UPDATE No. 3

I am ashamed to admit I am not half as strong as I always thought I was. All it took was a hit to my vanity, my pride and I became a wallowing, wine-guzzling, whinny woman.  That first afternoon when I came back home from getting my ankle monitor I sat there looking at that thing and feeling utterly defeated.

I remember popping open a bottle of wine, the sound of the cork no longer as cheery as it always had been. I sat (spilled myself) over the couch on the living room and stared at the thing on my ankle as if it was a snake about to strike. I hated it; hatred, however, seems to pale in comparison to what I was feeling, hatred is not a strong enough word for what I was harboring toward that beeping, blinking inanimate object that was now ruling my life.

Dear Husband arrived home to find me wrapped on my bathrobe, bottle completely gone, Max and Zoey looking at me like I had lost it. I wasn’t crying, just sitting there in the almost dark, staring at nothing. Poor DH must’ve thought I had finally cracked. Not yet, not quite yet.

The next day at work everyone seemed so upset on my behalf it soothed my ego a little, but the presence of the monitor was something I couldn’t ignore. I felt weigh down, as if it was something out of a King novel, determined to drag me to hell.  That afternoon I also chose to drown my sorrows in wine. Thank God I am a wine drinker and not into hard liquor because I don’t think my liver would’ve survived the pace I seemed determined to set.

I knew this wasn’t a tragedy. Deep down, I knew that I was still in the country, surrounded by family, friends and coworkers who all offered their unconditional support. They didn’t see me any different; they didn’t think anything less of me because I was still me. When I looked closely at my feelings I realized that what I was feeling was anger and humiliation for the future, for that moment when someone I didn’t know would glimpse the monitor while I walked in my long pants, skirts, dresses and jeans and they would think ill of me, they would assume I had done something wrong. Why did I care? I don’t usually care what people think of the things I do or say. Yet the idea that they would think I had done something to deserve it was devastating.  Image, apparently, is more important to me than I had thought. I was as vain as my DH sometimes jokingly (maybe not so jokingly) accused me of being. I take painstaking care of my appearance, my weight, my hair, my clothes. Why? Because I enjoy feeling pretty, I enjoy the look of respect people afford you when you are well dressed and well groomed. I enjoy the compliments on my style, my hair, and my outfits. All these are superficial accomplishments that I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in. I truly am vain.

I know my looks aren’t all I am. I knew and know still that the monitor wrapped securely around my ankle didn’t define me. I was still me. But I was afraid of the moment when someone outside my circle noticed it. What if they asked? What if they didn’t ask and I notice the look of doubt and derision? I would feel the need to explain, but why? They don’t know me. I don’t know them, why do I care? I don’t know why. But I did.

By day three DH was worried my liver was going to desert my body so he called my sister behind my back. He told her he was worried about how I was taking it and between the two they convinced me to go spend the weekend at my sister’s. It was my cousin’s birthday we would hang out, get drunk, have a BBQ by the beach in her apartment building and forget all about the monitor.

I didn’t feel like going, I didn’t feel like getting up and pretending I was okay with my current situation but I didn’t want to worry DH whose call to my sister for help is as uncharacteristic as me being sweet. He wasn’t used to be worried about me I got up and left.

Saturday morning at my sister’s I woke up to the monitors annoying beeping. I tried charging but a green light confirmed a full battery and after twenty minutes of “Leaving inclusion zone” droning it finally stopped. I called the number they had given me for emergencies but apparently they don’t work on weekends (which makes sense because why waste even more resources on someone who isn’t an actual danger to others). I left a message and left it at that. In the end it was a case of me being too close to the water (my sister lives by the beach) and the GPS signal was bouncing and it didn’t locate me. They didn’t care so I chose not to care either.

I had a great time that weekend. I saw my cousin’s baby, met the other cousin’s husband, saw their dad who had been a great uncle to me growing up and whom I hadn’t seen in ten years. I had more mojitos than I needed and ended up taking care of my drunk cousin and sister after a club.

I sat in my sister’s apartment drinking wine, eating cheese, talking about old times back in Caracas and my cousin whose twin sister had the baby looked at DH and myself, wrapped around each other on the couch and said to me in Spanish. “Chama, como se nota que esta super enamorado” (Dude, you can tell how much he loves you) . And I looked at him and smiled. Not the first and not the last honest smile of that weekend.

