Frances

By Katarina Navarro

Non-fiction memoir that takes place in the past and present tense. The story is based on true events, encompassing how the main character must overcome familial trauma, combating with difficult romantic relationships and coming to terms with self discovery.

The reality this main character was so used to, was soon to become a faint memory. She's about to embark on the rollercoaster ride of her life. Join her in finding her true self, gaining perspective and a perhaps a little more life experience than what she bargained for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350907155

Book preview

BK90078642.jpg

Frances

© Katarina Navarro

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN 979-8-35090-714-8

eBook ISBN 979-8-35090-715-5

Table of Contents

Prologue

1. Mom

2. Sounds Gay: I’m In!

3. Boy

4. Irish Cream

5. SLO

6. Where Did the Good Go?

7. C U Soon

8. Gay as the Day Is Long

9. U-Haul

10. Bruised

11. California Dreamin’

12. When We Were Young

13. Till Death Do Us Part

14. Foodie

15. Chemo Brain

16. June 11

17. Godmother

18. No Brains, No Headaches

19. The Room with the Floral Sofa

20. H is for Hernandez

21. Cha-Ching!

22. Now What?

23. Seasons

24. The Devil In Disguise

25. Papi

26. Trespassing

27. K? K.

28. Move

29. Skater Boi

30. Chosen Family

31. Other

32. Dear…

33. Frances

Epilogue

Prologue

My first experience in community theater in the early 2000s was when I was a junior in high school. I wasn’t jaded by my experiences yet, and I was far too naive to think that I’d ever be in a position to write a book. Times were so much simpler back then. All I had to worry about was how I was getting a ride home from the Carrillo Rec Center back to Goleta. I had such a small compass that guided me to make the decisions that would then lead me to this exact place.

I made some lifelong friends during that theater experience and lived some of my most cherished high school days during that time. I learned the most about myself during that time and really was able to tap into my most authentic self. It was the first time I had ever realized that I wasn’t alone in my experiences, thoughts, or feelings. I got to learn firsthand what it truly meant to be vulnerable with a group of peer-like strangers.

There’s really nothing quite like a bunch of high schoolers sticking together in a room, learning trust exercises, divulging their deepest, darkest truths and secrets in confidence, and then turning those negative experiences into positive ones. And to take it up a notch, to write a play about it? We really need more programs like this for youth communities because this community saved my life.

I digress. Something valuable I learned during my time in this theater group is that everyone has their own life story that no one knows a single thing about. We’re all just walking around, carrying baggage that we don’t speak of, whether asked or not. We’re all just existing in this world, where some of us choose to be vocal about our truths and experiences while others choose to hide behind the privacy of anonymity . Both are valid ways of expression, if you ask me.

But just take a moment to think about that for a second. The only person who knows YOUR story is YOU. Not your spouse, partner, parents, best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, roommate, etc. You are the only person who knows the exact truth about yourself and your experiences, and we all hold that.

Everyone has their own story. Every single person you see walking down the street—your partner, spouse, best friend—every single person you come into contact with has their own experiences and their own valid reasons for what shaped them into who they are today.

Working in that theater group made such a profound impact on my adult life. It really showed me how to be vulnerable with people, even in the unlikeliest of situations. It gave me permission to slowly develop into the person I wanted to become. It validated my experiences. It showed me that you get to write your own story based on your truths, even if others might not like it or agree with it, even if it sheds some ugly truths. It’s still yours. And no one can take that away from you.

Mom

I was born at Long Beach Memorial Hospital in the afternoon on March 31st, 1987 at 12:05 p.m., weighing 1 pound and 13 ounces. Originally, Mom was brought to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, but during the late 80s, they didn’t quite have the appropriate means and technology to care for myself as a premature baby and my mom. So they requested she be immediately choppered to Long Beach Memorial Hospital. But Mom, being the difficult person she was, refused to take said chopper.

So the hospital drove her by ambulance from Santa Barbara to Long Beach.

I was born three months early in the hospital’s NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). During the pregnancy, my mom heavily struggled with not only getting pregnant but also with enduring the pregnancy altogether.

