Pero it doesn’t. There never seems to be enough hours in the day. The money issues come and go depending on a few factors and my heart, damnit my corazon is having a really hard time moving past something.
I mean there is a reason why you shouldn’t fuck with someone you work with and you think I would have learned this already. In the activism world and in the poetry world, there are 3 degrees of separation, not 6, and entangling your heart where you already spend so much energy and time is a dangerous proposition. Sure while it’s on everything feels good and you feed off each others’ energies and it sustains your work and your heart. Pero when one side of the work/heart equation doesn’t work anymore, and you still have to deal with that person on some level, it just becomes painful. Just seeing their name hurts and hearing their name hurts and you try to move past it, focus on the trabajo pero inside all you want to do is crawl into bed and bawl your eyes out and it’s exhausting trying to play it off.
So what do you I do? Abandon my work? Not an option. My words/activism are what feed me as well, and I’m not talking physical nourishment. My work is so much a part of my life, lifestyle. It’s not a job. It’s who I am. Writer, poetisa, blogger, activist, mami, lover. They all get wound up together pero the mix continues to prove itself dangerous.
Suck it up and just hope it gets better?
Single Mala again asks the question, is it possible for a Latina artista/activista to have a relationship with another artista/activista without something fucking the whole shit up? Seriously? Or is it just the nature of artistas/activistas to be complicated?
Maybe my amigas were right, I need to start fucking white men again (ja ja).
or maybe just avoid the men who have wives.
Ay you know. I’m tired of deleting these comments. Like a married man’s penis just accidently fell into my vagina.
yes, that’s exactly like it is.
you and he both made the choice to be assholes. to not give a shit about anyone other than yourselves. and wow, that has consequences! omg, shocking! oh poor you! poor him! now why don’t you complain a little more about how “devastated” you are over a “relationship” that lasted maybe a week in real time.
you didn’t give a shit about the pain you were a part of in my life or my daughter’s life, but now you carry on and on as if it was your partner of many years. you were perfectly willing to insert yourself into my life, but don’t want to actually acknowledge the consequence of that, which is yes, me getting pissed off at you.
you and j are both equally culpable. my point is not that he is blameless and you are the (sole) villain, it’s that maybe you could acknowledge why you’re in the position you’re in now, and look to not repeat it again versus acting as if it’s just “something” that happens.
Mira, you want me to acknowledge that I caused pain. Yes, I acknowledge it. And there was a point in time, after learning the situation that I made a decision. I will not and do not deny that pero honestly no amount of my apologizing or bashing myself, which is what it seems like you want, will change how you feel.
I also have no desire to diminish your pain pero that does not take away my issues either.
Nothing just happens. There is a context and I can only write from my context and for that I make no apologies.
you don’t apologize at all, so i find that line a little funny. in fact, in september you specifically stated that you didn’t feel sorry at all!
you knew he was married, with kids and a pregnant wife. i emailed you, and you didn’t care! i don’t look to you to diminish my pain, nor do i look to him. its something i deal with and resolve (or not) on my own.
no, nothing does “just happen.” just like you didn’t just get happen to get hurt. common sense would’ve told you it was a situation that no one would benefit from, except possibly him. but you chose to push forward into it anyway, including flying out to stay in the apartment that is leased in MY name, while i worked across the street, while i carried his child, and while he canceled midwife appointments to accommodate some romantic rendezvous. it pisses me off that neither of you want to come clean and be honest about what happened, only insinuate and post these half truths.
i don’t care if you respond to me or this situation again. i’ve told you how i feel and that’s all i wanted.
No I don’t apologize. And the hard honest truth is that I’m not a regretful person. Am I sorry that you are hurt? Yes. Am I acknowledging that I am partially the cause of that hurt? Yes.
Unfortunately common sense didn’t play a big role here. I acknowledge that.
