Splash Moments

A short personal piece

Every time I approach a swimming pool, I’m a bit hesitant to go in.

I used to dip my toe in the water first, but I found that it makes me even more hesitant because the water feels like it’s freezing. After the toe, I would try to go in slowly, gradually exposing inch after inch of skin to the water. But each millimeter of skin cells hitting the water feels like a small electric shock of cold. Sometimes those small shocks would make me change my mind, and I wouldn’t get in the pool after all.

But once you’re in the water though, your body adjusts to the temperature. And after a little while, it feels fine —in fact, the water ends up feeling warm.

Now, I prefer to jump in to avoid the time I would waste on the gradual submersion and to avoid the possibility of not going in. You get one enormous jolt, yes, but it is over with much faster.

But now I hesitate before the jump. Why?

The jump represents something quite profound if you think about it.

Before the jump, you are completely dry. After, you are completely wet. And the change is sharp, sudden, and irreversible. Once you’re wet, you’re wet, and there’s no turning back.

But before that, there is the jump. Once your feet leave the ground to make the leap into the pool, you cannot undo it. In the brief suspension in the air, you cannot change your mind. You’re going into that pool whether you embrace the decision or regret it.

There are moments in life that are like this. Splash moments, I like to call them.

In these moments, a direct action on your behalf changes the course of your life. And once it’s done, it’s done. There is no turning back, no reversing the past. The action is the jump, and the subsequent life change is the splash.


I recently had 2 major splash moments.

1. On December 10th, 2011 around 9PM, I jumped and asked Yenny’s parents for her hand in marriage and for their blessing.
2. On December 17th, 2011 at approximately 9:45PM (plus or minus 3 minutes), I made the leap and asked Yenny to marry me.

Now I am in the water, and it feels fine. In fact, it feels very warm.

Yenny's Engagement Ring: A 1/2 karat brilliant cut heart-shaped diamond on a 14 karat yellow gold ring.

On My Fear of Saying F.M.L. & My Superstitious Side

A short humorous piece

F.M.L. “Fuck my life.”

I’m afraid of using this phrase.

If the phrase were “Fuck, my life,” as in “Aww fuck, my life sucks!” then I would use it. But that’s not how it’s used. It’s used as an imperative. “Hey, you, fuck my life.”

I’m not a particularly religious man; I do not believe in a Judeo-Christian conception of God or in a any sort of anthropomorphized deity for that matter (I am agnostic). Yet I fear saying things like FML because I imagine “God” hearing me say that, and responding to me, “Hey, you know what, Mauro? I think I might take you up on that. Sure, I’ll fuck your life… right now.”

And the next day, I look in the mirror and notice my hairline is receding, and for the next few weeks, I start balding rapidly. And consequently my girlfriend (Correction: fiancée) starts to find me less attractive, slowly loses interest in me, and falls out of love with me.

OR the next day, while I’m at my favorite gym, I suddenly get immensely and violently painful abdominal cramps, and I shit my pants then and there for everyone to see. So I’ll never be able to return that gym again. And later, at home, after showering, I go to YouTube out of a need for escapism and find that me shitting my pants is the newest viral video laughingstock.

OR I imagine something much, much worse happening, something that I wouldn’t even want to think about.

So, to avoid these scenarios and their endless possibilities for pain, humiliation, and misery, I’ll do my best to avoid saying “fuck my life” whenever something bad happens.

So the next time I lose my keys, or roll my ankle playing basketball, or run out of milk when I crave cereal, I will instead say “Oh, goddamn it.”

On My Not-so Avuncular Relationship with Daniela

A short personal essay

Daniela's Quinceañera, May 12th, 2012

I am ten years older than my niece, Daniela.

I remember when she was first learning to speak, when she was about two or three —making me 12 or 13 —I would try to get her to call me Tio Mauro (Uncle Mauro in spanish). But she just wouldn’t. It never stuck. She would just call me Mauro. And I was fine with it. It didn’t bother me too much.

It is fitting, in fact, that she just call me Mauro.

The uncle is usually much older man than his niece, at least in the common conception of it. I’m picturing a man in his early twenties holding in his arms his infant niece, a man in his late twenties/early thirties playing board games or sports with the preteen child.

But I was a child when Daniela was an infant, a teen when she was a child, and a young adult now that she is a teen.

Daniela does not show me the proper reverence that should be automatically granted to your elders, the type of respect naturally due to a large generational gap. She does not behave in the shy, polite way I imagine a niece would act toward her uncle.

Instead, Daniela kicks me, punches me, slaps me, jokes with me, farts on me, throws crap at me, yells at me. She even hammered a Nintendo 64 controller on my testicles once when I was bragging about beating her at Mario Kart. And you know what? I do the same to her —except for hitting her in the balls for obvious physiological reasons. 

We treat each other disrespectfully, sure, but it’s the sort of disrespect born out of an intimacy made possible only through the comfort of closeness and familiarity, which stems naturally from so much time spent together.

I’ve coached her through Legend of Zelda games. We’ve played Mario Kart, Wii sports, Mario Bros. games, countless times together. We’ve gone to the park or right outside our houses to play basketball, throw around a frisbee or kick around a soccerball. We’ve run around the house pretending Daniela was Leon Kennedy and that I was a zombie. We’ve watched hundreds of episodes of Tosh.o and Family Guy and Friends. How many times has she “forced” me to watch 13 Going on 30? We’ve re-enacted scenes of Austin Powers movies. We’re obsessed by the same viral videos and by RAAAAAAAANDY! and Jenna Marbles. We play amateur violin/guitar duets and post them on youtube with some degree of shame and embarrassment. We’ve made cakes and cupcakes and apple pies together and different kinds of pasta. We’ve gone to Sonic to eat at the drive-in, to Olive Garden to celebrate (or rather to take advantage of never-ending pasta bowl), to Costco to eat hotdogs/pizza, to Fuji Roll to eat Sushi, to Jack-in-the-Box to drink Coca-Cola Ice-cream floats and eat greasy 50 cent tacos, to Bakers to eat bean and cheese burritos. I’ve guided her through some of her homework throughout the years and given her advice on how to achieve scholastic success. We’ve even been coworkers. Yeah, we’ve done all sorts of stuff together.

So, no, Daniela does not show me that respect given to an uncle uncle.

But it’s OK.

After all, Daniela is not just my niece.

She is my little sister. And I am her older brother.

And I think she knows that now and has known it for probably as long as she can remember, even as a toddler forming her first words and sentences.

And that is, of course, why she does not call me Tio Mauro today and didn’t call me that then. You wouldn’t call your older brother that.