You know there's underwear for that

Saturday, February 5, 2011

I awoke to Alicia Keys’ “Without You,” on Nick’s iPod speakers, shaking the walls of the house. Not an unpleasant way to wake up, but I still was grouchy. I was waking up early to take Nick to The Woodlands to drop off a birthday present for his ex-girlfriend. I am irritated for several reasons. The Woodlands is a bougie suburb that is predominantly lived in by white people. It is around 30 minutes away from our house and while it is beautifully surrounded, covered and overflowing with trees, thus its namesake, the fact remains that I am awake at 10 a.m. on a Saturday to drive my brother 30 minutes to drop off an undeserving birthday present to his ex-girlfriend, Olivia. Irritated is an understatement; however I am keeping quiet because if I engage Nick in conversation he will undoubtedly speak on some topic he knows nothing about and then insist, yelling, that he is correct. I will strangle him soon, so I think it best to keep him quiet as long as possible. It’s the best situation for everyone involved.

Nick says he wants to drop off the present alone so I decide to spend time at The Woodlands Mall and invite Gabby along for the trip. We spend 30 minutes at Forever 21. The one store was the size of Liberty Place Mall on Chestnut St. in Philly. It was a humongous store with two stories wrought with cheap and young clothing; definitely not my style but I always find one or two things I like. Their workmanship is shoddy at best and the clothes are overpriced for the quality of material they use in their clothing. A denim spaghetti-strap sweetheart neckline ruffled dress was calling my name. The corseted body would look perfect on my hourglass shape but I was afraid the ruffles starting at the waist and finishing at my knees would make my hips look even bigger. At my cousin’s insistence, I bought the dress. After all, I hadn’t been shopping for or by myself in two years. She never allowed it. Of course, we were always on a budget but shopping was never one of the things we could ever budget for, according to her.

We leave, drop Gabby back home and I unpack most of my clothing into the miniscule closet in my new room. Of course, I have so much clothing that I quickly run out of hangers but my clothes are organized in the way I like. My pajamas, jeans and workout clothes are folded neatly in rows and my shoes are hung in a rack on the back of the closet door, organized from 4-inch stilettos to flats. I am satisfied with my progress. My mom notices my moody disposition and convinces me to accompany her to Sears to buy a refrigerator. What started with a purchased refrigerator turned into a hunt for the quietest dishwasher on the appliance market. Thirty minutes turned into 45 minutes. Forty-five minutes turned into an hour. I sit on the floor and begin reading the latest news about Egypt on my iPhone. An hour quickly passes into two hours. Mom apologizes and we decide to go visit my eldest sister, Gabi, at her house.

My parents were extremely generous in giving me a new 2010 Toyota Corolla. It has been waiting for me in Houston for a month in storage. I had been trying to decide when to pick it up when she had told me that I wouldn’t have to worry about it because I’d be living in Houston soon enough. The car waited patiently for me here and I had been anxious to pick it up as I had already begun to pay insurance on the vehicle. It’s silver and as I had a Corolla before I moved to Philly, I feel comfortable in it. I look cute in it, too.

I take the car out of storage and as I return to my sister’s house to leave with my mom, it becomes clear that my sister did not want us to go. My mom had plans and was supposed to meet her friends to go salsa dancing. Nick was still at home waiting for us to get back from Gabi’s house. We had plans but it was obvious my sister needed us more.

My sister, Gabi, is not the easiest person to get along with nor does she have the most pleasant disposition. After 20 years of trying to be friends with her, I gave up and sent her an email with a list of the psychiatrists available in Houston last October. She was offended and has ignored me since. I had sent the email in retaliation when she had sent an email to the family with her new phone numbers and had purposely excluded my youngest sister, Isha, and me. In these times, everyone is connected to everyone via cell phone. She was basically saying she didn’t want us to be a part of her life. So I sent her an email saying, seek help.

Gabi is an extremely negative person. She is just simply unhappy. No one in the family can figure out why as she has a job, albeit working for my dad’s company but that’s another story, an adoring husband who worships the ground she walks on, a beautiful three-year-old girl Isabelle and a brilliantly genius eight-year-old son Christopher. Her house was custom built; she has a pool and a sweet black Labrador Lili. We are all stumped as to why nothing in life can ever make her happy enough.

