carlos can't cry.

There are moments in life when you feel alive and it’s more than abruptly being made aware of your heart beating or the blinking of your eyes.

It’s like you can finally make out the difference between you and your goldfish Carlos swimming around his fish bowl on top of your dresser and it’s more than hair vs. scales; gills vs. lungs.

My grandfather once had a figurine of a man sitting underneath a tree. On an outstretched limb above the gentleman’s head, a bird was perched with his hind feathers raised, taking aim. At the base of the figurine, reads: “Go ahead, everyone else does.” It’s moments in life when the only thing you can relate to is that stupid figurine.

Carlos never gets frustrated.

It’s agonizingly relating to the quote, “I never feel more alive than when my heart is breaking.”

Carlos can’t cry.

I recently drove home alone on a rainy Wednesday night when suddenly on the radio “Tiny Dancer” flooded the inside of my car. It was only then, when harmonizing with a homosexual senior citizen in bright purple rimmed glasses, I realized the boulevard really isn’t that bad.

Carlos will never have an epiphany.

It’s a perfect fall day, at the park with a cup of coffee and my favorite book.

Carlos can’t feel contentment.

It’s these moments, whether they carry tears of sorrow or joyous laughter that make us humans, human.

“As happens sometimes, a moment hovered and remained for much much more than a moment. And sound stopped, and movement stopped for much much more than a moment." -Of Mice and Men

(this was originally written sometime in May 2008)