9:50am Today is 1-30, January 30. Tita has something she wants to say.
Tita: Victor's dad is really smart. He's left me lots of voice messages with real concrete and intelligent ideas about what to do next for Victor and I. Frank has a really keen business sense. I think it's his age, it's a combination of his age and everything he has experienced.
He is sharing some good ideas about what we should do and what to take into account as we move forward in our lives. Some of these ideas I have already had, so to hear them from a person that is almost 75 years old, 22 years older than me, and who had lived back and forth on different continents, it helps me. As you know, honey, the people that we have gone to have limited experience. They only know a tiny bit of the whole puzzle.
Victor: Because they need to experience more.
Tita: If I try to reach out to people who can't really help me because they ain't been there, that's folly.
Even Kaenan told me this when he was traveling, that only the children and the elders are awake. Everyone else is deep in the illusion of what we have been sold as life. He put it that way, and what have I told you?
It's not because of Kaenan's but because of my life experiences, who do I help? The people who can't help themselves.
One of the reasons that they can't help themselves is because they are in the present moment! Babies have somebody else tending to them, doing the cooking and the cleaning and the worrying about having a roof over their heads.
That's why they are awake to the present. That's when they can play, that's when they can have worry-free fun. They are on the joy of the moment. Like dogs.
Victor: That reminds me of how television regresses people to time where they were in the womb and did nothing but receive.
Tita: Right, and get programmed. They're awake. We go back to what if they don't have the TV screens? How did I learn growing up?
By playing, by falling off my bike, my brother's coaching me, Tita, you can do it, keep going...
Victor: Trial and error.
Tita: That's how I grew up. That's why I long for those days in the 70s where there wasn't that much TV and there wasn't cellphones. If people tried to get out of cyberspace more often and the digital world, people would be more in-tune with the planet and with each other.
I have lived that, even more than you did, because I am a decade older than you, and you had very poor parental guidance.
The elders, why are they in the moment? It's not just because of dementia possibly, it is because they have detached from the world. They already worked, they already had their children, or not, they've already had their career and now it's time to enjoy life like a worry-free child again. That's why Kaenan himself said, my former husband, my former divine soulmate, my true friend, he started out as my friend, even though I treated him like a little brother.
Anyway, honey, your dad is intelligent. He has the objectivity of not being here. I will play all the voicemails to you later, I haven't played them all. He is saying much along the lines as I have suggested. He is now introducing an idea that I had.
He suggested that we live upstairs, stay put for a while and work.
Victor: Stop right there, please.
Tita: Just listen! He said we coud both work, clean houses or whatever while we rent out the bottom floor of the house. When we amass enough money from the rental of the bottom floor, didn't we talk about this two years ago?
Victor: It seems like he is making you go backwards. Please don't lose sight of the goal that we want to leave and get out of this house and not have to worry about it anymore and leave this town behind us. We need to hurry up and sell it, if not to your brother to the highest bidder since he loves dragging things out for you. I want you to detach from this place and break free and enjoy your inheritance.
Tita: He is just tossing around some ideas.
Victor: It sounds like to me that he is still thinking in old world terms and now he is influencing you to also. That shit doesn't fly with me and you know it.
Tita: I told him how my brothers are resistent to cough up a big amount. Again, my brother doesn't give a shit, does he? If he were serious about this, the six months of my contract with Eddie has already ran out, and I know my nephew has been busy. We go back to he is too busy for me and meanwhile I am accruing all of these debts.
I am a low person on the totem pole. If it were my older brother? It would be done immediately, because he has the bucks, he has the status, he's an attorney. He was the Golden Child growing up.
Let me get back to your dad. Your dad has some good ideas, he is saying stay put for a little bit and rent out the bottom floor, get paid a whole year in advance. With that money I could upgrade the house and have enough to not sell your house. Then we could travel. He is encouraging us to go to Mexico. I already have people, relatives asking for me to visit. I have a cousin who is an empty nester and has two extra bedrooms available.
Regardless, hotels are cheap there! With your SSI we could go stay there for a month, or more, but he is saying always have a Plan B, wherever you are. He was saying if your car braks down, what are you going to do? Stay under a bridge? Maybe.
