NYU

Going to Abu's house always means going thru old boxes of pictures and remembering the little things about my childhood here and in Colombia...and for some weird reason Abu does not let me take the pictures with  me...she wants to hold on to them.  I only get to see them and scan them or take pictures of them...she is like a security officer next to me looking at them and making sure they all go back in her treasure box.  I wonder does she looks at them when she is alone.  Nenes Abu got marry very young having Tio Cesar at 14 I always find she is too young too have the children and grandchildren she has. 

Nenes remember there is time for everything, in a persons life the word late never exist you are only late to appointments.

I was surprise to come across my NYU ID...she holds on to it, and looking at the picture I can see how naive I was when I first left home thinking life was easy and everything goes easy...I was in for a huge surprise,

nenes the hardest part was not being in a big city working and paying school, the hardest part was being alone not having Abu around.  Nenes and in no shape of form I am saying that staying always around your parents is the thing to do, in today's world we need to explore other places and learn to be alone, solitude only makes you stronger.  It makes you reflect on what you had at home, you learn to treasure your parents and the beliefs and values they teach you. And the best part of all of these is that there is always baba's and mami's home to go back to, and that is how I felt I always had Abu's house to go back..but then my inner desire to not give up keep me going, how could I go back to Miami without accomplishing anything that push me to do better in school and at work and to make Abu proud of me.

And I know one day I will feel the same anguish Abu felt that June 5, 1997 I left to NYC...in my white fiesta ford I drove all the way from Miami to Queens, NY...not knowing how difficult was to have a car in NYC I had to call Tio Fabio to come and pick up the car back a couple of weeks after.  I know you only learn by firsthand experience when you have to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday morning to move the car because that day they are cleaning that side of the road so you have to drive around for hours at times waiting for someone leaving that the day before had gotten a stop on the opposite side...having to do this every day for a car that I could not even take to work or school, because parking for a month  int he city would end up being more than what I made in a week.  I promise you nenes as you get older I will enlighten you guys with my adventures.