Category: Life Blog

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FALLING

I don’t know what’s going to get me where I am supposed to go. I don’t even know where I am going most of the time. Chasing a star I think, chasing my heart a lot. My heart is so sensitive though. My heart is so chaotic. It wants and yearns for now, now, now! My heart is there, why hasn’t the world caught up with my heart yet? My heart is saying, “I am here, take me where I belong! World, hello! Can you hear me?”

That sound used to reverberate back. It’d tell me, “Yes you’re on the right path. Yes you are.” What is right though anymore? What constitutes something as being right? Is it the path of the righteous? Is it the path of the rich? Is it the path of fame? Is it the path of love? What is the right path? What if there is no right path?

Every misstep, I take a fall. I look back and say maybe that wasn’t the greatest move. Maybe it still was though. I just didn’t know it. I keep falling these days. Falling on a job I don’t like. Falling on an emotion I don’t want to feel. Falling on an audition that I wanted to get. Falling on crazy emotion whirling inside of me. Falling to anger. Falling to jealousy.

I wonder if I’ll hit the ground. Where will I be after all this falling? Maybe I am falling so that I’ll land in a magical world like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe everything is so confusing not because that’s just “life,” but because I am on my way. Maybe my way just consists of being off balance a lot and in this unpredictable freefall. Maybe somehow that’s going to lead me to where I want to go. Maybe that’s the most fun part anyways. The time that passes before the landing.

The jumping out of the plane. Into the unknown. Then falling. Just falling. Keep on falling until you land and realize that you had to fall. You had to fall to get where you’re going. Maybe that’s why I am falling.

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To all the things I’ve run away from

To all the things I’ve run away from,

I’ve often thought that to fix a problem, to fix an emotion, to fix a difficulty you can just leave the situation and start over. To fix something, just leave. As simple as that. 

Since deciding that, I’ve left countless places, countless jobs, countless habits in the hopes of just that: to fix something. I’ve left friends that I miss every day. I’ve left jobs that I really loved. I’ve ran from so many things in my life, it’s hard to remember exactly why I ran away at all. Most times, things were just not easy. When it got not easy was when I figured it was time to go somewhere new. Some place where things were light again. New people, new places, new relationships.

Looking back now though, I wonder why I ran. Looking back now, I say sorry to all the beautiful things that I have ran away from. I also wonder if I’ll run again. 

Were those things truly not the right things for me? Or was I just not right with me? 

I can look at something as small as social media or as big as moving. Instead of trying to figure out healthy boundaries, I completely cut things off. I say goodbye and I don’t look back. I can’t help but wonder if these excesses are just disguises to hide from something. The way that I jump from place to place, I wonder if that’s what I do with things in my life too. If one thing doesn’t work the way I want then I am onto another thing.

To the places that I left too soon. To the people that I often wish I never left at all. Thank you for all you’ve taught me.

To a former me. Thank you for the lessons, but I don’t want to run any more. 

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A good feeling

This is my second week in a row feeling really great. I’ve been down a lot lately, so that’s a big deal. What changed?

Well I started pouring my whole heart and soul into my acting and giving it the kind of attention I’d given to it when I first started. It’s easy to get lost in what isn’t going right in my life and in the world. When one thing is going right though, it can change my whole take on things. 

I have actually gotten a role! I have a call back today! To some, this might not seem like a big deal, but to me it’s a HUGE deal. It makes me happy to be getting opportunities to do something I love again. My relationship with acting is so often conflicted. This is because instead of actually acting I am sitting around waiting to act. In that waiting period, it can be easy to get discouraged. It can be easy to say, “I want to quit.” 

At the end of the day though, I always come back. After I graduated college I was looking for a business job. It wasn’t working. Somewhere on my to-do list was to take an acting class. I eventually got to it. Something sparked in me in that class. It lit a fire in me that still remains strong (most of the time.) Acting was a light for me and it still is. It’s easy to forget that though when I am not getting what I want out of it. When I am not getting what I want, it’s because I am spending more time complaining about what I want instead of doing what I want.

