Year ONE

As I sit here typing my eyes are watering with the memories of what happened last year.  It has all been such a dream that sometimes the memories come in a haze.  It has been a year since I was allowed to return to my husband, my family, my friends, my life.  I can tell you that I am not the same woman I was a year ago and I am not the woman my husband met almost 4 years ago.  I am a shell of the fighter I used to be.  I was so full of hope and wonder.  So much happened in the year I was gone and so much has happened in the year of my return that I feel I need two lifetimes to handle all these emotions.  

It is fitting that in the year since my return government is debating a "path to citizenship" and I am not closer to mine.  People, need to know the lengths at which parent(s) will go to provide for their children and there is no mountain or sky that can not be moved with the will of a parent.  Yet it saddens me to see that it is the "Dreamers", young people, children who are taking up this fight. Where are the adults where are the leaders?  

I am an adult and I am a "dreamer" but what I am not anymore is hopeful.  I hate this feeling, despite being home and being with the people I love I feel more discouraged about who we are as humans and how we treat each other.  

I thank all of you who have written and asked me to continue the blog and I hope that my words are of some comfort to at least one person and if nothing else I hope they prove thought provoking and humanizing.  Thank you for bringing me back.  

By choice not by chance

February 9, 2012, Thursday (By choice not by chance)

Fear and sorrow have left and ANGER and RAGE have set in.  I am so pissed and I am furious that I am “not good enough” to go home.  I hate the way this process works and the way it treats us making us feel subhuman.  I hate that I was not born where I made a home and I hate that my husband has to suffer and pay for choices that were made 23 years ago.  Why don’t I deserve happiness?  Why don’t I deserve a family?  Why don’t I deserve a home? Why don’t I deserve the right to be free and to pursue my happiness?   I am sorry I wasn’t born in the U.S. I am sorry I made a home there but I am not sorry that my parents made the choices they did because they only did what they thought was best for their family.  I am sorry I didn’t choose where I was born but I am not sorry about where I choose to make a home and I am most definitely NOT sorry that I fell in love with my husband and that we were born in two different countries.  By chance I was born in Mexico and by choice I live(d) in the U.S.  I made a conscious choice everyday to do the right thing and be an active participant in the community I live(d) in and still I can not be a member of that community.  I am angry that some bureaucrat behind a desk somewhere has the right to make, break and tear families apart.

"My heart hurts for you"

February 8, 2012, Wednesday

A friend’s message comes through “my heart hurt for you” and I melt again.  I don’t want to get out of bed I don’t want to eat I don’t want to breath and frankly I don’t want to live.  I fid the strength to go on absent from my body and I hear my grandmother and uncle moving about the house.    My uncle is leaving back home to Chicago and I wish I could stow away in his luggage.  I must get up; grandma needs my help with the house and helping uncle pack.  I muster up the will to move and help serve breakfast and pack cheeses.  Visitors start flooding the house dropping off goods for my uncle to take to their relatives in the U.S. to wish him well and talk to grandma.  The day is a blur I am not even sure how I get through the day.  “Get it together”, “it will all be ok soon”, and “don’t give up” are only a few of the messages I get from friends and family.  I know they want to make me feel better and that they mean well but right now I don’t want to hear it.  It feels as though I’ll never go home, like I will never see my husband or anyone else I care about back in the U.S.  My sister gets angry with me and reminds me that I am “too negative” but what has being positive gotten me?  What has doing the right thing done for me?  My mother calls me and I conveniently yell at her.  I am tiered of hearing that I am going to go home soon that I have to believe it and pray on it.  In four days I will have been here 7 months, and they might as well be 7 years because I don’t feel any closer to being home.  

Magic Envelope

February, 7, 2012 Tuesday

Oddly enough I had some of the greatest sleep I have ever had last night.  I was hopeful to hear from my father early in the morning but when I didn’t I went about my day, having breakfast, doing my chores and chatting with my grandmother.  Dad called around 11 am and wanted me to fax him a letter turning power over to him to be able to pick up my packet from DHL.  Although I had already done that the first time we were in Juarez the officials there neglected to tell us that the letter is only good for 2 months.  Now I had to run around town finding a power of attorney letter, two witnesses and a fax.  By noon I have everything sent and I am waiting for a response.  Its 12:30 when dad calls me upset at all the hoops they are having us jump through.  I am oddly calm because I know this is a sign. I am not going home, at least not now.  They didn’t like the fax because the pictures of the witnesses could not be seen clearly and I must now find the nearest cyber café scan and send the information to some strange email address in Juarez.  It’s close to 1 pm when dad calls back and reads me my fate.  My heart stops beating and my lungs stop pumping air just to make sure I hear him clearly “your application has been referred and they need more evidence, they say we haven’t been able to prove how your husband’s hard ship”.  The words ring through my head, my arms, my legs, my stomach and my heart.  I try to remain calm and I hear my voice crack, I don’t want to cry this “thing” isn’t worth one more of my tears.  I hear my dad’s voice saying something but frankly I didn’t make out anything after that magical sentence.  I am not going home.

