This Was Supposed to Be a Different Post

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.” Voltaire

I was supposed to finish and publish my “year-ahead and year-just-gone” post on Sunday.

Then Venezuela —and confusion— happened.

Given the crosscurrents of thoughts and emotions in my mind and soul that day, I just couldn’t go back to writing about how, this year, I would love to resolve not to wear a bra ever again —but can’t because I care too much about what others might think or say.

I couldn’t write about why I’ve taken a liking to using swear words when I speak English.

I couldn’t keep making sense of the contradiction that, despite being grateful for the fact that I have all I need, I’m still hungry for more in the way of material things.

Sending all those ponderings out into the world felt silly because my country of birth had taken over every single neuron in my brain.

With all my brain power devoted to one issue, you’d think I could formulate a coherent analysis of how I see all that’s unfolded so far in Venezuela, right?

Well, I can’t.

The best I can come up with is this: I am effing confused.

This may turn out to be a net positive for Venezuela and a net negative for the international order —or the other way around. Or maybe a huge net positive —or minor net negative?— overall. But then again, so-and-so expert on X explained how everything that’s happening needs to happen this way, that it all makes perfect sense.

Venezuela’s freedom at any cost is what’s important, right? And yet, truly, I’m not one who endorses the notion that the ends always justify the means.

Do I just need to grow a thick skin and not care about what I hear about oil, oil, oil, U.S. interests, free and fair elections, U.S. interests, who’s running what, U.S. interests, oil? After all, I’m a grateful immigrant and don’t care much when I hear similar rationales when it comes to other countries. Am I just too sentimental?

I’ve felt elated, angry, optimistic, pessimistic —even guilty!

See? I’m confused.

But then my autistic son Diego said something —as he often does— that made me smile, and reflected exactly what I’d like to do.

We were making his bed when he said, “I’m gonna put my Winnie the Pooh under the pillow.”

“Why under the pillow?” I asked.

“Because he’s hibernating.”

Now, that’s what I would love to do: hibernate for three months and wake up to see where we are —hopefully, well on our way to a democratic, sovereign Venezuela. And I’ll feel so grateful to everyone who made it possible.

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→Here’s Diego’s under-the-pillow, hibernation reel.