My Name is Leandro

My Name is Leandro, 27 years old, Brazilian... and what? I’m not sure really! My life is a mess right now and I’m feeling so lost. At this moment I typed my name in the computer and it shows wrong, underlined in red. Exactly how I feel right now. Leander? Laundry? Lender? What the hell is that? The computer doesn’t let me add my name in the dictionary, too sad. I don’t how tall I am in inches, but I know my weight, 156 lbs. I have black short hair, brown skin, good ‘Brazilian-native’ looking and reorganized teeth thanks to retainers I’ve been using in a few years. Before I was too shy to smile since everybody could notice my huge tooth jumping outside my mouth. I’m also funny, really funny, and happy most of the times. I love to be friendly and I feel that I’m not mature enough to my age and believe or not I really like that way. I feel comfortable with that, I mean, I’m not an idiot or a retard, but I can see things in another perspective when I want to. I think to see the world as a great place to live, love and don’t worry so much about life is very health. I don’t have a easy life, actually my life is too complicated right now like I said already, and I cry, fell depress, suffer, and I want that everything just get over soon, like everybody does. The difference is that I don’t open space for those feeling domain my life and don’t like to talk about the painful situation, on the contrary I prefer don’t give much attention to that because this is exactly the beginning of depression and sadness. I can be very annoying as a depressed person and this mean I will make another people uncomfortable with my presence for sure. That’s why I prefer take a deep breath and move on with my responsibilities and my positive way of view the world. I work hard and hate when people came complaining about their problems to me. I like when people came talking about problems already thinking about a solution, and not just crying sadly like no tomorrow. I’m a very good listening and I like to write. And as a normal young gay guy, I love go out, dance, dress well and travel. My gay life improved a lot since I’m here in the United States in a certain way. I feeling more comfortable to talk about my sexuality and free to be who I am. I’m leaving a strong relationship that survived almost three years of distance between Brazil and USA. Now it’s more real than never. Dennis, or just Den, my partner-love-boyfriend, just came to see what I’m writing. I wont tell, like usual. Our love has to be proved every time since it starts in 2006. With visas interviews and questions about the difference of age and culture, thing I will explain later. And the answer of this question is always yes. I love him. Sometimes I feel that he loves me more than everything. That’s beautiful and scared. I’m feeling that a new time of my life is just starting and I need to clean up my pass, organize it and then move on.


Dennis and I live together, in his house, in El Cerrito California since I moved her ten months ago. The house is beautiful, an antique, how Dennis likes to say. Two bedrooms, unfinished kitchen, a basement remodeled to be the office. Our backyard is amazing now, full of tropical plants and trees. We get out of the house by the bedroom door to the deck in the backyard, going down some stairs, we see a lot of bamboos that started to grow with no control, but Dennis is trying to take care of that. After that, we see a beautiful pound with a pound full of fishes that I love to feed every morning. Dennis usually used this place to photo shoot models. However, it’s 8:33 pm in a Saturday night. I woke up feeling that I need answers, I need to decide my life before I got into 30s. I’m tried to have these dreams about “how lost my life is”. The last one I just had: Dennis and I was living in a Favela, a very poor and dangerous place in Brazil, and I decide to drive to the grouches store to buy more food, and I just drove so bad! Completely lost and afraid of cops, because I didn’t have drive’s license (like in the real life) and at the end, I couldn’t come back home. That dream says, “Man, your life sucks!” I know that because I had a book teaching how to interpret dreams. Every time you dream with houses or cars, and it’s not good, your life isn’t good. And that’s how I’m feeling now. I need to write because this is the only way I have to organize my ideas. Today I had such a busy day. I woke up earlier and cleaned up all back and front yard. Today I concentrated my work cleaning the sidewalk and cutting some things that was growing too much. The sidewalk now has no grass, but some plants and a “line” of Palm Trees. Dennis and I also took a shower outside in the backyard, naked, and this was so good. Neighbors can’t see us. When I arrived here, that place was abandoned, but Dennis and I are working hard on that almost every weekend. We also have a hot tub that can fit six people inside. Our sidewalk is beautiful as well. The house is in a corner; and there are palm trees all over it. The house is also different from other in our little street. Is one of the first houses in this area and Dennis tries hard to keep this impression. The unique color, big front window, the pal trees and the big yellow truck parking in front make the house especial.


