So, anyway, I'm the oldest of my cousins, the oldest girl, the one that graduated first, the one that when I was 4 years old everyone fantasized I would turn out to be a Miss Venezuela.
In a country focused on beauty, it was natural for people to wish a girl to be a beauty queen, after all they get to travel the world, and if you are smart enough, and this was my take on it, you may turn into such a personality that you could become the major of a very popular city, a human rights authority, hell, even more frivolous things such as singers and actresses.
The thing of course is that I never did embrace the 'Beauty Queen' Concept. If there was a definition for Tomboy, my picture must be beside it. I actually have to remember myself everyday to be femenine; I spent my childhood running after my brothers or from my brothers, pinning them down, beating the bejesus out of them, climbing, jumping, bruising, scraping, breaking and yes, the ocasional small explosive in the paint can was also observed.
Its the wonders of living in the country: no one cares as long as you don't burn the plants, kill a cow or maybe, just maybe, burn someone's stash.
The thing of course is that I never did embrace the 'Beauty Queen' Concept. If there was a definition for Tomboy, my picture must be beside it. I actually have to remember myself everyday to be femenine; I spent my childhood running after my brothers or from my brothers, pinning them down, beating the bejesus out of them, climbing, jumping, bruising, scraping, breaking and yes, the ocasional small explosive in the paint can was also observed.
Its the wonders of living in the country: no one cares as long as you don't burn the plants, kill a cow or maybe, just maybe, burn someone's stash.
So being 27 now (oh my god...) having had a list of relationships with an expiration date no longer than 6 months and so many plans still on my waiting list; because I'm the oldest, I'm expected to surrender to my femeneity and do what my mom had already done by now, and what, yes, my grandmother wants... Have children.
Children.
Children.
Small bundles of joy that shoot out of your body demanding food and care and your time and love and parents and who knows what these days, cause kids are all kinds of special and complicated and generational and you name it. Children, but oh no lets correct that, Greatgrandchildren. Because the whole deal is that Grammie wants ME to have them. Not my brothers, not my cousins; ME, because I came first.
And I go like this...
1) I'm still not over someone pulling a feeding tube out of my stomach. A feeding tube, it hurt, but aparently is nothing compared to giving birth, I don't want more pain for another couple of years, thanks. The manager.
2) I don't have a boyfriend. And in this subject I realize I'm the most girlie, probably naive, "read-too-much-fanfic" kind of person... I will not settle for something other than swept off my feet, painfully exagerated in love of this person that I haven't met and have no clue where it is. Believe me, I've looked, I still feel that maybe lives in another country.
3) Even if I went to a donor, which I won't, its out of the question. Even when I adore kids, I practically raised my little brother, babysat all of my cousins, and many stranger's kids. Even when kids love me because I throw them in the air which apparently is so freaking thrilling, even then, I don't want kids for now.
3) Even if I went to a donor, which I won't, its out of the question. Even when I adore kids, I practically raised my little brother, babysat all of my cousins, and many stranger's kids. Even when kids love me because I throw them in the air which apparently is so freaking thrilling, even then, I don't want kids for now.
And believe me, I've felt the clock, ticking, back and forth, its annoying, deafening some days, and I find myself gazing at baby pictures, baby furniture, baby clothing, baby diapers, and me and my friend, who's about my same age, we sat that one day in my bed, sighing at these baby programs and said to ourselves, "Fuck, we're doomed"
Is that in this day and age, EVERYTHING got delayed. It normal to get married at 35, babies at 40, yet, triumph and goals and money were somehow pushed earlier, 'cause everyone aparently is now expected to be a billionaire by 25, and be smoking hot, and own stuff. So to those like me that are 27, that the credit card company calls every week to find out about my payment, that freelances to not say that is unemployed, that are single, still planning on some extra education and with so many other dreams unfulfilled and that are stuborn, so very stuborn, these parameters are so unrealistic and conflictive. Time sometimes feels as if is not enough to please everyone and yourself.
So my grandmother wants to have greatgrandchildren, and that puts me in a timeline, since she's 82 and not getting any younger, and she's bored, and specially, jealous. "Why?" you may say... well my grandfather had them, her friends have them, the friends of the friends have them, and they all have pictures, and baptism parties, and baby showers that set her own clock going too... the one that tells her its time to have new blood in the family and the one that tells her, that unfortunatelly, there's not that much time for her to wait around until I gather my crap and streighten my mess.
