Surviving with only Half a Heart

At first I wasn't going to talk about the last few days we were in Mexico or the pure misery of going to the airport the morning we left, but I realize now that I need to talk.  I need to mourn the loss of the physical connection that I so desperately need, and in order to mourn I need to feel once again.  Living for a week completely numb to the pain and horrible sense of loss was necessary to my survival.  I will live my life one day at a time, knowing that I can begin setting money aside with the hope that I can see my love again for Christmas.

Remember When

I was driving on the same route I take to my full-time job Monday through Friday when I was assaulted by memories.  It was so painful that I thought about filing charges, but the police would think I've lost my mind.  I've driven that same stretch of highway so many times since Alberto left that I couldn't possibly count.  The memory itself was probably triggered by the fact something appears to be wrong with my car yet again, big surprise, but the incident that came to mind is from about 7 years ago...

Empty Words and Broken Dreams

I hate waiting.  I don’t want to hear about how patient, strong, and wonderful I am.  I don’t want to hear how brave I am to do this all on my own.  I don’t want to hear any of these empty words that praise me for staying alive in this God awful situation.

So you think I’m patient?  I’m sure if you went through my posts you could find multiple examples of the times I’ve flipped the fuck out because I surpassed my maximum tolerance for stress, or the death-grip I have on my emotions snapped like an overstretched elastic band.  Honestly it doesn’t take much anymore.  I’m sure Lance has many stories he could relate, but even he hasn’t seen or heard everything.  I’m too internal of a person to tell one person every single thing I think or feel.  Alberto is the only person that I never hid myself from.

I’m strong because I have no choice.  What good would it do to fold myself into a ball and weep copiously for what has been lost?  Who, in my situation, has the time to be weak and what kind of mother would I be to Ashley if she couldn’t count on her Mamí to always be there?  Alberto needs me to be strong when in the past he was always my rock.  I am desperately trying to hold myself together.  I’m trying to cover the hole in my bleeding heart that may never heal.  Should I let those bitter tears run down my cheeks whenever someone I know gets engaged, married, pregnant, their dream job, a degree, or even just goes to the movies with their loved ones?  Being weak wouldn’t change a single damn thing about this nightmare I live in.  No amount of tears or begging on my knees would ever bring my husband home to us, and the cost would be my self-respect.  I will not allow the government to take my family away from me just because my husband wasn’t born on this side of an arbitrary line in the dirt.

Lisa’s Monthly Survey (via Emily)

A lighthearted survey is just what today needed!  I got this one from Emily over at The Real Housewife of Cuidad Juarez, who in turn got in from Lisa at From One Country To Another.  I remember spending many study hall days taking online surveys, so this is a nice little trip into the past.  Thanks Ladies!

1. Name three things you have a fear of:

Spiders, Tuesdays, and missing my chance to have another child

2. Cheese or Fruit Pie?

Cheese

Long or short hair?

When it’s long I want it short, when it’s short I want it to grow faster...

Small town or big city?

Small town – Suburb of a big city would be best J

Blue cheese or Ranch?

Neither!  I can’t stand salad dressing.

White or Wheat Bread?

Wheat

3. Have you ever won a contest?

The only time I’ve ever won anything was when I was pregnant with Ashley.  Alberto was playing baraja with his family when he decided he needed to leave the table for a while and gave me his hand.  I won $200 that night, which is why we all say “Ashley nació con una torta bajo el brazo.”

4. Would you rather camp out or stay in a Hilton?

I’m more of a hotel kind of girl.  I think it all started the time I burned two deer ticks off my leg…  That was enough of that for me!

5. Have you ever had surgery?

I’ve had my appendix out, which I think hurt more than childbirth.  Ashley was born after two hours of hard labor while I was loopy on nubain, threatening my husband, if my mother-in-law is correct. 

6. Are you a planner or go with the flow kind of person?

I try to be a planner but my conversion to mexicanism has thwarted all but the most basic of planning abilities.  Sometimes that is a good thing since it made me learn to go with the flow, but then I get that phone call about whatever appointment I missed.  They say next time they’ll have to add a charge to me bill for excessive missed appointments.

