Privacy, and a second July 19, 1987 greeting card

It's hard for me to imagine what levels of privacy people who didn't grow up in my home possessed because I so rarely had any. What little I had was constantly being interrupted by surprise guests or people who my parents decided should spend the night for whatever reason. In the card I'm posting today, I mention a surprise visit from my cousins who were going to stay with us for three nights. This wasn't especially unique except that these were the "good" cousins who had never stayed with us before.

The "good" side of the family was the maternal one and the "bad" was the paternal one. My mother's relatives rarely visited and never had their children stay with us because of the state of our family home. We were beneath them, and that was always clear. The reason my aunt's kids stayed with us was an emergency health situation with their father and no one else was willing to look after them for an extended time. So, they were too good for us, unless they needed us.

This card was written one day after Tito and I talked on the phone and started our long distance relationship. It seemed all too common that my privacy was yanked away from me at the most inopportune moments. It's no small wonder that I felt like fate was sitting around chuckling at my misfortune. Even in the best of times, things could be difficult or tricky. My privacy was taken away right when I most wanted to celebrate my new status as a partnered person.