I came home somehow refreshed, and glad that I had all I had. I am so rich in every department I didn’t want to allow this to keep me down, bracelet or not I would be okay.

UPDATE NO. 2

There have been times in my life when I have been angry. There have been times in my life I have been so angry I thought I might do someone some damage. I have never been this angry. This was like a seven layer dip of anger.

As I sat there by myself at the ISAP office (which stands for Intense Supervision & Alternative Program) I contemplated my future.  “Am I going to allow this to be done to me?” The question running on a loop in my head was driving me crazy but I couldn’t stop it. Was I? After all these years it came down to this moment, this moment when I was going to relinquish something to this country that so far I hadn’t relinquished before, my sense of pride.

Throughout the years, no matter how hard things got, how I went from upper middle class princess to McDonald’s crew member, I always kept my head high. Proud in the knowledge that I was still better than them (who ‘them’ were, it’s not really clear); proud knowing that I wasn’t who the immigration people, immigrant haters and the government wanted or expected me to be. I wasn’t asking for money, I wasn’t struggling with the language, I wasn’t asking for a handout and thankfully never needed one. I took pride in knowing that I had remained in the passing years my snobby, snooty self, thinking myself above begging, above bending over, above asking politely to be allowed to stay. Deep down I had always felt like I deserved to be here, like the country should be lucky to have me, entitled if you may. What do you mean I am not welcome? Don’t you know who I am? Deluded little me.

I didn’t feel like I should have to go through this in order to stay. I sat there, wondering if it was worth it; if I wanted to stay badly enough to walk around with an ankle monitor.

They called my name and along another girl they walked us to a room where they played a movie explaining the program. I suddenly had flashbacks of my McDonald’s orientation days where all the actors where cheesy-ly happy to be working there and recited stupid instructions that were just common sense.

I leaned back and laughed out loud. The girls next to me looked at me like I was crazy and shifty eyed the room, looking for escape. How couldn’t I laugh? The whole video was so fucking ridiculous they should be ashamed of themselves. They took such pride into the program being an alternative to detainment that it made the video look like they were selling a good product, a product that will make your life better and happier. They had a man running through the park, at the peak of youth, healthy sheen of sweat on his forehead, wearing his ankle monitor. A woman at the beach running into the waves, laughing in her bikini (oh yeah because I am sure all the ankle monitor wearers sent here by I.C.E. are 6 foot tall Scandinavian looking women). A couple of hairy legs and hairless ones with suds running down them, showing you can wear your monitor and take a shower. Well damn it, aren’t I fucking happy I can take a fucking shower!

Aren’t you glad we allowed you to stay out of Krome? Aren’t you lucky you get to frolic in the sand instead of locked up wearing a jumpsuit? Aren’t you one of the privileged ones? That’s the message they were trying to shove hard down my throat. Sadly for them I have never been a swallower.

Did they think we were so stupid, so pathetically happy for their scraps that we wouldn’t notice that this wasn’t an alternative? Two shitty options are no options at all. Do not put mayo on chicken shit and call it chicken salad.  It was like that game we all grew up playing “would you rather” Both options fucking suck, asshole. At least respect me enough to admit to yourself and me that this is fucked up. I would appreciate the honesty much more. “I’m going to treat you like a criminal because I think all people who stay here illegally past their initial welcome are all shady people and a danger to society. If you want to stay this is what you need to do, it is what it is” Refreshing honesty. Not delusional optimism that I’m so damn lucky.

I scoffed and looked at my partner on the table, feeling a sense of kinship with her and expecting my outrage to be reflected on her face. She was doodling on the papers they gave us, completely disinterested. I felt somewhat deflated that I was the only one there working myself  into a lather.

After the very informative piece of fiction, they took us into separate rooms where they asked me which dates I would like to have one of the people visiting me at the house and which days I would like to go to the office. So, not only would I be monitored by the ankle bracelet, I would also have to “check in” once a week and have them come over to my house randomly twice a month. I chose Fridays for my check in days and home visits. It seemed so absurd and such a waste of resources, why strap me with a $2,500 piece of equipment that has a built in GPS if you are also going to require to see me in person every week and then see me in my house the same day?

The woman then told me, with a soft voice, as if approaching a coiled snake, that she was going to fit me with a unit. Lingo for strapping me with a completely redundant GPS. This was it, this was the moment when I either got up and told them to shove it, or stayed and went through the hoops this country asked of me.

