The Family Curse

I was prematurely born. I was so tiny my cloth diaper went all the way up to my armpits.

I turned out to be a very strong, loud and self assured little girl.

My mom tells me that I used to be such a happy kid... that changed very soon.
I still don't know when the curse kicked in, because I remember when I was 5 or 6 I was driving with my dad one day and suddenly he lowered the visor and adjusted the mirror so I could see myself

"Look how ugly you look when you frown"

I hadn't even realized I was frowning!

"Why are you angry?"

I wasn't angry! my face seemed to be more comfortable in that gesture, just like your hand naturally relaxes into a cupping position, my face made a frown whenever I wasn't talking even if I was pleasantly watching TV or just submerged in thought.

My grand mother on my father's side was exactly like the queen of hearts from Disney's "Alice in Wonderland”, a very strong, large, proud, quick tempered, loud woman. But also she was all heart, very warm and loving human being who was always concerned about others, but it was so hard to see past her stern expression at simple glance.

To top it all, she had a very pessimistic way of seeing things, very fatalist and even worse, she had a very rough way to put her thoughts into words and ended up sounding... lets just say that she sounded germanish, you know? The Italian language sounds warm, romantic; German sound cold and harsh.

She had 4 sons and 7 daughters, all of them with her temperament and leader qualities. That was a mad house. Almost everyone of them had a large family themselves, we are now 48 cousins and all of us got the curse. So you can imagine how hard it is to notice that we have a problem and that normal people don't talk like us.

My father tried to tell me what a hard time he had trying not to be misunderstood by non family members because of it. "You are on time to change the way you talk" But I was to young and I didn't understand what he meant. To me, I was speaking normally (the way my 48 cousins did) and none of my friends had said anything about it to me.

By the time I was in 6th grade, they called me "Hulk" and "bueno pero no te enojes" ("ok, just don't get mad") was said to me almost every day. I don't know how I got to make friends, but I did and they loved me the way I was because I always spoke my mind and was very franc and honest and I didn’t care what everybody else thought about it.

It was until I was 23 years old that I overheard a friend saying:

“At first I felt hurt, but I know that’s just the way she talks and that she didn’t mean it that way”

Before that day I hadn’t realized how bad it was, but since then I shut my mouth. Whenever I was in a conversation, I analyzed whatever I would have said instead of saying it, and I realized that I had a very negative point of view and the way I made up my sentences had a cruel outcome!

I’m still working on it, it’s been hard to be more optimistic and be more careful of the way I speak my mind without feeling like I’m a sissy. I don’t really want to change my basic nature, I still think it’s better to say the truth even if it hurts, than to tell a white lie, but now I know there are different ways to say the same thing and that it’s better not to say anything if saying it won’t help or make any difference.

I just hope my kids (If I ever have kids) don’t get the curse and if they do, that I can help them overcome it. I realize it’s never too late to make a change in your life, but it’s so much easier if it’s sooner than later.