At the time of my birth, my mom had been hospitalized for a few weeks prior due to the complications of her pregnancy with me. So her doctor felt it was necessary to remove me from the womb much earlier than anticipated. Her doctor and NICU nurses all advised my mom to not get too attached to me, as the survival rate for micro-premature babies was very small at that time, because of the insufficient means to care long-term for such a fragile baby. During the time of my delicate birth, they were very concerned for my survival. Those around her were as concerned as the hospital staff, as the mortality rate for micro-preemies was high and the requirements to keep micro-preemies alive were extensive. Feeding tubes, breathing apparatuses, incubators—it’s a daunting task for all those involved.

My mom was never concerned about my mortality. She’d often tell me that it never crossed her mind that I wouldn’t make it. She always assumed we would both get through it together.

After I spent six long months at Long Beach Memorial Hospital—with my mom staying by my side during the weekends, driving to and from Santa Barbara to Long Beach just to see me and spend time with me—I was finally able to go home. My mom was thrilled to finally have her little baby girl home with her. When the hospital sent me home, I still had to use a feeding tube and weighed only a couple of pounds. So my mom had her work cut out for her! But she was up to the challenge!

My mom was a multi-faceted person. She was a seamstress, carpenter, cook, baker, and mechanic, and she was also crafty. She was the pure definition of a Jack of All Trades. For example, she had all of my clothing tailored to fit my feeding tube mechanism. I swear, she thought of everything!

She used to frequently joke about how she’d buy Cabbage Patch Kid doll clothes to dress me up. She always seemed to adjust to my needs so easily, even if it was inconvenient for her. She was always there for me. Always. Particularly when I was a child. She never really assumed I couldn’t do things because I was born so early in life. And not once did she ever tell me I couldn’t do something. While she wasn’t exactly a vocal cheerleader for me, she never discouraged me from anything. Looking back as an adult, I don’t think it was that she didn’t want to be my cheerleader; I think she just didn’t know how to be that for me. As a kid, she typically wasn’t someone who showed her loving feelings with words. She wasn’t verbally expressive, and that’s perfectly OK, because as a kid, she certainly showed love, just not with words or hugs. It was more of an action-based love, as in, she’d take me shopping, buy me the latest gadgets, or show me things she knew how to do, like cook and sew.

Growing up, she was a funny but stern parent. She was authoritative and certainly had her punitive style. But she was also silly and played with me. She used to help me win Easter egg hunts by shouting and pointing where to find the eggs; sometimes she’d even help me collect the eggs herself. Ha! My cousins always envied her for helping me. She’d always include my cousins and me during our playtime and other activities; it was always the four of us kids plus her. She’d participate in us watching cartoons in the morning, eating pancakes at the table, and just hanging out.

I grew up in a blended household, and for the first ten years of my life, I didn’t know any different. I thought everyone had a blended family like mine. Marcos entered our lives while I was still a baby. I think I was about a year or so old when he and my mom got together. To me, he had always been in my life, from the very beginning.

Marcos, myself, and my mom all lived upstairs in a two-bedroom apartment with my aunt and uncle, Celia and Richard, plus their three kids, Richie, Mike, and Jennifer., who lived in the lower-level of the main house. Both families did so much together, and it really created a blended family unit. We were highly integrated and all had such a strong bond.

In 1996, my mom bought the house that Marcos currently lives in. It’s a single-story, three-bedroom, two-bath home with a small front and back yard. Although she didn’t say it, I think that was one of my mom’s biggest accomplishments. She finally had a space that was strictly hers, where her nuclear family could grow up.

That house grew and shape-shifted as much as we did as people. The carpet was torn out, the walls were broken down, and paint was splattered on the walls for a refreshed look. It took years for it to take the shape and feel that my mom finally felt happy with. She was always working on some sort of DIY project in the house, whether knocking down a wall herself, cutting tiles for the backyard mosaic sun she created, or painting the rain gutters. That house saw us at our best, worst, and neutral moments. It sheltered us in times of stormy weather, provided Marcos a roof to watch the nearby fireworks every year, and hosted countless birthdays and celebrations.

The stories that those walls could tell.

The three of us would frequently spend our time together in the living room, casually watching TV together and eating dinner with our individual TV trays. The tile that we used to replace the awful low-ply carpet kept us cool in the summer, and the fireplace we never used became home to many family photos. Above the mantel hung a beautiful waterfall painting that my mom haggled down from $350 to $100 at a local fair. The living room held the most memories, where the three of us would laugh, open Christmas presents, watch shows like Family Feud and Sabado Giante, or where we’d competitively play Tetris on my PlayStation.

