xxXBroken GlassesXxx

"Then the clouds parted"

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:23:00 -0600

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that’s how it felt when the anti-depressants kicked in. Now it’s just like if I had high blood pressure and was taking blood pressure medicine.”

“Oh cool, well I don’t think they make a pill for what I have.”

“What’s that?”

“Chronic dissatisfaction”

It’s almost 4 am. It’s really not unusual that I would be up at this hour, as I have insomnia. At least it’s not like 4 pm, when I was woken, rather startled awake by the back door swinging open. I think Mikey leaves it unlocked, because it’s happened before.

I’ve had a month of sick leave for injury that seemed so silly and minor and has turned into a big annoyance. It should be a humbling experience, I mean, I have a job *FMLA bitches* that I can’t be fired from (yet) and have had time to “relax”. I just find myself bored and further obsessing about the small things in life I can’t fix. I fixate on them. I used to complain but now it produces this panic and pain in my chest I can’t explain, like just now, reading an email from a professor granting me an incomplete ( I emailed him 2 weeks ago) and saying I had until the end of the month. This seems generous, but I just don’t know if I can. I don’t know that I can “complete” anything. I’m 26 and I have been picking up the pieces of my life for 3 years now. I’m grateful for what I have and hope that I have become more stable and that I have progressed, but more often than not, I believe I really haven’t. I’m more involved in activities that I enjoy. I have friends that I love to go and and chat with. I love my best friends and try to be a good friend and not too annoying. But shit, everyone is annoying. Yet, I fall into the rabbit hole again and again. My urges to cut myself come back. I’m not supposed to tell anyone and just pretend everything is okay, because it is and I just don’t feel like it is. This is not where I wanted to be at 26.

I see my high school friends and they are so ahead of me. It’s like they’ve learned to walk and I’m still crawling. I see how they worry about their partners and how keihls make up is worth the investment and what their purse or new gym bags cost or how they hint to their partners about gifts and trips and all that (okay that part is funny). I don’t want that life. Which brings up the question, what life do I want? The one where I take vicodin and take nightmare filled naps. The life where I love my apartment and the minor fights and drama are minor and the generosity of my true friends is and that I have health insurance, thankfully as opposed to what life in Chicago could be.

I always feel short changed, though. I guess it’s because I have had to work really hard to get here and I don’t even know what here means besides being 26 and worrying about a paper for a class I wouldn’t have had to take if things had been different before. I guess I’m grateful for the opportunity to even be in school, for whatever, because some people can’t.

I don’t know.

I do know that the clouds haven’t parted. That magic pills have an expiration and therapy is nice, but I’m not sure what that means. My therapist did say that if I went back to work with the people I do (based on my descriptions, the proof, and Michael’s acknowledgment and further examples), I may have a nervous breakdown or some sort of psychotic break. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. I don’t even remember what going to work is and it’s only been a month.

I forget I have this platform. I get lost in worrying about work and all that. I worry because I have bills and a life I’m supposed to be living and being responsible and all those things that you have to do before you turn 30. I guess, it’s that thing that with my complaining is just a verbalization of my fears, insecurities, and failures.

Mikey says it’s all going to be okay. This is from the silly boy that called me crying at 3 am walking home from a bar, while bumping into trees ? There’s a plan. There’s a plan. It will be alright.

I hope so.

I find out if I need surgery tomorrow, I just want to know what the hell is going on with my foot and the other ankle.

I guess this is what your twenties are for. I hate that expression. Can I use it to justify my life, though?

Scarlett Johansson is on Fuse singing with Peter Bjorn.

There’s a plan.

