New Beginnings

This year will soon end and another begins. As I have done every year for as long as I can remember I will make time to review the passing year. I will reminisce, contemplate, laugh and no doubt cry. I will check to see what goals I met and which ones I totally ignored. I will read through past journals and wonder if in fact there is "cosmic plan". I'll surprise myself at what I have accomplished and all the things I have survived in the last year. I will count the things I did with great love (even the small things) and will forgive myself for those things or times when ugly thoughts and feelings were the only vibes I gave to everything around me. But it's soon to be a new year and a new beginning.

I am leaving 2008 in perhaps the worse shape ever. This has not been a very good year, not emotionally, not mentally and not physically. I have felt like I was tittering on the edge of very ugly places more times than I have been willing to admit. I have plummeted to some ugly places more times than I have admitted too as well. I loved hard and my heart broke harder. I made some tough decisions and choices, others were made for me as I kicked and screamed refusing to accept what was ultimately inevitable. Yes, there was plenty of despair in 2008, fate was not kind and the gods were not fair.

Not everything was doom and gloom in 2008 (even if it seemed that way to me most of the time). I have many things to be grateful for. I live on a beautiful island, in a beautiful home, on a gorgeous farm. I am blessed (during these trying times) to not have to worry about working or making ends meet. I have an incredible family, a gazillion cousins and friends who love me unconditionally and who have held me up during my worse times. I have been in a position to help those that needed a helping hand and have done so with an open heart, I am grateful they let me into their lives. I am grateful for the insight, support and concern from all you sweet huckleberries. I am grateful that I am still here, battered and bruised but still standing.

My dad use to say as long as you had "hope, faith and love" everything would be alright. In a way it was his holy trinity. It was how he lived his life and what he tried hard to pass onto me. (of course his faith was a lot more Catholic/religion based than mine will ever be but ...) I do have HOPE for a much brighter new year. HOPE that my karma and the cosmic plan will do good by me in the coming year because I do try so hard to do good by it (most of the time). I have FAITH that perhaps this past year was the one where I learned life's hardest lessons and I am a better person because of it. FAITH that I will continue to grow into the person I dream to be. As for LOVE, Yes, I have LOVE because I do, I can, and I was and that makes me very blessed not to mention lucky. So good bye 2008, hello 2009. But please try and be a little more gentle with me this new year. The past year left me a little frayed, OK a lot frayed around the edges but in hindsight frayed could have been worse, I could have been broken but I'm not, and I am still here, able to see a glimmer of new beginnings.

From the Asylum to all of you "Happy New Year", may it be filled health, happiness and beautiful new beginnings.

Besos, Es

Merry

From my padded cell here at the Asylum ... Have a wonderful Holiday.
(wake me when it's over)

It cost so little and means so much

So I am a "bah humbug" kind of girl. Not sure why because I have fabulous holiday memories. Perhaps it's the commercialism, maybe it's just cynicism. But I was thinking that there are some things I could wish for this Christmas. Things that might make me happy:

• Puerto Rico time to equal my concept of time. If you claim you will be at my house at 9AM then damn it, let it be 9AM. Not 11AM or 2 days later, 9AM! Puerto Ricans are not too concerned with time, bugs the hell out of me.
• Peace on Earth, goodwill to men. 8 full hours of peaceful sleep.
  
• A goat, I would really like a goat. A baby goat.
• A love letter, not the romantic boy/girl kind (although that would be sweet) but the kind that reminds you how fabulous you are and how the decisions and sacrifices of the last 4 years were right even if they cost you a broken heart.
• 3 days alone. All alone, like by myself, just me, not anyone else, get it ... me all about me.
• Running water and electricity for a whole month without interruptions in service. I just want to take a hot shower any fucking time I want with total abandon.
• A chance to make amends.
• Blogger to work right and post pictures where I want them.
  
• A few days in Vegas or a hiking trip.
  
• A few days with old friends. (this doesn't include my up coming Comadres week or cousins reunion)
• This Christmas ornament because it's too fugly not to be cute.
  

• Or this Ornament because, well it's a goat, did I mention I wanted a goat?

• A less tumultuous new year.

What are you wishing for this Christmas?

Cat on the loose

Puerto Rico has a panther on the loose. For the last week a panther has been helping himself to livestock on the island. It has been spotted in 3 areas. (Caimito, Rio Piedras, and Monte Hiedra) Our government is devising a plan to catch him. Of course our government also tried to catch the monkeys that were ruining crops and they failed miserably at that. I think they caught one but alas we still have a monkey problem.

I am thinking catching the panther might be a priority since perhaps he might be a more serious problem to humans than the monkeys. No one knows how a panther (not indigenous to the island) got here. The newspaper claims it got here illegally .... duh, ya think? I for one am sure he didn't get here on his own. Let's just hope there's more luck catching the panther than there was catching the monkeys.