Life's Lessons

*December is a huge month for me. Christmas is wonderful and everything but December marks a year since I took the biggest step in my life. I wrote this piece back in September and it's interesting to see how time changes things. Just wanted to share this.*

    
     Have you ever told yourself, if I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently? A lot of situations come to mind when I think of that sentence. Of course I would have done things differently. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? I wouldn’t think I’d be ready to write about a subject like this one for some time. Wounds are still open, but they’re the type of cuts that with just one tap they start oozing pus. Yeah, I would say they’re infected, but I’m constantly layering them with antibiotics and they’re on the mend. In a couple of days, it’ll be nine months since I started living this new life of mine. Nine months since I made the biggest decision of my life. People have told me it’s the best decision I’ve ever made, but no one knows what it’s been like to walk in my shoes. Of course, everyone might have an idea, but they’ll never really understand the difficulties or the heartbreak. Here it goes:
     Nine months ago, I was still married. Nine months ago, I was still the better half to someone else. I was still living with my husband of five years. Now, to be technical about it all, we were never legally married but I didn’t need to have that piece of paper to tell me that my life was intertwined with someone else’s. My husband was a huge part of my life.

Baby

My lil girl has a stuffed animal that she carries with her wherever she goes. This dog came into the picture out of sheer necessity. She was six-months-old and I was visiting Laredo. It was the first time my father was going to be meeting his first and only grand-daughter (sad, I know). It was June and the heat was already in full swing. My lil girl wasn't used to Laredo weather, having never been in the city before. It was suffice to say that she was having a very hard time adjusting and was very fussy. My room at the time was being used as storage and I was in desperate need of anything to entertain her so I chose this lil puppy that belonged to my sister-in-law. It had been given to her for Valentine's day and I guess it didn't meet her standards so she had it tossed out of her room. Giving it to my daughter was my salvation...it was love at first sight for her.

My First Cleaning Trolley

Notice the 'Girls Only' stamp...

While shopping at a local Dollar General, I ran into this nifty lil toy. I don't remember these existing back in the day. Dunno if I'm a fan or not. Even though, yes, my daughter would probably have a ball with this thing, I know I can't make myself buy her this thing. To each their own, I understand, but this ain't gonna be under my Christmas tree. By the way, it's a real steal at 12 bucks.

My Christmas Wish

     I love to read. Reading to me is the best thing in the entire world. Whenever I pick up a book, I know whether I’m gonna like it within reading the first page. If after the first page I continue, I’m hooked. I swear I won’t put that book down until it’s done.  I won’t feel like my life is complete until I have read the last word. It’s a quality that only I possess in my immediate family. My brothers find it a chore to read more than a paragraph and if it doesn’t have pictures, forget it. My mother makes me read and then summarize it for her so she doesn’t have to do it. My father doesn’t make the effort to pick up a book because he can’t make himself sit still long enough to read it. I am the only ‘nerd’ in the family.

     I can get addicted to a book so badly that I basically blur everything around me. The TV can be on, the radio, family can be talking around me, people can be walking by me, the ambulance could be passing by, and none of this do I notice. I swear it’s like I’m absorbed into the book. This is the main reason why, in the past three years, I haven’t been able to sit down and read a book in peace. With my daughter, I can’t exactly tune her out. Even if I really wanted too, she wouldn’t allow it. She’d make damn sure her presence would be acknowledged. So I haven't read comfortably in over three years but I've managed to steal a couple of moments here and there and read a book or two.

Mi Corazon

I have a heart. Granted it’s not perfect or pretty. It was torn apart and tossed in the garbage like a used up band-aid. I fought the urge to leave it there because it didn’t deserve such treatment. It got me into trouble in the first place; my head knew better than it did. But sometimes we have to take risks and so I decided this time I would follow what the heart wanted. Yeah, it didn’t turn out so well. So, in the end, there I went  scavenging through the nasty heap of trash only to find it had been shredded into a million pieces. I carefully took the time to search through every single discarded item but in the end, I wasn’t able to find all the parts. I carried this poor, sad pile of debris home, hoping that just maybe I would be able to get it to be whole in some way or another. Unfortunately, what I came up with didn’t make even half of the heart that I had before. Still, it’s something more than what I had a couple of months ago. So here I present to you…my sad, tortured, beaten, angry remnants of a heart. It’s as good as it’s going to get.

Oh Christmas Tree...

Yes, it's blurry, but you get the idea.

The tree is finally up. Usually it's already set up and put in its place by Thanksgiving..this year we were a little bit late. Still, we spent some quality family time yesterday and decorated it until it had its own personality. It's not perfect, the trunk curves in a weird way so it always looks crooked but we have the pleasure of having it be our Christmas tree this year. It'll patiently be waiting for Santa to make his yearly visit.

Should be Sleeping like a Log...Instead I'm Cooking

No, it's not maggots..it's my rice. Never comes out right but I think I did ok this time.

I found out something new today. I found that I can come home from a hard day's work and cook up a storm with great enthusiasm. There's just one thing I need to help me along with the cooking process...Beatles' music. Yes, the ever wonderful and amazing Beatles can help put me in the mood to make something out of whatever ingredients I can scrounge up in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong; I do like to cook. I don't mind it at all, but after a stressful day at work, there's nothing more I wanna do than come home and just sit in front of the TV and relax. How many times do I actually get a chance to do that? Honestly, maybe once a week, if that. More than half of the time I get home and my lil girl is bouncing off the walls waiting to hit the streets. Soooo I take her out to the park or whatever makes her happy. But today...today was different. I actually did sit down in front of the TV and almost fell asleep but then I heard "mommy, I'm hungry"....so much for a ten minute nap. So off to the kitchen I went in search of something to feed my lil one. Well, inspiration struck and I found that maybe I could cook up a decent meal today. I put on the Beatles and I put together a meal good enough to feed a king...well at least the jester, if anything. So I guess from now on, I'm going to have to turn to the Beatles more often to come up with a home-cooked meal for more than just once a week (yes, yes, I know...what kind of a mother am I.). Anyways...I cooked dinner tonight. Yay!! The Beatles come through one more time....

