I have always had difficulty neatly narrating the story of my life to people in one smooth running narrative and therefore often kept silent when others shared their lives with me.
Growing up, I lived two different lives, all at once. It all started when I was 9. I was living in Paraguay with my mom, dad, sister and brother. We had moved back there when I was 5 from New York City; my sister was just a newborn. Life was bliss living in Paraguay, we got to play outdoors, adults left us kids alone to run around in groups and the sun shone hot on what seemed like all days of the year. After I turned 8, my parents divorced. My sister and I moved back to the States with my mom and my brother stayed with my dad. The divorce was not traumatic whatsoever, for my experience of my dad was that he was a complete hothead who often took his temper out on me by chasing me around with a belt. One day I got spanked so hard that blood ran down my legs from a belt spanking. Therefore, I was giddy at the prospect of finally having some peace away from this abuse. My peace did not last long. My sister, mom and I moved to New York City where we settled in Jamaica, Queens, not the best of neighborhoods, yet, I did not know this then. My mom found work as a housekeeper for a very wealthy family in Manhattan; she did not speak English so her choices were limited. Worse yet, I did not speak English and school was not easy for many years. Soon after, and to the surprise of many, my mother remarried quite quickly and that is when my personal hell began.