All Good Things...

Another beautiful morning here in Guadalajara. I’m writing from the park. Sometimes I think I won’t be able to go back to my regular life in the States. I have become accustomed to this life style. I come to this park to write in my journal and enjoy a Popsicle quiet often. I have made friends with the woman that sells the Popsicles out a cooler at the park. I’m probably one her best customers… The weather has been fantastic! I'm truly questioning myself about my life and if I really should go back home. The people are so sweet and friendly. I have met a variety of people right here at the park including an aerobics instructor, a kindergarten teacher, a policeman and a grandpa that brings his 3 year old twins grandsons every morning. They all seem so happy with the simple things that life has to offer!

But, I do miss home. Home. That word conjures up mists of puzzlement. Where is home for me? I really want to settle down - I am getting tired of living out of a suitcase. An apartment, a job, a circle of good friends. That is my goal. No crappy relationship with stupid queers - never works out. Love is a dangerous emotion. Do not need it. So, I went to a travel agent and purchased a ticket on a plane back to Tijuana.

Tijuana - I assume is my home. I always come back and have good friends there. The people are great that I met here in Guadalajara and this so called road trip has burned out that cancer of a relationship that went sour - yes, I want to go home.

I Am what I am.

I never look back. Je ne regrette rien. Piaf. Now there was a torch singer, a true diva. Don’t get me wrong, I wish the terrible things that happened to me along the way of my life journey had never been. For the most part, though, I didn’t choose them. I didn’t make mistakes, other than to walk down this dark alley on the way home, or make friends with people who weren’t trustworthy or honourable.

The bad things in my life chose me. A man across the dance floor taking a shine. Someone seeing ‘mug’ written on my forehead and going for gold….

The test of a life, though, isn’t in how often you’ve been a victim or victor. The truth is, it’s how you respond to everything life throws at you that makes you who you are. If you’re alive today, if you’re breathing air, you’re a winner.

I would not change anything I did, or anything that was done to me. If I did, if I were able to go back in time, I would risk unravelling who I am today, losing the friends I have. I could lose everything by wiping out one abusive event, one past relationship. No way.

Why?

Because I am happy with who I am. It is good to be me. I am not only a survivor, I am the champion of my own destiny. I make mistakes but so does everyone. Here’s to me, in a sentence that may be construed as egotistical but hopefully not inexcusably so. Here’s to gayness, and my contribution, small as it may be, to the overall shape and colour of it around the world today.

Fade Out.

postscript: Sit in the airplane - far below the terrain whisks by. I hate flying. So impersonal. Touchdown in San Diego where people don't talk (only via cellphone.) - grab a bus - a red trolley clikclakclikclak to the frontier, pass the meat grind gates into Mexico - it is hellishly hot. Back in Tijuana infested region with junkies and queers and pedophiles and thieves and drunks and hookers of both species enough to turn God away. Seems I am just in time for the Gay Pride Parade down Revu. Fags and trannies screech and march blocking through traffic - boys eye me as I gawk back with a cold predatory stare. Grab a yellow cab - taxi driver mutters pinche jotos - and dart back to the building where I was renting a room. She smiles big and with warmth like a caring grandmother as my landlady hands me my keys. "I knew you would come back."

So did I.