As for the gory details of the how, when and why, that’s where it gets complicated. I don’t know what he’s told you, and I’m sure you have your own version of what went down, as do I. Its never such a simple, moments notice choice, as you say, nothing just happens pero I didn’t push anything. I didn’t do this alone.
i know he is to blame for this just as much as you are, as i’ve already stated here. if he pursued you it doesn’t mean you have to acquiesce, just cause he’s interested.
you knew he was married to a woman carrying his child and STILL made the decision to get on a plane to be with him and that makes you a pretty despicable person who makes bad decisions with no regard for who, or how many people, you are hurting.
it only stands to reason that you eventually get hurt, too. because someone who is willing to do that to his wife and the mother of his children obviously doesn’t have a lot (if any) respect for women or relationships. if he’s going to cheat on his pregnant wife, how do you expect he’s going to treat you?
Being “regretful” has nothing to do with it, mamita. It’s a lesson we learn when we are small….when you hurt someone, you say you’re sorry. Because it’s the decent thing to do. Because it’s what functional grown-ups do.
And, for petes sake J IS HALF WHITE! You WERE sleeping with a white boy!
Ive concluded that anything short of beating myself with a big ole puta stick won’t be enough. So I am done. At least here. If you are interested in having a further discussion. You know how to find me.
c lo. I don’t know you. All I can assume is that C. sent you here to back her up and tell me how indecent and non-functional I am.
also I am fully aware of J’s background. Let’s not bring the racial aspect into this. Really.
Then don’t make crass comments like “maybe I should start fucking white men”. You’re the one who brought the racial aspect into this.
C didn’t “send” me, I’ve been reading your blog on and off for a while. In fact, I linked to it once until J threw a big fat baby hissy fit about the truth being open for all to see and basically censored my blog.
In all honesty, I don’t hate you the same way C does, although I understand why she does. And yes I am her friend. I don’t think you are indecent, I have no room to judge your actions as I’ve been guilty of them myself. I get it. I understand that there are three sides to this story.
But….the basic fundamental thing I was saying is that when you hurt someone, you apologize. All you are doing is making excuses to not apologize.
You can’t assume to know what transpires inside anyone else’s head, and all you can really do is try your best to do your best. And, yes, perhaps naively I feel there *should* be some comradery and sisterhood among single mamas. Even if you will never be friends, I feel like there should be some basic respect there.
Maybe nothing would ever be enough…but you should apologize, not make excuses why you won’t. You can’t control C or how she would react, true. But you do owe her an apology. That’s all I’m sayin’.
X
You know, this is truly ridiculous. At some point, people have to take responsibility for the choices they’ve made. I see Mamita doing that in the introspective post. That’s why it really makes no sense for you to be commenting on it unless you’re here to do the same thing.
What about your role in this? While you are attempting to school Mamita about why she may be in a situation where she feels hurt, what about you? What about the decisions you’ve made that caused you to be in a relationship with someone who would give a significant part of himself to someone else? What about how that has resulted in you feeling hurt? If Mamita should have expected things to go this way, then (since he was your primary partner) shouldn’t you have been even more aware of how a relationship with him would end up? If you were with him long enough and intimately enough to marry him and reproduce with him, then you had enough time to know what sort of person he was.
Knowing what sort of person he was, you CHOSE to continue being with him. Therefore, ultimately, it wasn’t Mamita or your partner that hurt you. It was your decision to be with him (even after you knew who he was) that caused your pain. Mamita didn’t make that choice for you nor did your partner. You made it. Now you can own that decision or not, but it won’t change the repercussions of it. However, it might make it easier for you to come to grips with what has happened and maybe even learn something from it…or not. That’s your choice, too.
C lo, it’s obvious that you haven’t been reading my blog for long enough, porque if you did you would know that I am crass and talk about race all the time.
