Last time I wrote (feels like ages I must admit), I talked about a letter I got from the male procreator. I wrote back. I would not use any kind of messenger so I put it in an envelope, pasted … Continue reading
The letter I wrote
Tag Archives: Family
A Long Time Ago… (part 2)
You can check out the first part of this post, where I vaguely describe one side of my family issues, here. As I said in that post, when I first listened to “Picture Book” by The Kinks, it caused a … Continue reading
Take it as it comes
I have so much work to get done by tomorrow is unbelievable, and after such a stressful long weekend I don’t even know where to start.
As some of you already know, I spent the weekend at my uncle’s house in a different town. My mother asked me to take her there ’cause he’s dying and she wants to be close to him. I drove all afternoon and we got there in the evening. I truly was not prepared for what I was about to witness.
The last time I saw my uncle was at his 50th wedding anniversary. His children threw their parents a beautiful shower and they brought everyone together, even the ones living abroad. For one afternoon, everybody put their squabbles, traumas and resentment away and celebrated a lifelong marriage. He was already sick, he had been diagnosed with diabetes years before and he was getting dialysis, but he was still lively, danced around, and we all had a nice time. Now, 3 years later, he’s had one leg amputated, has moved on to hemodialysis, and is in constant excruciating pain. I had no idea all I would see was bones covered in skin. A man who cannot even sit up in bed, or eat, or speak without his tongue getting twisted, or speak more than a sentence without uttering screams of pain. What’s worse is that the man’s head is all there. Granted, he is in and out of consciousness, but when he’s awake he’s all there, aware of what he’s become. When my mother got close to him today to say goodbye before we left, he tried to grab her by the hand and told her “Please, don’t come back”. I had to step out of the room because it was just too much. No one should have to go through this, it’s torture for both the sick one and his family.
After that and the horrific, gruesome dream I dreamed together with the memories it brought back… I just don’t really know what to do with myself. I have some texts to read, I have a weekly lesson plan to finish, and oh yes! To top it all off, my thesis seminar is tomorrow! God, this seminar was ill-fated for me ever since it started. I only hope I don’t make a huge fool of myself, at least not as much as last time, I only hope that this time around my writing speaks for me, the written word is really the best way I handle communication with other humans 🙄
Bad day
Today I simply found no patience in my heart to deal with the children.
Not entirely true.
I did show patience, I was lovely and gracious, but it was all fake.
Inside all I wanted was for them to shut up and leave me alone. Wow, that sounds too harsh for a grade school teacher doesn’t it? But it’s the truth, and if any other teacher tells you they’ve never felt this, well I would bet they’re lying their ass off.
The kids were the same as usual, which is not so bad really, but I know the one with the problem is me. I feel stuck and don’t know how to un-stuck myself. I’m supposed to hand in my final thesis chapter, I’m actually several days behind schedule, but I haven’t done much besides opening the file and staring (yes, not even reading) at it.
Man, I just had a shitty day and want to talk about it but I need to password protect my thoughts. If you’re interested, I’ll gladly give it to you. If I’d already given it to you, it’s the same one!
Oh and btw, sorry for the rant!
Daddy issues, part 2
Shortly after I turned eighteen my father called me and said he wanted to meet for dinner. Silly me, I thought he was going to give me a birthday present for the first time in my life. What he actually wanted was to tell me he “no longer had the means to keep helping me”. That meant, of course, that he was about to cut me off from the minuscule allowance he had been so magnanimous to spare me since I was in high school. Hurtful in itself, I was well aware I was hearing this from a man who arrived in a brand new BMW driven by a chauffeur, and that’s what made it hurt ten times more.
I grew up with my basic needs covered. I didn’t starve, I never lacked a roof over my head, and I always went to school. Nothing really to moan about, right? I later found out that while I was attending a shitty school where not only did I not get an education but actually got bullied, his other, official children (when I found out about their existence) went to an expensive school I always wanted to attend.
I guess what I’m trying to express here is that my father never gave me anything other than money, so I rationalized he just wasn’t good at expressing affection. However, he was astoundedly cheap and petty regarding me. I wasn’t good enough for a higher education, nor was I good enough to live in an appropriate home (’til I was 14 I lived with my mother in a one bedroom apartment. First we shared the room, when I grew up I was sent to sleep in the living room). So really, if he expressed his affection in $$$, truth is he didn’t love me quite very much, did he?
