When I left New York City for Mexico, I wasn't planning on returning to the U.S. Not because I can't return to the U.S. Not because I am running from the law. But, because I was leaving people I've been wanting to leave behind for a very long time; people who work hard at showing others they are healthy, although they really aren't. All show, appearances, in-crowd performances. And when you don't like who you see in the mirror and you worry about what the people most important to you will say (not your children), you give yourself a facelift.
I spent my childhood hearing my mother say that she wished she hadn't had me. Sometimes she wished that I was dead. When I had dreams about the future or wanted to share with her something I felt I did well, she would say something sarcastic and offensive. 3 years ago, when I first wrote about these issues, James suggested I stop writing about my family (which I did) and forget about them and heal myself. But, that's what this writing is all about. It isn't just about expressing myself. It is about working these felt things out, "putting them onto paper" so to speak and really understand what happened and what was occurring when I was writing. The truth is that I subconsciously heeded James' advice and lost interest in the personal stuff. If you look through my blog from June of 2011 through June of 2014, you'll notice that there was very little written in 2012 and 2013. 2014 has been dedicated to writing about health discoveries and has been incredibly inspiring, satisfying. Doug, don't believe that just because I wrote you so much personal stuff about my family these past 2 days means that that's all I've been thinking about all of these years... Truthfully, my reaction about approaching of Margarita and I visiting the family in New Jersey greatly took me by surprise. And like what I said about responding to things felt through my writing, I must try and understand why such an intense reaction to the idea of Margarita gaining a U.S. Tourist Visa for visiting the Family...
Lets go back to late February, early March. I was immersed in trying to understand why I continued having hypothyroid-type problems with fatigue, high BP, peripheral neuropathy and brain fog, although I was sleeping through the night without having to go to the bathroom due to the J-Pouch. I wasn't thinking about painting, just about all the new information I stumbled across about wheat and simple carbs (and later on Omega 6 & vegetable oil along with Fructose). And I was planning on celebrating Margarita's 39th birthday in Sayulita as we had the previous year; a very special place for us. Granted, home in Guadalajara is very special to us, although we don't own the house. We live very well and productively together, aside from other things. However, my mother wrote me saying that Beth's daughter Hannah was having her Bat Mitzvah in May and that Beth had sent Margarita and I an invitation. Now, how could she send us the invitation and say that she hoped we could come, if she knows that Margarita can't enter the U.S. legally? I mentioned that to my mother who should know better and should have mentioned to Beth what I've mentioned how many times... For Margarita to enter the U.S. she must enter the visa application process that takes minimally one year. So, my mother asked me if I would come alone, which I responded
"Definatively NOT; You know how I feel about leaving Margarita behind. I won't return to the U.S. until Margarita can enter legally with me. Plus, don't you remember what happened 9 years ago when I got tired of the family asking the same damn question that I had answered repeatedly and in depth and said, 'look, we can solve this problem where both sides are happy: we need a loan of $40,000 so that we can establish our bakery in a community where the people will pay the value of our product so that Margarita can offer the U.S. Department of State what they need for giving her a Visa for visiting you. As I said, it will be a loan that I can guarrantee paying back because the response to our product is incredible. The problem is that the middle-class doesn't take us seriously selling "in the street". We need to place a gourmet bakery where they would wish to visit for gourmet baked goods. I'm not asking for a lot of money, considering if everyone pooled what they could, that didn't harm their finances...'"
And you would think that the family would have been totally supportive about helping us open a nice cafe-bakery, since that's one of the things they love sharing with others: the new bakery, the new restaurant, the new cafe, the new gourmet supermarket, the new catering business, the international market... But, my aunt Esta who had instigated the suggestion by writing me, "when will we see you and your beautiful wife here in the U.S.?" responded saying that I was a leech on the family... And everyone fell in line behind her. And I wondered why she said such a thing, if I have never asked anything of anyone. Truthfully, it took a lot of nerve making the proposal, since I've never liked asking anything of anyone, not like my younger sister Beth. But, Beth ALWAYS got what she asked for and I heard those coaches saying "you must learn to ask for things Ross. If you don't ask, you don't get." Which was true. So I asked...
And you know the rest of the history if you were reading my blog entries from June and July of 2011.
A few days later my mother wrote me that she and Bruce wanted to visit us and what was our work schedule. I mentioned that we were free all of March and the first week of April or from late May until late July and that I was planning on celebrating Margarita's birthday (March 7th) in Sayulita if they wanted to fly into Puerto Vallarta. She said that she had to think about it and asked me how was after March 20th... So, I changed Margarita and my reservation (not to be celebrating her birthday) so that we could accomodate my mother and Bruce etc.
But, lets reverse things and be clear: Every time my mother says she wants to visit us (5 days once almost every two years), I experience a feeling of dread. I wish I could say NO, don't visit. It just causes me more stress... Plus she and Bruce have the tendency towards saying things to me about the family that maybe they shouldn't share, since I'm not there and did not or haven't or can't participate in that... And I'm left wondering "what the FUCK!"
But I don't want to hurt her. It doesn't matter what she's done to me. But, I don't want to hurt her...
