Clumsy but Moving

I want to sell my car but the car is here in New Haven while the title is in New York! Smart.

I have stumbled in many ways during this move, which is still happening. I am not always thinking. And part of the problem is that I not 100% ready to leave the little town.

And today I realized I wasn't 100% ready to be in New York. My moving buddy (the third one now, one for each moving trip) and I walked around Sunnyside, the neighborhood where I am starting to live. It was a warm warm day, 77 degrees (23 Celcius for this Canadian woman), and lots of sun. It's Easter Sunday so you get to see fully the family-orientedness of the neighborhood.

But walking around I couldn't enjoy it 100%. My friend repeatedly expressed her jealousy that I was living here, in this wonderful neighborhood, while she was still stuck in our little town. I tried to feel good. But I realized at one point we were in Woodside, in fact, in front of the block where the man who's currently involved with the woman I had just severed contacts with lives. (I hate in English you have to put the verb after a long relative clause.) My mood changed.

Then I felt stupid. On this day of the rebirth of the Lord (at least Christian's lord), when the sun was shining as if even God wanted me to cheer up and motivate me, where everyone was dressed up and laughing with their family, I was dragging the weight of my own self-pity. Guilt or not, I made us turn the corner and walk back to Sunnyside. I have nothing against that man, who unfortunately is closer to me than most tango men. But being there, in front of probably his building (I have never visited him but were told approximately where he lived when he showed his excitement for my proximity), I felt the rage that in the end the fairytale didn't happen to me, the fairytale of moving to New York and have a girlfriend to visit me on weekends. That happened to someone else with the same girl. The rage, as always, subsided quickly, but I realized, Easter or not, Rebirth or not, I wasn't ready to embrace this neighborhood of mine.

Not yet.

But how? How to embrace this neighborhood? How to stop feeling the pain? How to enjoy being alone? It's not like I can snap out of it! Take some cold medicine, go to bed, and wake up being all rational, all happy and optimistic.

Two days ago a friend told me basically that the one thing that could make me even more attractive was if I embraced my immigrant identity. She is very comfortable with her Latina identity, and that comfort translates to a hot woman, great attitude, that self-love radiates out, the same self-love another friend of mine said we must have before we expect others to love us. That is something I will work on with this new life that starts today, Easter Sunday. It will be helpful to live in New York because my family will be part of the equation to solve this problem of the legacy of immigration.

Forgiveness of myself. I reread my last blog entry, and I could see how much I was upset with myself for having wasted a year with that woman. I forget that we are always doing our best, and that given the same situation, we would not behave differently. With that thought I made some peace with the last birthday, the last Valentine's Day, the many beautiful things that happened between me and her that can't be erased by all the turmoil. Forgiving myself a little would help me find some peace, and finding some peace would help me forgive myself more.

I am alone now in my messy apartment in the little town. I was not planning to stay tonight, but I realized I almost stumbled again, thinking I could drive back here, pack more, clean, and then take the train back to New York for dancing before five hours of sleep. I needed peace, especially today, Easter Sunday, day to forgive myself, at least a little, for the transgression I committed to myself, for being less than the happy person I want to be. But the demons came back.

In the darkness of my apartment, those same demons were sitting among the mess on one of my bad futons. "What are you going to do tonight?" "Are you afraid to go back to New York and face another empty apartment with no friends in the neighborhood?" "Your friends here are all busy with something." "Maybe you should email that 'woman' and tell you how sorry or angry you are, either way, you need the attention."

The heart shrivels up like a raisin in the sun. I gave in to the demons, a little, and called one of my friends, to see if she was busy. Yes. Then I felt like a loser. I should be in New York, be strong. "It's for your weakness she doesn't want you. That no one wants you. You think your two closest friends would date you knowing so well by now how weak you are?" I texted the other friend, no answer.

But then something happened. I thought about this man. The same person who came to give me food when I was going through my first vomiting food poisoning a few months ago.

Part of the reconciliation with the identity is reconciling with the fact that I am a man. Not just an immigrant, but a man. In this new life, new city, I will focus on making male friends. The same friend who woken me up to the immigrant reconciliation told me on a different occasion that I needed to have some manly hobbies (I guess stamp collecting is out of question). In my shame of being associated with sleazy, perverted men, I have stunted my growth as a man to the point where only now, at the gate of 37th year, I have started to see what manliness hidden in me that I want to express, even flaunt.

I made an attempt to be close to a man once, but then I ruined it by dating the person he thought would be his wife. Even though I committed this sin a year after their breakup, I see now how insensitive an act it was. If I can accuse this woman of insensitivity for telling me about her current romantic involvement at a time of my stressful move, I need to first look in the mirror and see what I have done to others.

And so, this being my last Sunday in New Haven, my little town, I called up this man. We are closer now than for over a year during which he refused to talk to me. But we are not like before. And while I don't believe we ever will be close like then, on this first day of my new life, I called him up to meet for dinner before our Sunday practica. I have never done that, not even when we were close, during which time we would call each other up for lunch. But dinner, just us, a new step. He was receptive to the idea. He didn't have that coldness in him that I have gotten used to when he has spoken to me. And after I hung up, I felt the tide of peace rising a little higher.

In the end, friends matter more than anything else outside your family. More than the people you date, the people you flirt with, the people you think have a deep connection. Choosing the right friends is important, but so is keeping your mind open about who could be your friend.

When I am feeling connected to my friends, few as they may be, I can face those demons sitting among the mess. I don't have to be afraid of being alone. When this friend agreed to have dinner with me, I got happy not because I was rescued from another night of loneliness. My joy was from this extra level of peace. It is, for now, enough to make me embrace Sunnyside more, to care less that that woman's new man lives just five blocks from me. To embrace my new home that has always been my home, to embrace my past, my culture, my manliness. I need my friends, but not necessarily their physical presence. I need that energy that binds us and, paradoxically, allows us therefore to be free. Free of demons.