The kitchen in that house also holds a lot of memories. So many baked goods were created in that kitchen: birthday cakes, wedding cakes, retirement cakes, even a few Christmas cakes. The spices that would emanate from the kitchen during the hot summers would practically choke us all with the stench of spiciness, and we’d have to get a breather outside. It also housed our family pet cockatiel, Joaquin. We bought him at one of our swap meet trips.

That house had so many valuable celebrations, but it was always just home for the three of us, away from critics, relentless teasing, and judgmental commentary. We’d spend every Sunday morning together. Marcos and I would have coffee, and my mom would have juice. We’d hang out in the living room together, watching some sort of morning show, before we’d go and do our individual things. It was a brief time that we’d spend quality time together. We’d usually cook some sort of breakfast together, chit-chat, and just be present with one another. It was such a simple act, and something I sorely miss.

For the next decade or so, that was my mom’s house, or as the rest of the family all referred to her as, Nina’s house, and everyone was always over. The fridge was always fully stocked with a myriad of homemade Mexican cuisines, and the freezer was equally full of delicious sweet treats. She had an open-door policy to neighborhood kids, friends, family, and friends of family. Anyone and everyone was welcomed, often with a large offering of food. She loved to feed people and host! Neighborhood kids loved our house because my mom would invite them over to our house anytime we had a party. If they weren’t using the bouncy house in our front yard to play in, they were eating my mom’s homemade food or playing our PlayStation in the living room. For Halloween, I remember she’d make trick-or-treat candy bags stuffed with all kinds of sweets to give out. Then she upgraded a few years later to king-sized candy. Kids went crazy and would frequently come more than once to our house, just for the candy!

So many milestones happened in that home. It was the first house my mom got to host her mother at. I’d like to think she was really proud of that, being able to show her own mom what she did. Countless birthdays, holidays, graduations all took place at Nina’s house. It was a safe space, where a lot of life took place.

My mom put a lot of work into that house; she renovated so many times! We converted the garage into a studio for friends of family to live in. We gutted the backyard and the atrocious landscape that was originally there and turned it into a swanky patio, complete with pool table and grill. We gutted the front yard too, removed all of the shrubbery and turned it into a luscious sanctuary with giant palm trees and the greenest and most perfectly trimmed grass. Marcos was a gardener and did all of the outside renovations, while my mom did most of the indoor renovations with the help of Richard.

That house was a clear reflection of my mom, the neutral tones in the decor, the homey feeling you’d get when you walked in, the knick-knacks and gadgets she’d buy from Home Shopping Network (HSN), or an infomercial. We’d always play music in the background, usually Motown, or the TV would be on with a talk-show host like Oprah, Sally, or Rikki. I still have fond memories of my mom and I watching Oprah after I’d get home from school. I’d like to think that’s how we bonded when I was in my early teens.

While my mom was the hostess with the moistest and a jack-of-all-trades, she wasn’t exactly the most communicative or emotionally available person. Sure, she was great at fun bonding things like road trips to the mall or jamming to music while cooking together, but when it came to really deep conversations, she was a little lackluster.

Sure, a lot of good milestones happened in that house, but a lot of other milestones also occurred in that house too. Like when I came out to her in the laundry room, or when she met my first girlfriend, or when I came home drunk after a night out with friends, or mourning the loss of her mom, and eventually mourning the loss of her.

Sounds Gay: I’m In!

As a kid, I didn’t really know what a lesbian or gay man was. I didn’t even hear those words until I was probably about thirteen or fourteen years old during my mandatory health class, and even then it was glossed over. I had absolutely no examples in my day-to-day life of what sexuality even meant.

The first distinct memory I have of hearing the word gay was when I was hanging out with Aunt Anna in her computer room at my grandma’s house. She had Bicycle Race on by Queen, and I loved it! It was animated, silly, and really catchy! I must’ve commented on the song itself or something because Aunt Anna told me about the band Queen, to which I must’ve chuckled because Aunt Anna then explained to me why they were named Queen. Their lead singer, Freddie Mercury, was gay, and my aunt then explained what a gay man and a lesbian were.

At the time, I didn’t really think much of it. Like I said, I didn’t have any positive LGBTQIA+ examples in my day-to-day life, so making sense of this gay lead singer was a little challenging for me to wrap my head around. By the time I entered high school, it became a little more clear to me what sexuality meant. My female peers were ogling over boys in our class, so naturally