Anyhow, he decided I wasn’t getting another penny from him. I was still in high school, and mexican laws say that parents, regardless of their marital status, must provide for the child until s/he finishes studying, even if they go to college. Well well, it’s not like every law is followed in Mexico you may say, and you’d be right. But wait, did I mention the dude is a lawyer? Well he is, so I may be making a mistake here but he must have known what he was doing was plain wrong.
Oh but his balls didn’t end there. I think it was in yet another meeting,though it might’ve been the same, he actually got the nerve to explain he didn’t really want a kid with my mother in the first place. He went on and on about how she tricked him saying she was taking the pill when she wasn’t. What was I supposed to answer to that? Did he not suspect I had put two and two together by then? Maybe he did and that’s why he was justifying himself? I don’t know how on earth he ever thought that was a good idea, but what’s clear to me is that my feelings were not a factor in the equation.
I didn’t see him or talk to him in several years. Then one day he calls me on my cell to congratulate me for getting a diploma at my uni. I was so incredibly pissed I felt I was going to explode. How could he dare calling me? To congratulate me? Really? So now he cared? I’ve been a straight A’s student all my life, did it not occur to him that I might have needed his praise more when I was a kid?
He called a couple more times until I managed to say something remotely nice to him, and somehow he got me to agree to dinner. It’s been 2 years since that dinner, I’ve seen him four or five times since then. On the second time he actually cried. I felt like slapping him or throwing him my coffee, now I was supposed to comfort him? Make his guilt go away? His guilt is his problem.
Most times I think the relationship is too damaged to even attempt reconciliation, now and then I wonder what’ll happen if he dies before I forgive him, will I be the one crying for loosing my chance? That’s really the only reason why I’ve agreed to meet him, I don’t want to be the old lady crying, I don’t want to be him.
Related articles:I’m not dead
It’s been a week since my last post. I don’t think I had taken so long between posts in a while. I tried to write a continuation to my “Daddy Issues” post, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. This past week was a particularly tough one, I had a lot of trouble finding meaning in my life and I couldn’t help feeling like a complete failure. When I sat down trying to write, it just felt like it was pointless because nobody would care, even if I had a lot of positive feedback from the above mentioned post and some people even asked for part two, I’m just too much of a coward to go ahead with it, so I guess I’m putting it off for a bit, just until I get my head around what I want to say and how I’m going to say it.
I’m starting to wonder if part of the reason I have trouble telling the deepest stuff about my father issues is because I’m afraid people will think I’m just a whining baby, maybe they’ll see me for what I am, a young adult who’s traumatized by events that aren’t even comparable with the horrors other people went through while growing up. Maybe I’m just waiting for someone to tell me, like my mother has for so long, to suck it up and get over it.
And hell, I haven’t even started about my mother, that’s gonna take a whole new level of nerve. I’ve been dancing about the idea of writing about my mother for a lot of time, and I know I’m gonna keep on doing just that for a long time before I dare to dip my feet in those waters.
Anyhow, I guess this is some kind of hi-there-I’m-not-dead post, just to get back on track. I love this blog and I don’t want to get away from it for too long, and my writing prompt for today ends there really.
Oh wait! I have some juicy stuff! Ha, I’ve been so absorbed all week about not finding meaning in life, that I completely forgot to tell you that I finished another chapter of the Frankenthesis, and now I’m just half a chapter away from finishing it, yaaaay! I can’t believe I’m almost there, I can see the light at the end of this tunnel. When I’m done with it, I know it won’t be so hard to find meaning in stuff, and just enjoy life a little more.
In other news, we’ve got a new addition to the kitty family. Except…well… it’s not really a kitty, and it’s not an addition I agreed on, but since it wasn’t my decision to make (and I loove her cutie face), I’m just gonna see if me and my kitties can roll with it. Of course if kitties can’t adjust, I’m not gonna let this go by so smoothly, their well-being is my priority in this case. Without further adieu, meet… Lula!
Daddy issues
Mommy wasn’t married to Daddy. In fact, Daddy was married to someone else. Everyone knew this. Everyone except Dani that is. Dani was told mommy and daddy were divorced, but she shouldn’t say this to anyone because it was a secret. Mmmm, ok… but, then, how could she explain the three of them traveling together and Mommy and Daddy kissing in front of her and sleeping on the same bed during those trips? Well, she just didn’t, because children just don’t ask those kinds of questions, they just acknowledge there’s something phony and then go around it.
