Monthly Archives: April 2016

A decision every day

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Dear Ruth,

How dare you avoid me?

(This is a real question, really, how did you do it? Sometimes I want to avoid myself)

I do not want to talk about my trip to Colombia on this letter because that is going to be a really long story and it has a sad ending. I rather rant to you about marriage today and leave the immigrant rant for another letter (it’s coming though, I got so much bitching to do)

I want to respond to your question of getting ownership of your feelings and thoughts. I absolutely think you can, but it is not going to be fun. First of all, I am polyamorous. I cannot really relate to the idea of jealousy in romantic relationships. What are you jealous of? What are you worried about? That they’d leave you? That someone prettier would come around? I don’t get it man. I do know about trust in relationships. Relationships are based in decisions. People wake up every day and choose to stay with YOU. You don’t own Elise, she can look at whom she pleases and talk to whom she pleases. She can wake up tomorrow and say: FUCK THE LEASE! I AM OUT! But she has not. And she may never do that. You just have to accept that she chooses you every day and will continue to do so until she wants to. You cannot win her over, you cannot earn love. This is not a competition: you vs all other gayz. This is a partnership.

Whenever you feel jealous, count the days that Elise has chosen you. The times she has gone out of her way to please you, say thank you to the universe for ten things she has done that make you happy. By the time you are done, you won’t remember what you were jealous about.

Trust is not never being jealous. Trust is getting past those fears and insecurities and knowing they’d choose you again.

We are just so different Ruth. Like I cannot comprehend the way you think about marriage as security. My parents are married to this day and it has brought nothing but unhappiness to each other and their children. A lease, a marriage contract, paper and more paper. I can relate to the thought of “I choose this person to be my closest of kin” , this makes sense to me. The way you list an emergency contact on forms and applications. You have someone. In this sense, I get your idea of marriage. You have someone, undoubtedly. It is the certainty that they have your best interest and your happiness in mind.

But this statement I have a problem with “This person is my anchor. This person is my home”

It mostly has to do with my growing up without a family or an anchor or a “home”; feeling still like home is a foreign concept that may never make sense to me. When I broke up with my ex, I went through a whole process of re-accepting this “homelessness”. And I came across this poem:

you can’t make homes out of human beings

home warsan shire3_900someone should have already told you that

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are terrifying

and strange and beautiful

something not everyone knows how to love.

By Warsan Shire (here’s the whole poem)

So what happens if the anchor lifts? You drift. What happens if you want to navigate away from port? The anchor holds you back. I am not okay with this. I am the captain of my soul (also a poem).  I have had too many “homes” to believe that they would last more than five years. I promise, I am not cynical. I am actually very romantic. But as a friend, I want you to go into this thinking:

a new contract every day, a decision every day.

Trace and I are coming onto a one year anniversary of our very first date. I have never been with anyone so different to myself. Half the time, I am almost certain they would leave. And I am surprisingly okay with it. They have been consistently around for the last five months and have made me very happy. We have had conversations about moving in together and marriage and such. We agreed to seriously revisit the concept when we have been together for a year.

I am doing better in terms of stress (or trying) the game plan was to reduce the number of commitments I currently have and make alone time to recharge and1461865314292 recover. It has worked well so far. I had a very abusive roommate (he’s a little psycho though, like not all there) who harassed me on text every day and yelled at my guests and threatened to have me evicted (after I gave moving notice). It was making me feel very unsafe, called 911 several times. This was definitely not helping my stress levels. But now I have moved and I am pleased
with my apartment, I have more space and more privacy and no harassment whatsoever. My biggest problem is Toby pooping in the house, but currently working on that. 

I am also making a fairy garden in the small yard we have in the back. Its going to be so beautiful. I will send pictures when it’s done.

I cut my hair recently, what do you think?

1461865196031

Thank you for putting up with my weirdness. I will write to you again about Colombia, and privilege and goals and being an immigrant. It’s on my mind right now but too stormy to make a decent post out of it.

Love,

Nora

PS. Yorkies are perfect. Great for allergies, small and well behaved. I approve.

Choosing one another

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Dear Nora,

I have to confess.. I’ve been avoiding you a little bit. Not really deliberately, but if I’m being totally honest it’s because as I’ve been thinking about the question “why marriage” I am having trouble coming up with a good answer for you.

