Made in Ecuador

I realize that it has been a long time since I’ve posted anything.  I still can’t get used to posting on a daily basis, probably because I feel pressured to do it, which I know is ridiculous because apart from myself,  no one is giving me a deadline.  Anyways only one word can describe my parents visit: enlightening.  I know you’d think I would have written: tense, hectic, dramatic, traumatic, frustrating- all negative words.  I can’t blame you since most of the time when I talk about my family, these are the prominent emotions.

On our trip to San Francisco (I need to visit that city for a longer time and preferably when it’s not raining) I felt like I wanted to tear my hair out.  I’ve realized where I get my controlling and bossy nature (dad), my dramatic flair (mom), my need to poke people (younger brother), my desire to be the best (older brother) and from all of them I get the need to better myself everyday, to read, discuss mundane and controversial issues (although not with them).  In other words, reader, you could say that I may have to swallow my words.  In a previous post, I said that I am the black sheep of my family that I felt like I don’t belong.  While those feelings haven’t disappeared, I’ve realized that I do have things in common with my family, inherited some of their characteristics and can safely say that I’m beginning to to understand them.  If nothing else, I’ve learned how to handle them.

Hahaha I know that this makes them sound like wild animales, this is not my intention.  They’re good people and chance has made them my family.  As much as they drive me crazy, I love them.  This does not mean that we are the Partridge or some kind of Brady Bunch- let’s not get all mushy and gushy.  I don’t expect them to love me or understand me just because I’m their daughter/sister.  Except my mami, my family has no clue as to my world view, my insecurities and my passions.  And that’s okay.   I’ve come to expect that from them, which is unfair and frankly unrealistic.  This brings up the obvious question,  where did I get such an idea?

About 5 years ago, you could say my parents got separated.  Needless to say, it destroyed a couple of naive views I had on marriage and parent roles.  Since I was a kid, my family was known and called, “the perfect family” and I bought it.  I believed it and I looked at my parents as infallible.  I know I set myself for disappointment.  I know that they never told me this but I looked up to them as the foundation of our family that could do no wrong.  Naive, naive, soooo naive- I know.  For that reason, I’m glad that that happened, not that I didn’t tell either of my parents off for how they were dealing with this.  Ultimately, however, I learned that my parents are allowed to make mistakes, they’re not saints and for me to give them that pressure was unfair.

Writing this I see that even though I learned that, I kept having other expectations from them and from myself.  I expected them to love me and above all support my decisions.  Yet how can they, if they don’t know me?   I write the previous statement in present tense, because I know my family doesn’t understand/know me.  That’s partly my fault, I can shy away from sharing myself; create a wall between everyone and myself.  I also keep expecting myself to be perfect, applying this created pressure to be successful and extraordinary, hence why as an unemployed woman- it’s easy to feel like a loser (that’s for another post).

I want to end this post before I use the word expect again.