I thought of not seeing my family for years, of leaving my pets behind, of my friends and the life I have here. I thought about how I don’t belong anywhere else anyway, the same way I don’t quite belong here either. More than anything I thought of my husband who had begged me the night before, not to “do anything fucking stupid”. So romantic that man. J He asked me not to leave. And that was all that mattered, my husband is American and this is his country which makes it mine now too. I didn’t want to leave it. As angry as I was, resentful as I felt, I love it here, the people, the language, the crazy holidays (Easter Bunny anyone?), the security and cleanliness of the streets, the organic food, the diversity of products, the fact that I can be a vegetarian without getting looked at like I’m crazy. I don’t want to live in a place without Whole Foods, so sue me.

I gritted my teeth and lifted my skirt as if presenting my tiny foot to Prince Charming. The woman put the thing on. “Is it comfortable?” she asked. “Yes, of course is comfortable, I walk around with two pounds of plastic on my ankle all the time” I snapped at her. She seemed unfazed by my sarcasm, I’m sure she was used to the being on the receiving end of resentment.

I walked out of there with that clunky thing bruising my ankle bone and ignoring her instructions to wrap a thick sock around it to avoid hurting myself. I wanted to tell her to shove her instructions and fake concern up her ass where her principles were sure to be, because someone with morals wouldn’t work for a place like that one….but I said nothing.

I took a cab to the tri rail (Florida’s pathetic version of public transport) and sat there, furious. More furious I have ever been. So furious I had chills running through my body, so furious I understood crimes of passion, so furious I wanted to break down and cry. I took deep breaths through my nose and clenched my hands into fists, damning everyone to fucking hell and back, NOT shedding ONE.FUCKING.TEAR. Yay me.

And because I am not melodramatic at all I chanted to myself over and over again:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I made it home safely. I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream. I didn’t run away. I didn’t quit. I did spent $300 worth of flared bottom pants at Anthropologie that day.

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/03/16/who-profits-ices-electronic-monitoring-anklets-0

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/deputy-goodman-said-monitor-malfunctioned-i-heard-/nSbJq/  (I call BS on this, btw)

UPDATE NO. 1

People, almost a year has gone by from my last post to now, a whole year where so much has happened I had a difficult time figuring out where or how to explain the going ons.

One of the only readers I have that isn’t a family member, or personal friend commented on one of my posts saying that she had spent three hours reading my blog on her iPad. My reaction was surprise that someone was still reading my blog and the other was a bashful glow of pride. It feels so damn nice when someone says they enjoy what I write. We writers need constant encouragement and flattery, is food for our soul. Without that constant validation we feel like we are writing crap.

I won’t say what I was doing or where I was when I read the post because I don’t want to get ahead of what is to come, which is an update of my life so far, in the last year since my last post. Which sounds so annoyingly conceited but then self centered-ness is the spirit of a personal blog.

On December 27 of 2011 DH and I got a letter saying our interview for the I-130 (marriage interview) was schedule for January 10, 2012. We were so ecstatic is hard to describe. Finally, finally! I was going to be able to drive, to fly, to have a life, to be a resident. In my mind there was no way anything could go wrong because we are truly married, there is no way they could declare ours not to be a bona fide (in legalese) marriage.

I spent the rest of 2011 panicking about where my original I-94 was (a stub of paper you are supposed to keep when you entry this country) and asking my husband to confirm which way of the bed I slept in, “Do I say left? Because it’s the left if I’m laying on it but the right if I’m standing in front of it, what do you think?” To which he would calmly reply “Relax” which made me lose my shit even more  and feel homicidal. How could he be so calm? My stomach was a constant knot and I felt the interview date looming ahead and ruining my new years eve’s party, which is totally unacceptable when you are Hispanic.

We spoke with our lawyer, forked over the two grand for him to drive from Miami to our local USCIS office because our appointment was at the ungodly hour of 7 am. Our lawyer had to be up at the crack of dawn so no way to complain about the fee. I needed him there, I needed him to spout whatever legal shit he was full of and defend my ass if something happened.  More than anything I needed him to keep me calm because as he explained to me, I had a deportation order (or as they call it removal proceedings) from another process, and that meant that even if they approved our marriage as a bona fide marriage they could decide to strap an ankle monitor on my cankle until the end of the proceedings.

