Confessions, trials and strange court settlements; the child incest victim steps down from witness stand and she walks away from history

No one wants to condemn themselves, no matter how guilty they feel about what they did to someone in the past...  Feeling guilty doesn't mean that they can't live with themselves and enjoy life and be successful.  But, maybe their conscience says to them, "had I not done this, or had we not done this, maybe he or she wouldn't have suffered so much, maybe they would have a much different success story..."  I worry that the person says, but there is nothing I can do... what was done was done... I can't change the trajectory... I'm sorry they feel as the feel, but what do we gain by my destroying what I have created for myself saying things that will not return the life potential of success for them.  We can't bring them back to early childhood and rebuild..."  

It's best to continue and leave the refugee formerly found caught in the crossfire of smart bombs and lazer-guided missiles, chemical warfare and foreign forces seeing infidels and terrorists in ever shadow and shadow of every first declared guilty innocent face...  leave that refugee sifting through the destruction of their homes and hospitals and local markets where they once encountered ingredients for buying and preparing nurturing meals for their loved ones, now only finding rats rumaging through long rotten food...  

But what would have happened had my mother said, look, Ross has a point... or get off his case and stop lauding me as being an incredible person and incredible survivor who did the best I could under the circumstances... the truth is looking back at things, I did a lot of things I really shouldn't have done, especially to Ross... Yes, I was more violent with Beth because her room was next to mine... But, Ross lost much more than any of us, even if I hadn't pushed him away and constantly belittled him and smacked down every fantasy of success he mentioned to me...  

My mother is a certified clinical social worker, meaning that she is trained to offer therapy to people with social problems, interpersonal problems, mental illness...  If anyone in my family should be sensitive to the risks of developmental problems/social issues caused by neglect, physical and emotional child abuse, that person should be my mother...  We're intelligent human beings, no Mom?  Intelligent enough to be able to add 1 + 1... if the 4.5-year-old boy suddenly loses his father and his mother pushes him away saying that she didn't want to fall into the risk of developing an incestuous relationship with that supposedly beloved son because that existed in her extended family and at the same time his Uncle Stan beats on him "in order to break his spirit" (THANKS SETH!") then the children in elementary school pick up on the psychological energy caused by those traumas and pick on him from the age of 8 until the age of 16 and the older sister and the older sister's male friends on the busstop corner in the mornings or the older sister and one of the male cousins or the older sister by herself in the house without the mother controlling the situation... wouldn't he develop in ways no one would wish? 

When the psychiatrist in White Plains NY told Marsha, your son will be in and out of hospitals all his life... way back when he was cutting himself in 10th grade or when Mary Beth told her, you're going to have to take care of Ross all your life.  Because?  Because he is uncurable?  A true fuck-up, someone who can't take care of himself, can't live independently...  (That was what my mother told me upon graduating Hampshire College)  You did it!  You showed them!  

I did what mom?  I showed who?  What do you mean?

And she explained to me that some people in the family told her that she would have to take care of me the rest of my life...  But, why didn't she tell the psychiatrist or the family members, Look, you've gotta understand, there is a missing piece Dr... people...  My son wasn't born defectively.  He wasn't a hyperactive, aggresive child.  And truthfully, he is inherently incredibly caring and concerned, especially for social justice.  You should see how he defended and protected Mrs. Hague's son when Ross's friends were picking on Jeffrey because he couldn't hit the ball and Ross said, lets go home Jeffrey, we don't need this... or how faithful he was to his friend Danny Stahl  top of the class school geek with thick glasses and who also didn't play sports or have the popular social skills for excelling amongst his peers...  He loves sports and what normal kids love.  But he's horribly depressed and angry and we've gotta look into what I did and what was done to him by others...  He lossed his father for GOD SAKE and I pushed him away and all the rest I did or didn't do or should have done...  I can't change that.  But we can give him the respect and consideration he deserves and possibly a different assessment... 

Have you ever heard the statement it's never too late?  

But I was 15-years-old when they threw me in the garbage for good... when my Uncle Henry stopped talking to me because I was acting out... and was causing additional problems for his sister. And some therapists say that cutting oneself or what seems like suicide attempts are cries for help.  Unlike Beth, who needed Doug to help her confront my mother's rigidness or lack of affection towards Beth (although my mother gives Beth and her children so so so much more) at the age of 43, I was confronting my mother throughout high school, seeking a dialogue between she and I so that we could reconstruct things... and she was responding sarcastically and with guilt trips I know!  I'm the worst mother.  I'm such a bad mother.  Such a horrible person.  I didn't play catch with you... Didn't give you birthday presents or birthday parties. Such a bitch.  I never did anything good for you Ross... wasn't with you in the hospital with you during your surgeries?  Didn't get you Ron Tindal, your big Brother; how Jealous Sheri and Beth were, you were so privileged, they weren't (I didn't have a father; they had their mother, didn't they? and why Beth bought her house next to Mom.  And Ron Tindal didn't replace my father visiting with me once every two weeks, nor did he replace my mother who intentionally pushed me away etc.)  send you to Rutgers Prep so you could get a more personalized education.  You should have me SHOT I was so horrible!  

It was through my desire for dialogue with my mother and understanding the situation directly connected with the urgency I felt for repairing the situation, especially since I knew there was a bunch of injustice in my history and I needed a retrial and a healthy council and healthy judge, although I knew inherently that I was innocent and this was actually a trial where I should find myself on the side of the plaintiff and not the defence, hoping that my mother would confess so that we could "start over again" everyone, it wasn't just about my mother and I.  It was about how the whole family related towards me... what led to my Aunt Esta's foolish comment in 2006 and my intense response... why I asked questions and made statements or complained or exploded when she responded sarcastically... How she knew how to derail the situation... expert button pusher... Sheri learned it... So did Beth...  How to manipulate...  

It was through my desire for creating a dialogue and understanding and healing the past that my mother told me about pushing me away when my father died... You think I invent this shit?  

