I'm lying in the bed of a Franciscan albergue in Astorga. I feel as if I'm too tired to find a theme to write my entry, so I'll just do what I usually do: start typing and let the entry flow out.
I had a moment of exhasperation with my mother a while ago: she asked me to come back to the albergue early because she wanted to attend the mass the Franciscan friars were giving at 7pm. But, once we were here, she started getting distracted by little things "oh I forgot x" that doesn't matter mom, It's time to head downstairs. "Oh look, you left the bathroom wet, we have to ask the guy who checked us in for a mop"—that's the guy who is giving mass at this very moment mom. "Did you bring the keys?" there's no keys mom. "Oh I have to go back to get my phone" why? "they might steal it". No, come, let's get to mass already.
As mass was happening I recalled my mother has told me countless times "Oh I went to mass, but by the time I got there it was already over". I know I'm being petty and reactive, I couldn't care less about attending mass. I could simply shrug and have started typing the account of the day before clouding my mood with my own exhasperation.
I've informally decided that I will write stream of thought in English and then curate it for my instagram, but for this I will have to go to sleep first. I will continue writin this entry tomorrow.
It's 8pm of the next day and we are at the next albergue. The first day walking with my mother has proven to be psychologically interesting, but not instagram publishable. I'll keep to my commitment to publishing this on instagram, but let that be the light part and let my private blog be the shadow.
I coughed throughout the night, and my mother tends to obsess when we get sick. The problem is that her obsession OC/like, and her medical opinion would make Kennedy Jr. look mainstream. It's super triggering for my siblings and myself because we went through a lot of unnecessary suffering as kids, alternative treatments that bordered on torture (pressing hot grilled limes against inflamed tonsils, for example). My father was a little bit better by ignoring us completely, telling my mom we would recover on our own. My brother has remarked he's suprised we all made it into adulthood without a hint of humor.
I know I'm indulging in victimization narratives here and I must backtrack my previous words: mistreatment, injustice, and all the ugly facts about life must be stated. Not doing so is sweeping under the carpet.
But then what? Am I’m going to throw a tantrum because my parents didn’t know how to take care of us? I have a cousin whom emotionally extorts his mother out of the guilt he makes her feel for failing him as a parent, and he sees it as reparations for an injustice done to him. It makes me sick. I think, what we want most, is an acknowledgment of wrong, but that’s never going to happen, my mother sees healthy adults and thinks she did great (which is to a certain degree true, we’re resilient motherfuckers).
I feel as if life puts me into situations so that I grow out of them. Days ago, when V. suggested I might be sick, she begun reciting good home remedies to fix it. I grimaced. She knows I hate people caring for me, moreso when it’s involves home remedies, which she identifies with from her Andinian roots. “perhaps you ought to work on that” she nudged, ”yeah” I said, “I understand the content of your conversation displays care and knowledge, but I just feel exhasperation and outright dismissal.
In the morning, as we were having breakfast, my mother produced a lime which she is carrying to treat an imaginary fungus infection on her big toe. I asked her: does it hurt? No. Does it itch? No. Let me look at it: it looked like a completely normal toe. Has the doctor seen it? I asked. “Yes”. What did he say? “That I have nothing, but I know I have something. If placebos are effective for an imaginary infection, so be it. Then she said: I’ll use half the lime for my toe, and you sould put some drops in your tea, and then suck the rest of the lime.
I sighed. “This is the work”, I thought. If it’s not for me, it’s for her. I squeezed part of the lime into my tea, and sucked the rest.
I barely coughed during the walk.