My aunt Sarita

Once a year I visited my aunt Sarita, my grandma and my cousins. They lived in the big city of Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, while I have always been a girl from a small town by the beach. Destiny placed my mom and I four hundred kilometers away from the rest of the family.  It was during Christmas times that we visited, a time when Buenos Aires turns into an oven with humans as roasted chickens. However, I enjoyed my time there.

As I grew older, I became a disappointment for the family. I took my sweet damn time to finish the university and spent my 20's with long periods of unemployment.    

She gave me the title of “Slothful”. 

I got my college degree late in life, I admit. Nobody is more ashamed of that than me. But at least I made an effort to finish my studies. My aunt Sarita has never set a foot in an university, but she thinks she’s a judge. She gives an opinion about everything and everybody. A filterless mouth that shoots poisoned darts. Such attitude is a family trait.  

I'm fluent in two languages, by the way. Did my aunt Sarita speak two languages when she was my age? She didn’t.

Those who listen to my aunt Sarita speak think wrongly that I never worked in my thirty years of life. Never mind that I sold cosmetics for over a decade. I worked in a clothes store for a summer. I walked almost the entire town polling people for a month. An entire summer I walked the beautiful beaches of Mar del Plata selling perfumes that were more fake than than a three pesos bill. I worked in the United States for four months. There I was an employee of a nursery and a hotel maid. I had to sweet floors and clean disgusting toilets for eight hours a day. Isn’t that work?    

My resume is short. Don’t I know that? But I’m no stranger to work. I’m not unfamiliar with the torments caused by a supervisor that makes Meryll Streep’s character in “The Devil Wears Prada” look like an angel.

Another falsity forged by my aunt Sarita is the belief that I didn't work because it was not my wish.

I did everything someone looking for a job should do. I read the newspaper every day and I applied for those jobs for which I was qualified. I walked around the downtown leaving resumes in different stores (An exercise that turned out to be a complete futility). I went to job interviews. Time after time I suffered the deep deception of not receiving the fervently awaited call.    

My aunt Sarita worked her entire life without a break. She was never hit by the drama of unemployment. She can’t conceive that someone simply can’t find a suitable job. And she envies me. She envíed the fact that, even though I didn't work, my life was better than hers. It generates spite inside her the fact that I didn't need to work. I looked for work because I wanted to. I had everything I needed. Big house. Expensive clothes. And I even traveled every now and then.

My aunt Sarita, who worked her ass off her whole life, owns a tiny apartment. Was it the result of her hard work? No. She got it thanks to an inheritance, and a loan. Besides, in her hour of need, she got help from her sisters. However, she thought she had the right to criticize everything I got without effort.      

In the family table, she compared me with her daughter, My cousin Perfecta. 

Perfecta got a college degree while working hard, for my aunt Sarita never gave her anything, not even a subway pass. Aunt Sarita didn’t have the means to help her. It hurt her watching my mother take the burden off my back. It reminded her that she couldn’t do anything for Perfecta. And that must have hurt.

Behind a bully there is often insecurity, low self-esteem and pain.