Recently, I dreamed about a childhood incident I had buried so deeply that I was stunned and horrified when it resurfaced flooding my mind with memories of that experience and making me feel like I was 9 years old all over again.
It was late Spring of 1970, my little sister Antonia's First Holy Communion Day. It was a beautiful sunny morning and my sister looked like a perfect little angle dressed in all white, as all catholic school girls do on this special occasion. Mami had saved for six months to get her that dress. How she managed to stay clean, we'll never know for she was the tomboy of the family and always getting into something.
Now Mami didn't want Lisa, my twin sister and I to feel left out so she made us new dresses to wear, well sort of. She had refashioned some of her old cocktail dresses making us fancy new ones. Mami was so crafty at making our clothes, giving everything a second life. The fabric she used for my dress was gold lame, it glistened in the sun. She then added a fancy sequence sash to my waist that changed colors as I moved. I remember how happy I was with my new recycled dress. I felt like a movie star in it. I dreamed of becoming an actress, performing on stage, becoming "That Girl." Marlo Thomas was my idle, smart, independent and the closest to anyone on TV that looked like me.
I spent hours getting ready that day after all it was a family outing and we loved to dress up and look our best. We had just come back from Puerto Rico so my complexion was a caramel color baked deep by the Caribbean sun and my chocolate brown hair against the gold lame fabric was breathtaking. So, this is what a movie star must feel like I thought as I admired myself in my Mami's bedroom dresser mirror.
After Mass, we poured out of the hot sweltering church into the breezy afternoon day. Papi fancied himself a photographer, loving to take pictures of his girls. He even had a darkroom in our basement to develop his photographs. It is only now that I realize my Papi had a real talent as a photographer. His favorite subject was la familia. He posed us in front of La Virgen, of course and snapped away. My sisters and I posed, imitating what we saw the ladies in the JC Penny catalogue do. Mami went to change my baby brothers diaper and my sisters ran off to play with friends, but I was Papi's best model and so content to stay and be the focus of his attention. When he clicked his last picture, he said, "esperar aquí," and went back to the car to get a new roll of Kodak film.
As I waited for him to return, a group of older boys came down the street towards me, trailing behind them were several adults. As they got closer one boy pointed to me and said, "Look one of those greasy Spics, she looks like a monkey all dressed up." They laughed and laughed pointing at me as they walked by. Not one adult spoke up, their silence was deafening.
When Papi came back eager to continue taking pictures, he said, "Querida, lets go over to the garden to take some more pictures." "I don't want to anymore Papi," I muttered holding back my tears. My pubic humiliation had been solidified, captured and displayed for public viewing. A few days later when Papi showed us his freshly developed black and white pictures, my family as was our custom, excitedly oohed and ahhed over them. I picked up a picture of myself and all I could see was a greasy Spic dressed like a monkey.
My self identity had been forged and branded by the hand of shame in making me believe what others thought of me was who I really am. And, while it feels like shame hides in the darkest corners of our psyche, it actually tends to lurk in plain sight, like in our self perception and body image.
Through the years I grew up with this intense painful feeling of believing I was flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. I felt shame about where I came from. I believed that I was inherently unworthy, and unloveable, forming a deeply held core belief that I was defective in some way. Shame saturated my identity. I though that I was the only one in the world struggling, believing something was very wrong with me.
My relationships were ruled by: What people might think of me? Will they like me? What can I do to get them to like me? I spent forty years working a hundred times harder than anyone else at getting people to like me, love me and need me.
Now, nearly everyone has been hurt by the actions or cruel words of others and when someone hurts you deeply, you hold on to the anger, the resentment and thoughts of revenge -- it consumes you and eats away at whatever dignity and self respect you may have left.
I had reached a pivotal moment in my life, I saw myself again as the little girl who believed what someone had said about her. But now I had the wisdom and experience of knowing who I really am, as I define myself, create myself and love myself with all of my successes and failures.
I had arrived at forgiveness. Forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge and in so doing the healing begins. By embracing forgiveness, I embraced peace, hope, gratitude, joy and self love. Self forgiveness has led me down the path of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.
I was ready, actively choosing to forgive and move away from being a victim and able to release the control and power that situation had on my life. Now I say it out loud and often "I'm so proud of myself, my life, my art and my work. I love who i am and what I see in the mirror and that's all that matters.