There’ve been times when I lay alone in the dark and wanted to cry. I’ve made my own way in life, and have, up to this point, been extremely successful at it. To this day I am a woman that stands by my decisions-good or bad. I have very few regrets about the choices I made for myself back then. I fled Loveless, shaking the dust off my boots and never looking back. I just didn’t see any other way to survive. I was barely eighteen, not really grown, but I had to get out. I hit the road with exactly the kind of guy my father hated. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, I just had to be patient. So at nine years old, I decided that I would make my own way. And I sure as hell was never going to fit into the conventional mold of the traditional Mexican woman like my father so desperately wanted me to. I had no plans to end up a happy homemaker like my mother. I was never going to be perfect and compliant like my adorable little sister. She was gentle and kind but she was also docile and obedient, ready to jump whenever my father barked an order. It was a situation made even worse by the fact that my younger sister was the apple of my parents’ eye. My parents wanted to squeeze me into a too-small box, painted white and tied with a bow of tradition. Anything that went against my father’s wishes or was deemed inappropriate and shameful got kicked to the curb along with any sense of uniqueness and enjoyment. It was how everything in my life went, and my mom never seemed willing to take a stand and defy him, even if it meant giving her daughter something she so desperately wanted.

I was so proud, so excited when I made the team, only to have my father tell me dancing like that wasn’t permitted and no daughter of his was going to make a spectacle of herself. I longed for something different, something that would make the day-to-day less agonizing. When I was nine, I convinced my mom to let me try out for a very exclusive dance team.

I was meant to be quiet, compliant, and conventional.

I was the minister’s daughter, and if that didn’t come with enough inherent expectations, the man who was beloved behind the pulpit but a tyrant in our home heaped them on ever higher. We lived in Loveless, a tiny Texas town with an achingly accurate name. Too many disapproving looks from my father and not enough support or backbone from my mother. I DON’T HAVE A LOT of great memories from my childhood.

Rowdy by jay crownover