I think it truly is as simple as, “You get what you give.” 

If I want to act, I have to try. I aspire to get to that point in my acting career where I no longer have to “try” so hard to get roles. By that time, the trying will be in my work, my acting. I am taking a new seriousness to my craft that I have lacked for awhile now. The only reason that seriousness has come about is because of the time I have been gifted.

This sweet and confusing thing called time.

Much of this quarantine, I was in a down state, “I can’t get a job.” “Why aren’t I getting this-“ “I don’t have enough money.” “Why isn’t this working?” “Is this really right?” “Everything sucks.” These were all valid and honest statements. I’m not wrong for dwelling or for feeling like this. My sad and down times are just as important as the happy and good times. That down time was there for a reason. It was there to show me the way. Only when I am down am I able to find my way again.

Now, I can see this time as the greatest blessing in the world. As low as I can get, I always get back up. In this time I have been given, I am able to be the best actor that I can be. I have time to set up my home studio. I have time to create good auditions. I have time to do what I want to do! 

Before recently, I was letting that empty time take over me. Now I am taking over the time. I am choosing how to spend it. Instead of waiting, I am doing. I am more of a doer than a waiter. No matter how much I meditate and contemplate the life of “non-doing”, I enjoy having things to occupy me. When there is down time, I am down. But I love my up time too. Doing my best feels good and it gives me the confidence I need to get what I want. So for now, I feel good. 

Go vote. 

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Self-Help for Modern People

I’ve read too many self-help books. I don’t know what “too many” looks like, but I imagine it starts once all the helpful “advice” you’ve read about has started to give you anxiety.  That’s when it’s too much. I’ve read Tony Robbins, How to be a Bada$$, The Four Agreements, The Power of Now,  Man’s Search for Meaning, The 4-Hour Work Week, and on and on and on. 

Now, I will say some of these books have amazing things in them. I can’t help but wonder if any of them have really gotten me any closer to the me that I want to be though… Can a book even do that? It says it can on the title page! A new me! The best me there can be! Hello?

I often go to my dad during times of need in my life. I get my crazy head from my dad, so when I don’t know which way to turn, I go to him. I know he understands how heavy things can feel sometimes. He always tells me the same thing, 

“Lex, only you know what is right for you. No one else does.” 

I hear him, but I often need to hear those exact words time and time again.

In reading these “self-help” books, I was looking for answers. I was looking for answers from someone outside of myself. I wanted Tony Robbins to tell me how to be big and rich and famous too. I wanted The Four Agreements to leave me with a blissful, angelic life full of happiness. Reading those books didn’t do that though. I certainly remember things I have read in each one, and yes, they have definitely helped me in some ways, but they did not give me answers.

They didn’t give me answers to the questions that I had. Some of the books tried to give me a guideline and a how-to blah blah blah. That didn’t work either though. It didn’t work because no book can tell me what I need. My dad can’t tell me what I need either. Only I can do that.

The books often left me feeling like I was missing something. The how-to blogs made me feel stupid. It made me feel like I had missed something somewhere along the line. Why wasn’t I creating “cash flow” every month? I haven’t created an open enough environment! The people around me aren’t “positive” enough! My feng-shui is off! I am not challenging myself enough! My blog is not good enough! I need to do more!

I am not enough!

Those words echoed through my head and made me do impulsive things. It had me thinking if I could just fix this one thing, then everything would be – oh, nope. No, life is still hard. What is wrong with me? Why is it so hard? I have been chanting about my relationship with money for days! Where is my money?

I am a skeptic now in many ways to these books.

I am still a believer too. I learned some powerful things. They didn’t awaken or enlighten me though. They didn’t follow through on their handy dandy marketing promises that they said they would! Sometimes, they did help me see myself a little better though; And when I saw myself better, it helped lead me to the answers already written within my soul. That is the only real “self-help” there is. 

Anything that tells you otherwise is a bunch of B.S. Do like my dad says and listen to yourself.

