Next time, don't come.

A year after we moved to America, my mother, faced with the burden of supporting me and my sister and herself for the first time in her life, had a kind of nervous breakdown.  One day, she dropped us off at school and disappeared. 

Over time, I've begun to wonder if abandoning us was a strategic move or surrender. Make of it what you will.  I don't suppose I'll ever know and I have tried with all that is in me to make that time a minor episode rather than a pivotal event in my life (I've been to therapy, I know there's damage). 

No one wanted me or my sister.  We got shuttled from one relative to another.  Years after my mom came back and life got better, I refused to see the relatives because seeing them made me hate my mother and reminded me of being unwanted. 

For three months or so, my sister and I stayed with my cousin CB in the Bay Area.  She couldn't keep us for reasons I didn't understand when I was 13.  Who could blame a person for not wanting to take on two adolescents? She never knew what to say to us, me especially. She watched us do our homework, she picked up my textbooks and my dictionary and studied my vocabulary words. Cousin CB began to study the dictionary the way I did. This probably sounds silly to Americans but to immigrants, learning new words is a big deal. 

One day she said, "Do you know what vex means?" Yep. 

"Do you know what ejaculate means?" She meant the other definition -- to exclaim, to yell. 

And so CB and I developed a way of talking to each other by using malapropisms and hyperbole. She used every opportunity to use the words vex and ejaculate. And even though it stopped being funny, I laughed every time.

Then one day in June after the school year was over, CB apologetically announced that my sister and I were moving to L.A. to live with other relatives.  My sister and I were driven down in the (covered) flatbed of a pickup truck to Carson, CA where another cousin's ex wife lived.  She wanted to take us in.

I avoided CB for years.  I eventually moved to the Bay Area as an adult and she called me repeatedly to ask me to visit.  At first I said no and then eventually stopped taking her calls altogether.  It was not until I moved to New York that I became comfortable around her again.  Each time we talked, she talked about those words and I faked a laugh.  No fail.  

This year, my cousin Danny's family moved to L.A.  His wife F is much older than him, religious and conservative and uncomfortable with my family's kind of excess.  His children are awkward and shy.

One day over the holidays, my brother asked me, "What does finagle mean?" So I told him. He tried to use it in a sentence, incorrectly.  So I corrected him.  He tried again. Bingo.  Then I told him about Finagle a Bagel in Boston.  My mother started laughing and making up stupid things just so she could use the word finagle.  My other brothers joined in and so did my dad.  After we wore the word out, I told them about CB, how she used to say vex and ejaculate all the time. 

This made everyone hysterical.  Cousin's wife F sat there staring in disgust while we laughed when one of my brothers said "F., you look so mad. We're just joking around. Please don't ejaculate."

Our mother, out of politeness, said, "Don't talk to your cousin like that.  She's not used to us." And then she started laughing again.

A few days later, we all drove to the Bay Area to CB's house.  CB looked at me (we had not seen each other in at least four years) and said, "You never visit even though I know you come to San Francisco every year. I am vexed." 

My mother and my brother said in unison "Don't ejaculate!"

F walked right out of the room and CB said "what's wrong with her?" 

That was the end of that.

This entry is about to get overlong and repetitive.  It's been a trying day.  A emailed wanting to get together.  I said no but I felt like shit about it.  M called and I didn't answer.  Instead I went home and tried to cry.  I was unsuccessful.  

I wonder now if my sadness is more intense than it was six months ago. I keep saying it hurts less but I realize I'm working too hard to not feel bad. The hurt is not so visceral anymore. Now I feel humiliated and reproachful and rational. Bitterness coexists rather peacefully with the longing.

It's probably fair to say that everything I wrote above has always been in me but it's only now that I can face it.