7. If you could have anything to eat right now what would it be?

Thanks for reminding me how much I’ve been craving a gordita de tinga de pollo con frijoles y arroz.  I wish Taquería Los Ocampo delivered…

8. What is your favorite type of flower?

I like the simple flowers like daisies and daffodils.  When we finally have a place to call our own I want to plant a cutting from my mother’s lilacs, which came from her mother’s lilacs, under our bedroom window.

9. Do you remember your dreams? Do you have any?

I have weird dreams when I can remember them.  There was the one where I dreamt Alberto left me for a little Asian girl who was really the princess of France and they laughed at me when I went searching for them with our baby.  I woke up from that dream and felt someone in the bed next to me.  It was the attorney I was working with at the time; he was a short and unattractive jackass.  I screamed and woke myself up for real.

The ones I don’t remember are when I wake up smelling Alberto’s cologne.  Those are the nights I cry.

10. What do you miss most about your childhood?

I miss the heyday of summer.  I miss the romantic moonlit walks in the soft and fragrant nights, and the lazy days before there were jobs and responsibilities.

All I want for Christmas is you

Why is the month of December so much more difficult for me than any other month?  It is the holiday spirit; gift giving, family gatherings, and the pictures of happy families posted everywhere that makes me so blue?  Or is it that I am really pea green with envy at what those pictures show; mom, dad, and child(ren) together and happy?  Why should they have what I have been denied for so many years?  The government took my husband away from me a mere two months before Christmas three years ago and I still feel some bitterness when I think about it.  Ashley has never had a Christmas with her father so at least she doesn’t know what is missing this time of year.  I suppose I prefer that way since this way I have less to make up for.  This year I’m asking Santa Claus to leave Alberto under the Christmas tree for me since that is the only thing I want.  I would love to send out a Christmas card with a picture of the three of us on it.

As I sat here at my faithful computer typing furiously the deluge of thoughts coursing through my head, I looked down at my right hand and smile.  I still wear the ring that Alberto bought me when he was 15.  He gave it to me on our 6th month anniversary back in June of 2002.  It makes me smile to remember when he gave me a choice between two rings that his sister-in-law had in stock while she was selling oro.  I choose the ring with the heart shaped cubic zirconia over the other option; an oval ring with the Virgen de Guadalupe on it.  Ashley likes to try on my ‘pretty’ as she calls it and will parade around the house showing off her ring.  She’s still trying to convince me to buy her a ring, so maybe I’ll find something cheap to give her for Christmas.  I still want to buy her a gold chain like mine for the gold medal of the Virgen de Guadalupe I bought for her in Mexico City last year.  It needs to be a Figaro chain so that she can’t break it, and I would prefer something in the 14-16 inch range so it’s less likely to fall off or get caught on something.  I should call la Madrina and see if she can find me one so I can buy it from Mexico.

What are you thankful for?

Today, on the day after Thanksgiving, has got me thinking about what I am thankful for this year.  I have a new outlook on life and a different set of priorities from years past, and my new perspective might help someone out there discover something that they can be thankful for.

1)    I am thankful for the opportunity to finally see an end to all this misery and heartbreak.  Our future is still currently up in the air and rides on the shoulders of an immigration judge, but even knowing that the end of this journey is near is a blessing.  Whatever the outcome may be, we will face it united, as a family.
2)    I am thankful that Alberto is in Minnesota, even though he has been residing in county jails.  June of this year was the first time we had seen one another face to face in 1 year and 2 months.  Since then Ashley has come to know her father in a way that talking on the phone and looking at pictures never could. 
3)    I am thankful that Alberto has rediscovered his faith in God.  Faith has the power to move mountains and gives us the strength to take whatever life throws at us.  He is well on his way to becoming the man that I knew he could be, someone to admire and be proud of.
4)    I am thankful to be employed.  I work with people that care and support each other in the good time and the bad.  I feel blessed that I was guided to apply at this organization, and only more so to become a full-time employee.
5)    I am thankful for my family; my parents, my siblings, and my extended family.  It is amazing how a family will rally around a member that is in need of support when they need it the most.  There are people in my family who are anti-immigration, but those are the people I have largely learned to ignore from a young age.
6)    I am thankful that my daughter loves me, even though I have not always been the best mother I can be.  It pains me to admit that I cannot remember the first year of Ashley's life and though I may never forgive myself for that, she loves me.