I don’t assume comradery among single mothers. I’ve been a single mother for a long ass time and have met other single mothers who will never understand my experience, hence why I write from the mami’hood, not the mommyhood pero that’s a whole different issue.
c lo,
I’m also a lurker on this blog, so I’m going to chime in, too. I DON’T think that Mamita should apologize, at least not to X. If she owes anyone an apology, it would be to herself. If she wasn’t being true to what she wants and who she is, then that is what she is guilty of. She is not guilty of doing anything to X because she isn’t the one who caused X to be in the relationship with J. Mamita didn’t force X to be married or pregnant. This isn’t a situation that “just happened” to X any more than it is a situation that “just happened” to Mamita.
This stuff about saying sorry to X is a bunch of bull, as well. Yes, children say sorry when they hurt someone, but we are not children. Because we aren’t children, we form our own views about what is and isn’t decent. For instance, I think it is absolutely indecent for someone to come to another person’s space and tell them what they should and shouldn’t say. However, I suspect that you don’t share that view.
To me, apologies and the related expressions are doled out much more often than they should be. My value system dictates that I only say I’m sorry when I am truly sorry, not just when someone thinks that hearing me SAY I’m sorry will make someone feel better. And what right does one have to hear whether or not another person is feeling sorrow? Even if Mamita was sorry about what happened, X still wouldn’t be entitled to know about it. If Mamita did choose to share her feelings (of sorrow or anything else), then that’s fine. However, the idea that functional people always share their emotions with anyone who expects them to do so is just absurd. Part of camaraderie and sisterhood is acknowledging that we don’t all function the same. It isn’t camaraderie when you assume that all of us would make the same decisions as you in a given situation. In fact, I find it rather hateful and narrow-minded and I doubt that what you’ve written is likely to result in Mamita responding to X in the way that you’re looking for her to. That being the case, what WAS the purpose of your comment?
i’m rather confused… whose blog space is this? and doesn’t a person have the right to write about their own life, feelings, etc. in their own space? heck, mamita didn’t even name names and was pretty vague about just who was involved. so if “x” wants to out herself, that’s on her, but the truth is she has stepped into mamita’s house uninvited and shouldn’t expect to be welcomed. even more so, “c lo” has stepped into something that she doesn’t really have any right to be dictating to anyone about. suggest, comment, share a thought, sure – afterall, it is a public space. but demand apologies be made? really? this blog is about mamita and what mamita needs. hell, she PAYS for this space even. so you don’t have to agree with her… she’s pretty open to diverging and differing opinions, and even to some respectful debate. but to make demands as to what goes on in her house is pretty ridiculous. if you don’t like the company, the crassness, the discussion that she puts out, you don’t have to visit. for “x”, i understand your pain but there are other ways to talk to mamita than to do it here, and she has been pretty open to doing that with you even, although she frankly owes you nothing. she didn’t make a vow to you. for “c lo”, yes, what was the purpose of your comment(s)? oh, to defend “x” against big bad mamita? why? this is an intensely personal issue. since it’s mamita’s space, she gets to define how much of the personal she shares here and how she works thru it. not you, not me, not anyone else. somehow you decided it was your place to “correct” her… to insist that she owed something to someone other than herself, to work thru her drama on your timetable and by your method. but it’s not your business at all anyway. and really, bringing in the race thing was just lame (yes, i called you a name – why? because it’s true) of you… in fact, it smacks of racism on your part; gloating that he is half-white (hell, a lot of us are but it doesn’t make us white, and it doesn’t mean our culture is white). way to change the subject and somehow make a blog about mamita about everyone else except mamita…
Git….I mean bint……….your selfish perspective is what fucks up our society today.
We teach children to apologize because it’s the right thing to do. Not just for them, but for people. I suspected, though, that someone would come out with these pseudo intellectual excuses to be assholes.
We don’t live in a vacuum, where our actions are purely our own and never affect anyone else. You’ve actually made some very astute observations but you jump to crazy, paranoid conclusions.