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unemployed

Got up at 9 today. I decided this morning to be a little bit nicer to myself than usual when I get up at 9am on a Tuesday. I consensually laid myself off from my hotel job back at the end of April. It was a combination of things, but it mainly boiled down to the lack of respect I had for the company that I worked for.

I’d stayed with them after a terrible incident with the owner of the company when I fell for a phishing scam while working at the corporate office. This is back in 2018. I lost the company $3000. The HR person didn’t schedule a meeting with the CEO until a couple of weeks after. She didn’t tell the (known to be difficult) CEO until he was walking down the stairs to meet me. He came barging into the HR office screaming at me calling me “stupid.” My boss, the VP of Operations, came into the office to defend me. He literally pushed the CEO with his arms to make him stop yelling. It was bad.

So… after that I end up not working for the corporate office, but going back to the hotel I used to work at (which I liked way better anyways.) Come Coronavirus season, it’s just me and my General Manager at the hotel working crazy hours.

It gets to be too much, too much at risk for a company that has shown me too little.

My GM and I are cool, so we laid me off, temporarily. The time came for me to come back, but I still felt this lack of respect boiling in my blood. I finally said goodbye to the company last month.

That’s how I got here. Unemployed. Waking up at 9am on Tuesdays. I’m not mad today though. I’m not mad about how anything went. I’m not mad about sleeping in. I’m glad I slept in. I’m glad after working the past five years usually starting from anywhere from 5am -7am in the morning, five days a week, that I can gracefully wake up at 9am and it be okay.

Before today, each weekday that I didn’t wake up with a heavy agenda and to-do list, I’d be upset with myself a little. I would feel that I let myself down for that day. Here I am with all this valuable time! Why wasn’t I finishing my book? Why hadn’t I organized everything? Why? Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a pandemic, what will I do? Time after all is truly the most valuable resource, is it not?

Only today, when I let myself sleep, let myself be, did I feel differently.

Last Friday, my mom’s hair dresser (who I love) came to her house in Orange County to do all of our hair(s). We talked about unemployment, feeling like we don’t wake up early enough, coronavirus talk, you know, the usual… She said something that made me think though. She said, “It’s okay to have those lazy days if you just let them happen, then the next day maybe you’ll feel good again.” I’ve heard this before, maybe even said it, but for some reason, I heard her, I really heard her.

I was in an especially shitty mood last Friday too, but because I actually heard her, I listened to it. We talked about how the Coronavirus has made everyone stop and reevaluate their lives. It has put a lot of people out of work. She said, “Maybe now everyone can see that not everything is just about work.” This resonated too. Damn. In L.A., in America, the value of our society is often placed on the job we have or the amount of money that we make.

What if the Coronavirus is just the pause that the busy human race needed? Success equals a lot of money? Right? What if that isn’t right? What if the real currency (or success) is time? What if time is what makes life valuable? Time to do what we love or spend it with whom we love. This is hard for me because too much time means too much thinking, too much evaluating, too much feeling. Is that that bad though?

To Americans especially, what if this is a pause for us to examine our lives? Reevaluate the way we spend our time. What if it is a pause for us to not work so much? What if it is a pause for us to just breathe? What if we needed the pause? What if it is a pause for us to sleep in on Tuesdays and watch some random show for hours and be OK with that? Be OK with just being.

We all move so fast. We go so fast. We want everything now. God knows, I do. What if this is just the pause I needed so that I can come back stronger than ever?

I may meditate and all that, but am I really able to just let myself be in the nothingness or in the uncertainty? Am I? Some days, no. Today, yes. I do know I feel lucky to have someone to live with too. We make each other crazy more often than not, but we are here for each other nonetheless.

There’s a quote that comes up in my meditation app that says:

“The pause is just as important as the note.”

Maybe this is our global pause in the song of our lives. Let’s use it well.

SIDE NOTE: I write this as someone who (me or my family) has not been directly affected health wise by the Coronavirus, and I pray for anyone who has.

