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I am settled tonight on my bed, listening to music in my ipod, tapping the keyboard of my laptop. Let me share with you my music: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, Truly Madly Deeply by Cascade, Creed's With Arms Wide Open, and the cool cool Gnarles Barkley's Crazy. There's also Journey's Faithfully, Meatloaf, and the Spanish Como Yo Te Amo version by Rafael de Espana. It's finally here, the culmination of three week straight work and I have one single precious Sunday off tomorrow. I eat heavy dinner and drink decaffeinated coffee, retire to my bed to listen to my music. Once I hear Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol I just feel like softening down. I might sleep a couple of hours and then go out tonight. I missed the going out part at nights for years. I just realized last night that I can still go out even on weekdays and have a blast. I used to think going out after work would be fatiguing. Actually, I was so refreshed and energized after last night that I managed to complete a six hour work even with mere 5 hours of sleep. It was perhaps the taste of beer (I don't drink when I drive so I just sort of sip it). It was perhaps the Cuban American dancer flirting with me. We were so tight around each other. I'm sure it was just a job for him to entertain me but man, I felt like a million bucks. Especially when I felt the kisses and his snake 'down there'. I'm not kidding -- when somebody tells you it's 12 inches, you better believe it. Of course this is all fun. I am already 45 years old and secure enough with myself to know how and when to flirt just for fun. Last night I was so good he wanted me to marry him already!
And I also know now when to stop. Of course I was very aware of my hospital work the following day. I stopped the flirting at exactly midnight. I had to go home like Cinderella, sharing my cell phone's scrambled numbers like my royal shoe. I got into my car and abruptly turned to the passenger seat and said, "Was that fun or what?" There was no passenger on the seat beside me. I can't believe I am now getting into and leaving a bar in Fort Lauderdale all by myself. I never did this before. I used to have a friend with me, it could be Mario or Ed or Matt. In my younger insecure years I could not spend my gay life without a gay friend leading me. I always felt vulnerable, close to danger, close to accident. I used to live a life of so many 'what ifs'. What if I was rejected? I might not be able to take it. It would be terrible to go to a bar and not feel welcomed. What if I went out with a serial killer or a gay man filled with viruses in his body? This was a terrible fear for me to contemplate when I was younger. I could just imagine myself being broadcasted around the whole world, Alex Maskara was stabbed or killed by a homophobe or is now afflicted with the virus. Oh I'd rather die. What if I got figured in an accident, who will feed my whole family back home? I was so frightened by that scenario. I just could not bear the thought of my mother getting the sad news, my family receiving no remittances anymore, kids starving, unable to go to school. I used to get paralyzed by that fear. Then I woke up one day with my mother and father deceased, the kids I used to worry about are now grown up and working strangers. I am startled by these : the fast passage of time and the vanishing of everything. And I am here - suddenly freed. Like I was in jail for twenty years and one day, the warden tells me, "You pack up and leave." Initially I was not willing to give up my cell. If you lived in the same corner all your life you would find it hard to give it up. I have to cut off the ropes tying me to twenty years of fear. Getting into a new world scares the shit out of me. I am used to the dark, I am used to the daily fears that drove me to work until I could not longer keep my eyes wide open. I am used to hold back and tell friends to wait for me until they all left without me. I feel so excited to see the outside world again. The night driving, the reflectors on the roads, the virtual absence of other cars. Then the colors of the bar, the music, men laughing, drinking, flirting, dancers grinding and me standing in a corner, all by myself, like a warrior that just vanquished the enemy. Return to Home |