Broken Embraces

There is a movie I have seen recently called, "Brazos Rotos" which in English means, "Broken Embraces".

My post today is not one of happiness or comical relief.  In fact, today's post is one of reflection and perhaps broken dreams and promises.  To say "sappy" is an understatement.

Returning to my opening statement, "Broken Embraces" is a movie made by Pedro Almodóvar, a fine Spanish director. It stars Penelope Cruz and a few other famous Spanish actors.  Cruz stars as a secretary working for a powerful man who ends up making her his mistress because she needs money to pay off her parents' debts.

While she lives the high life with plenty of money, she decides that while she is bored at home, that she begin a foray into acting.  As she is seeking acting roles, her character is followed by her "step-son" with a camera.  The stepson is following orders by his dad to pretty much stalk Cruz's character because he's just that insecure.

Anyway...she ends up having a torrid affair with the director of the film she's working on and leaving the old guy she's been with and running away with the director.....Unfortunately, things don't end well for the directors character and herself.  They end up getting hit by a car while being caught on film kissing at a stop sign.  She dies and the director ends up going blind....if you haven't watched it, you should.

Great movie!!!

So....I mentioned that this movie had something to with my post...


Cruz's character eventually breaks free of the tyrant she's found herself trapped with, like I mentioned before.  It's liberating to watch her take those steps to her freedom.  She can do what she likes and be with a man who truly loves her.

I cry like a baby every single time when I see that scene.

In writing this post, I'm hoping that I can pour my feelings at least into what I'm trying to express through my frustration.  I wish I could walk away from my problems to my freedom....but I can't.  At least, not now.

For the past five years, I have had the desire to live abroad and teach English. Ever since I went to Costa Rica in 2006, I've had wanted to teach English to non-native speakers. I even went as far as to try to get certification for it online.  Then of course, unexpected romance got in the way.

Things happen for a reason. I believe I was meant to meet him and have my child.  God has mysterious plans.  But sometimes I really wonder at His workings because I'm constantly frustrated at what life has thrown me.

I really have nothing to complain of. I have a job. I have a house. I have a car.  I have everything I need.  Almost.

I sometimes feel I have no commitment from the other side. I know we care deeply about one another.  But I feel as if I have lost that spark with him, but for various reasons.  See below. 

Up until January of this year but since October 2007, I was paying for and providing for the vast majority of our child's needs.  Diapers/pull ups, formula, insurance, clothes, doctor's visits, food, etc.... you name it, I paid for it.  By Myself. If I asked one time to have him pay for a pack of diapers, the response I would get was explosive!  "I don't understand why you can't pay for this yourself? What do you do with your money?"  What kind of a father refuses to pay for at least a few items of their child's necessities?!

I am a teacher.  My salary goes by way of making sure my child's needs are met first before mine.  However, teachers don't make so much money.  And we happen to get paycuts every year. This upcoming school year, I am expecting an overall paycut of 10% of my total salary.  I've been looking for other work too. But nothing.

Then finally last year, I had had enough with Mr. Machista. I decided I was through with living under the same roof with someone who had a double salary of what I make in one year.  I moved out.

Then I did something dumb five months later, though at the time it seemed like things were back on track at the time.  I moved back in.

Now I'm trapped again.  My in-laws moved in this past January.  My brother in law lives with us and has been since I moved in.  They're fine, upstanding people.  But when you've been in a relationship for almost five years, you want to have your own house for yourselves.  We've NEVER lived alone.  NEVER.  We've always had an aunt, uncle, cousin, brother, mother or father live with us.  Never have we been alone.  I can't even pee in privacy. But there are benefits. There's someone to watch my son when I'm at work and can't pick him up from school.

As you can see, it's a tough call.

As a much younger person, I was always the pessimist when it came to love.  While wanting to truly believe the crap the story books tell you as a kid, it's a hard reality when you realize that the story books are bull shit.  Nothing they tell you is true.  I once quoted from a book that, "Love is the rug they pull out from under you".

I've not found Prince Charming.  While I know I was meant to meet my son's father, he's not the one I'm supposed to end up with forever.  And also, while I really care about him, and I as I sit here typing this, I feel such a heartbreak and disconnect from what I should feel about him instead of the tears running down my face.

By the way, that is NOT my eye, but you get the picture...

I read the book, "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Gilbert talks about the pain she felt when she laid on her bathroom floor at night for months debating how to divorce her husband.  She felt such an immense sadness that I understood her immediately.  She cared for her husband, but she didn't want to be with him anymore.  She chose the door. Luckily, they didn't have children to worry about when her divorce went through.

