car wreck

Another crazy thing that happened...


...in 1999.

I had already been living with my fiancé. A modular home, trailer, shared with two other guys--Joel, who was majoring in theology, and Nathan, who was never there. Yet another mess, arrangement, whatever, that my one-year-old daughter was being dragged through that year.

It was a nice place. Good space. Full kitchen, a few bathrooms. Definitely luxurious compared to most college student dwellings. But not a place into where I would be settling. No. I was there far more out of necessity than by choice. These roommates of my fiancé were even less thrilled than I was.

I had shacked up with these guys as a result of my own basement apartment flooding just weeks prior. The fiancé (Kyle) and his buddies were renting the modular home from a priest, whose ownership and arrangements of future habitation are still fuzzy in my mind because, well... we'll get to that in a minute.

All I remember is that this guy they were renting from was someone Joel knew through his ministry studies and that he had needed someone to rent the house from him until he could move in.

Anyway, I had come home for lunch one day late that summer from my degrading job as a telemarketer only to find my apartment about an inch under water. It had been raining hard that morning, and my best friend, who was sharing rent with me for the summer and working at the same place only two blocks down, was trying to get boxes and clothing off the floor just as I came through the door and rudely discovered the water under my foot, which sank into the carpet about an inch.

The living room, the baby's room, the laundry room, the kitchen, the whole floor. All of it. Under water.

I grabbed my piano books from under the couch, grabbed anything on the floor under the crib, and checked anywhere a surface could be touching the water and tried getting it all off off the floor. It was close enough to the start of the school year that Celia was able to move what she could up to residence at the university, while I stayed back to deal with the landlord.

Who was not very deal-with-able.

In the meantime, I packed baby and me a few bags and forced my way into the lives of two, very unsuspecting and rather objecting bachelors via Kyle's permission.


While that was going on, I tried to show my appreciation by cleaning their place in between shifts at work, and tried to keep the sheer stress of the situation from showing, mainly for my daughter and partly for myself.

Looking back on it now, it was mind-fucking-ly stressful. Worse is that this was the last in a whirlwind series of places or environments that I placed my child in trying to single-handedly provide for my baby. The kind of places to have crossed my daughter's eyes that year, while not the worst in the history of all momkind, used to be cause for incredible amounts of reflection-induced guilt. Especially on account that there were times in her life that I can't remember who was caring for her or whose care she was in, even today. I wasn't on drugs. I didn't even smoke then. I was just that incredibly prolific with sitters because I had to go with what I could afford.

Days passed. I had no idea what was going on in my apartment. I didn't know when I'd be going back. I used the forwarding feature on my phone to get my calls at Kyle's place. The weekend comes. I get a call from my brother.

He and his girlfriend were getting married on the fly, and could I come?

I turn him down, move Aurora away from the buttons on Kyle's boom box, and apologize profusely by saying that Kyle had to work on that Sunday; and there was no way we could get there for their ceremony in time on Monday. It is an eight-hour drive from the city I'm living in for school to home, where Erik is, and I have no vehicle. I'd sold my p.o.s. Ford that spring for cash to have a first-year birthday party for my baby girl.

Married? What?!

My poor brother. Did he learn nothing from watching his sister get knocked up? He hadn't even left for basic training and was about to engage in a lifelong commitment to his girlfriend so that she could be covered under his medical coverage. Or something akin to that.

He is understanding because it is, after all, a very last minute arrangement, and I call Kyle at work to share the shocking news.

"Well, why not?" he counters when I relay what I told Erik. "Let's do it. We can drive overnight tomorrow night."

A little surprised, I jump on board. It would be great to surprise my brother!

I get a bag ready, Kyle gets home Sunday night, we throw our few things in his hard top Geo Tracker, and go.

We get all the way to the gas/pizza joint--the halfway point between college town and home. We get gas, our personal pan pizzas, and some water bottles at about two-or-so in the morning, and get back on the road. Aurora gets fussy and wants out of her car seat. Against my better judgment, I unbuckle her. The poor thing's been in her car seat for four hours already. About ten minutes later, I trade spots with Kyle for the wheel, and rebuckle up a very feisty, pissy year-old in her car seat.




The next thing I remember I only recall from a handful of fuzzy memories. Stumbling into a hospital bathroom. Being at my grandpa's. Sitting on my dad's couch. My mom's being their with my other brother. A hotel room with Kyle.

Everything else I know is from the accounts of others, not my own.

Because, you see, just as we were about to make it, about half an hour outside of my hometown, I had fallen asleep at the wheel. To this day I don't remember even dozing off once at any other part of the trip before that.

And, as the Tracker veered off the road and smacked a reflector pole, I woke up, tried to correct the wheel and ultimately jerked and pulled the Tracker into a roll, three times, before it landed on its roof.

The only reason I know what I must have done is because Kyle said he was sleeping and woke up to me screaming, "oh shit!" and I know how women drive. And I'm a woman. And the police report described the tire tracks and location of the vehicle, upside down, in the median.

The EMT on his way to work that early morning was right behind us was also a source of learning what happened. He reported that he saw our tail lights go all "whirly... all over the road" as per the news article he was in because I had searched him out via the editor, and he had been "ratted out" by a friend, and followed up by a local reporter.

