I hadn’t uploaded this picture before. Not just because I’m not too proud of the mustache-goatee combo, but because you have no idea just how sad I was when I took it, and it kinda hurts to look at. I had just gotten the worst news in the world –at least until a week and a half later when I really got the worst news in the world. I got fired from my job the day before Thanksgiving of 2024, and I had never been so much in the pit of despair as that day.
So why share it? We have the terrible habit of only sharing the perfect moments of our lives –that lovely breakfast, the moment she said “Yes”, a perfect sunset, birds– but it’s because we don’t want to feel vulnerable, or too seen, or, God forbid, human. But every now and then, it’s good to share a tear, or a frown, maybe even a little blood. Not for the attention, no. But in my case at least, it’s part of confronting everything I’ve been through since. And for which I am incredibly grateful.
Yes, even the horrible last months of November and the beginning of 2025.
L to R: Maya Hawke, Jack Quaid, Margaret Qually, Ray Nicholson
I talk to my parents every day. At least brief exchanges of voice notes, but I can’t imagine not being in contact with them daily. I haven’t seen them since 2019, when they came with my brother and his wife for a couple of weeks. I doubt they’ll ever be able to travel here again, given both the current immigration policies in the US and the economic situation in Venezuela. Also, my brother moved to Spain two years ago. And, well, they’re in their mid/eighties. I try not to think about those things too much, as you can imagine, but like all faces of reality, you don’t have to stare at it to have it remind you ever so often that it exists. But it also makes me think about certain things.
I think a lot about being my parent’s child. As I struggle to regain a footing in my life, I consider how my father has managed to go from the prosperous times when there were four cars at home, when we could visit Disney World at least once a year, to them having to make hours-long cues just to fill up a tank, and yet keep the lights on, thanks to careful financial planning. It certainly makes me wish I paid more attention when he was explaining money to me.
I think about the new generation of “nepo babies” taking Hollywood by storm. There’s lovely Maya Hawke, the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, already a scene stealer on Stranger Things; or Jack Quaid, son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, with a knack for some really weird TV and movie roles; or Margaret Qualley, daughter of Andie MacDowell, who was the other half of the phenomena that was The Substance; and Ray Nicholson, who couldn’t deny he was Jack Nicholson’s son even if he tried. While they have certainly managed to have a good level of success on their own, they’re also very close to their parents (Maya and Ethan have even worked together in a movie about writer Flannery O’Connor).
Meanwhile, my dad chose numbers, I chose letters. I’m closer to my mom there, what with her being the daughter of a poet, but it’s my dad’s boisterous personality that I truly stole through the gene pool. Because, in the end, that’s the essence, isn’t it? That’s what you truly have to share with your parents. That, and quality time.
I think about how I can assuage their concerns about me. I hardly sleep, I am constantly broke, I never seem to have time for anything, and I am much more grumpy than I used to. I also used to be much more closed off, and not just to them, but to everyone. I just felt that my burden was mine and mine alone. I have learned not to do that, but I still struggle, because there’s not really much they can do other than offer words of comfort.
I think, then, about the times when a word of comfort was all it took. My mom would hug me and kiss me on the forehead, or my dad would hug me and pat me on the shoulder, and that was all it took for me to turn into Superman. But now I’m in my fifties. I feel their physical distance while their spiritual one is nonexistent. I feel that I carry them like a precious gemstone. I can invoke those hugs and pats and kisses and it feels like a cool breeze after I’ve walked ten miles on International Drive in July.
I think that, if you had a good relationship with your parents growing up, it’s always a good time to be grateful for that, considering the horror stories I’ve heard about some mothers and fathers.
I’m proud to be my Mom and Dad’s child. I know they’re proud of the person I’ve become.
Since I lost my job in November, the world came crashing down like a mountain after an avalanche: after the initial landslide, rocks and boulders keep tumbling down with certain regularity, even after finding new employment back in late January. I still haven’t found solid footing, but life requires I keep trodding on.
One thing I will forever appreciate about the United States is the so-called “gig economy“, where you can start making extra cash with only a phone and a willingness to adapt, without the hassle of job interviews and whatnot. My choice was ridesharing, both Lyft and Uber. It would not help with big expenses like mortgage and car payments, but it would pay the bills if I kept to a certain rhythm and played it smart. So I started driving the day after I became unemployed –no rest allowed.
I thought I saw a $9.19 fare. I picked up Andrew near downtown Orlando on a Saturday afternoon, overcast. He was a short, wiry guy, with a faint Southern accent, ash blonde crewcut, glasses, and a humble-looking smile that started in his baby blue eyes. I helped him put the grocery bags and a cooler in my trunk and climbed back in. And then I saw his destination.
Two hours and forty-five minutes away.