But that's what they say to the female sex abuse victim, especially if it was child abuse, when she is on the stand accusing her father or her uncle or her brother or... that she is inventing stuff... It becomes her word against the whole family.  She ceases being the victim and suddenly find herself the guilty party, guilty of mental illness, seeing things, lying or inventing and lack of control, lack of ability towards adjusting within the greater society and maybe she should be institutionalized.  And don't you worry.  She will be institutionalized because her mental stability is in question after her personal security was repeatedly compromised and all of the people who should have come to her aid, placed her in the corner with the dunce cap and ostacized her...  So, maybe she will be better off closed in a room with white walls and 24 hour vigilance in the off case that she will hurt herself... No, no one harmed her.  Her mind harms her.  Isn't that the case?

But, what is the issue folks?  My mother won't confess her part of the history and no one else in the family will step forward and say 

I think Ross has a point and maybe we should read what he's written and consider his words... and maybe apologize sincerely...

Doug, don't believe I don't understand that and that I am rehashing because I haven't come to terms.  No, I live thousands of miles away from you guys and there is a reason I live so far away from you guys.  Everyone has showed me I have a reason for not wanting to be within reach of the family and why it is convenient for me living in Mexico and the difficulties of Margarita entering the U.S. with me...  

But, truthfully what am I doing here in Mexico 11 years? Living off mommy and daddy?  off the dole?  Am I not working?  Am I in a dysfunctional relationship/marriage.  11 years with my only wife and not anywhere near divorce.  Our economy is stable and something I created with my own mind and without advice or economic assistance from the family.  Not totally true.  Back in August 2007 I asked for a loan from my mother and Bruce and wouldn't have received that loan had I not promised to pay them 50% interest...  And when they visited in March, I paid for Margarita and my "bungalow" and insisted upon paying for half of the meals...  Why?  Because one gets tired of being treated like a leech (in my Aunt Esta's words) or a pariah...  But, also, one gets tired of feeling the pressure of having to show them that I am the engine that could  Had Beth followed through with her part 4 years ago, we would have put aside what we were doing and money meant for the future downpayment of a house and met her in Playa del Carmen near Cancun.  But, she suddenly stopped responding to my emails about my friend who lives in Playa del Carmen and works in sales of timeshares etc in resorts and needed to know the dates and how many people.  But, Beth never responded to my emails that began with her wanting me to meet her new boyfriend and the girls.. How is it that she forgot that conversation?  Or was it that it was enough for her mind or conscience just to say that she suggested the visit thinking I would reject her offer and when she realized that I took her seriously, she disappeared from the conversation, and I didn't talk with her for 4 years until she was diagnosed with rectal cancer?  Had I rejected her proposed visit she could say, 

Have the Jury note that I wanted to let past be past and he rejected the offer of peace."   

No, this isn't about childhood injustices, neglect and abuse... I'm not saying that I expect what I hoped for in the past.  No, these people will not do what Spike Lee says is "the right thing"...  I accept that.  And I accept that I moved on when I moved through Mexico with Margarita.  But there is this confusion about family responsibilities and the responsibilities of a son towards his becoming elderly mother and I entered the process of visiting the family with Margarita. Truly approaching that very intense situation that, truthfully, I never wanted to enter again without having encountered unrefuteable success that no one in the family can topple; I needed to arrive in New Jersey a superstar.  But, the truth of the matter is that to be their superstar, I would have to be someone else.  So, maybe it's best to put all of the cards on the table and end the situation once and for all.  I am me in Mexico with Margarita.  They can't take that away from me. 

I want to walk out on the trial I started and relax and enjoy my life;  A life I've never enjoyed with YOU. Why try creating that enjoyment with you after 40 years of never sharing enjoyment and health?

If our relationship was truly important to you, you would sincerely tell everyone involved and still living, Look, I have something to tell you about Ross regarding me... and if you still truly respect and revere me afterwards, I ask that of you towards Ross too...

But life isn't a Disney movie or a Hollywood happy ending.

There is a difference between what you see in the cinema and what was actually experienced in the real world. 

There is a great difference between fantasy and reality. While fantasizing of dreams coming true, reality repeatedly smacked me in the face.  And that reality is that you and I shouldn't share any form of space because our relationships can only be unhealthy, especially if everyone in the family puts more stake in protecting images through denile...  

Take care and relax.  It's all water under the bridge and then we die...

Thinking about unconditional love and cutting umbilical chords...; a letter to my birth Family

I've been thinking much about what I wrote Doug... and then what I posted on this blog last night and subsequently returned to a draft... Rehashing past horrors or past injustices... and the possible responses lacking deep thought...  My intense reaction approaching renovating Margarita's passport for continuing her American tourist visa process...  for visiting the family with her... participating in family events etc...  

One must live through the experiences of family and what the adults do or don't do or what the older cousins or the older siblings do and have a strange form of patience.  Patience, if the child is being sexually abused should he or she have patience for arriving at that day when they are big enough for flying the coop?  A big dilemma.  And what if it wasn't sexual abuse but neglect, physical abuse o emotional abuse?  

And no one from my family ever wanted to hear it.  And I've found myself repeating and repeating and I guess hoping someone will say they understand or understood.  But then what?  When it comes down to it, everyone just wants to live in today towards the future.

You may think I enjoy rehashing the past.  But, the truth is that you are the past and you insist upon interjecting yourself into my present and my future.

And what if nothing happened.  Mom, I know you know the truth, although you wish for everyone to think you were the only true victim and that you are a saint.  That's fine too.

Because, truthfully, I don't like you.  I've never liked you.  I don't like Beth, nor Sheri, nor Craig, nor Seth.  And why not?  Aside from what was done to me, what they did or what you did and what you didn't do, I don't like any of your personalities...  Maybe it's all connected, my dislike for your personalities and what you did or didn't do.  Or maybe it is all of your denile and dishonesty etc, that shaped your personalities into forms that I find detestable.  In the end, it is all the same.  

