Sin Zapato

And so it begins.

A Big Blank Page and a conversation that I don’t necessarily know where to start, or who to have it with. Maybe it’s you, Mamita. Or maybe it’s myself.

Lately, I’m stuck on a past conversation. One I had with my cousin, a man with whom I share ancestral blood and history, but whose real gift to me has been his friendship, the thing we’ve engaged in by choice, in the here and now. It has often kept me tethered. Connected. Sane. I often call him Brother.

About a decade ago, Brother moved through something internal so seismic, triggered by I-don’t-know-what, it completely changed his way of being in the world. This change included his way of being with me, too.

“I’m not sure who this guy is,” I said to him one worried night, not entirely knowing how to engage him anymore. Of course, I respected the boundary, did not want to make his internal dialogue, battle, exploration, whatever it was, about me at all. But I was also wanted to be honest. To understand how to be with him. And underneath it all, I was sad and afraid that the other guy I’d known for 40+ years was gone forever.

“I’m not sure who this guy is either,” he responded. “I feel like everything about me is on the table. I don’t know what’s gonna stay or go.”

It’s about a decade later. We’re still close, but the relationship has changed. I can’t define which parts of him stayed, which ones he discarded, what inner voices or whose counsel he followed. But really, even if I could define them, I’d let him be the one to tell the story. So I’ll leave that there.

The important thing here is that recently, I find myself in his shoes.

As the days did their yearly sprint from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s, and as my insides succumbed to that quiet, somber pull I can never seem to avoid, I did what most of us do, which is to try and talk myself out of it. I clung to gratitude. Broke bread with friends and family. Went to a show. Even made my way to the gym a couple of times. And still. The pull.

And where I found myself on those quiet nights on the couch, recovering from this or that gathering, was in that conversation about a decade ago with Brother. Except that this time, the table was in front of me.

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, maybe triggered by a million events over the span of a lifetime, or maybe just by a couple of unkind interactions with people I thought I knew well, I find myself looking at this spread, aspects of my Self, and wondering what’s gonna stay and what’s gonna go.

I find myself wondering who I was before I was taught to be anything. Before the desirable parts were applauded and the undesirable silenced.

These ingredients are baked in, I think. No longer separate, I don’t think, but something different after being thrown into one cauldron and held over the high heat of 58 years of life. But I can call the parts out as they appear, as the world outside has tasted them. The ones I hear often are FUNNY, THOUGHTFUL, STRONG, SENSITIVE, PATIENT. Whether I carried these things from stardust to Mami’s uterus to the world, or was applauded for them so often that I added more of it to my mix, I don’t really know yet. For now, I’m just noticing what happens to my gut when I taste each word.

I’m also noticing that they’re not all on the table yet. They’re sneaking up on me, like the one that popped into my thoughts last week: NICE.

Am I nice?

The word had that awful aftertaste. I couldn’t say it without making a face. And so I looked back. Just a bit. And found that it might have been the reason I didn’t make waves. Or speak up. Or swing back. Or hold accountable. Nice may have been why I said yes, when I really meant no.

Was a born nice? Because it suddenly felt…unnatural. Saccharin. Fake.

In fact, it may have done more damage than I care to examine in this moment. And so it has to go.

That’s where my new year begins. Everything on the table. We’ll see what else is gonna go. And what’s gonna stay.

All my love, Mamita. And cheers to your Truest Self.

Susu

P.S. This picture of Bitty Me is one of my favorites. I love the short hair, the sloppy belt, the wide stance, the unselfconscious stare. I look to her for counsel, as I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t nice yet.