“I know it’s a big commitment, boss, and I’m sorry”, Andrew said. “I’d understand if you’d want to cancel”.
I considered for a brief second. It was late noon. D. was home alone, but Y. was probably about to leave work. And then I saw both the fee and Andrew. The fee was about a day’s work, which I very much needed right now. But more importantly, I wondered how much had this poor guy waited (he told me at least two drivers canceled on him), and how hard was it going to be to make the trip.
“Nah, man”, I said at last. “We’re here already. And I’m not doing that to ya. Let’s go”.
So three hours later, with a nap and some pretty good conversation, I dropped Andrew, a construction worker, at the house he and his buddies were working on in New Port Richey, Florida. He tipped me good, shook my hand, and I drove back, giving me plenty of time to think about my year.
A year that shall live in infamy, to paraphrase FDR.
I have always been proud to call myself an American citizen. First it was the childish glee of walking straight through customs on the many, many times we came here on vacation, like all middle class Venezuelans. Then it was the understanding of American culture, the slight aura of worldiness that a blue passport gave. And finally, the ease with which I could move here in the middle of a migratory crisis, the largest one in South American history and only comparable to the Syrian refugee exodus because of the civil war there. I always had a bit of survivor’s guilt, though, especially knowing how so many Venezuelans have suffered to get out. I vowed I would never take my luck for granted and would try and do everything correctly to be a good citizen.
So I am here, an hour away from home, in the small town of Bartow, Florida… on jury duty.
I took a table with a women in her forties, a younger lady of yet undetermined age, and a young man in a wheelchair. The younger lady asks for a drink, to my shock, as I did not expect her to be of age. When I see she was born in 2001 I fake cringe.
–Doesn’t it upset you that the kids that were born in the early Two Thousands are now old enough to drink?– I ask the woman.
She laughs and agrees. I take a chance at flattery (and a larger tip) and tell her it was quite nice to bring her little sister for a drink. She laughs again, telling me that’s her youngest niece, daughter to her brother. I comment that the age difference can’t be that big. They deebate a while, and finally remember that her father is sixty, or sixty-one.
–Oh, I see, he’s…
And I stop dead in my tracks. I’m doing the math, you see.
–… a spring chicken and I will not discuss it further!– I snap, still smiling, and leave with comical urgency that was only half faked. They fortunately caught the comedic bit, but I was a little mortified.
I’m 52. That’s single digit distance from this lady’s father.
Yikes.
I’ve had a hard time accepting middle age, ever since… well, I reached middle age. I enjoy making people laugh, I like goofing around, I don’t take myself too seriously, I like cartoons… In my head I’m basically still thirty. But every now and then, incidents like the one I told you above remind me that time’s a-ticking. Do you remember how you felt when somebody told you they were sixty? Okay, gramps, see ya at the park, don’t forget Matlock. Until we start reaching that age.
This is especially true in my line of work. The average server is in their mid-twenties. I work with two hosts that are eighteen. They could be my kids!!! That of course leads to ya boy being seen as “tio Juan”. You know, the guy they look for advice… and finds out everything because most people will talk about their lives without paying too much attention because ugh, the old man? That’s how I learned that damn, people hook up a LOT in this business.
But that of course also comes with responsibilities. It is no longer cool to talk to a lady that was not even born when you were her age in a flirty way unless you have been friendly for a while or you don’t mind being unemployed. This happened to a coworker who said some lewd comments to a lady twenty years his junior. She was so upset she walked away that same day, and he was fired the next.
I really have a hard time believing people can talk to other human beings however way they want and think they’ll either enjoy it, feel flattered, or think it’s funny. Like, when you cat call a lady on the street, what do you expect? She’ll turn around and give you her number? Or you’re a middle-aged man with a dad bod. Do you really think you’re going to bang the twenty year old cheerleader? Or nineteen year old hostess, you creepy manager you?
And I’m raising a daughter, which has its own set of concerns, considering the state of men these days. Thank God for #MeToo, which if anything has made women more aware of red flags and men more aware of their behavior. (Responsible ones, in both cases, that is.)
But here’s what’s funny about that: D. told her mother the other day, Mom, I don’t like boys, I don’t like girls, I just want to be free and have fun”. On the one hand, I was a little relieved, thinking of how many sleepless nights I have been spared from. On the other, it made me wonder whether my girl will have the luck to be loved by another person, to become this wonderful thing that is a couple, but I shook it off and I assumed that if it’s in her cards, it will come when she’s ready and she wants it. If not, she will be happy either way.
(And then, I thought that if she never has a significant other, she’ll never have kids, so she won’t live through what her mom and I lived through, and hold on one goddamn second…)
And after all, isn’t that the end goal? To be happy? I can’t wait to reach my so called “golden age” –who knows what qualifies as that now– and be content and at peace. Maybe that’s what real happiness is: the moment you look around and realize, there’s nothing you really need. You truly have enough. You didn’t settle; you acheived.
