Please Don't Pity My Insecurities.......

I never was one for material things. Never had a silver spoon and I kinda convinced myself as a kid that being on welfare, not having new school clothes, having to steal uniforms for school, having to steal bus money for school, no lunch or lunch money, any moral praise or support wasn't necessary, affection was for babies and I didn't need it was just standard. I avoided thinking about other kids and the things they had because I didn't want to hate myself or the cards I was dealt. I just dealt with what I was given. I really had no other choice. I remember my step-brother & sister (at the time) use to come back from their weekends from being with their mother with bags full of things and my sister and I would just hope they would share.

I remember the ONE time I did feel proud of myself growing up was when I was asked to take a test for the GATE program because a teacher had seen my potential and I took the test. I felt I did really good and when my mother received the results of the test, they had sent us the results of another little girls test, her name started with S or something like that , and she hadn't passed. They had mixed up our papers. I will never know if I passed that GATE test because my mother never bothered to investigate. But since then I knew that I had no one to stand up for me. I had no one that had my back. Or maybe she DID investigate but didn't have the heart to tell me that I really didn't pass and in which case I apologize.

I built walls around my humility. I hid them and then before I knew it I really didn't care about those things anymore. Time healed all previous wounds of desire. Desire of material things, desire of wanting a real mother, a real father, a real family, a real life. I made my own world for myself and in my world I deserved these simplicities. Even though I never got them, I still deserved them. And I guess in my brain that's how I began to process these things, that I didn't deserve them. That maybe since I was born to a couple that wasn't meant to be that I too was not meant to be. That I was unworthy of these things. As ridiculous as that sounds I was a kid and that's how I interpreted my life.

So where would I go from there? I was determined to be everything opposite of my mother. I fought like hell to get into college, struggled and stayed up late at night. Graduated high school with a 1.2 GPA, living at my friends house because my mother had since kicked me out, and then did a rigorous summer program to get into SJSU. And for that, I felt worthy. I worked my ass off during the week, and worked two jobs on the weekends just to feel competent and deserving. Also to keep my mind busy.

Having grown up with this stupid way of thinking it became really hard for me to take compliments or words of praise. Free food or gifts was a no brainer but actual heart felt words were foreign to me. I never got a 'good job' or 'I'm proud of you' or any of that growing up from the one person that should have been saying it so when I do get them now it's kinda hard to accept them as genuine. I feel like they are fake, forced even. Like people feel obligated to say them in fear they might hurt my feelings, offend or insult me.

But lately I have had a 'fuck-it' attitude. It is what it is. I can't be insecure anymore about how I feel towards certain things, about what I didn't deserve then versus what I most definitely deserve now. So what if I did or didn't pass GATE (even though I KNOW I did) I am passing through that gate and I'm closing it behind me. I am good enough. Maybe not to the entire world but certainly for myself.

I will move forward and not harbor childhood regrets and fears. Do my best to not feel insecure cowering inside when someone tells me something nice or downplay myself with a smart ass answer regarding their compliment. Instead I will reply with a simple and sincere thank you. That shall be my New Year's Resolution # 4.

When I Was A Young Wart Hog

Mommy's and Daddy's they fight for sure. I only remember a few of those fights between my mother and father. Although my mother says that's all they did was fight. The more I think about it the more I realize I don't really remember much from my mother and father's marriage. They divorced when I was 7 and my father ( who my mother so loosely nicknamed 'sperm donor') didn't really stick around for much time after their separation. The part of me that dwells on my childhood/upbringing hates him and the other part of that realizes I could have never been the woman I am today had it not been for his absolute abandonment, appreciates his absence. I am not going to get into the type of upbringing nor the type of mother I have cause God knows I will never end; if I did it would be a long road that would undoubtedly dead-end in tears, heartbreak, frustration, anger, embarrassment, shame, and eventually indifference.

My mother always said that my father held her back. Back from school although I remember her going to nursing school, from work, from her family and from basically everything. That he wanted to have her caged up like a little animal-mother-hubbard type useful only for cooking, cleaning and minding her children. Heaven forbid she mind her children.
For someone who claimed her tyrant husband was holding her back from any employment on this particular night she was working a graveyard shift at a temp job and my sister and I had school the next day. The time that she usually came home had come and gone without her. Needless to say my father was 'desesperado', restless, anxious looking out the window every 20 minutes seeing if it was her pulling in at midnite the time she usually got home. To his dismay, it wasn't. Sad from seeing my father this way, I offered to take him where I thought she might be.

At the tender age of 7 and from brain cells not being tainted from any street drugs just yet, I had remembered an occasion a couple of days earlier where 'mommy dearest' took us to a 'stranger's' home. My sister and I either sat in the car or went inside, I don't remember exactly but I figured maybe my mother went there. Hey, it was worth a shot and certainly better than watching my father pace the floor all night waiting for this heifer to come home.

SO we took a little drive. My younger sister asleep in the back and me in front navigating my father to what would be the final encounter that ignited a second divorce for him. I remember falling asleep in the passenger's side as he drove, waking up or him waking me as soon as we got off the freeway. I innocently led him to the hood where my mother had taken us just a few days earlier. He sent me to the door and when she answered, you can only imagine the utter shock and disbelief on her face as she realized her 7 year old was there to rain on her parade.

