Looking For Mars

I went to an all-girl schools most of my school years and grew up in a house of women. With my live-in grandmother, mom and eight sisters my father never stood a chance. Perhaps it was because of our influence, or maybe it was just how he was wired, but he was not your typical guy’s guy. I don’t remember him watching TV, playing sports or being a handy man. Instead, he seemed to spend his time dodging the never-ending stream of rants, melodramas and PMS-induced episodes.

It wasn’t until I went to college that I got my first glance into the world of men. I remember when the guy behind me in class asked me a question. I wasn’t sure if he was being nice, hitting on me or just trying to get the answer to the problem. To me, men were the unknown, foreigners from another world. And I was scared.

As I spent more time in the company of men I discovered just how different they were from me. To begin with, they were simple. The things they talked about were straight forward: no talk of feelings, no conflict of emotions. Just a simple problem and the pursuit of a solution. Women, on the other hand, have to look at the problem from every angle, even when it’s not all that big of a problem to begin with. We phone a friend, read some books and then begin to psychoanalyze it to death -- something a guy would never do.

After a while spent driving myself crazy trying to solve the secrets of men, I decided to act like a guy and take things one gender-different moment at a time. I’d laugh it out, skip the self-help books, and resist the urge to survey every woman I’d ever known. In short, I was going to trust myself and my instincts.

What I’ve learned is that men are never going to be like us. And why would we want them to? Most women describe their ideal man and it seems they’re just looking for the masculine version of their girlfriends. Not me. I want a man who is a man. Someone who is the compliment to me, not the mirror of myself. I want a man and all that implies: someone to order my drink and move me to the inside of the sidewalk, someone who will treat me like a lady, protect me in a crowd and make sure I make it home safe.

So for all truth there is in the statement that “men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” I think that may be why we’re so attracted to each other. It seems those “foreigners” I was so perplexed by as a child were the very thing I was looking for.

Barefoot & Pregnant

It all began with asaltos, the Puerto Rican version of Christmas caroling. When my co-workers showed up at my house that night I didn’t think twice about tagging along with their roaming holiday party. After leaving a note for my husband, I took my young daughter and my 6 month pregnant self and joined the festivities as they headed off down the road.

If you’ve never been in an abusive relationship yourself, you may not understand what came next or my own inability to predict it. I guess the signs were there but when you’re in that situation you just hope it doesn’t get any worse...until it does.

When I got home, he was awake and insanely mad. I knew it was going to be bad. To be honest, I don’t even remember everything that happened that night. I guess it’s my “borrar cinta,” it means to “erase the tape” or the ability to forget the bad in order to protect yourself. We all do it to some degree. It’s what allows us to move on from a trauma. What I do know is that he physically dragged me outside and locked the door. I tried to fight back but there were no winning with a 6’3”, 250-pound, drunk and anger-driven man. I had no shoes, no belongings and, worst of all, no daughter. Barefoot and pregnant, I walked several miles to the closest government building where I spent the night on a wooden bench. The next morning, I went before a judge to request a police escort back to the house. I don’t recall much about that journey just that in the end there was a report of domestic abuse, I’d moved in with my sister and I had my daughter back.

I guess it’s true that we see the past with 20/20 vision. If only we could have that kind of clarity in the moment. I did ignore red flags and dismissed my instinct and intuition. Should I have known our relationship could come to that? Probably. But men like that can make you believe it’s somehow something you did wrong. Abusers rationalize their abuse and make you doubt what really happened and your role in it all...and they’re really good at it. There’s also part of me that wanted to believe things would get better -- the eternal optimist. But that night was a deal breaker. I ended up leaving my husband and within a year-and-half I was living in the United States.

