love

I know how to feel it, how to love …but what is it?... is so vague.

Love you people though.

My husband brought me lots of chocolate just because, one of them was 80% dark cacao, mmmmm and the other one was a milky Cadbury mmm, and then this one from Bloomsberry & co. for sharing…

_{almost the perfect sharing bar, but could be better…uh?}

Sometimes so hard to love them sometimes so easy…
We grew up with them and they think they know us, they let you feel safe in some ways but they also threaten to shake your world because they know where to pull the rug, they know where to hurt.

I’m blessed with a nice set of brothers and sisters, it is amazing that we managed to survive together under our parents’ roof and not take each others’ eyes out.

I remember when our parents would leave our 11 y/o sister in charge of us, she was set on making my 10 y/o brother disappear, he after all came to steal her milk bottle and her mother’s arms, and he was according to her, the reason why our parents kept bringing more people into her world.
If she accomplished getting rid of him, she would continue with the beautiful girl that stole daddy and the pesky me who unbalanced it all, she didn’t hated me as much though because she only had so much hate and by now it was all concentrated on the older two, I don’t think she even noticed I was born.

My nightmares of the time where my oldest sister chasing my brother with a chair to toss at him while her eyes gleamed in red…oh wait that was real life, my nightmare was when she succeeded…because thank God she never did, I think she just wanted to rule by fear.

I consider myself neutral in the quarrels and rivalries; they came to me to complain about each other while I just shrugged.
I mean why would I complain if I was wearing someone else’s socks… or playing pranks on all of them?
They unfortunately had more jealousies and grudges to get over.

While I was the youngest for 9 years they had a lot of complaints against me that were beyond my reach to change…it was up to my mother to stop protecting me and spoiling me, who is going to tell their mother “give me more chores! Is not fair they have more!” or why did I get the biggest cake piece??? I wouldn’t complain if someone else got it, I was the youngest I was allowed to just steal it…kidding!
No but really, I grew up assuming I was lower rank because I was youngest, the older people had more rights, that was the way it was, so when I got rights they didn’t like it …oh well!

My brother was always noble but always…a brother! Ugh, he loved to make us all scream and chased us with bugs and put his foot on Mona’s (oldest sister) room to make her squeal causing the house to tremble and making my mother climb the stairs with the weapon of fashion that week to chase after my brother, it would go like this…
Brother puts foot inside the perimeters of Mona’s room, Mona screams: GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!!!! MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!! GET OUT GET OUT!!!! She tossed toys against him while he kept the foot in…
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!
My mom making soup or something would scream back, Guero leave your sister alone!!!! She AAAAAAAHHH WAHHHHHHHH WAHHHHHHHHHHH MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Brother uhu uhu laughing…
Finally mother coming up the stairs, the stomp different that her usual light flutter of slippers, in her hand a wooden spoon, or an orange hose, or a racket, or the pink fly swatter, or the stick with the nail sticking up, or the belt, the shoe, the rolling pin, or the cutting board…whatever was “in”
When she was near the middle of the stairs my brother would say…hay nanita!! And run… sometimes if the squeals stopped my mom would go back down stairs in a lighter step…then as soon as she reached the bottom….MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!! Mother had gone back to the soup so she ignored that. MOOOM MOMMMMM SQUEEEELLLLL AHHHHHHHH!!!! HE IS IN MY ROOOM!!!
Stomp stomp again reach the top…brother runs, mother after him, all while Gaby and I covered our ears and sat quietly hearing nothing but the stomp of our own hearts, me secretly hoping he would get away which was most likely once he reached the tree and climbed it up. However after those episodes the mom would easily snatch at things like: mom? WHAT??

We didn’t mind our brother coming into our room, until he started picking his nose and smearing the contents into our bedspreads or our wall. I inherited his headboard when he got a new bedroom set, and I had to sleep backwards to avoid going to bed sick and having buggy nightmares.

I discovered that by not shinning on the school I had more fun and they expected less, I was happy when I got good grades, but I didn’t cry for a 95 like my poor older sister who had high expectations of herself.
I’m so glad she did, and I would encourage her because as a younger sister I inherited her marked text books and her already filled in work books, and beautifully finished homeworks.
She played the piano and I got a good ear thanks to her studying, a lot of my inspiration to draw and paint came from her playing, people kept telling me I drew some spooky pictures.
I help convince my mom to let her put the piano on our bedroom so she could study in a quiet zone…it was great/terrible; I had days where I regretted this so much because she would play when I was sleepy, but I also got to invent my own music when she was not there and none of the grown ups would pass and say…don’t you think you need lessons?

My baby sister came to save me from being a target and became my favorite toy, she was also my best public laughing at all my jokes and watching me dance or play with her toys as if it was a puppet theatre.
She looked up to me which was not always cause of my mother’s joy, since she didn’t want to get called to the Principal’s office with this one.
She threatened to take herself away from our lives by being born with a faulty heart thus making me attach to her even more in the fear of ever loosing her.

