Spring
Marilin Guerrero Casas
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 endure 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 had never 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 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.
I didn’t know how much stronger I was until I found out about my disease almost two years ago. I wasn’t ready to live my life this way. I believe no one is. It is just easier when you are a child and your mamá takes you to the hospital and you don’t even realize how serio your health condition is. But when you are aware that you can actually hurt people for something you don’t even have control over, that is what I call being up against the wall and feeling realmente awful. I think that is one of the major beneficios of being a kid. You don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff because that is what adultos are for.
I can say for sure that I had a happy childhood. Being raised by your grandma, because your padres are so busy working, gives you a much broader perspectiva on having fun. Today, my grandmother doesn’t even remember her sons’ nombres; she’s just too old. But at that tiempo, she was, like every other grandma, meant to spoil her grandchildren in every possible way.
My friends and I had a talento impresionante for música and we were so eager to start our own business in the music industria that we had a very strict schedule to practicar our rutinas. I played the piano and sometimes I sang together with Carol. Her younger cousin played the guitarra and my cousin played the drums. We were about 10 years old and we really rocked, and since the instrumentos weren’t reales, I can say our work was of gran mérito. Don’t you think?
Carol and I also had tiempo to write our own songs, and ocasionalmente we were so entusiasmadas that we wrote our own historias, instead of songs. Today, Carol ha publicado her first poetry book, and, as for me, I have some poemas somewhere in my house waiting to be published. So this writing hábito wasn’t a waste of tiempo after all.
In real life, I didn’t become a músico and I can’t call myself a writer either, but from time to time I come up with some ideas and I put them on paper while I listen to some nice música. And it just feels awesome.
After a long tiempo, I began to work again. It took me a while to embrace the new air in the oficina, but, as you know, I easily adapto to any circunstancia and place. In the morning, I still worked for the same institución gubernamental that I used to in the pasado and, in the afternoon, I had a few estudiantes willing to continuar their language lessons at home. If you look at things from this ángulo, not much had changed, but the truth was quite a bit had.
My ex had turned out to be an absolute asshole. At first, he was realmente supportive during my periodo de tratamiento but who wouldn’t have been? Either way, when he decidió to start a relación with another girl who I happened to know, it was realmente the end of an era. But despite all the crying and all the unpleasant talk that comes with the goodbye, life was sending me a mensaje claro: He wasn’t the guy for me. Who was? I didn’t have a clue. I wished I could be a child again and fool around with boys without worrying about these heart issues.
Of course, I wasn’t a child anymore. I finalmente had to let my brain take charge of my life for once. I didn’t want another relación seria por el momento. It was tiempo de explorar the single territorio without taking any risks.
All of my friends weren’t exactamente in the same posición, but definitivamente they knew better. Though Carol was married, her husband was still living in the U.S. and from time to time she needed social interaction as a balm for coping with distancia and loneliness. The truth is that she’s always been a kind of free-spirit girl, with or without a husband. Liz was seeing someone, but it hadn’t gotten serio yet, which didn’t surprise me at all. However, something was realmente diferente about her. Did she care too much for the guy? Perhaps. And that’s what she was most afraid of. Jess was also involved in an open, loose relación. Really shocking, isn’t it? Coming from her, I never expected it. Sometimes life can be a metáfora, and people are just allowed to get their own mensajes out of it, dependiendo de las circunstancias and the way they think. So, let us know your new version, Jess, so we can be of better help in case you are mistaken.
I started to think about my dating posibilidades when I realized that I kind of enjoyed taking the tiempo de decidir what or who was right for me. Of course, I had some prospective candidatos. As soon as you are single, they manage to appear irracionalmente and sorprendentemente. I met Jim one day when I was leaving work early in the afternoon and he happened to be at my workplace arranging some exposición de arte for his friend who was a very popular artista in the ciudad, very popular indeed, mainly among the women; something I believe comes with talento. Jim was disturbingly handsome: long, straight hair, perfectos lips and powerful, penetrating brown eyes. I wasn’t sorprendida when he told me he was an arquitecto. Certainly he was. The way he dressed and his “I do what I feel like” estilo revealed too much of him. The atracción was immediate. It was tiempo de relajación and fun with a bit of romance, of course. That was just me. We spent great nights together drinking wine, listening to Ed Sheeran songs and having mind-blowing sexo. But things began to get more complicadas than I thought. And suddenly I was involved in another relación when I hadn’t even asked for it. Life can be very impredecible sometimes. When you don’t want things heading in one dirección, somehow they mágicamente wind up the way you didn’t expect it. And I couldn’t help but wonder, do we always need to take control of our lives or is it sometimes better to follow the path that some fuerza sobrenatural has designed for us? Well, if you believe in destino…then you have your answer.
The guy Jess was seeing turned out to be married and with a child coming soon. In otras circunstancias, Jess would have never dated him, but in fact, he was much older than her and had some tricks he played awesomely to his beneficio. The guy was a kind of técnico working in a hospital. He was tall and good-looking and he actually knew how to tratar a woman in bed. So, Jess inmediatamente fell for him.