I do what I can to plan the best visit for them. But, it's a hell of a lot of stress and confusion and, truthfully, we don't really get along. They ask questions about life here or my health etc. But, they don't want to hear the actual response. My mother isn't interested in my health discoveries. You've gotta see Margarita and I 3 months later. So many health issues have disappeared and we actually look GREAT, after 11 years of struggling with our weight gained during the baking business in Xalapa.
For me, it doesn't matter that my sisters have 2 daughters each. They aren't my nieces and I am not their uncle; not the children's fault. But, I'm not there, haven't been there. And, as Margarita says, it seems that everyone plays games with themselves and with me when they ask when we will visit, although they know just how complicated that is for us or when they talk about planning a business with me (Sheri and Donald) or plan a trip to Mexico with the girls and the new b-friend she wanted to introduce to me 4 years ago (Beth) and I did my part and wrote them with the information and the planning and they didn't respond to ANY of my emails... Now is this a joke? Or when Craig repeatedly sends me a friend request and doesn't have the decency to respond to a comment or a question such as when I wrote next to a photo of him beginning a half-marathon, "You look GREAT! So young. I'm happy for you!" You may ask, why bother? And I ask myself the same thing. But, truthfully, their fantasies of family and the realities they've shared with me aren't much of an incentive.
Margarita and I live well together here in Mexico far away from the family. We have a wonderful relationship. And I don't spend my days thinking about them, which has been a great relief, especially since I don't experience symptoms of depression the 11 years living here..., in as difficult and dangerous the situation is and has been. I'd rather be here in the hell of Mexico with Margarita than in the Heaven of the U.S. with my family
Just before my mother and Bruce were about to visit, my mother informed me that Beth was diagnosed with Rectal Cancer and must have a J-Pouch surgery, just as I had had on October 31st 2001 in NYC... and that there was a good possibility that they would have to cancel the trip. So, I decided to contact Beth for the first time in at least 4 years and talk to her about my experiences with the surgery and the J-Pouch and certain discoveries that may make it easier for her...
In the end, my mother and Bruce were able to maintain their original plans, since Beth's surgery was scheduled for the day after their return. And I was in contact with Beth until a few days ago.
I get confused. And I find myself planning a visit to the U.S. with Margarita one day. And then I start sensing the risk: someone will say something that they shouldn't have said, and I will find myself and Margarita very far away from home and in a very difficult situation: how do we remove ourselves from this situation? and how much time and money did we waste for giving them something that they supposedly wanted?
And that's been grating on my head as we approached Margarita's interview for renewing her Passport so I could continue with her U.S. Tourist Visa application... And, I realized that none of what the family supposedly wants is worth our losing what we always sought from life, but I didn't encounter in the U.S. with the family... So, once and for all it's time to cut the umbilical chord and leave these people playing the game with themselves.
If unconditional love existed, why did my mother do what she did to me all of those years that was in my worst interests and from which it took me at least 35 years to recover? As one psycho-theorist wrote:
Love is the inherent desire for helping the other person accomplish what is best for them. It is not about you, although you gain the pleasure of seeing the other person growing/evolving and healthy.
Love is the life you share and grow together. And when that life stops growing, one of you has either died or moved on. You've gotta accept it, especially if it is a good thing. Death isn't a bad thing. It is just what happens... Illness is one of the ways we die. So, we've gotta accept that too...
I've lived 40.5 years with the death of my father.
Has anyone wondered what Allen would think if he knew what his only sibling and brother did to me when he was dying at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and afterwards? and what my mother did to me to emasculate me and destroy my self-confidence throughout childhood all because she was afraid of developing an incestuous relationship with me because those relationships existed in her extended family because, with my father's death, I would become "the man of the house" AT THE AGE OF 4.5! Did she think I would jump in her bed, pull out my weenie and start singing, come on, come on, come on now Touch Me Baby, You know that I am not afraid... And squirt lovejuice all over her? Must I run down he list of the things that were done and not done that no father who loves his young son, would wish for that son after the father dies... Stan wouldn't have wished that for Seth and Seth wouldn't wish that for his son, Henry wouldn't have wished that for Asher, Bruce wouldn't have wished that for Alan and Alan wouldn't wish that for his son, Craig wouldn't wish that for his sons and Doug wouldn't have wished that for his son either. So, why is it so difficult for everyone to understand this?
This wasn't the life I chose... Not my father's death... Not my mother's craziness... Not Sheri's jealousy and throwing her weight around to control things or rob our rights of existing comfortable in the same house from us. Not how Beth ruined our relationship with what she learned from mom and all of her boyfriends and those who sexually abused her throughout her childhood. Maybe she truly loved me and was so messed up in her head that she didn't know how to express or control her love. But I was the one who became fucked up. Not her... Granted, that's all in the eye of the beholder. And when someone puts so much energy into denile and image or limiting themself, making them very inflexible, they tend to lose in many other ways. But, the problem is that most people just look at what is on the surface, what the person in denile offers, like a facelift or Smile so you and others will feel happy... no matter what is truly going on within and without you...
Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.
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