The Winner Takes It All

I didn't understand this song until I saw Meryl Streep's version of it on Mamma Mia:



It isn't clear to me why it never clicked for me. I guess I didn't know how it felt to lose at love yet.

Who am I today?

Today, I am a dreamer, a writer and a lover of life. My identity isn’t really attached too much, I just enjoy being, thinking and living the moment. The stronger aspects of my life involve my values, my friends and family. There aren’t many materials things that really define me except living on South Beach. I can’t say I’m much attached too much, but I do love my little condo and my dragon collection. Other than that, well, I adore the wonderful people in my life and living as I please.

Who am I? Good question. I am Ana-Maria Figueredo, born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens and a product of Catholic schools in New Jersey. Gee, that’s scary!! I have a BA in English Literature and MS in Educational Technology. I’m a daughter, aunt, ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, mentor, teacher, student, and hard working woman. Sometimes I’m just a woman, sometimes I’m just a spirit and sometimes I’m nothing at all but pure being.

Today, I’m a woman who has become increasingly:
• compassionate with others
• intolerant of stupidity or vulgarity
• a bit isolated
• a firm believer in goodness and purity of spirit
• a hopefully-not-hopeless-romantic
• someone who never gives up or in
• I laugh or cry easily
• I embrace with all my being
• all animals and children are precious to me
• I enjoy opera, blues/jazz or any form of great musical talent
• I’ve seen most of the United States
• I’ve shared special moments with people of all walks of life
• Each day I feel we aren’t getting the right answers because we aren’t asking the right questions.
• I think the right questions are the key to reality.

However, that isn’t the answer is it?

Who am I today?
A woman writing a blog and expressing her thoughts about her identity.

Who am I today?
Spirit

Who am I today?
Being

Who am I today so you can understand me?
Label me as you wish. Essence is can not be defined, it is perceived.

Who am I today?
Whoever you think I am.

Intentions

If I had a dollar for every intention I’ve ever had, I’d have a lot of dollars!! There are so many things I intend to begin, do and finish…the list is endless!! For example, I sometimes pile things I would like to read. Then after the pile gets too high and I’m frustrated, I throw the whole pile away. Sometimes I think it is a commitment problem, sometimes I think I’m lazy…mostly I’ve come to believe I just don’t do everything I intend to do and need to revisit what intentions are really about. It is definitely time for a reality check.

The lovely thing about being part of Tuesday Topic is that the intention to blog has a new element of pressure to it. I have to think about how disappointed Jen Goode would be if I didn’t blog or how some of the other bloggers of the group would feel if I didn’t fulfill this commitment. I vowed to do this over milkshakes in the middle of the night at a Las Vegas conference. These are the pinnacle moments that define our lives and character. If you can’t keep a promise you’ve made after way too many cocktails over chocolate shakes, then your intentions are definitely in question. Or so I believe…

One of my peeves about intentions is when they are used as an excuse for promises not kept. When you ask a person why they haven’t fulfilled a promise and the answer is, “it was my intention…” It has dirty, rotten liar written all over it!! Intending to do something isn’t the same as doing it!! If you are going to do something just do it, intentions don’t cut it.

On that same note…I love intentions. When someone tells me about an intention, I get excited. Intending to do something is a promise of hope and vision. “My intended” is a loaded phrase as well promising the future of possibilities with a special someone. I prefer the notion even to fiancé. It is loaded with subconscious programming as to what the future might hold.

What are my intentions? Well, to express my innermost thoughts about how I view life and the subtle nature of the greenness of the pea. To study the nature of grass and other things that grows effortlessly creating the havoc of traffic and grocery store lines. These are all thoughts of a madwoman I know, but I never intended to be anything but what I am. Judge me as you wish, I bother no one by existing in my little slice of heaven on South Beach. I never intended to be anything more than what I am.