Comment

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:36:32 -0600

settingitaside:

My older brother is getting married this coming summer, so my 11-year-old sister and I were looking through the bin of photographs that my mother keeps in the office, to get some pictures of him at different ages, you know, for that sappy slideshow stuff they do at weddings sometimes. Anyway, enough about him this blog is about me. Obviously there are a lot of pictures of me in that bin too (like this one from Oct. 2002 or 2003), since my mother isn’t really the scrapbooking type or even the organized-into-piles type when it comes to old photographs. I don’t keep a lot of old pictures around my apartment so this was probably the first time I’ve seen most of these pictures since they were taken, and looking at them just really blew my last emotionally-restrained gasket this weekend. I look at my life now, sitting in a house in a state I’d never even visited before my mother moved here with her new husband, and I wonder what happened to the life I thought I deserved, the life the guy in this pictures thinks is going to happen for him.

It sounds so selfish to write it down, but I really never expected for it to go this way. Still in college (not for a masters) until 2010, living thousands of miles away from my mom and little sister, working part-time jobs in the middle of a recession (will we call it “The Recession” when I look back at pictures from this holiday break in 10 years?), still struggling to be comfortable with being gay, and totally out of shape physically and making it worse drinking so much every week. Wait, that’s not really too terrible of a situation, is it? I’m sorta bad at this emo thing. But it is still weird getting older, counting the wrinkles on my forehead, wondering when I started having this extra padding under my chin and comparing myself to pictures from high school. That guy wanted to be a doctor, can you believe it?

This is your platform so I’m not going to invade it. I knew there was more emotion than you were letting on. Trust me I understand to some degree (because all our situations are unique). I think you’re still evolving, coping with changes in every level of your life, and desiring a simplicity that unfortunately fades as we get older.

I wish I knew the key, heaven knows I don’t. See: incidents involving bathtubs.

I guess all I can say is that I care and that I know that there are boundaries to be had, but I’m here for you and I’d rather you take care of yourself and not start drinking a lot.

love,

on being angry

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:38:08 -0500

There’s this essay I love. It’s about reclaiming anger. I’m not sure what it means. Well, i know what it means in theory. But what does it mean in practice?

I’m angry. I’m an angry person. It doesn’t seem like it. I pretend well. More on pretending later.

I’m angry at my family for fucking me, for making me feel guilty, and for basically making me raise myself. Family is a complicated thing. You can’t really cut them out of your life. We are all allowed to mistakes, after all. I just hate when my sister calls me out on shit on the undeserved pedestal she’s put herself on. I hate all of it. I love them, but I’m angry. So pretending its okay is the answer.

I’m angry about last year and everything I went through. Both the lack of support from the people that I never expected to withold it, the best part is the lack of apologies; don’t even let me start on my sisters apathy. Life is what it is.

I’m angry at my vagina. It’s true. Or maybe it’s my ovaries. I’m angry that for the second time in 3ish years, I had my period for 7 months at time. Not just my period. A flood, a hemorraghe fest, a volcano overflowing with debry. But I’m not supposed to talk about that and how much it hurts or how everyday at work I worry about an “accident”, because I’m supposed to use a code word for issues related to “girl problems”. I’m angry that I complain to people about it, but it’s really just a third of how I feel or how it scares me. I’m angry at my vagina and I can’t do anything about it.

I’m angry at myself. For not saving or having money. For the many mistakes I’ve made with girls. For “emotional eating” and feeling like I’m so ugly that I deserve to be alone and not have friends and not feel love or expect love. I’m angry I can’t bring myself to exercise or stop overeating or any of that. I’m angry that I can’t seem to change my life or show people who I really am or feel like the image I project is not a pleasant one. I’m angry I’m not pleasant, come off as needy, and constant feel alone no matter where I am. I’m angry I hate my job when so many people don’t have one. I’m angry I don’t have a voice at work, because after all I’m just a glorified secretary. I’m angry that I want to change the world, but I’m not really an activist - it’s a mask, i think - and although I want to be, I don’t think I’m capable of it. I’m angry I’ll never be a writer, because the truth is, I’m not really that good at it. Mostly I’m angry that I am such an angry person that I don’t ever have anything but complaints to offer.

I’ve read so much feminist theory and so much theory from women of color and how anger is much more deep and part of the way we are socialized than just not feeling strong. I wish I could believe that sometimes. I don’t know.