Change will commence in…

Here we are again on the precipice of change only this time I don’t know exactly what to expect and that scares me.  Alberto’s probation officer called me on Wednesday to talk to me about him.  I didn’t expect her to have so many questions and I hope I was able to create a picture of my husband clearly in her mind.  The probation officer was personable and soft-spoken and I definitely hadn’t expected that so I suppose I told her more than she expected.  I talked about our relationship and how like any normal couple we’ve had our disagreements, but we always talk it through.  I’ve never been afraid of Alberto nor do I believe him to be capable of violence.  I acknowledged that my brother-in-law Caña is a volatile, violent man and I had never signs of the same behaviors in Alberto.  We discussed his use of alcohol and I described Alberto as a social drinker who knows his limit.  She asked about his temperament, if he had any mental illnesses, would I trust him with our daughter and other questions along the same line.  Then at the end of all this, she wanted to know why Alberto left the country in 2008.  I gave her the full story, with nothing omitted, though I could hear the pain in my own voice.  I spoke of the race to keep Alberto here to face the charges, his compliance with the orders of the immigration judge, and the painful kick in the gut when we received that approval a day too late.  I spoke of the battle to get our case processed by the USCIS and the invocation of my *favorite* Senator that finally gave us results.  I spoke of the anticipation of the visa appointment, and the gut wrenching pain when he was denied the second appointment.  I offered to bring in the documentation for her review to which she replied it wasn’t necessary, but this information was extremely important to her and his case.

The probation officer told me to expect Alberto to receive a stayed sentenced for the minimum possible; one year plus 1 day.  He would have 5 years of probation with no conditions imposed because this charge, though a felony, was still minor in nature.  She stated that any time he was still in jail for on the immigration hold would count towards his criminal sentence and if he served 2/3 of his sentence by the time we were able to obtain his release from immigration’s grasp, his obligation to Hennepin County would have been fulfilled. 

Interpersonal Relationships

Dear readers, I have to admit I’m a little apprehensive of what the future holds for us.  Above and beyond the legal and immigration issues, I’m experiencing a whole different type of anxiety I hadn’t anticipated.  How am I going to make the transition back to an intimate relationship with my husband?  Will I acclimate to his snoring easily or will I want to smother him with a pillow after the first few nights?  I also remember him being a cover hog and a restless sleeper when over tired.  I know it shouldn’t be an issue but I’m still the same weight as I was after Ashley was born.  It makes me uncomfortable knowing that although I haven’t gotten any worse, I definitely have not gotten any better.  Alberto says that how we look outside doesn’t matter because it’s what we have in our hearts that makes us truly beautiful, which is utterly amazing coming from him because he has never talked like that before. 

To be truthful he has never been one to declare his feelings verbally, so you could say I went through most of our relationship guessing how he felt.  I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times I can remember him saying “Te amo” before he left for Mexico and still have digits to spare!  Alberto is the reason I always said ‘Mexican men are emotionally constipated’ which I usually follow up with some quip about how alcohol is a natural laxative for this affliction.  The only time I can remember Alberto committing a spontaneous PDA was when he’d been drinking and grabbed my posterior in front of his brother.  Considering I had just saved him from getting carted off to jail for being a moron, it was the least of my worries. This time he has spent in jail has been good for him because he’s learning to express what he would never say before.

A Little Bit About Me (Us)

Today after posting on my blog, I went back and read of the posts of the blogs I’m following.  There is another joint blogging effort making the rounds which I found out about from The Real Housewife of Cuidad Juarez.  My other blogging friends are: Medina's Moments, Us, After America, and Corin in Exile. So here goes my post that is a little bit about me:

1.    How long have you been with your husband?

This month we have known each other for 10 years; in December we will have been a couple for 10 years and married for 4 years. 

2.   Can you remember on funny miscommunication because of language barriers?

Well the incident that comes to mind is the time I told Alberto’s sister that I was pregnant.  I had only been starting to learn Spanish for about 6 months prior to this incident, and I think I’d been dating Alberto for a month or two at that point and I was still 16.

Maria had come up to ask me why I was eating so much, mostly because she was concerned for my health as we worked at McDonalds.  I meant to say how embarrassed I was that she would notice that I eat a ton, and that I didn’t usually eat lunch at school.  Instead I said, “Estoy embarazada…” at which point her jaw dropped.  She poked me in the gut and said “bebe”.  I turned several interesting shades of red as it dawned on me what I had actually said. 

