The Dragonflies in My Mind

By Maria-Teresa del Carmen

The Dragonflies in My Mind is a raw and personal account of the author’s life, starting with the near-death experience of her birth. At a very early age, her parents were called to a meeting at the school and the school director referred to her as “the strange little girl.” After graduating from high school, she had to deal with her sexuality and eventually came out to her family as homosexual. She also learned to live and to cope with the trials of having a mental illness. She persevered and was able to achieve many of her dreams. The Dragonflies in My Mind should inspire others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781647500863

Maria-Teresa del Carmen

Born in Managua, Nicaragua, Maria-Teresa del Carmen is the author of A Visitor Awaits You, a book she will be submitting for publication. She lives in California.

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About the Author

Born in Managua, Nicaragua, Maria-Teresa del Carmen is the author of A Visitor Awaits You, a book she will be submitting for publication. She lives in California.

Dedication

To

my beloved sister, Damaris;

my beloved father, Ramon Felipe-Nery;

my mother, Lidia Amada;

my brother Ramon Felipe;

my aunt, Martha.

Copyright Information ©

Maria-Teresa del Carmen 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

del Carmen, Maria-Teresa

The Dragonflies in My Mind

ISBN 9781647500856 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781647500849 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781647500863 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915084

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street,33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

This book could not be published without the support and encouragement I received from my beloved sister, Damaris. She was a person who believed in me and for this I loved her dearly. I want to thank my supervisor, Elena, for believing in me and in my work. I want to give special thanks to, Dr. Linda Woodall, she has been an anchor in my life.

Prolonged Destiny

Managua, Nicaragua. The day was October 29, 1959. It was a quiet afternoon when not a soul was seen on the streets. Managua seemed to have been sleeping as if hiding from the intense humidity and heat. Outside in the hospital’s corridor a slim, young man, was pacing and chasing away the dragonflies. The slim, young man almost drowned in his own perspiration which he alleviated by smoking one cigarette after the other. His wife was about to give birth to their second child. Waiting for the moment at the hospital, the woman was lying down in the position to give birth and suddenly without any notice, a baby girl left her mother’s womb as if she was impatient for the nine months she was inside of her.

The newborn baby girl was destined to live only for a matter of seconds after her birth, if it was not for a lady janitor who was mopping the floor. The lady janitor was able to catch the baby girl in her arms before she would hit the floor and depart from this world, taking with her nothing but a few breaths of the clean smelling air from the recently mopped floor by the unknown woman janitor. Did anyone know or ask who she was? Did anyone ever thank her? Did the woman janitor really exist, or was she an angel?

The woman janitor, a prolonged destiny, the dragonflies; a mystery, a moment which was frozen and captured in time as it left a forever expression in the baby girl’s face.

I am Maria-Teresa, the newborn baby girl you were just reading about, at the age of 43. I was chosen to be initiated in a lifetime of wondering and questioning; of thinking I had the answers to soon enough ask the same questions. I was chosen to be initiated in a lifetime of feeling intensively; of loving without limitations, the same with suffering. And as a person from Nicaragua, I was chosen to a lifetime of adjusting to the sequels left after earthquakes, war and relocating to the U.S.A., the challenges of coming to terms with my sexual preference. I was also chosen to a lifetime of living and coping to meet the challenges brought with major depression and with the challenges brought with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD.

My First Weeks of Age

From the hospital, I was taken home, and placed in the loving arms of Theo, our nanny. She was a strong and soft woman in her thirties. A woman who for each of my mother’s births would come to the city and would stay with us until the newborn was two to three years old. She would then leave to go back to take care of her own family. Theo lived in a small farm between Managua and Diriamba—a city located North West of Managua.

I was baptized with the name of Maria-Teresa del Carmen. I was named after the woman who together with her husband had raised my mother since the age of three. My biological maternal grandfather was gunned down by the National Guard from Nicaragua and my grandmother remarried. Back in that time it was not accustomed for parents to bring along children from a prior marriage into a new marriage. This was done in the best interest of the children and thus my mother was given away. The couple that raised my mother to me and my siblings were like our real grandparents. We loved them dearly.

As with any other children in the family, during my first weeks of age my parents took me to the ocean. That part of the Pacific Ocean between Masachapa and Pochomil where we co-owned a beach house with other relatives. The wonder of the most serene, yet tempestuous of places was introduced to me at such an early age. It was as if my parents knew that the serenity of the ocean to which I was introduced at an early age, would become some sort of cushion in the preparation for the tempest that would come later in my life. The ocean, that place where happiness and tranquility abounded for to this date in time, the recollections of such place come to my mind bringing that same happiness and tranquility, with only one difference; this time the happiness and tranquility comes accompanied with nostalgia.

My First Recollection

The moment of my first recollection was at about the age of two years old. We were at El Abra, a farm owned by some oldest relatives on my father’s side. The house was the typical country house with high colonial ceilings, with the exception of the dining room which was like an annex to the house. The ceiling in the dining room was about seven feet tall. We were having dinner sitting at the dining room table which accommodated at least eight people. My relatives were enjoying a good meal accompanied by a conversation, which ended when I spilled a glass of pinolillo which is a typical Nicaraguan refreshment made of ground toasted corn and cacao beans.

The normal paced moment turned into slow motion as I remember the expressions of people who were at least five times my size. The content in the glass spilled in an area as large as the table itself. I never lost site of the pinolillo as it spread on the table. A quiet moment followed as my mother picked up the mess I had made. A silent moment, for no one expressed a word or emotion. I still wonder why I would recollect that moment.

Of my next early years of