After all this handwork I came to the sofa to check my Facebook. I saw that Amanda, my Brazilian friend who lives here, did skydiving today. Why she didn’t call me? I really want to do it too and she knew it! Amanda is Brazilian and did housekeeping for Dennis when he was flying constantly to Brazil. Since I met here you’re being hanging out a lot, doing stuff together and I meeting many people trough her. I feel like Amanda and I are building a good friendship. Talking about friends, one more day without a messenger in my Brazilian Orkut (I kind of Facebook very common in Brazil). I think my friends in Brazil are too busy taking care of their life and interacting with who don’t let them to live in the US. I understand that, seriously, I’m not part of their routine anymore, but it doesn’t mean I lost my friends. Leo is a good example of that, he is my good friend and sometimes we talked by MSN and he tells me all those stories about him going out with his friends, having fun… I got jealous easy, but I know he miss me, and all the moments we spend together drinking, talking, and having fun.


The last time I went to Brazil was in June of this year, and I have this misunderstanding with Gabi, she is one of my best friends. I’m still not sure about what exactly happened in that day at her friend’s barbecue, but I don’t talk with them since I went back. It could be many reasons: jealous, drugs, stress, fear. Gabi started dating Roberta several months ago, and we became very close. To be honest, we were partying more than we suppose to do. Even Gabi always with us, she became afraid about our nightlife with plenty o fun, big expenses and drugs. She told me once that Roberta was going on those things pretty badly and they really want to move in together one day. I didn’t make a big deal about it because, now I can say, I was going out of control as well. At that barbecue, I told Gabi about my intentions for that night even because I was leaving back to the United states and I wanted enjoy everything that I could and she freaked out, had a fight with Roberta about something I don’t know, and left Roberta and I there. Then, some hours later, I notice why. After Gabi let I stayed with Robert all night and start noticing what Gabi was trying to tell me. Robert had no limit on drugs putting us in a very scares situation. It was during all night. In the morning, I had no choice than take her to my house and after I insist a lot she stop and slept in my bed. At that day I understood why Gabi wanted to stop this life and start to have a normal relationship. I also understood that one of the biggest reason their relationship wasn’t working because of me. I was the one that Roberta loved to be with, I was always calling them to hang out, go to the clubs and etc. I realized that, after I moved, they finally got some privacy. So I decide do not call or try to resolve the situation. I just left Brazil without talk with them. Don’t think it’s extreme because it’s not. This is only a breaf comment and I really don’t want to go deep in this story because hurts me a lot. Maybe later I can be feeling good enough to talk more about that. I had my reason to think like that and also feel very sad about the fact that Gabi or Roberta never called or contact me since this day. I founded out that they moved together and I assuming they’re fine. I really hope Gabi and Roberta are fine.


So that’s why I decide to write this. I’m confused, lost, needing organize my ideas, my life. I need to find myself. I need to know who I am and who I can be. I’m in a very anguish and scared moment of my life, when everything could be wrong or write. This is a moment of I can’t plan the future for sue, and a can’t be static as well. I wish I stay here, in my brand new world where I’m able to work, study and make friend. I wish to stay in this world where I’m having a pretty nice life. I wish to stay with the guy that I love. So I will read all this after all, and I’ll prove to myself that I’m not completely lost. I have a very interesting background. I was a happy crazy person in Brazil. I was a gay activist, I’ve been part of a book, I’ve been part of the most funny situations, and the most dangerous situations when I was involved with drugs. I’m glad this time is over and now I can sit down here, write my thoughts, plan my life and realize taht I’m not anyone. I have a life full of stories, a person who loves me more than everything, and some fights that I’m glad I did and now is over. I have great stories of life. I will tell all about in this blog. I had no idea who is reading, I don’t really care who is reading since you don’t judge me as a bad, crazy, or insane person. I just need to talk, to write. This is something that I like to do since I was a kid. To write for me was always a scape.