I believe the root of her attitude towards me is that I had our father in a way she never did. My father raised me. Sure he traveled constantly and missed countless dance recitals, karate competitions, school events and orchestra performances but he played a larger role in my life than he did hers. I had the opportunity to go to college and live on campus. I was active in school activities and attended every football game. I went out dancing with my friends and explored my life as a young adult. When Gabi was my age, she had to live at home and take care of her mother, Cecilia. She never got to experience life as a young adult. Allegedly, Cecilia went batshit nuts when my dad left her for my mom and was homebound for years. If I ever bring up anything about college, she immediately retorts that at least I had the opportunity and experiences that she never did. She has a negative response for no matter what it is I tell her and as I am the exact opposite in disposition, I find her exhausting. It is extremely difficult to spend time with Gabi. It took me years to learn that her misery, while may be directed at me, had absolutely nothing to do with me. I wasted decades trying to make her happy. I always wanted an older sister, someone to confide in, ask advice, cry to and laugh with. I had thought I had received that when we moved back to Houston from Denver but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My battle with self-image and weight began in 7^th grade when helping my dad around the office one day.

“You know there’s underwear for that,” Gabi sneered.

“Underwear for what?” I said, confused. I was wearing underwear.

“That,” she says poking my stomach and f.u.p.a.

*Quick lesson in terminology: F.u.p.a is a term that was created to describe the area that most women have a difficult time losing weight with – the area below her belly button otherwise referred to as fat upper pussy area aka f.u.p.a. Lesbians use this word a lot, but I first heard it from men.*

I immediately began wearing girdles and any kind of underwear that would whittle away any inches off my 13-year-old body. I wore them throughout middle and high school. Oftentimes, I wouldn’t undress in front of my friends in P.E. or at sleepovers so they wouldn’t know of the lengths I went to look as thin as possible. I didn’t judge others for being overweight but I definitely judged myself. If people would ever notice that I was wearing a girdle, I would stop talking to them. I tried to give people as few hugs as possible, lying, saying I hated to be touched. Being Puerto Rican and Brasilian, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Gabi had been obese the majority of her life. She would lose a massive amount of weight only to pile it back on and then some. She repeated this pattern into her twenties when she met and married her husband. After their wedding, she hired a nutritionist and personal trainer and has lost more than a hundred and thirty pounds over the period of eight years and two children. It’s impressive the work she has done on her body but unfortunately, it hasn’t done anything for her spirit.

We stayed for dinner and a bottle of wine. I had three servings of Gabi’s Brasilian lasagna. I haven’t had three servings of anything since I was in grade school. Brasilian lasagna is different than traditional lasagna in that there is a layer of cream sauce and a layer of ham. Brasilian-Italian food is richer than traditional Italian food, richer and fattier. Nonetheless, it was delicious. Gabi is an amazing cook. She makes any kind of food from Indian to Continental and every course from amuse bouche to dessert. She really is gifted when it comes to culinary cuisine.

Despite her usual attitude, I found her to be charming this evening but maybe that is the wine talking. She was missing girl time and needed to talk, not about anything in particular but rather just to talk about anything else not related to children. I have walked away from Gabi numerous times. I always return three months later, vowing to work harder on our relationship convincing myself that it is my fault and I am not trying my hardest. I can honestly say to myself that I have tried my absolute hardest and from now on, she is going to have to prove to me not only that she wants me in her life, but that she deserves me.

Mostly, I wanted to spend time with Isabelle. She is the girliest girl ever born and it’s adorable. She always has her nails painted pink and flounces about daily in a tutu. Christopher is a part of the advanced program Destination Imagination and has to work on a project for competition every weekend. After working on his project with his teammates, he was picked up by my brother, Lucas, to be taken to Monster Jam with his son and my nephew, William. I didn’t see Christopher at all.

I am the closest to Christopher because he was the first child born of my siblings. Also, Christopher is a genius. I am really terrified that he will take over the world one day. The things he can build and abstract concepts he intuitively grasps are astounding. I enjoy being around him because even as smart as he is, he is only eight. I feel like I could be a part of MENSA when I find out he doesn’t know something and I get to teach him. I feel special.

We say our goodbyes and I speed off in my beautiful new car excited for the road that lay ahead.