Made in Ecuador

It seems like all I do is vent about my older brother.  Frankly I’m tired of trying to figure out why he acts the way he does.  I nearly lost it today when my boyfriend was over for lunch and my family, mainly my brother, were being jerks.  These last couple of years, living so close to my family, remind me why when I left for college I rarely came back.  I feel invisible around them.  I feel like in order to survive and not have a breakdown I need to shut down.  I can’t be myself around them.  I am the black sheep.

Today I sobbed for the first time in years.  Sure I’ve cried before but today it was the kind where you whole body shake and you just release.  I felt better afterwards because I accepted the fact that I am an outsider in my home, my family and that’s okay.  I’ve realized that I’ve been pushing for my family to accept me, like me and my friends and my boyfriend.  When in reality they don’t really.  They’re not horrible people, and they are there for me in emergencies.  It hurts because to me family is very important.  It’s the most important thing. Yet I acknowledge that I’ve been pushing these people to care/like me, I’ve been forcing myself to act a certain way in order to gain their approval and acceptance.

You might wonder why I don’t tell them all of this, share my feelings, but what would that do?  Besides giving them more ammo to use against me, it would just reaffirm their view of me: an emotional, overly sensitive woman.

A year ago I made a huge effort to build some kind of relationship with my dad.  I’ve always been resentful towards him the most and I wanted to change that. I wanted to let the bitterness go, truly forgive and forget and start new.  We aren’t the best of friends but I can talk with him on the phone for more than 5 minutes.

Now, however, I don’t feel the same.  I think about why he didn’t make the first step.  Why did it have to be me?   The conclusion I reached is that it’s because I’m the one who cared the most.  I’m the one who wanted to have some kind of relationship.  Not him.

I’m tired and the tears are starting to come again because it hurts.  It hurts to want to love and care about someone and want to have some kind of relationship but they don’t want it.  I know and have accepted that I’m trying to hard and I need to stop.  I’m letting this consume me and break me, when I need to accept it, know that I’m going to be okay and in the end I do have people in my life who truly love me.

I haven’t come to a final decision, what I can say is that I cannot stay here in OR, or anywhere in the West Coast.  I need to go somewhere far away, maybe another country.  I need a break from my family.  Rebuild my confidence and when I am healed and 100% economically dependent, then I can face them.  I need to be stronger in order to no let what they say knock me down and the only way I can do is to be far away from them as possible.

I have to get this off my chest, before I gouge my eyes out or shoot myself in the face- I hate living/being around my older brother. He is the biggest asshole in the world and I do not understand what I did/do to deserve to be treated the way I am around him. Before last night and this afternoon I would have said that my brother and I have an awkward relationship, which is normal since we’re from different generations, we grew up in different cultures and we have opposite personalities. But now I believe he enjoys, just plain eats up either embarrassing, humiliating, and/or making fun of me. I’ve had enough and the thing that kills me the most is that I have to be nice to him, because he’s my brother, and he’s a boy and that’s how brothers act with sisters. Really? They’re suppose to be assholes? I’m also starting to believe he hates me or I did something that really pissed me off so I’m going to pay for it until I’m 50. Write more later.

Today I turn 25. I am a quarter of a century old. To be honest, I don’t really feel different. After my 21st birthday, I don’t feel like I’m getting older. That doesn’t mean that I lie about my age, I don’t mind getting older. I think the reason I’ve been freaking out about this birthday is because I’m now considered an adult. What a mouthful. In a previous post I stated that I never wanted to become an adult, not because I want to be a kid forever and avoid responsibilities. I love taking care of myself and crave to be 100% economically independent. However, from observations and discussions with adults, I’ve found that most [adults] accept the monotonous routine of life- going to work, cleaning/organizing, going out etc. There is no real reflection on their lives, their goals or themselves. I know that you need to pay your bills, mow the lawn, take care of your kids (if you have them) hence at the end of the day it’s nice to watch some TV and shut down your mind. BUT I don’t want that, I don’t want to fall into that pattern. That’s probably why I fear becoming older and doing adults “things” like getting married, getting a desk job. I don’t want to lose my passion of fighting and working for the Latino community. I don’t want to get sucked into a “normal” life. I just hope I don’t get so tired that I see the injustices in our world as inevitable.

Then again, I know that I am different from the general populace, I know I look at the world with different eyes and analyze it more critically. That may sound elitist, except I don’t think my lifestyle is for everyone. I just hate the fact that it’s judged and questioned by society. A friend of mine, who I hadn’t talked to in almost a year, called me today to wish me a happy birthday. Very sweet. Then we proceeded to talk about our jobs, families, and love lives. He asked me when I was getting married, I said I wasn’t. He responded, “Oh eventually, huh?” I replied “No, not getting married”. And this went on for a couple of more rounds. It’s interesting how because I don’t want to get married, I’m considered a freak, a weirdo, I know it’s because I’ma woman and even more so because I am a Latina woman. But that’s for another long post. Right now my mami is here and we’re going to eat cookies and catch up.