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Relationship

See, I thought that when I got in a relationship, that everything would flow together so simply. I figured we would float on hand-in-hand being able to secretly read each other’s minds, and fill that gaping hole that exists in both of us. I thought we would fall together like a beautifully draped window frame overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Birds would sing, and so would we, because happiness and joy would constantly overcome us and our special time together.

Sure, that happens. Sometimes. There are times when I am cuddled up in my boyfriend’s arms and I feel so warm and special that I never want to leave that place. There are times when he surprises me with things like Disneyland on my birthday that makes my heart skip a beat. There are times when I look at him and I feel so lucky because of how well he treats me.

There are also times where things are so hard that I don’t know how I am going to make it to the next day. Looking at someone in a relationship face-to-face everyday is a real test of all the scars that we have come to accumulate over the years. All those things I have been hiding for so long are now directly in front of me.

During therapy and a psychology course, I learned something valuable. I learned, in more or less words, that whatever bothers us in someone else is because we see it in ourselves. I’ve written on this before. Whatever bothers you about someone else, let’s say you notice how someone’s appearance isn’t right, it is because you are self-conscious of your own appearance. If you say people are so “judgmental,” it is because you feel judgmental yourself, and on and on and on.

So, getting in a relationship to me is putting a direct mirror on my beautiful partner to all my own insecurities. It is scary sometimes. I see him get angry. It frustrates me so much because I fear anger. I fear anger because I grew up in a household that wasn’t always quiet. Things got loud and my home could be very chaotic at times. Being with someone makes me see how much that did effect me and how much it still does. It gives me anxiety. I am not naturally “touchy” because I never saw that kind of vulnerability in my home.

When my partner does certain things, it will trigger something in my past, and I do not react to him, I react to what happened to me in the past. This isn’t always of course, there are certain times that he really drives me up a wall and I do the same to him. That is when we have to have actual conversations. Serious conversations are another thing I am not well-versed in. I try though, and we work through things with our words, in the best way that we can.

Being in a relationship, if you’re doing it honestly with one another and trying to show your true face (as well as you can) is really a test. It is a test to see if you can see those things in yourself (that you don’t like) in your person and accept them anyways. It is a test to see if you can let things go. It is a test to see if you can forgive. Them and you. It is a test every day.

I know that I have a tendency to talk in a tone that is less than sweet. I don’t do it on purpose and I honestly don’t know that I am doing it when it happens. Sometimes I can come off as very mean though. I’d heard it from my mom sometimes that I’d have these fits of moods that I couldn’t seem to shake myself out of, that I could be really, really mean if I wanted to. Sometimes, I put that meanness on my partner because of something going on inside me, and I don’t even know that I’m doing it!

He is a direct reflection. A reflection for me to see him in all his wonderful flaws and be with him anyways. To accept myself for all my wonderful flaws. A relationship to talk about what bothers me. A creation of space to be able to lay our masks on the table.

Jealousy is an emotion I have never been fond of. I always thought jealousy was weak. If I didn’t get something that I wanted and someone else did, it was never meant for me. Little did I know… There was jealousy underneath that well put together facade. There was. I never let it show though. I had some excess build up in this relationship from all my years of “playing it cool.” There have been people in my past that I wanted to be in a relationship with, and I watched them walk away in another’s arms, like it was no big deal at all. It showed strength, or so I thought.

I know now that front was a lie. It was a shield to my heart. It was a cover up to not show what was truly inside of me. Showing my heart was impossible back then. When my parent’s divorced, I didn’t cry or vent once about it for 6 years. I think I had so much pain pent up in me and so many walls over my heart, I didn’t know what I was doing was untruthful. What is really inside me can be a real fuck-up sometimes. She can be jealous, hateful, mean, and come up with crazy scenarios. She can still think all of that needs to be tied with a nice ribbon, not honest. I’ve done my best to stop using the ribbons, and to get completely honest.

