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I had a pretty bland childhood; I was shy and extremely overweight. Just after high school I became a foreign exchange student, living with a family in Mexico. There the metamorphosis began. Over the course of my year there, I lost 12 inches off of my waist, grew a beard and began to realize for the first time in my life that people actually liked me for me, not for being my brother's brother, or my mother's son.
I loved Mexico and what it gave to me. I learned the concept of the Mexican expresssion "Me vale madre.", which loosely translated means 'I don't give a fuck.' I became that more self-assured and self-reliant, less concerned with how others viewed me.
I returned to the States with a new point of view. I went on to undergraduate studies in Maryland and earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. I then moved to North Carolina and earned my M.S. in Chemical Engineering too.
There in NC I met and fell in love with one of the greatest persons on the face of this planet. We had four glorious years together, probably the best of my life, in fact. Unfortunately, I had to move to TX for a job and he couldn't move with me. After a year of separation, we stopped our relationship as lovers. I have never said that we broke up (to me that implies anger and sadness); I have always preferred to say that we 'let go'. Regardless of the semantics, he has remained by best friend in the whole world. In fact, he is a soul mate.
I ended up living in Houston, TX for a little over 3 years. Even though I made some life-long friends there, I never felt at home there. "The highway that brought you here will take your ass back" as they were fond of telling me. After my less-than-stellar stay in Houston, I moved to Rochester, NY for another job.