I guess I really am old.
Edit: D. has a boyfriend. He seems like a good kid. Guess it came sooner than I thought. Poor boy, he doesn’t know what’s coming…
My last post was written on our dining room table, staring into a crowded living room, a bustling avenue right outside our balcony. In a couple of hours I had to get ready for the ten-minute drive to work. I was tired, homesick, future uncertain.
This post began on that same table, but now it overlooks a backyard next to a dried up pond. Leia, into her fifth day of spaydomhood, snores on the matress we set up in the living room so she won’t go upstairs, where I hear Y. walking around and getting ready to leave. I type as I get ready to join her, to a destination I’ve forgotten, but I know we’re taking my car. My car. As in, I am paying for it with my money, and I use it almost exclusively. In fact, I’m writing this post at the dealership, giving Ozzie (that’s how I named the car) his first service.
Life has a way of changing.
Did I mention that all this happened –the new house, the new car, Leia’s spaying– in less than three months?
I’m not gonna lie, but this made me feel pretty darn overwhelmed for a minute. Where we live is called Davenport, a city some 20 miles away from where we lived. It reminds me of the so-called “satellite cities” near Caracas, mostly residential areas where people would commute to their jobs in the main city (think the relationship between New York and New Jersey, to a point). My trip to work went from ten minutes to between forty-eight and fifty-two. And sometimes I leave at midnight to come back the next morning. And in the worst twist of all, I’ve grown to hate Saturdays (I open, so I have to wake up at five so I can leave at seven) and love Mondays (my ONE day off).
But it’s my commute in my car, to our house. It is scary to have such a responsibility, but it is also something I am incredibly proud of. I got here with $200 in my pocket and we started life living in a single room with party-prone hosts. I felt so scared, so homesick, but I turned to inspiration from a very large source to get through.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had seven dollars to his name when he was released by the Canadian Football League and before wrestling supra-stardom came calling. So yeah, I had started out better than the most electrifying man in sports entertainment, but I doubt I have even half his discipline. That’s where I credit Y. It is because she saved and toiled and starved for so long that we’re here. It is because she sees the man I sometimes doubt I am and makes him do things.
And even on days when I feel I’m not giving enough, she reminds me that we got here together.
Life has a way of changing, indeed… so far, for the better.
I think he’s the first non-Latino, non-Black Lyft driver I’ve had in over a year. And he had the dubious honor of picking me up from my first ever visit to the ER, thanks to the unholy meeting of my left pinkie and a knife. No, I don’t want to talk about it.
Peter (not his real name) told me had moved with his wife from upstate New York. “My two kids are in college, so I do this so I have extra money when they come over, so we can go to the parks or something”, he says. He was proud of the fact that he had been on time, because the GPS in his app had been given him trouble.”I’m glad I could find you”, he tells me. Makes two of us, buddy.
And it didn’t stop there. He had to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He once took an old man from an airport to an appointment he had –even though he wasn’t active at the moment. He just couldn’t leave the old man to himself. He also helped another older gentleman adjust the GPS on his phone. It was impossible not to be touched from his stories. It also made me resentful about a couple of other drivers. One in particular.
On Christmas Eve 2022, the low here in Orlando was 28ºF. That’s -2.2ºC for the rest of the world. It was the coldest I ever been –and I hate the cold. So I left work around seven o’clock that day desperate to get home, not only to have Christmas dinner with the family, but to GTFO of the cold!
Problem was, it was seven o’clock on Christmas Eve. Not too many Lyft drivers on. And not too many willing to do a short trip. Seven –SEVEN– cancelled on me. No reason given –they got scheduled and suddenly “We’re finding you another driver”. (More on that in a minute.) Number eight finally seemed to be on his way. When he was two minutes away, he calls me. I miss the call because my supposedly touch-screen effective gloves did not work, so I have to take off the glove to call him. (Remember, two degrees Celsius below zero.) A Latino voice answers.
–Hi! I’m Juan, your rider.
–Sir, where are you?
I told him. I could start to feel my hand cracking from the cold. I hoped he would not take long.
–Sir, there’s an issue here. It tells me I’m picking up a woman. Are you scheduling for someone else?
–No, for myself. I had seen a glitch on the app, though. It’s Christmas Eve, after all, it must be flooded. But I assure you, my man, it’s me you’re picking up.
–Sir, I’m sorry, but this feels weird. I’m sorry but I’m going to have to cancel the ride.
I had been waiting for over an hour. My hand was starting to feel numb. I was exhausted, hungry, and homesick. He did NOT just say he was cancelling the damn ride. I immediately, with no shame, started begging.
