This Is My Story

I was born the 4^th of may of 1998, my mother had told me that she did not feel any pain or contraction when she was already almost 4 weeks over her due date so she had to get an epidural and give birth to me as soon as possible. So she did. My parents weren’t married when I was born, but that didn’t matter to them, they were just proud that they had a baby girl and that she was alive and healthy. Two years later they were still together yet not married and my mum got pregnant once again, but this time it wasn’t like her first experience delivering a baby, but being the strong woman she is, she did it. And my sister was born. I believe the presence of two children in my parents lives was what, pretty much, convinced or in such a way forced them to get married, and they did and anyone could tell they were joyful, because they were. At the time, they had everything they ever wanted and asked for: a happy family, a big house, great jobs, in other words everything was “perfect”.  During summer of 2003 my brother was born, he was chubby and cute as a bunny, once again everything was wonderful and life seemed saccharine; and somehow it was.

From my point of view, not everything has a happy ending. “Everything has a happy ending, if you´re not happy then it’s not the end” people say. But for my family it was the end. My father used to travel most of the time and so did my mum, but at the time it didn’t phase me at all, I thought it was part of their jobs, and in fact it was, but now I understand there was another hidden reason behind it all, they didn’t want to be with each other. My parents never acted like they were in love publicly, or maybe they didn’t at all, anyways I was just a kid, I never noticed these kind of details, but I’m grown up now, and now I do. They didn’t love each other. And it makes me wonder: why would you marry someone you’re not in love with? Then in my mind I´d reply something like: maybe they did love each other, maybe their love just vanished… but, can love just kind of vanish out of nowhere? I don’t think so. Also in my opinion people shouldn’t get married just because you have children together, because being with someone who you don’t love will make you two very unhappy and your children will somehow feel it and it wont be very pleasant. I’m not saying my parents made me feel mournful because they didn’t, they made my childhood the best I could ever ask for, what I am stating is that one summer we were a blessed and cheerful family and the next one my siblings and I were moving to a different city just with my mum. And I think once again: can love just “vanish” away in the air like the ashes of a campfire that was mysteriously put out from night to day? It is true that love changes because we as people change and grow, and if we don’t take the time to nurture the love that we give and want to receive it becomes lost. So maybe it is what happened to my parent´s relationship, they thought they were doing the best for us, their children, but they were doing the worse for themselves.

Sometimes I wish they were still together, but I fathom that its better this way and that it will be like this for the rest of my life, which really worries me. Most people don’t understand why I am and act the way I do, or why my and my siblings are the way they are, but I do. Because I’ve been there, through it all. No matter how much my story may seem normal to others or similar to theirs, it is and will always be something that only I will understand like it is, and now, being the first time I ever tell it, or actually, write it down I get why my reactions and way of thinking are so different from everybody else´s, why my mum always keeps me grounded for fighting with my sister, why she is so emotional about things that for most people shouldn’t matter at all, but that is because she is hurt, just as hurt as anybody else could be in this world, and wants to teach me a different way of thinking or acting than the accustomed way, the “Everything has a happy ending, if you´re not happy then it’s not the end” way, instead she´d say things like: “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it” which meaning is conspicuous. She didn’t want happening to neither of us what happened to my dad and her.

Whenever I think about marriage the first thing that comes to my mind is a Disney Princess love story: the guy or prince likes the princess, they fall in love, get married and live happy ever after. Not even in my wildest dreams I think of me as the princes that’s waiting for her prince charming to appear and save he from trouble and that is because there is no way that my story will be any different from that of all members of my family, every single one had been through a troubled or not so pleasant relationship that had ended in divorce, but much more, that had ended with a friendship and a bond that was unbreakable between two human being that once swore eternal love to one another. There’s another part of me that believes that I am in way going to end up like them, I am different and I can make a difference in my own life. That is the main reason why I don’t let everybody in, I’ve put very tall walls around me that keeps everyone out and only some can come in, I am very meticulous with that. I believe that someday my family will be completely content, together or not, but that is just another thing that I don’t get to choose.