When I was considering divorce, I was torn with the belief that when you get married it’s supposed to be forever. But there were two things that kept me going in the right direction -- my toddler and the new baby I’d just had. I didn’t want my daughters to grow up thinking that’s how a man treats a woman, or that was marriage. I didn’t want them to one day excuse someone else’s bad behavior by thinking it was love. Today, both of my girls are in wonderful relationships with men who in no way resemble their biological father. That was all I could hope for as I made that long walk in the dark all those years ago. This place I’m at now -- where we are happy, safe and well-grounded and I am strong and independent -- was the place I was heading towards as I trudged on, barefoot and pregnant.

During this time in my life, I felt very alone and I was convinced I was the only one with this type of secret struggle. Time and wisdom have taught me that, unfortunately, abuse is all too common. If this is something you are dealing with, you don’t have to be alone. I invite you to email or call me, reach out to another friend or get in touch with one of the many support organizations available. Love isn’t supposed to hurt, and life can get better.

Eating Healthy On-The-Go

Whether you’re trying for a whole new you or just working to shed five pounds before bikini season, eating out is always tricky. Nothing can de-rail your intentions to get healthy faster than a split-second compromise in the drive-thru lane. Here are some of the tips I’ve found to keep me on track. That way, I can save my splurges for something I’ll really appreciate -- rather than a mediocre fast-food craving.

•  Coffee shops are hidden calorie culprits. Order a shot of espresso for a caffeine jolt rather than a fancy coffee. Or, better yet, opt for water and the Protein Bistro Box from Starbucks. That way you’ll get a satisfying meal rather than a 500 calorie drink without any nutrition. 

•  Skip the soda and drink water instead

•  For breakfast on the run, order an egg-white dish. I love Starbucks’ wheat english muffin with egg whites and Subway’s egg-white wraps. To make it even better, treat the wrap like a napkin; just peel it back and enjoy the eggs and veggies without the carbs.  No cheese please!

•  There’s always grilled chicken on the menu. Chose it over non-lean protein or anything breaded.  No bread please!

•  When picking a side, go for a salad over fries. Try it with no dressing.

•  If you really want to have the dressing, watch out for the hidden calories and fat! Try a “dry” salad or with oil and vinegar.  Worst case, order dressing on the side or one pouch.

•  If you’re craving a burger, go for it; just ask for it without the bun and cheese. If you need more protein, order two and toss the bread.

•  Fill up on proteins and lentils. One of my favorite dishes is a flank steak with lentils at Luma on Park Avenue. It’s a tasty meal without a buttery, fattening sauce.

•  Seared tunas are always healthy choices.

•  To control portion sizes, order an appetizer rather than an entree meal.

•  If you are craving one of the entree meals, just ask your server to bring you half of the dish and box the other to go.

•  Supermarkets are great for on-the-go healthy meals. Stop by the deli counter for a few slices of turkey and then hit the produce area for fresh fruit.

•  When getting a sub, ask if you can make it a lettuce wrap instead of having the bread.

•  If you’re having Mexican, you can always ask for your burrito to be made as a salad. Skip the tortilla and eat it with a fork.

•  Canned tuna is a quick, healthy lunch option to keep on hand.

•  Remember to take your time eating. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to know that you are full. If you slow down, it may take less than you think to make you feel satisfied.

When you’re hungry, it’s easy to fall for the tempting pictures on the menu or the delicious treat your co-worker just ordered. That’s why it’s best to prep your food before you arrive, set your determination and keep your ultimate goals in mind.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

I didn’t grow up with the idea of karma in my culture but life has taught me there’s a bit of truth in the concept that “what goes around, comes around.” The good you do and the bad decisions you make always seem to find their way back to you. Like a cosmic boomerang, karma has a way of coming back and hitting you upside the head.

The question karma forces us to ask is “how am I living my life?” When you reflect on your own life how much good are you doing? Are your actions healthy and helpful or damaging and destructive? While not every bad thing that happens is a result of bad karma, when you see a pattern you have to ask yourself what role you’ve played.