The EMT, Keith Gould, from Upton, Wyoming (oh yes, I hope anyone reads this knows who he his, where to find him, so they can know what a real hero looks like) was on his way to his job at the mine as an EMT and has been right behind us and saw the whole thing. He stopped, he took care of us, he got us an ambulance, got us sent to the hospital. According to Kyle, I said my daughter's name was Kyle Marie and was extremely combative in the ambulance.

The vehicle had rolled 3 times and in the process, bashed Kyle and I around so hard that his back muscles were all torn, his eyes blood shot and black, and my head hit the ground and broken glass like a ragdoll's. Not only did Kyle have to check my vitals while buckled upside down, but in less a flash later, his concern turned to Aurora.

She was not in her carseat.

He heard whimpering.

He unbuckled his massive 6'6'' frame, dropped to the roof and crawled out, and found Aurora walking around. In the median. In the span of time it took for our lives to change forever, Keith Gould was there, checking Kyle, checking Aurora, and I presume checking on me. I was out.

Aurora only had a small couple of scratches where we assume, to this day, the harness of the car seat had loosened.

I would want to add that there being anyone on a Wyoming highway at 6 in the morning is rare enough, but to have that 1% have been an EMT...

Within hours of being checked out at the hospital, Kyle and Aurora were released, while I stayed in ICU with a concussion.

Any of the piddling memories I have all fit into the encircling drama that ensued, as well as the recovering process of working through a massive fog.

When I was able to finally put it together, weeks after the accident, and I got pictures of the Tracker and of Erik's wedding in the mail, I stood in my doorway and cried so hard. I ran to my baby girl and hugged her. The horrible feeling of not even being able to protect her from myself is worse than a mother who messes up any other way...



I mentioned ensuing drama because, I will also tell you, my own parents couldn't get along during my extended stay...

universal

I’m still thinking a lot about this.

I need to correct one, itty, bitty line from a former entry. I was trying to make a point about Jesus not coming to this earth with labels for everyone, in a way that distorts the uniqueness of each person by saying, “I know for sure he didn’t come to this world to free of us eternal death with the word ‘catholic’ printed on his swaddling clothes.” (Eighth paragraph down, excluding the opening line.)

It only took a cigarette break and a brighter moment later to realize that yes, yes, Jesus did come to us with universal written all over him. What I meant in that particular comment is that Jesus didn’t come with labels. He didn’t come with prejudice. He certainly didn’t have some kind of Miss America-type banner across his little baby chest announcing his presence in the kind of shameless self-promotion we get away with today.

But if you want to get right down to it, strip away the images one might conjure up with the mention of the mere word “catholic”, you get the Middle English, Latin, and Greek evolutions of the word for “universal.”

Yes, I know. You’ve heard this before. You were rigorously trained as a child in catechism. You have really good friends who are Catholic. Or maybe you’ve just heard it somewhere in all the information to come hurling at us through the digital dump ground that is the internet or in pieced up random bit conversations any given day. But you know this word is supposed to mean “universal” and that, maybe, it’s just the church’s way of making themselves sound like every other church who claims to have the rights into heaven.

But it really is that simple. Jesus was born to this world with a very universal message. He was and remains universal. By that very notion, and because his life and resurrection were a testimony to that universalism, anyone who follows him is part of this universal truth. I don’t even need to get sidetracked with arguments about divisions in the church and who believes what and which is better. We all know, whether we are Catholic or Protestant, we are striving to achieve holiness under the blanket of calling Christ our savior. (Yes, we are constantly striving to work on ourselves, but that, again, is another entry for another time, and will inevitably include a few or more super deep discussions on faiths and works and universal truth.)

I truly believe it doesn’t stop there. Knowing as little as I do about non-Christian faiths, I cannot possibly fathom that any religion whose true, purest form is to achieve peace within and with others, can be judged as anything less than true, noble, and infinitely a part of a universal, global, worldwide plan. Who is anyone to tell another how their faith is to be lived? And furthermore, I can no more judge on which religion is THE one or better any more than I would want to be judged, because the faith that I have is such that out of love for my Savior, who created all peoples, I love who He loves: all of his children. It comes from that same universal truth that underlines peace and faith, trust and works: divine love. The law which governs all of us, regardless of our accordance.

Now, that doesn’t get mean I don't get angry or that people don't chap my ass, but I’m not coming from the angle that I’m perfect and preaching. I’m coming from the viewpoint of someone who can celebrate her humanity and still be striving for the ultimate afterlife. It's a process of purification. Eventually, I'll be able to not use swear words in my blog entries. Eventually, I will stop smoking. Eventually I'll quit thinking so much about what people think. But for now, I'm not going to kill myself trying to live above my own life.

There are so many tangents I found from some of these thoughts that could take their own whole blog, but because I am a relatively simple person (don’t laugh! I am!), I’ll leave this as is for today and perhaps tackle some of the other offshoots at another time.

close to heart

I want to take today's opportunity to talk about chance.

Yes, folks, that's right, you heard it right here on the Rambling Mexiwegian Network. Today we're going to be talking about the debate on chance. Can it be controlled or is it out of our control?

Let's think about it while I talk about some other things. Yeah. Just put it on the back burner, there, k? 

Wait.

Waaaiiit...

Waaaaiiiitt... an-nd..

Done.

Okay.

I tricked you.

Because I'm stalling. The previous 76 words (not including this paragraph and considering I counted the contractions as a single word, in addition to the "k" at the end of the third "paragraph") have nothing to do with what I'm really wanting to blog out today. Those 76 took longer to write than it did to read them because they're not even related to what I'm wanting to focus on. Usually, that is the case with writing, hey? It takes longer to do than to read. 

