Being ambitious and being a dad

You know, I haven’t been to the movies in over three years, and at this point I’m not sure what would bring me back.

Angelo: No, it's actually the very first time that I've been able to tell this without actually crying or anything like that because I don't want to embarrass myself or anything. Yes, it's very literally very hard. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, right now my kids are in birthday season—my kids literally have birthdays back to back. So I mean, it's literally hard. My first Christmas here, I had no idea it was already Christmas until I saw lights. So, I literally just stood in front of them where I was staying—I was staying with my uncles—and I just stared at the lights and just broke down. And there's many times where that happens to me. There's a car that I used to have, or let's say McDonald's or any little thing, a pretty park—I walk by a pretty park—and I just picture my kids. So, it's very difficult mainly because of my kids. That's all I wanted to be, a father. I want to say that I gave them everything. And it's just very hard not being able to, for all that work to just be taken away just like that.Isabel: Yeah. I mean especially when you're saying like being a father, being a good father and talking about not being able to forgive your own father for the way that he treated your mother, being able to rise from that, to be the man that you want to be. Not having that figure as a father, like knowing you don't want to replicate that.Angelo: Exactly.Isabel: And the cruel irony of then still be pictured as that person that you never wanted to be.Angelo: Exactly. And that was my main goal, just like you said it, that was the perfect words. I wanted to be someone that my father was never to me and to my family. So, I said “I'm going to be the best father,” and I want to say that I was, but it just got taken away. It's very hard because my kids right now, they stay with their grandparents—they don't have a father. I think to myself on Father's Day at school, what are they making? Who are they giving the projects to? My oldest son, he remembers me.Isabel: You mentioned that your return to Mexico was very difficult, you had a lot of struggles, like all the alcoholism, also finding a job, socially. Do you mind just going into some of the obstacles you ran into on your return?Angelo: On my return to Mexico, my very first day here in Mexico, I spent the night in on the border, in Tamaulipas, Mexico. And literally I didn't want to do anything else. The very first thing I did was go to a store, and I bought a beer and I asked the lady at the store, "Will I get in trouble if I walk around the streets with the beer?" And she said, "You'll be fine. You have two or 300 pesos, right?" I said, "Yeah I just came back from the United States, I have money." “You'll be fine, if somebody pulls you over, just give them that and you'll be completely fine. “So that was the very first thing I did getting here to Mexico. There's so much alcoholism in my family that when I got here in Mexico, I said, "Okay, well it's in my blood. Let's go for it." And literally there will be times where I would just go out and buy a vodka bottle and go to my room, buy some orange juice and just literally drink until I passed out. And that went on for about half a year until one day, I guess I got really sick. I had the hiccups a lot that three or four in the morning, I was making too much noise.Angelo: I literally do not remember this, but there were people banging on my door trying to get in. Nobody was able to get in, they had to break the door down. And from what they told me, I was just in a corner and just literally choking on myself, with so much hiccups that, and I was just [inaudible]. The next morning and everybody sat down with me, and they literally—Isabel: Who’s everybody?Angelo: My uncles. I was staying at my uncle's house, so my uncle's family sat down with me, my cousins, and they had to pull me straight. They literally said, “You're not right.” They didn't talk to me too much because just them saying “You're not all right,” it clicked into my head that it was a very, very, very first time that I blacked out drinking, the very, very first time. So I told myself, "How do you not remember this happening? How do you not remember any of this? Or why are they telling you this? What did you do?" And I just saw my father all over again, and that was it, that's when I stopped drinking on the daily.Angelo: Yes. Because depression is a big part of my life. In the United States, I got diagnosed with bipolar depression, so there's just times where one time I could be happy, and then I think of something and literally my world ends. So getting here to Mexico, that was my escape, that was my answer, that was my... I can't say it wasn't the answer because for me my goal was to destroy myself, my goal was to get mugged in the middle of the street. There would be times where I literally walked around the state of Mexico three, four in the morning, just in the middle of the street, just looking for trouble. I wanted somebody to find me, I wanted somebody to…you know, all these dangerous streets that people were telling me, I wanted that, I don't know, I wanted to just destroy myself.Angelo: I wanted to get beaten down, I wanted for something bad to happen, and it was very hard. So whenever they had to break down the door, it was a big eye opener because they had to call my mom, and my mom did not know any of this. And my mom's a very big important part of my life, even over there she would always help me with stuff. She would always run around with me, she would always go shopping with me if I needed anything for my kids, she was always right there, if I needed babysitter, she was always right there. So whenever they had to call my mom, and they told her, "You know what, your son is doing this" [Emotional]. That brought so much shame to me, and that's when I said, I told my mom, "I'm sorry, I'm not going to do what my father did, so I'm done." And that was it. That's when I said, "I'm not going to do this again to my mom."