Sunday, January 29, 2012
Since I was a child I've always moved around.
At six years old my mother took me out of Peru to go live in Chile.
We lived in Tacna which is a city in Peru near Chile for a while, but then we had to come back.
When I was seven I lived with my aunt, when I was eight I lived with my cousins.
When I was nine I was sent to live with my father here in the US.
At fourteen, he shipped me back to my mom.
When I turned eighteen, plans were already being made for me to come back to the states.
So, as you can see, I've never been in a place for too long.
It's always been move after move since I can remember.
Today, as I was packing some boxes for our big move to our new apartment tomorrow, I was hit with sudden sadness.
I couldn't understand why I was so sad, I even cried.
Then I realized it, I've been living in this place for seven years.
Seven years of my life I've spent in this room.
I've gone through so many ups and downs, losses and gains. I grew up into the woman and mother I am now and this apartment has seen it all.
I understood that even though I was ecstatic about moving into our very own apartment, with tons of space, I was sad to leave this home.
This is a huge milestone for us and it's a great one, but I cannot deny the feeling of sadness. I've cursed at this house, at my situation, at not having enough space to do anything, but the fact of the matter is, this was my home and I will cherish all the memories I created here.
Goodbye apartment #1, I will miss you dearly.
At six years old my mother took me out of Peru to go live in Chile.
We lived in Tacna which is a city in Peru near Chile for a while, but then we had to come back.
When I was seven I lived with my aunt, when I was eight I lived with my cousins.
When I was nine I was sent to live with my father here in the US.
At fourteen, he shipped me back to my mom.
When I turned eighteen, plans were already being made for me to come back to the states.
So, as you can see, I've never been in a place for too long.
It's always been move after move since I can remember.
Today, as I was packing some boxes for our big move to our new apartment tomorrow, I was hit with sudden sadness.
I couldn't understand why I was so sad, I even cried.
Then I realized it, I've been living in this place for seven years.
Seven years of my life I've spent in this room.
I've gone through so many ups and downs, losses and gains. I grew up into the woman and mother I am now and this apartment has seen it all.
I understood that even though I was ecstatic about moving into our very own apartment, with tons of space, I was sad to leave this home.
This is a huge milestone for us and it's a great one, but I cannot deny the feeling of sadness. I've cursed at this house, at my situation, at not having enough space to do anything, but the fact of the matter is, this was my home and I will cherish all the memories I created here.
Goodbye apartment #1, I will miss you dearly.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Ok, so I'm all for having a few friends over to celebrate a special occasion like a birthday or an anniversary.
I would cook up something light to eat, have several choices of drinks and put on some background music to chat the night away.
That would be my way of course.
The thing is, I'm Peruvian, and celebrations have nothing light going for them. Culturally in my family we go big in terms of food and music.
There needs to be an array of foods to satisfy 50 hungry times twice over.
The amazing thing though, is the fact that it's usually one mom doing all the work, all day long!
So, here is my beef with that, how do you enjoy your party if you are slaving over in the kitchen since the day before and well into the party hours?
Today there is a birthday party happening at home and although I appreciate all the work my fiance's mom puts into, she ends the night exhausted and sometimes cranky. She spends the day chopping, and cooking, and stewing, and baking. Her food is amazing, don't get me wrong. She also charms her guests with her amazing cooking skills and they can't get enough of that.
But, is it worth it?
I'm not so sure, I would rather have someone else cook for my party or just go with the simple options.
I might be wrong here, keep in mind, I'm a very lazy person. I love to cook, but for my myself and my two guys. Anyone else who wants food can cook themselves.
Ok, mini-rant over.
What are your thoughts?
I would cook up something light to eat, have several choices of drinks and put on some background music to chat the night away.
That would be my way of course.
The thing is, I'm Peruvian, and celebrations have nothing light going for them. Culturally in my family we go big in terms of food and music.
There needs to be an array of foods to satisfy 50 hungry times twice over.
The amazing thing though, is the fact that it's usually one mom doing all the work, all day long!
So, here is my beef with that, how do you enjoy your party if you are slaving over in the kitchen since the day before and well into the party hours?
Today there is a birthday party happening at home and although I appreciate all the work my fiance's mom puts into, she ends the night exhausted and sometimes cranky. She spends the day chopping, and cooking, and stewing, and baking. Her food is amazing, don't get me wrong. She also charms her guests with her amazing cooking skills and they can't get enough of that.
