post, I was emotional. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have given it a few more days and edited the piece to remove the undertones that has been suggested.

Truth be told. I admire bad-dominicana. She has a passion that very few people have. She knows what she is talking about and I love her work. The fact that I belittled her work has makes me no better than the plagiarizer I accused. That is not what I wanted to do, but we all know that hell is paved with good intentions. It was an act of privilege that I wish I can take back.

I want to publicly apologize to bad-dominicana. She does not deserve this nor am I in position to say anything unflattering about her work. It was her original post about Dr. Evangelina Rodriguez that piqued my interest about doing the bio. It was disrespectful to say that her bio was unsubstantial because anyone who read it was enlightened, including myself.

I want to apologize to the Latinegr@s Project for my behavior in this matter. It was oppressive and unbecoming of me. WE fight for justice and there was none done here. I used my position to get my point across with our Tumblr account. This was a personal post that I should have never posted on our account. I let the emotions get the better of me and I do deserve all the criticism coming our way.

I made a mistake and the best way to make up for something like this is to own up to it. I apologize to all involved whether you were offended or not. I can do better than this. There are no excuse for letting emotions getting the best of me.