Feeling no crime

Letting go is the hardest thing that a human being can do, I've realized.

We always have the inate need to possess, hold: money, clothes, jewelry, lifestyles, feelings, habits, people we care about. We seem to associate, equate growth with the amount of material things we think we have control of...or that we convince ourselves we have a control of.

But letting go...of anger, pain, and most importantly the possessive qualities of the love ( like wanting his presence and attention, affection, to be near him) I once had for my daughter's father have been so hard to do.

Even with my daughter, I know that one day I would have to let go of her tiny little hand, even though by then it might even be larger than mine...in my mind though, that would not be the case.

She would always be my little girl. I always want to keep her close to my bosom.

I know she would one day have to go figure things out by herself. God willing, I would spend all those years of her growing up hovering, keeping danger away, before she has to defend herself. But I know now how/why my mom calls sometime twice daily, to check on Lilo and I.

I can't imagine how it must feel not being able to see not only your daughter, but also your eagerly awaited, born the day after your birthday and middle-namesake granchild...and I have expressed before my desire to grow old surrounded by my children and grandchildren.

May they be numerous, morally conscious and all joyous!

As far as her father is concerned, it's hard for young girls to let go of fairy tale notions.

Growing up under the influence of Disney, we're programmed to believe that our prince charming would always do the right thing, no matter what, and even if you weren't fixed to the cartoons no one ever falls in love and takes the plunge believing that there's solid ground rushing towards you at high velocity, but I did crash.

And I've been feeling the aftershocks since June of last year.

I've cried, I've held so much anger in my heart. Now, there's just pain, a waining, wailing sort of pain, a realisation that the world is a stark, dark place to live in and despite the titanic-sized amount of joy my daughter has brought to my life, I can't help but feel a certain amound of desperation, and a vague sense of hopelessness appearing in the horizon of my thoughts. ND loves me, but I'm unable to reciprocate his affections in an equal amount and that goes further into making me feel like I've been damaged, irreparably.

In the past few days I've gotten into discussions with a lot of people, including my mother, who seem to feel that I'm too sentimental, too emotional. Just because I'm able to feel compassions for people who I perceive have been wounded deeply (per example Native Folk-people and African-American offspring of slavery) does not make me weak, nor does it mean that I'm too mushy or flutter-headed. Some of the people who I've got this conversation usually condemn me of the opposite when I reveal my stance on pedophiles in today's world (they're an evil cancer to our society and they need to be erased, eradicated, executed. All of them. Whether they've offended or not). In all those cases, depending on whom I was arguing against, my cultural background was evoked, I guess in a referall to the way Africans usually deal with their emotional upsets, which is, they don't.

My mom policy for everything is, in various tones: Get over it. The same goes for a lot of our relatives. Ironically, not a lot of my uncles and aunts seem to be making past the age of 50, most of them felled by heart attacks and coronaries, usually brought about by tough emotional cirmcumstances. My uncle Pablo recently died of a broken heart: his estranged wife was impregnated by a white man. The horror.

Another example of African stoicism towards emotions or matters of the heart ( or in this case, the mind ) is that of my brother, who has displayed alarming signs of having somewhat of a similar condition than my soon-to-be ex husband. But he's been judged by his actions, which have been to this point destructive. But what is most alarming is how my brother has deteriorated from an unrully teenager to somewhat of a reclusive lunatic, and I don't mean that in an insulting way. I love my brother, but we've never been close. And before my experience with Mitch, I had not really considered the possibility that he might have been mentally ill.

The reason why I bring it up is that my whole life I've been torn between being brought up in an environment where we're expected to bionic almost. Growing up in a colonized society would give anyone complexes, but for the African man and woman, expectations are twice as high as someone growing up in the west.

Circumstances are dire, governments are corrupted, and the gap between the rich and the poor is exponential. He/She must work twice as much to compare to a white potential employee and that's where having the highest mark counts. Being able to get over anything, no matter what, is an assett not to a poor african, trying to forge a comfortable life. This is the story of my mother, father, and countless relatives who have had to break their backs, overcoming obstacles in order to provide a comfortable life for their relatives and children.

So imagine my parents' dissapointment, that instead of a Evangelical Christian Overachiever, they got a Dreamer-Artist, Cry-Baby, Ethnically-Confused daughter. I was supposed to get over whatever was bothering me ( oh the little case of being raped at the age of four, then 6, then 9, then molested at 13, growing up with confusion around who my father was, the insecurity created by our constant travelling continent to continent, something I do consider myself extremely priviledged to have been privy too,but which has hindered my ability to maintain long lasting friendships ) and make my parents proud, by turning out to be a worthy investment. Lucky African girl who gets to escape the misery back home me. The shame I've must have brought them, not only getting pregnant in university, but instead of marrying a good god-fearing black boy I fell in love with a fellow artist who turned into a lunatic who abandoned me and a newborn at the whim of his family.

I guess I got what I deserved /sarcasm.

I'm trying to be present in the pain, to acknowledge it, to mourn at my own pace. Because despite what anyone feels, or thinks that I should feel, I have suffered a great loss. And I would rather deal with it at my own pace and emerge on the other side unburdened by locked up and stored-away feeling, than keeling over at the age of 50 because I've harbored so much hurt, without an outlet, that my poor heart finally exploded.

I think the secret, about my family, is that the reason why we are so loud, raucous, and passionate is that we have hearts twice the normal size. And sometimes, we love so much that fleshy organ just can't take no more.

But sometimes, I wonder if, just like they say, one day I would wake up and not hurt anymore.

I've mentioned before that I've woken up and felt better, felt like I was over him. But lately, the pain has returned, and I seem unable again to control my tears. I don't want to be consumed by it.

The pain, that is.

I would like to get around doing my chores, goddammit.

I don't think my sanitary situation can handle another second of this depression.