So Close

Well, I am about an hour away from rehearsing for graduation. It is a unique feeling to say the least. I have been through alot to get to the point at which I am at now in my life. I am extremely grateful that I have a 2nd chance to graduate, from a higher education institution. I will now have a GED, that I got for fun, a high school diploma, and a bachelors degree in international business. Its truly a blessing a great feeling and I am very thankful that I am able to have a good head with a reasonably functioning brain on my shoulders. I have learned more than I had imagined 4.5 years ago. I was a lowpoint in life around that time and had to figure something out to get it together.
I need to focus more on the present more so now than ever. At times it seems very difficult for me and I find myself not enjoying the present while thinking too much about the future. i took a strengths test at work and and my biggest strength was strategy. Its a skill you cant teach apparently and I see that I do tend to eliminate time wasting and roads that will take too long and try to choose the best solution. I can formulate great plans of action and implement them and put in as much work as I need to in order make it happen. the mural I completed is a great example. I didn't really know how to do it, I just came up with what I thought would be the most efficient easiest ways of getting it all together. From getting it off a piece of paper, onto a projector, and actually onto the wall and painted was quite a process. Even arranging the images was probably the biggest challenge. I didn't know what was going to be on the mural, but I was asked to do it and figured it out from there and it turned out pretty good. But its strange because immediately following the success of another strategy, to graduate college regardless of what happens in my personal life, I will embark on a journey into the unknown. I am putting myself in a situation that I havent planned enough for, and don't even know if I will have the resources to make it happen. At this point I have 300 bucks to take with me to Spain and atleast 50 will go to gas in albuquerque, which is a significant portion of my funds. But I know another man, who lives in Barcelona, and treated me to a free, yes FREE, FC Barcelona game and a 2 bedroom apartment while there for the weekend. He was in my same situation awhile ago and went to spain with 300 also. He is now married with a child and has a great job over there and is living the dream, and is a great enough person to pass along his success to help me make a dream come true, and also let me never forget that I too need to share my success and riches once I may possibly attain them. I have a faith in god, faith in myself, and faith in the world that it will work out.
Another twist on the story is I have a good friend I made this year while in school. He is from Spain and is an exchange student. He ironically desires to move here to the US, graduate, and work and live here and live that American dream. I am doing the exact opposite, I am sacrificing what I know could be a career I could start right away here in the U.S., to go hard time it in Spain in search of one of the only dreams I have left, which is love and family. I think its crazy when I think about it. I am also going out there to refind myself and who I am because over the course of the last year, my personal life has really made me question that at times. I had lost faith in myself, faith in my god, and faith in the angels that have helped me along this journey. But I am more determined than every, especially after the dream of graduation is realized tomorrow, to make my faith in god, myself and the world stronger than ever. And I hope with that I am able to pass along positive and great things along to the rest of the world in whatever capacities I can.
In the early 1900s, there was an earthquake near Messina, Sicily that nearly destroyed the whole town. I learned this from a sicilian man in a hostel I stayed with in Rome a little over a year ago. I told him my fathers family was from Messina, and when he told me that story, I think a light bulb went off and made me think perhaps thats why he came over here to America. Antonio Tony Bettini, came here in the early 1900s, with god knows what. I dont know much of the story, I wish I did, but here he came to a whole new country and land and Im sure he spoke sicilian and very little english. He didn't know what he was getting into, but it turned out pretty great I assume. He had some kids and grandkids and lived a good life here in Colorado and Orange California from what I know. The same story can be said of my Albi/Albo side. My great great grandpa, Francesco Albi came from Calabria, Italy supposedly, an area near the same place my bettini side came from. Same story, in search of something new, not knowing exactly what might become of it. When the Spanish came centuries ago, I am sure they had mixed feelings about leaving their land, their homes to come and live a new life, in a new unknown land that nobody had known. I feel the same way, going back to where they came from though, I am doing the opposite of them, or completing a circle in a sense. I have that same expolorer spirit that they had when they came here. The world is all developed and everything has been found. So there is no new land to discover, only new plateaus in our minds to reach, and that is what I am doing. A new plateau will be reached in the morning and I invite you all to join at fort lewis collge at 830 am. If you are unable to, you can watch it online at www.fortlewis.edu/grad-stream                      I hope you are able to watch, and enjoy the experience i wish to share with anybody. Thank you for reading this and I will likely post one last time for a few days. I want to thank everybody who has provided me with feedback, especially my family and friends, on graduating. I do truly wish my mother was able to be there tomorrow, she is ultimately who I fought so hard to make proud. But she will be smiling down from heaven, and guide me through this new journey. I often feel like there is no one there to really be proud, genuinely, and see what I have done considering what I have been through. I really dont talk to anyone, and I would love to talk to everyone. There is nobody I would never talk to. But the ones who took time to congratulate me and tell me how proud they are, and how proud my mom would be, thank you so much. And to the people who I met along this journey, thank you. If we only briefly made eye contact, and said something there without a word, or if Ive known you for all years in collgee or throughout my life or your my blood or we dont even know eachother and have never met, but you care enough to read this, thank you!!!! I am bursting with positive energy and I feel so blessed. Everybody who crosses my path I will remember, and I do hope to keep in contact with anybody and everybody who wants to. From my teachers, to my professors, to co workers, aquaintances, friends, family, coaches from ROP, old probation officers, americans, coloradans, durangatangs, spaniards, italians, french, swedish, argentine, columbian, mexican venezuelan, Moroccan, Swiss, and just everybody, everybody, I truly thank you. I take off on another journey on Monday, when I fly to New York, and then to Spain the following day. Those winds that were calling me from Andalucia since I left have prevailed. To them, I submit myself, regardless if I fail or not. The worst that can happen, is I have to come back to America, and use my degree to find a job and start over, which will be easier and I can't tell you how many times in my short 25 years here on this rock ive had to start over. God bless you, and whatever journey you may be on. Buen Camino.

Soy un hombre, muy honrado, que me gusta lo mejor. La mujeres no me faltan, ni el dinero, ni el amor. Jinitiendo mi caballo, por las sierras yo me voy. Las estrellas y la luna, ellas me dicen donde voy...

Hopefully I can find someone to help me further my flamenco guitar learning in the land where it comes from. This guy is amazing, 10 minutes of pure magic and passion, I hope to play like this some day...