We were talking on the phone and he's sending my voice messages on Whatsapp. I mean, we could sell, but even if I sell it to my brother, that is my upstairs forever, or until I say so. That way I don't have to pay for storage, and that way we have a homebase.
Not to mention, we have a stable address. If we go traveling this is our address. SSI knows that you are a renter here. Anyway, he has good ideas. I will play you the voicemails if you want later.
Honey, can I show you something cute? This should go on your blog. Ready? Or maybe it's not worth it. I have the wrong phone, I will be right back.
2:37pm Major insight from Tita.
Tita: I noticed that when I describe myself and Victor to Ada on the phone, I described myself as liking quiet time alone, that I am very private, that not everyone knows me. I choose to have very few friends, that I don't require external-validity, that I like silence and that's why I like nature, or even churches or ashrams. When I have shared that about myself she was all with a sneer and of disgust in her voice, "Oh, eso suena como Lauri," "That sounds like Lauri."
I was sitting there feeling damn, she's insulting me. I could tell in her voice that she's insulting me because I am sounding like her own daughter? I mean, doesn't she LOVE Laura?
She told me, "No, haci es ella, that's how she is. No tiene muchas amistades, she doesn't have many friends, no sale mucho, she doesn't go out much." I am sitting there thinking Victor is like that too. Victor has very few, if any friends. Victor enjoys solitude and alone time. Victor likes being out in nature and the quiet, the sounds of animals. Victor isn't worried about hanging out in clubs and people and vacationing the way Diana does, because these are things she's made it a point to stress to me, that Diana has LOTS of friends, and goes out and parties and takes classes, so that's what she seems to admire in Diana.
The reason I am even bringing this up, the spark of this idea is that when I talked to Victor's dad recently and described my impressions of Diana when I first met her in San Diego and how I didn't like how she lied. The first thing I learned about her is that she lied. She wasn't honest and wouldn't admit that she lied. A few other things.
When I told him he immediately laughed. He chuckled and said, "Ella es la photocopia de su mama(she is a photocopy of her mom)."
Again, I told this early on to Victor. I told him, "Ada is in LOVE with your sister Diana." I remember reading this big diatribe, this tribute that she wrote, this wonderfully and loving smart paper she wrote about Ada and then hearing how Ada described Laura, she doesn't seem to like Laura.
Also, because Laura, is not 100% but similar to me and Victor, in many ways, she doesn't like any of the three of us.
Thinking of the pyschology behind it, I will describe that in a little bit. Isn't it very likely, that because either she molded Diana to be like her, or simply Diana came out that way, the mixture of her parentage or her genes was obviously more like mom's than her dad's. Maybe that's why she likes her better.
She sees herself reflected in Diana. Diana is the highest version of herself. It makes sense, and that's good for both of them, but that leaves Victor and Laura, twins, boy and girl apart.
It is very clear that Ada doesn't like them. She doesn't express herself as lovingly and as sweetly as she does about Diana. Is that Laura and Victor's fault that they are more like Dad, that they maybe look more like him?
Victor: Is it Franklin's fault?
Tita: Exactly, I don't see anything wrong in how Victor is. Again, everyone needs to shine in their own light! If Victor's light is attained in being quiet, through solitude...
Victor: And through blogging.
Tita: Me through books, through staring at the stars, to going out in nature and wanting to be by myself and look in all directions and see zero people, if that's how we thrive and that's what we need as introverts to then share ourselves with the world and share ourselves with a few small circle, isn't that okay? Shouldn't that be celebrated?
Ada has been disparagingly saying this about Victor, "Oh, I have told him this and that, but he marches to the beat his own drummer." If Victor marches to the beat of his own drummer, how is that a bad thing, if he's independent and rebellious?
No child should be compared to others, either between siblings or society at large because that stunts the growth of children, and they might feel it without ever verbalizing it. They probably felt these things that I am expressing without ever knowing it.
The reason I am even bringing this up is that it also reminds me of my nephew. I was doing things in their house, cleaning, getting rid of shelves that everyone had neglected and everyone complained about but nobody wanted to do anything about it.
