A Plea to You

I'm still feeling tense... But baby, I want you to know all that I feel and think and I need you to talk to me too. Because I remember that we've always been able to talk through here, through words typed or written. It's much easier to choose words carefully and say what you actually mean this way. And I know at times that it is hard for you to voice your feelings as well.

Things with us have gone at lightning speed. We are young, we are still growing up. I've seen that it is very hard at times for you to adjust to a hectic schedule at work. That we've never really had the time to enjoy each other the way others do when they are near and date and have time to grow before embarking on the journey to adulthood. But time is insufficient now, and we have a child to raise now. We need to be responsible now.

We're having this baby, and I couldn't be happier. I know that you will be an amazing father and that you will love our baby with all your heart. But each day I think about how young I am.

About how if I had been more mature, I would have thought carefully about what I really have to offer a child and what I want to offer. Our baby will have everything he/she needs. Clothes, food, shelter and love. All the essentials. And I know that it will not bother me in the least to work crazy long hours in order to give the baby everything I had and more.

But each day I'm home waiting for you. Trying to fix our home so that you will know that I care, that I want you to see I can be a good wife to you. I'm not the best house wife. Hell, I can be really lazy. So I try.

I want you to come home and smell nice scents, and see food on the table. I want you to be able to relax when you get home because I know that working full time is hard. If it were just you and me, I could live there forever. I could live with you in a box and I'd be happy as I could ever be. All I ever wanted was to be with you. I prayed for this for years. I know you love me, because you came here away from everything you love and know for me.

I know it's hard for you when you know a birthday went by and you weren't there. When you know that you have a new brother and he won't know you for a while.

But everything I'm suggesting for us will lead us there one day baby. I don't want to be in Tennessee forever. I hate this place too. It's boring and doesn't offer much. Except for nice people and an inexpensive environment.

Everything baby, that I will do now, will be for our baby. For our family. I will bust my ass to ensure that we are settled enough to provide for ourselves and our baby. Everything I am doing right now, will lead us close to home. So we can share with our families. Just trust me baby. There is nothing in my life I haven't been able to accomplish when I set my mind to it.

We need to be on the same page though, because I'm not the only person in this marriage.

I asked mom for this huge favor. I asked her to let us back in after we gave her such a bad attitude. Not just you but me. I basically told her to fuck off when we moved. And still she was there helping us settle in. Gracious enough to give us plenty of furniture and essentials we needed so we'd be OK.

I'm asking to move back in because I know for a fact that we won't save a penny where we are now. Should anything happen with you at work baby, we will be OK with her. I know she is a pain in the ass baby. She is very opinionated and I know the way she handles things can drive you up the wall.

But baby, she has tried to give you and I as much as she could to help us. She doesn't have much, but what she does have she shares with us. She is offering an opportunity.

We can save money baby. So far we haven't been able to offer our baby anything. We can't even afford to get you taken care of at the doctor. We can do all the things we need to baby, we can pay for you to be treated. We can save for our baby. I can go to school. We can start over and establish ourselves enough to move to VA in a couple of years baby.

I don't want to keep you far away from your family. I know you miss them very much, as I would if I had left. But I know that we can do this baby. Just give me the opportunity to show you that things aren't the same as before. Circumstances aren't the same as before.

Remember what was happening before baby. Mom was just left broken hearted. We were leaving messes all over the place. I was working double shifts everyday and I was too tired to care. Things have gotten better. Mom is settled down, dad is in his own place. Jorge and mom can help us with the baby.

I know you don't want to cut the grass on your off day. I know you don't want to hear lectures. But the grass doesn't need cutting every single day. Jorge lives here too. He can cut the grass too. I will keep our space clean. I'm not working anymore.

Give me the opportunity to spend time with our baby before going back to work. Talk to us when something bothers you. You need to talk.