The problem arrises from fantasies projected upon the children or upon the society of unconditional love and family ties.  So, one feels inherently guilty if they don't participate in family events or if they can't say "I love you too!"  To their mother or to their sister, although they know that their sister has the tendency towards being horribly superficial and signing "Love---" actually means nothing more than she wishes there was actually something more profound between the two..., although unwilling to listen to the other party, like when she said, "I'm sorry for not reading what you write.  I just have little patience for reading."  Well, sometimes if the person is truly important to you, you decide to change your tendencies, no?  Maybe you would be interested in what that person feels, believes or says...  But, that's just it; superficiality and fantasies of the other and having those fantasies projected upon my person, doesn't interest me.  If she isn't truly interested in me, I have no interest in her.  But, that's actually besides the point.  A person who doesn't like to read or doesn't have the patience for reading is totally dependent upon television or radio news or hearsay for what they understand about the world.  And as we know, those people don't add to the society or relationships, because they tend towards being shallow.  Which would you prefer diving into; a 3 foot shallow pool or a 13 foot deep pool that gives you space for gliding through the water and turning upward before your head hits the concrete bottom?

What would happen if I said to my mother, "Mom, I'm enjoying my life without you.  I accept that what I wished for from you as a mother and from our relationship can't possibly be, you haven't evolved much and you continue insulting me directly or insulting my senses.  Truthfully my life is better without you.  Enough with foolish fantasies and your hurtful, offensive and manipulative games."  But, I have too strong a conscience and I feel bad for hurting her, no matter that she didn't feel regret for all that she said and did to me as a child and a young adult.  

The problem is, and something she and my sisters understand about me, is that I tend to be easily forgiving (in the moment; don't confuse the moment when I say, Ok, I'll give you what you want... with rehashing the past when I realize that I've been taken advantage of again and made the fool).  No, I don't want to rehash the past and the only way that I can be freed from the past is freeing myself from people who don't evolve.  I saw/see a different side of my mother than all of those who rush to her defense and claim she is an incredible person especially having survived the aftermath of the death of my father.  But, everyone ignores how surviving the aftermath of that same death was for me, and the role my mother played in that aftermath for making things much more difficult for Beth and I... different for each child.  I mention Beth so you can understand that I was also there listening to Beth's screams those Saturdays or Sundays, me cringing in the corner of the living room downstairs, worrying that I would be next...  I remember trying to leave the house as early as possible before I could cross my mother... before she could grasp me.    But there was also Sheri to fear.  And it wasn't just about my mother's violence, but her promiscuity; the revolving doors of random lovers mixed in with those lovers who were long-term...  I remember best because each new lover was a potention father-figure and baseball catch partner for me...  I can't imagine how horrible it was for them having me ask them to have a catch with me in the back yard.  Worst was my mother's horrible statements belittling me, ostracizing me, humiliating me, intentionally emasculating me and destroying any possibility for developing self-confidence;  all because she was afraid she would develop an incestuous relationship with me after my father died, since I had become the "Man of the House" at the age of 4.5.  

And now that she has decided that she has gotten past that era of her life, she believes that we can exist together as if nothing happened...  

I slipped into the past again.  I believe it's inevitable.  

But, putting aside how my mother related or relates to me, I see her as a master of denile, horribly sarcastic, manipulative and a gold digger.  From how she has changed her story regarding her relationship with my father and how she related to Bruce before their marrying and afterwards, it is clear that my mother is a user, a gold-digger.  She used my father for escaping the "ghetto" of Queens and must have been incredibly resentful towards her prince in shining armour who suddenly turned into a corpse.  Maybe it wasn't only the worry she explained to me when I was around the age of 20 (the reason she pushed me away after daddy's death) that she would develop an incestuous relationship with her only son, because incest ran in her family, but she must have hated me, since I was the greatest representation of her worthless Doctor husband.  If you were to follow her behaviors towards me from my father's death until I left for Mexico, you would see them as incredibly hateful behaviors.  You may say, "A mother hating her child?"  Have you never heard of child abuse by mother's towards their children?  

If there wasn't child abuse in my mother's house, why would she have said to me, "But I was so much worse with Beth than with you!"  Maybe she was more violent with Beth than I.  But, emotional abuse and neglect have much longer lasting affects.  They hit deeper...  They are more destructive, since they destroy the child's will.

She used Bruce for saving herself from a desperate economic situation since she wasn't willing to accept a degraded salary due to early 90s downsizing...  But, not all of us can find someone to pay all of the most difficult bills and the dinners out and all the vacations every year and spoiling the grandchildren etc...  

No, I don't like my mother.  I don't enjoy the time spent with her.  I don't appreciate her shallowness and her random sarcasm and her incapacity towards listening to things that aren't about inter-personal relationships, since those issues don't exist here for me and I don't have any interest in her family...  

But, I have been influenced by the issue of family duty and I have found it difficult coming to terms with the issue of visiting or not visiting, being in contact or not being in contact.  And that issue with family duty tends towards momentarily burying the truth that I don't have any true desire for being in my mother's family circles and I must accept that truth and let them stay where they have decided upon staying; a place I intentionally left 11+ years ago and to which I never desired returning.  The problem is that someone always appears and pulls upon those out-dated "heartstrings" connected with a very strong desire during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood to be accepted and included by them without someone deciding that today is humilliate Ross time, or ignore Ross time or exclude Ross time.  No Craig, Sheri, Marsha, Bruce?

But we do grow up and we do realize who we are and where we belong and what we appreciate and what we don't appreciate.  And I don't appreciate you... because you've repeatedly acted in ways that make you less than appreciable.  And it doesn't matter what other people think or say about you...  Curl up with those people and accept what you've done and how you've behaved and, truly, what it was that motivated your behavior towards me and leave me be.

Thank you.

Ross

Return to Unconditional Love and Cutting the Umbilical Chord;what Allen Leslie Goldstein and Carl Henry Nacht wouldn't have wished for their sons...

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...   

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic...

Why do you read?  Because someone told you you must?  To be able to read the instructions for your new remote control?  To be able to read the street signs and directions for getting from one point to another on the map...?  For being able to understand a recipe for baking a Black Forrest Cake?  

But, if you can purchase that cake in a wonderful gourmet bakery near where you live within walking distance so that you don't have to read the street signs as you drive around the block...

Why do you write? To communicate ideas to someone else?  But, if you have a mouth for speaking and they have ears for listening, why write? Because they may not be within listening distance?  