In my relationship, I have a place to talk about the things that upset me. I used to feel this paralytic sensation when I would want to tell someone how I felt. If I wanted to express jealousy or hate, I’d clam up and say nothing at all, or tell a joke. Now I can walk through all of that silence and break it. I can express my hurt and my pain without fear. We have a white board in our living room. It has a column on it that says “values” and a column that says “feelings.” This is what we want to give light to in our house. Honesty is the first word on that board.

My partner talks about his feelings often. He does so much more than I do. This gives me the opportunity for growth. He has shown me how to let what is inside come out, no matter how scary it is. I can talk about the fear that surrounds that. I have got to show him a different way of treating himself, of self-care that can ease his mind in times of stress. We have helped each other grow, of this I am sure.

While thinking a relationship was going to be all butterflies and no effort, I kept my heart safe. I remained naive and ignorant of what a relationship is. A relationship is work. No one ever said that to me. At 27, maybe those words came a bit late, but I am happy that they came. A relationship is working through good and not so good times. It is being so mindful of one another. It is working together to make a comfortable space to share our spirits. It’s ever-changing, just like the world around us. Like my life, views, wants, and needs all continue to change, so too do we.

This is my experience. This is my love.

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when it’s not okay

Today, we are all so focused on being better versions of ourselves. Including me. I am practically the poster child for trying to be “better.” What is important has shifted. In the baby boomer days, love and peace spread. With that, came resistance. After that our parents’ generations came. They saw the carefree spirits of their parents and took a more orderly path. They got the jobs in the offices, in the factories. They aspired to one day grow to the top of the company they worked for. Then, there is this generation. The generation of technology. We are free in that we believe we can do anything we set our minds to. We are trapped in thinking that we can do anything we set our minds to…

What happens when a beautiful, innocent girl gets her innocence taken away? What happens when it’s from the one man she is supposed to trust? What happens when a dad loses his son? What happens when a father leaves his family? What happens when a son is told by his mother that he’s not enough? What happens when a girl who got made fun of all of high school starts cutting herself through adulthood and no one knows why she’s so secluded? What happens when a boy is touched inappropriately before he knows what sex is? What happens then? Is posting inspiring things on your social media page helping them? Is starting a charity? Is alcohol? What about sobriety? Will that help them?

What happens when it is not okay? What happens when the pain is so much deeper than anyone can imagine? All of the media today will only trap minds and make these inner children feel like there is something so mechanically flawed in them. The trauma of their past, which has likely been blocked out, will remain.

The reason kids are bringing guns to school. The rise of the media. The reason the suicide rate is skyrocketing. The reason why treatment centers and sober homes are a billion dollar industry. Our society doesn’t talk about emotions; we don’t talk about trauma. We say that “happy” is the only way to be. The best way to be. It is not an honest way to be. No one is happy all the time. The 7 human emotions I found in the randomness of the interweb in which I am not sure are even valid (BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH SHIT ON THE INTERNET) are: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise, contempt.

So 1/7 of those emotions are happy. These are natural human emotions according to some field of tested sciences, so “only being happy” we are denying so much of the human experience. As kids, we were told not to be angry or scared or sad or hate, we shoved those feelings aside thinking they were not “right”.  Kids today are doing the same. With the rise of technology, these kids are CONSTANTLY REMINDED how happy they are “supposed to be.” It is flawed. We thought something was wrong with us if we felt these emotions too often. We turned into robots walking around pretending to be happy all the time (including me.)

Then… because some feel these emotions so intensely, drown themselves in alcohol or drugs or the internet to escape the feeling. They didn’t see what underlined the action, or think about how the feeling would pass. They numbed. They numbed themselves because it was too much. I used to drown my pain. The choice of sobriety has allowed me to feel everything. Maybe what I was escaping wasn’t the effect of the alcohol, as I thought it was, maybe it was the feeling I thought I was not allowed to feel.

