Our American Dream

 I believe that the minute I had children I had to put some things on hold. If there is one thing I’m grateful for it’s that I decided to wait to have kids until I was in my early thirties.  In my twenties I was too immature to give them my all. I still wanted too many things; to get my college degree, travel the world, do spontaneous things with my husband; I was still very selfish. Thankfully, my husband was of my same mind frame. We did all of the above; I got my college degree, we traveled the world and we created amazing memories by doing spare of the moment things. One morning during our second year of marriage, while living in NJ,  I turned to my husband and said "let's drive down to Florida" he had a panic look to him, I'm much more spontaneous than he is. He asked "you mean right now?" I said "sure, why not?"  three hours later we were on the road! Lol Another time, while he was working in Holland, he had a few days off, so I suggested we drive to Paris, France.  He asked "you mean now?" I answered "sure, why not?" a few hours later we were on our way to Paris. Lol We enjoyed that freedom for eight years, it was so worth it. I think that’s where our relationship grew the deep roots that have sustained our marriage until this day. I understand this is not how it works for everyone; my sisters had their kids in their twenties and raised amazing kids. There are many women that are mature enough in their twenties and ready for the challenge…. But I was not one of them. Lol

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from being the "cookie baking, clothes hemming, floor scrubbing " type.   Most times I'm more like " where are your shoes, where is your jacket, we are late, take your food and eat it in the van" type of mom.  Lol  But at least, I'm mature enough to know that my kid's needs come before mine. Btw, I'm much better now than I was, thanks to my OCD BFFs that have taught me a thing or two. Lol My mom modeled the importance of putting your kids first. She understood her responsibility as a mother and took it very seriously. Her priority was always our well being. I learned from her that, because our kids do not have a choice when they come into this world, they deserve the very best of us, not "things." She was and is a tough cookie. About two years after the divorce she packed our bags and off we went to the USA. She wanted us to have more opportunities; to live the American dream.  But before it became a dream... it was a nightmare. LOL Our lives did a 360, everything was different. It was like living in another world; language was different, the culture was different, and we didn’t know anyone. We went from middle class to "Po" in one day.  As we tried to adjust to our new life, there were many struggles. My mother didn’t speak English, so she had to rely on public assistance to sustain us. 

I remember the first house we came to live in was a rental and it was in one of the worst neighborhoods of town. We didn’t live there long, thank God, it was a pretty scary place.The next house we rented had over six bedrooms with two beds per room. That's when our house became "unintentionally" a safe place of refuge for battered, abused and abandoned women with their children. My mother took in anyone in need. As a young child I remember loving being around so many people. There were games, laughter, crying episodes, and all the drama that comes along with people blending together. We met some nice people along the way that gave us a hand. Some brought us food, a family from church gave us a car, and our landlord brought us a box of toys one Christmas Eve. I particularly recall one day when a neighbor dropped off a bag of bagels. We had never seen bagels before so we didn’t know what they were. We were deeply insulted thinking that our neighbor had given us old, stale, hard donuts. LOL!!! So we had a bagel food fight, almost knocked each other unconscious…. Hahaha Unforgetable times!

*On my next post I will get more into the lessons I learned from the brave women that my mom helped.