—Hermano, I’m begging you not to do that. It’s just a glitch in the app. I’ve been stuck here for almost an hour. All I want to do is get home. Please don’t do this to me.
–I understand what you’re saying, bro, but I need to think about my own safety– he said for the first of at least five times. “Yo te entiendo lo que me dices, hermano, pero yo tengo que pensar en mi seguridad“, his Puertorrican accent getting thicker each time. –This is very weird, and I don’t feel safe.
I begged again. He refused, politely. I begged harder, on the verge of tears. He again declined, a little less politely. I begged one more time. He refused again with his stupid “Yo entiendo lo que me dices”, and my patience went up in a firey spew. I was well aware I was in my work uniform and people were close by, but the frostbite that finally showed up in my hand erased everything except the gutless asshole on the other side of the line and my own frustration.
I did not cuss him out, but my tone did. I said he was killing me and he was a miserable, inconsiderate soul and a poor human being. He huffed once demanding respect, and I shut him off saying that where’s my respect, of course you/re damn killing me, he was ditching me on Christmas Eve in the freezing cold after a ten-hour shift. “Don’t bother cancelling the ride, I’ll do it for you. Happy nothing. SIR”, I snarled. I hung up, but I saw he had already cancelled it. That made me even more furious; I was looking forward to putting my first one-star review, and I had been denied.
Not my proudest moment, but hey, I’m only human. I’m only sorry that I couldn’t cancel the ride and comment exactly how I felt, and that I couldn’t invite the guy who finally picked me up –Venezuelan like me– for dinner at our house, because he was all alone on Christmas Eve.
Goes to show, there’s all kinds. But damn, dude, wouldn’t you be a little more compassionate on Christmas Eve?!
My one day off winds down as I stare at my computer for a bit. Y. has gone off to bed, exhausted as she is, and D. is chatting with her friends a little too loud. She will of course come out and pretend she’s not sleepy, and then go to bed. I feel tired, and I know the snoring little ball of (short) fur on the couch will need walking in some eight hours and I should get to bed. But this called me. So I answered.
As I sat and stared, I remember the weekend. Back in Caracas, my family got together. A big part of my family. They all gathered at an aunt’s house where less pleasant memories finally died. My parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law, my two beautiful nephews whom I am yet to hold; they just turned two this past Friday. My one-hundred-and-one-year-old great-uncle. My cousin flew in from Mexico with her husband and their triplets, who are now tweens; when I first saw them in that house they were very active toddlers. Another cousin and her husband are there with their two daughters. The oldest, who was the ring bearer in my first wedding, is now a beautiful seventeen-year-old, and I tremble for her father. And of course, I see my parents, delighted as they are to have so many of their loved ones with them.
Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Luis Borges
We went shopping today, a rare day when all of us were off from our responsibilities and could spend it together. We went to the outlets near our home, and of course, I had to take a picture in front of the only restaurant that was there, now closed. Not going to lie, it was a strange moment, to see where this journey as an immigrant finally found a cushion now shut down. But it is Thanksgiving week, so I chose gratitude.
It’s been five years since we moved to Orlando, Y. from New York, me from Caracas. I can safely say it has been one hell of a ride, and we have come a long way since. I am about to embark on a new job adventure that I will tell you about when the time comes, I can actually start planning on buying my first car, and we have plans we could not have conceived of when we landed here. And we have a dog!
There have been weird moments, of course. Not two weeks ago, I was turning away from a table and a lady at it yelled at me “Server person!” twice. I turned to her, hiding how flabbergasted I was, and smiled and said “My name is Juan, ma’am”. Her response? “Oh, I’m never going to remember that”. There was the lady that insisted I replace the two –TWO– burnt shrimp in her bowl. There was the guy that handed me a fistful of quarters and said “Here’s your tip, friend, thank you”. There have also been hugs from kids, ladies that said their autistic daughter had the best birthday ever, families that give a little more because it was my birthday, and all the weird and wacky folks I have worked with.
Five years ago, I landed here not knowing what to expect beyond a LOT of work. I didn’t expect to start working at Universal Studios. I didn’t expect to meet cool musicians. I didn’t expect the best dog in the world. Along the way, I have managed to find my way out of some disasters, avoid others, and even mark up some wins. I have learned, maybe times forcibly, how to be a responsible adult with money, some twenty years too late. And it all started that day, in that restaurant. (Ok, a little earlier, but the actual start was at that restaurant.
On this day, I am so grateful for the opportunities I have had in this country. The little things I have done, the not-so-little things, what I’ve seen, who I’ve met, what I’ve done. Here’s to many more adventures, especially in this new chapter of my life, which I hope I may see those who honor me with their visits here, for many years to come.
There are so many things in the world that matter, and if we look closely enough, we find the things that speak to our own unique spirits — these are the things that speak to me. This is what matter to me today.
My Mind in Letters 