"El Ponchis"

Challenges of the heart
El Ponchis
By: Gina Roman
November 15, 2010


Ok, so I gave up on listening to Madonna on youtube because my internet connection is way too slow upstairs which is where my room is. I could bake a cake and the damn thing would be ready before I can listen to a song without any stops.
Listen to music is on my bucket list of goals to be able to enjoy life a little more. That bucket keeps getting bigger and bigger every time as I fill it up with more wishes and desires.
Another one of many goals for next year is to sleep more because I have a SERIOUS sleeping problem! Earlier this week – on Monday night if I’m not mistaken, I realized that I had barely enough gas to get me to one more place but I didn’t stop to pump gas because it was too late and I was exhausted and annoyed because of the traffic jam due to the opening of ANOTHER casino! As if Guadalajara needed more places like that. I wonder why they don’t invest more money on libraries, art, museums, educational sites, sports facilities, something more productive!
That goes beyond me and I can’t control it so anyhow, I set up my alarm 15 minutes earlier (or so I thought) to make sure I wasn’t late to the gym.
Well when I got the gym I realized that it was 5:15am! It didn’t even feel like it because I was pretty pumped up, I am totally a morning person, the am hours is definitely when I’m at my best. I was thinking of what a nut I am to be awake at the crack of dawn when the majority of the population is trying to squeeze in their last moments of sleep. And also because sometimes I wear myself out to death, it’s about going, going and going until my body can’t take it anymore so I end up “sleeping in.” (Sleeping in for me is 7am).
Another goal is to NOT be so hard on myself when I don’t make it to the gym like this morning I was too tired, I was recovering from the weekend. I went out TWO days in a row! Friday and Saturday, that is to break the record for me because my nights out happen VERY seldom these days.
I also decided to write more on my blog even though my blogs may not be that long, a few short ones here and there throughout the week so I can let everything out of my chest.
One more goal is to dedicate more time to myself since I’ve been pondering on the fact that most of this year and last year everything else came before me; work, my family, charity work, engagements, etc. but my writing, my reading, my time to myself and my workouts were somehow forgotten because I didn’t put as much time into them as I would’ve liked.
I was feeling the guilt trip BIG TIME because “I” was left on the back burner for so long but this weekend was unlike many past weekends. On Friday night, I had a girl’s night out with my mom and my sister in law, we went out for dinner and for a drink, I only had a piña colada and boy did I feel it! I am so not tolerant to alcohol anymore especially when I go on “nun mode” months and months can go by without going out and without tasting a single drop of booze. I was WAY MORE disciplined when I was much younger and when I used to compete long distance, track and field and cross country.
On Saturday morning as sluggish and unmotivated as I was feeling, I forced myself to get up and go get my work out of the way. My lazy side kept telling me not to go, and thought “what’s the point of going if your left knee has been injured forever and you don’t see any signs of recovery?” So I decided to turn off that squeaky complaining voice that kept pulling me towards the blankets, switched my thinking mode off and hopped out of bed. After that I went to work (on a translation that I’ve been working on forever because my client keeps pushing back the deadline) at Starbucks right below my gym. Then I went and got a pedicure, a facial, got my arms waxed and my eyebrows and my hair trimmed, I even got my hair dyed!! To complement that soothing day, that evening I went out to dinner to an exquisite Indian restaurant with my best friend (my sister away from “home”) Mariana and her visiting co-worker from New York, we went to Nude this elegant bar but it was dead and before we knew it, we started dozing off. The crowd was a bit older than us, ha ha! As old as we may feel sometimes, we were definitely the young crowd there that night, everyone else seemed to be in their late 50’s, 60’s. After that we went to “el Callejon de los Rumberos,” this fun salsa place and just when we arrived there was a salsa performance, we got a full scope of those Goddess looking dancers, male and female. Ball room dancers always have amazing bodies which I have a lot of respect for and I feel a little jealous of (in a good way) because I want to look like that!
So no complaints about my weekends because this time “I” was not put in a dusty and hidden vault, I got the whole nine yards! The whole enchilada!
All this special pampering was such a good feeling and I kept thinking about how for the first time I’m REALLY looking forward to the holidays because I will take time off and I have so much to do (for me), I’ll have more time to work out, I’ll be gone for about ten days with part of my family, blah, blah, blah.
I was on cloud number nine, feeling all infatuated until I got connected to the internet and read the news about all the crime and violence going on in Mexico and I was in SHOCK after coming across “El Ponchis” a twelve year old boy in Morelos that is now the highest sought bloodthirsty hitman in Mexico! It was horrifying, it was too much to take; it was extremely sad and empty. Needless to say that brought me back to this crude reality.
Here I was thinking about me and feeling all guilty about not dedicating more time to myself and thinking about all the things I need when in reality I don’t need anything. I am healthy, I have work with its ups and downs but it is still work, I’m not lonely, I have a family, I have a few true friends which is more than enough, my heart is finally at ease, there are so many amazing things in life. It is revolting of how much we think about ourselves; how many times we let our feelings lead us and how many times we think about “I, I, I? For example, how many times have I used “I” in this article? What subject is the protagonist of most if not all of my blogs?

