El Columpio...

I remember staring at the casket and remembering the last day I had saw her. When I had held my hand in her's and said my last goodbyes. I fully knew that I would never see her alive again. So on the day of her funeral I just stood there torn between 3 feelings. Sad that she was gone but grateful that I had known her and relieved that she was finally put out of her misery.

While standing there, I remembered one of her favorite songs, El Columpio (The Swing). In it it states:

"No ves que la vida es como un columpio, Cuando sube se siente bonito pero cuando baja eso duele mucho"

Life is like a swing. It has its ups and downs. Times of happiness and sadness, joy and hurt. In between the times when we get on that swing and get off, and yes we all have to get off someday, I find that we often forget to do what we got on the swing to do. SWING. In other words, we live our lives but don't actually ever LIVE. In life just like in a swing in order to go up you must go down, thats what SWINGING is, and thats what LIVING is.Tell me how may people have you seen get off a swing and not have a smile on their face? Yup they got their kicks in.

While alive don't forget to actually live folks.


My Bucket List....so far

• (cliche) Bunjee Jump
• (cliche) Skydive
• Go on a Hot Air Balloon ride
• visit all 50 states before I'm 35 (26 down 24 to go)
• see The Eagles in concert (performing Take It Easy)
• See Ramon Ayala (performing Un Puno De Tierra)
• See Steve Miller Band, America, and Blu perform
• Get Baptized 
• Visit the Mayan ruins in Guatemala
• Go to a Red Sox game at Fenway
• Start an organization based in the inner city (more details later)

-La Rhino

Money, Money...

If you know me well then you probably know how I feel about money. I don't care for it but I do understand its usefulness and therefore use it. There's no way around it.

Paper money really has no value, as a matter of fact it's not even paper, it's cotton! and it's only worth something because we say it is. Do you really think a $20 bill is worth 20 times more than a dollar bill? Nope, we just say it is. It's a representation of value rather than being something that is actually of value.

 

See I'm the type to let money sit in my bank account and only use it when I REALLY want something or if I'm buying for someone else. My mom calls it frugal-ness but I'd like to think not. I don't mind buying things for others or what have you (I enjoy doing so!) but I don't like spending it on nonsense (aka why spend $2 more dollars for pre-cut fruit when I can cut it myself type thinking). All the "nice" things I have, all the clothes and shoes etc. is because my mom buys it for me plain and simple and I take because that's what we're taught to do right?

Well anyways I ran out of meal points awhile ago so the $500 I had saved up from the past couple of months went down the drain. A girl's gotta eat! While I don't care for money or rather I don't care for spending lots of it I also realized that I hate being broke. I have $3 in my bank account. I can't even buy myself a gallon of gas!

My mom always has to remind me that "ITS OKAY" to spend money and its ok to ask her for it but it kills me everytime because I feel like it's going towards nonsense things. The world revolves around Money and I guess I just have to accept it.

"Money money, the mighty dolla dolla 

Got to get my grind on, grind on, grind on 

I don't wanna be broke no more"

I'm not a money aficionado but I certainly don't want to be broke no more.

-La Rhino

Heaven...

I was having a bad day some weeks ago and I had my iPod on shuffle and the song below started playing. It was one I has never heard before. (No I have not listened to every song on my iPod) The line that stuck out the most was the following:

"Your family is your backbone and your friends ain't s***"



For the past couple of weeks I've dwelled on this. Can it really be true? Was Scarface right when he wrote this lyric? You can have your own opinion's and own interpretations I guess but this lyric has finally hit home with me and I've finally understood how it could play into my own life.

No disrespect to any of my friends I think they are wonderful people or atleast have the potential to become wonderful people but in the end my family is my backbone. Granted even sometimes my own family's let me down but I can always bet on their support. Just like a backbone so to speak, your back may hurt you but it's never failed to support your body's frame.

At the end of it all I can't say I truly trust my friends and that may be my bad or their bad or maybe a combination of both. But now that Mother's Day just passed it reminded me how "I found heaven in the form of a girl" The girl being my mother, my grandmothers, my aunts etc.

Honestly, I'm not trying to put down my friends but I'm just calling it how I see it. I may be wrong and I hope that I am but I ask how many of your friends would give their lives for you? I know 5 people that would take an early trip to Heaven for me...and none of them are friends.

I don't EXPECT them to do so either but just think about it, who would? If they are doing you wrong on just the simple things, if they can't stand tall next to you in the face of adversity, if they can't sacrifice even just an hour of their time for you then chances are the answer is a no.

I just might finally believe Scarface's words "Your family is your backbone and your friends ain't s***" and that's too bad.
-La Rhino

So Tired...

"Tired, so tired
It's a shame the way I'm living this life, but I keep livin' it"
It's ridiculous how tired I've become. I average about 12 hours of sleep a night and still find myself taking naps during the day time. This is not normal and I know it. I've been to the doctor's but the blood tests aren't really clear as to what it wrong with me. It could be iron deficiency it could be hyperthyroidism, it could be a side effect of Restless Leg Syndrome, or it could something totally out of left field.

At this point I don't really care what it is I just want my life and body back. Ever since my senior year in hs I've always been slightly more tired/fatigued than most but I didn't really think it was a problem. In fact it wasn't...until now. I find myself falling asleep at 7 at night sometimes, just coming home dropping my stuff and going to bed. I feel like my body is deteriorating on me as I can't even do what I was able to do just a year ago.

Once the onset of fatigue hits the only thing that keeps me awake is loud music or coffee. Seeing that loud music sometimes is distracting while studying I often choose coffee. The only problem with that is that I am lactose intolerant meaning everytime I want to stay up to a decent hour (11pm-12am) my stomach is forced to deal with the consequences. As a matter of fact, I got 11 hours of sleep last night and am so tired that I've had to resort to coffee tonight in order to study. It's ridiculous that I should have to resort to coffee just to have enough energy to study when I got a full night's rest and more last night!
I feel like someone has just stolen my battery out of me and while I'm not one to easily cry sometimes I can't help but shed a tear when I feel the fatigue. I want my life back.

I'm "Prayin' I can find a way up out of this bottomless pit/ 'Cause livin' like how I'm livin' ain't hittin' no s***"


Until the doctor's can finally give me a real answer to my excessive fatigue I'll keep close to my heart the fact that God gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
It really is a shame the way I'm living this life though.

-La Rhino