There is nothing wrong with feeling. There is nothing wrong with pain. It isn’t easy though. When it’s not okay, it especially isn’t easy. When we aren’t okay, it’s okay to not be okay. To feel that up to its’ entirety. It’s really just truth. We can’t heal when we don’t feel our truth. For all those inner children that have been destroyed, feel that pain, recognize it, and move through your story. That’s what I hope to do, and what I hope to inspire too.

I wrote this two years ago. Now, as I read back, I see what I can do to those people who’s inner child was taken from them, I see what I can do for the helpless child in myself. I can love. I can love that person. I can love me. That, that is the only thing that I can do when it is not okay. Sometimes love requires no action at all. That is often the most difficult thing to do, yet sometimes love means stepping aside to let that person find their way.

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Letting Go

Sometimes I think, where did my ambition go? Sometimes as I am looking out at the window at my job, I wonder why that burning fire isn’t as strong as it used to be. That burning flame inside of me that tells me what I want in life. A successful, actress. Right? That’s been the goal for almost four years now.

I almost quit acting this year. When I got back from Spain, I felt a deep dissatisfaction with acting as a career path. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe it could happen. Well, of course it was that too, but what if I held off on living because of what I could have in the future? I really just didn’t know anymore. I started a psychology class at a university to possibly get my Masters and move on to become a therapist. Ah, a clear route towards a career choice. And to learn about the mind? To learn about people, humans. How brilliant would that be?

Similar to acting in ways, my curiosity could still be satisfied with psychology. The first few classes were amazing, I was about 80% sure I was ready to make the jump. The $70,000 of college loans jump to get my masters. Mm. I let some time pass. I didn’t want to be so haste as to commit after just taking a few courses. An impulsive move I’d likely have made at one point. So I gave myself until 2020 to possibly go back. Creativity though? The art of it. Science is an art in its’ own form, but certainly a different kind than the one possible with film making. Interesting? Yes, 100%. But the path for me? I wasn’t so sold yet.

When I got back from Spain, I felt this new energy awaken in me. It wasn’t energy of ambition or drive. It was an energy of subtleties, of community, of finding my place in this world. It was like I got back and less mattered in a way. Acting didn’t matter as much because I knew that as long as I still found a place for it in my life, I’d be okay. Finding a place to live in L.A. after I got back was hard. Places kept falling through. Maybe L.A. wasn’t going to work for me. The failure of finding a place didn’t hurt me the way that it once would have. Again, I felt that if it wasn’t happening, then the pieces would fall as they may. And that was okay.

Maybe I came back with a bit more “let go” in me. A bit more “let go” of what I think I am supposed to do and be. “Let go” of the relationship I think I should have. “Let go” of the place I think I am supposed to live. “Let go” of it all and see what stays. See what is going to stay. See what I want to stay.

I have spoke of the time in Spain, and it is certainly different than Los Angeles. But I went to the desert this past week, and again I feel the time softer there too. Softer time. I saw the stars in the sky on the drive to Arizona. I saw more stars than I’d ever seen. I looked. I stopped and I looked. There was no destination in that moment. That’s what Spain gave me. Time. To ask myself if just because acting was what I had been doing, if it was what I wanted to keep doing. To ask myself if I just didn’t want to quit because I’d already done so much. I got to look at what was behind me and not judge that. I could only see around me for a time.

I finally felt the time clock stop on me finding a serious relationship. I didn’t feel the embarrassment that would come when someone asks me if I’d found someone yet. That clock has most certainly been the loudest ticking in my life. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I wasn’t giving enough or I wasn’t being enough or I wasn’t showing enough or I wasn’t putting enough effort.

That exhausting ticking clock had finally started settling. It felt so magical and putting it into words does too. Because I have not been in a serious relationship for 9 years. That does not mean there is something wrong with me, it means that I haven’t found the right relationship to be in. I finally believe that, and that is because I don’t hear the clock anymore.

I visited a guy in Spain. Fell a bit mad for him too in the short time I was there. He was sweet. And we got along. And together, we created this beautiful energy. I was so sad to leave him. Also, angry in ways too. I wanted more out of the short time we had together. That wasn’t fair for me to want more for either of us. I would return to California and he to his life in Europe.