If you put your dirty laundry on the internet, and allow comments to it…….you get what you get. I am not setting out to hurt mala, but give me a break……..it’s a public blog and she’s opened comments. If she doesn’t want them she can delete, she can protect her blog, she can do any number of things. Such a cop out to say “oh don’t come onto her blog and say mean things”.
Just because you happen to disagree with someone does not make them hateful or narrow-minded.
The purpose of my comment was nothing sinister or hidden, I’m not that deep. It was what it was…just looking to inject some truth into the darkness. We can sit here and pretend we’re all so superior and so above the others actions, but we’re not. We are all, actually, peers. Sorry. And when you hurt someone, you apologize. If y’all want to be those people who burn bridges like that, be my guest, but I’ve grown past that and I can tell ya…erring on the side of kindness gets you a lot further in life. Just sayin’.
“c lo” you are behaving like an ass. maybe you teach your children to apologize when they don’t mean it, and maybe THAT is what is f’ing up the world today. i taught my child to say sorry because it is the right thing to do, but to really be sorry. i taught him not to say it “just because” if it wasn’t heartfelt, nor to say it to assuage someone else’s ego at the expense of himself or others. i.e., i (and presumeably bint, and probably mala too) did not teach our children to be liars just to suck up to nasty people like you.
mala didn’t hurt x. x hurt herself. thereby, mala does not “owe” x anything, least of all an apology. now, maybe somewhere down the road, mala might have worked thru her pain to the point that she did feel she owed x an apology and might have given it to her… but not because you tell her she has to. people tend to do the “right thing” when they are ready to, when they have worked thru something. your assumption that she is wrong to begin with is questionnable, but your further assumption that she would never do the right thing if you didn’t spell it out for her is even more offensive.
public blog does NOT mean “come spew all your garbage at me”. in fact, i recommended to mala that she block you. but she was willing to let you say your thing, disrespectful and low as it is. perhaps because she is adult enough to realize that you only make yourself look worse in the saying of it, not her.
also, while we’re at it, your response to bint is just plain wrong. you really should shut up while you are ahead because a person who intentionally disrepsects another person’s name and then calls her names when you don’t know her, (and is just as crass as you accused mala of being) really has NO BUSINESS lecturing anyone else about what the “right thing” is. clearly, you are not on the moral high ground in any way.
Wow, um well ok. A ver where do I begin.
Ah si my sucidad. I didn’t really air dirty laundry here. in fact, X has completely derailed what the original idea behind the post was, and that was my expressing how difficult i was finding a situation now, personally, me, on my blog. Pero sabes que I let that happen. I chose not to delete her comment and allow her to say what she wanted to say. Not because I feel I “owe” her anything pero well because in many ways I guess I felt it was long overdue. In my post I didn’t say that the person in question was married, etc and so on. My gut sense is that X wanted to bring that in to confront me, which she has a right to, and yes, to discredit me, which well I don’t think anyone has a right to. I have not spoken ill of her in this thread or in other threads or about “him” porque, well porque? The situation was and is an incredibly fucked and convoluted one.
Honestly I think there are only three people who can inject truth into this darkness, pero I doubt we’ll be sitting down for tea anytime in the future. So sadly, for everyone really, everyone will continue on their path, working out what they can, how they can.
I have to agree with bint that forced apologies really don’t mean much even from children. We can teach our children to say those words pero if they aren’t backed up with true spirit then what is the point? And anyway, honestly, a thousand apologies wouldn’t likely change what X thinks of me, and I have no such expectations.
See, No…I mean c lo, your inability to deal with the world as it is is no one’s fault but your own. Assholes don’t take responsibility for their own lives…you know, it’s sort of like what you’re doing here. I teach my child to apologize because she means it. Honesty means more to me than these simplistic expressions of faux-emotions. That’s what I teach my child. Perhaps you think that teaching a child to say things they don’t necessarily mean makes for a better, more functional world. I certainly disagree.
