When I was eight, my abuela told me that the women in our family have a gift: we can "see things before they happen." This statement was delivered as casually as if she’d been announcing it was tamale night. My family, deeply rooted in Southwestern mysticism and practicality in equal measure, treated this claim with a shrug and a knowing look. My aunt called it intuition. My mom simply labeled it “Reeves radar.” But to me, it felt like I’d inherited a superpower, and I was only one prophetic dream away from joining the X-Men.
As I grew older, I came to understand that this so-called “gift” was less about predicting the future and more about the stories my family told—stories that blurred the line between myth and reality and shaped the rules we lived by. And though they were whimsical, tragic, and occasionally mortifying, they became the lens through which I saw the world, especially when it came to life and love. Here are a few of my favorites, and how they (sometimes hilariously) forged my sense of self and relationships.
The Tale of the Fox and the Fireworks: Never Date Someone Who Hates Magic
The story goes that my great-grandmother, Lola, rejected a marriage proposal because her suitor didn’t believe her when she said foxes were guarding her family’s well. She claimed she’d seen their amber eyes glowing at dusk, their bodies like whispers in the sagebrush. When the young man laughed and called it a “childish fancy,” Lola packed up her heart, handed it to someone else, and later married a man who serenaded her with a homemade flute.
Growing up, this tale became one of my mom’s favorite cautionary anecdotes. “Date someone who believes in magic,” she’d say whenever I described a crush. And for a while, I took this advice literally. Did they read fantasy novels? Believe in the power of crystals? Love stargazing? Check, check, and check. I ignored other red flags—poor communication, questionable life choices—because, hey, they believed in magic, right?
Eventually, I realized my mom wasn’t being literal. The point wasn’t about foxes or crystals (sorry, Steve from my sophomore year); it was about finding someone who values wonder, someone who doesn’t dim your light when you marvel at the world. Magic is just a metaphor for the spark between two people—and trust me, if someone laughs at your fox stories, they’re not it.
Uncle Ernesto’s Eternal Couch Nap: The Perils of Settling
Every family has a character, and for us, that was Uncle Ernesto. According to legend, he once argued at a wedding reception that couches are superior to beds because “why sleep on something private when you can rest in public?” The man spent most holidays horizontal on various sofas, serenading us with snores and unsolicited advice that often began with, “Back in my day, women loved a good pair of suspenders.”
Ernesto’s catchphrase—and family punchline—was: “Why settle when you can settle down?” The irony, of course, was that settling was exactly what he’d done. According to my mom, he met his first (and only) love as a teenager. She wanted to travel the world; Ernesto wanted to, well, continue napping. They compromised by simply…not working out. Decades later, he lived with two cats and an array of suspiciously identical couches. He insisted he was happy, but there was always a note of wistfulness in his voice when he spoke of her—how she loved rainbows, how she braided his hair one summer.
From Ernesto, I learned that settling down doesn’t mean settling your soul. In dating and life, the most important question isn’t “Can I live with this?” but “Does this make me want to live more?” The couches may be comfy, but if they’re anchoring you in place when you should be flying, it’s time for some self-reflection. Or, you know, at least a bedframe.
The Family Curse That Wasn’t: Rewrite Your Love Stories
“That’s just the Reeves Curse,” my dad would groan every time he dropped a tortilla butter-side down or accidentally watered my mom’s flowerbeds with the hose set to high pressure. To hear him tell it, our family was plagued by a minor but irritating curse affecting luck and love. He always said it with a wry smile, quoting Shakespeare or muttering about comedic irony, and it felt harmless, like we all had a little rain cloud that occasionally followed us around.
But the curse took a darker tone in my teenage years when I started to notice my parents’ fights lingering longer than their laughter. My dad moved into a guest room, then into an apartment close by. By then, the “curse” became shorthand for failed marriages and restless hearts. And though no one said it outright, it was implied: this scarlet thread of disappointment traced through the women in our family too, running as steady as the Rio Grande through generations before me.
For a while, I believed it. I dated on edge, waiting for some cosmic sign that my relationships were doomed to collapse. But here’s the thing about curses—they only hold power if you let them. Over time, I realized the fantasy of this unwelcome inherited fate distracted me from the agency I had to shape my own narrative. If anything, the “curse” taught me to let go of relationships that didn’t serve me and left me stronger for it.
That, and butter-side-down tortillas are just how life works sometimes. Not everything has to be a metaphor.
Lessons Etched in Adobe
In my family’s stories, each exaggerated tale disguises a deeper truth—one steeped in heartache, humor, and resilience. These narratives taught me that love isn’t about fate; it’s about choice. It’s about believing in what you can’t always see, refusing to settle for something that doesn’t nourish you, and rejecting the notion that your past defines your future.
Do I still think about the foxes by the well late at night? Absolutely. My grandmother would be thrilled. But these days, I see them as guardians of something larger—reminders to create my own magic, stay curious, and rewrite the tales I tell myself about love. After all, a good story doesn’t just entertain. It teaches, it transforms, and, if you’re lucky, it keeps the wonder alive.
So the moral of this one? Maybe we don’t all have to “see things before they happen.” But we can listen to the tales of those who came before us. And if anyone scoffs at your love of foxes, couches, or tortillas, remember: they’re probably just not your people.
