Girl Anachronicles

I just recently realized that most of what I am – the rebellion, the unwillingness to conform, the mental allergy to business suits, the outright refusal to “grow up” – is a direct effect of my aunt (of all people!).

My aunt is only 9 years older than me. You could say our initial dynamic was closer to that between sisters than bewteen aunt and niece. She played dolls with me and I borrowed her Barbies, inherited her toys and some of her clothes… As time passed, she became what an older sister usually becomes for a little sister: a role model. As she filled out and became a woman, I admired her fashion sense, flair and style… mind you, her style was this:

..oh for the love of god, gouge my eyes out with a spoon..

Yes, my aunt was a child from the Summer of ’69. If you do the math, you’ll realize this makes her an 80s teen. Her adolescence was spent teasing her hair to inhuman volumes and collecting rhinestone brooches to pin to her denim jackets. She wasn’t a trashy, punk 80s girl – that would have been outrageous and too forward for our family. My aunt was a perfect ringer for Molly Ringwald (sans the red hair): spiffy blazers and glam jewelry, bangles riddled with charms, bright-white hi-tops with pastel-colored leg warmers, pouffy hair-barrettes … everything you hate about the eighties was in my aunt’s closet.

The wondrous color of PINK, together with denim it's a **winning** combi- BARF!

Her pasttimes and preferences left nothing to be desired! She was a full-on eighties girl: a fan of Wham! and John Hughes movies, she loved hanging out at the mall … a regular Robin Sparkles.

That is what I looked up to when I was an awkwardly budding kid. I even developed tiny crushes on her boyfriends. The extent of her effect on me could be exemplified by one incident: our first shopping spree. She had just gotten her first office job – and after a few failed attempts at getting a career (and then dropping out), hell, that’s the best she could do! We went shopping for shoes to go with her polyester, shoulder-padded suits. She spent around $100 on pump shoes of different colors. Right now it seems like no big deal, but for 9-year-old me, $100 was a LOT of money. After that, she spent the rest of whatever allowance she had left on music, she even bought me a Nelson Nelson cassette (omg, this last phrase just dated the whole episode and made me a whole lot less cool).

Aaaaafter the rain... best cassette EVER! ...until the next one I bought.

I wound up crying in my mother’s arms because I couldn’t wrap my head around so much money spent on shoes and music.

But, for all that blind adoration, little by little, I came into my own.  I think it all started the day she got married: a few weeks after that, I visited their apartment for the first time. Keep in mind that my aunt’s first marriage was when she and her beau were both just 20 years old. They had met at the mall store they worked at, and they dated for barely a year before tying the knot. A month or two beforehand, he had moved in with us at my grandparents’ house. Those few months were so fun for me, but I’m guessing my grandparents were less than thrilled to have their youngest daughter’s twerp of a boyfriend living in with them… during a hurricane event … with his computer crap and his stinky oscar fish… yeah, didn’t think so.

So I wasn’t at all surprised to find that their whole apartment was sort of like walking into a disaster area, or a college dorm: trash and dirty clothes strewn evereywhere, a flea-ridden kitten trampling all over the place, a huge black cat glowering in the corners, a white poodle dog – I’ll never understand what crossed my mother’s mind to hand the dog over to my aunt! – I mean, the place was a veritable ZOO… without the keepers. I was particularly appalled that I couldn’t even see the floor in their room, the trash and dirty laundry were packed that tight. And as I walked into the bathroom, the first thing that caught my eye was the little diaphragm box, and with that, the magic was gone. I fell out of love with my aunt.

Some years after that, at the age of 14, I agreed to spend the afternoon with her. She had asked me to help her out with a few tasks at her workplace (little fact: she worked at a law office at La Milla de Oro, inside the Banco Popular building to be exact). That evening I had plans to attend the graduation of my boyfriend’s little sister, so it added to the feeling of anxiousness to make the day pass faster.

I hated the whole thing. I hated the feeling, the ambiance, the tasks, the EVERYTHING of what I realized working in an office would feel like. This was the day I vowed NEVER to work at an office or at a bank, EVER!

Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew!

I failed SO MUCH at keeping this promise to myself…

And so it began: an age of change, defiance, disillusionment with all that the 80s had sold to me through my aunt. An age of grunge, plaid, thinking for myself, questioning society, defining my sexual identity, discarding my religion … yeah, all those things that made a teenager out of the bumbling idiot of a tween I was.

Oversized jacket, second-hand beret, dorky lenses, suspenders and an older-than-time skort. I was a fashion plate!

So you have it (and to simplify): godless, sarcastic little me is a direct reaction to my aunt, who’s now a conservative Christian wife to an accountant/lawyer, living in a posh condo in one of the wealthiest areas in Puerto Rico – why am I not surprised.