I wonder if she remembers that…  Maybe I’ll ask her next time I call her!

3.   What state and/or city have you relocated to?

I haven’t gone anywhere yet.  We are still battling immigration and the legal system here in Minnesota.  I’m positive I’ll post something if we need to make the decision to move.

4.   Do you and your hubby have any children and if so, how old?

Alberto and I have a 3 year old daughter, Ashley Mendez.

5.   What is one thing that your blogger friends don’t know about you?

I think I’m pretty much an open book here on my blog (except for the name thing of course), so I need to think for a minute here.

I have it!  I love a good practical joke, and my senior prank was a dozy.  We had a teacher who was a real life version of ‘Runaway Bride’, but she was fun and made her subject interesting.  So, I had Ms. Carpenter for Sociology and we did an experiment on taboos in regards to illicit drug use.  The drug in our study was Ice Cubez and the users (us) would have to hide the fact that we had to have ice cubes in everything we consumed that was liquid.  We also had on these ugly bracelets as a physical manifestation of the addiction and we could not for any reason explain why we were wearing them.  Ms. Carpenter would tell the hall monitors and campus cop when the experiment was being conducted so that they could confiscate our ‘illegal contraband’.  Seeing how Ms. Carpenter also participated but no one would give her grief about the ice cubes, I hatched a plan.

During the last semester of the year I had a friend in her class who was supposed to tell me when the experiment was to take place.  We were about 3 weeks away from graduation when the sting operation was finally about to swing into motion.  My friend distracted Ms. Carpenter while I placed a cooler full of illicit drugs (ice cubes) under her desk.  Upon leaving her classroom, I tipped off the campus cop that Ms. Carpenter had illegal contraband in her classroom.  It was agreed that the campus cop would be accompanied by the principal and arrest Ms. Carpenter during the class my friend was in so that I would know what went down.  It was a thing of beauty, perfectly executed and shocking to see a teacher led away in handcuffs.  After our graduation ceremony, I thanked Ms. Carpenter for being such a good sport and admitted it was me.

6.   What are some of your favorite hobbies or past times?

I love movies except for horror flicks.  I am one of those people that hates it when someone misquotes a movie, so if I look annoyed you know who you are.

I devour books, especially romance novels by Nora Roberts, Lisa Klepas, or Johanna Lindsey.  I also enjoy cooking when no one is around to bug me, drawing, making miscellaneous crafts, and walking.

Give me a rainy Sunday with a good book and a few movies and that’s as close to heaven as I get.  It would only get better if you threw my husband into the mix.

7.   How did you stumble upon the blogging community?

I had been toying with the idea of blogging for several months because a few of my friends told me I should write a book.  Since writing a book is such a big undertaking, I decided to try blogging first and see if this is a possibility for me.  Then once I got past my second post, blogging turned into a wailing wall, although sometimes I wish people would comment so I would have some feedback.

8.   Have you learned something new about yourself during this whole process that has changed all of our lives?

I am stronger than I thought, and more stubborn than should be humanly possible.  I have a linear and mostly logical mind that indulges in the irrational for time to time.  I have found a renewed faith in God and discovered that there is still hope buried deep in my heart that everything will be ok.

I have learned to think positive because I cannot afford to be negative.  I cannot afford to have doubts, because I am an ‘all or nothing’ type of person.

9.   Something that you love about Mexico and something that you can’t stand or miss living without.

Keep in mind I have never been in Mexico for longer than two weeks.

I loved being able to walk to anything I needed in Mexico City or Cuautla.  I loved that if you missed the bus, a pecera would be by in 5 minutes to take you where you need to go.  I loved the street food with their full flavors and vendors yelling ‘ELOTES’ as they rode past your house on a bicycle.

I didn’t love the heat, and I don’t know if I would survive south of the border long enough to acclimate.  I can handle -20° weather easy, what I can’t handle is being parboiled by the sun in 60 seconds or less.  In less than an hour I got a sunburn bad enough on my arm that random people were offering sun block and aloe gel, and I earned my nickname ‘La Mas Tostada’.

10.Did you know your in-laws before moving and has it been a big adjustment being closer to them?