So instead of waiting to reply until I can offer a nicely packaged response, instead I will offer you just my scattered thoughts on the subject. First, a few quotes:

“that’s the most beautiful thing in the world: when two people become fluent in choosing one another.” -HB

“Why do we choose partners so different from ourselves? It’s not fate, chance or clichés like ‘the heart wants what it wants’. We choose our partners because they represent the unfinished business from our childhood. And we choose them because they manifest the qualities we wish we had. In doing so, in choosing such a challenging partner and working to give them what they need, we chart a course for our own growth.” – Modern Family

That I can tell you—if I know anything about Elise and I, it’s that she helps me chart my course for growth. But somehow, simultaneously accepting me, 100% as I am in this moment. I just think marriage offers you “security” (I know divorce…  people break promises and are human and fail… all that crap…)—but it is someone saying to the world, I choose this person to be my closest of kin. I choose to work through the hard parts of life with them. I choose to share the best parts with them. This person is my anchor. This person is my home.

spring

Spring <3

Elise signed her first ever lease with me. She had previously just rented rooms, or lived with someone who owned a house, or somehow just got by with out ever having to make that legal commitment. So it was a big step for her to enter into a binding contract with me. NOT that she couldn’t get out of it, there is always a way out if you really want out. But by her taking that step with me, it demonstrated that she was “in this” with me. That’s what marriage is, x1000. Not a one year lease. But looking around at this crazy world and crazy life, and saying “I’m in this with you”. You could do it and mean it just the same without the paperwork, and there is always a way out, contract or not. But the act of publicly and legally binding to that person, it’s a demonstration of that commitment. It’s the act of doing that that adds the meaning, not the paper itself.

I know what it’s not. It’s not someone responsible for your happiness. It’s not your “everything” (no one person will ever be able to fulfill all your needs, nor are they supposed to). It’s not a fairy tale.

One more quote for you. Actually, this one is a poem:

What love isn’t

It is not a five star stay. It is not compliments and it is ever ever flattery.
It is solid. Not sweet but always nutritious
Always herb, always salt. Sometimes grit.
It is now till the end. It is never a slither, never a little
it is a full serving
it is much
too much and real never pretty or clean. It stinks – you can smell it coming
it is weight
it is weight and it is too heavy to feel good sometimes. It is discomfort – is is not what the films say. Only songs
get it right
it is irregular
it is difficult
and always, always
surprising.

– Yrsa Daley-Ward

I’ve been fighting some of my more infuriating and possessive demons this past week or so. God, how I long to be free of them. Jealousy is like a puppeteer that laughs at me fighting my strings and makes me look like fool. I’m tired of the game, and I want out. I want ownership of my thoughts and feelings again Nora. Do you think I can get that back? I am determined to.

Your panic attacks sound terrifying. How do you handle that? Those moments of losing control, and knowing you’re not crazy, but also knowing something is sweeping over you that is bigger than you—something that can’t be reasoned with?

Have you come up with a new game plan to help with stress?

Trace sounds like a lovely person, and I’m glad you have them as a support, as well as some good and growing friendships. I think owning the identity of agender seems brave and beautiful and freeing. But also probably really hard, in practice, because our world is so binary with gender—even our languages! People get so uncomfortable with things they can’t categorize in a clearly labeled file folder.

I have people that feel permanent in my life, namely my family, especially my siblings who are my favorite humans in the world and get me and accept me in a way that I could never replace. I know permanency is an illusion and no one is truly permanent in life. People come and go and change and grow together and apart. Or sometimes a friend moves away and falls off the face of the earth (I’m so sorry that happened to you, friend), or gets married and has kids and everything changes. With friendships, I’ve had people revolve in and out over long timespans, and I think that is ok. A few have really stuck in my heart, and I think will be around “for good” in one way or another, but I guess time will tell. That is one of the bigger things I am learning to accept.

My dear, your story is anything but boring! I can literally not even imagine my 16-year-old self handling everything you went through. Sixteen-year-old Ruth was just going to youth group, swim team, and obsessing over The Lord of the Rings and Princess Diaries. My greatest challenge that year was AP U.S. History. So, if that tells you anything…

I want to hear about your trip back to Colombia! Details please.

Your friend, Ruth

P.S. Seeing pics of Toby makes me miss the little fur babies who’ve been part of my life. I am currently petless, but I know Elise & I will remedy that hopefully sooner rather than later. She wants a yorkie. So… that probably means we’ll be getting a yorkie (the girl gets what the girl wants).

Of why I came to America

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Dear Ruth,

The pictures of the tree house are EPIC. They’re the most reblogged post in our tumblr page.