There’s this funny picture of a vagina that I wanted to add, but I felt it not the most appropriate content.

that was then this is now

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:43:01 -0500

I’m posting here because apparantely LiveJournal is outdated and was something you did in high school.

It has been brought to my attention that my previous and very intimate poem was .either too abstract - is that an euphimism for bad writing? - or confusing.

Perhaps it is part of that whole strange paradigm of meds, life right now, life last year, and everything about who I am and who I was.

I’m expressive, but I guess in an annoying way and not in a quality that is desirable. It’s more interpreted as needed. Maybe Audre Lorde and feminist theory has fucked me and led me to believe that the personal is the political and being open and honest is a defiance to the partriarchal system; not to mention in defiance of the American insistance, rather socialization, that we must lead an individualistic society that we are one and we are fighting for ourselves (versus collective societies. I guess, either my mind lives in an alternate universe or I am missing something. I don’t like injustice and am vocal. I believe that family is found in places beyond blood relations. I believe in supporting people, with the caveat that I’ve kind of fucked that up because I’ve tyrannically imposed my interpretation of what support, family and friendship is. I can lay blame on numerous things, but at some point it’s me that does them.

I don’t feel like I know who I am, who I’m supposed to be, how I’m supposed to act, what I’m supposed to say. When I’m myself - or what feels honest - it pushes me away and makes me feel like I’m not only incredibly flawed but also someone that can be interpreted as a bad person.

I wallow and obsess or over analyze my problems. It may outwardly seem narcissitic, but I equally worry about other people that I care about. Maybe that’s not enough. I don’t know. I guess I just don’t know who I am supposed to be. I don’t really have many friends here, to some level that is for a reason… I think Jon Huber said something to that degree once.

For You to Read and Understand

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:54:19 -0500

sometimes I can be a bitch

it’s true, I can admit it

it’s hard not to overreact when at times you feel the world is against you and the best part of you is what your friends see

but sometimes there’s more that is about me than anything else.

everyone has their own cross to bear and I’m just better at making it public, without acknowledging (well i try to a great percentage of the time) it’s impact on other people.

Similarly I try to be a support system to them, but that’s unfair in the sense that i do it from my point of view and how I need it instead of the most obvious and more sensitive way of accepting that they will come to me and are my support system in THEIR ways and on THEIR terms.

its just not always about me. Perhaps it’s been the last few years. Perhaps it was the chaos of last year, which we can all acknowledge was a mess and at times fucked us up. But we’re not the same people and we don’t need to hold on to that battle mentality.

external pressures and life have made me strong in a way but incredibly vulnerable and manipulative or pushy because that is what life required; it’s my vice, especially after I stopped drinking for a plethora of reasons.

I’m at a better place and while i often recognize my flaws and over apologize, actions speak louder than words. I need to be the better person and stop repeating the cycle of guilt and pressure that was/has/is imposed on me in various arenas of my world.

I know you read this and you’re busy at work, but take it with the love that is is meant it was written with. I know you know me and that you love me anyway and you will see me at brunch and we’ll discuss love and life. But I apologize for always letting you see only the worst of me, because I am not that and I hope (and know you know that). Perhaps you deserve a better friend. But you have me and we’re both not use to the type of give and take that we each require.

I am over expressive and a pest, but you know all this. But the pictures I sent were funny.

Bad times will come, but good times will come and have always been around.

I trust that in making choices it’s not about hedonistic impulses (well completely) but being honest and believing that as your friend I should automatically know this.

for you

:) I hope you respond.

(via settingitaside) not only is my friend mike *one of my...

Sun, 31 May 2009 22:37:18 -0500

(via settingitaside)

not only is my friend mike *one of my bffs* but also maybe I’m a fabulous drunk photo person.

settingitaside: YES i did ditch class because it was too nice to...

