As part of my job description and my innate desire to live like a gypsy, I once in a while trade in my 47″ Plasma TV and a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills for an 8′ x 12′ stark white room with a baker’s rack and stolen Internet connection, in a Puerto Rican Co-op in Brooklyn. I’m a baller on a budget, a catcher of seedless rye bread baked at the corner Bodega, I’m a girl, I’m a woman and I’m curious about the world and the people who live on it.

From a young age my parents taught me that I could do almost anything I tried, so I took their word for it. I documented all of my thoughts from that point on with a calligraphy pen and whatever paper I could get my hands on.

I have been rich and lived poor, I have been low and I have been high, I have been next door and across the world. I am a little bit, and in some cases, maybe, a lot like you. In my opinion that’s what makes us so beautiful; that’s what makes us sad, lustful, happy, excited, depressed, aware, complicated and simple. That’s what makes us human…what makes our hearts beat.

Whether we are poets, prince/esses, whether you are a Paraplegic, a pregnant woman, Pablo Picasso or a priest, we all share this infinite universe. The only difference is that I write about my heartbeats, my petite and lustful moments, my beautiful adventures, my sweet sadness and every breath I take in between and share them with whomever wants to read about it.

I find solace in the process because I assume that I’m not the only one, I find things everyday that make me smile, walking down Spring Street on my way to the gym from the J on Bowery is the best therapy for me, and it’s totally free. Those days when the sun shines and outside it’s 70-something degrees in the fall; I can’t help but hop on the subway into the city and just walk around and feel the energy and style, sometimes I’ll take the Williamsburg bridge over the East River… my iPod filled to the rim with Paul Simon, The Shins and Kings of Convenience. They are absolutely perfect moments, one lined up after the other. A series of prodigious and significant snippets of life in slow motion, life happening and evolving as I watch it all go down—to lyrics, which were meant to be felt.

We all get stuck in our own heads, that’s what I have gathered from my collection of thoughts and spending time with others. We think too much, plain and simple. I am guilty myself, but what if we just gave into belief that everything will happen the way it’s supposed to. Even if it sucks in that moment, it can only get better, right? I study the patterns in my own life and I see that all of my low points were followed by almost instantaneous greatness…I just had to wait it out.

I suffered—I was my own worst enemy at times—but I also kept a positive thought bubble lingering around my curly head and somehow things just always, without fail, fell into place; not just any generic “Happy Place” but like crazy, unbelievable places. I often bite my pillow and jump up and down because I can’t believe the coincidences and happenstance that rummages through my life so wildly, like a fire out of control. Sometimes I think it’s just me, like I am one of the few, but I think if you know what you are destined for, even if you have imperfect moments, you will always get back up, as long as you know and believe what you are destined for.

Below is a thought process that I go through in my head, because although I love to write, I think faster and deeper than I could ever put into words:

'Am I really about to try and put words together right now, am I really going to try and form thoughts? Eeek, awkward moment here in life. Listening to music thinking about what my old writing teacher, Jack Grapes, would say. He would tell me to find the deep voice. What I should do is squeeze the juice out of my awkward thoughts and feelings; make antioxidant filled pomegranate lemonade and feast on the meaty mountain of pork chop metaphors. This is truly what a woman like me should do. What's the deeper voice to my underlying raw silk sheath of mystery? I want to be reluctant and say that there is no mystery to me, but I am the one left to solve it; my own private eye. Do I embrace my heart as whole and just figure I have all the love that I need?' 

The more I talk to people in depth about themselves, the more I just find similarities in their experiences, or if not experiences, then their feelings in the least. I draw closer to the vein of raw truth and emotion...something. (Even though some may be better at hiding than others, and we all share a commonality.) Emotions, feelings, thoughts, love, life, lust and power or lack thereof.  

All in all, we walk on the same earth, we breathe the same air and that is about it. I can’t say we all eat the same food and drink the same water because I have seen otherwise. In the end, we may complain about the trivial problems we have tainting our lives, but they are only as powerful as the power you give them.

There are people who don’t have the opportunities that we have, even though you think your life may suck at times—it really doesn’t because you have things at your disposal that others don’t even know exist. Even if you are poor or sick you have opportunity; it awaits you. It’s been done before so we should learn from those who lived before us.

As the old saying goes, smart men learn from their own mistakes, but wise men learn from other people’s mistakes. In my own family is a story of miracles and rags to riches, my own grandmother survived 20 times over what she should have in her situation in World War II. She is a survivor in every sense of the word; there were multiple times where she should have been killed. But she is still alive today because of her strength and persistence to go after what she wanted, she knew her destiny in the back of her head and so should you.