I'm just sitting here reflecting on my life and my dissatisfaction. I am presently trying harder to feel my emotions and to get out of my head. I try to think back to when I "turned off" my heart and went cold. I think I've found it...
When i was 11 years old I lived with my Mother, Grandparents and Siblings. We were struggling financially. My mom was working her ass off as a clerk in a convenience store, and yet we couldn't get by. Everytime we tried to get an apartment by ourselves, we always had to go back after a few months and live with my Grandparents. Don't get me wrong, I loved my Grandparents with all my heart and soul, I enjoyed the times we lived with them. I just wish things didn't have to be so hard. I was starting to get to the point in a preteen's life where I was embarrassed that I only had 3 pairs of pants that I wore to school over and over again. All of my friends had Nintendos and Ataris, their own rooms, and a lot of clothes. They never got made fun of at school for wearing the same thing over and over. I claimed that they weren't the same clothes, I just had clothes that looked the same. I don't think anyone bought it. If I told my mom I needed more clothes, she would have me call my dad and ask him for the child support that he very rarely sent. I hated doing this so much I just sucked it up and went on with my lies to friends at school. If someone pushed the issue, I would beat them up. We were originally living in my Uncle's house, but due to his emotional instability and fits of rage, we mostly lived in a small 3 bedroom apartment. It doesn't sound like its too bad, but keep in mind there were 8 of us living there. My mother working 2 sometimes 3 jobs and being on welfare and my Grandparents on social security, we still didn't have enough money for clothes, food, or things like toys for the kids. I grew up envious of everyone I knew.
While we were poor and struggling financially, we had an abundance of love, affection, and encouragement. We were very lucky we had so many that loved us so much. My mother was very emotionally wounded by her divorce from my father. She worked so much she didn't have any time for herself or for friends. She confided in me about our money problems, about how my father hurt her and abandoned us, and about how she just wanted to find someone to love her. We talked about her potential boyfriends and about how my father cheated on her with multiple women. I was only 11 years old, a child not equipped to deal with adult issues, but I wanted so badly to be an adult, to be able to help. I gladly filled the role of my mother's best friend and confidante. By the time I was 12, I was convinced never to fall in love and get married, it just led to a horrible situation. I was cynical enough to believe that all marriages ended in divorce and men were incapable of feeling love the same way that a woman could. I never wanted to end up like my mother, having to work her fingers to the bone for the rest of her life and still coming up short in the end. Having to be dependent on other people. I swore that I would be successful and happy, and if I ever had kids I'd give them everything I never had. But I would never get married so I'd never get divorced. Contrary to popular belief my mother didn't put these thoughts in my head, I came up with them on my own, she was and still is a hopeless romantic who believes that there's always hope to find the perfect someone and live happily ever after. It hurt me to see her so broken, so emotionally destroyed by being alone. I never wanted to be like that.
I equated our financial situation with being Mexican. The only successful people I ever knew/met were all white. The few successful Mexicans I knew (like my father and one of my uncles) divorced their Mexican wives, and married white women. I equated being successful with being white. My father turned his back on our beautiful Mexican culture and adapted to life in the successful white world. At the young age of 12, just barely in 6th grade, I decided to go live with my dad and stepmother. I knew that my mother, as hard as she would try, could never help me with college. I would probably want to skip it or put it off to get a job and help the family. But I wanted to be a doctor...not a high school drop-out loser without a future. Not poor. I knew my dad was financially stable enough where college was in my future, not just a possibility. I also had a new baby brother at my dad's and I felt like I could start over and have a different life. I tried my hardest to get my brother and sister to come with me, I wanted us all to have a better life. I had always said, that no matter what happened with the adults in our family as long as we three were together, we would be okay. Then, when they decided to stay, I tore my heart out and left it in California with them. That was the first time I ever suppressed a really big emotion. I turned off my feelings to avoid feeling the guilt and pain of leaving my family. My mother was already so fragile, I can't even begin to imagine how much I hurt her and the repercussions for my brother and sister.
As things usually are in life, life at my dad's was no picnic. The saying
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence is completely true, I know firsthand. My dad and stepmother weren't very affectionate people. I was used to an abundance of hugs and kisses, being able to lay down and cuddle with my mom in her bed, and endless words of praise and encouragement. But at my dad's house, it was completely opposite. I never knew how much I would miss that until I left. I never imagined how lonely I was going to be. Open affection was seldom given and the need for it was seen as a weakness. I wasn't a baby anymore, I shouldn't be coddled like one. I immediately regressed. I didn't act like a
regular 12 year old prepubescent girl, I acted like a 6 year old constantly needing attention, deathly afraid of being alone. I went from taking care of kids everyday, to not being able to take care of myself. I immediately thought to myself, "I've made a terrible mistake..." but I could never swallow my pride and go back. I couldn't let my stepmother win, show that I was weak, and run back to my mother. I couldn't go back, because then all the pain I had been going through would be for nothing. My dad and stepmother found that the best way to punish me for my actions was to threaten to send me back. I constantly lived in fear that they'd send me away and I would do anything to try to win their favor. I lived with the guilt of hurting my mother and siblings and tried to erase that part of my life. I couldn't talk to them without re-living my departure for this less than ideal/possibly worse situation. This guilt turned into anger and I acted out by lying, cheating, stealing and setting fires. I would write death threats to myself to try to make myself feel important and to try to get attention from the adults in my life. I felt the guilt of having money when my brother and sister had none. I felt resentment that after I left, my mother put them into activities I wanted to do but we never had money for. I tried to put all my love for my brother and sister into my new brother and sister. I tried to step back into my old role of caretaker and tried my best to mother my younger brother and sister. I felt like I had lost my childhood. All the carefree days of playing and love were behind me now. I had to do the best with the situation I had now. I couldn't leave another set of siblings...not again, they needed me. I was a troubled teen trying to be raised by an absent father and a domineering stepmother. A woman with whom I had a roller coaster relationship. Things were either awesome and we got along like best friends, or they were awful and filled with her condescending words and occasional physical violence. I used to say she just built me up to tear me down. But now, I don't completely blame her for the way I was treated. I know I was a handful and then some. She was young (only 10 years my senior) and just wasn't emotionally equipped to deal with a broken teenager and did the best she could. That's all anyone can do. She has a past of her own and it shaped her just as we all have been shaped by our past. I don't blame anyone anymore for the way I was raised and turned out. I know I have issues, but I believe everyone does. It's comforting to know that the world isn't perfect and no one in it can ever be.
This is in no way the end of the story. Life is an endless cycle and often repeats itself. My father and stepmother eventually divorced, I lived with her and my brother and sister until I couldn't take the rules and double standards any longer. Then, once again, I abandoned my family and left them in a dire situation. Looking for a way out and a better life. I am a firm believer in karma and I believe the universe tries to exist in balance. I believe that what you do comes back to you. I honestly believe that I am unable to have children because of the fact that I have left everyone I have ever had a hand in raising. I'm always trying to get to
the other side of the fence and though it has made me who I am and given me the life I have, I believe some people aren't meant to have children. Maybe I'm one of them. And who knows, maybe the universe will surprise me one day. I surely was surprised to learn that men DO have the capability of love not just a drive for sex... but again, that's another part of the story.
