At this time, your purpose is unclear. But eventually, it will be apparent why you are here on Earth. I know every day is routine – your forty-five-minute commute to your job, the mundane workday, the chaotic drive back home through traffic to smoke weed in your living room, then eat something and fall asleep.

June 23, 1985

Dear Lourdes the Younger,

I’m sending you this love and care letter on your sixteenth birthday in the hope that it will save you from more pain and heartache. You don’t know it yet, but this summer will irrevocably change your life in ways you can’t imagine. You will fall in love, fight for love, and then, hide your love.

I went to college in 2014. I am the eldest of four kids, thus, the first to leave home. Growing up in a Latino home meant the vague expectation of pursuing higher education. In my house, our parents said if you were not working, then you were in school. My parents were not raising a bunch of bums. Mami y Papi instilled in us the importance of working for our own. If we wanted something, we had to work for it. I learned this quickly and, at the age of fourteen, had my first, legal job.

I’m sixty-three years old and in unchartered territory on this day of my birth.

• Old enough for Social Security, not old enough for Medicare.

• Old enough to be called “retired,” not old enough to be considered “an elder.”

• Physically (i.e., how I feel) too old for the Iron Woman Triathalon, but not too old for Advanced Yoga.

My midlife crisis arrived like a midnight locomotive a decade later than expected. I gazed at myself in the mirror and realized it was time to face reality. I looked just like the woman who had given me advice all my life. Make room for Mama!

The other day, I pinched the skin around my navel between my fingers and thumb.

“What are you doing?” my husband asked.

“Channeling self-loathing into my belly,” I replied.

"Gosh you have such a pretty face."

"You are so tall, like an Amazon woman!"

"I am not sure if they sell clothes in your size, but we should be able to find something super cute."

"If you lost about twenty-five pounds, you would be gorgeous."

I never felt comfortable saying “my body” or “the body;” it never felt like mine, yet it also seemed more personal than “the.” Growing up, it was commented on: You’re so skinny, so petite, what a tiny peanut, you should really eat more, better hang onto that figure. No one ever said anything about my 4.0 Grade Point Average, the poetry contests I won, or the dreams I had of escaping the life of expected bodily perfection.