Fri, 29 May 2009 14:37:45 -0500

settingitaside:

YES i did ditch class because it was too nice to be in front of a computer in a room with no windows. and now i am sitting in front of a computer NEAR AN OPEN WINDOW sewing patches on some jeans i made into cutoffs cuz it feels productive even though i will probably never wear them because i am not really that “indie” (since we don’t say hipster anymore) but instead I’m mostly just too poor to buy shorts at retail price.

I Don’t Want Marriage, I Want Equity

Wed, 27 May 2009 12:21:21 -0500

I Don’t Want Marriage, I Want Equity

Uses of Anger or Rage or Feelings or Something

Fri, 15 May 2009 01:08:00 -0500

I love Audre Lorde and have read her Uses of Anger and how as a woman of color (person of color) you have this pressure to feel subdued or to surpress this. I don’t think this is unique to people of color, but perhaps anyone that has had to live through any sort of adversity or has otherwise felt othered.

Even now, when you watch people who have suffered through disasters or tragedy (I’m thinking of Hurrican Katrina survivors or rape victims that are on display and are forced to constantly relive their experience and educate us about how they have managed to “go on and continue to live”). Anyway, I’m thinking how they have they have to tell us how they are survivors and how they are moving forward and how they hope for the future (all of which I’m sure is true). Rarely, (and it does happen on the rare occasion) do we get some sort of gut wrenching look of honesty and just see the rage and hear the person just talk about how angry they are and how they are not over how they feel about their experience and you can feel their seething anger and rage that has been consistently brewing and you as audience are expecting them to put on this smile, but they have refused. They’re fucking angry and they want you to know. They want you to know, they need you to know, maybe it’s part of their catharsis.

I’m supposed to experience that according to Therapist. I’m supposed to get angry and filled with rage and allow myself that. I’m supposed to embrace it, write about it, not feel guilty about it, and most importantly stop apologizing for it. I always feel guilty for being honest about who I am and try to stop myself from over analyzing and going insane; yet when I do that I find that I feel worse and feel guilty for having the “audacity” to have feelings, for having reactions, for having explosions or for just needing sometimes to vent how I really feel. In the end, I wind up apologizing (genuinely) for having feelings, it’s funny that way.

I can write about all the reasons Therapist gave for this, but in the end I guess I still have to find a balance. A balance between what is what I’m confused about.

In Treatment - I

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:39:48 -0500

My therapist constantly pressures me to write down my thoughts. I have 4 journals I write in. I was looking at them this week *I think the oldest I have goes back to 2004; their might be more in Miami (unlikely), but that’s the oldest entry.

It’s interesting because I read a quote today that said “life isn’t about finding who you are, but creating who you are”. Sometimes so much goes through my mind that I forget that I’m not searching for some divine answer on how to act within myself, but trying to create the best version of me from the fractured pieces I have. *flair for drama much.

My point is that in all my journals (I’m even analyzing my own reading, that’s when you know I’m insane) I have this yearning to find answers for my crazy thoughts. I can blame it on the bi-polar or on my childhood *but how cliche is that*, but maybe I’ve been misguided and need to focus on creating what I want of myself. This is interesting because I feel like somehow I’ve been given (kismet) clues that this is what my approach should be… Oy vey for my over intellectualization. I laugh because at this point my therapist really get that I get stuck inside my head.

I had this moment where I told her how many lows I had lately and how much I feel I have to pretend and how I’ve been waking up in a pool of blood (I have ovary issueZ) and how it’s led me to some inappropriate coping behavior (cutting) and it was funny because I told her that I’ve also been trying to have fun and be all upbeat, but how it was wearing me out. And then she said something and I realized that I had started to stop actually talking to her and was talking to the ceiling in almost this weird and odd open monologue/dialogue with myself. She like snapped me back down and was like “stop. this is what I’m talking about.” It was interesting because she sees it.

Therapy sounds so bourgeoisie and cliche. My shrink, my analyst, my therapist, my psychologist, blah blah. But honestly - and maybe you have to know me. know me now and know me who I was when I first moved here, and who i was before - it has really helped. Maybe just in helping me sort of reformat how i deal with and how i perceive life, avoiding the harsh crashes - like the one that led to the infamous bathtub debacles last fall -.