But I felt that I needed to do more, if I just did more, we could be more, and it could last. Maybe. But, that, you see that was the clock. Same with acting. If I could just do more, I would get more. I held onto the idea of what I wanted so badly. I held onto the idea of him for longer than necessary when I returned. Only today did something in me spark, and show me in what ways meeting him and getting to know him freed me. Only recently have I been able to thank the art of acting for all it has given me.

Let go. Of what that relationship was supposed to be. Of what my career is supposed to look like. Of what my friends should look like. Let go of thinking there should be a clear path to my future. Let go of anything that “should” be anyway. Coming back brought me a new found peace. A new found patience. A respect for what has already happened. A waiting to see what unfolds. A life already in this waiting.

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Social Media

I don’t have social media.

If you would have asked me a month ago why I didn’t have social media, I would tell you it’s because I think it is destroying the world. I think it is torturing young minds and creating a constant comparison scenario between “friends” unconsciously. I would say it is hurting relationships and creating jealousy where jealousy need not be. It is promoting actions “online” that should have never happened. It is giving people false senses of gratification.

I would tell you Facebook owns Instagram, and everything you post is being analyzed and sold, so that your online advertising is targeted for you to consume more. More. Social media is making you want more. Buy more. Be more. I would tell you social media has turned people into products. Products that are being sold. Advertising once used words, images, films to promote sales… now we use people. An influencer is a product, and a product that is being bought over and over again. I would tell you social media has created more evil than good. I still believe those things and as I type that fiercely now, I stand by all of that.

But…

I also know the real reason I stopped doing social media is because it hurt me. I have also hurt others by it. I had a dream last night, that reminded me how I had once hurt people with social media. My ex boyfriend in high school started dating someone that was my friend (but his first) when I started college. They were both in my dream, and I remembered what I had done after I found out (via social media) about the two of them. I had started posting mean things on facebook about her. I was slanderous towards her, because I was so hurt. I turned my group of friends against her and we would post things about her in our group page. I would post pictures I had with her with sarcastic captions. 

Now flash to this year when I deleted it on January 2nd, 2019. I had already created a very good habit (I think) to go on only once a week. It is the day after New Years, in which I spent ALONE trying to gather my solitary self and just be OKAY. I had recently been demoted from my corporate job and was working at this shitty ass motel. I went on good ol’ instagram. First post, one of the person that I loved in college with his new girlfriend. The next one, the guy that I had lost months before with his new girlfriend. Something inside of me re-broke into many, many, many pieces. It really hurt me this time. It really hurt me. These pictures, broke me at a time when I really needed support or a hand to hold.

This hurt me enough to delete all of it. I decided enough is enough for me. I decided it wasn’t worth having anymore. I wasn’t giving much to it anyways, and it certainly was not giving to me. Looking back now, do I think it was irrational? Maybe. I still think it was right though. For me, it was right. Eventually I would have come to this conclusion. Each time I would gorge my time on social media, I felt something in my gut like what I was doing was wrong. It certainly was a time consumer. Not to mention all these images going through my brain as fast as they were, is that healthy? Is my brain equipped for all of this?

It wasn’t fair that I had to see what I didn’t have anymore. I was in an unhealthy place mentally, yes. I was very sad and hurt already, yes. Did those pictures and memories for someone else need to be in my face though? In my moment of weakness, did I also need to see that? I don’t want to hurt people and I don’t want them to hurt me with something like social media. I don’t think anyone that has “hurt” me on social media has done it intentionally either. If we all got a little more mindful though, maybe we’d see that our “sharing” could be hurting someone somewhere.

Maybe I think too deeply and feel a lot and then I put it in these words, but I know a deeper part of everyone feels this way too. I know it. I wanted to be honest about why I don’t have social media. It is because it hurt the hell out of me. 

