When You Realize the “Truth” is a Lie

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Confucius

I have been told that when I was born, I was the apple of my father’s eye. My paternal grandmother was said to have called me “La Nena De Oro”, the baby girl made of gold. I was bundled up even in the warmest weather and I was not allowed to be passed around for viewing or the traditional “kissing the baby” . You could admire me from afar, but you weren’t picking me up and spreading your germs or your evil spirits. Now you would think that I would be forever cherished and as I grew older I would continue to be the apple of my father’s eye and La Nena de Oro a beloved princess, but this ain’t no fairy tale. And there is where Lie # 1 starts.

I have tried to remember a time when my father was kind to me, but I cannot recall even one memory. It saddens me. As a parent, I strived to make my children aware that they were loved and wanted. I constantly said ” I love you” and I hugged them. Hugs are the most precious things we can give to our children. Engulf them in love and let them know we care. It is easy and it is free.

So when did I stop being the apple of daddy’s eye? Was I ever? Or was I just a shiny new toy that a sixteen year old boy found fascinating? My parents were both sixteen when I was born. My father was the youngest of six children and my grandmother doted on him. Not the loving doting mother, but the let me buy you whatever you want so you never know what it is to work for anything and feel entitled your whole life, mother. My grandmother was a vain women, beautiful, but very vain and her son is very much like her. My father is a handsome man that believes the more something cost, the better it is. Love is free, so does that mean it is worthless? I am not sure my father understood the meaning of unconditional love, because my grandmother “bought” his love She always made sure he had money in his pocket, dressed to the nines and gave him the idea that most of the people in the neighborhood were beneath him. He was a charismatic guy that got under your skin until you couldn’t shake him. I think that’s how he landed my mom. She was a timid skinny girl that was influenced by the razzle dazzle that was my father.

As poor as we were, we never had anything that was considered a generic brand. If my father saw a generic brand he would instantly comment something like “I knew that shit was off (referring to the meal he served). It tasted bad (after eating two helpings) and now I know it was because you used that generic shit. That cheap ass shit ain’t no good.” Lie # 2

Fast forward to 1984 and I am a sophomore at Austin High School. I was new to the school having moved from Travis High after my freshman year. Luckily, I knew tons of kids because I had grown up with a lot of them in East Austin. I had not seen many of them since before
I had breast, so many of my childhood male friends were surprised by my “girl” body. When I was younger, I was a tomboy, as I might have mentioned in a previous blog. I wore shorts, big t-shirts and threw my hair up in a ponytail, trying to fit in with my boy cousins and the neighborhood boys. Nobody ever told me I was pretty. I never thought I was pretty. When I started Austin High, suddenly, boys were noticing me and asking for my phone number. Of course, I didn’t give any of them my number because my father had warned me that I was not allowed to date. In my mind I was fat and ugly because most of my life, that is what my father told me. I believed it because my FATHER told me I was. So, when a boy at school told me I was “fine”, I responded “Shut up motherfucker!” because I thought he was making fun of me. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a chunky girl with a chip on her shoulder that was unlovable. Lie #3. Sidebar- whenever someone tells my daughter, Bella, “OMG, you look so much like your mama .” I inwardly cringe and think “NO, SHE DOES NOT!! She is beautiful. I NEVER looked like that.” It wasn’t until recently that I was able to LET myself see the truth. I was pretty and I never knew. How I wish I had known. My teenage self kept boys at bay and the one boy I opened my heart to, turned out to be a player that flitted around the school breaking hearts and keeping me on the hook because I dared to believe he actually saw me and thought me worthy. Lie #4

It’s so cliché to think “my whole life has been a lie” but the reality is…. it was. The lie that I was ugly. The lie that I was unworthy of being unconditionally loved. The lie that I was cherished by my father. The lie that if you “just let it go” your life will magically be better. The truth is more painful then many of the lies I was lead to believe. Why? Because it pains me to my core that I BELIEVED any of it at ALL!!! That tiny part of me that KNEW that this couldn’t be the life God had planned for me but yet I still clung to the idea that because my own father claimed it as gospel, than it must be. Speaking my truth has been liberating. It makes some folks uncomfortable and that’s okay with me. Ask yourself why it makes you uncomfortable. It may be because you realize, that the truth you have lived with thus far…….yeah, it may be filled with a few lies as well. Let that truth set you free, no matter the collateral damage. Fix you first and let those others figure their own shit out.