I truly despise, feeling this way because I dislike being a charity case. I detest being a burden on my friends with my problems, my depression. What I loathe even more than that is the pity friends and acquaintances give me. I tell you these this not earn your pity, but to earn your respect. Vulnerability has never been a part of my personality; I doubt it will ever become. Nonetheless, I am trying to be as transparent as possible. That said, I will like to share this. Not for your pity, but for your respect, so you can understand me for a bit better.

Two weekends ago… Feeling down I went out looking for something. People usually say that one is down one should go to their happy place. Back when I lived in New York I used to go to Central Park to a statue of Alice in Wonderland. That somewhat helped cheering me up. But here in LA I really never had a place where I remember I was happy.

I went out for a drive but didn’t have a destination. After about two hours driving around LA. I ended up in my old neighborhood. See, I was not born with a silver spoon in my hand, heck I wasn’t born with metal spoon… it was probably wooden. I was born in the general hospital in LA. My parents, at the time, where living in East LA with both of them going to school full time while having full time jobs. Both of them made choices to give me and my sisters a better life… as I walked the streets of my old neighborhood, I wondered, why me?

There could have been other ones to have gotten out the ‘hood’. I haven’t forgotten where I come from. In this time in my life I have become very pensive in my next steps, that I will and should take.

This past weekend, I left a friends engagement party early, I drove to the airport and bought a last minute ticket to New York. I’m not going to lie, New York has been on my mind a lot lately. Mainly, because its really where I found my passion for music and developed in to the engineer that I am today. It’s where I found myself, finally learned my limits, I grew into man, and where I became self reliant. It was hard on me, living alone in a city where I knew no one. Yet, it was one of few times in my life that I can recall of being ‘happy’.

I was there, in Central Park, and saw the foliage… I felt the chill of autumn. I went to said statue, but it wasn’t the same. These were things that I thought I longed for, though when I was there they were just things. They didn’t change the way I am feeling. I was chasing after an emotion or a even a situation that I thought was going to make things right again. However, it didn’t happen. I learned that you can’t go back. I was ‘happy’ in New York but that was over four years ago. A lot has changed since then, people I knew have moved on with their lives. I myself, have changed.

Even though I was there just for a few days, it didn’t feel the same. I was trying to go back four years where I had everything under control. A time when I didn’t feel this way. I went out looking, just like the weekend before. Nevertheless, I didn’t find anything to give my weary heart peace.

It seems more and more like I am searching for something; a reason, a purpose, a cause, something to shake me out of this ineffable cafard. Just like the first chapter from Alice in Wonderland, “Down the Rabbit-Hole” I’m on an adventure into the unknown. It’s not the first time I’ve been in this situation; it’s just the first time that I can’t shake this feeling.

Hopefully I find that something.