There he was….standing across the room. I hadn't noticed him at first, but there was a strange energy that kept directing my attention toward the northern part of the club. I tried my best to ignore it, but I couldn't….and I found myself now locking eyes with a stranger who somehow seemed familiar to me…
Here was the thing though. You are probably thinking that this could be "the one". That I was finally going to disprove that old wives tale that you could never meet your soulmate amidst the sounds of pounding bass rhythms and drunken missteps. And well, you would be right. Because this man wasn't my soulmate, but he would definitely change my life. Forever.
I always felt…different.
I was the last of four children raised in a strict Catholic household in Queens. My older sisters (twins) and my brother were the perfect molds of Catholic school children. They wore their uniforms in the proper way and their clothes were always immaculately pressed and without any foreign stains. Their shoe laces were tied to perfection and very rarely presented any type of fraying at the ends. They were diligent students who often studied together and praised one another when they got perfect grades. Their varying shades of blonde heads could often be found together in our study where they would be trading anecdotes and theories about experiments that they were voluntarily conducting or ideas that they were effortlessly tossing about. In between their study sessions, they would help my mother tidy up the house--dust; mop; wash; iron and fold. They were ideal students and children. They were perfection.
They were all these things. And I, was not.
I was born a "mistake". My mother never actually called me this, but it was very clear that I was not a planned child. Their family had been complete 8 years before I decided to show up. The twins were the first to come into the home and were a complete surprise to my mother who had only been "trying" to get pregnant for a month or so. Perhaps their dual arrival was sell suited to being first because my mother embraced the idea of having children with great zeal initially. She was super excited to prove how caring and nurturing she could be, especially growing up feeling as if she wasn't provided with the same type of love. She threw herself completely into "mothering" (as she did with any role she was trying to play) and doted on her lovely twin dolls without giving much thought to anything else. In fact, she immersed herself into the role so well that she became pregnant with my brother 3 months postpartum. Again, a complete but welcomed surprise, she relished the fact that she was excelling in her new role as mother and heralded the fact that the good Lord had blessed her with an amazing brood of children.
"The good Lord doesn't give us more than we can handle" she would smugly reply at her friends' amazement of how she could deal with three children under two. They would praise her patience and her happy children and well kept home. She worked hard caring for her children, her home and especially, her husband.
Her husband, my father, had his own business. His father was a painter by trade and my father followed in his footsteps. He expanded upon his knowledge of painting with some trade internships in different fields and soon enough had his own contracting shop. He began with some simple jobs fixing up neighbors homes and soon enough had exploded into larger and larger contracts until he began to secure city contracts and work in high-rise buildings. He was rarely home, but he provided the family with something that my mother deemed more worthy than a man being at home with his family: money. To show her gratitude, my mother doted on my husband in every way possible. She kept their home clean, their plates full & their children happy. She always looked neat and presentable and would never dare leave her home without a stitch of makeup. She never complained and rarely denied my father anything that he wanted. She was compliant, obedient and the best wife & mother.
For eight years their lives were picture perfect.
Then, November 7th happened.
I came into the world on a cold November morning. I had a head full of black hair that trailed down the nape of my neck and across my shoulders. For my fair-haired mother, this was a shock and when they initially laid me down on her bosom, she took one look at me and said to the nurse,
"I think you made a mistake. This one isn't mine."
The nurse smiled and reassured her that, indeed, I was her daughter and reluctantly, my mother allowed me to remain on her bosom as if I were a parasite feeding on her glorious body. The pictures my father snapped that day couldn't disguise the disdain on my mother's face and so I always have a reminder of my first moments in this world drenched with a sense of disappointment.
My siblings, on the other hand, were mesmerized with me. I was a stark contrast to their fair skin and blonde hair with my olive skin and dark hair but that didn't stop them from relishing their new roles as brother and sisters. They helped my mother take care of me and would often fight over who would get to feed me my bottle or put me to bed. They proudly pushed the carriage on nice days when we would all venture out and would watch over me like over protective siblings should on days when we went to the playground. However, the age gap proved to be something that worked against us in the end, because no matter how much bonding we had together when we were young, my three older siblings were always closer to one another and I always seemed to be the raven haired outcast.
You see, with my sudden arrival, our household seemed to turn on its head. My mother had become all too familiar with the nuances of 8 and 9 year-olds and had seemingly graduated from the school of infantry and toddlerhood. Her home didn't need to be baby proofed any longer and her schedule revolved around sleep filled nights and chore charts. Without much warning, she had to revert back to a way of thinking that she had all but forgotten. And so, there grew a small seed of resentment, deep within my mother. She was not used to doing things that she did not want to do and even though I was her child, and a being that she "loved", she did not want to be a mother to a baby at this point in her life.
Especially a baby that for some reason, made her tiny hairs stand on end.
For eight years their lives were picture perfect.
Then, November 7th happened.
I came into the world on a cold November morning. I had a head full of black hair that trailed down the nape of my neck and across my shoulders. For my fair-haired mother, this was a shock and when they initially laid me down on her bosom, she took one look at me and said to the nurse,
"I think you made a mistake. This one isn't mine."
The nurse smiled and reassured her that, indeed, I was her daughter and reluctantly, my mother allowed me to remain on her bosom as if I were a parasite feeding on her glorious body. The pictures my father snapped that day couldn't disguise the disdain on my mother's face and so I always have a reminder of my first moments in this world drenched with a sense of disappointment.
My siblings, on the other hand, were mesmerized with me. I was a stark contrast to their fair skin and blonde hair with my olive skin and dark hair but that didn't stop them from relishing their new roles as brother and sisters. They helped my mother take care of me and would often fight over who would get to feed me my bottle or put me to bed. They proudly pushed the carriage on nice days when we would all venture out and would watch over me like over protective siblings should on days when we went to the playground. However, the age gap proved to be something that worked against us in the end, because no matter how much bonding we had together when we were young, my three older siblings were always closer to one another and I always seemed to be the raven haired outcast.
You see, with my sudden arrival, our household seemed to turn on its head. My mother had become all too familiar with the nuances of 8 and 9 year-olds and had seemingly graduated from the school of infantry and toddlerhood. Her home didn't need to be baby proofed any longer and her schedule revolved around sleep filled nights and chore charts. Without much warning, she had to revert back to a way of thinking that she had all but forgotten. And so, there grew a small seed of resentment, deep within my mother. She was not used to doing things that she did not want to do and even though I was her child, and a being that she "loved", she did not want to be a mother to a baby at this point in her life.
Especially a baby that for some reason, made her tiny hairs stand on end.
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