Daily Living- Part 1

'You need a man in your life.'


Umm...yea.....sure....uh-huh.

Carnival's in Town

The carnival's in town!!! Yes, I know it's been here for a while already, but I've never actually stopped by before since it is the miniature one. I always wait for the bigger carnival that arrives in February with the whole Washington birthday celebration hoopla. Seeing the carnival reminds me of the time when the main carnival was still at Life Downs, when dirt and the smell of horse poop went hand in hand. Ah the memories...

It's Been a Year

     I still remember the day. I was at the high school in Rio Grande City, attending to my work duties, and I received a phone call around 10:15am. I knew right away what it was about. I didn't listen to the voicemail until the student I was talking to had gone back to class. Walking away from the campus, getting into the security and privacy of my car, I listened to what my father was telling me...she was gone. I cried all the way back to the office, explained the situation to my supervisor, picked up my daughter at daycare, and drove back to Mission to prepare my things to come back home to Laredo. Losing my grandmother was a great loss to the family. She was the head of the whole clan and losing her was like losing our guide into the world...what would we do now? It's been a full year since she's been gone and it's still a hard thing to understand.
     My grandmother was unlike anyone I've ever known in my life. She was the type of women who was headstrong and determined yet very warm and loving with the people she adored and cherished. Whenever anyone would visit her, she'd make them feel as if their mere presence had made her whole day. As if she had been waiting the entire day for them. I remember she'd always call me 'mija hermosa' and her whole face would light up with her sincere and endearing smile. My grandmother was a private woman but when it came to it, she could make conversations with just about anyone. I would tag along with her on her 'mandados' and she could start talking to a lady at Super S about the bananas. We'd go to Narvaez and she would talk to another person about the long line and what carne was best for the tamales. We would head over to Alfredo Santos and she'd make conversation about the weather with the cashier. She was adorable, my grandmother was, and she was gracious to the point that many people liked her.

Quiero Un Color

   

     Ever heard of the game colores? Let me explain the game (if you haven't heard of it):
   
     A group of kids would sit in a circle and one would be designated La Viejita Inez (for a female) and El Viejito Andres (for a male). Inez/Andres would give the group a minute or two so each individual could choose a color. Inez/Andres would come back to the group, do a whole skit of knocking on an imaginary door, and ask the group if they had some colors. The group would ask what specific color he/she was looking for and Inez/Andres would then state the color they wanted. Whoever had the color had to get up and run around the house (or yard) and try to reach their seat before being caught by Inez/Andres. If they were successfully able to get back to their seat without being caught, they were safe. If they were caught, they would become the new designated Inez/Andres and the game would continue onward. 

Female Mind

     I recently read a book on how a single female can date four men at once. Each man would serve a purpose in her life. The whole concept of this certain ‘equation’ would be so that the woman can grow as a person yet at the same time, always have a man by her side. It was an interesting read, to say the very least, and it did open my eyes to a couple of things.
     It’s safe to say that the main point to this book isn’t necessarily to find a soul-mate, more than anything, it’s so that the woman can develop into an independent being and find security in herself. That is the mission: to find the true underlying individual and help her blossom and butterfly into whom she is meant to be. Often times, women try to find their value through the eyes of a man, because they think that with a man’s approval, it means that they are actually worth something. That is absolutely not true. Women who base themselves on how many men ‘like’ them, get lost as to the whole purpose of the picture: one has to love his/her self first before anyone else can. It’s one of the hardest lessons to understand and an even harder goal to attain. It’s easier to base one on what other people say. Appreciating who one is as a person, inside and outside, is a very daunting task. It’s one of the most hard-fought battles out there. Having to look into oneself and accepting every single flaw is definitely a hard pill to swallow. That’s why so many avoid attempting to take that medicine. I’d have to say it’s a journey worth taking.

Retrato

It’s ridiculous the emotions a picture can conjure up.  A simple photograph with nothing but two smiling faces. A depiction of a moment frozen in time, when everything seemed untouchable and indestructible. It’s hard to imagine how a piece of paper can make you want to cry and long for the past. But life has a funny way of being irreversible, which in the long run is the best option. Oh well…

Scary Pumpkin

All my pumpkins prior to this year's creation had been fairly plain. This year, I decided to try and think out of the box and carve something a bit more daunting. Okay, okay, the carving kit I bought had this scary stencil I just had to trace onto my pumpkin..potatoes, patatoes! Still, I have to say, it came out very nice...even though it is kinda hard to distinguish what it is...

Big League Chew

On a recent trip out of town, I ran into this nifty little piece of gum. I remember being sevens-year-old
and buying this candy just because I wanted to feel like I was part of the big leagues. First off, I have
never really played baseball. Second, I don't really even follow the sport on TV (doing it now just because
the Cowboys aren't doing so well). Third, I remember only ever buying this gum once or twice. Sooo, when I ran
into this blast from the past, I thought I should buy it just for the sake of nostalgia. I haven't opened it
 and i don't really want to because it's not really found here in Laredo; but I am curious as to how it tastes.
We'll see what happens with that but I will say this...it's nice to see the old candy every once in a while. Anyone
seen Astro Pops since the eighties? I'd sure be interested in seeing that one....