The Great Catch

I Kept Choosing the Horse

Have you ever heard of the child’s play story of the little ant?  For my Mexican readers, did you may have played it as I remember doing so very young.  I was told this story many times and if you have not heard it allow me to summarize.  The story is a game that is played on a child’s arm as a way to tickle them but more also to set the stage on how important it is to stick with you kind. It starts with a little ant lost looking for someone to marry.  As the ant crawls up the child’s arm and makes several stops she encounters several animals along the way from a cat to a dog, to a horse and then finally to another little ant.  Each time she encounters an animal she proposes or is proposed to marry but she or the other animal turns down the proposal along her path.  The way the game/story is supposed to end is with her meeting another little ant and finally finding her match.  My tio (uncle) Nato would always crack up laughing when he would tell me the story because every time the little ant would get to the horse and he would propose, I would jump in excitedly and say “Yes!”.  He would laugh and tell me that the little ant could not marry the horse it just would not work. If I waited a little longer I could find the other little ant to marry.  I refused.  Even when the game would replay I would insist on the horse as my match.  Needless to say that has been my life in a nutshell.

I did not know I was a feminist early on in my life.  What I did know was that a lady does not curse, use foul language, stays a virgin until marriage, obeys her parents, and basically knows and LOVES her place in society because she has a very important role to play in life.  I knew these things especially growing up in a very Catholic household.  My father without a doubt was the head of the family.  His rule was law.  I was lucky that he was not a tyrant but rather a progressive, especially as he grew older and realized his eldest child, me, would continue to push the envelope and eventually break away most if not all of his traditions eventually.  I really did want to be a good girl.  Just like all kids I wanted to be loved and accepted and become what my parents envisioned of their eldest daughter.  My mother still says I’m a saint, but that’s because she is clearly blindly in love with me and has forgotten my teenage years.  Despite the many challenges growing up in Orange County, SoCal, as a first generation Mexican American I kept finding I just did not fit in each box I was put in be it at home or at work.  Apparently, I am quirky, over opinionated, a little Narcissistic, but VERY charismatic and good looking.   I’m kind of kidding of course because women aren’t allowed to proclaim their awesomeness.