That's what telephones are for, as long as you have the money for paying the telephone bills.

Arithmetic?

You've gotta be kidding!

1+1= 2 you say.  But sometimes what we think is a 1 + 1 may actually be an 11 and maybe what we think is 1+1 amounts to 2 actually amounts to 3, 4, 5 or 6... and maybe the problem continues amounting even they you thought there was a period after 1 + 1...  or maybe who wrote the equation didn't notice that one of the 1s actually had some residue attached to it and it is actually, 1.0000000001000090003; added to 1 continuously throughout a childhood and into adulthood leads to non-whole unexplainable numbers to those who didn't see the residue with their naked eye.

What did the adults say about those #s after Beth was sexually abused repeatedly throughout early childhood, adolescence and into adulthood?  They didn't say anything because they only saw 1 + 1 and nothing else.  

Can sexual abuse, child abuse, neglect or PTSD cause changes in gene expression? 

No, if the person doesn't want to read, write or do the arithmetic.  If the scientists don't understand cross-studying or multi-disciplinary studies that offer additional options for more accurate math...  

Originally written May 30th, 2011: Phantasms and a Dead Man Walking; Conversations with a Past Life, May 30th

When I left the U.S. I wrote a poem or something of the sort saying that when I reached the border of the U.S. Mexico I found myself with my back to the edge of a great dark abyss.  Mexico was a total unknown.  I didn't have any illusions about who and what I would find when I crossed to the other side.  It was a free-fall.  I was at the moment of making that freefall and hesitated a second, although I never hesitated from the moment of making the decision on December 5th 2002 until I reached the border on the 28th of January.  However, I felt I was greatly helped by Michael and Jonathan with their moral support.  So I wrote what I remember them saying, "And I heard the words of Michael and Jonathan tell me, 'don't worry Ross.  Let yourself go.  Everything you need will appear when you reach your destination.  Don't worry.  Let yourself go.' and I fell backwards into a freefall, into the dark abyss...  and I continue falling...  At that moment, I died.  But I continue."  That was 7 or 8 years ago.  I believed that the leaving was the cutting of the umbilical chord connecting me with my mother...  

My typing has slowed down dramatically this morning...  I don't know if I'm being more careful. 

I live with my father's Familial Poliposis/Gardners Syndrome.  I got it worse than my cousins and than my younger sister Beth, although she developed Thyroid Cancer 14 years ago.  I live very "existentialist".  I imagine, had I been a success story from childhood instead of a "failure" and an outcast..., maybe I wouldn't have become "existential"...  What does this mean?  I was given a self-destruct button in my genes.  I believe that biologically we weren't supposed to live so long.  Truthfully, I don't understand the spiritual purpose of bringing people into this world (I'm speaking to God at the moment:-) who cannot fullfull their "responsibilities", finish the job, accomplish their goals.  Why I decided that Joey was my inspiration to finally live, is a bit beyond me.  But I did decide to see the doctors and decided to have the ultimate surgery...  She didn't save me.  I used her to change one trajectory.  Because, alone, I don't do anything.  I didn't figure that out.  Last night and this morning I removed around 100 people from my friendslist.  Why?  I think it's kind of like, "Cut the shit Ross. Do you really wish to show them why you left the U.S. for Mexico? Do you really want to include them in your enravelling of that grand question of why you don't return to the U.S.?" 

I don't want anyone's pity.  I don't want benevolence, nor hand outs.  I don't want people treating me as someone who is "special" or with "kid gloves"... I'm not "ill" but I was in a constant "panic" (for lack of better words) to learn how to adjust to or fit into the situation...  These are learned skills.  There is a symbiotic relationship between the victim and the aggressor.  No one wants to admit it.  That's why I can seem racist against Mexicans and also be their apologist...  How many of the rape victims had a hand in the outcome?  What do I mean by that? My younger sister was sexually abused from early childhood until through college.  Why?  My younger sister never was a fragile young woman or young adult.  For the most part she always got and gets what she wants.  In a form she is blessed. But, she was sexually abused or violated...  This is a "secret" within our childhood household.  I don't say "secret" as in you are hearing something that everyone told me I shouldn't tell you.  It's part of a darkness within the home situation, a shadow of a certain ambience within which we grew up.  That ambience influenced and affected all of us differently.  It was the 70s.  Did you see the movie Ice Storm?  I don't know if my mother participated in group sex. However, she had so many boyfriends...  I know, because each and every one of them was a potential father figure for me; a baseball catch partner...  And each and every one of them disappeared like water vapor... At a very young age, Beth was a sexualized kid.  She emulated my mother.  My mother was violent at times and supposedly was most violent with Beth and Beth, a very independent, confident, successful woman bought her house with her ex-husband "across" the yard from my mother's new house in Flemington.  It could be circumstantial, but Beth divorced her husband and raised her two daughters alone.  I imagine it plays in her mind, "If mom could do it with us three, I can do it with my two..." 

Today is "Ross, cut the shit" day...  Mexico is my clean cut successful suicide attempt.  I couldn't make it working in the U.S.  When I called my mother from my vacant apartment on Mercer Street in Somerville in 1988, I had decided that, if I wasn't successful in killing myself, with all that I did that whole night, then I must figure a way of living.  I called my mother, a detective entered my apartment, walked passed my body, passed through all the vacant rooms, through the blood covering the floors, walls and ceiling, returned and asked, "Where's the other person?" and I asked, "what other person?" and he said, "You couldn't have lost all this blood and still be living!" 

And I made it to college and I made it through College.  When I received my graduation diploma, the President of the Hampshire College, Greg Prince, hugged me.  I have no idea why he did that...  Could it have been because the chairwoman of my thesis committee was the vice president of the college and they had talked about me...?  Who knows?  All I know is that when he gave me my diploma and I shook his hand, he pulled me towards him...  Me a little reluctant...  And then I graduated and moved to New York City with Randi.  And I just couldn't figure it out...  I thought my diploma was worth more.  Nothing made sense...  Everyone asked for experience. But how do you gain experience if no one wishes to give you it?  The jobs offered should not have required a college diploma...  Very little appearing in the papers or on internet showed me something interesting, nor connected to what I had studied.  I don't understand how you did it, nor how anyone did it...  There are people who are made for banking and marketing and administration and public relations and computer programming.  Had they said, "Ross, we'll give you the training and the experience.  But, first you must tell us, what is it that attracted you to this position, to this company..."  I couldn't tell the truth.  I couldn't lie. And for that reason, I couldn't get the job.  Had I told the truth, I would have said, "because I need to pay my rent, food and clothing and hopefully a few extras." 

