Me

I said to her.
    “No!” she yelled back.
    The hairdressers were cracking up. It was honestly very funny, if also a bit sad, because my hair wasn’t really the problem; it was my identity I was struggling with. I was like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum; I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to cut my hair, as if that was going to solve whatever angst I had and no one was going to tell me otherwise (or so I thought!). Fortunately, after debating it for a while, I saw things differently and decided to listen to Wendy.
    Even though I had to leave my hair long—if only for a few more days—I did get two weeks of vacation out of it. And considering how hopeless I was feeling at that time, those two weeks of freedom meant a lot . I used them to go to the mountains, where I rented a cabin to disconnect from the world. It was February and very cold; on some days I would ski, and other days I would stay home and read, write, think. There was a telephone, but I’d use it only sporadically to call my family or friends to let them know I was okay.
    One day, after several days of being alone, I had the urge to climb a tree. I think I climbed that tree because I remembered that when I was a little boy, I used to climb into a tree that was in front of my grandmother’s old house. I would take my Star Wars figures up there and spend hours creating great battle scenes in space. I don’t know if it just made me remember my childhood, or if it was because I had spent so many days in silence, but all of a sudden I began to cry uncontrollably. I cried and cried for a long time, and slowly released all of the angst that had been building up inside me. Finally, when I calmed down, I returned to the cabin, where, a little while later, the phone rang: It was my father, calling to tell me that my grandfather had just passed away.
    While I was up in that tree, crying and remembering the tree of my youth, the tree that was such an innate part of my grandfather’s world, he had passed away! I realized that all things in life are connected and I could no longer go about life without looking within. That moment affected me profoundly, and it awakened something in me on a purely spiritual level. Even though I did not know how I was going to do it, in that moment I felt the need to connect deeply with a force or energy greater than me. It was a moment of great turmoil, but when I look back on it today, I see it as a very important moment, because it marked the beginning of a crucial spiritual journey I am still on to this day.

MAKING MUSIC
    BEFORE I ARRIVED in Los Angeles, I had already released my second album, called Me amarás . Since the first album sold very well, some 500,000 copies, the record company decided that for Me amarás it would be important for me to work with one of the most respected producers in the industry, Juan Carlos Calderón. Juan Carlos is an exceptional person, whom I respect and admire profoundly. From the day we started working together, I felt very grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with him. For me it was a learning experience to work with someone of his stature, but if I am honest, I always felt that that record was more his than mine. I lent him my voice. I liked the album and it received positive reviews from the critics, but it was not the sound of Ricky Martin, and although the album was still really good, musically speaking, the audience was mostly responding to that.
    When I listen to the record today, even though I think my voice back then sounded very different from how it sounds now, I still feel immensely proud of the production. It would have been perfectly normal to feel frustrated by the experience or disappointed that the album didn’t sound like my own, but I think even in that moment I had the perspective to understand that Me amarás was merely one more step in my career, and not what would define it. Sometimes the experience is worth more than the end result itself, and this was one of those cases. The experience of working with Juan Carlos was in itself amazing—I learned a lot from a musical and technical point of view—but it also helped me to realize that I would never again make an album that did not feel like my own. When you are surrounded by so many talented people, it is normal to start doubting your own artistic choices, but to be a truly original artist, it is crucial to stay true to yourself. And that was the lesson I learned. My third album would have