Don’t Cry for me Argentina

When I was a very young child I spent most of my time with my grandparents and great grandparents. Luckily, I had at least all four of them until I was 15. This meant I got to hear stories about myself from their perspective, over and over again. Because I loved the stories.

Apparently I was taken by the moon at a young age. One of my favorite stories about the moon happens to encapsulate a part of my family history. The story goes that I was trying to understand the whereabouts of the moon when I couldn’t see it. So my grandma was a genius and gave me the perspective of geography. She said simply (I’m guessing in Spanish) When the sun is here, the moon is in Argentina. I felt good about that.

The story continues, one day after that day, I spotted the moon, during the day. And I asked my grandma, if the sun and the moon are here, what does Argentina have? And this makes so much sense to me because it leads to my perspective of this memory, which was that I believe I had my first “mind blown” moment. I can still recall the feelings I had. I had no room in my mind to conceptualize what it would possibly be like in Argentina, given that both the sun and moon were in California.

[This story still makes me laugh, but now it makes me more curious. I remember my grandma laughing. *That meant she was laughing at me. I thought it was so hurtful that she was laughing at me when I was seriously so scared and confused.*]

Today, I wonder if my grandma was laughing as a natural reaction to how she was feeling, which could have also been that she was searching for her next answer, and wondered, how could this be? I wonder if my grandma knew what it felt like for me? Did she even have a clue that I felt like vomiting and that I thought the world was ending? Would she have even thought it possible, if she did know to ask, that I could have had those feelings? Would I have answered? Would I have known what to say?

When I replay things back in my mind from only my perspective, I notice that I keep getting the same feedback. This is good information. I know this perspective, very well it seems. Then I ask myself, are you ready for another perspective?

And there goes my stomach!