I was accepted into the Hampshire College creative writing program.  However, between Raritan Valley Community College and Hampshire College I decided that I would be throwing away an education because I didn't have enough experience, nor imagination for creating stories that weren't horribly self-indulgent.  James still has my boring "story" I wrote at R.V.C.C., "Sometimes the Beaconing Light"...  For years he insisted I continue writing it.  I would say, "James, it was horrible. You've gotta be kidding!"  I handed that story in to my R.V.C.C. teacher and highly acclaimed New Jersey State short story writer, and she wrote in red ink throughout the paper "Self-Indulgent!"  I had already been accepted to Hampshire and I walked out on her class and the rest of my classes.  Then I wrote a letter to Hampshire College explaining why I did that...  She had a point.  So, I decided I wanted to figure a way of showing how the myth of the "fall from grace in the Garden of Eden" was actually a metaphor for the origin of modern spoken and written language as being the origin of the world's social problems...  When I arrived at Hampshire, I told my college advisor Robert Coles, that I would study philosophy and not creative writing (not knowing that I did not have the reading aptitude for understanding their language and that, truly, had I known better, it was Linguistics where I should have gone).  The problem is, my conversations were with myself.  There wasn't a person who could have told me, "Ross, you are barking up the wrong tree... look over there; that big old Oak, is yours..., not this giant Sequoia"... I imagine, had they known I would change my course of study from creative writing to philosophy, they would have changed their mind on accepting me, or they would have told me that that was impossible. I didn't make it through my first week in Philosophy, didn't discover linguistics and changed my course list walking blindfolded with my hands stretched-out infront of me.  I didn't have a father and his model structure to follow and take the easy road through biology to Medicine, with all his knowledge and connections...  I didn't have that father as a spring board towards an opposite direction, had I been rebellious...  I just had a black hole model of success in the form of death...

Hampshire College was an experiment created in the 60s by UMASS, Amherst College, Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges. They wanted to create a student much more prepared for graduate study, who was more innovative, creative and who had much better writing skills than the professors the doctoral programs were turning out...  One day I asked my Amherst European History professor, "I'm concerned about my performance, how I am doing in your class..." He replied, "I am absolutely not worried about you... Hampshire Students are much more prepared than Amherst Students..."  Amherst College was rated as the #1 private college in the U.S.  I imagine it continues being so...  Endowments help a ton in the ratings, that's how Harvard can beat out the University of Chicago and Berkeley...  How much money does the school have disponible, dispuesta (the Spanish flows out better than the English) for research, for buying super stars, for libraries, for laboritories...The Universities are not rated for their undergraduate programs, but for their doctoral programs and all the research they do...  They know that the average Harvard undergraduate has the same trajectory as the average UMASS undergraduate.  The difference is family history and upbringing...  The Harvard Post-graduate programs have different admissions criteria than the undergraduate program. For that reason, you see many more graduates from public universities in the post graduate Harvard programs, than you see graduates from public high schools in their undergraduate programs...  Supposedly the Hampshire student is better because he or she chose Hampshire because they sought their education and not their diploma...  However, if you look at the trajectory of their alumns, the rich alumns have much stronger success stories than the middle-class alumns...

I didn't study psychology because I didn't want to find myself studying solely for healing myself.  Before my brief academic dream crashed with the Ridilin in 1987, I told my mother that I wanted to become a microbiologist and one day work at NIH...  Was it to cure cancer?  Why not?  She responded sarcastically, "You want to be a fireman, a cowboy, a rock star, Jesus and the president of the United States..."  I am a drop out, a college graduate, a great cook of international cuisine, a baker, a historian, an artist, a writer, a bi-lingual, a Gringo, an empresario (a small businessman), a Jew, a White, a Poor Boy, an intellectual, a poet, a thinker, a very sociable hermit, a reader, a husband, a man, incapable of creating babies, a walking time-bomb, a critic, a potato with a black, rotten core, a "non believer", a hell of a believer ...I am a dead man walking... I am highly loved... Regarding my "talents" I don't take myself seriously...  Before I enter the situation I hear someone say in my head, "Ross, what are you thinking?  Do you really believe you can become a micro-biologist?"  So, before extending myself, I am a fraud or an imposter...  Who do you think you're kidding?  When I began drawing, I wanted to share my new-found talent with my mother.  I was amazed that I had it in me... This was 1997, I had just been fired from my first job in New York City just after breaking up with Randi, the woman with whom my family fell in-love and was the best bet for the following wedding.  Instead of looking at the drawing, my mother said, "now you think you are an artist and you're not going to look for work!"  I said, "no ma.  I was so excited to be able to do this, I just wanted to share it with you..."  5 years later, before moving to Mexico, I was planning on creating an alternative catering business.  The idea was that the person throwing the party would chose an international theme and I would do the cooking in their kitchen amongst other things.  My mother is a Goddess in cooking up parties, creating the menu, planning and then doing all the baking and cooking without any help.  My Uncle Henry always said, "Marsha, drop the social work and open up a restaurant or a catering business.  I will foot the cost!"  My mother is horribly afraid of insecurity and uncertainty outside of a normal work situation; benefits, paychecks, social security, weekends, planned days off...  So, I wanted her advise, possibly a helping hand and probably some financial support to begin with...  Her response was, "Ross, do you really believe your cooking is better than your painting?"  I responded, "Look Mom, my cooking is a sure bet, day in and day out.  It's magic in my fingers.  My painting is 6 months on, 6 months off (not accurate). It is very difficult to sell paintings..."  Do you get the jist?  Whatever I wish to do, my mother first negates or doubts.  My foe when I started drawing and painting, now is my biggest fan.  But, no thanks to her...  When I started drawing again last July, my mother asked, "Now you're going to put aside your coffee business?  How are you going to support yourself?" I haven't painted nor drawn since December 18th.  But the business continues giving us a profit... 

