Where I Stand

I am not the smartest, nor the most skillful person
that you will ever meet. I cannot give you more than
my humble work and my opinions.
Ever since I immigrated to the US (which in
questioning, I am not sure if that is the correct term to use since I was born in
New Orleans), I have expected more of myself. Maybe
all the TV shows describing what an American dream
looked like had set higher standards about common
life, and maybe my foolish self had decided to wander
into that imagery of happy endings, success, and
(sometimes) fame. I am not saying that I had expected to
be the next international singing, acting, or dancing
sensation. But I did always envision a broader horizon
in the land of opportunities.
And such opportunities arose. Just in a slightly
different manner than those shown on TV.
And naturally those so-called opportunities were
camouflaged underneath long, hard working hours at
minimum wage, insomnia, selling shoes in the morning
and setting up seasonal displays in a fabric and craft
store at night. Then more hard long working hours with
slightly above minimum wage. Many times it came
hidden as solitude.
With my limited English skills and my inadequate level of
maturity (or, rather, lack of it) I managed
in an orderly fashion to get my act together. Perhaps joining
the military had a lot to do with it. I fell
into that trap, but I must admit it has been one of the
best things I have ever done with my life. I was always
told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it;
which I was already accustomed to since I attended
Catholic school growing up. That pattern was
sometimes hard to fit on my free spirited soul, after
all, I was never the "well behaved" child in
school. But after some effort and some concentration,
things slowly started to come together. All of a
sudden life seemed to be a bit less intricate and sometimes
even blissful. Don’t get me wrong, that last one
was fairly scarce, just like a preview of what could
happen, which to the moment I still believe it’s just
a plain and tasteless tease.
I often try to make sense of what is going on around
me. I am an observer, and by definition, I do admire
those little details that often go
unnoticed. But, I am an observer of that what is
around me, and not what is within me.