I’m so blessed ^_^

[Originally written: June 15th, 2008]

It’s soccerfest/soccermania in my house! It’s weird everytime I want to watch some Murphy Brown or Monk, I can’t because one of my brother’s is taping a soccer game. That’s fine I like to watch futbol, although it gets too intense for me, especially when Ecuador is playing. I don’t want the players to get fouled and I get mad when the referee makes a botched call >:I

I don’t know much about Ecuadorian futbol but we do have a pretty decent team- we’ve gone to the last two World Cups (dusting my left shoulder) hahaha anyways they’re (my brothers) fans-passionate, intense & loyal. I’m glad that they’re not obsessed to point of screaming obscenities at the TV or turning bright red when the referee doesn’t call offsides. Plus their love of futbol gives us an excuse to have friends over, drink cold beer and jump up and down when Ecuador makes a goal

[Originally written June 4^th, 2008]

The other night I was watching TV and saw a commercial for Pomegranate Raspberry Beer. That’s right, berry flavored beer. When did this become a trend? I’ve noticed in the stores there is lemon favored beer, trying to get an upper hand at the Corona with a slice of lime look. I’m not a beer connoisseur but this is a bad idea. Beer is not suppose to taste fruity and sweet, it’s suppose to be…it’s supposed to taste like… hmmm how to describe it?  Kind of bitter?  But not like grapefruit!  All I know is that it should complement salty, crunchy or fried food!   It’s supposed to be ICE cold and drunk on a hot summer afternoon, while lying in a hammock…on that note, I should remind my brother to hang up the hammock!

[Originally written: June 1st, 2008]

I love back rubs (I don’t get enough of them!), listening to Mana, dancing ( anything with a good beat and my hips just move). I also love massaging my mom’s head. She LOVES it and that makes me happy

I hate head rubs. That might not make sense since I like to give them, but they make my skin crawl! One time at a mall this random guy place an octopus head massager on my head and I screamed! He was embarrassed, I was mad! No one was a winner…

I’ve been MIA for a while but I’m working on posting new and old posts! So for my loyal fan, you should have a lot of reading in a few days

So I had a personal breakdown yesterday full of screeching, ranting and breaking things! Actually the last one isn’t true.  Although sometimes I feel like going to the dollar store and buying a $10 worth of glass.  I feel better now, sometimes I just feel like the whole world depends on me to be a perfect person, make the perfect decisions, look perfect.  I’ve realized that it’s not something that people have imposed on me, but something I expect from myself.  Most days I am a confident woman, grateful for the people and things in my life.  Sometimes though I feel so pressured to be on.  What I mean is that there are days when I want to be quiet and still and just be and yet I feel like people don’t like that about me.  It’s true as I’m writing this I’ve realized something else- I still care about what people think about me.  Uuugh I need head space from myself.  I need to stop thinking and just be.

So I’ve vegged for most of the day and now I’m studying with my sweet bird and I’m happy.  It’s weird how being around her and other close friends, gives me peace.  If only I had a hidden video camera and then you could see her craziness, hahaha she’s high and getting me high very slowly.  It’s almost 6….I need to put adelle away.

I love this word.

I’ve decided I’m going to cut my hair pretty short. Not a bob or anything- please people don’t be crazy! My long hair is my security blanket. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I do, however, want to let it go. I need to let this fixation go. So I’m going to get a short haircut.

On a somewhat related note: I dislike how people, especially men, associate long hair with beautiful woman (uugh). Woman are beautiful in all shapes and sizes and colors. I hate watching TV for the sole reason that we are subjected to a certain kind of beauty- skinny, long hair, pouty lips, and big breasts; sometimes big butts although generally we see this kind of physique on woman of color- latina or black women. I know these women have big butts and big hips (d’uh) (rolling my eyes). I could write a book about how irritating it is to hear and see how other people define what women of color, especially latinas, are. Please tell me who I am because I don’t know (more rolling of my eyes). I’m going to celebrate my big hips and prominent nose    ( thanks bibi for the perfect word to describe ma nez) and big owl eyes. and big mouth. Hahaha I’m big and that’s fine. For the longest time I’ve had a complex towards my body image and it does’t help when I have people telling me “Wow you fit into a size small?” or “You have cow eyes!”, like their appreciation for my appearance will make me feel better. I have this to say to you, I don’t need your compliments or piropos to like how I look.