Woke up to a Facebook wall painted with Birthday wishes but not one from anyone in my immediate family. Not one from any of my cousins in Belgium or my brother or my nephews. All of my Ecuadorian cousins, however, have left their Feliz Compleanos' on my wall.
From my experience, Latins are much warmer than most cultures. I identify more with my Latin roots than my European ones probably because I live with my heart on my sleeve like most Latins. My mom was very much like that.
Birthdays are hard for me because I end up missing my mom all the more. She is the one who made a big deal about birthdays. She would make an effort to visit me in NYC or LA on my birthday. There were only a handful of times that she didn't visit me for my birthday and it was mostly towards the end when she got progressively sick.
Throughout the day, she would say, "__ years ago I was on my way to the hospital", or "__ years ago I was in labor." I was born at 7:00 pm east coast time.
When my mom gave birth to me she was separated from my father. My father accused my mother of having an affair with her friend Antoinette's husband. Of course, my mom would never do something like that. Aside from the fact that she believed sex outside marriage to be completely immoral, she would never betray her husband OR her friend. She just wasn't like that. But my dad most certainly would.. which is how he came up with that scenario in his drunk, paranoid, twisted mind. She left him a couple of months before I was born. They reconciled after I was born.
Ironically, I look more like my dad than either of my siblings.
After my mom died, I spent a lot of time with my mom's friends from Ecuador including Antoinette. My mom's friends were a major source of support both emotional and financial after my mom died. I had nowhere to live and they took me in and helped me come up with the funds to make it back to California.
My mom knew many of her friends from Ecuador but a lot of these friends had moved to Miami. This circle of friends were very tight knit. During the 60's and 70's, they'd have social gatherings and my father would always get drunk and beat my mother. Her friends told me that they had to stop inviting my mom because my father would always make a scene. This is the tip of the iceberg. My dad was a violent drunk, took it out on my mom and didn't care who saw. I saw him hit her or on more than one occasion. Once, my siblings and I had to pull him off of her when he was attempting to stick her face into a pot of boiling rice.
My father was not a nice man when he drank. If he hadn't been such an alcoholic, he might've been a better husband and a better father. When he wasn't drunk, he was very melancholy and would silently stare out into space. I don't have a lot of fond memories of him. He liked Clint Eastwood and used to take me to the movies whenever a new Clint movie came out. He bought me a car when I turned 18. Oh, and he got me drunk a lot when I was a teenager. I guess he felt that was the only way to "bond" with me during the two weeks of the summer that I spent with him.
I wanted to break my fast this morning. It's getting harder and harder for me to continue. Drinks are getting boring. I'm getting more hunger pains and I'm ready just to say fuck it and start eating raw kale. It's hard but I will keep pushing and hopefully reach my goal of 30 days.
My neighbor said in her card that we'd celebrate my birthday the right way when I was done juicing. That means good food and good wine.
Patience.
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