It’s nice to be able to talk to someone that you know won’t judge you (or maybe they will in a way you need to judge) and tell you when you’re right and when you’re a bit misguided (i got some of that today). However, since I started going to therapy the best advice I have gotten came today. First, she kept pushing using writing and journaling as a release tool, as opposed to intellectualizing feelings (which manifests itself in my complaining) and then feeling guilty for that. Then, she said all these things about how I make sense and that I’m missing validation because my dad is the nutcase he is and how it makes sense that I am who I am and that all this rage I feel is okay. That it is okay to have all these feelings of wanting revenge or wanting the people that hurt me to feel the same hurt. How that rage is a “Breakthrough” and is a step from over analyzing my feelings and finally just dealing with them.

“It’s okay to be angry and mad and rage filled and sad”. It was funny, it made me think she was telling me or giving me permission to commit a crime, but I guess it made me realize that I am allowed to feel and to be wrong and to be angry (maybe even very angry) and not have to apologize for it). Well until she said she wanted me to write about it. Maybe I’ll end up with a brainstorm for a novel a la American Psycho. Who knows?

I guess you’re not supposed to discuss therapy, but since I’m supposed to write about it and no one really reads this, I figure what better alternative than to sit on my bed and get distracted by entries in my journal I wrote after bitter break ups (or whatever you want to call it) and entries written while under the influence.

I can also be artsy Juana with my work MAC. I think my work...

Fri, 01 May 2009 17:01:10 -0500

I can also be artsy Juana with my work MAC. I think my work computer needs a cute name.

I may hate work, but I love my work mac. I also have worn cute...

Fri, 01 May 2009 16:56:09 -0500

I may hate work, but I love my work mac. I also have worn cute scarves to work all week, I’m tooooo cool for this place ;)

I hate (right now) ...

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:53:30 -0500

I hate amazon. I hate how they more than the rise of the super book/cafe/multimedia store have really contributed to the demise of the small corner book store. I hate how they over charge and over charge for shipping. Today, I hate how I was promised a package I ordered days ago and was due to arrived and suddenly I got an email that suddenly said my order was on back order *wtf… you’re like fucking walmart* and would not arrive until May 29.

I also hate how my Student Loan people claim that i had an arrangement and then all of a sudden - blah - I got some menacing notice. UGH get your shit together people!

I also hate falling asleep on the bus and I hate that my grandfather is sick, some sort of cancer *allegedly* and blah blah no news and my bitchy aunts don’t call back and my mom does understand what’s going on. I don’t particularly like my grandfather, but it’s stressing me and it’s annoying.

I also hate shadYness. Bitches throwing some shade. Bitches being two faced and lying and using others and then lording over their fucking privelege.

I think I’m done with hate. Maybe I just needed to vent….

Spiders

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:57:42 -0500

Apparently not only is the world contending with a swine flu pandemic. (LEVEL 5!!!)

My apartment is dealing with an spider epidemic.

My insomnia is further aggravated by the thought of spiders crawling all over me.

The Bathing Suit

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:29:52 -0500

My cousin committed suicide a few weeks ago. Death in such an extended family, as mine, is a peculiar thing. Perhaps, in a way I can attribute the pecularity of such an extreme incident to my own process of dealing and the manner in which I process extreme situations. Usually, I let it take me over. However, in this case, so much was going on in Miami and Colombia. Add in a mixture of unclear details and my cousins’ extreme grief. It was not immediate that I came to a point, where I myself analyzed how I felt.

I don’t know what the actual process of grief is supposed to look like. I know how the darkness takes over, being in extreme situation with my mother and her illnesses. I guess, at core, I am a story teller. I try to weave in stories of my life and analyze them, most often to myself, but sometimes to a poor victim.

