John Freddy Hurtado came from a place of darkness, and writing was his way out.
This is you writing to yourself tonight to read one day when feeling alone or helpless. You’re sitting in your car alone. The lights are off, and the trees overhead cast an even deeper darkness. Tonight your cars speaker’s beat competes with the one in your chest, because you’re devastated. You lost a love story that for the first time, narrated your soul rather than bias consciousness.
Never had you been possessed by repressed emotions, and subconscious voices like tonight; but it all goes in vain, because all you have now is your favorite artist’s voice projecting through the speakers. Empty like your passenger seat; in some weird way, you know this is where you belong. This won’t be the last time you’ll sit in your car though, I’m sure. at least you’re not all alone. You’ve got a heartbreak to keep you company.
It, without understanding, keeps you whole. It sanctifies you from pain. No gust of wind is strong enough to pollute you with dirt, for your ugliness is what makes you beautiful…components of life I’m sure you’ll never want to face, for understanding of such complexity, may disarm you of such indestructibility. For the sake of safety, we’ll leave that part of you undiscovered.
♦◊♦
For anyone reading this, I have been writing since I was a kid, roughly about 15 years now. And whether I’m writing for the people, or for myself wearing a Walmart name-tag at 40, I promised myself I would never stop. In my brief life I have only been certain of two things in my life: loving Julia, and my compelled need to write. Though being a writer totally goes against my perpetual chase towards mystique, the axiom of who I am will not permit this, and I understand my placement in this world. I am free for this. Though it came with much pain, I’ve crawled from the darkest halls one person can live in, to walking fields of grass with no one but my wings on my back, as a free man. It’s finally nice to look in the mirror every morning and recognize who you see.
As a human, we chase acceptance in a world strung by guidelines not even the men who encrypted them could live up to. As a man waking up every morning amidst a spinning blackness of matter: my curiosity for answers of the external world no longer precedes my own; for, I understand, my sacrifices of facing reality relieves the small children who prosper through my wisdom; wisdom that that could not have come, however, with much pain. Still, I am willing to walk into fields of reality and be gunned down, for the sake of waking up a generation; And while the days of my hatred for myself lived on scavenging for favors I could receive – it’s become clear I am the world’s favor.
♦◊♦
I’ve hurt girls in a hopeless search of acceptance, when all I needed was to help everyone accept themselves, to feel the love I’ve always chased. When I was 12 years old my mother died of AIDS. However, with that revealing of her conditions came another that has cultivated my constant search for answers: I was born with HIV. A product of a time constituted by reckless living, and a lack of concern for tomorrow, I could not escape my fate. I, John Freddy Hurtado, did not have a birthday party his first three years alive, because doctors advised his guardians that celebrating his life was an incentive gone in vain, for a child soon to die. I am not a victim of my circumstance, however; and there are no conversations of consoling I haven’t had on my own, alone.
I beat HIV. Destined to die at 1, here I am at 21 documenting a fate healthy and virus free. My ugliness makes me beautiful. My emptiness made me whole. As a kid with such a big secret, its natural for the external world to alienate a child who’s hidden secret naturally made him different, and I grew hate. Hate for myself. Hate for my father. Hate for my mother. Hate for my family. And as I’ve grown, I’ve come to the realization People hate, because they fear once they liberate them self from that hatred, they are left to deal with the pain that always lay underneath. I made a lot of people in my life victims of my hopeless search for love and acceptance in the outside world.
For years that secret has haunted me, but I faced the darkness; and for understanding, I am free. This is my coming of out to a social network that holds more strangers than friends; but I have no-more secrets. I’ve run from my judgment my whole life, and I’m tired of being someone I’m not. I beat the unbeatable, and it would be a sin not to accept I was brought to this world for something greater. I’ve known how special I truly am for some time now — but I now give this to you reader to accept my writings, for they don’t just come from a carefree 21 year old. My life has been saved once, and it’s now time to return the favor through writing. Don’t be concerned though, not shed pity on me, I write this from a beautiful place in my head — if only you could see the view.
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photo: sylvar / flickr
Way to go, John. This writing thing is pure magic. You tell your story and the telling of it changes who you are. Thanks for writing. Please keep doing so.
John, thank you for this.
John – powerful story; and I imagine the words don’t come close to describing just how powerful your liberation from fear and judgment has been for you. Thanks for sharing your story – your story – it will connect with others – it intersects with the stories of others – but they will only know that because you dared to share it.
Thanks John for sharing such an amazing story here.
After the hate, there is you letting yourself love yourself. After this, is there healing? I think so. “And as I’ve grown, I’ve come to the realization People hate, because they fear once they liberate them self from that hatred, they are left to deal with the pain that always lay underneath.”
This is precisely true. Pain is frightening and hate feels strong. But hate only puts off the pain.
It is a good thing you write. Keep writing. Keep allowing yourself to lose the hate and to love.
Thanks for writing.
Thank you Good Men Project, I am extremely grateful
We’re very glad to have you here John.