Actually, our actions are our own even though they may affect others. If I did/do something, then I’m responsible–not anyone else. And though our actions may affect others, we have a great deal of control over HOW other people’s actions will affect us. If someone does something to me, I can decide to be happy, angry, resentful, vengeful, apathetic, et cetera. Get it? *I* decide. That’s called being responsible. It’s what mature adults do.
Nobody seems to care about the fact that you commented, so this “you get what you get” stuff is pointless (much like everything else you’ve written). It’s just hella funny for you to come here and talk about how Mamita should do what’s kind and decent and right in your eyes, but then get all butthurt when someone does the same thing to you. It’s a cop out to say that Mamita can just delete anything she doesn’t want to see, because it doesn’t change what you said. Because you chose to comment here, you opened yourself up for judgment just as much as you’re saying Mamita has. So-oo-oo, if she’s getting what she gets, then so are you.
And real life isn’t “dirty laundry”. Can we please get past such tired cliches? If it helps, you can tell yourself that you’re doing it “for the children”. In real life, relationships are messy and overlapping and, oftentimes, conflicting. If you can’t deal with that, then perhaps you should stay in bed with the covers over your head instead of facing life as it is.
By the way, if you can comprehend the fact that someone disagrees with me doesn’t make them hateful or narrow-minded, is it really all that difficult for you to understand the fact that someone (e.g. Mamita, me) disagrees with you doesn’t make them dysfunctional, unkind, crass or anything else you can decide to attribute to them.
Even if you thought you were injecting some “truth into the darkness”, I think you had it right when you said that you are “not that deep”. This has nothing to do with superiority or being above other people’s actions. To be honest, I’ve never been in a scenario like this where I wasn’t the person whose partner stepped outside of the relationship. However, just like you say you’re offering advice based on how you’ve grown, so am I. In my experiences, erring on the side of understanding gets you a lot further than simply pretending to feel something you don’t. Saying you’re sorry, when you’re not feeling sorrow, is worse than not saying anything at all because it’s dishonest and deceptive and, in a situation where someone feels they’ve been deceived and betrayed, it isn’t really kindness or compassion to add for fuel to the fire. Maybe you are willing to engage in that sort of behavior, but some of us are not. Just sayin’.
bint said:
What about the decisions you’ve made that caused you to be in a relationship with someone who would give a significant part of himself to someone else? What about how that has resulted in you feeling hurt?
Don’t all of us make decisions about being in a relationship? These decisions are often based on trust. If we were promised fidelity through our wedding vows, promised that he would not put her in a single mom situation – till death do us part – then how is his lying and cheating her fault?
She believed him because she had no reason not to. He had not made those promises to another only to break them. How was she to know he would not be a man of his word?
And then after children are involved, and things in the relationship are rocky, she tries to work through it with him, and asks this other woman to butt out of their marriage so that they can work on resolving their issues, yet this other woman (mamita) refuses.
Of course she can see that choosing him was a bad choice now. But it was a choice she would have never made, had he not deceived her. How was she to know he was lying? How is that her fault? When she learned of his deception she could only try to make the best of things and work on repairing the relationship for the sake of her family, her children, her heart.
Saying you’re sorry, when you’re not feeling sorrow, is worse than not saying anything…
I agree. The issue is not that mamita isn’t apologizing but that she doesn’t feel sorrow for not backing off and letting this couple work on their issues, and therefore causing more pain and damage. She never cared that her actions affected two little girls and their mother. She still doesn’t. She only cares how she was hurt. Her utter selfishness about the whole situation is appalling. She’s not owning that her actions, her decisions, played a role in the destruction of that family. Sure, if it wasn’t her, it may have been someone else. But it was her. He wasn’t open to counseling until she was out of the picture, after so much damage had been done. If she had backed off sooner, perhaps they could have worked on building a stronger relationship and another home would not be broken today. Maybe not, but we’ll never know, will we.
