The Love Cave
I was raised by a single-mother of two boys and I was the youngest. We came to the United States after my Mom had enough of my Father’s infidelity. He had two other kids with two other women. I didn’t know this growing up. All I knew was that my family consisted of my Mom, my Brother, and I. When we first came to the U.S. from Nicaragua, we jumped from city to city. We started in Miami, went cross-country to Los Angeles and then finally made our way up North and landed in San Francisco, where we stayed until I was 12.
When we moved to San Francisco, we moved in to a one-bedroom apartment with my Mom’s best friend and her family. We somehow managed to squeeze seven people in it. I don’t remember much but I know that it didn’t last long. We soon moved in to our own room that we rented from a family friend. Our family friend was an older lady that was involved in a Spanish Baptist church. My Mom took us to church one day and we all really enjoyed it and felt at home. At that point, we began practicing Christianity routinely and going to church on a weekly basis. I think that was the beginning of how I came to realize that I was stuck in a love cave.
My Mom always sent us to all the church summer camps, as a way for her to make sure my Brother and I stayed out of trouble since she was always working. I always remember the Pastor, or the Sunday school teacher, telling us to only date within our own “kind.” For starters, they meant Latinas. Then they even got more specific by saying we should only date Latin Christian women. They even took it one step further: Latin, Christian, Baptist women where the only ones that I was allowed to date. I was so young and didn’t know any better.
I can still remember older gentlemen from church asking me, “So who are you going to marry when you get older?” I would reply, “A Latina of course.” Then they would ask, “ What about a white girl?” My response would always be, “No way.”
I can look back and see how this has always affected my love life. When I was 12 we left San Francisco and moved to this unknown city, San Pablo, which is nestled in the East Bay. Growing up from 12 to 18 I was in a prominently Latin environment. I mean, the white people were the minority. All the schools that I went to the race category broke down like this: Latino, Black, Asian, Other, and then White. White people were less than 5% of the student class. This also had a big affect on my love life. I’ve only dated Latin women.
I was in my late teens when I started to see things differently. I always thought that I would grow up and marry a Latin, Christian, Baptist girl and live happily ever after. In church, divorce was taboo and infidelity was even worse. So here I’m getting older and I start to notice that the married couples around me are having problems. I thought this wasn’t possible.
My Sunday school teacher had an affair with other women and ended up divorcing his wife. This was the man who I looked up to. I didn’t know what to think. A few years later, there was a wife and husband that cheated on each other with the spouses of another couple. One of the couple’s ended up getting a divorce and the other couple stayed together. The couple that stayed together just looked so miserable; you could tell that they only stayed together for their kids. Not for love.
I was young and so confused about love, relationships and religion. My faith in God has never gone away but my beliefs that I grew up with were questioned.
I’m now 32 and single and I don’t think I have had a true happy relationship. Either I find flaw or imperfection in my partner, or I fall for the wrong woman all together. I’ve never really been able to make sense of it all. I think now that I’m older I’ve been able to climb out of my cave. I always had puppeteers telling me and showing me only what they wanted and I’ve always felt restrained from whom I could date because of this. I can now look back into my cave and say that I’m out.
I'm sorry to hear about all the stuff you went through in your childhood. I know from my experiences that immigrating to another country is really difficult especially if you are young and have no knowledge of what is happening. It is unfortunate to hear about what happened with your role model since that was the person you identify or I’m guessing you had the most confidence with, but it is great to see the hard times from another angle. Your mother put you through camps because she wanted you to do something and not be in the streets. I lived my childhood in Oakland and thanks to my father I was kept occupied playing soccer rather than being at the streets. It’s also good to hear that you acknowledged your cave and you did what is necessary to get out because I think that's the best thing we can do to improve our lives.
ReplyDeleteIt takes a lot of work to determine standards for whom we want to date, marry, or develop a significant relationship. Your particular circumstances presented further challenges to that because you had religious as well as social and community influences affecting your perspective on this.
ReplyDeleteOne way to sort out all these influences is maybe to focus on one part of your story in the essay, applying your history with that form of influence to your current perspective now on what you believe defines a successful mate and relationship.
If you want to narrow in on feeling limited by cultural and social expectations, and how these influence us to behave or believe in certain ways when it comes to picking significant others, "The Stepford Wives" or "The Namesake" both explore this topic.
If you want to focus on familial expectations and approval, "A Place in the Sun" could work for your topic, or possibly "An Education".
It seems, though, like the big question of your blog is not so much how others define an ideal relationship and significant other, but rather how *you* do. Of numerous movies out there that explore developing and learning standards for a good, right, or "true" relationship, two of the best that I've seen are "Eternal Sunshine" and "Before Sunset". "Eternal Sunshine" comes from the perspective of a failed relationship, and what would have made it work. "Before Sunset" goes, with great depth, into the dynamics of a couple who really do belong together and what making that happen genuinely would take (that movie's a sequel though, and you'd need to watch the prequel "Before Sunrise" to get the main point-- the two might be worth it if this is an important topic to you).
One last movie to consider is "In the Mood for Love". It combines both factors, cultural pressures from without, the effects these have on the individuals' attitudes and perspectives on what it means to be in a relationship, and how to possibly break free of one's own shadows to develop our own standards for a soul mate. Check out trailers on some of these movies and feel free to follow up with me if you'd like to discuss the topic further.
Hello, I came across your blog and found it interesting that I can kind of relate to what you are expressing about relationships. I grew up Catholic and not knowing why I went to Church and who God really was. As I grew up, I found myself in a deep hole (metaphorically the cave), for example, my ex cheated on me. Cutting to the chase I was not happy because how my past relationships just scared me for life. This made me feel that I would never trust anyone again. Then five years ago I found myself going to a Christian church and totally fell in love with it, because it gave me hope. Not only that I got to know more about who God really was, but because this was the turning point in my life that helped me realize I shouldn't rely on my past that held me down from relationships, but be spiritually lifted out of the hole I was stuck in.
ReplyDeleteAfter meeting others at Church I found myself thinking about how awesome it would be to marry a Christian man. But from my experience it really never worked out. The only relationship I need is my relationship with God. Yes, I do doubt my faith sometimes and I screw up, but I know there is hope. You mentioned about all those people who cheated around you, that doesn't seem like true love. I think that people are not perfect, and from time to time stumble in life.