I feel like I'm repeating myself here. I'm just really stressing now. Either way, we will need to make sacrifices either way. Just let me know what your thoughts are. Talk to me please.

Dreams As They Evolve

How many years ago now, did you meet her? Untarnished and full of life and dreams. Bold and beautiful in the ignorance of her youth.

Was it really me? Again in the mirror I gaze. I realize as each chapter breezes by I change and look back noting a different reflection of myself as time progresses.

And I can only remember as far back as you. When I met you. Who and how I was when I met you.

Smiling and carefree. Looking for a place for myself in the world. Looking ahead to who I wanted to be, where and doing what. Not knowing that in front of me stood the love of my life.

I always had a complex of some sort, I was never good enough in some way. But at the time, it wasn't hard to look into the eyes of those around me and see that I was gorgeous. And I was content in shallow ways to know that I was beautiful.

We grew nearby one another. You in your world, and I in mine. Your world to me yet remains a mystery. What, at the time were your ambitions, your endeavors or pains? To this day I do not know. And still it doesn't matter, though sometimes I wonder. There are many things I don't know about you still. I've always maintained a highly spirited sense of curiosity. I wanted and still want to know all about you.

I wasn't very deep at all at the time. My life still governed by the demands of my parents and the laws of the adult world. I could only impersonate the characteristics of an adult. In those times, instinctively as any juvenile, I searched for love. I dreamed of prince charming and the dress and the home and the family that seemed decades away.

So I discovered my charms, perhaps not as quickly as my other friends had a year or two before me. I learned to open doors and take the things I wanted while never giving anything back to repay the favors. I learned that men of that age were easy to manipulate. A little tear here, a giggle, some smart and witty remark that would spark a brief moment of attention.

Slowly and little by little you crept your way into my heart. A memory here and there. That one boy whose attention was just a bit harder to grasp. I couldn't see very much of you for a long time, and one day you opened up and allowed me to read more pages in your story. We shared our stories. Many stories. Some stories that I would never have shared with anyone else. That's sacred I think. Sharing something only with you.

And I revert back into my reflection today and know what you meant when I hurt you.

Sharing only with you. Still I know the only person I share pages with is you. No one has never and can never take that from you.

And this is how I know I'm tarnished. Am I still the girl you met that day? I'm not.

There are pieces of my heart so scarred by things that may seem to you minute. That at times make me fear that I will lose you yet again. I just can't change the fact that it's there in our story. I talk about it sometimes and I think you may be sick of it by now. Hearing the same things from me over and over. But the stories, of those times seem so incomplete to me. Just when I think I know what happened some ghost reveals itself to me and I encounter more painful details that I was oblivious to. And it's different not knowing all that happened during these moments when you were without me that not knowing what happened before me.

And the world around me shifts as well. All that I knew is unknown now. So many things have changed as I've grown.

I could say each day that I'm sorry. That I understand now that my actions reciprocated what I deserved. I felt outside myself... But I know that in the world that I'm in that doesn't matter. I always wanted to be perfect for you. Your eyes at one time didn't see me this way. And I know you too have changed. There is a place in my heart that hurts and this time it was my fault. I never want to hurt you in any way. Hurting you hurts me so.

I reread my reflection and feel my heart pounding in my chest heavily. I was once so bright and though I'm not engulfed in darkness yet, I see where time brought to me dim moments and I wish I can be again so bright.

My dreamed of decade is here. You've given me everything I ever dreamed of. My prince, my home, and a family of our own. Now my only wish is to never lose my dream.

I never want to lose you the way I've seen others lose their dreams. I wish I could express to you how desperately I wish this. Is this light in my womb ours if you are no longer with me one day?

I am not the girl I was. I've changed and I lost motivation. But I'm going to make this promise, I will be the best me I can be. Not only for our baby, but for you. One day our little one will make a home of his or her own. And I want to be the best me I can be so you're not afraid to be alone with me again. So you don't dread the shadowy remains of someone you once loved.