Now, why after three years of doing everything by the book, taking the legal route since I arrive to this country and being so close to having my residence would I jeopardize that by fleeing to another state to live in the shadows like a criminal?  I don’t know. But then I don’t know how much of the immigration system works. I needed my lawyer there because I was afraid that if they came to me with an ankle monitor I would go batshit crazy and assault someone.

The mere idea of wearing that was so offensive to me that my lawyer had to talk me through it for thirty minutes, reminding me how close we were, how by the end of 2012 everything will be solved, how I didn’t want to leave my family, friends and the life I've had for the past ten years. How I really wanted to live here in the U.S. and I wasn't going to get there by refusing their requests.

January 10, 2012 we showed up, sharply dressed, newly polished wedding rings blinding us and ready to roll.  They took us in immediately and made us swear to tell the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth and asked us a total of two questions.

“Do you live at this address still?” To which we answered no and provided them with ANOTHER copy of a form we had filed TWO years ago when we moved.

“When did you get married” To which my husband replied 2008 when it was in reality 2009. He corrected himself and said he was nervous. The agent kindly said to him there was nothing He should be worried about. Meaning I was the one in deep shit apparently.

She then stamped our paper saying she knew our marriage to be real (hard to argue when our file was 15 inches tall, full of proves of it).

She mentioned my deportation order and the forms that I was supposed to file, my lawyer chose this moment to pipe in with a reminder that the paperwork had all been filed years ago and the judge and prosecutors were all simply waiting for the USCIS office we were at to give us an interview and confirm our marriage was real.

The agent seemed annoyed at my lawyer’s reminder that they had taken two years and five months to give me an interview date, a process that in average takes four to six months.

In walks another woman who takes possession of my passport (useless anyway because it was expired) and my work permit and license (both also expired) and she says that the deportation order means that I need to be monitored (risky, dangerous person that I am) until and IF a judge decides to reopen my case and dismiss the deportation order. At that point I would be allowed to continue with the process towards my green card.

You could imagine my surprise (even though I was forewarned by my lawyer) that I wouldn’t be walking out of there with a WELCOME stamped my forehead and the expectation of my GC in the mail, but actually with a threat of deportation and an ankle monitor to ruin all my outfits.

It seemed unfathomable to me, that there are child molesters, rapists, robbers and violent ex cons walking freely among society while me, little ol’ me who don’t as much as jay walk or return books late to the library, had to walk around with an ankle monitor.

It wasn’t in house arrest or anything, but the machine apparently would be able to tell if I ever left the State of Florida to which I was now confined.

My lawyer hummed and hawed and complained and they agreed not to “detain me” (for what would they detain me is also beyond me) and one of those lovely I.C.E. agents us illegal immigrants are so fond of came and looked at me. He tried to speak to me in broken Spanish even though he had a Hispanic first and last name. Shame on him, targeting his peeps and doesn’t even speak the language. You would think that if you are going to go against your own people you would at least have the decency to know how to communicate with them in their native language. Race traitor.

My lawyer fumed while they made us wait and he said what they wanted was a reaction from either one of us (dear husband or me) to screw me over. I don’t know if that’s true or not since I refuse to demonize people for doing their bureaucratic job. “They probably expected you to rail and scream and cry” My lawyer said, and checked my face for any trace of…anything. My husband scoffed at the notion of me crying in public.

I could understand him studying me, the more nervous, upset, or angry I am the more my face turns into a mask of utter indifference. I probably looked bored as hell while they threatened me with imprisonment on Krome and ankle monitors and anal probing or whatever. I sat there looking at them as if they were beneath me or as if I was catching a whiff of something unpleasant (which I am sure didn’t help my case any).

I walked out of the USCIS office with a piece of paper that said I was supposed to report to an office a couple of towns south where a contractor to the Immigration Department will outfit me with an ankle monitor for the remainder of the process.

My lawyer looked at me encouragingly, searching for a reaction (don’t know why because he has been my lawyer for ten year and has never gotten anything other than impatience) and rubbing my arm he said “this is good news, your marriage was approved, that’s step one. In July you’ll be vacationing in Cartagena”.

I tried to understand how it can be good news to be treated like a common criminal and a threat to society but said nothing, nodded and got in the car.We drove home in silence while my DH looked at me as if I was a ticking bomb. I sat there contemplating how big the ankle monitor would be and how many pants, jeans and maxi dresses I would have to buy to cover it.