life altering experiences
08.24.04 // 11:45 p.m.

I feel emotionally drained.

When I said that this trip could possibly be life altering, I really didn't know how. On the way to Guanajuato from Mazatl�n, I had this weird feeling in my stomach.

Today, I started to cry as my t�a Jes�s started talking about my Grandpa Bartolo, her big brother with such reverence. It shouldn't surprise me that someone would love a sibling so much, but it just overwhelmed. After awhile, I couldn't even look up because the tears were coming and I didn't want my aunts and uncles to get concerned.

On the way back from Morelia, a big city in Michoac�n about an hour and half away from Salamanca, I figured it out.

I pretend to know all sorts of things about immigration and my family, but the truth is that I didn't know much, especially from my father's side of the family.

As a kid, I never realized how emigrating to another country really disrupts things. Even as an adult, I took for granted that my immediate/nuclear family was all in LA and almost of all of my extended family on both sides was in LA and Southern California. I didn't know that there was such a thing as second cousins and that my parents had cousins and aunts who loved them as much as my own primos hermanos and t�os y t�as love me.

So, I cried because I felt cheated, and I feel like my father was even more cheated. I wonder what it was like to live in LA when all his uncles and cousins lived in Guanajuato. And I feel sad that I probably won't get to see all these really wonderful second cousins, aunts, uncles, and t�a abuelas (great aunts) for years.

I really do know myself better.

I've seen the factory where my Grandpa used to work. I know that my thick lips come from the M (Grandpa) side of the family, and I know that my love of music and love of learning are distinct B (Grandma) side of the family characteristics.

I don't know why it took me so long to make this trip. What was wrong with me?

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Me siento: drained
Escuchando: the fan

M�s reciente:
Searches - 09.16.05
the big move - 07.29.05
mother and daughter: a comparative analysis - 07.28.05
jardineros y dom�sticas - 07.27.05
tough question - 07.25.05

antes // despu�s


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