I met my father when I was around 6 years old. Well, technically I’d met him before, there are pictures to prove it, only I was too small to remember. Don’t know if I’d asked questions before, I’d lived all my life with my mother but then, just around this age I guess, I was told I had a father. “Me?? I have a father? You mean like my friends at school!?” I remember my mother telling me they used to go motorbike riding all around Mexico, and I even remember little details like her telling me the exact spot where he used to park his bike. Then I was showed pictures. And then the day came when he was going to pick us up and we’d all go on a road trip. I was kind of disappointed when he didn’t show up in his bike, mom had forgotten to mention the three of us didn’t fit in one.
One of the pictures I was shown
I guess it must have been between the ages of 6 to 8 or 9-ish that this sort of event happened. After a period of time that seemed like ages to me, he would show up with presents and we’d all go travelling to all sorts of places. Later I figured out that we went on what might have easily been covered up as “business trips”, because he’s always gone on those because of his job. Then it all stopped. Daddy didn’t love Mommy anymore.
Me and my father on a trip
After this period, my mother would nag me to make me call him, like it was my duty. Had I been older, I might have said something like: “Now, wait just a minute, why should I call him, isn’t it HIS responsibility to at least check up on me???” But I wasn’t older, I was still a girl, and I had always been scared of him. So, I was made to call him to his office, and I was told to change my name when I did so, probably so the secretary wouldn’t ask why a girl with her boss’s same last name and who wasn’t his wife’s daughter was calling…or something.
So, my responsibility included calling him and asking him to meet me, and during this meetings, which usually took the form of Saturday breakfasts, I was instructed to ask him for money for all sorts of things. And he would refuse and I’d have to beg. I was also told to say this and that to him, I think my mother was just a step behind making me learn my dialogues, and so seeing or having any form of communication with my father became something I dreaded profoundly. Of course, the breakfasts became more and more spaced, until they stopped too.
The next time I saw my father I was in high school, and I was so filled with anger and hate towards both of my parents that I barely uttered a word during the whole dinner… but I’ll leave the reasons for my feelings to another post.
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Daddy issues
Mommy wasn’t married to Daddy. In fact, Daddy was married to someone else. Everyone knew this. Everyone except Dani that is. Dani was told mommy and daddy were divorced, but she shouldn’t say this to anyone because it was a secret. Mmmm, ok… but, then, how could she explain the three of them traveling together and Mommy and Daddy kissing in front of her and sleeping on the same bed during those trips? Well, she just didn’t, because children just don’t ask those kinds of questions, they just acknowledge there’s something phony and then go around it.
I met my father when I was around 6 years old. Well, technically I’d met him before, there are pictures to prove it, only I was too small to remember. Don’t know if I’d asked questions before, I’d lived all my life with my mother but then, just around this age I guess, I was told I had a father. “Me?? I have a father? You mean like my friends at school!?” I remember my mother telling me they used to go motorbike riding all around Mexico, and I even remember little details like her telling me the exact spot where he used to park his bike. Then I was showed pictures. And then the day came when he was going to pick us up and we’d all go on a road trip. I was kind of disappointed when he didn’t show up in his bike, mom had forgotten to mention the three of us didn’t fit in one.
One of the pictures I was shown
I guess it must have been between the ages of 6 to 8 or 9-ish that this sort of event happened. After a period of time that seemed like ages to me, he would show up with presents and we’d all go travelling to all sorts of places. Later I figured out that we went on what might have easily been covered up as “business trips”, because he’s always gone on those because of his job. Then it all stopped. Daddy didn’t love Mommy anymore.
Me and my father on a trip
After this period, my mother would nag me to make me call him, like it was my duty. Had I been older, I might have said something like: “Now, wait just a minute, why should I call him, isn’t it HIS responsibility to at least check up on me???” But I wasn’t older, I was still a girl, and I had always been scared of him. So, I was made to call him to his office, and I was told to change my name when I did so, probably so the secretary wouldn’t ask why a girl with her boss’s same last name and who wasn’t his wife’s daughter was calling…or something.
So, my responsibility included calling him and asking him to meet me, and during this meetings, which usually took the form of Saturday breakfasts, I was instructed to ask him for money for all sorts of things. And he would refuse and I’d have to beg. I was also told to say this and that to him, I think my mother was just a step behind making me learn my dialogues, and so seeing or having any form of communication with my father became something I dreaded profoundly. Of course, the breakfasts became more and more spaced, until they stopped too.
The next time I saw my father I was in high school, and I was so filled with anger and hate towards both of my parents that I barely uttered a word during the whole dinner… but I’ll leave the reasons for my feelings to another post.
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not all about cats 
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