I started remembering her. Her scent, her outfits, how she applied make up - she taught me how -, how she lost Gina once when she live with us. Her many suitors here in the US and how they had that crazy look for her (I’ve only seen this look in Gina’s boyfriends) and her nonchalant manner of avoiding them or brushing them off. Most memorably, there was David, a “cowboy” (my family called him that) from Davie, FL. He owned a ranch with cattle and horses (this confused me, since it was FL). He came from a good family, my family adored him, yet Adriana (my cousin’s name) saw him as a distraction and a momentary play thing. He proposed 3 times, until finaly with a broken heart he realized that she didn’t really want to be tamed by him. She had wild hair down to her lower back and a raspy voice that reminded me of the old movies I used to watch. There was that one time she was drinking something in the car and had a injury with a straw (it somehow lodged into her throat or something like that).

Then my sister told my about the bathing suit. I had been content at remembering this person through my own perspective and through my own experiences, but the bathing suit shocked me into reality. In an apparent odd move and without anyone’s knowledge, brought back the bathing suit my cousin killed herself in. Not only that she also brought back the close she had in her hotel room-where she killed herself-and had left with her 4 page note.

It is important for me to note that when I was intially given details of the suicide, I was told that she had overdosed on some sort of medication, it was then heard that she had in fact slit her wrists, finally (a fact proven by numerous newpaper articles from Colombia) it was confirmed that she had hung herself in her hotel room. One of the most expensive hotel rooms in the coast, with a beautiful view of the Atlantic meeting the Gulf.

The detail my sister shared that most affected me was the part where it was determined she hung herself with enough room to possibly save herself. She didn’t.

She was at a four star resort and hung herself wearing a bathing suit when she killed herself.

All I could think of is how she planned it. This was her fourth attempt at ending her life. She was going through a bitter divorce with a philandering, abusive, and alcoholic husband. Yet she was probably not going to get custody of her young child.

Was she laying by the pool or by the ocean while she wrote the letter. My cousin said all of her clothes smelled of her perfume. Did she hang out at the bar and plan the best way to do it? Or was it a spontaneous move decided after a swim in the ocean? The note could of been the same she used on previous attempts (I don’t have much details on any of this). Did the darkness she feel become that overwhelming and cloud her mind that she was desperately finding any way out?

I know these are answers I’ll never know, but I can help but wonder…

Being an adult

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:45:00 -0500

Being an adult bites. I remember watching Reality Bites and being obsessed with that infamous (at least in my mind) quote “welcome to the winter of our discontent”. I guess, my thoughts were that my winter of discontent was I don’t know phasing into Spring. However, similar to this tricky Chicago weather where it is 60 something one day and then dips back down into the 40’s during alleged Spring, my life has yet to fully phase into Spring.

Health shit aside, I thought, “hey, I’ve got a decent seemingly recession proof job. Health care. Free tuition for when I get my shit together and go back to school.” But then, jobs suck. There’s stuff like reviews and appraisals and bosses that tell you to be “proactive” when they get in trouble for not doing their fucking job. Dress codes (I don’t even bother with that and will continue to ignore it until I am told otherwise). All this bullshit. Perhaps like ML pointed so diplomatically out a few months ago, it is because I am not working a real career but in a pretend world where I am someone’s assistant. I mean, that someone is actually 24 faculty members and technically I do more than “pretend” to be a secretary.

However, it is what it is.

Maybe I can just be more proactive.

blogging

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:46:38 -0500

I always forget what I wanted to say.

"Love is an action, never simply a feeling."

Thu, 01 May 2008 12:38:04 -0500

“Love is an action, never simply a feeling.”

- bell hooks, who always seems to convey what i think…just more eloquently

"If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with..."

Thu, 01 May 2008 12:34:12 -0500

“If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.”

- bell hooks

I have no words for E Hasselbeck

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:23:00 -0500

I have no words for E Hasselbeck:

This is a clip (posted on my Jezebel) about another example of E Hasselbeck hating on Obama on The View.

I can’t stand Ms. Hasselbeck and the ignorant ideology she espouses.