This is 35

Hey… sorry for the delay, life caught up with me.

I turned 35 this month. I don’t think 35 is a milestone year, but others convinced me it was and I’ve got to say - it’s certainly started off as one. Pat Robertson died, the former guy got indicted (AGAIN), the sun broke through the clouds for one singular day so I could enjoy some pool time with my girls… I did Disneyland, dinner and dessert at Perch and Mrs. Fish, had my favorite sandwich while watching The Little Mermaid, had a Peach Coke during Transformers, saw Janet Jackson live… truly living the dream, by being shown so much love and care by the people in my life.

My birthday always makes me feel contemplative and nostalgic. As I look back, I find myself having so much more empathy for past versions of myself. She was doing her best with the tools she had… someone asked me what I would tell my 19 year old self in 3 words. I’d tell her to “go for it”. Take the risks, make the bad decisions, act rashly, reach behind your means, just go for it. It all turns out okay in the end, anyway.

To a milestone year of going for it…

Sick New Me

I had kinda been going through it during late winter/early spring. I had my heartbroken. Before you ask, it wasn’t a guy. It was someone I thought was a friend who…well, wasn’t.

The way things went down really shook me; my image of myself and my self-worth were in shambles and it manifested in a lot of heavy anxieties about how I move through the world. I didn’t feel like me and I was questioning who that person was…

I’m glad to say, I have her back. A LOT of heavy lifting in therapy and a music festival in the desert, and I feel like me again. I was going to sell my tickets to the festival, because in my lowest point of not feeling like myself, I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of traveling out of state and finding a room - the work of going felt like an insurmountable task. But, my friends convinced me to go, knowing that I love love music, knowing that I love the bands playing, and more than likely knowing that my spirit needed the lift.

The issue between this friend and I didn’t have a lot to do with who I am. It was more about who I’m not. I’m not “the cool girl”. I know you’ve had to have seen Gone Girl by now and you have to know the monologue; “Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.” I behaved in a way that betrayed this persons image of me. I betrayed the Cool Girl. I betrayed the unspoken contract of our friendship, to always be cool, and thusly, I had to be punished. And it hurt. It broke me.

I put myself back together with weeks of double therapy sessions, talking it over with my real friends, analyzing it from every angle, and screaming along to one of my favorite Alien Ant Farm songs in a crowd of sweaty elder millennials in the blazing hot sun.

Sticks and stones, they hurt

When you shoot them through the phone

And you dragged my name through dirt

And it hurts to be left here all alone

A lot of feelings hit me at once during their set, and it was the first of the day. Firstly, I’ve always known who I am and so many things in my life lead me to that exact moment. My older brother taught me to skateboard before I was in kindergarten—> he bought Tony Hawk Pro-Skater for us —> I became quickly obsessed with the soundtrack and Alien Ant Farm —> being emo led me to my amazing career an my job —> my job where I make good enough money to fuck off to Vegas on a whim, because I wanna go to a concert. I have always been this person. I know who this person. And she’s a good person. Secondly, this person had no right to hurt me and drag my name. And it was okay to be upset by that. But, it was also okay to move on from it.

This is not the first time a man has been upset with me, because I wasn’t the cool girl, or the woman he wanted me to be. It’s not the first time my excess of emotions have gotten me in trouble. Laurie Penny said it in Unspeakable Things better than I ever will, "Of all the female sins, hunger is the least forgivable; hunger for anything, for food, sex, power, education, even love. If we have desires, we are expected to conceal them, to control them, to keep ourselves in check. We are supposed to be objects of desire, not desiring beings." The cool girl doesn’t have wants or needs; she services the needs of men. Opening myself and my heart and my hunger to this person upended the narrative. I can’t say I was without fault in our friendship; I take full accountability for the places where I misstepped - while being fully aware that the reaction was disproportionate to the action and that my real crime was rooted in my womanhood. Fuck the patriarchy and all of that.