So often we don’t connect the dots. What is just coincidence to some is karma to others. Like that time I followed after the woman who’d left her checkbook, then helped the man at the laundry followed by helping the family with kids at the airport. They all had left something behind and I was there to warn them.  How coincidental this could be? What if I wasn't in their path?  Simple, common courtesies that were easy to do. But later when a man at the airport train reminded me I had left my laptop in the plastic bin at security, I thought it might be something more. What if all those little gestures of decency on my part throughout the day were being returned? Like a boomerang effect. What if doing good does, in fact, lead to more good? What if unexpected kindness is just karma coming back around?

Seek Wisdom Beyond Your Years

Wouldn’t it be great if we could Google wisdom? Order it up like Chinese take-out, delivered to our doorstep in 30 minutes or less. What if we could snap our fingers and know all that life has to teach us without all the messy fumbles and failures that are often the best teachers? There’s a saying my mom used to say: mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo, “the devil knows more because of being old than because of being the devil.” It seems life experience that comes with age, not position, is what matters.

So just how does one acquire wisdom? Or better yet, prudence? In my experience it goes something like this: First, you begin without knowledge. Then you gather some experience which leads you to knowledge. When you have enough of that knowledge you develop wisdom. And when you practice enough wisdom it leads to prudence. So if that’s the roadmap, just how do you go about getting started in the right direction?

It’s impossible to be wise without having lived through some things. That’s why I try to seek wisdom beyond my years. What I mean is that I try to look ahead and find others who’ve already walked the road I’m walking or about to walk and try to learn from their experiences. For example, as a new grandmother I know that there’s a lot I don’t know so I go to a friend who has already been there to get what I don’t have. If I want to know about marriage, I find a couple who’ve been together for 30 or so years and ask them ‘how do you do it?’

I look for people who’ve had success, people who’ve managed to deal with certain situations with wisdom and prudence. Like a business would choose a board of directors, I seek out those I trust. In my life there is a core group of wise men and women that I look to for direction. I take the lessons they teach so that I can then apply prudence. So while I haven’t yet dealt with a moody teenage grandson or the hurdles of retirement, there are those in my life who have and managed to do so successfully. And they, in turn, have lent me the lessons they’ve learned so I can have knowledge that exceeds my experiences and wisdom beyond my years.

When God Speaks

Have you ever felt a stirring inside yourself that you just couldn’t explain? Or heard a voice that spoke an unmistakeable message out of nowhere? When God speaks, are you listening? And when you don’t, does it sometimes seem like a never-ending nag?

Years ago, God told me to warn a close friend about doing business with a particular associate. After three months of that persistent voice in my head, I finally delivered the message. As someone who didn’t believe in spiritual things, my friend took my cautionary tale as “women’s intuition” or simply a good hunch. All I know is that once I told him my concerns, the voice stopped nagging me. It was as if I had done my part, and now the load was no longer mine to bear. In the end, the warning was heeded and the concern was well merited.

I’d like to say I was always so obedient but it wouldn’t be the truth. The next time I was given a message for a friend, I chose not to speak up. I kept telling myself “it’s none of your business. Don’t get involved.” In the end, my silence cost him a great deal of money. Years later, I got up the courage to reveal the message I’d received and failed to deliver. I asked him to forgive me for not warning him. I had learned a lesson: I have a responsibly to pass on the messages I’ve been given.

I guess you could say I learned through both my obedience and my lack thereof. When I listened to what turned out to be truth, my faith in God’s voice and my ability to hear it was reaffirmed. When I didn’t, I learned from the consequences of failing to do so. It was a lesson that came in the nick of time, and one that I could not have afforded to miss.

The same voice came to me when I was driving home late one night with my daughter, Viviana. The traffic light had just turned green on a very busy road when I felt something inside of me telling me to stay where I was and NOT GO. This time, I did not move or question the message. “Why are you stopped?” she asked.

