Green-Eyed Monster

Two weeks ago, my family and I attended a cook-out with my high school friends. Some of them I had not seen in over 25 years but the minute I stood among them the shy little girl came out. I love my friends and I love that many of them I've known since kindergarten but all the insecurities suddenly rendered me motionless. As I stood in the kitchen listening to everyone talk, I was thrown back in time. I was always the quiet one wishing in my heart that I could be funny one, the popular one, the athletic one, or the beautiful one. I remember being the silly or weird one, because that was who they saw me as, I embraced weirdness and that's who I became. 

My low self esteem is what created the jealousy in me, as it does to many young ladies. It grew as I became a teenager and a young adult. It was what kept me from smiling or shining. I never felt good enough for my friends, my family, or even myself. As I started dating that monster grew into a terrifying giant. My insecurities drove me to my madness. It caused me to lose friendships and relationships. 

In 1992, I began working for the YWCA after-school program, that is where I met my husband, Hector. After we were introduced our friendship began and he made me feel confident and beautiful, no one had ever made me feel that way. Our conversations would last for hours but it seemed like only minutes. He could make me laugh like no other. From our friendship a romance blossomed, and that was like a fairy tale. Hector was the one person who had managed to kill that green-eye monster. I never doubted his love, his loyalty, and his strength. 

Now here we are 21 years later, our marriage has had it's ups and downs just like any other marriage. He continues to make me laugh and he is the by all means the head of our family. But because of some of the bad times in our marriage and maybe because I'm getting older that monster is back and I do not have the strength to fight him off. I am back to the being the shy little girl.

What I have come to realize is that I can not depend on my friends, my family, and my husband to fight that green-eyed monster for me. So put up your dukes, I'm ready for you.

Are you married?

"Mom when is your wedding anniversary?", I asked my mother when I was about 10 years old. I was excited for the answer because a friend from school had mentioned her parents were married on Valentine's Day; even at the early age of ten I knew that I also wanted to get married on Valentine's Day. They say every little girl dreams of her wedding day, I don't remember dreaming of my wedding day but I did know that I wanted to be married.

Unfortunately because of TV shows, I believed that one day I would grow up to be June Clever or Mrs. Brady. I wanted the picket fence, the 9 to 5 husband, and four children. I wanted what I was about to lose. "Mom, when is it?" I continued to ask. The response I got not only knocked me off my feet but broke my heart in two. "Mom!" "Look Marisol I don't have an anniversary because I am not married to your dad and I wouldn't want to be married to that SOB." was my mother's answer. I fell flat on my bottom and I didn't move for several minutes. I didn't know how to feel.

The love my mother gave us I know was above anything I could ask for but the need for "The Brady Bunch" family was what I heart yearned for from that day on. As the words came out of my mother's mouth the view of my life, my family changed forever. The saying goes, what you don't know will not hurt you and to a certain extent it is true. I knew my family was far from perfect, my parents fought, my dad drank, and my older sisters did not look like me but that day my mother's bitter words opened my eyes to my true life. I became ashamed of family and ashamed of myself.