Then came my baby brother, he was beautiful and adorable while baby (he grew up to annoy all of us), he like my baby sister owned me and I was as much of their toy as they were mine, I was closer to them than the older ones who had abandoned me to do teenager stuff.
I had so much fun with them, we traveled trough space and time wrapped in the curtain, we traveled to the chocolate kingdom in the dark downstairs bathroom; thankfully we never fell into the mot or we would have found the chocolate crocodiles; my sister confessed to me that she believed every word I told her and she was always hoping to get some chocolate to eat from the king’s hand, but this happened only once because my finances were those of an allowanceless 12 y/o, so the chocolate had to be imaginary.
We also went to different countries using the magic globe, following with pictures in encyclopedias, my brilliant sister learned information such as places with their capitals of the world and population of china and such (3y/o), while I only got more confused the more we traveled in the magic swings.
We had Olympic events where my brother would win it all and the nerdy girl would loose hopeless even if I tried to give her advantage.
We wrestle to “lucha libre” that we all three were fans of until my sister broke her front teeth and I was blamed for it because of my influence (In my defense I wasn’t even in the room, she wanted to immobilize my brother who got up making her fly in the air and she landed with her front teeth), because of this we were prohibited to watch wrestling ever again.
Despite their bright minds my brother and sister trusted me so much I had fun at their naive expense, if I wanted a nap and they wanted to play, I’ll tell them, wake me up when this hand of the clock reaches this number, when they came back I would beg for one more minute until they wanted to give me no more, so I would say…I already woke up, but I’m not here go find me in the kitchen… and they would go!!! I would sleep that much longer until they came back to announce I wasn’t there, so I would say, I’m in the laundry room! Go find me… they would come back to tell me I wasn’t there…

I have so many memories I could fill a book, not that anyone would read it, who ever started reading this entry are probably sleeping by now…
_{pulls a blanket and puts it over the reader}
The good news is that my oldest sister changed and has become as sweet as syrup, she no longer wants to get rid of any of us; she has helped my brother more than anyone in the family.
My brother grew up to fulfill my parents expectations…unfortunately those were not high, he was a hopeless “dreamer” who wouldn’t get very far…but I believe he has so much potential and he will surprise them.
I thought I wanted to learn industrial design only to discover it was a career tailored to fit my wacky inventor brother, so I pushed him and pushed him to take what I wanted to quit, and he did and graduated with honors, he doesn’t practice but oh well! You can only do so much with a hopeless dreamer!
My sister the pianist, though she didn’t get to be a piano concertist she keeps playing and I keep hitting her in the back of the head when she makes mistakes, she doesn’t mind …much, it is fun for me, it makes me feel powerful! Like some sort of couch.
She thrives to be a Martha Stewart or Brie in desperate housewives, though she is the closest to that from all of us she can’t shake of the packratish genes.

I continue to be the Wacko of the family that nobody hates yet hardly notice unless I’m about to embarrass them.
I sit neutral and try to stay in the sidelines when the bickering get loud, I’m the last to know news about the family but I love them all.

My baby sister is hardly a baby anymore, she is newly wed and a graduated translator of multiple languages. She still plays along with me when we want to change “Brie’s”(Gaby) colors, however she has grown more self conscious than I and so I have to go solo on my silliness a lot, she no longer goes to look for me when I’m standing right there in front of her, but I still trick her despite her near genius mind.

My baby brother is not a baby either though he still lives at home while he studies to be a lawyer and runs his own fresh profitless business.
I hope he succeeds, waits a bit to get married and travels the world to the far away places he learned when he was only 2 y/o.

When any of them are in trouble it affects all of us in different ways, we all have our own paths but the ties to our initial family will always pull us back to who we were once when we need to recharge, though I’d like to forget some, I want to remember a lot .
I hope my kids grow up lo love each other the same or even more than their uncles aunts and I.

...without judging by the edges or the eccentricities…
Bypassing the shady spots and concentrating on the blooms is my strategy.
Most people are good, they don’t mean to harm…
Tolerance to differences is so important to be able to appreciate the beauty of each individual.
Scary characters have soft hearts and golden deeds…
I’m just taking notes out of my messy brain to remind me why I love all of you.

Love as a feeling is great, I love chocolate it makes me happy, it makes me feel good, I love puppies, they are cute and they make me laugh…I love rainbows, smiles, ice-cream, the blue sky, sunsets, the beach…and… you get the point.
But I can’t be good to chocolate.
Chocolate is good to me…

The Love I have as a goal is the one that needs work, I want to love the people around me, not to feel I love them because they make me feel good, but love them by being good to them, love them by helping out and listening, even if they are boring, loving by picking up after them, and not getting angry if they make a mistake, by being understanding, and kind, that kind of love is what I want to get good at…