I thought the last year of my 10-year ban I could try to get more of my thoughts in writing, posting brief weekly life annotations. Consistency has certainly not been a strength of mine when it comes to blogging, as I generally attempt to wait for the big epiphanies or when I have some time aside to sit down to write elaborate posts. But I think that instead of worrying about coherent writing, I’ll try to capture a bit of the thoughts that do not make it past my head space. Perhaps mirroring a bit of my journal writing which I’m sometimes too afraid to display outside of my private notebooks.
Believe it or not, I am a private person. In real life, I navigate from being a social butterfly and easily talking to people to having long periods of social hibernation, staying at home with no energy nor desire to talk to people. But even in my most social moments, I shield many parts of me from people. Don’t get me wrong, I always display who I am. I don’t like pretentiousness. But I also don’t show important aspects of myself to friends, even the ones that get to know me better.
Privacy has been part of my post-deportation survival kit, doing what I can to say as little of who I am to people. Mainly because it has become exhausting to explain myself, from answering simple questions like “where you are from?”, to why I don’t have a romantic partner or why I have managed to be in a living situation where I am ready to leave at a moment’s notice. So I am one of those people you think you know intimately, but you also don’t really know much about.
I am now in a work environment where many people know about my public persona; they have either seen some media interviews I have done or have read books my story is featured. There might be aspects of my life story that are no longer mine, but I am not my deportation story. There are many more facets about who I am that I think have more essence than the circumstances that many people have come to know about me. I do hope that one day I have more courage to talk about them.
In the meantime, Week 52 was about me thinking of my social life back in the city I have been trying to leave for a while. I have come to accept I am back in Tijuana, a city where I keep one foot out the door. Privacy is still a useful strategy.
I’m still unattached, not making long-term plans. However, living in limbo has now become a constant state of being, and Tijuana is most likely going to be the city where my 10-year countdown will reach zero. But then again, so much can happen in one year. That keeps me hopeful.
Mundo Citizen 