Well. Duh. But this time I mean exceptionally so because I am stalling.

I am stalling because I know exactly what I want to write about today, but I don't know if I can muster up the finger muscle to commit the words to the air, into time and space, into the universe.

I am stalling because I am aware that I have used writing in the past in negative ways, and I'm not just talking about rambly, incoherent, or emotional blog entries, but in letters to people. I'm talking about the contemplating of how I, in the past, could use my smarts to put people in their place--or--at least state MY position because x, y, or z person had to know what that was. Sometimes with reason, sometimes less so, many time jumping the gun, and at least almost always having to get that "one little dig" in, no matter the commencing tone. 

I wonder if other writers have done this. I wonder if other writers have tarnished relationships with people because of this mode of expression. I would bet not. I would bet that no one has the effed up capacity I do to actually go through with using words as a weapon of class destruction.

Let me amend that. Had. Had that capacity. As in, once upon a time. As in "il etait un fois..."

Okay, okay, let's not bullshit ourselves entirely, here. I still have that capacity, but I'm too tired for it. I am ashamed of it. And it totally negates where my heart and mind truly are at. Today my words and emails have taken on an entirely difference personality overhaul, but they're not quite there yet. 

I would like to stand up, like an addict or a cancer survivor might do, and say I have been 6 months sober/clean/in remission, but I can't. I can't. My writing has gotten me in trouble as recently as.... well, as recently as a year ago. (That's if I consider I stand by what I've said in communications since then.) (And I do, minus one name.) And, as any addict/survivor could say, the thought never really leaves you, it's just how you decide to deal with it.

To be honest, I've gotten less-than-praiseworthy feedback in even shorter time than that, but there does come a point in one's life where she knows for herself that she doesn't have to apologize for shit.

Which is quite the difference from before.

I guess I have just been using this little thing of gray matter between my ears called the brain a little differently, a little more, a lot more, and I know that all the shit I was trying to communicate before needed a better and steady outlet, not an emotionally-hopped-up one. Really, though I am still reeling with disgust, regret, contempt, and fatigue at this particular summary area of my actions, and all of the energy it took to be that... vindictive and overly apologetic at the same time. 

After a while, a person like that either goes down in flames, exploding in a hot, bi-polar mess of anger and regret or they be cool, like me, and just drop it, stick the hands in the pocket and move on.

I kid.

The price I have paid to learn this lesson is far too dear.

I need to write more

I need to write more. I need to be prolific. If I simply just wait for ideas to strike me, then I am consequently losing all that un-inspired time doing nothing. So I will write a little bit every day, methinks.

I have a friend who is a music teacher who also teaches English. Before the semester change, she was working on this project with her classes about writing a novel per week. It was less about quality of content than it is about encouraging the flow and volume of words stuck in the constipated imaginations of her students to flow incrementally easier from their brains.

I really liked it. So I thought I would give it a try. Just write and write until my creative juices are flowing and maybe some day be good enough to even enter the bowels of the literary world.

Man, I'm on a real potty-mouth tangent here.

I used to think whipping up a blog entry was my version of a real writer doing real commentary, but I've known, realized, and now really, really RE-realized it takes more than that to whip up anything worth reading.

Besides delivery, timing, style, mechanics, grammar, and all THAT hullabaloo, there is research. And no, I'm not talking about the obvious fields in which a writer had better have his facts backed up with reliable sources.

I'm talking about the kinds of details that, even when you think you know it all, even when you think you are more of an expert on any particular subject than most other people, you don't know. Little details that make you realize you still have to do that research. Case in point, my Mexicans Kick Ass thing I did.

I started this out of being inspired by this article (which actually had started with this article,) wanting to write in that style, with that kind of flare, but also that much "factuality" to it. Now, putting the stamp of truth on something that is clearly only perception, you have to be willing to take a stand that perception is truth, that it's your truth, and you have to go about setting that up.

You also have to take risks that expose you. Let me change that. I would have to take risks that exposed me. You can do whatever you want. I don't want to be naked in front a bunch of people! Once upon a time I had worked so hard to be a cool, impenetrable fortress of good guy laughey laugh!

Only I was never a guy and I was sooooo phucking miserable then!

Anyway, tangent aside, I knew with some weight of surety that I was the only one around me who knew and talked and thought and lived and breathed such a Mexican upbringing as I had, with a dad who read everything he could get his hands on about Aztecs culture; and fused this into every aspect of my childhood with all of this education (still showing us how to take pride in our own country.)

It was because I hadn't realized in the beginning just how very focused an upbringing it was that, when I did, it became instantaneously imperative to write about it. But when I sat down and started at it, I found I had to do lots and lots more research just to get things like numbers, figure out percentages (Amy Math!!), and double check that I did, indeed, have my facts straight.

Prejudist assholes need not apply

I wish I had an audience. I wish I had bigger than an audience. I wish I had the ears of the world listening to this one moment. I wish my blog was well-read. I wish I had a voice louder than this one. Because for this one entry, this tiny, fractional percent of the total, non-cohesive, and wide span of topics to have ever crossed my thoughts or my underdog-rooting convictions or even my plain, ole whiny rants, I do believe this tops them all. If not, it comes awfully damn close.

