Do you ever see something completely insignificant that bothers you, but on a typical day it wouldn't? For whatever reason, time and space collide and you wind up catching feelings about it. Well, yesterday I logged into Facebook... I deactivated my facebook a long time ago but now and then I log in to get coupons, or to secretly internet stalk certain people and to see what's going on in their lives. Come to find out, most people don't use Facebook anymore either, so that's a pointless venture anymore. Anyway, I logged in to Facebook yesterday to get a restaurant coupon, and today when I went to re-deactivate my page I saw a comment that bothered me. Normally I wouldn't pay it any attention, but for some reason, today I felt a little butthurt about it.
My cousin is my Facebook friend. We used to be twinnies. It was a running joke for a while that her and I were actually conceived by the same man- my uncle, but of course that isn't true and as we grow older she looks identical to her father, and I look like some kind of mutt. I look like a cross breed between my mother and my father, but not nearly familiar to either one of them. My father being the dominant one genetically as it is obvious that I'm mixed with something, but every now and again in pictures I see little resemblances of my mother in me too. I digress. None of that matters.
I don't know my father's side of the family. He comes from a very tribal area of Puerto Rico. To this day he has the thickest accent, and as he gets older he often mixes spanish words with english, and at one point in time he very much enjoyed wearing straw hats. That side of my family has beautiful, deep chocolate colored skin like the color of rich hot cocoa and naturally straight, jet black/blue hair. They love to drink and dance, and enjoy every little moment of life. That is their culture, of course. My mother's side is German, all blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin. Now, while my father was born and raised on the island, my mother's heritage is strictly ancestral save for the severely German last name they still carry. I was born and raised here, and I was raised to be an American. I don't speak any other languages. I don't have an accent. And to be honest, I feel more out of place with people who are Hispanic like myself, because I don't share their relaxed, playful nature. I mean, I love it, but I couldn't live it if that makes any sense. I don't know what it feels like to be on vacation all the time.
The reason I explained all this is because I don't have very many memories of my childhood. Most people do, but I literally have none except for painful memories that I never think about, but that's a story for another day. Of the very few good memories I have, less than I can count on one hand, one thing that I remember when my parents were still married was the holiday parties we had where everyone would get together and bring food. We would dance and laugh, sing and smile, and as an adult the only way I can describe it is that it felt like love. I was close to my cousins then because we lived near each other whereas everyone else lived in Hispanic dominated areas. Miami, Puerto Rico, Certain areas of New York, etc. Mostly Miami and Puerto Rico. A lot of severely bad things happened to both of our families around the same time frame- extremely bad things that I never think about... multiple suicides, serious physical abuse, incarceration, divorce being the less of the events, but while I was able to push it all out of my mind and forget, my cousin reacted differently.
My cousin changed her last name- my last name. My cousin completely renounced my side of the family. The comment I read on Facebook was her talking to a family member that I don't remember, probably because I can't speak Spanish and most of them can't speak English, but the comment was so simple. She said: You have to come see me because I don't talk to that side of the family anymore. She hasn't for years, and that's always been okay. But for some reason, today it wasn't. I didn't say anything, but I felt a little sad. I felt sad for her because she gave up on us, and I felt sad for me because I never had the opportunity. My grandmother on my dad's side who also didn't speak English so in turn I never was able to develop a relationship with her, she had so many children. I have so many aunts and uncles... So many direct cousins, nieces and nephews, that don't even know I exist. And sometimes my father will tell me stories about them when I talk to him- he and I only talk once or twice a year now because he moved back home to Puerto Rico, and I have no idea what he's talking about, or who. It is such a gift to come from a big family. My cousin let us go. She doesn't want us... and I wanted more than anything to have that for the longest time though now in my adult life I'm happy with the family I have built. Still, it would have been nice. Life could have been different. I could have been different. Anyway, its just sad that sometimes people don't realize the blessings they have. |
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