A friend texted a couple of days ago and said "I wish you'd write more on your blog. I love reading your words." I told her I had nothing to say, really...
But the truth is, I have too much to say and no strength to. There is a constant threat looming over me...I'm already withdrawing again from everyone. I know what comes next. It's happened before...
When I first moved to the US, it was almost too much for me to survive. Yet, I did. I was a freshman in HS, it was December and my mother was really sick. She had several complications from a routine surgery and coupled with her severe anemia, her blood levels dropped to the point that the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for her. They gave me those news at the hospital on a Thursday after school. I looked at her...she looked so full of life yet...tired? I wanted to break everything in sight or crawl on her lap and cry. I had lost my grandmother not that long before...why was this happening to me? I went to school the next day, no one knew anything and I didn't want to talk anything about it. It was Friday. It was a beautiful, sunny, breezy, island day. I spent the day laying under a tree in the schoolyard, sharing headphones with a friend as he talked about Dragonball Z. Dad picked me up after school and told me on the way home we were leaving for Pennsylvania that night. To pack light, because we were going to Allentown to stay with his sister while we tried to save Mom.
I arrived at Newark, NJ...Saturday at around 3 a.m. Mom being pushed on a wheelchair, and two feet of snow on the ground outside. I've hadn't seen snow since I was 4. I couldn't even experience the giddiness a person gets when they first play in the snow...I ran to my aunt's van, still wearing my flip flops and light tee shirt I left with from Puerto Rico. We sped off in the night. That's when I first felt that pang of homesickness that would never go away. Even in the middle of a dark night, nothing felt like home outside. Nothing felt like home inside the van either. Silence, tension, uncertainty. The next couple of weeks, I struggled to adjust in more ways than any person, at any age, should. The relationship between my parents and my aunt was strained, and we were constantly reminded we were there as a favor. No compassion. No warmth. This wasn't the aunt I remembered from my childhood. Maybe the US changes people, I thought. But we ate when told to, bathed when told to. Everything on a schedule, on the dot. Everything rationed and portioned, even though my dad got a job immediately and was buying the groceries for the whole household with enough food to spare. Daily visits to doctors, me sitting in waiting rooms by myself. I was kept out of everything. Dr. Matta's office became my hang out 4 times a week. A 14 year old, reading Highlights magazine for children and making friends with the little kids that came for pediatric visits to the doctor that shared the office.
Two weeks after arriving, just before New Year's, my parents come out of the doctor appointment and into the waiting room. Dad pays the copay, and helps Mom put on her coat and we walk in the usual zombie haze to our little beat up Horizon hatchback. I cram in the back seat, all 5' 9" of me, and sit sideways, shivering and wondering if it ever gets warm in PA. The silence in the car tells me that once again, a bomb is about to be dropped on me...and immediately my stomach churns...nausea. "We are staying here longer than we thought, Yari. Mom's treatment is going to take months. Probably until April. So we're going to have to enroll you in school...", my Dad said. Panic. Panic. Cold. Panic. I wanted to dart out of the car and run. Run away. I can't stay here. Not that long. I need to go home. To my family. To my house. My bed. My life. They wait for me to process the news, and I look up and notice Mom is staring at me from the side, rear view mirror, studying my face. She looks so much better already...and she looks apologetic. So sorry that she is the reason this is happening to us. How can I let her think she's a burden? No. She comes first. How could I have felt so selfish for a couple of minutes? I'll just go back home in the summer. I can do this. I force a smile and say "I want to go buy new notebooks then...", and the mood in the car immediately relaxes. That same afternoon I am sitting in the counselor's office, going over my classes and already they're trying to bump me to an English as a Second Language class. I calmly explain I'm fully bilingual, I can manage just fine in regular classes. He looks reluctant, and decides to bump me back a grade because "Puerto Rican schools are slower than US schools...You're probably in elementary school math and science." I feel my anger rising. I feel judged. I feel labeled without even given a chance. So, I tell him I'm in advanced English, Math and Science and have a 4.0 average. Just give me a chance. He sighs and does so, arrogantly. I'm given an ID and a locker number. I'm given books and I begin classes in two weeks.
By New Year's we have our own apartment and I spend my days dreading the upcoming school semester. I write a lot of letters (no computer...no emails...) to my best friends in PR and I get so many replies back...asking when I'm coming home, if I like it, that the teachers were so sad that I was gone, that my chair was empty, that my house looked so sad with no one living in it, that my dogs were given away to the pound, etc. With each letter and bits of news, I felt a part of me die. One of my best friends, Rebecca, happened to be visiting her family in Patterson, NJ for New Year's...and just like that she had someone bring her to my house in PA to stay the weekend. For 3 days, I was alive. When I opened the door to my apartment and saw her face, I just hugged her and cried until we were both spent. It felt nice to be missed...remembered...loved. We saw the ball drop in Time Square on the little tv in my room, and huddled in my bed under several blankets with a tiny heater keeping us going. She left on a Monday, and another piece of my heart crumbled right along with her departure.
School started. I had no friends. The news from home, my old school, my family...became too much to carry...so I stopped writing letters and answering them. I stopped calling my friends. I started avoiding their calls. The letters slowed down...stopped. The phone never rang anymore...and I was walking 17 blocks in frozen temperatures to school in the mornings. Ate lunch alone, took notes in class, looked at my feet when I walked the halls, got bumped into and was pretty much non-existent. By the time April came by, I didn't even bother asking my Dad if we were going back home. He was so happy with his new social worker job and a newer car. "I'll never go back to PR to bust my back for money." Mom got better, so at least I had that. She tried talking to me, but I just spent most of my time in the room reading old books I'd find at yard sales or listening to music. Days, weeks would go by without me talking to anyone or opening my mouth to say anything but Yes, No, Excuse me, Please and Thank you. I even refused to call my grandfather, the light of my life, to see how he was. I couldn't stand to hear anyone's voice. I hated myself for being far away. I hated my dad for leaving us here. I hated life. I withdrew. I shut down. I disappeared. The only thoughts I had the remaining time I lived in PA was "It's cold..." Everything else, I forgot.
To this day, anytime something starts hurting me or when I'm feeling homesick...when I hear news from home or my friends try to reach out to me because they miss me, I just retract...hide...because I cannot handle the pain in my chest and stomach of having so much to say...but no point of saying it.
Tonight, I'm homesick for more than just home. Tonight I'm lonely, for more than just company and friends. Tonight I feel the pull of that quite, safe cave where no one can hear from me and I can be away from the world. The peace. The detachment. The throwing in of the proverbial towel. My white flag is ready to fly desperately through the air. Surrender. Leave me be.
Tonight, it's cold. I miss you.