So what is the purpose of my comment? I’m not a regular reader of this blog, I know of it because X has been hurt by mamita and things she has said. She didn’t send me here, though she has linked to the blog when processing through her own pain. I’m commenting because I think X has been through enough and asking her to take responsibility for someone else’s lies and deceptions seems wrong to me. Of course some of her pain is in knowing she chose a poor partner. We learn from our mistakes, so she’ll know what kind of person to avoid in the future. She’d never known anyone like j before. She didn’t know what to expect, and therefore chose to trust him.
X has decided to drop this thread. I’m not sure she would want me to comment here. I know nothing I say will make a difference to mamita or anyone who reads here, but I say it because my sense of justice/right and wrong compels me.
bint and aaminah, i’m going to respectfully say that i understand and appreciate your loyalty to your friend, but neither of you know anything at all about me or this situation.
bint, you make one good point, about how much i should’ve expected or anticipated this situation. i most certainly don’t follow the rest of your line of reasoning, however. but believe me, its a question i ask myself everyday. the hows and the whys of that are complicated as is pretty much everything in life and relationships. and i certainly don’t think this is the place for me to further explore them. my initial rude and snarky comment was based on the fact that i actually didn’t feel maegan was being very honest or soul searching in this particular post.
and aaminah, your use of “lame” as a pejorative here kind of smacks of ablism, and isn’t a good way to make your point at all.
shockingly enough, i actually agree with mala’s last comment for the most part. i’m not here looking for her to apologize or give me anything. yes, she is absolutely right that i wanted to confront her. discredit? well, i guess it depends on how you look at it. i didn’t expect the comment to be published. but i don’t go to vivirlatino leaving hateful or distracting comments. nor did i leave comments on the poems she wrote and posted about me and this situation.
having said that, i will also say that i have no further need to harass you on this blog, and i won’t be leaving any more comments.
Please, “X”… you really need to not throw around the word “ableism” when speaking to disabled women of color.
and don’t think i don’t know you at all. i have read plenty of your own comments over more than a year’s time since this is not the first time that your man has gone out on you and you just don’t learn from the first however-many-times. do not blame mamita for the fact that you stayed with someone who hasn’t been faithful to you before. mamita is a symptom, not the disease.
the fact is, you should leave mamita alone. you are pissed at yourself for getting into this situation and staying in it, for begging him to stay even so. mamita did you a favor, frankly, and it’s fine that you don’t like her, fine that you are hurt by her involvement, but absolutely unnecessary for you to come to her blog when you know you hate her. nor is it fair to act like you are the only one hurting. hey, it’s mamita’s space. she can talk about being broken-hearted all she wants, talk about her own feelings. you can go to your own blog and talk about your own feelings. neither of you are less valid in your pain, but neither of you need to have anything to do with each other.
“Z”… you’re just an ignoramous who should butt out of what isn’t her business. first, clearly you cannot read, since “c lo” spelled out very clearly that her issue was the apology. second, who are you to tell mamita she should feel sorrow? i’m not even going to ask why you think she should feel sorrow for the others involved and is not allowed apparently to feel any for herself. clearly you’ve never been in love, never been hurt, and have never ever hurt anyone else. good for you. whatever.
Ok. breath. I’m saying that to myself and to everyone else here.
This comment thread has taken a life of it’s own hasn’t it?
As I said, when I wrote the original post, my intention was, as it always is, to speak my truth, my reality.
That said, there are a ton of assumptions made about people and reactions coming from places of genuine hurt and yes sorrow.
Hopefully we can dead this now? Plus knowing me, I’m sure I’ll piss someone off soon enough.
Mamita,
I’ll respect your wishes for this thread. This is your space, so you deserve to be able to use it in whatever way meets YOUR needs. Fortunately, the internet is big enough for folks to take their issues somewhere else if they can’t deal with what works for you.
*besos*