My feelings towards my in-laws, Gisela in particular, is perfectly clear elsewhere in this blog.  They mostly live here in Minnesota and I get on well with my sister/brother-in-laws.  However the matriarch of the family, Gisela, drives me insane.

11.If you were going back to the states next week, where is the first place you would go after seeing your family?

I’m still here.  Let’s say that Alberto is acquitted and immigration paroles him into the United States for the rest of the process, the rest place I would go with him is to Taquería Los Ocampo with the family.



It is at times like these that it hits me just how much I miss him.

Te amo con todo mi corazon y mi alma Alberto...

Bittersweet Memories

Each letter I receive from Alberto is better than the last.  He is writing down on paper the words that he would so rarely say.  My favorite part of each letter is when he describes a memory that he has of us that made him smile that day.  The times we would go walking in the park, to the movies, or even just having a lazy day in the house with a few rented movies.  He talks about how much the walks together meant to him, but it seems he doesn’t remember how I would have to pester him to get him to go anywhere.  Mi media naraja is more of a homebody than I ever was, and I was pretty adept at sitting on my butt for hours at a time.  I remember the times we would go the movie theater and spend time in the arcade playing air hockey, and now that theater is gone as well as the arcade.  I remember going to the fair with Alberto and buying him something silly just because I wanted to see him smile.  Memories are looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses, forgetting the mundane and emphasizing the pretty.

I am more sentimental then I thought I was.  Today as I was cleaning out my purse, which I have to do on a weekly basis, I discovered all of the letters that Alberto has written me from jail.  I didn’t realize that I was carrying them with me everywhere I go, but I have done just that for over a month.  I like the idea that I am carrying a piece of my husband with me whether I go.  I also have a $200 and $100 peso bill in my wallet from our last trip to Mexico, Alberto’s new check card, and a 1987 Mexican silver coin.  I also have a variety of key chains that include the virgencita keychain I bought at the Basilica, one that is engraved from Things Remembered, and a third that I only put back on yesterday that is a bit more meaningful.  I lost it at one point a few years ago when I lost my one and only car key for a few days and I was distraught.  It is an old silver Mexican coin from the 1950’s that has cut-outs that were melted back onto the coin to make the virgen at her chapel and I love it.  I think I harassed Alberto for several months before he let me have it, but I have carried it for several years.  I used to have the card for the last bouquet of flowers in my wallet, but after it started fading last year I put it in a picture frame.  The last time he gave me flowers was in July of 2002; three red roses that unfortunately did not survive the move.  I want to find a pretty box to put all of my memories in, and I know I should go through what I have in the shoebox I had been using and throw some things out.

Not such a bad mom after all…

Today was Ashley’s open house for a summer preschool program.  A few interesting things happened and I learned that I am not a bad parent, nor is my daughter nearly as bad as I feared.  Ashley is stubborn like me and her father.  I’m hoping as she gets older we will be able to channel this into something good, but right now it means she refuses to be potty-trained.  This is a problem because she cannot attend the program that I am paying for until she is potty-trained.  I can cancel any sessions up to the Monday beforehand without any fees being tacked on, so I need to either get her potty trained this weekend, or get the first session canceled on Monday.  Here’s the funny thing, she knows when she has to go but will only tell me if she is in the bathtub.  I think this has to do with the last time she pooped in the tub and I was sternly disappointed.  I wish I could remember the incident clearly because she hasn’t had an accident in the bathtub since then.

Anyway at the open house there was this pretty little blond girl.  For the longest time I couldn’t figure out who her parents were because no one was keeping an eye on her that I could tell and there were no natural blondes among the parents.  Well during the open house when my mom had her back in the classroom since she was being a little girl, Blondie started pushing Ashley around and taking toys away from her.  I don’t know this was happening so when we migrated back to the classroom I was oblivious to this history.  At one point during the presentation on the program, Ashley went to the back of the room where one of the teachers was and discovered a hamster in a cage.  She watched his animal in his cage intently for several minutes when Blondie came over and pushed her out of the way.  I went to get out of my chair but the teacher motioned that it was ok, so I decided to wait and see what would happen next.  (Which is my favorite thing to do!)  Blondie kept pushing Ashley, and Ashley kept pushing back.  After several minutes passed, I retrieved Ashley and had her sit with me for a while.  Ashley stayed away from Blondie at that point.