Imagine that! My mother, evading her responsibilities as mother-hubbard to indulge in a night of drinking, slamming dominoes and hollering TEN-SHUN! You can imagine the anger that stemmed in my father. I led her back to our car where my father patiently waited probably hoping, pleading and praying to God that maybe she wasn't there and instead was working overtime so busy she forgot to call. I couldn't see it, but I imagine a combination of fury, sadness, disappointment and heartbreak on his face when he seen us approaching the car where she belligerently began to plead with my father to leave and stop embarrassing her. Almost laughable now as I type that.

I don't remember exact words during the confrontation, the drive home, the sadness and defeat my father and I felt that night but I do remember having a lot of 'what-if's' after that.

What if I wouldn't have led my father there and just let her come home on her own?
What if my mother would never have taken me to that dreadful place that would always remind me of the demise of my parent's marriage?
Or what if my mother would have just been a mother and came home that night instead of being selfish?

I always figured that once you have kids life is no longer about you, dominoes, beer or other men. It's about your children regardless if you love or loathe their father. Leave the relationship respectively maintaining your honor, your dignity, your integrity, and most of all the self-respect all mother's should value especially when they are blessed with little girls that would eventually look to you as an example.

My mother and father separated right before Christmas that year. She had arranged for us to move in to the 'stranger's' home we had recently found her at. I remember as we had finished loading up her car with our belongings, looking at our Christmas tree, holding my diary and foolishly thinking we would be back.

Instead in January, (less than a month later), I caught her kissing this stranger we had moved in with. I ran to the bathroom crying, screaming and feeling betrayed. You would think my mother would have been the one to come and console me but instead the 'stranger's' sister (also a stranger) came and told me everything was going to be OK. I suppose my mother was subliminally prepping me for an upbringing in which she would also be absent, mentally and almost always physically. A childhood where I would have to seek comfort, advice, warmth, affection and attention from other people. Where I would essentially be the one to care for my little sister and I in all these aspects.

Later that night, I secretly watched them dance from our new bedroom that we shared with his two children crying and vowing that I would forever hate the song they danced to and forever hate him for taking my mother away from my father and ultimately away from me and my sister.

First Days Of School (August 30, 2010)

First days of school can be nerve wrecking. Anxiety sneaks it's ugly toes in right around midnight (maybe sooner) and festers till about 5:30 AM when it magically switches to adrenaline and butterflies simultaneously. As much as you swear on every hood, gang, color, block, kid, dad, heart, God, car, wife, husband, mom and money that you are going to wake up early, get there early and start fresh you don't.

I don't really remember many of my first days of school except one. It was right around the time my mother left my father and switched our schools. It was our first day of and we were starting mid year which was very typical of my mom to do. We were a modern day migrant farmer type family, minus the farming, and moved whenever and wherever my mother wanted.

I was starting 2nd grade and my little sister was starting first grade. From what I remember my mother would always drop us off, but on this particular joyous occasion she decided it would also be a great idea for us to ride a bus for the first time. I was scared more than I was anything else. I felt responsible for my sister. I felt like it was us against the world and I had to cling to her. I walked off that bus as a 7 year old with fear in my heart, big girl face on my head, sister in hand, ready to find our classes, and walk my little sister to hers. I was even more horrified by all the kids that were there. It seemed like all the elementary schools of the world closed down and only this one was available for attending.

I can't really remember if I asked or someone asked me which class we belonged to but I do remember my sister's 1st grade teacher grabbing my arm with a strength that only an old lady with a mean death grip could and started dragging me to my doom.... Would I have the courage to bypass all my fears and insecurities and speak up for myself? Was I really destined to be a first grader again? Uh, no. Not with those mooks and if this old lady can grip me this hard on the first day then I know for sure she wouldn't hesitate to do it again. I had to speak up or this heifer was going to retard me one full year. I said, 'HEY, WAIT, I'm not TurMater!'. She looked at me like SHE was crazy, apologized and I slowly felt the blood pumping into my arm again. My poor sister. I have to ask her that lady's name.

I still had to find my teacher who ended up being an older Japanese woman that taught us how to roll sushi, asked us to write conjunctions on the board and my ghetto ass wrote AIN'T. I really truly thought it was a conjunction and when everyone started laughing I didn't understand why. Then after I thought I was really cool because I made everyone laugh. They had thought I did it on purpose when I really hadn't.

I guess you could say I learned a lot about myself in second grade that I probably didn't realize until the last few years. My 7 year old daughter started her first day in second grade this year and it made me realize how young 7 years old really is and how much I had to endure by her age. Her day of course started off a little different than mine did. We woke up, I showered them and got their clothes pressed while Daddy made her and her little sister who also started preschool breakfast. And not just any old breakfast, they had fresh made pancakes, fresh raspberries, fresh blackberries, bacon, sausage, and eggs all topped in syrup. I never got that. I dressed them, combed their hair and made them as pretty as the time would allow.

Took my Samie to her preschool class where she made it clear that she would like to be addressed by her birth name Abigail. We left about 20 minutes after and took my Lali to her second grade class. Of course we were late. She's in a combination class and I don't mind as much as my in-law's do and naturally all concerns are valid. I just feel like everything happens for a reason. I was forced to grow up really fast and for that I will keep my girls as young as I possibly can.

Reflecting on this moment makes me wish I could hug, kiss, comfort, caress and soothe the little girl I use to be and tell her everything is going to be okay when she gets bigger. Let her know that she may not be able to re-do any more first days of elementary school for herself but that she can make her daughter's first days more pleasant than hers were. Mainly, I hope and pray that the day comes soon when I can think about that poor little girl who was all alone that day with just her little sister by her side not knowing that for the next 12 years that's how it would be, think of all the things she had to endure at her own daughter's age and not cry.