Year One

"I've been travelin' on this road too long, Just trying to find my way back home. The old me is dead and gone dead and gone" Dead & Gone - T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake

As I sit here in NYC again, I almost find it hard to believe that it has been exactly one year since I started this blog. Last year at this time, I knew that my life was about to under go a drastic change. The writing on the wall was pretty clear in terms of my marriage and I just needed an outlet. I needed something to get my mind off of all the things that were around me. So I started to write.

I wrote every day for 101 days. I spoke about anything that came to mind as if I never had a chance to have my voice be heard before. My original plan was to give a voice to Afro Latinos. I wanted to write a blog from that point of view. Perhaps give people what they have been missing.

As I spat out blog post after blog post, it became harder and harder to find a topic. Once that started happening, writing became less fun for me. I felt almost superficial in what I was saying. I looked at my blog and felt like a hypocrite. "Inside My Head" sort of became a joke to me because I wasn't really writing about what I was feeling. I contemplated just quitting the blog all together.

Once May rolled around, I decided to just let it all out. I wanted to really face everything head on and take my readers with me on this journey. I was a little fearful that people may not read as much because I was getting personal and I was writing less. However, I noticed that my writing was getting better and in the same regard I was actually feeling a release of energy with every blog entry.

The blog began to really help me mentally. But those changes were really not going to be complete if I really did not start running. I can say that I must have thought of a great deal of blogs when I was on the treadmill. It is rare that someone has a change to change mentally and physically at the same time...and I seem to still be losing weight.

There were times in which I really felt that I was arguing with myself. Several blogs about fate and destiny have lead me to a different conclusion about my life than when I first started. The rest...well it just seemed to be about love or a variation of it. I wanted have this blog to pave the way for me to gain self redemption. I have made many mistakes in my life that I have paid dearly for and at times continue to pay for. My journey, through this blog, has and continues to help me look in the mirror.

Which bring me to what seems to be my new passion on the blog, my poetry. Please do not ask me where this came from because I do not even know. There are times when I have an idea and I need to write it down. Most times it comes out as a finished poem that I simply retype on to the blog. In the late summer, I felt a real need to find a different and more creative way to let what I was feeling out...without just saying it. The poem about Rocky was supposed to be poem that I just wrote and nothing more. But, as time passed, I just felt the need to just write more. When you are an emotional writer like I am, it is almost like a drug to get write every raw emotion down.

I have scanned my poetry. Someone indeed gave me a journal for Christmas and I am using that journal for strictly poems. I know that I have written most my poems out of stress and sadness. However, I do have some love poetry that I am not entirely sure I want to post. I will have to think about that.

So, for your viewing pleasure (and mine too), I am listing what I believe to be my top 10 blog of this past year. Maybe you will get a chance to read some if you have not done so already:

• Everything is About Race
• Afro is Latino
• Why Do I Run?
• Assumptions
• Head Vs. Heart
• Micheal Jackson - In My Own Words
• Normal
• The Perfect Heart
• Me and My Dog
• The Precipice of Solitude

I am looking forward to Year 2 of this blog. I still think I have plenty to say and I just hope that you will all continue to walk along side me in my journey.

"I turn my head to the east, I dont see nobody by my side, I turn my head to the west still nobody in sight. So I turn my head to the north, swallow that pill that they call pride. The old me is dead and gone,the new me will be alright"