If I’m too much, go find less. I know who I am again, and I love her. Oh, and Sick New World was super dope - personal, emotional realizations aside. I wish the VIP area had been set up like it was for When We Were Young, but all in all - it was so fucking worth it for Korn, Evanescence, Chevelle, Flyleaf, Deftones, Incubus, and of course, System of a Down. Had the best time hanging with a new friend, going on random adventures throughout the weekend, and head banging while looking like a babe.

My Celebrity Look Alike

I wrote this back in 2017 and for some reason never published it? I’m not sure what was going on with me 6 years ago to just let this sit in the drafts…but here we are.

It’s no surprise to long time readers, or even new folks who have scrolled enough…I let this space languish for a long time. Creativity ebbs and flows…I actually think I may have written this and saved it for a time when the creativity wasn’t flowing. I’ve never been super strict with a posting schedule around here and things have been SO HEAVY the past few years. I just needed to put something down. I regret saying that this blog was an easy thing to put down.

I went to dinner with a (newer-ish; it’s weird, don’t ask) friend recently and they told me they had read a lot of my blog and wanted to ask me about my experiences and the things I wrote about. I was surprised this person had found this space, even though it is linked on my social media and pops up if you google my name…but their interest in it made me revisit this space. And made me start missing it. Missing this space, alongside with my disillusionment with social media as it currently exists made me start thinking. Last week, I had something important and candid to share - and just didn’t feel like Facebook, Twitter, or a cringy long ass IG caption were the right medium…so here we are. We’re back, baybeeeeeeee.

I’m not sure what this next incarnation of my life as a blogger looks like, I’m just taking it easy and enjoying having a corner to call my own and share it with y’all. Anyway, enjoy some aged ruminations about my appearance and micro-agressions.

I don't think I'll ever forget having my high school senior portraits taken. First of all, I had spent the previous three days lamenting having taken my box braids down. Box braids were my high school go-to hair style, but my mom and I agreed we didn't want them in the milestone photo. I was not crazy about my moisture absorbing hair, even if it went half way down my back when straight.] Secondly, my mom had done my make-up in a classic look and I had no clue who I was without my layer of Avril Lavigne style raccoon eyeliner. I did not look or feel pretty. I was infuriated at the boys wolf whistling and insisting I must be a new student who didn't go to their school when I walked across campus with my mom to take and pay for the stupid pictures. I was the same blue-haired psuedo-skateboarder the boys had called "freak" and "weirdo", even if my hair was it's natural brown. I sat down to take the pictures, the photographer adjusted the lighting, then she looked at me and gasped.

"You're so beautiful". She looked at my mom. "She looks like Halle Berry. She's even prettier than Halle Berry."

My mom and I laughed about it in the car on the way home. On the one hand, I knew she was bestowing a compliment on me -- one that I wasn't sure how to accept. I mean, of course I politely said thank you in the moment. But, the fact of the matter was I was in the throes of teenage years low self-esteem and I didn't think I was pretty at all, let alone prettier than Halle fucking Berry. On the other hand, my mom and I both knew I didn't bear any resemblance to Halle Berry at all. We'd seen B.A.P.S. at least ten times, among countless rewatches of The Last Boy Scout. I did not look like Halle Berry. The photographer didn't mean anything by it, and I didn't hold anything against her. She wasn't the first to make such a clueless comparison, and she wouldn't be the last.

