Part 10 of My Purpose Story

So, we are back. Sorry I kept you waiting. Life has been very busy lately, in a good way of course, that I didn’t want to force myself to continue this story or resent myself for it. But, after a 14 day hiatus I am back; and I am officially married.

The day after our wedding, we went and saw a movie, it was Transformers; the first one. I held Doofy’s hand in the theater, he held mine. We were married. Our hand holding felt different. I often ask newlywed couples if they feel different after getting married, and nine times out of ten, they tell me no. I don’t believe them. I felt different. Everything was different. I couldn’t just pack my shit and threaten to leave every time I got pissed; I would have to get a judge’s permission and invite a court room into my life to get rid of him. This irked me. My threats were emptier than ever. You might be thinking why would I want to divorce someone I had just married? The truth is, I was still broken. A ring didn’t fix me. A ring didn’t save me. Doofy loved me, yes, but I had yet to love myself. 

We flew back home to Tucson to start our lives together. I went back to my job as a legal secretary at a law office and Doofy continued his job working in fire sprinklers. We enjoyed life together. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. I kept on with the notion of wanting to become an attorney like I had promised myself and my mother. I continued to learn as much as I could by working at a law firm. I knew for sure, this would solidify my dreams of taking the plunge head first into law. That year, I visited The University of Arizona campus. I needed to get back into school and clean up the mess I had made with my education. That is when I discovered this little thing called “out of state tuition.” Being that I wasn’t an Arizona resident yet, I would have to pay more money for school. “How much more is more though?” I asked the admissions clerk. She showed me the chart. “For a typical Arizona resident” she explained, “their bill is $5,000 per semester, but for an out of state resident, their tuition bill is $12,000 per semester.” My jaw dropped. “Well, there goes that fucking dream” I thought to myself. 

We decided to table the topic of school until I was a resident, but who knew when the state of Arizona would consider me a resident. Nonetheless, I knew I had to keep pressing on. I wasn’t one to give up easily. After a few months of working with a very toxic attorney, I decided to leave my job at the bankruptcy firm. I found a new passion of mine that I didn’t even know existed; Immigration Law. Immigration was such a hot topic in my house, being that my parents were undocumented the first several years of my life. I absorbed everything there was to know about it. It fascinated me. I got a job as a paralegal in an immigration law firm. The pay was better than my old job, and I was happier there. Then, that is when it hit me; I would go school to be an immigration attorney and live happily ever after with my Doofy. 

After being married for exactly a year, we found out we were pregnant. I was shocked. I was on birth control. I had this weird feeling while I was at work one day. The girls jokingly said I was pregnant. “No way!” I said, “I am on the pill”. “Okay, take a test then” they taunted. I drove to Safeway on my lunch break and bought a test. I am super impulsive like that; I mean I moved to Arizona after three months! I took the test at work to prove them wrong. Two small pink lines appeared; pregnant. The girls were shocked. “We were just kidding” they said. The test wasn’t kidding. I went back to the store and bought a digital, more expensive test; pregnant. This time it was clear. I called Doofy. “I’m pregnant” I said. Silence. I was scared. Shit. How could this happen? Well, I know how it happens, but I was on birth control. He didn’t say anything. I thought he lost signal. “We don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to” I mumbled afraid of what he was thinking. “Are you kidding me?” he said. “That’s the stupidest thing you have ever said” he yelled through the phone. I just wanted him to say something. 

I got home that night, and we hugged. He was happy. He kissed my stomach. “It’s just gas” I murmured sarcastically. “I don’t care, my seed is in there” he said. Yuck. That sounded so gross. I immediately pictured an alien with three heads, and two toes growing inside me. The idea of growing a human inside my body was so strange. We were only 24 years old. I planned on being married to Doofy for several years before we even talked about children. The truth is, I wasn’t really a “kid person” but like I said, the universe was in charge. 

I continued working as a paralegal, I loved it. I was hungry, motivated, and I was out to make a name for myself. However, my time there was short-lived.  After a few run ins with a crazy girl in the office (she broke into her ex-boyfriend’s house and shaved his cat-I can’t make this stuff up guys) I was fired. She had concocted this story about me, convinced the attorneys I was harassing her, and had my close friend, and other amazing paralegal fired for “failure to get along with others in the office.” Looking back, there would be no way I would be exempt from this girl’s wrath. She had shared the horror stories she had put her ex through as a badge of honor in the office. In retrospect, she had been warning me to not ruffle her feathers, or else I would be out, she was right; she had won.   

I was humiliated. I had never been fired before. I had never had any real problems at any of my jobs. Here I was a few weeks pregnant, with no job. Doofy assured me we would be okay, but we were young and living paycheck to paycheck. I got on unemployment (in Arizona you can be fired and still collect unemployment) and stayed home while navigating the first few months of my pregnancy. I guess this was a blessing in disguise, but I didn’t see it like that then. I was able to stay home and have a small source of income, but I was bored, lonely and now I was hormonal. Shit.  

My pregnancy was fairly easy. Doofy didn’t baby me. If I asked for certain foods, he would oblige, but he wasn’t the coddling type. We found out she was a girl. We were over the moon! I would finally have a little best friend to shop with, get nails done, and do all the things girls do together. Doofy was ecstatic. He loved kids. I started to embrace the idea of being pregnant, I mean what choice did I have? I never pictured myself as a mother. I was afraid of getting pregnant by someone like “Mike” and worried that I would be mistreated forever. Doofy wasn’t like “Mike.” He was the complete opposite. As the time grew closer, my belly grew bigger. 

I didn’t bother looking for work, we rode the wave out of me staying home until the baby was born. I kept myself busy. I read all the baby books. We came up with a name. Doofy and Dora were about to be parents. We had now gone from meeting, moving in three months later, getting married one year after moving in, and getting pregnant one year after being married. Looks like the universe had us a on a very strict timeline. 

On April 4, 2004, we welcomed a healthy baby girl named Aleena Sofia. She weighed 5 pounds and 9 ounces. We were officially parents. When we brought her home with us, it hit me. I was bringing a baby girl home to a single parent income household. I instantly felt panic. Was this the life I was really going to give to my baby girl? At a time in my life where I should have felt the happiest, I felt the opposite. I felt sheer terror. I felt like a failure. Little did I know, this was only the beginning of the terror wave. 

See you next weekend for part 11 of my purpose story. Please continue to subscribe to my blogs, as you will soon be receiving newsletters and program information on some exciting things happening at heartourminds.com.