I forgive you, mom

I remember since I was a little girl in Mexico, my parents used to always introduced me to other people as their “special” daughter. I never liked getting the attention of anyone but that statement right there would cause attraction. I never questioned why my parents would introduce me with that adjective, maybe I was too little to understand, maybe I just wanted to be obedient. I spent more time with my mother at home then with my father. I was almost like a doll for my mother. A rag doll. She always told me I should obey her otherwise one of my arms will become stone and I would not be able to write. Another time she will tell me I should obey because if not, people would see I was too ugly to be even human. Long story short, I lived in fear and I opted for being obedient. Sadly, I believed my mother for so many of my early years.

Inside me I always felt different though, but I could not understand why. I was very smart in school; books were my most precious treasures. I would read books almost like drinking water. My books were my life, my only freedom. Every time I read I would be the heroine, I would be the victim, I would be the pet, I would be the tree, everything. After putting my books down, I would imagine I would travel to all those places where the words would pick up my imagination and I would feel free. I did not have the mental weight of my mother telling me all the things I could not do, all the things I could not be, all the bad names she would call me when she was mad at the world and would take it on me.