The fact of the matter is; everyone is a little bit racist, just like the Avenue Q song says. Well. Bigoted. Racism requires a power structure, but that's a discussion for another blog post. The thing is (and here's a lengthy article about it) people just can't recognize people of other races and so...they think we all look alike. I've heard that I look like Beyoncé, Aaliyah, Audra McDonald, Bianca Lawson, Anika Noni Rose, and Princess Tiana. The only one I give a little credence to is Aaliyah, and that's highly dependent upon what I'm wearing, what color my hair is, what face I'm making, and the lighting. (And Audra McDonald BUT ONLY as Garderobe in Beauty and the Beast - there was something similar to the way I do my makeup in that movie). The only thing that those women and I really have in common is being beautiful black women. And hey, I'll take the compliment! You think they're pretty and you think I'm pretty! And that's totally fucking rad. But. But. It's inaccurate. And weird. And just a little bigoted. All beautiful black women don't look alike. We come in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and styles. It used to drive me up the wall in the early 2000's when people said I looked like FeFe Dobson - I don't. She's just the only other black punk rock chick people could think of. (I also thought she was a poser back then, but I was young and dumb and bought into social constructs like "posers"). 

There's only one celebrity comparison I've actually put stock in - I got told I look like Billie Piper and I nearly dropped my phone when the text came in, because GODDAMN. The lower half of our faces are ridiculously similar. I was also very touched because someone looked at ME; my features and saw them. Not a skin color or a prejudice or a preconceived notion. I once dated a guy who made it a point to tell me I was the first black girl he had ever dated and brought it up more than once - - which should have been a giant red flag, but I was younger and less woke back then. He was also slightly hung up on his ex, and I, of course, found her social media. Lo and be-fucking-hold - she and I looked very similar; big doe eyes, prominent noses, round full lips - she was just white and blonde where I was black and dark haired. It's...unnerving how rarely people actually see, I mean really SEE each other. 

The point I'm making here; while laden with trifle about celebrity look alikes, is when you look at someone, don't just look at them. Take the time to SEE them. Don't look at a young black man and see a thug. Don't look at an asian man and think Jackie Chan. Don't look at a blonde white girl and assume she loves The Bachelor. The world really fucking sucks right now, and it's up to us, person to person, to make it suck less. 

/Soapbox.

Until next time.

xo.

Side by side tho. Look at this shit, man. Twinsies! 

One Year Later

Something bad happened to me last year. I’m not going to go into details, but it it was something that was done to me, against my will, that hurt me. I knew this was going to trouble me for some time after. My friends were there in the moments immediately after and did all they could so the bad thing didn’t become a worse thing. I immediately contacted my therapist and I told my mom. I contacted the authorities. I did everything right. And I did everything I could to move on. But, moving on is a bitch.

Life moves on. Whether you’re ready for it to or not. So, you’re trying to process something bad, and then you have to break up with a friend. And then you’ve got weddings to attend. And then your concert tickets can’t go to waste. And then there’s big news at work. And you’re trying to process, but you’re also trying to live your life to the fullest. Moving on is a bitch.

And sometimes while you’re trying to move forward, you feel like you’re moving backwards. Because new pains remind you of old pains and scars start to throb and memories come rushing back, and the lid of the box where you keep all the bad things is nowhere to be found and all of a sudden you’re stuck in time. Reliving all of the pain all over again.

It hasn’t been an easy year. When trauma is compounded with more trauma… it hasn’t been an easy few years, to that point.

But, the sun always shines. I was forced to stand up. To stand in my power. When I wanted nothing more than to lay on the ground and never get up. The way trauma ripples through you and touches everything; so does your power. Stand up, stand in your power. I’ve watched my life change in the last year in ways I could never imagine. Every misstep allowed me to make a better move. I’m never going to say I’m grateful for what I went through, I’m never going to say it was a good thing. But, the sun always shines.

I’m a different person one year later. I’m proud of this person. I’m glad about how she navigated grief and adversity. I’m proud that she didn’t let a bad person hamper her belief that people are good. I’m proud that she never let a broken heart stop her from believing in love. I’m proud that with shaken confidence she kept walking. I’m glad that she makes measured decisions, that she uses her voice, that she keeps certain truths within her heart, that she tries and tries again, and that’s she still here. Standing in her power.

I look forward to a year from now. When it’s two years later. And to the years when I no longer mark the years it’s been.