In all of the roads of my life, no matter where I've stopped, no matter who I've known, no matter how I've cried or how I've laughed, nothing has ever got my panties into a bunch as much as blind, flagrant injustice. I would take what little education I have and magically force it into the minds' eyes of the ignorant. It is the number one source of aggravation in my world and in a world created to be and meant to be governed by the One Creator of True Love...

...because it doesn't even require being super intelligent.

It requires having a heart.

Did you hear that, you racist bastards? Yeah, I'm probably talking to you. 'Probably' talking to you because of all the people to read this little hole-in-the-wall blog, the racist audience is probably non-existent; and 'probably' because I don't know any racists personally. Somehow, miraculously, I've been given a life that has only seen that blindass hatred from afar.

A mother-loving, humble-seeking, quiet-bleeding heart.

Yeah, sure. I know a lot of people who kind of think I'm silly for getting so worked up over a cause that really has "nothing to do with [me],"---and it doesn't even make sense to be proverbially flailing my arms when the underlined focus is ultimately peace---but it does have to do with me. It has to do with all of us. And sometimes, you just gotta create the illusion of fighting fire with fire by holding up a mirror.

Native and aboriginal peoples don't need me to speak for them. They are strong and resilient in a way that surpasses the least or the best of anything I could say. I don't even know how the least of my native friends would feel about the least of my words or intentions. But I do know this: I passed many days between here and the first days of my adult life witnessing various forms of racial commentary, jokes, and even pejorative remarks specifically in regard to native people. Which have, only up until this week, been allowed to pass before me unchecked.

I also know that for as white as I am, there is also a line of blood---however "diluted," however masked by the rest of my muttage---that is directly descended from Mexico, a country that, however you divide the politics, scandals, immigration bullshit, and the cartels, derives its culture straight from Aztec ancestry and mythology. A native people.

Asking versus nagging

Okay, let me just start this with one, big ole disclaimer: every relationship has its own quirks, its own methods of getting along, relating, and its own versions of repair attempts that can patch up an argument or divide it in a given topic. Each relationship has its own distinct character, made up of two individual people working to hard to meld entirely individual worlds into one world. Each one is unique.

Also, I detest, loathe, hate the word "nag."

I just read an article on the Slate Magazine website that was some female author's attempt to explain the concept of nagging by asserting her belief that in order for nagging to stop, one must understand the politics of it. (You can see it here.)

Ha! As IF... it were that simple.

It sounded a lot more like an attempt to sound intelligent within a wordy ramble of pop psychology than it did just a point of view, and I had an immensely difficult time trying to make myself read through it. Not just because it was sexist--sexist from a woman's point of view!--and rambling in its own way, but because even the structure made it hard to follow.

It was like watching someone take a giant leap back towards my junior high days, watching in horror as someone slid awkwardly into my old, baggy jeans and multi-colored t-shirts covered in bandaids and condoms. Or something.

Seriously, not a good look for a gangly Mexiwegian from Wyoming.

What was some woman doing rummaging through my old garbage? No, I meant my old writings.

I was pretty disappointed that such an inferior piece of crap was allowed on the Slate website AND that it did more harm than good to publish an already confused and horrible subject.

I remember spending my babysitting money on this stuff.

For the epic centuries that have made up my life and the life of other women, the word "nag" has been one of the most negative aspects of any relationship. For me, it is part of my vocabulary of Things To Be Aware Of in an overall stash of emotional intelligence that I carry around with me like Santa and his pack. Except a little dingier and a little crazier, kinda like that crazy aunt that brings you stuff you can't use right away. Or at all.

(I don't know how many of us have an aunt like that. I don't.)

It is a word that signals red. I've known, if by no other form than my dad's comments referencing my mom's behaviors while I was growing up, that it is meant to be supremely negative.

But I have other sources of knowing this, as well. It was part of the reason when, at the tender, dumbass age of 18, living with the father of my oldest daughter exploded in my face within the first year. Not only was I ticking time bomb of emotions and hormones, but based on the sordid and unrealistic belief that I would never nag, it came as a nasty and undeniable shock when he uttered those contemptible words, "quit being such a nag." Well! I never! Spitter, spatter...

Regardless of where it came from (foolish expectations? being unrealistic? not knowing myself well enough or not being a whole person?) it is a trigger word. Nag. It just conjures up evil pictures of hovering, bickering women, pointing their fingers over and over in the dark whilst their eyebrows arch high up in a steep frown and their nostrils flare. *Shudder!*

I don't want to be accused of this:

Or this.

Well, wouldja take-a-look-a-tha'.

And especially not this!

Why? Because even for a woman of the slightest intelligence, it is a written-off, flat-out insult. Even if I'm the only girl in the world that gets hotly ruffled by the mere mention of the word, my intention, like many women I know, is never to be that person to the man I love! Aw!

BUHHH-t...

I have done it. And it's excruciatingly embarrassing because I know better. Sometimes it's like, oh I don't know... like there are hormones that override reasonable behavior or something. But I didn't want to be wrapped up in being that way, I wanted to figure it out.

So I read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus in the late 90s; Boundaries In Marriage in the last few years, and discussed personalities at length with my psychologist mother-in-law, on top of having my own "interesting" communication through the ages. The best book I have ever read so far is 7 Principles To Making Your Marriage Last, by John Gottman.

This guy actually developed a Love Lab and observed couples and wrote down all of his findings. It's actually got some really interesting stuff about committed relationships that you can really sink your teeth into without putting an alien label on your spouse. He's the guy that can allegedly predict divorce within 3 minutes of a couple's argument, but whatevs. He's a man with the credits and has done some serious empirical research in this field.


