lessons learned on a bumpy road

insights from my (metaphorical) bruises and broken bones

olá people,

i've been walking 10,000 steps a day for the past two months, breathing through my nose, cleaning my toilets every day, and taking magnesium for a little less. my depression has gone from moderate to mild. maybe it's the toxic cleaning chemicals, maybe it's physical activity. who knows. all i know is that i've definitely been better but i've also been worse. lets call that a win.

wip. collage collaboration. image shows fluorescent green embroidery floss and a sliver of neon orange.

my kid recently had strep (i think, they don't do strep tests here but it was some whack throat infection that required antibiotics so lets call it strep), my parasite is gone (fingers crossed) and the home remodel is back on after a two-year hiatus. i had 3 mri's (lumbar, cervical and right ankle) and need bifocals. i am basically an aging jalopy of protrusions and aches.

that’s me now but i am more than a mass of parasites and herniated discs. i’m the entirety of how i got so banged up. ;)

over on the português side of things, i'm publishing 44 life lessons from my 44 years lived. i like cheesiness and alliteration. i thought i'd share my top ten here.

10. love is not possession

    i love cats so much, i have ever since i was a young child and had cat wallpaper and sweatshirts and a heathcliff bday cake. i had an amazing cat, anita, who passed away on valentine's day 2020. she died, in part, because i didn't have the resources to save her. i promised myself i wouldn't adopt another cat unless i had the resources to do so. i don't, so instead i donate every month to a shelter and am participating in a campaign for a different non-profit that neuters cats in communities that can't afford to pay for it. i can love without ownership. this is true of my relationship. we are monogamous but not because it's an eternal guarantee. we are monogamous because we want to invest our energy in each other, not other people. and this commitment is made with the understanding that if either one of us feels differently at any time, we have the freedom to share that with one another. it's scary not to lock down the person you love with iron-clad contracts but it's also the reality of loving a human and not an inanimate object.

9. there is no shame in suicide

   my dad died of suicide in march 2011. when it happened people immediately tried to ascribe it to delusions from his alcoholism or paranoia related to other mental health issues. to this day, there are people who refuse to verbalize that it was suicide. i don't quite understand why but i do know what it is to feel shame. i nearly drowned in the shame of not reaching out to my dad before his death. of not supporting him when he needed me most. i was only able to heal by sharing my shame. by exposing it to the light. suicide flourishes in silence and shame. please don't ever be ashamed of suicide.

8. opinions are truly like assholes—they are a part of us and the less we share the better

   if you know me well, you know how much i hate twitter. in what universe have we decided that it is healthy and productive to connect to one another by reducing discourse to 140 characters? why are we so adamant that we must declare ourselves and our “positions” as quickly as possible and as often as possible? maybe twitter was the catalyst for the hollywood iteration of the me too movement and gave BLM a platform it wouldn't have had anywhere else. and maybe we are a shittier society for thinking we have to have opinions and state those opinions all. the. time. when do we have time to study, learn, and reconsider? why are we documenting all our half-baked, uninteresting, and unoriginal thinking? thank goodness i couldn't publically register my horrible opinions from my adolescence and 20's. it is inevitable that we will have opinions, i just think we should share them with strangers as often as we share our assholes.

7. tread carefully between healthy discomfort and pointless suffering

   from may 2002 to may 2014 i had 6 different jobs (including but not limited to middle school teacher, reference librarian, and recycling center manager) and lived in 15 different apartments, in 2 different countries, in 5 different states, and in 13 different cities/neighborhoods. i'm a quitter and a big-time believer that if something isn't working, get the hell out of dodge and don't look back. i like this about myself—i'm never stagnant and i don't put up with shit. i also know, with the wisdom of age, there are definitely times i should have stuck it out. that i didn't allow myself to be uncomfortable and didn't learn lessons or break patterns that i would spend years repeating (painfully). it's not always clear when to stay and when to leave, but it's worth pushing yourself a little bit to do whatever doesn't come as easily to you (stay a little longer if you tend to leave and leave a little sooner if you tend to stay)

6. feedback is an invite—not a fact, not a condemnation, not an absolute

   i'm at 10 rejections from literary magazines. i was told that i should expect 1 publication for every 20 rejections so i'm trucking along. in this process, i've received my fair share of feedback, some brilliant, helpful and powerful. some cruel and crappy. that's the way of feedback. what i wished i'd learned earlier is that feedback is an invite, not an absolute. we get to decide if it applies, how we apply it, and when. it's not an attack (usually) but it's also not an obligation. everyone has their own motives for saying the shit they say, and we have ours for what we listen to and what we don't.

5. being called racist/sexist/transphobic/fatphobic/ableist/classist/etc won't kill you; not investigating yourself and reproducing harm can kill

   in 2016, someone told me that i was racist. i am a white latina with deep colonizer roots so i knew this about myself, but it sucked to hear it verbalized. obviously, it definitely sucked more for the person who experienced my racism. i'm grateful it happened in a personal interaction with someone with whom i had a certain level of trust and care. i reflected deeply on the comment, which wasn't an attack, and considered it feedback. i asked myself if it resonated with me and if i wanted to learn from it (which is what i believe we should do with all feedback). and i did. i'm not “cured” of racism or any other ism but i investigate myself and do less harm now.

4. eliminate the words save/salvation from your vocabulary

   don't save the animals. don't save the planet. don't save the kids. whatever it is, don't save it. christians were saving pagans (crusades). colonizers were saving heathens (genocide). white men were saving white women (lynchings). etc. etc. etc. just—don't. if saving something is what motivates you, stop being motivated. because salvation sucks. participate. contribute. engage. don't save.

3. art is whatever makes you think

   birds and flowers are super popular motifs in street art right now. and some of those birds and flowers are super pretty. maybe so pretty that it hurts, makes you think about the contrast to your own life. the surrounding lack of beauty. the way we construct beauty. if that's the case, sweet. you saw some art. but if it's a pretty flower that made you think and feel nothing, that's not art. that's an image that you appreciate. maybe it doesn't matter. image/art, potato/patato. but maybe it does. maybe if we didn't consider empty images art, we wouldn't consider asshole men potential presidents. you know what i mean?

3. language matters

   i have ocd and i HATE when people say they are “so ocd” because they are neat. when they use it out of context, casually, they are diminishing the pain and reality of what ocd means. peoples pronouns matter. if we deny people the right to assert their identity, we are denying them the right to exist. people die of suicide, they don't commit it. see 4. i know people hate the language police but language does matter. it's not just superficial pc bullshit. it is the only way we have to convey our care and concern for others.

2. be your own affirmation

   i really like when people like my writing/art. when they tell me i’m on the “right” path, doing a great job. and i rarely get told that. so little in fact that i often want to stop writing, stop making. but as a mildly depressed creaky 44 year old, i’ve decided that i want to affirm me more than i want others to affirm me. wild success. we’ve gotta be what we need. not all the time and not in all the ways, but at the very least in affirming who we are and the journey we are on.

1. “time is a nonrenewable resource” (quoted from reader, aa)

   this belief guides all my professional and personal decisions. it is the reason i took instagram off my cell and really need to eliminate my social media accounts altogether (sidenote—parents/caregivers or children/adolescents, i highly recommend this podcast on the mental health crisis among teens). it's why i do a digital detox on friday nights and try to spend large swaths of time without my cell phone. it's why i will always choose connection and experience over profit and work. it's why i have time to walk 10k every day and take care of my mental health. what you do with your time is the entirety of how you live your life. treat time as the greatest wealth and be rich in what you already have.

cheers to the rocky road that got me here and let’s keep living and learning

beijos, m