But, is it worth it?
I'm not so sure, I would rather have someone else cook for my party or just go with the simple options.
I might be wrong here, keep in mind, I'm a very lazy person. I love to cook, but for my myself and my two guys. Anyone else who wants food can cook themselves.
Ok, mini-rant over.
What are your thoughts?
Monday, January 16, 2012
I've always wondered what went through my parents mind when they found out I was coming to the world.
I know my mother must have been scared to death, I know my father must have been even more scared given his situation.
That's not what I mean of course, I mean, where they actually aware of the responsibility a baby meant? Maybe my father did somewhat since he already had one child and another on the way. Even though it was my step-mother raising his children, my father must have had some sort of advantage over my mother where parenting is concerned.
So that brings me back to her, my mother, not even 18 years old yet, harboring new life in her belly. I wonder if it ever occurred t her that every decision from the moment she found out I existed, would my life in ways nobody could have imagined.
I can't blame my mother for her bad decisions, not after becoming a parent myself of course.
We are thrown into this role so rapidly, no amount of reading and preparing will actually make you ready for every single problem that may arise during raising a child. It's just no possible. So I imagine her, young, beautiful, full of life, her future intact, now having to care for a baby, on her own too. She had my grand-parents of course and after the initial shock I'm sure they offered to help her out. But the question in my mind is, where is my father?
I grew up without him, he had his own life and I was raised by my mother who for the most part worked 24/7 it seems.
I know that she did what she thought best at the time. In order to give me everything she could and more, she worked non-stop, she traveled looking for better opportunities, she had me placed with different relatives each school year who knows why. My childhood was spent moving, one year I was with an aunt, the other I was with a cousin. Little by little, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to her, my mother was slipping away from me. I had my grand-parents though. They were my center, my rock, my sense of home. My grand-father died when I was six, my grand-mother died when I was 19.
I felt like an orphan for a while. I had my father and my step-mother and my brothers and my sister, but I never felt like I fit in completely. I know they loved me, but I felt like I was extension to their family mechanics.
I had my mother in Peru too, but she had her partner and two other daughters. They too had formed something I felt alien to. So who did I have left?
Nobody.
So this brings me back to the whole reason of this blog post, were my parents really aware of the damage they were causing? Were they really trying to give me a better future by bouncing me back and forth to better things? Would it have been better to just keep me in one place and enjoy my life as much as I could as a normal child?
I struggle with these issues a lot, almost most of the time I feel like I'm trapped, like I need to move to another place to feel free again.
I have insane trust issues, I have bitterness in my heart, for those who toyed with my life without stopping to think of how it would affect me. I wish with the strongest of devotions that I would have been given a chance to just live a normal, non-disruptive life as a child. To let me go to school in a familiar place, to come home to my grand-mother's food, to go to sleep in my bed where my grand-father built a closet that I claimed as a my secret hiding place.
Above all, I wish they would have understood that keeping me with the people I loved the most, was even more important than having "a better future."
I've learned from them though, I've learned from their mistakes. I've decided a long time ago that separating my child from me is only something I would consider as a last resort. Even then, I would have to be close to death for me to let him go. Because for me, family, unity, love, is more important than having more money, a better education, or a bigger place to live.
Again, I don't blame them, it can't be easy for my mother knowing that our relationship is flawed. That even though she gave birth to me, I will never see her as my mother, she's just a person I love dearly, but not my mother. It can't be easy for my father either, knowing I was his first daughter but was never there for me, that I grew up missing him first, hating him later, and forgiving him in the end. Still, in my heart, he is not my father.
I don't pity them either, they made their decisions and made their life the way they knew how. I on the other hand struggled and tried to survive. I fought against my own demons, betrayal, abandonment, sorrow, and depression. At six years old I already knew what all of these things meant, but nobody bothered to think twice about it. I was just a child who could never understand, but I was already broken. I've carried that with me until now, I cant' shake it off. I will always be broken, flawed, but I have hope.
Life has given me a chance to re-write everything. It has given me an opportunity to be happy, to love, to be loved in return. To have people who will not abandon me. I have the chance to tech this to my child and to my future children. Love is more important than anything.
When someone like me looks back at their life, they will not remember how much or little amount of food they had in the table, or how many different outfits they had to last them the week. They'll remember the people that loved them, the ones who cared for them when they were sick, the ones that comforted them at night when they had a nightmare.
They'll remember the love above everything else.
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