Pedro and Tita

I also feel like Tita in "Like Water For Chocolate".  If you've not read that book or seen the movie, you must.  Tita is a superior cook. She uses her senses and pours her feelings into the food when she prepares it.  Because of her natural gift with food, she is able to communicate with people without words. She is able to convey her feelings into the food so well that whenever anyone eats of her food, they too feel the same longing, sadness, happiness, passion, etc. when they consume the food.

 When Tita finds out that the love of her life has been forced into an engagement with her own sister, the feeling that she has go through her is one like a Black Hole.  She feel such an immense vacuum of pain that it's described as being an icy wind.  She knits and knits a huge blanket that eventually runs the course of the ranch where she lives.   It isn't until the very end of the book/movie that she is finally united with her love of many years, albeit a very interesting way.

Pedro and Tita, together at last

It's actually quite sad.  Their passion lit their bed on fire after he died of a heart attack and she eats candles and matches to join him in the Afterlife.  Pretty sad ending to me.


I feel such an immense sadness and longing for things I cannot have. I had hoped that one day I would get married.  I had hoped to be teaching English in another country by now. Though I am still young, I would have hoped to have gotten married by now. I'm twenty-eight. I'm technically a single mother who wants to be in a committed, loving relationship/partnership with the possibility of having more children. I'm in a dead end relationship that I feel is on rocky ground where I'm not feeling that I'm getting what I need nor will get what I want.  I want to be listened to. I want someone considerate. I want someone who is going to still want to flirt with me after years of being together. I want to be complimented. I have emotional and physical needs that are not being met!!

You're probably wondering why I'm going on and on. I feel mentally and verbally abused with a lot of the things that have been said to me.  I feel incapable of correcting the comments because trying to explain is like talking to a brick wall. 

Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that I want to run for the hills, sometimes with and without my son.  I can't even do that because of the familiar outcry I would hear once I ran for the hills with/without my child.

For leaving with my kid - "How can you take the child away from his father and the rest of his family?!"

For leaving without my kid - "What kind of a woman abandons her child?!"

Am I a bad mother for sometimes thinking that I want or need a lot of time to myself?  I've had that for the past week. I feel guilty thinking that I may not want to return from the so-called vacation that I'm on at the moment. I'm in Argentina facilitating a student exchange between my students and the students here. I feel like I'm a horrible mother for even thinking that!!!  I love my son dearly and deeply and I cannot imagine my life without him.  So I wonder to myself, what the hell am I thinking?!!! 

As I sit here typing this in Argentina, I've had a lot of time to reflect what I've been thinking lately. It's surged in the past day.  This past week I have so enjoyed being in a house that's clean. I've really enjoyed helping my friend out with her English classes. I've enjoyed the solitude. I've enjoyed that I can have conversations with people and they're genuinely interested in what I have to say.

I'm tired of having to put on a happy face when I'm not.  I'm tired of retreating to the corner and sobbing my head off when no one is looking.  I'm tired of being greeted with such negativity when I simply ask, "How was your day?"  I'm tired of being told that my day is of little importance.  I'm tired of cleaning my house and having it destroyed in five minutes by slobs. I'm tired of having to hoard food or go out to eat because no one knows how to share food or save it for when I come home from work, starving.

I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself.

I want to feel genuinely loved and appreciated.  I want to be appreciated for my efforts with the house. I want to feel that it's okay for me to desire another baby or to want to get married or at least FEEL the commitment that I feel that I deserve.  Perhaps it IS there.  I've had my heart, ears, eyes and ARMS open for a long time now.  But I'm not feeling it.

I feel that I need to move on.  I WILL move on, but it is going to be difficult. I feel like I've missed so many opportunities, whether it be career based, love based, opportunity based, for things based on prior events in my life.  I believe God put those events in front of me maybe for me to see what I could have.  I don't know. I don't know what He is thinking. I don't know what I was thinking except fidelity. But that's something I can't even really get from the relationship I'm in now.  At least, at the beginning it wasn't like that.  So many entrances and exits of stage actresses interfering with my love life and its theatre stage.

All I know is that I am not going to let a sad event in my life consume me.  I will go forth.  With God's help, I know I can.  He will allow my son and I to go where we need to.

  You know, it's a hard thing to do....break up with someone you care about out, even if they are a tightwad.  How do you break those things off with someone you care about?  There's no right or a wrong way.  What you need is strength.


I just wish I knew now what the outcome was going to be.