He also covers nagging.

It's true.

After all of the psychological and spiritual and knowledgeable advances we as a human race have made, the work he's done has comprised a major step in the right direction, from a scientific point.

It all makes sense in the Law of Divine Love, too.

Or, the law that governs us all whether we choose to accept it or not.

Go figure.

It boils down to being aware of yourself and how you come across, how important that is to you, and the fact that it should be important to you. The entire area of nagging, specifically, has to do with being emotionally intelligent. Ya have to pay attention when you're talking to your partner and you really have to decide if what you're about to bring up is an absolute priority or a let-go-able offense.

And you have to be willing to remember what brought you together in the first place and work to keep that "what's important to him/what's important to her" dynamic going. After all, real love is an action word. The swooning stage wears off, life/parenting gets in the way, and it's a hard hit to the relationship. A person has to shut that off from time to time, but the most important thing is to keep the conversation about it (and other such an evolutions) between any two people on-going.

Felíz Cumpleaños, Dad!

My dearest father, from whom I have been given the heart that beats its music for you,

I was out having my morning coffee/smoke and was thinking about you this morning, and I realized with some regret that I have not used what some people call my gift of writing to compose words for you that are so important and long past due in needing to be said.

In the past, I have used my writing ability to vent, air frustrations, blast, surprise, hurt, and wound people, including you. But for all of my life and all of the little cards and things I've made for father's days or birthdays, I realized I have never tried to compose something that would be of value to me in passing on to you.

Now that I have grown older and I can no longer see the value of using my ability to air gripes, as well as cringing fiercely at my past for having done so, I'd rather tell you what you mean to me, what your presence in my life has done for me, how your passion and culture and influence on me has built my very identity, and how very much I appreciate it. It is the very essence of me--you.

No doubt you have wondered, in the days thus far in your own life, how someone you took in your arms and raised as your only daughter could surprise you in such monumental ways. Both in negative ways and positive ways. I feel like I have been responsible for a great deal more of the negative than the positive, but this time and for future times, I hope this to be a positive thing, because I am tired of being negative. As to the ways that have been negative, all I can say for myself is that I feel much sorrow over being a dumbass.

Fortunately for me, you were right about the stages I would come to in my life: the teens being that awkward and angsty life stage where there is a general contempt for all things ungratifying; the twenties being when you start to realize your parents aren't completely unreasonable but your are still fighting all of your ideals; and now in my newbie 30s being a shift in the tide of change where I can already sense that what I learned in my 20s, I can either throw away or apply it to my life.

I have been looking forward to my 30s and 40s because I heard that's where a person really, truly lives what they've learned. And for me, ever since Kyle was sick, when I was in my twenties, I felt like I had lived twice but suffered the frustration of not being taken seriously and being disrespected no matter what I did or how hard I tried to carry myself with grace and dignity.

But you have always treated me with respect and dignity. And you have taught me things I will never forget and which I pass onto my children. Even though I am unworthy of such love, it is because of your love that I am able to understand just a sliver of the kind of love God must have for each one of us. I am able to love my children in the same way. You have taught me how deeply children are to be loved because it emminated from you and underlined everything; so now it is the foundation that underlines my girls' lives.

I know that the boys have taken more opportunities than I have to tell you I love you and solidify the bond between each of you, and I know we have taken moments to do the same, but I don't think that, for the entirety of my adult life, I have taken the time to tell you just like this, in this way, in these words, in MY way what you are to me and what you mean to me.

You are my father, my reason for being alive. Without you, I would not be here. Without your presence in my life, I would not be who I am. I would not be made up of every good thing you have taught me and that I have learned.

It's true that any prick can have a baby, but it takes a real man to be a daddy. You are that daddy. So many people I know whose fathers were absent in their lives. They have to struggle with love, acceptance, even relationship compatibility. They have to struggle with self identity, self worth. If I ever struggled with those things, it was because of decisions I made or from living so damned far away, which created its own insecure monster at the time; not because of you. People with more family around have been more insecure than me because I realized being a Cazares means being a survivor. I was always able to draw strength from my deepest laid roots and remember that as crappy as it was to not have family around, I was able to quit feeling sorry for myself, lift my chin from the mess, and see that you were always there.

I also know that, maybe, as you read this, things I have said in the past will come back to contradict themselves and that, as recently as last year, have slapped you with my words and been wrong. There have been so many times I have wanted to say I'm sorry for, but the times when I have disrespected you are what bring me the most shame. There are specific moments in my life and in yours that I've wanted to speak for. For having been a brat, a red-headed step-child-like temperament, an insecure waffle trying to cover up my insecurities. For blaming my insecurities on you. For forgetting where I came from. For not talking to you more often over the years. For allowing myself to be influenced by everyone and everything all the time when that is NOT what you taught me to do.

I am a survivor.

Because of you.

You are a pillar of strength and resolve; it has taught me how to be strong and have resolve.

When I think of you, I am a stronger person. I forget my weaknesses and insecurities and remember where I came from.

When I think of you, I remember where I came from.

Our family and our blood line has been blessed with these strengths and I cannot forget them; but for you and me, on the eve of the anniversary of the day you were born, I celebrate another survivor being born and recall with profound richness all that you have taught me to be.

I will never forget this.

