Happy Anniversary

We were always together. Yes we had those separation issues in between long drawn out regular life together that would throw us off a little… but for the most part we were always together. Living in Mexico with a tourist visa that expires every 6 months with so many children can become quite an expensive lifestyle over the years. Now it is time to slow down and stop the fight for our marriage. It is funny that today is our anniversary and we are 2,000 miles apart. When we were married in the courthouse it fell roughly a week before one of our visa expirations, so our honeymoon era consisted of calls from a Pennsylvania phone to Mexico. We were separated 5 months then because of the strike in the schools in our state in Mexico. The kids attended the first part of the school year in a school in PA from my sister’s house. They stayed with her during the week and came home to me on the weekends. We were avoiding the school district close to my father’s house, where I was at, because of their real father was randomly knocking on the door, so I was constantly having to duck away from the windows despite the permanent restraint order and loss of parental rights to my children. The police were finally notified, and even though they didn’t do anything, he is known by most of them either by acquaintance, or pouring their concrete, or because his whole family is in and out of jail due to public indecencies and confrontations. His cousin works in the school administration building, and at the time I just wasn’t strong enough to deal with him. So we arranged for them to stay with my sister in the city and me on the weekends to save ourselves from being sucked into any drama. I lived in a pack of cigarettes, burdened with extreme anxiety. The next year we only left Ricardo’s side for a 2 week interval, which ended up as a nice visit to see my family, including my 2 children who live permanently in Pennsylvania near my parents. I was pregnant at the time, and it was a secret because our life was really frowned on by certain people, especially for me to be popping out another child. So next time I returned was to give birth. My kids were set up in the dining room with their cyber school and we finally made it back to Mexico after 3 months. My husband has missed both of our babies’ births, first steps, and many other things that most couples take for granted. I have missed watching him come home from work with a smile and a slap on my butt or a squeeze with some romantic passionate Spanish that he whispers while he bites my neck as we both laugh and enjoy each others’ state of being alive and in each others’ company. I used to look at other couples, you know the ones that live separately, and say to myself, they don’t even have a real marriage… they are just emotionally crutched on this ideal marriage that doesn’t even exist. I figured that they were sad individuals to be so lacking in the vibrancies of their own lives that they would just accept the situation and not just move on to find passion. Why keep stirring the smoking ember. Is this what it has come to, for Ricardo and me, one of those couples? We are holding on to our past so that we might possibly have a future? I am living with my emotions so pushed down that I am not even noticing really what is going on around me anymore. It is like I want everything to freeze in time until I see him again. My children are growing and changing, but I am reluctant to give it too much of my focus for I fear I will be admitting that we have different lives now. How he is maintaining his aloneness is something I question – not every day, but often. When I ask him, you are fiel no? I have to take his answer of “I love you baby, me never no ladies” as it is because the only other option would be to what, not believe it? And what? I stand in line in this rollercoaster holding my breath waiting for what comes at the end of the line. Anticipation keeps the days flowing from when I crawl out of bed, until I crawl back in. My 4-5 hour nights are more than likely aging me more quickly than if I would sleep regular hours, but I have not had a decent schedule since we have been apart. We left for the USA in October. That was the last time we were a family… this is June. The babies and I went for a 6 week visit in February. It seemed like a longer period of time while we were living it; totally business as usual, minus the other kids. He is getting antsy about us not being there yet. The kids’ school year ended last week and we are still here. I had a problem with the bank. Yesterday he said “for what you are not in the Mexico right now mother fucker”… I don’t take that word to heart because his English is tainted by a construction site in America as his teacher… he uses it more of an endearing annoyed state of mind…. Torn… My daughter is having a graduation party in the middle of July. She deserves the world, and I am totally willing to give her just that. Then there is the fact that this is our time to be a family with my husband. School will start in fall, I will need to get a better high paying job. This is the time to go, not later. I do not like to be one of these types of couples. I don’t like to be a mother that comes and goes. I most certainly do not dragging my kids all over the creation like a bunch of gypsies. I am tired and I just want to be a family, I don’t even care where. Sometimes I just want to move up to his abuelita’s farm and not worry about the world. But he says “baby I am to lazy to live on this land, hay mucho trabajo, too much working…” and I realize he is right. He is not lazy, but he loves his TV time while we snuggle up together. It is all a vague memory and is not even my life right now, just like memories do, they are behind me, part of me, but not in the equation of my day as I sludge forward through the stress. Ugh. I am numb from it all. Happy Anniversary husband, we will play catch up with you later.