By most accounts, I live a charmed life. I've worked for the same Fortune 500 company for 22 years (if you count pre-merger and post-separation entities as the same). I have health insurance. I still live in the house I bought 17 years ago. I have two beautiful, strong, amazing daughters who have brought out the best and the worst in me. I get along with both my exes. I get to share my life with an amazing group of cats. I make my own decisions.

It can be exhausting, though, to always be the rock, the strong one, the reliable one. My dad taught me not to depend on anybody, to be self-sufficient. I am grateful for the power that has afforded me, but I sometimes I wish I could let my guard down.

Nineteen years, eight months and counting

The other day I asked myself what ties me to this place I live in, Northwest Harris County, the farther suburbs of Houston, a Tomball zip code.

What keeps me here? Is it my job, the longest tenure I have ever had, longer than my two marriages, older than my daughters? Of course it is. But is that the only reason?

Paula is gone to Philadelphia, living with Pancho and Uqui, working and making music whenever she can. She told me not long ago that she is the happiest she's ever been. I am glad she's found a group of people she fits in with, and someone to love. I miss her a lot, but I am happy seeing her spread her wings.

Home life these days consists mostly of Isabel, the cats and I. On holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, and the occasional Sunday, Gabe and his mom come over for a meal. My birthday is this weekend and he asked me what kind of cake I wanted.

Gabe and I are still legally married and I still consider him family, but we are not a couple anymore. I don't have any blood relatives here, and we lived together as husband and wife for 14 years, so that counts as something. But I wouldn't stay in this place on his behalf.

That leaves Isabel. What will she do, where will she go when she graduates high school? I have told her I would like to be a part of her life in the future. Respecting her need to live on her own (or with a significant other) in the future, if she leaves this area I would seriously consider moving to be close to her. Hopefully she does not pick a place with cold winters to move to.

I have spent over a third of my life here, 39% to be exact. Houston has been good to me. I have no complaints. But I will not hesitate to leave someday.

Stuck in the Sludge

The part of me that thinks life is what you make of it wants to slap this sulking creature, tell it to snap out of it.

Another part of me, the one that knows for most of us success in life is as much due to our hard work as it is the product of a series of accidents and lucky coincidences, fears luck is not on my side on this one.

Chemical aid does not seem to be helping, although without the antidepressant who knows how low I would be right now.

I am tired of the uncertainty and fear. I am angry and resentful. My life as it know it is most likely at an end. I am scared of what my future life will look like. I fear it's only downhill from here.

Craqueá

When I was a kid in Puerto Rico, people used the anglicism "craqueao" (or the female version, "craqueá") as a blanket synomym for the word crazy (cracked-up).

As a kid and a young adult, I never stopped to think about that word, what it conveys. I probably thought it meant the brain was broken and did not work properly.

Now I understand all too well what cracked up means. It means to lose trust in your ability to handle compounding stress; to know yourself to be fragile, broken. You're not whole as a person; there are cracks and your fortitude is seeping away.