Me

would do paid “meet and greets” and they would have me sign records, buttons, and all types of Menudo paraphernalia. This was perfect for me because it was just a few hours of work per week and provided me with an income. On the weekends, friends who were studying in Boston usually came to visit. Almost every day I would go to bed at dawn, but not because I was out at some party. In fact, when you are eighteen there is not much you can do in New York, because you cannot get into bars or clubs until you’re twenty-one. My friends—who unlike me came with the desire to party—would invite me to go out with them, but I would always tell them I’d meet up with them later. I would stay at home, relaxing, and I spent hours watching movies, walking, painting. In fact, if I remember correctly, my paintings from that time were a bit melancholic. All this free time was giving me the space I needed to think, reflect, and mature. I wanted to take full advantage of this time, and have time to get to know myself.
    From the time I was twelve until the time I was seventeen—the five formative years of adolescence—all I heard was: “Wear this. Cut your hair like this. Sing this. Learn this dance routine. Talk to this journalist.” I never had the chance to make my own decisions, which is why I had no idea how to make them! During those same five years, I was trained—I was indoctrinated—to personify a concept. I was forced to hide my feelings and my personality at all costs. I couldn’t be Kiki or Ricky. . . . The only thing that mattered was that I was a good Menudo!
    While I was in New York I had a lot of time to think, and I realized that over the previous several years I had become an expert at hiding my emotions. I’d say to myself, “No, I don’t want to feel this,” and I would shut down. It was hard for me to say, “I love you,” because the thing I feared most was rejection. I had spent so much time thinking that the only thing that mattered was that you follow a certain set of rules for other people to like you, so I didn’t have a clue what it meant to be genuine and express my own feelings.
    For nine months, I lived happily among the people in the great city of New York, and experienced what it was like to live like “a normal person” instead of a celebrity. It wasn’t the life of a monk or an ascetic, but I created a peaceful and relaxed lifestyle for myself, and that’s the way I continued to live my life from then on. I would sit on a park bench and look at the people passing by, without being accosted for autographs or photographs. In this city of millions, I was anonymous. And that simple life, enjoying and noticing simple things like the change of seasons, allowed me to find the inner peace that I had lost. I reconnected with the dreams and fantasies of my youth, and I still believed in making all my dreams come true.
    The silence allowed me to think of the future and genuinely ask myself what I really wanted to do. One possibility was to study acting at New York University, but I didn’t know if I wanted to go back to the stage. Show business was still a source of mixed emotions, and one day I told my mother I wanted to study computer science. She, of course, immediately said, “Son, please don’t do that.”
    I felt angry that she was not going to support what I wanted to do, so I responded: “Mami, I’m telling you that I want to study, which is what all moms want for their kids. And you are telling me you don’t want me to? How is that possible?”
    “Son,” she said, “you may not realize it yet, but it’s your destiny to be onstage.” She already knew what I was about even before I was willing to accept the truth.
    “Mami, don’t even think about that!” I said to her. “I never want to go back to the stage. I’ve had enough.”
    I was a bit annoyed, so we didn’t touch upon the subject again. A few months later she came to visit me and we went to see a concert at Radio City. Suddenly, in the middle of the show, I turned to say something to her, only to find her with tears streaming down her face. She was sobbing like a baby.
    “Mami, what’s wrong?” I asked, worried.
    “Son, you just can’t give up on show business,” she said. “That is your place, in center stage, in the spotlight.”
    My mother’s words stayed in my head. They affected me, of course, but not enough to make me change my mind. Now that I think about it, I never really sought out the