I could tell you that my home is the rivers of blood that pulse through my veins at any given instant. I could tell you that my home is the softness that covers parts of my body that were once starved angles. My home is in each stride that I take, in the rubber soles of my sneakers against the pavement during a run, in my appropriately elevated heart rate while I struggle for air.
Women do not think the same way as men. Whether we become mothers or not, we are subject to brain chemistry around our emotional attachments that is strong enough to serve the continuation of the very species. That is a powerful love, with the potential for a powerful self-destruct mechanism.
It is in this friendship that I have found there really is a special kind of bond that women make with each other that is on a different level than with their spouses, boyfriends or friends of the opposite sex.
So for the next ten years, I answered that question by sifting through my childhood, my abusive marriage and broken self with boozy nights, angry canvases, my raw bulimic throat, shamefully shameless sex and bizarre journaling.
Everything up to my early twenties was done because of fear. When I moved away from my family to attend university, the constant fight for their survival and well being left me empty and lost.
My mother used to say you better watch it. My father used to tap and smack our bellies and call us belly-women and I hated him in that moment though loved him deeply every other.
At my first home, in California, I didn’t want to move forward because I didn’t have to, just as I don’t have to in this house, with the jack-Mormon, in Nampa, where it costs nothing to live and everyone’s family and everyone’s church is within a ten-mile radius, so no matter how much you’ve shunned any of them, home is never a variable, and at the time, the “Estate” is not a variable.
However, I need time to getaway to a place that becomes a sacred space for me. Where my healing can begin to process in this space, so my spirit and I can connect.
On Saturday September 19, I walked into YogaStream studio, which was full of girls about my age. Everyone was definitely nervous and that only grew once Jen told us that we needed to trust everyone else in the room. As the class went on and people understood that we were here to boost and stand by one another - that’s what girl power is all about.
And as much as I hated my body, I hated my perception almost as much. I was a body positive person. I checked the FEMINIST box with a big Sharpie stroke. It is overwhelming to think that only a decade ago, I couldn’t go to school dances because no one carried a dress in my size.
I come from a strong Hispanic community. I never had gay friends (none that came out during the 80's). I didn't know how to raise this boy. To make matters worse my ex would come down on me for being too easy on him. “You are turning that boy into a homosexual.”