You are my role model, my hero, my teacher, and the very reason for my existence. You wisdom, your knowledge, your humility is awe-inspiring and I am humbled and excited that I am the one who gets to call you "Dad." I miss you. I wish we were closer. I think we have a reservoir of love between us that remains not fully tapped because of the distance, but I have confidence that it will not dry up. I love, you, Daddy, and I wish you a very happy birthday.

All my love,
Amy Maria

Norwexican!

So this afternoon I'm sitting in waiting room, flipping through a glossy home decor mag. I hear two ladies talking and every few words I also hear, "Sweden.." I glance up. Make eye contact. Smile. Look back down at my mag. Continue flipping.

I don't like waiting rooms. They remind me of all this stuff. But I'm a cool person, so I just read; and again,

"Sweden...." followed by nervous, waiting-room banter laughing and then, "must be the Swedish blood."

I can't help my nosy people self. I glance up again. Make eye contact again. Smile again. Look back down at my mag. Again. I'm bubbling. My heart is pounding. "I'm Norwegian!" I almost exclaim because, you know, Scandinavian is Scandinavian.

And this time, instead of sucking in that hot breath of air that reels just after one heart thump of stage fright to explain that I'm Mexican (also) because I don't look a beat like some hot Latina goddess, I feel a brand new sensation creep across my frontal and occipital lobes. I probably look Norwegian!

But I don't. Exclaim anything, that is. I'm trying to stay tuned in and tuned out simultaneously. It's not all that uncommon to run into every kind of nationality these days. Chances are, if they're not directly emigrated and aren't speaking with an accent, they're probably mutts, too.

I'm way too enthralled anyway. To me, it seems like I could have an "in" if I take advantage of the eye contact, engage in an understanding laughter, as though I have used my non-existing Swedish heritage (actually I have SOME) to define some common behavior that simply "must" be culturally exclusive to the Swedes.

It works! The nice, pretty ladies are laughing, looking my way, and they non-verbally invite me into this world of instant empathy with even brighter smiles and relieved laughing. I smile back. It really worked!

I still have it, oh yeah.

I actually stop reading (or looking at duh purty pitchers, okay?!) and slide my hand on top of the magazine, right over the page, and engage right back.

Laughing with them, as if I completely understood, I raised a finger, as though I were saying "aye" to a motion and in by best sympathetic chuckle said,

"Norwegian here!"

It was total dork move, but did you realize it was the first time in my life that I actually associated myself with my Norwegian roots in a public conversation (or conversation-type exchange) with strangers?

I was very proud of me.

The First Day of my New Life, the first time.

(...previous.) (Written ten years ago:) It was my first year at a Catholic university and I was young, alone and overloaded with class credits. I battled all-day morning sickness, worried about off-campus housing, living expenses, non-existing employment and got buried under school work.

After the initial shock of learning I was pregnant wore off and the heartache it caused my family subsided, I gave birth to a little baby girl at the end of that year, whom I cradled in my arms and named Aurora. I accepted motherhood and pressed on, signing up for and attending classes for two and a half years. I worked part time at a local fast food joint and tried in vain to make ends meet and pass classes while trying to fit in time for practicing my bassoon and being a mom.

Moving into the first apartment I ever lived in involved caravanning with my mom and her car and me with my loaded, rusted blue 1977 Ford at half past five in the morning and seven months pregnant.

It was not a vehicle I cared to have, but I didn’t have much say in the matter and was sternly told that it was not beneath my station in life to drive it. I had to take what I could get because I didn’t have the money to complain and my dad had scrambled to doctor it up for me just the previous day.

Before there was even light in the sky, we were already on the side of the long highway, frantically discussing how bad I was speeding because the speedometer had been reading 10 to 20 miles per hour lower than what I was really going.

I tried to adjust to one comfortable speed so that the vinyl recliner and flimsy TV stand wouldn’t fall or fly out of the box, but I was unable to get a feeling for speed in the dark; and the tarp which was barely covering the furniture whipped sharply in the wind, so we had reason to regroup.

It was scary as hell. Mom was as equally terrified watching the contents in the back of my truck wobble, so she took the lead and I was able to calibrate my speed somewhat by following her Grand Marquis.

We were able to complete the 400-some-mile trip and start unloading by two-thirty in the afternoon. Setting up the apartment itself was not without scuffle. The couch that went with a hideous, 70’s era set of furniture we bought and scrounged up that day had to be shoved through the door, nearly busting the door frame, this worried mother and I working together with my six-month belly in between us; and the pizza guy was two hours late with what became our free supper.

We cleaned up beer bottles left by the previous tenants (who were evicted because of such related activities), mopped the floors and tackled the bathroom. Meanwhile, and not to our surprise, the oven was immaculate.

At close to two in the morning, we finally crashed on the only bed in the apartment only to lay there wide awake with late-night fears of the uncertain – my mom worried about her pregnant daughter and questionable means of transportation while I worried how I would fare completely and totally on my own without a job to speak of and no money in any other account.

So we sat up in the dark, grabbed a deck of cards and played a few rounds of 15 In a Pile until we were too exhausted to think about it anymore. An hour or so after dozing off and much to our horror, the phone rang. Though it had been plugged into both the electrical and line socket, the service wasn’t set up to work until well after the next day.

We debated momentarily whether to answer the phone or leave it, but the incessant, unending ringing made us pick up to silence on the line. The perfectly harrowing end to a perfectly harrowing day.

