In high school I had my first long term relationship. We dated for a year and a half, ish. I was able to hide him from you because I finally had a car. I had some semblance of freedom, while still working within predictable school activities. I made up school events to get some time with him.

He dumped me upon graduating. He said he wanted to be single i…

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One of the ways that trauma shows up in me is that I crave control. It’s an antagonizing reality, mostly to me, truly.

I love being in control in a way that is not healthy, I know that now.

Growing up in a household where I wasn’t given bodily autonomy, meaning I was not allowed to wear whatever I wanted. I was not allowed to talk to whoever I wanted. I w…

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I was overparented and underparented.

That’s the paradox of living and growing up with strict parents. They’re so busy trying to protect you, that’s what they say anyways, and they don’t take the time to actually know you.

I often wonder if their strictness was rooted in fear or in control. I think, like many parents, my parents saw their children as ext…

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(I’ve never sat and written about my sister like this, or at all. So this could become multiple pieces. I can’t quite get my thoughts together and make it make sense. For now I’m just writing.)

My sister and I are opposites. She’s sugar and I am most definitely spice. She will be nice. I will bark and lunge. But we are also too similar. We are both…

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1. I wish my family vacationed like this.

Now don’t misunderstand m…

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Accompany me, reader, as I attempt to make sense of my relationship with my mother, because this is not a conversation we seem to be able to have well together. So, as I attempt to soothe this suffocating loneliness from my bones, I try to figure out why.

Mami is the eldest daughter. Like me, she is not the oldest child. She has a brother who, by her own admission, was a terror. After mami, there are 3 more children, two sisters and the youngest is a boy.

And mami was known as the protector of the younger siblings. Once, a story I have heard retold many times, one of the kids was being bullied. And so, one of my aunts went and told mami, my other aunt was there too. As they all tell it, while cackling at the memory, my mami rolled up her sleeves and said: “enseñame quien te esta molestando.” They all mimic mami as she rolled up her sleeves, like you see a man do in old timey movies. Like mami was about to put on a gun show for this bully.

Mami took care of her siblings. Abuela had a full-time job, as did abuelo, so mami was the person who made sure all her siblings were okay.

I think she resented it, even when she has found meaning in it.

Mami has told me, proudly, that she would be friends with me if we had happened to be kids at the same time. I asked her, prodding for the reassurance I hunger for whenever I am around my parents, “why?”

I think about her response often.

I find meaning in her response.

I ebb and flow out of pride and anger when I replay her response to me over and over again my head.

She said, “because you figure things out alone, porque eres chispa.” She continued, not needing to continue, “Tu hermano es lento. Y tu hermana me necesita mucho.”

I smiled when she told me that, I knew it was all meant as a compliment. But I don’t smile when I think about that now. Because today, my brother and my sister see my mom and need my mom, and she seems to love being needed.

Mami resents being needed, but she has found purpose in it.

I don’t need her, because I have learned to not need her.

I don’t need her, because she has made sure to make me think twice before asking her for anything.

I don’t need her, because needing her means she would have been my friend if we so happened to be born in another timeline where she is just a girl my age.

Mami dislikes being needed, but she has found so much meaning in it that she will only run toward the neediest child of hers. If you don’t need her, then she has no purpose being in your life.

Being the eldest daughter to an eldest daughter is lonely. I feel isolated from my family. I’ve done my share to contribute to my isolation. I don’t want to be needed. I have known that I resented it. I resented the pressure. I resented the show you have to put on as the eldest daughter, the perfect daughter. I resented all the eyes on me, waiting for me to make a mistake. I resented having to be authoritative to my younger sister. I resented that I could not be needy. I have not seen mami since 2018, maybe 2019.

But fuck, I need her.

And I hate that I need her.

I hate that I hate needing anyone.

I hate that I keep a distance from people, never allowing them to see me too closely lest they discover I am weak.

I hate that I can’t need my mom, a particular type of wound an overburdened eldest daughter can only give to her own eldest daughter.

I got married young, like you taught me things should be.

I got pregnant young, like you taught me to do.

And then I planned my life around this soon-to-come baby. I bought her clothes. I got her toys. I was scared of being …

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You say that you did the best you could. And I get that. I honestly believe that you believe you did the best you could.

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Every time I try to say something of substance, something that divulges my truest self, you laugh.

What’s so funny?

I told you I don’t like male sports because of the culture of misogyny.  You laughed.

What’s so funny?

I told you that I feel emotionally abandoned by you and mom. You laughed.

What’s so funny?

I tell you I won’t be staying at your home while visiting y’all, to create some semblance of control over my environment. You laughed.

What’s so funny?

Is it me? Are my thoughts funny? Is it all silly to you? Do you take me seriously? Does it hurt you to sit still and accept that I am different? Do my differences make you feel uncomfortable? Is anger what your disguising when you laugh at me? Were you not taught that children can disagree with their parents?

Say something, anything, please.

What’s so fucking funny.

I think you’re just trying to keep the peace and this is all you know to do to maintain it: avoid conflict. But conflict might be what we need. Unsaid words do not disappear if you ignore them, they just get buried until there’s not enough dirt in the world to contain them. We ran out of dirt years ago.

I think we need to speak but to you speaking means fighting. It’s only fighting if you cannot accept that I am different than you imagined, and not because you parented me wrong but because I’m allowed to grow up and away from you.

But here I go again, scrambling to find meaning to you. Filing in the gaps in our distance. Wish you had the emotional depth to do this work yourself. I wish I didn’t have to explain you to myself, when I have so much to understand about myself still. My hands are full.

So why do you keep laughing when all I want to do is scream.

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After our short falling-out post my divorce, I never imagined we would stop speaking again. Or rather, I worked hard to maintain a relationship, which relied solely on my labor, and you obliged. And so, I assumed, we were solid.

We were solid, because I felt solid.

I wrote about you, about us; I praised you like a deity. I admire…

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