What about El Ponchis (the article didn’t reveal his real name) though? What are the reasons behind him doing this? Where are his parents? What drove him to do this? How did he get influenced into this rubbish? Is he completely conscious of the impact of all the crimes he’s committed? (They show pictures of him slashing a man’s throat, torturing others, pictures of him flashing his weapons, his drugs and his cars) Does he feel remorse? Why is there so much anger in him? Does he enjoy doing this? Is he aware that he’s only twelve and waht he will become as an adult? What was he missing? Was he missing love, affection, money, and understanding? What does he want from life? Who and what deprived him from his childhood and his innocence? Where will he end up? What is destiny holding for him? Does he have other goals and dreams? What demon is he fighting within?
My heart goes out to him and to all the people he’s deprived from life and all the ones he’s hurt.
There are so many mixed emotions inside me right now that I can’t stop writing, I don’t recall how long it’s been since I last wrote so much. Most Sundays I sit in front of my computer staring at it because even though I do come up with tons of ideas I don’t feel inspired to write because I can’t put my ideas together.
Many times I don’t get humanity, we are alive, we love each other, yet we hurt one another, we are able but unwilling to forgive, we hold a grudge forever and many times we are vindictive that we destroy ourselves by destroying others. We are unhappy with all the blessings life has given us. We complain, we feel anxiety, anger, lack of peace, envy, depression, emptiness, bitterness, despair, grief, fear, guilt
The human heart is the most deceitful of all things and it is desperately wicked, we are always guided by our feelings. The word “I” is the most frequently used word all over the world if I’m not mistaken. How many times do we begin a sentence with “I, I feel, I need, I want, I don’t feel, what does life have lined up for me, if only I, I lost all hope in life, I will, I’m afraid?” How many times do people tell you to follow your heart? Our heart is the most deceitful organ in our body because it will focus our mind on what “I want” and it will miss important and obvious aspects of what is better for our loved ones not just “I.”
That is the danger of living being guided by our hearts. But I do believe that we are completely capable of leading our heart by deciding to think about others.
I’ve always been an idealist that’s why Howard Roarke, the main character in Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead” is one of my favorite people even though he doesn’t exist. I believe in this perfect world where somewhere, someday “otro mundo si es possible,” another world is possible! a world in which everyone will be treated equally and looked as a human being and not treated better because of the worth of their house, their car or their business. A world in which nobody would be taken advantage of, somewhere where children like El Ponchis wouldn’t be hurt, abused or corrupted.
The world would change if all of us would stop thinking about “I, I, I, me, me, it is about me and what I want/need desire. Perhaps that will happen in another life cycle and my existence will have ceased before I am able to witness it.