A Year in Review: Soundtrack Los Bukis

At the end of every year, I make lists of all the ways I screwed up in past year. They mostly involve money. Or how I spent too much time alone. Ways in which I spent too much on things I needed or didn’t need. Ways in which I missed paying a bill and incurred late charges. I’ll make tallies of the purchases I shouldn’t have and look at the grand total and do inner lectures to myself over bad judgements and how irresponsible I’ve been.

I start in January. But Medicaid finally approves my daughter’s physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech after waiting since October of the previous year, when we were discharged from the hospital. So the misuse of whatever cleaning solution I bought means shit in the grand picture right? I spend money on visiting people I think love me. I stay in hotel rooms because I am afraid of crowds. I travel hundreds of miles that will later make the backdrops of poems.

February I find myself crying because of shitty relationship I found myself in, I still hadn’t seen the truth of gaslighting and abusive hours-long conversations. I had told myself I’d try to live outside my head for this new year and try to give love a chance. So sure, I said-give and take right. I was being asked to be their caretaker, in essence, a substitute mother. And here I was, teaching for the second time how to button pants or the way to put on a t-shirt because sometimes your brain will forget these things after swelling or they’ve forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other as your brain rewires new pathways. So there I am, of course being the caretaker in the position that I am supposed to be in, to my child, learning how to change and re-arrange sheets using different methods that the nurses taught me at the hospital. And we relearn for a second time so many things. and there I am trying to negotiate how I am not going to be end-stage caretaker to anyone else but my kids, at least anytime in the near future. And you know how sometimes we curse at luck or the universe but in hindsight, in retrospect, we can see how worse it could have been.

March is my birthday month and I can’t believe I am this old, but still thankful to be admitted back into grad school and the rest of my loan money is released. I’d think back to how hard it was being alone in the hospital and how there were so many decisions that were up to me and I with a stone face that time after time the doctors asked me if I was okay and they probably wondered why I didn’t cry or crack but that was how I was able to function and be there. So in March when I was being debated that I couldn’t co-parent or I couldn’t be in a normal relationship because I was always the one in charge or you know, full of responsibility, I thought to myself and so what?

In April I was kicking ass in school. I spent money on visiting people I shouldn’t have, but I was still in this mode that we are supposed to sacrifice for love and that I was trying my best. Of course it was a bad idea. But April was also the month that we returned to sal del rey in Edinburg, a goal we had talked about since winter first was able to talk when she came out of the coma. God was it hot and steamy. But there we were, when I thought so many things a few months back, and prayed so many times to the universe that I wanted to switch places with her. So I spent money badly, probably yes, and probably spent too much time on phone calls that were dead-ends and abusive but there’s that thing about retrospect and being thankful that you’re not there anymore.

June, god June. The month before August when it all happened last year. Winter’s birthday month. I finished my second to last semester. I was kicking ass in school. I was submitting poems. I had said good bye, finally, finally. Porque entre soledad y being in love with an abusive gaslighting person who kinda thinks you are dirt and made of money, era mejor estar sola. We ate cupcakes and laughed and spent time getting a beautiful shade of brown under the sun. I spent way too much money on a backyard pool. I figured out how to run a sand filter. I pretended I was a mermaid. Winter’s muscles got stronger in the water, she did handstands and she said it was almost like before. Her and Jay laughed and fought como siempre.

August 10th and 11th came and I didn’t want to say-this is the anniversary. In my mind, the other me was still there though. August with its hospital thoughts still keeping me awake at night. Waking up thinking I was in the PICU room. This year, the whole month was a gift. So who cares how I misspent what and how I ate too much and maybe didn’t exercise and probably cried too much and stayed in my room too much and cancelled on too many folks that wanted to meet up. Somewhere along the months Winter stopped wanting to sleep in my bed and I stopped waking up check to see if she would wake up. And did we spend time in the pool. At night I’d close my eyes and feel like I was in the water. By the end of the summer, I was still heartbroken but had weekly lime slushies and named August the month of rebirth.

October we are still becoming ourselves. I am kicking ass in school. I can see the end. I cry too much and then feel better when I think of what I’ve dodged. I pat myself on the back. I spend hours in the water. I buy the kids underwater goggles. We go to the Houston hospitals again for checkups and visits and I swallow driving anxiety over and over again. I feel alone and broke but goddamn do I feel liberated and beautiful.

November I cook up an idea about a book. I tell my daughter we are beautiful. I tell my son not to run from cops. I tell my son about college and about society expectations of brown big boys. I tell him he can be anything. I take selfies with Winter from our third selfie stick because we wear them out and they are needed and Winter needs one and I say we are angels and Jay just laughs at us.

December and I start to think making lists of misspent money and bad decisions is one of those things I won’t do anymore. I finished school, the end. I put out a book, a baby. I think the universe is funny and I am thankful for not getting what I thought I wanted and for what I have.