How do you tell your teenage daughter that a voice has warned you? I was just imaging her shaking her head and rolling her eyes at me when a car came flying past us at break-neck speed. If I’d have gone seconds earlier, she would have undoubtably been killed. At that very moment, I knew that God had spoken.

I now know that the progress of learning to hear God’s voice is just that...a progression. He starts with small things and builds on them; teaching you through trial and error so that when the ultimate test of life comes, you are listening when He speaks.

Do(n't) Talk to Strangers

It’s been drilled into us since childhood: “Don’t talk to strangers.” But now that we’re grown, is the fear of stranger danger keeping potentially-valuable relationships at bay and preventing us from making some meaningful connections? Don’t get me wrong, there’s undoubtably evil in this world and bad consequences do exists; but is the boogie man, or as the Spanish call him, El Cuco, really lurking behind every stranger’s eyes?

I once struck up a conversation in an airport with an attractive stranger. Ill-advised? As it turned out, that innocent dialogue led to a dating relationship and, as the degrees of separation often go, led me to reconnect with a girlfriend of mine who I knew in the third grade in Puerto Rico! That connection then led me to another classmate who now lives in Barcelona. On a recent trip, I met up with her and her husband and ended up touring the city with them for hours. What a memorable moment.

Then there’s the woman I met over the shampoo bowl at the salon. It just so happened that 60 years ago she went to school with a certain “Nido” boy. She shared the sotyr of how enamored she was with him and stories of the two of them together. To my disbelief, that young boy was my father and she was his childhood sweetheart! What a random moment.

Those are just some of the special people I’ve added to my life because I gathered my courage, took the first step and said “hello” to a stranger. There’s no telling what can happen when you welcome the unknown into your life. It could open the door to a valuable business connection or new, innovative ideas in the workplace. It could mean an exciting personal relationship or new horizons you’ve yet to explore.

I guess it’s not all that surprising that there are many strangers-turned-friends in my life. According to my mom I never met a stranger. “Every time you went to a party, your sister would come crying because you had already made friends with everyone.” But what about those whose personalities don’t naturally gravitate towards the unknown? Talking to strangers can be daunting, but it’s also a skill that can be learned with practice.

I like to make it an exercise. Start with a person of the same gender or someone with a common connection. Initiate the conversation, find out all you can about the other person and keep the talk flowing. Then, move on to more intimidating situations: that attractive man at the bar, the head of the company you really want to impress or that striking woman next to you in carpool. Like the first person on the dance floor, sometimes others are just waiting for someone to make the first move. Just take two deep breathes to lower your racing heart, and as you breathe in the second time around, smile from your heart and start with a simple “hello.” You never know what could happen next.

Paying It Forward

I’m often asked why I write a blog. Why now? What do I get out of doing this? It’s not for the money; not so people will know my name. It’s more about passing it on and paying it forward. Sharing the hurdles, experiences and the wisdom I’ve acquired along life’s road in the hope that there’s a take-away for someone else. It’s also my legacy -- a place for me to tell the story of my life so that one day my girls, my grandkids and even my great-grandchildren can read these words and feel a connection to where they came from. I’ve always said that if by doing this I could touch just one person’s life, it would be worth it. That person was Anna.

God brought Anna to the salon, in the chair close to mine, when she was at a crossroads in her own life. After a brief conversation, she went home, sat down at her computer and pulled up this blog.

“I was so energized after meeting you,” she wrote, “that I went home and found your site. I stayed up late last night reading and was up early this morning to pray, read the Word and do some yoga stretches before breakfast. I’m back on track now with my bag of fresh fruits and veggies. I don’t know what is right or wrong about this, but I feel happy and energized.”

Anna found something in my story that she could relate to. It gave her hope that her own journey to health and well-being was do-able and what she was up against was not insurmountable.

“I honestly feel you participated in a divine appointment,” she continued. “While reading your bio I couldn’t believe how I am right where you were physically, mentally and emotionally when you were my age. Thank you for the work you have done to improve yourself. That investment has now been passed on to another woman who is making the decision to honor herself.”