Colored Pencil Drawing I Gave to Joey when she left for Denver

Oil painting on a mirrorless mirror I painted for my Mother and Bruce

Marsha and Bruce asked for a painting of a drawing I did in June 2002. Before I left New York City I painted it for them.  When my mother asked how much and I said, "$300" she thought it was too much...  While in Mexico, she has created an alter towards me with my framed paintings on her walls...  She periodically went through my stuff in the basement and framed what she liked of mine and then said, "the framer asked me who is the artist!  He was so impressed with your work!"

First I was almost crying.  Now I feel my heart pounding in my chest and head... 

One definition of Depression is "Anger turned inward"...  One way of understanding suicide is that, instead of taking the life or lives of the instigators, they take their own life...  When the child cries and the parent says, "be a man!" what happens to that boy...?  When the boy feels rage but the adult says, "control yourself, you don't know what you are talking about..." what happens to that child?  When the child feels sad and the necessity to cry at the same time as feeling rage and the necessity to break things yet at the same time they feel without the right to those two emotions, what happens to that child?  When the uncle violates the niece and the mother says in front of the court, "my daughter is inventing things... she's crazy," what will the girl feel?  Vindicated?  Understood? Protected? Cared for? NO.  She will feel CRAZY and horribly alone.  And she will probably become crazy. Did she have to become crazy?  No.  Did her uncle have to violate her?  No.  Will her uncle be prosecuted and condemned?  That depends greatly upon the court and upon her relatives... BUT, after not being put behind bars, her uncle will return to business as usual, nothing will have changed. But the moment he put his hand on her, her interior and exterior world changed.  And, if no one changes that situation and gives her the understanding and the support she needs...?

Remember, Todd Golub called me poor boy.  I received hand-me-downs from my cousin Seth, my uncle Stan's only son the one who will mention the violence of his dad...  When my father died, my mother received a certain amount of money from Social Security. Knowing that, my Uncle Stan asked for a "loan" of $40,000. This was in the early 70s.  How much would that be worth 20 years later?  He used it to build an addition on to his house, to build his dental Practice and didn't return a cent until my mother asked for it to pay my older sister Sheri's college in the mid-80s...  My uncle had season tickets to the Giants and to the Nicks.  He belonged to a local country club. He sent his children abroad and to expensive private colleges, they had impressive bar and bat mitzvah parties, nice clothing, good cars. He took me to one Giants game and one Nicks game before the age of 8...  He didn't take me alone, thank god!  When we entered their house in Cranford and those of their cousins in Bergen County, I always felt horribly self-conscious; that we were impoverished interlopers entering their parties...

In New York City I visited a PTSD specialist who said that all signs lead up to I was sexually abused as a child...  I don't have those memories.  I can't verify this belief of hers. Although, analyzing the literature, I see where she's coming from...  Beth had "regressions" while at Douglass College.  She had a wonderful therapist. And, for some reason or another, while seeing him, she started remembering things about our next door neighbor and his father and a counselor at Camp Tevah in Bridgewater and and and...  I don't have those memories and thankfully not.  Although I thought it was Beth my uncle Stan beat regularly while his younger brother (my father) was dying at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 1973. Then my cousin Seth said to me during a family gathering, "Boy how my dad beat you when Uncle Allen was in the hospital. You really pissed him off, for teasing Satch, for wetting the bed... (I wet my bed until the age of 12)" And I said, "No, that was Beth."  And he said, "No, that was you!"  Beth was a two year old child. I was four-years-old and I didn't want to eat the cow's tongue... I wouldn't eat it until in Mexico...  My memory has it that Beth balled her hands into fists and covered her eyes and ignored my Uncle Stan. So, he got pissed off, lifted her from her chair and beat her with his belt on the landing of the stairs.  In my albums of photos "Way Back When" there is a photo of me sitting at my mother's feet.  She reading a book and is ignoring me.  It is just after my father died and her best friend thought it would be a good idea for us to go to Jamaica.  Judy was a travel agent...  It's a series of 4 photos.  We are at the side of a pool, she on a folding chair.  First I am standing by her side. She is looking at me with an exasperated look on her face like, "I don't have time for this!"  Then she turns her back to me and I'm sitting with my back against her legs.  And then I'm sitting at her feet with my hands balled into fists shoved into my eyes.  This is the beginning...  The hands balled into fists covering eyes is part of the process of Dissociation... In the worst of circumstances the child develops Disociative Disorder (formerly called Multi Personality Disorder).  Other scenarios is that the sexually abused girl disociaties during the violation, causing that event to be buried in the recesses of her mind...  I thought this was a problem of women, until Seth said it was me and not Beth horribly beaten by my uncle and then I saw the photo at the side of the pool in Jamaica...  We're talking 26 years after the fact.  I don't have memories of having been abused.  I do remember seeing my aunt Esta's red pubic hair when she entered the room to pick up my mess. I was sitting on the floor. She had a very short night gown and bent over infront of me... there was nothing on beneath...  I do remember my Aunt and Uncle's room as being like a dark cave... I was afraid of that space and KNEW not to enter it...

5 years ago I mentioned this and other stuff (my cousin Elise was daddy's girl after her older sister Stacy died of the brain tumor.  But, daddy's girl became horribly annorectic and bolimic, abused drugs and alcohol.  Her dentist father had to renew her teeth frequently due to the acid corrosion caused by the vomitting...he gave her a ton of money to pay her life).  My whole family came down on me for mentioning this stuff. It was intentional. I wanted the reaction.  I wanted them to disconnect from me... Everytime they would deny one thing, I would give them another example. One example more vivid than the prior one.  As I said, if I don't have the memory, I don't say anything...  If you don't see god, god doesn't exist (that was my belief before 1998)... 

