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The Truth About the Distance

  
My dear child, 
The truth is that I am homesick a lot. I am not sure what the future holds for us as a family, but being away from mine is still a struggle. I find it extremely difficult when I know people I care for are suffering in any way. I feel helpless and useless. I hope you have a close bond with your extended family; they are part of you after all. I feel sick thinking that you won't get to see your grandma every day like I did and that you won't get to go to our beach house during spring break and feel the sun in your skin and smell the ocean breeze as you build your sandcastles. I don't know about this country's traditions; I feel like I am the only one that doesn't know what to do and how to act around the holidays, and it is very discouraging to me. I hope together you and I can create our own traditions and find a way to merge both cultures to embrace each side of you: the Canadian and the Mexican one.
The truth is that I feel like I don't belong all the time, so this may come in handy when you are a teenager. I was not born here, so I don't behave like people do here, I have an accent, and I look different than others. But when I go to Mexico, although I feel more at home than in Canada, I also feel like an outsider. I have been living in this country for almost a decade, and I have changed and learned to appreciate some things that in Mexico are totally irrelevant or different.
I still feel like I could move back and be so happy to do it. I don't think I would be leaving anything essential here, which makes me feel kinda mad. I was raised and taught to rely on the family, but now that they are so far away, I can't seem to turn that switch off. I still wish I could be part of family Sunday dinners and get to celebrate each milestone with them. I still feel like one piece of my puzzle is missing.
The truth is distance doesn't fade the feelings away; it magnifies them. And sometimes I get so homesick I need to cry it out; if you see me crying is not because I am unhappy, I love every minute I get to spend with you and your dad, I just miss the other side of me; the sister side of me, the daughter side of me, the granddaughter side of me, the niece side of me, the old friend side of me, the artistic side of me. I feel sometimes I get lost in translation, and people don't get me. They don't grow up knowing me, so they don't know that I love to read, that I am a writer and a poet at heart, that I love to sing and dance, and that I have deep thoughts, and that I can get pretty dark sometimes. They don't see the teacher or the business major; they see the EA, the admin support, the basic girl, the immigrant, and I can't help thinking that they don't see me as an intelligent person, and that really bugs me. I hate the idea of settling, and I fear that you won't be proud of the person I have become. Those thoughts keep me up at night; I wish to have the strength to reinvent myself or to change paths and find my place in life.

I hope you find yours and that I  can be right there next to you to help you and guide you, and don't lose a second of the incredible journey you will have. I hope that your destiny is always linked to mine and that you don't break my heart like I broke my mother's and leave me to be far away. But that is another guilt trip that we can reserve for the future. 



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