I put on my music even though my dad was bitching and complaining, mom was at work and I cleaned off those old dusty shelves, took them down, dusted all of the figurines and I asked my mom what I should do with them.
My mom didn't really seem to care. When I described how weird my mom and dad were being when they got angry I would just let them be. I let them be because I knew even though they were angry that change is good in a house. To have dusty figurines that my mom had collected over the decades, it wasn't good energy for the house.
Then I remember how Mauricio also used to do things without mom and dad's permission often and suffered the consequences from mom and dad.
Maybe subconsciously your mom doesn't like you and Laura as much as Diana because you two remind her of Frank the Demon.
Having to do with my family, my mom very much did not like her in-laws, the Veras, the family that she married into. She LOVED Dad for sure, but not anyone else in his family. She wasn't good for my dad anyway. His manhood was not honored by her or his family because of her.
My mom realized that my dad was not valued by his own siblings and he was taken advantage of because he was kind and sweet and innocent. He had some emotional issues. My mother valued my dad, but she disliked his siblings and his parents.
It makes sense that if she had those ill feelings or ill will towards the whole Vera family, that I and my brothers who look like me, we are more dark-skinned, we are all more lively and in-your-face, we are direct and we want peace and know that sometimes you do things because you have to because our parents really don't know better.
We suffer those consequences because in the end they actually will thank us in time. In time they will realize, "Yeah, we didn't like it when he did it, but change is good.
Even the fact that I used to play music when they were angry, my brother Maurice did that, so my nephew pointing this out, maybe my mother unconsciously disliked me and my siblings because we looked like the Veras. Doesn't that make sense?
Couldn't that same exact thing be happening with Mamada? That she dislikes her twins because they remind her of Frank?
That is entirely possible, and is it Laura's fault or Victor's that they turned out like their dad? NO! That just sucks!
Then again, if she hated Franklin and still does so much, why wouldn't she still hate Laura and Victor? Is that right, though?
My mom, maybe later in life grew to resent me, but when we were kids, if she felt that way, she sure didn't act that way. My mom and dad were unconditionally loving to all of their kids. Even with me, my mom would sometimes tell me when she was angry with my dad, she took it out on me. "Oh, you look just like your dad's mother! Your Abuelita Victoria. She loved rocking in a chair like you do. I was sitting there wondering, "What's wrong with that?"
Inside I was thinking, "Why would it be upsetting to my mom that I share any attribute with my dad's mom? What's wrong with sitting in a rocking chair?
Again, because she disliked her mother-in-law and she saw that in me, she disliked that in me. That's not right at all. That really is not cool. It's understandable, but maybe it shouldn't be verbalized. Maybe parents should shut their traps when they are being negative about their child. That's very traumatizing and shows the exact opposite of LOVE.
If I was Ada I would try my hardest never to say any of you are just like your father in a negative way. It would expain a lot about the dynamics in your family.
That is why Victor and I are even happier to keep our distance. Just like Ada told me, "Case de dos, casados."
She is not going to get to share in our good times and our bad times. Why? Becuase she has shown us that she doesn't appreciate us.
Therefore, we don't appreciate you, Mamada.
She does not deserve to participate in our joy and in our LOVE and whatever we are going to build. Victor and I love each other, but we know that we are not in the right spot. Everything needs it right environment. Even in Mount Shasta it wasn't the right environment. Our neighbors were not savory people that we learned from and we LOVED, but wherever we go we are together.
That is really enough.
Yes, casa de dos means here we are, Mamada, and there you are, out of the loop with us.
Victor: We are already more successful than you will ever be! Mom and Dad!
Tita: Regardless if we are different.
Victor: Regardless if we are penniless!
Tita: Yes! And because, or in spite of these negative and evil things that we have learned about and from both of you.
Victor: Yes, thank you for showing us how not to be! Thanks again for helping me spell it out!
Tita: We are going to fix everything with as many people as we can.
I hope this blog will serve to memorialize our efforts.
Victor: If not, it can store our memories so we have room for more!
No comments:
Post a Comment