Do I see phantasms. No?  Did my grandfather appear in the photo in the kitchen of my Mother-in-law?  The photo is in my album "Spirits in the Material World"...  Am I psychic?  No. Was I telling Margarita and my brother-in-laws for 3 years, "One day a man will appear at our stand.  He will take interest in our business and offer to help us.  He has money. I don't know if he will be interested in physically participating in the business.  But he will help us out financially..."?  Before my Uncle Henry died, during the conflict with my family, my uncle said he would figure a way of resolving the problem and brain storm (in his words "Thinking outside the box") to help us with the Mexico situation. Then he was hit by the NYPD tow truck.  Not long afterwards Chris appeared and offered to help us. He said, I understand what you are saying about the obstacles here, but I can help you financially and "lent" us $30,000 dollars...  No strings attached... 3 years later Chris died... and here we are...Before he died, we had paid back just less than half the loan... 

Chris's birthday is October 28th (the day of the patron saint San Judas Tadeo, patron saint of "difficult and/or desperate causes and businesses"...)  The other day Margarita mentioned something regarding Chris and this stuff...In February, I was reading in our bedroom with the door closed and Margarita was talking to Rafael about the twin girls born to friends of ours on Chris' birthday just after he died...  He died in the first week of October...  Then she started talking about how he helped us and that she believes his birthday falls on the day of Saint Judas Tadeo and that she believes that Judas is the patron saint of negocios (businesses) and how he helped us...  Later on, the door opened when I was asleep, startled, I looked towards the door as it was opening and saw Margarita in the light of the living room behind her and standing next to her was a thin tall figure.  The figure disappeared the second she turned on the light.  I said to her, "Who was that tall person standing next to you?"   Margarita didn't say anything until we were driving from Aguascalientes to the ranch in Veracruz in mid-May...  I remember what passed through my mind, "Now Margarita has spirits protecting her."  And I felt Jealous and concerned... When I saw the figure (I call them shadows) I felt scared...  and then I felt foolish for feeling scared. Afterall, I want to see the spirits who are supposedly protecting and guiding me...  (Mentioned by:  The psychic in 1988, Mauricio in 2005 and Jose "Montaña" Peres in 2007).  Margarita made the connection between the tall man standing beside her in the doorway and the conversation she was having with Rafael.  But for some strange reason she didn't mention it until 3 months later... It could be something cultural... I call them pauses...  You can call it a form of reservedness. You can call it slowness.  You can call it exasperating... Americans are about "Now! Now! Now!"  You snap your fingers.  You stamp your feet...  You say, "I want it done yesterday!"  Here Mexicans say, "what's the rush. All in due time... Tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow. God willing..."  There's a story about a young man resting under a shade tree and a wealthy man who pulls alongside in his limousine... The wealthy man doesn't understand how the young man can spend his day sitting under a tree.  So he says, "boy.  Why don't you go to work?"  And the boy says, "I'm enjoying the day below this tree." and the wealthy man says, "but if you work real hard you can own a business that gives you lots of money and you can buy a large house, a large car and land with a beautiful shade tree and when you reach my age, you can retire and rest under your shade tree."  And the boy says, "what do I need with a large house and a large car, when I have this parcel of land and this beautiful tree?"  The moral of the story is why work so hard like the Americans and the Europeans killing yourself and not knowing if you will reach the point of retirement to enjoy the fruits of your labor, when you can enjoy your shade tree today, but without killing yourself for the material things...?  That's why the word "ambitious" is negative in Mexico...   And that's what the Mexican government and the Mexican business leaders bank upon...     

Two weeks after my father died, my mother enrolled full-time at Somerset County College. Upon graduating from the community college my mother went off to Douglass College and then on to her MSW...  When she was home, I was scared of her...  But, being human with human needs, I also demanded her attention...  Years later she said, "After daddy died, I pushed you away out of fear of creating an unhealthy relationship between us...  like...  When daddy died you theoretically became the man of the house... I couldn't have that..." 

What was it that the kids saw in me back at Old York School?  Central School?  Somerville High School?  Things happened outside of school also.  And why?  How was my older sister Sheri towards me? Yes, I brought things onto myself, but indirectly...  I was to blame for suffering the loss of my Father and then of my mother? It would have been better had she also died. In that way I wouldn't have lived day in and day out with the paradox of having her and of not having her... 

Not having a father figure, not being loved by my mother (at least that was how I learned it) and being ostracized and excluded by my peers makes it very difficult to enter the "real world".  I needed an alternative talent.  Something that would excuse my not being able to fit into the cookie cutter society... But, I wanted to fit into my family and the world of my peers...  and I couldn't, the paradox.  Paradox isn't a contradiction, it does not involve opposites.  It is a split hair...  People are accustomed to straight lines and straight answers.  The paradox begins with a straight line and then develops an offshoot... it's a Y in the road, but not a capital Y, but a small y... 

Why return to the U.S. when I lived 29 years of failure?  In Mexico I've done what no one would have the balls or the guts to do and overcome innumerable obstacles. Here I am "responsible" and independent.  I "control the conversation".  I decide what is our next move.  But, the situation has become horribly dangerous.  Yesterday, while walking the long walk to Margarita's grandparents house we passed two people "we shouldn't have seen" in the ranch.  A style of person popping up all over the country.  We call them ZETAS... "Zeta" is the last letter of the alphabet "Z".  The ZETA saying is "after us; nothing" if you know what they mean...  They are the last letter, the last word, the last action...  Two young men, 20 somethings... one with a military style haircut, the other with a large gold earing, Cholo gang style...  I said to Margarita, "did you see what we just passed?" and she said, "I saw the guy with the cellphone.  Just keep walking..."  We are in the middle of nowhere.  And, inside the ranch, further inside nowhere...  Margarita said that she imagines they are here to cause instability.  And I said, "these people (Margarita's community) live in instability without these people appearing. They're always on the economic brink. They can't move. The government knows this.  What more instability do they need...?"  I had just said to Margarita, "I think it's too early for me to leave Mexico" and Margarita said, "I know."  And then I said, "It's funny, I had just said...  and now I'm not feeling so sure of that..."  Then Margarita mentioned a conversation she had with a Señora, her sister-in-law Rosa and Margarita's mother... They were talking about Gregorio's work schedule (he leaves and comes home at all hours, works for the Municipal President as a chofer...)  Rosa said, "Gollo can have an affair.  No problem.  I just wait for when he is sleeping and I CUT THE THING OFF!"  Then the Señora mentioned that 4+ years ago "they" found a woman in the nearest town with her breasts cut off, a bar shoved into her vagina.  And she was crucified...  We were reading about this stuff and seeing it in the newspapers for the past year, but in Central-North of the country.  Not in Veracruz. So, I can say, what happens to me, happens to me.  But, I can't shake the images of what could happen to Margarita... 

