Looking for Peace.....in a birthday.

Yesterday I celebrated my 37^th birthday and it was a day I never thought I would see nor was ready for.  Since I was about 12 years old I had teachers, police officers, ministers, and adults in general say to me “you might not make it to 18!”  I was confused by this because I felt like someone wasn’t telling me about some sort of disease I might have.  So I lived life as much as I could I would jump roof tops, run through traffic, pick fights with people twice my size and age, dare a drug dealer to shoot at me, and many more things that would make me pass out today.  I did all of that because I wanted to say that I dared death a thousand times before and won before my 18^th birthday.

In 2001 I celebrated my 26^th birthday and by then I had already been married and divorced, reached the ranks I had aimed for on the street level, traveled throughout the US, and had spoken in front of hundreds of people about anti violence.   Eight years after my 18^th I was still waiting for that curse of death put on me as a child.  By the fall of 2001 I began to realize that my life would be much longer than expected and up until then I had done nothing to prepare for it.  So I did a sort of celebration and enjoyed food like I had never enjoyed it before.  The evidence of that celebration is still here in the form of weight.  Ironically that celebration has turned into a risk of diabetes among other things that go with this weight gain.  I’ll be OK but it is unnecessary obstacles that delay one’s progress in life.

Looking back I wonder if I was told that by 18 I would be in college doing great in life if I would have turned out differently.  I do not regret my life at all it has made me who I am today and I’m happy with me.  It didn’t have to hit almost every pothole on the way to 37 but none the less it is my life and I own it. 

I plan on celebrating many more birthdays well into my 90’s because I want it not because someone else has placed that expectation on me.  I plan on celebrating, one day, my child’s birthday and know that they are one more possibility of Peace in our world.  Rather than making them feel that they will one day deal with horrible decisions or money problems or anything like that I will tell them that their lives will be one of Peace.

Thank you to everyone that has offered their prayers of good fortune and love for me.  You have brought Peace into my life and I hope to bring Peace to yours.

Peace/AMOR

Gerardo