Thank you for taking my craziness into consideration and writing such a lengthy Echo Park, Los Angeles and educational reply to my ranting. Things got worse before they got better. I had a panic attack at work and the boyfriend had to come pick me up. Well, they did not have to. They chose to pick me up because I mentioned I did not feel safe going home,I did not want to be unsupervised. When I get panic attacks I get kind of paranoid and I think everything is out to get me. Oh, and I cannot stop crying. It’s not fun and it’s not pretty. I am also not crazy.

I am gratefully doing better and sat with myself in the park the other day to write some things down and prioritize. I have way too much in my plate right now. The stress level is escalating and it will only get higher if I want to apply to school this summer. I really need to come up with a game plan.

When it comes to mental health, it is very important to have the right support and the right strategy. “Winging it” is a really really really bad plan.

I am glad Elise has you as support and if you ever not know how to deal with it, feel free to ask away.

In the love life, I am looking to date but have not met anyone that catches my eye lately. I am very in love with Trace and I am enjoying it. Did I mention Trace is agender? They recently changed their pronouns to they/them/theirs and I am adjusting to it. We settled for the title “boyfriend” or partner because they are the home depot type.

Ruth, I am glad you asked about my move to the states. It’s a really boring story but it’s a big part who I am since moving here shaped me so much.

My mom is a minister. Her dream job is to preach the gospel and get paid for it. She’s also an educator, that’s her day job. My mother has two sister who emigrated to the states when she was very young. One those sisters, also named Nora, is a devout christian. My aunt Nora’s church used to have a pastors conference every year during the month of April. In 2003, my mom received an invitation to attend the conference and my other aunt had the idea to include me on the letter. I was very involved in my church and was a minor so it was very likely I would get a visa.

Alas, the American embassy gave us an interview for a visa the week after the conference and it would not make any sense to even attend the interview. But my aunts in New York were very invested in seeing my mom in the states. They had not seen her for like 30 years so they talked to the church and they issued my mom an invitation for a different event in June that year. Our visas were approved and we came in June 2003. My mom stayed for a few months and went back to Colombia in August. I did not see her for a few years after that.

I lived with my aunt Nora for about a year and a half but we did not get along and it was hell. Then I lived with another aunt Mary for another year-ish. I moved out the winter after I turned 18 and never looked back.

It’s a pretty lame story but that’s the gist. The only interesting part is how I made this decision. In December 2002, my mom asked me if given the opportunity would I live in the United States with my aunt. I said yes instantly. I was in my last year of High School and I was aware there was no money for higher education. My father is completely useless and my mom was struggling to carry my sisters community college. My future after school did not look bright or promising so i was given a way out and took it. I also hated my parents, so everyone wins.

This remains to date the most important decision of my life and I made it as a child. I am not sure why this was left up to me

or who thought it was a good idea to send a teenager into the wild alone. Yes I lived with relatives but I had never met them. They did not feel like family, still don’t. Being alone in this country has made me the strong independent invincible woman that I am today. But I was not always this person. I had to survive the loneliness and the abandonment. Had to figure out life, adulting, education, health, basically EVERYTHING. Alone and in a different country. I do not recommend it. I would not send my children away to have a better future.

This is getting long but to answer the rest of your questions:

Do you still keep in touch with them?

Yes, through whatsapp mostly I don’t like talking on the phone so internet is better

Have you ever gone back?

I have been back once and it was interesting. (Would you like details?)

Are your closest friends with you in California? or still back in NY?

My closest friends are in NY. I am starting to make friends in California. I have made a really strong bond with one friend named Pixie. There’s a friend Stephanie who I dated a while back in NYC who now lives here. She’s great to have. I hope to keep growing a circle. Even though I am not sure if I am staying here.

Do you have people in your life who feel “permanent”?

No. I had one friend named Sofia who felt permanent but she decided to dump me in 2014, after six years of friendship. Bitch moved to California last December and STILL did not hit me up. That has made it really hard to trust friendships. My Best friend Iris who is in NYC is healing most of that wound and she is starting to feel permanent even though we are apart.

I hope this answers your questions Ruth. Feel free to keep asking.

I still want to hear about the “m” word though. Trace and I have discussed moving in together and agreed to revisit the idea seriously when we have been together for about a year. I saw this article in Autostraddle about the pace of relationships and how it is different for everyone and not an indicator of ANYTHING. Made me think of you and Elise who went from dating to wife-ing in less than a year.

I hope the ice has melted completely by now in Portland, and that you are finding fresh vegetables in the hipster markets you are always visiting.

Toby desperately needs a haircut, buSnapchat-7584283940234007677t he says hi.

Thank you for being a good friend.

Love, 

Nora