Sober

As I understand it, they met through family. Fanny bought shoes at Dolly's shoe shop and somehow Hector and Alcibiades became friends. Eventually, Amparo and Al started a courtship and, while he was stationed in England, they got married through Power of Attorney. Time passed and I was born. 

It's simplistic, putting it this way. Especially considering everything I've learned about my Father since meeting him again at the age of 19. 

"I never loved you and I never loved your mother."

Or was it,

"I never loved your mother and I never loved you."

I don't remember the order but I remember smiling. I was so convinced he was lying that it didn't penetrate my psyche at the moment. 

"You're lying. That's not true."

I was so stubborn. 

Those words sunk into me as the years went by and I processed his treatment of me. Not only had I been raised as a step daughter but I was rejected by my own father and betrayed by my mother. I had a very hard time surviving that. My entire maternal extended family in Colombia and my paternal family, complete strangers, a short drive away from where I lived in New York. And my step father's family never seemed within reach to me; not the family that lived in our area or the family that lived in Guatemala. 

I wasn't only stubborn. I was also suicidal from the age of 8. It's not an exaggeration when I say I had a hard time surviving. The internal landscape I dealt with in my mind and heart were a battlefield and life wasn't much better around me. The socioeconomic circumstances, the cultural limbo I navigated in segregated suburbs, the isolation, the lack of social skills and the lack of emotional intelligence created perfect storms where stability was often outside of my reach. 

I still struggle. Still a misfit. Still confused and ashamed. 

At least I'm not addicted to anything anymore...