I don’t know if Anna will keep reading or if what she received at that moment was enough. I do know that God has sent people into my life at just the right time to look after me. There’s a lot of Annas in the world -- I know because I’ve been one. I’ve been uncertain, unmotivated and uninspired and there has been someone there to encourage me, to tell me that life is always a choice and to help me get up and move forward. Who are the Annas in your life? What part of your story is it that they need to hear? I encourage you to be bold with the lessons life has taught you. You never know who might be listening.

Integrity: Who you are when no one is looking

How far would you be willing to go to keep your word? Would you honor a commitment even if it hurt? What about if no one but you would ever be the wiser? I always thought I had the question of integrity answered but a recent promise to deliver a discount to one of my diamond clients had me second-guessing my good intentions...if only for a moment.

Here’s how the dilemma came about. Seldom do I receive an additional discount from this one particular vendor I purchase stones from; the standard discount for the type of diamond this customer was purchasing would be about $500. In my mind, that was the savings I had promised to pass on and only if I received it. I did make it clear that that additional discount rarely happens.  However, when my vendor came back with a $4,000 discount I faced a huge battle of conscience. The struggle was between keeping my promise to pass on whatever discount I received or pocketing the profit and giving my client the expected amount. In the end, I passed on the full savings to a very grateful and pleasantly surprised customer. He got more than he expected that day and I guess you could say I did too.

It seems like an easy thing to say you are a person of your word -- but what if keeping it comes at a cost? Better yet, what if no one would ever know the difference? This instance gave me pause for thought. I had been raised with a great work ethic and a very uncompromising sense of right and wrong but in the business world is wrong always wrong? Turns out it really is.

Remember the days when a handshake was as binding as a contract? When was the last time you “shook on it” to close the deal? I do it all the time. I admit, it’s an old-fashion way of living but if you are who you say you are, your word is all the promise anyone will ever need. Consider for a moment your own reputation. Do you show up on time and deliver what’s expected? Do you own up to your mistakes and refund when someone overpays? Do you treat your clients, and your employees, with respect and honor? Integrity may seem like something of the past, but when you live your life in pursuit of it, it pays back in immeasurable ways. Try it!

The 90-10 Rule

It’s no secret that I value a healthy lifestyle. At this age I can no longer eat and drink like some twenty-year-old at a frat house or even like I used to before I turned 30. That’s why I have the 90-10 rule. It’s a way of eating and living that balances good health with pleasure.

Here’s how it goes...Ninety percent of the time I eat for fuel. What I mean is that I eat to keep my blood sugar from dropping and my stomach from growling, not because I have a craving and not for enjoyment. It’s basically salads, vegetables and grilled, lean meats. But because we can’t live a life totally void of decadence, ten percent of the time I eat with “gusto”! I enjoy crèmes and chocolates, the “widow maker” at Prato and every other goodness you can imagine. The ninety percent is a sacrifice so that I can truly appreciate the ten.

This kind of living has taught me a few things. The first is that I need to be mindful of what I indulge in. I no longer blindly snack on whatever happens to be sitting in the break room or waste my calories on treats that don’t satisfy. Instead, I indulge in quality food and I am present and aware of every sinful bite. The other thing I have learned is that I don’t put limitations on the 10 percent. I make it a gastronomic indulgence moment or GIM as I like to call it. I eat outside my comfort zone. Rather than the same meals time after time, I’m adventurous. I try new things and challenge my palette. Finally, I indulge with company. That way it’s more about the experience than it is about the food.

Sure, I’d rather have chicken wings and anything made of chocolate for every meal but I know I can’t. If I ate with the same desire all the time, I would never stop. So instead I’ve learned to fuel up and hold back so that every once in a while, I can surrender to my appetite and truly appreciate the best of what the kitchen has to offer.