Dear Dad,
A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about you. It will be two years since I’ve seen you in person and my heart aches to see you again. I miss the snacks and drives to the beach with merengue blasting through the speakers, late night trips to buy ice cream and shopping trips until we dropped. I won’t miss our fights over equal rights, conservatism and how the patriarchy is rampant in Latin culture. I do know that you mean well but I do wish that you can become more with the times. You watch a lot of modern shows but it seems like topics such as race relations and sexuality don’t stick with you at all. I understand that you want me to be strong and independent but you need to understand that I’m a triple minority and I can’t just push and shove my way into the things I want; that’s not me at all. I am kind, sweet, and polite. All the advice you’ve given me and all the anger I inherited from you make me afraid of becoming a villain like you did. How you prayed over dinners and for our family’s health, I pray that I don’t end up like you, flip-flopping emotions and making my own children have to be as cautious around me as I am around you. Like a magic spell, I tell myself that I’m a good person and I do good things because I know, just like you, there’s a dark side to me that I don’t want people to see. I keep the mask on to hide my true anger. I don’t want to boil over and become a hurricane in my own home, destroying furniture and lives. I’m a good girl, I’m a good person, and the times you told me that I was ungrateful and a nuisance hurt me but I didn’t care. The black hole I threw my anger into became bigger the more insults I received but I would let it swallow me whole if it means protecting what I believe in. I would rather become a martyr than to grovel and submit at your feet. I am kind and strong. Those words aren’t antonyms; they don’t exist on opposite ends and I need to you understand. I have the capability to cause immense harm and pain, but unlike you, I can control it much better.
Dear Mom,
In an alternate universe, I would’ve been your mom and given you all the love and care you deserved in your childhood. You deserved to be carefree and happy in your younger years so they didn’t spill into now. I am glad that I am able to support you during this rough patch in our lives but sometimes I wish we could have a normal mother-daughter relationship. I wanted you to give me makeup advice, period advice, advice on boys, but all I got was a visitor’s pass to adulthood with entry date 2007. Other mothers would stand beside their daughters whenever something bad happened to them but you were always against me until it was convenient to you. I never wanted to be your knight in shining, oversized armor; I wanted to be a princess standing alongside her mother. I became a knight, knowledgeable beyond years yet as naïve as they came. You made me become something I didn’t want to be and when I slowly sought out my truth, you looked away, abandoned me, threw me to the dark forest. Were you sad that you were slowly losing your grip to me? I fought back with my father’s inherited anger and it gave me the strength that I thought I would never achieve as a girl. But after the smoke cleared, all I saw was you cowering in fear. I didn’t want to hurt you like my father did, but sometimes I felt like it was necessary. Why couldn’t you keep your focus on me? Why can’t you understand that I was a girl who needed her mother? I fell behind my fellow peers and catching up feels like ripping vines from my legs that claw my skin. You’re holding me back and you need to let me go, but how could you let me go if you didn’t teach me anything? A bird who was never taught to fly gets pushed out of the nest by a mother who wanted the bird to find her food. As the bird hits the ground in a loud splat, the mother bird becomes disappointed that the bird died. Does that sound right to you? The baby bird was innocent. I am innocent. I wanted to be a princess but you made me become a knight who hurt you.
Dear Big Bro,
I am so thankful to have a big brother as kind, sweet and thoughtful as you. No matter how mad or pissed I get at you, I know you mean it well, it’s just that I struggle with giving away control, and I thank my lucky stars that you will always have my back. I hated how much freedom you were given compared to me. You got to stay out until sundown, playing football or doing parkour with your friends, they got to come over, you got to help dad with carrying stuff and with fixing the cars. I had to stay quiet, learn to be compliant and be a little housewife but I yearned to be like you. I loved to watch you play video games and learned that it wasn’t a gendered hobby. Hours of watching you play brought me comfort and the nights of you playing online lulled me to sleep better than music did. You gained your independence first and I watched you like you were the brightest star in the sky. Earning your license, finding a great job, college, and going wherever you wanted inspired me to work hard too. But I was shocked that I had to work twice as hard to make it as far as you did. Like Dad and I, you also harbor a dark side. I watch it fester and swirl around you when you and mom fight and I see it in your eyes when you tell me to take care of myself better. I know that we share a fear of becoming like our dad, and I’m waiting for the day when you truly snap like a psychotic doctor observing a lab rat. The day came and it was your time to shine but you cried. Years of being jealous of the oldest son as a youngest daughter broke away when I saw the small child crying for his mom to hear him, just like I saw my inner child cry for Mom. You carry so much responsibility as the oldest son and I’m so sorry that it took me this long to realize. I understand why you had to disappear with friends, into work, and school. I was mad at you for being distant with Mom and Dad but as I reach the age when you disconnected yourself, I feel the urge to do the same. Thank you for being so strong for so long and know that you can depend on me like I do you.
Dear Big Sis,
Seeing you grow up alongside me is both a blessing and a curse. I’ve watched you work endlessly hours on end for years to reach where you are now and I couldn’t be more proud. Sometimes, I wish that I could be your older sister so I can repay all the love and care that you have given, and still are giving, to me. As the younger sister, I never felt like I have to keep up my knightly façade because with you, I get to be a true kid. Eating junk food, watching Disney movies and walking around talking about anything makes me so happy. You were more of a caring mom than Mom was to me. You actually hear my feelings out instead of disregarding me, you help me eat and encourage me to try new things rather than telling me that I’m too pretty to be upset or giving me something else to eat. You were parentified so young and I wish I could swap places with you so you could’ve had a better childhood. I watched you become an adult in your teen hood and when having someone to spoil me was fun, in retrospect, I wished that I could’ve spoiled you instead. I’m slowly making it up to you, no matter the protests. When you left, I was sad, the one person who truly understood what I was going through was gone and I struggled to reach put since you had so much on your plate; I didn’t want to be a burden to you like how mom made you do when we were younger. I wanted my big sister back so bad but being across the country made it hard. As I was the knight, our brother, the Commander and you were the Chancellor, giving aid to our parents in even more of a capacity than I did. While I distracted myself with childhood toys and games, after being relieved from my position helping out mom and dad, you became their sole helper. I was alleviated from their inane questions about simple topics and having to remember such sensitive details but I never thought of how it affected you. I understand why you let me stay childlike for as long as I needed and why you had to leave as soon as you had the chance. I was angry, upset, and betrayed but being wiser, I wished I had done the same. My dearest sister, I wouldn’t replace you for anyone in the world, no matter how bad our fights get because I know that you’ll always be there to protect me and I’ll be there for you.
dreamscape 