If it has hurt you too or if you’ve hurt people, it is possible to live a life without it. And it’s a deeper life, because social media lives in the shallow. Just because the world says this is what you do now, that does not mean that that is what you have to do. We all live in this world and social media is a choice like anything else. You decide what is best for you. 

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Yin and Yang

In second grade, I was a sweet little angel. The world was sweet. So I was sweet. I was quiet, and did my very best in school. I got A’s on my report card and never complained. Then my brother came into the world. He would push my limits. As much as I tried to keep my cool with him, I realized I had to fight for survival. It was the only way. I let him annoy me uncontrollably until age 10, when I realized I could beat him up, and I would successfully do that for many years. By third grade, I am bullying the boys on the 4-square court. I would tell them that they sucked a lot at everything, and I would always say I could beat them in any sport we played. I had a unibrow too, so I was tough. Real tough. I was “cool.” Yeah, real cool in third grade.

Growing up, I started to realize that I run on extremes. When I’ve been bad, I’ve been bad. When I’ve been good, I’ve been real good. I lost myself trying to be the most rebellious girl, and again trying to be the perfect saintly girl. The truth is my core was closer to the rebellious girl. By nature… but I am not only one thing. I am not only this saint who doesn’t like to be wild ever, nor am I the girl who was falling over and embarrassing herself at the party. Although I have been both of those things, I am neither one or the other. I always felt that I had to choose one though. As of the past few years, the saint girl has been running the show.

I went to Spain during the month of August. It had ups and it had downs. Some parts were amazing, some parts were not. I loved. I hated. I got kicked out of an air bnb. I got in a verbal fight with the owner of the place. Don’t you judge me, though. What did happen was some serious miscommunication and (likely) some already bias toward my American-woman self and his Russian-man self. I can’t be absolutely sure why it went as awry as it did, but I did stand up for myself. 

In a time where before I know I would have avoided this… where my “sweet persona” would have taken over, where the “no it’s okay, avoid all conflict” from the little buddha breathing down my neck would have taken flight, I fought. I fought him when I was certainly in a state of less power. I stood up for what I wanted. If you want specifics, go read the air bnb reviews, because no way am I repeating this story again.

My point is…

We are not all just one thing.

After I stopped being a kid anymore, I always thought that I had to choose. I am this. I am that. I am too masculine. I need to be more feminine. I am “bad.” I am “good”. I am “cool”. I am this. I am that. I wasn’t that kid anymore who just did what she had to do, and didn’t overthink every little thing. Fighting became “bad” too, no no, none of that. No need for bad here. Only peace here. No need to stir anything up. I am so at peace. Do you hear me? Nothing you do phases me! Right…

I wanted to say I hate you. I wanted to say you are wrong. I wanted to say don’t do that, it hurts me. But I bit my tongue and I didn’t say what I wanted, because I am being “good.” I say nothing because I am being “peaceful”. That is a lie. Every time I played “peaceful” when I wanted to fight, I felt deep anxiety. The fight and flight response in me lit up. The fire in me wanted to breathe. It wanted to come out so badly, but I wouldn’t let it. I wouldn’t let it speak the truth! 

My truth, and I think the truth of everyone is… I am feminine. I am masculine. I am saint. I am sinner. I am peaceful. I am wild. I am all these things at once. It took all these experiences up until now, and I think Spain, for me to see that. Going to Spain awakened the fighter in me. Maybe my Latina bloodline fed me my medicine I needed to wake up to my natural self. A little bit of the “bad.” The real. 

The fighter in me has been shut out for so long. I think she scared me.

I know not every fight is worth fighting… not even close, but some most certainly are. I have to fight, and the saint doesn’t fight. Life won’t always be pretty like my meditation tells me every day. It won’t. And I don’t want pretty all the time. I won’t grow with pretty. I won’t change. I want to live and be crazy and wild and sweet and soft all in one. I am all of these things. I am done labeling myself as all one thing, or thinking that I am all one thing because I am not. I can be sweet and I can be mean. I am up and I am down. I am me. That’s all I can be.