The Reason For The 22 In My Blog Name

That was the age that I came back from much of time period I described in the posts labeled "cancer" and "auntie m". It was the age I had, for probably the first time in my adult life, the time and the resources to start unclogging the master grand hairball of toilet bowl-exploding confusion that was my life up to that point.

It was not lost on me that it sounded kind of like 'catch-22', although a majority of the mess had far less to do with a 'you're-damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't' cliche than it had to do with feeling freaking incredulous realization that I had just been through hell and was still reeling from it; and then was trying to take the encouragement I was given to write, tell my story, and ran with it, like any dork would, to the awkwardly forced humor side of it.

Anyway, it was just the age that I was when we all moved back to the town where the girls' dad had gotten his first job teaching and been diagnosed with the third episode of tumors. We had left, lived through hell, and come back. 

It was pretty amazing that he was able to go back to work so quickly with having experienced all his side of these episodes, but as he went back to work, one little step at a time, I sat down to my computer and started to write. I started to write my story.

It has evolved into a hundred other things since then. Rants, introspection, memories not even related to the heavy parts. But after reading my auntie's post about her first child (my auntie, not the auntie m,) it inspired me to go back to my own. Especially since she is such a good writer and so interesting. I love her take on things.

So I went back into my old drafts, dug up a first chapter, and did some editing on the cutting floor.

***

My first of year life out on my own started at a Catholic university. Being a music major, I was instantly overloaded with class credits. 

It was new. It was scary. I was out of my league on just about every issue imaginable, but especially the music level. Everyone around me had already had tons of experience in their instrument. I felt like a little hick kid out of Cow Town, wondering if I'd ever be good enough. 

I didn't go there on scholarships, save for the one I got from the Knights of Columbus that didn't even pay for all the books I needed and the Burger King one that never, to this day, got paid out to me or the school. I was set up completely on loans that my mother had to help me get.

I hated practicing and saw practice rooms filled up all the time with people slouched over pianos and music stands. I knew I was going to have to work a lot harder to get better, rather than being a natural, and I hated that, too. If it didn't come easy to me, I didn't want it. I felt I should have been AWESOME without any effort.

And after seeing these people, I realized I was only so-so at my craft. Pulling an aria out of my ass, like I did in high school, wasn't going to work for me here.

What was worse was learning that flute and piano players came a dime a dozen. They have always come a dime a dozen. That's why certain instrument families are highly competitive. That's why I gladly switched to bassoon. Anything to get me out of there.

Plus, I was surrounded by kids who were on scholarships. I didn't even have the expressed desire of the college to have me there. I was there out of my own free will and accord. There couldn't have been a scarier way to be motivated. Relying on myself? Psh. No way.  And I wasn't even realizing this feeling beyond the dread factor of it. All these kids around me who were being paid to be busy bees over their instruments.

I would have my work cut out for me.

Besides feeling cross and resentful about this new reality, I also knew that a lot of money was riding on me getting through this. So I dove in, trying to look like I knew what I was doing, trying to look like the others. Only I wasn't and I was deathly afraid it showed.

I did swallow the desire to complain. Mostly. I choked down the newness and unfamiliarity of a campus that was largely made of concrete. (No lie, even the walls in the main arts building were gray, lifeless, prison-type concrete.) I tried with a tremendous case of the "I don't want to!s" to be in the practice room as much as I could.

Because that's just what a Cazares does. They jump in feet first without thinking about it, being tough and proactive, and think about the sting of it later. Or the consequences.

But I was also sick during this time. I was bizarrely, uncharacteristically nauseated day in and day out. 

And I couldn't explain it. 

I went to class feeling gross and sick. I sat in theology as the nun went on and on about her syllabus. I tried to follow my Spanish literature professor during night class.

That's if I made it to class.

I was late to morning music theory that year more than I was on time, because even if I could make it breakfast without heaving, I was often rushing to the washroom after breakfast. I actually even quit wearing makeup because it would all wash off as I cried, bent over the toilet, wondering what in the sam hell was wrong with me.

Did you hear that? Me! The Makeup Queen! The girl would not even so much as leave her house without it. Not wearing makeup. That's how bad it was.

I was never a sickly child. I think the worst thing I suffered in childhood besides a broken arm and a few sprained ankles was the chicken pox.

I was beginning to think there was seriously something wrong with me. I could not, no matter how I tried, surpress the overwhelming feeling that something was terribly wrong.

I had actually started getting sick in Paris, France, where a whole group of us traveled, as a state diocese (about 200 individuals) all over the fabulous city on a tour of World Youth Day in 1997.

I thought it was culture shock. Food poisoning. Something. Anything. Maybe the french food was not sitting well in my stomach, the clove cigarettes, the smashed-down wilted grass, the collective scents of just about every nationality of people in the world. Smells set me off and even apples I bought to try and sooth myself didn't set right with me. Smells and flavors filled my nose like a pungent spear.

I called my barely-boyfriend back home, crying. Everything was so strange. Maybe it was because I was missing out on some of the more cultural parts of the city due to being on a church trip. Maybe I was just one of those wusses who couldn't travel to foreign countries after all. Maybe it was just the churning in my stomach that just wouldn't go away, no matter how I tried to make myself comfortable. Maybe I was just pregnant and I was going to be in a shitload of trouble in very short order.

The lacking bit of interest he showed in my distress didn't help.