With suicide there is no return.  I am dead. For the moment I killed the Ross world of the U.S. I didn't figure it out.  I didn't come close to mastering nothing there...  7 years in NYC, the same city as my so-called "mentor" Uncle Henry the bicycle doctor (Dr. Carl Henry Nacht) the marathonist, Dr. Demento with his wonderful stories and games... the man who told me upon leaving for Mexico, I have so much respect for you.  I couldn't do it...  7 years of inviting him to a Yankee game, "I'll buy the tickets..." (he is who inspired me to love baseball, the Yankees, meteorology--indirectly to love cows)...  and him ignoring the invitations, Sorry, but I don't have the time... Before his first child was born, he was like a distant surragate father...  He was extremely close to his older sister Marsha, my mother...  He believed that my father is who inspired him to become a doctor and that my father would save his father from the Mafia... When my father died, he did what he could to share with me... But, when things began to "come to a head" in 10th grade, he distanced himself emotionally...  My family perfected the denile response...  I think Henry's obsessiveness helped him ignore his fears and his painful memories.  When I started "showing" in 10th grade, he became scared of the contagiousness...  Not that he would have become mentally ill, but it was too close to him.  His mother died in a mental hospital when he was 10 years old.  His father was alcoholic and hooked up with crazy women and their children...  I grew up listening to those great stories, although they were a form of distancing the potentially crazy from the actually crazy.  My father "saved" my mother from that fate...  And then in the middle of that "dream" he died...  You focus all your energy on developing the good and you focus all your energy on denying and hiding the bad.  I was a human being.  I needed the opportunity just like the rest of them...  But I was the bad walking and talking.  And they didn't want to hear it... and they don't want to know why they gave me that role... 

All societies have "scape goats".  The family is the microcosm of the society or macrocosm.  What are scape goats?  I never looked into the definition of "scape" believe it or not. But, let me explain: when there are problems in the family, problems difficult to resolve, the family members use certain people as distractions and negative models.  The society uses the Us & Them paradymn for teaching their children or their society members how to comport themselves, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.  Instead of punishing your children, you punish the others as a reminder to yours, not to behave in that way or...  When the other is deemed"bad", you create a justification not to give to them what you give to yours.  They are to blame for your negligence, not you... In Mexico, the Jews and the Gringos are to blame. I have yet to meet a Jew here...  Two of the richest men in Mexico are sons of Lebanese Catholics...  When it was learned that Marcial Maciel, priest and head of the Christian Legionaires, was married with kids in the U.S. and had sexually abused hundreds of his novices here in Mexico along with his son in the U.S., the Vatican said that it was Jewish propaganda attempting to stain the face of the Roman Catholic Church.  Marcial Maciel was very close to Pope John Paul. He sent millions of dollars to Rome; donations from ultra-wealthy Mexicans.  Why did they give him so much money?  Because he created a University for their children designed to maintain their political-economic status quo. He created two Catholic realities in Mexico.  The reality for them was a justification for their wealth and exploitation of the poor.  The other reality was created by the Spanish when they converted the indigenous...: the church teaches my in-laws "god willing"...  "You are here because God put you here.  You must be pius and not ask for what God hasn't given you...  If you are a good Catholic, you will be recompensed in the beyond..." 

Henry and Mary Beth came to my College Graduation.  I remember seeing them dancing the night before.  I was so proud of these guys, just how young they were...  I always wanted to be like them...  Henry the internist with so many friends, Mary Beth the psycho analyst, very difficult person who couldn't over-come her own childhood family problems.  But she was the youngest daughter of a successful Irish business man in Teaneck or Tenafly. She would always have financial stability.  And although her family was very anti-Semitic, her father, Ed, Mr. Kelly fell in-love with his son-in-law (in a platonic sense).  My uncle cared for Mr. Kelly's health...  Henry and Mary Beth met in the late 60s.  Henry was driving from New York to California with his best college buddy... Their dream was to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and return to the top in 24 hours... "We almost died from hipothermia, from dehidration.  BUT WE DID IT!" Somewhere down the road they separated and he picked-up  Mary Beth hitch-hiking.  The story goes that Henry's friend also married a woman who picked him up hitchhiking too!  With all the neurosis of Mary Beth, Henry was so calm.  I think he was the only person Mary Beth truly loved in her life.  After his death by the NYPD tow truck, Mary Beth stopped talking to my mother.  My mother says "she was just SO angry!"  But she was successful and had a house with 50 acres of land in upstate New York and great apartment 17 stories above Riverside Drive on West 103rd Street over-looking the Hudson River. And she has a daughter, my cousin Zoë who graduated from Barnard College, performed as a child in the "Nutcracker Suite" at Lincoln Center and, last I heard was travelling around Africa with a film company... 

When I graduated Hampshire my mother said, "some of the family members had said that I would have to care for you all your life..."  Was one of those members Mary Beth?...  She was a snake. She had a cutting snake tongue.  My mother told me that she was jealous of my relationship with Henry and did what she could to come between us.  After Beth's surgery to remove her colon (two years after my first 2 surgeries) Mary Beth invited Beth to accompany Henry and Mary Beth to Venice, Italy. (My mother said that Beth was with them to help with the baby Zoë).  Later on they invited Beth to go with them to California...  And me saying, "Henry couldn't spend time with Ross.  But Mary Beth could spend SO MUCH time with Beth..."  Who knows? Maybe she was just using Beth.  Or maybe she was a hypocrite.  But no one will say that Mary Beth was a failure like Ross... 

Would I rather be physicaly cut up into little itsy bitsy pieces in Mexico or spiritually and mentally cut up into little itsy bitsy peices in the U.S.?