                                                         

I am not sure how I got back home since I couldn’t feel my body let alone my legs after I hung up the phone with my dad.  Back at home I remember that three years ago today life sent me the most amazing man sitting in a Starbucks café on a rainy day.  In all the madness I had neglected to acknowledge that today is the anniversary of a great and miraculous event.  I never thought I would find Mr. Right and I had accepted to fill my life with other things that were important to me but life had other plans for me and sent me the most amazing man… for me!  I text him that I love him, that nothing can keep us apart, curl up in the fetus position in bed, cry and wait for the night to cover me.  I am not going home. 

Is there a future?

February, 6, 2012, Monday

Just our luck, the DHL office where I need to pick up my magical packet is closed and we must wait yet again.  What’s one more day when I have waited 23 years?  The day is almost surreal to me and I feel like the time doesn’t move forward at all.  Part of me wants to pack, another wants to run and leave everything behind but the practical part again wants to wait to see what happens.  I am beginning to hate that part of me but it is what has kept me sane all these years.  Now I can physically feel and see myself losing my mind.  Could the next step of my life really be here?  Did life finally have mercy on me?  Am I now worthy of a future?  

Last Sunday?

February, 5, 2012, Sunday

Waiting is difficult and it is just about the longest Sunday of my life.  Family starts to call and in my secret excitement I tell my aunt and my cousins here that this might be the last Sunday I spend with them.  I am a roller coaster of emotions and I am practical one minute, not wanting to tell anyone anything until we know for sure and I want to shout with excitement the next wanting to yell to the world that I am going home!  Thinking about how soon I will be in my husband’s arms planning our lives together like we used to, and laughing about the next trip.  I can almost taste my husband’s kisses and feel his arms surrounding me with love.  I’ve never wanted to be home as much as I do right now. 

Somewhere in Juarez there is hope?

February, 4, 2012 Saturday

The call came before noon and I could hear something strange in my husband’s voice.  “Hone, pack your stuff, you’re coming home”, it was difficult almost impossible to believe and part of me didn’t want to believe it; it was too good to be true.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me that an answer was waiting for me in Juarez.  My lungs began to tighten and I could feel the breath from within my soul leaving me.  It couldn’t be happening; the answer I waited for 23 years for was finally here.  I wanted to cry and jump for joy but my brain wouldn’t let my heart get ahead of itself.  I have often been told that I think too much and don’t “feel” enough.  If those people knew the pain I have been living for 23 years they might stop saying that.  Immediately I go into practical mode and remind myself and everyone else on the other end of the phone that this is an answer but may not be the one we want.  My sister yells at me she says I am too negative, my father is upset and I can hear my husband about to sob.  I hang up the phone and I am upset, how could I possibly be upset when this just might be the happiest day of my life?  My husband sends me a text and apologizes for being happy; he tells me he has to believe that something good has to come out of all this time spent apart.  I am glad that one of us still has the strength to believe. 

With every day that passes I believe and hope a little less.  Of course I apologize to my husband and tell him that he never has to apologize for being happy for us, for hoping or believing.  I put on my best fake voice, call him back and pretend that I am just as happy when in fact total and utter fear has set in.  What if the response is not positive?  What if I can’t go home now or ever?  Friends start to call and text, my sister in her excitement told some of my friends and within seconds everyone is sending prayers and planning welcome home parties.  I am hesitant to say much and let them know that we won’t know until Monday what the magic envelope says.  Somewhere in Juarez, Mexico are my hopes and dreams, my husbands, my family and my friends waiting inside some envelope in the bottom of some box waiting to be opened.  

Of course I lay in bed but can’t sleep; dad will head out for Juarez tomorrow and be there early enough to open my future.  I wonder what the rest of our lives will look like. 

Time

January 25, 2012 Wednesday

My 6 month anniversary came and went without any news and in two more weeks it will be 7 months.  I wonder how much longer I’ll be stuck here.  I was sure I would be back way before the time it took my mother to get home and now it looks like I will be here far longer than my mother.      

Living from a suitcase

January 24, 2012 Tuesday

I used to go to camp every year and live from a suitcase for a week.  My mother always laughed at the amount of stuff I would take for just one week.  Now I’ve spent the last 6 months living from a suitcase and rolling like a stone from one place to the next.  Bouncing like a ball from one grandmothers house to the other.  Watching as people grow tiered of having a stranger live in their home.  

Slowly

January 23, 2012 Monday

Over the past three months of absence from this blog I have learned to knit, tried to volunteer for local political parties, taken photography, marketing and human development courses just to pass the time.  Nothing is working; the time keeps going by so slowly.