Is that in this day and age, EVERYTHING got delayed. It normal to get married at 35, babies at 40, yet, triumph and goals and money were somehow pushed earlier, 'cause everyone aparently is now expected to be a billionaire by 25, and be smoking hot, and own stuff. So to those like me that are 27, that the credit card company calls every week to find out about my payment, that freelances to not say that is unemployed, that are single, still planning on some extra education and with so many other dreams unfulfilled and that are stuborn, so very stuborn, these parameters are so unrealistic and conflictive. Time sometimes feels as if is not enough to please everyone and yourself.
So my grandmother wants to have greatgrandchildren, and that puts me in a timeline, since she's 82 and not getting any younger, and she's bored, and specially, jealous. "Why?" you may say... well my grandfather had them, her friends have them, the friends of the friends have them, and they all have pictures, and baptism parties, and baby showers that set her own clock going too... the one that tells her its time to have new blood in the family and the one that tells her, that unfortunatelly, there's not that much time for her to wait around until I gather my crap and streighten my mess.
So, I tell her, "you're not going anywhere, anytime soon." She crosses her arms, wrinkles her forehead (if ever possible) and says "you think you have the devil by the beard, don't you?"
Honestly, I have no clue what she meant by it. Maybe that I think nothing will happen, that I'm invincible and so are others, maybe that I can get away with everything, maybe all of those options or none, but the truth is that the timeline that is set for us based in pre-exisiting agreements you don't remember signing, have clashed with the changes in our current society... and my grandmother just won't understand.
She thinks I'm a spinster just like my aunt, that at 50, just found her 'sweep of her feet, heartbreaking, pasionate, overwhelming, curling toes, heated love' that she was looking for. At 50, where the contraceptive is menopause, and retirement if not a dot in the horizon but actually the house 2 blocks over. A whole life it took, and in her own standards, she's happy. Of course, she was not the oldest, but then again my oldest aunt, never got married, and yes she's the cat lady, only that she hates cats, and has 16 dogs.
Today, my grandmother brought the subject up again, and completed with the spinster comment, my dad was in the room. The terrified look on his face said it all.
No matter that I graduated with honors, that I'm fairly good looking, that I know 3 languages, that I've traveled a fair part of the world, that I understand computers, that I can write a line or two, that photoshop doesn't intimidate me, that I've lived by myself for 10 years now and survived 2 holds ups, no matter that I have these dreams that i want to come true, when it comes to being a girl, and being the oldest, and so many other little details... You must stop at some point according to this family and say, "hey I have to get serious and procreate."
No matter that I graduated with honors, that I'm fairly good looking, that I know 3 languages, that I've traveled a fair part of the world, that I understand computers, that I can write a line or two, that photoshop doesn't intimidate me, that I've lived by myself for 10 years now and survived 2 holds ups, no matter that I have these dreams that i want to come true, when it comes to being a girl, and being the oldest, and so many other little details... You must stop at some point according to this family and say, "hey I have to get serious and procreate."
So this is my Schedule for the next 10 years, since is aparently necesary:
(feel free to compare it to Rachel Green's guidelines to getting hitched)
2009: Get into AFI and move to LA (no matter what, this is not negotiable)
2010: Get a scholarship for my second year. I'm going to be broke.
XF3 should begin shooting, and I should be offered a job picking up the kleenex, or distributing gum, of just going to get machiatos with maple syrup. SOMETHING.
XF3 should begin shooting, and I should be offered a job picking up the kleenex, or distributing gum, of just going to get machiatos with maple syrup. SOMETHING.
*During this year it would be nice to find "someone" I mean, I'm not asking to get married... yet, but waking up every morning alone, its getting old.
2011: I'm supposed to be graduating, so expect that to happen, also... if any kind heart wants to sponsor me as a talented professional to stay in the US, that would be swell. I too think that by this time, Obama has solved the economic problems, brought back the troops, fixed the Guantanamo mess, ended the commercial block on Cuba 'cause Fidel died and Raul couldn't care less if dictatorship stayed or not.
2012: Hey... XF3 has to premiere sometime... 2012 would be smoking but if there's time to make XF4 I wouldn't mind... a girl can dream and be obsessed about Xfiles. I should had either mantained a relationship by now, I mean, I'll be 30!!! And maybe, just maybe, I can have a good careeer going by now...
So, if the mayans are wrong, and we survive Dec. 21st 2012, I would think of marriage and a good date for me to have babies, would be 2014 to 2016. 32 - 34 yrs old... its not bad! Do you think that if I present this timeline, my grandmother would approve????
2019: I get my house in Malibu, and visit the philemune every weekend with my philes in training, while producing the next great blockbuster.
If anything were as easy as I came first, its my right to have this or the other, I would ask for the right to stop the world, cause is suddenly going too fast.