Neither did landing on home ground, which I thought it would bring some source of relief, nor the 13-hour bus ride for the last stretch home that had my nausea crashing my insides like a tidal wave. I rode with my bag on my lap, clutching it with a death grip, forehead miserably glued to the seat in front of me. I hate throwing up.

Hate. It.

I was fighting the raging fire in my esophagus so hard that I found myself relenting to having a trash can in my seat so that I would at least be at liberty to. If I could get anything to come out.

Everyone on the bus was aware of my situation.

Finally, at about seven in the morning, the bus reached our church. I saw my parents waiting outside for my brother and me. I was in such distress about my nausea I bolted past them to go throw up in the church bathroom.

Good times.

It was like everything pointed to me being pregnant or something.

Denial is funny, funny, strange thing.

The hell adventure didn't stop there. I was college-bound promptly the next day. I had the whole day I got home to rest, then it was up and re-pack for oh, I don't know, roughly the last hour and day of my childhood I would ever see again.

It was another 400 miles or so of traveling. I didn't even puke until we were at a gas station at the bottom of the hill where the campus was. Yep, I waited a good chunk of time before it came blasting out of me onto the floor in the back seat of my mom's car.

Mom and I said our good-byes outside on the sidewalk, shortly after getting my stuff set up in my room. She looked at me strangely and, without much ado, turned around left. Scared as a little baby in a dark room full of monsters, I screamed at her not to go. I did so without moving my lips.

No play on words intended.

* * *

So, after a round of this horrifying thing that was making my body do all these things and feeling the suspicious eyeballs of my parents, all the stress of the new surroundings, and noticing that it just wasn't going away, wasn't a bug or the flu, I finally relented to calling my mom, who asked me point blank if I was pregnant.

Whoa, wait a minute. I laughed it off nervously. No. Way.

She was so calm about it.

In fact she was so calm, it was eerie.

After I got off the phone, I handed my roommate, who had a job in the city, the last of my care package money and asked to get me a pregnancy test.

Just barely 18 and new on campus, I learned I was pregnant.


Oh, snap!

*** 

Resolutions. Yes, I actually have them. For the first time!!

I actually, really, for reals, have resolutions that I fully intend to stick by. Who woulda thunk it!?

What I am most excited about is that I feel they are realistic and that I can follow through with them; which has always been my excuse for never setting a single other one in my whole life. Like, ever.

Seriously. I don't even stay on track with Lent. That's considerably more important than the so-called social bandwagon of New Year's Resolutions.

It's a new year. What can I say. A new year in the new life that is my life now. I'm not exactly the same person I was before. At least I hope I'm not. I hope I took the good stuff, banished the crap from my soul, and took on more good stuff, shoving it deep in my cellular makeup.

Anyway.

I really thought about what was close to my heart. What did I really need/want to improve on? What was imperative that I get right this year, that I've not worked on so much in previous years? (Besides not making resolutions at the top of the year?)

One answer. My girls. More specifically, my family.

1. Play more video games with Celia

2. Be ready to have my hair and makeup played with lots more by Aurora, as well as be her guinea pig for manicures and nails

3. Spend less time on the computer in the evenings

4. Spend more time in private with God; some people call this meditating. Whatever. For me, it's the awesome dude who created us all.

I cannot stress how, at the age of 32, this has become more than just a duty. One has to understand that my entire adult life has known no other way but being a mom. It started out as a personal sacrifice laced with rightful duty--an emotional conviction deep within my core--and blossomed into a choice.

What? A choice? How can that be, right? Obviously it's not like I could (or would ever!) give them up and then, like, re-adopt them or something. It was the difference in the attitude I had toward parenting: surviving parenthood at eighteen versus engaging parenthood full-on.

And then, call it age, necessity, maturity, whatever you want, I really started to feel these waves of needing my family near me that stirred deep within me about a few years ago, when the pain of leaving my mom standing at the train station in Seattle left me surprisingly, gut-wrenchingly wracked.

Who knew I'd ever grow up out of my surprisingly cocky, surprisingly naive, suprisingly angsty 20s to really re-grow an attachment to my parents, my brothers, even now my cousins and aunties! It was like re-attaching an arm that I had ripped off myself.

Needless to say, for all that I whined about in the last 15 years, and even more specifically on this blog, I needed my family the most.

And I LOVE being in my 30s now. I kind of remembered that I was waiting to be here a long time. Yeah, sure, I've complained about feeling my life is half over and wondering what I've done with my life. But frick! I'm changing my mind. Yup. Just like that. Because I have realized the importance of focusing on the positive. I have realized this by being consumed with the negative for far too long. And I don't even know how. I'm going to say: it just happened.

(Gaaa!! I'm really digging this Collective Soul album tonight! Staring Down from their second self-titled album.)

I'm not only just tired of working so hard at trying to get the people who just don't get it to GET it, but I am tired of the effort of it all keeping its grip on me. Tired of people who don't have the time of day for me and even more tired of giving the time of day to people who don't have it for me. Truly fed up with people who don't like me. And I have crap to teach my girls, crap that I learned from all of this.

Like following your heart, for one.

And for two, following your gut.

With having basically ditched town and torched a lot of friendships, I'm pretty much at the top of the heap of detestable things, really, and so my biggest fear of being hated came true and my second biggest fear followed suit: having to take responsibility for my share of things going wrong long before that.

It can't get much more in my face than that! I'm up! I'm up! I smell the coffee, dammit!