Carol started to work for a publishing house together with her mamá. Though she estudió hard to be a doctora, it was about tiempo to do something else she was also good at. Now she is busy and making some good money while waiting for the required papeles to leave the country once and for all. She’s been in this place for quite a long time, and her marriage isn’t working at all. La distancia is just something difícil to deal with.
And what about Liz? She was definitivamente exploring the “I’m in love” soil and she never felt more out of her zona de confort. She knew for sure the guy wasn’t of the marriage type, though she didn’t believe in marriage either. But his impressive dating background turned out to be an alarma for her. We don’t know how the whole thing is going to end up, but for now just let her have good sexo with someone she realmente cares about.
At first, I was terrified of telling Jim about my disease. That is just something I will learn how to deal with over time. To my sorpresa, he already knew almost everything about me. So when did you do the research, boy? I was an objecto de investigación and I hadn’t even noticed. The truth is that I had already done my research too. Who hasn’t? When you start seeing someone you really like, that’s the first assignment in your detective work. Thus, Jim and I began to talk about death like something natural because, indeed, it is. Today you’re alive, but you don’t know about tomorrow. And whether you are sick or not, you can die anyway anytime. The key is supervivencia. So, for the time being, trying to enjoy life to the full should be every person’s filosofía.
Jim had experienced the death of a very close relative when he was young enough to realize how painful and disruptive the evento could be. His grandfather had been his role modelo for a long time and saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest momentos for Jim to cope with when he was still a boy. Now, he tells historias about his grandpa and always remembers him with affection and love. As for me, I was just a bebé when I lost three of my grandparents and though I have plenty of old family pictures, I can barely recall what they were like. I guess I wasn’t lucky enough to share any tiempo with them and somehow I feel bad about it.
Jim was a gentleman, always had nice, exceptional gestos towards me. He wasn’t the kind of guy with a flower bouquet and a romántica card but he managed perfectamente to surprise me in so many other ways I never expected. The fact is that we don’t always need the words to feel the poesía. A few weeks after we started dating, he already knew what he wanted: to live together. Of course, the one who wasn’t sure was me, but I had this cute guy offering me the kind of seguridad económica y emocional I hadn’t experienced before in any of my relaciones pasadas and I had longed for since I was 20 years old. What I was afraid of I didn’t know. Maybe it was the short time we had known each other and spent together. But now I actually had the chance to start a relación transparente y genuina: one without lies, mother-spoiled hábitos or planes futuros that didn’t include me. This time I was in the plan maybe because Jim was an arquitecto and he knew so much about diseño. That may be just silly, but what I know for sure is that I felt awesomely good helping him draw the líneas.
Liz and Jim knew each other from college. They had both estudiado the same major, so I had some referencia to tell me more about him, but I already knew a lot. Jim was still married to another girl he had spent the last five years with. Of course, he was no longer in love, and they had split up a long time before I met him. However, there’s always some parte of you that changes every time you end a relación. Perhaps that is why he is sometimes a bit jealous and dominante and even distrustful. But nobody is perfecto and over time I will learn to love his flaws.
What I didn’t like at first was the idea of Jim being married to another girl while he was involved in a relación seria with me. After they broke up, they never got divorced because it was a kind of insurance policy for Jim to leave the country. The girl’s father was living abroad and as long as they were married, they could both get the required papeles to travel as a couple. It is unbelievable what cubanos are somehow forced to do in order to get a visa for the U.S. or any otra nación. Anyway, I wasn’t comfortable with the situación at all. At that time, I was trying to picture my near futuro with somebody, and I couldn’t see myself in it. Was I making a mistake by letting Jim get into my heart this way if there was no posibilidad between us? Would it be selfish to tell him not to go? I wasn’t brave enough to stop him from doing something that might be a great oportunidad for him. Los arquitectos are well paid everywhere in the world, and Jim was a very talentoso one. Afortunadamente, I never was in the posición to ask the question. They happened to get divorced a few weeks after Jim and I began to call ourselves a couple. I didn’t know if it was fate or the law of atracción acting in my favor. The truth was that I wasn’t realmente preparada to get the answer nor experience another cold season. It was too soon for me.
Initially, my friends didn’t think it was a good idea for us to live together. They thought it was better to wait until Jim and I saw if things worked out between us the way we wanted to. I wasn’t sure either, but I believe that it is something couples have to figure out for themselves. Of course, my girlfriends had the right to juzgar. They have always been there for me, and every time one of us breaks down, we have provided each other with support and compañía. But it’s kind of a relief to know that your friends will respetarán your decisiones and love you no matter what.
Being a kid is something epic: no worries, no doubts, no important issues to reflect on, no health problemas, no love matters. But being an adulto can be so much more interesante, especialmente if you have familia and friends by your side who incondicionalmente care about you and, of course, someone amazingly extraordinario you can love and be yourself with. Winters can be hard. Some of us think of them as the worst season of all, but they are so much more bearable when you are looking forward to spring. So, keep holding on. Life is so much better when you don’t easily give up, when you fight strongly for what you believe in. And I believe in hope.