Winter was already gone. After the long interlude, the first flowers in my garden had begun to bloom.
It had been a rough periodo. Some seasons are colder than others – of that I am sure. But spring has definitely returned and a nueva oportunidad has arisen for me. So starting over no longer seemed like an ilusión, and, though I was excited, I couldn’t avoid feeling frightened and confundida.
This fear has haunted me my entire life and I was never able to escapar from it. Yet, beginnings are just part of the curso we are meant to take as humanos. They are beyond our thoughts and wishes, and ocasionalmente they’re exactly what we need, although most of the tiempo we are forced to believe otherwise.
I still remember my first winter as a child. My padres had recently divorciado and I didn’t quite understand why they were fighting over almost everything. They barely got along, and I had to slip away to visitar my father’s place because my mamá didn’t approve of his new partner. It was realmente frustrante for a little girl like me to realize this complicated stuff going on between adultos. But in the same naive way I learned that other boys and girls in my school came from familias separadas. So I could just be a kid when I realized that marriage doesn’t always last forever as we are meant to think at a young age. Those happily-ever-after endings from Disney filmes were just a ficción. There’s some punto in a relación when love and respeto are left behind. Of course, I wished this could never have happened to my beloved padres, but it was totally out of my control, and though I tried not to let it afectar me, the fact is that I felt realmente miserable.
Jess also comes from a familia disfuncional, if I can call it that. Her padres got divorced when she was still in elementary school, just like me. Perhaps, my mamá and hers are so alike because of that. They have never been in another relación since they split up with our fathers. And for about as long, Jess and I have been trying to get them out of that bubble they decidieron to live in. They need some male compañía and sexo, for God’s sake!
Carol didn’t experience that kind of separación between her padres, but she faced a situación much more horrible indeed. Her dad died when she was very young, and I can’t describir how much pain she went through because we have never been able to talk about it. What I know for sure is that the ausencia of a male figura in her life has made her stronger and even wiser. But, of course, that doesn’t change the fact that she misses having her father by her side.
Liz has been luckier in this sense. Her padres are still together after twenty something years of marriage. They are a bit crazier, by the way. However, it’s so pleasant to see a copule of that age that still preserva the same espíritu that made them fall for each other in the first place. And that is what love is all about. I wish I could find that someone to get old and gray with while still having fun with him, no matter our diferencias and personalidades.
Obviamente, that guy was some place I hadn’t had the pleasure to visitar yet. And though I usually ask myself: “Pat, where is he?”, there are momentos in our lives when a girl just needs to be alone. And for the first time in a long periodo I felt relieved, not only from my stressful chemo tratamiento but also from my relación pasada. Just a few more weeks were required to feel like myself again.
(…to be continued…)
2021: Conceived – Volume 2 of a Contemporary Transadaptation
January: The Pack – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
February: The Pink Shirt – Talia Stotts (America)
March: Dragging the Past out into the Light – Kate Korneeva (Russia)
April: Looking Forward to Spring – Marilin Guerrero Casas (Cuba)
May: Every Little Thing – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)
June: The Girl Who Chased the Rainbow – Toni Wallis (Sarah-Leah Pimentel) (South Africa)
July: Another World – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
August: Life after Nare – Nane Sevunts (Armine Asryan) (Armenia)
September: Meeting My Homeland – Rayan Harake (Lebanon)
October: Catching Water (Part Two) – Javier Gomez (Argentina)
November: Remember – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)
December: I Can’t Breathe – Veronica Cordido (Venezuela)
Background – Context
In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Cover photo: Holguin, Cuba – The boulevard – William RG (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed