Saudade

Fall is my favorite season. Its the one with the crunchy leaves, the back to school commercials, and that nip in the air that means I can wear sweaters and boots. I fucking love wearing sweaters and boots.

It also means, this year, that I should be a month into my semester as a PhD student. It was definitely the right decision for me to withdraw, thought one of the hardest I’ve ever had to make. The idea of putting myself, my mental health, my happiness first is foreign to me. I am smart and strong enough to be set, stubbornly, on a track that someone had laid out for me a long time ago and that I went along with. No decisions or what-ifs. A plan.

Fall is my favorite season. I was reading recently why pumpkin spice invokes such popularity among people during this time of year. The article said it’s because pumpkin and cinnamon and that smell of fall make people feel like they’re home. Fall is supposed to give you that warm feeling that bundles you up. You’re safe, you’re ok, you have a plan. For me, fall is beginnings. This fall, I gave up on one beginning for another and every time I walk past that street where my department should have been, think about what my next steps are, or see friends who are on the track I willingly put to the side for the benefit for my mental health, I feel a pang of regret. Of homesickness.

My home has never been my home, I can see that now. I always made my education, my career, home. I could carry it with me on my back, like a snail in a shell, wherever I ended up. My family is not my home. Home is where the heart is and my heart was full ensconced into my success, at whatever cost. I gave up my home for the shot to try and fix me.

As I read through my tumblr from years gone by, there is always a similar theme. Loneliness and overwhelming emotion. Like trying to force a round peg into a square hole, I have been trying to force my logic to figure out my feelings, to control them. That clearly hasn’t worked.

Last night, as I was in bed having probably my fourth or fifth panic attack of the day, I had a thought that cleared away that anxiety in an instant. It’s something that I’ve been told but had never allowed to sink in (like so many other things).

I am the key to my success. I have the tools and I need to use them.

Stupid, right? How many times do I hear people say that to me? I’ve read it, seen it on TV, but for some reason in that moment, that square peg slipped into that ill-fitting hole, snug.

I can talk for days and years about how terrible things are and these feelings, but any changes that are going to happen are going to be made by me not for me.

I grew up with my family telling me what my opinions were. My favorite place was home with my family, my favorite color was pink, and my favorite season was summer.

My favorite place in the world is a place where I can be challenged to think. My favorite color is fire engine red. And my favorite season is fall.

And this writing will never win me awards, but it’s a start on a better track than I was on three months ago.

To new beginnings.

This should have all worked itself out by now/ The map of my life should be clear and precise/ With little red dashes and circles so nice/ Showing roadblocks/And landmines/ Oh, I am not unbreakable/I am breaking right now

It’s never or now. 

At least once a week, someone will stop me, look me dead in the eye, and ask “what are you?”

What am I?

How am I supposed to answer that?

I am a motherfucking fire-breathing dragon or

I am an alien trapped inside of a human body

I am a person? I am a human?

What you’re trying to say is that by looking at me, you can’t put me into a box.

I am my experiences.  I am what I have seen and heard and felt

Trilingual, bisexual, biracial-

By the way, why the fuck are you asking me that when I don’t even know your name

When I am standing on the train, at the bank, waiting in line at the grocery store

No hi, no hello

What are you?

I should be clear- you’re not asking me who I am.

How I define myself

What my experiences are

What my soul looks like

You are asking me what I am

What, a word that is used to specify something

So, let me specify that I am none of your goddamn business

The country my family comes from, the box I check on my census form, the color of my skin is not a conversation piece while I’m standing in line, with sleep in my eyes, headphones on and jamming.

You were so curious as to my ethnicity that you stopped clipping couposn to come up and ask me?

Bitch, people don’t even ask for directions anymore, and that’s an appropriate question

What are you is not a conversation starter

When I hear What are you? I hear…what is that? I hear myself as something to be looked at in a museum, something that needs to be dissected and explained as something less than a person.

You

Don’t

Want

To

Know

Me

What are you?

I am the great grand-daughter of a man who was one of a few to stand up to oppressors, great great granddaughter of a pirate and a blockade runner.

What are you?

I am too much of a minority for the gringos, too much cream for the latinos

What are you? Because I know it isn’t white.  You’re not like me so, sorry if this is rude but what are you?

I am sick of trying to shove myself into a box so you can feel more comfortable

I do not need to have labels at the ready to assuage your curiosity

Because, yes, some days I am that fire breathing dragon who fights to get what she wants because nothing has ever been handed to her

And sometimes? I feel like an alien in my own god damn skin when your staring at me listing all the countries in your head trying to figure out which one I hail from, so you can-

Do what?

Get an answer and go on with your day.

Your casual question is my inner turmoil

It’s me getting asked why my mommy doesn’t look like me

Or why I didn’t speak Spanish until I was 15 if I was sooooo Hispanic

People saying they can’t pronounce my last name because their first language was English

So was mine, bitch.

So, seriously, what are you?

Fuck

Fine

I’m Irish and Puerto Rican

You would say that’s an interesting mix

Like spaghetti and peanut butter

Or I’m told that they biracial babies are cuter.

You would go home to your family and not think about this question

That you asked a total stranger

Out of the blue

Flagging me down in the street, having me take my headphones out while youre walking your dog

Just to ask me what I am.

But for me, its another day where I feel like I don’t belong.

Another day where I have to explain something I didn’t get to control

Apologizing for my non-whiteness, at their confusion

At being a puzzle piece that is slightly bent so it doesn’t fit neatly into the puzzle

I do not fit into your puzzle

So, what am I?

To my mother, I am Kelly Ann. The daughter who is simultaneously not enough and exceeds expectations. That is bragged and mourned. Looking to see what she will do next and waiting for the next moment of ‘I told you so.’ The young girl, now woman, who needs to be supported and in the same token caged. Lifted up until she is smothered by the warmth of an embrace she never asked for or wanted- not in that way. 

To my father, I am baby. A baby. In the latino mindset, I should have never left the homestead. I am the same as my father’s sister in his eyes, my aunt, who never got married, and dedicated herself to caring for their elderly parents. My love of literature is the same. My bedroom is always there for me with them, like hers was. I am the baby who needs to be told what and when to do everything, because I do not have a mind of my own. My head is stuck in books, sitting at King Arthur’s round table or flying off with dragons. Never practical. Never useful. But always there, waiting to grow old in an event-less and safe life. 

To my brother, I am Kel or my nigga. I don’t know when he became black. He was blessed to be the second child, the one that is simultaneously cared for and excused. Nothing is his fault, not the theft, not the vandalism, not the alcoholism. Issues that, if managed, he could get through, instead of them being excused, ignored, or shoved behind a bookcase never to be seen by the light of day. I got 99 sneakers, but none of them will bail me out of jail like mommy and daddy will. 

To my families and my sweet kids, I am Miss Kelly. I am the one who walks their parents through the trauma they are experiencing, step by step and bump by bump. I put my energy into making their children as successful as possible. I hold their hands, like I wish most days someone would hold mine. I tell them everything will be different and hard and some days unbearable, but OK in the end. I make them smile and laugh and, when better, watch them leave one by one, taking a piece of my heart with them. 

To my friends, I am whoever they need me to be. Someone who listens and advises, someone who bitches and complains. Someone who holds them when they cry or gives them the look that means that they need to get their shit together. Most don’t know me past that. Those that do know me as someone who has mental health difficulties, anxiety and depression. They watch the see saw that is my stability with calm and patience I will never understand or be able to express my gratitude. They laugh at and with me, shed tears with me, and trust me with their deepest and darkest. 

To me, I am all of these people. I am strong and weak, funny and serious, kind and a cunt, anxious and confident, a mess and organized. I am always this person, regardless of who needs me or wants me to be some way. Because one is existing in a moment, it does not mean the others are negated, false, or never existed. Just because I am not depressed now, it does not mean I will not be depressed tomorrow. Or a week from now. Or a month. 

All of these things make me who I am, positive and negative, hurtful and helpful. To remember that the good exists with the bad is the only way to survive. Just because you see yourself one way, doesn’t mean that is the only way you are being seen. 

To me, I am me. And that is all that should fucking matter, even on the hard days. 

I spent the evening visiting all the places I promised myself I would never go to again. The images, the pictures, the stories of people like me that induces that feeling deep in my chest. The feeling that comes about during seemingly benign conversations, intense movie moments, hearing someone else’s story that makes me want to run in the opposite direction. That part of the movie’s climax where the man slaps his wife, screams at his kids, or someone contemplates suicide. A story too close to my own, too soon to be comfortable. 

So, I asked myself, what are you afraid of? I counted the many things out in my head: the idea of not existing, the dark, being deemed incompetent, bears and nature (which, in my book, go hand in hand), and panic attacks. The list is much longer, but I want to keep this as focused as possible. Bears and nature will be discussed at a later date, especially now that we can have guns in out schools to protect us from them (because bears don’t bear arms, they just have bear arms). 

If I had to put all of the above things under an umbrella, as a student in kindergarten would, and ask “what do these things have in common”, the answer would be a loss of control. I lose myself in the dark and I can’t see what’s coming next. . 

I don’t know how to get a handle on any of this, to this day. I’ve tried therapy and contingency plans, meditation and visualization. I tried yoga once, but giggled my way through it. I’ve read articles on the chemical imbalance of the brain and learned to understand it from a purely biological level. How a fight or flight response works. I’ve been truthful and dug deep down until it hurt and allowed myself to break. And build. And break. And build. The cycle continued until I crawled out of the hole I had been living in to form a semi-decent, pseudo functioning human. 

I’m talking about fear because it isn’t talked about. It drives us. Marie Curie was quoted saying, “ Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” See above, Marie. I am trying to understand from every angle and am coming up with nothing. 

So, several cliches. The best defense is a good offense. Prior preparation prevents poor performance. Practice makes perfect. I have sat through and managed my fair share of anxiety and panic, all stemming from fear. Each time, I’ve gotten marginally better at handling the, the shaking, the crying, the immediate inclination to self-harm (in whatever form I can get my hands on), the anxiety, and the indecision. 

How do you prepare for something that scares you or happens without your permission? You force yourself to go where you can find a lot of whatever it, ignoring the flashing lights of “trigger warning” and “abandon all hope, all ye who enter here. Sex addicts generally avoid Hooters, alcoholics shouldn’t watch the game at the bar, and people like me shouldn’t google/tumblr the word “depression” or “anxiety.” All for good reason. High incidence of the thing you’re trying to avoid.  

I am afraid of falling apart, not because of the process but because of the recovery. I’m scared of losing myself in the free fall. I am terrified of sliding back in progress. 

What are you afraid of?  How do you prepare for something that scares you or happens without your permission? You force yourself to do it over and over and over and over (ad nauseam) until you can do it. Until you can grab that anchor, calm that storm, quell that fear, manage on my own.

So, I clicked through the posts that I normally avoid like the plague. Saw girls like me years ago, read their stories, and began to feel that panic rise in my throat. How I could easily slip back there, start over, that feeling of wanting to hurt myself in every way possible instead of writing all this down. 

But, I kept going. I had no choice but to manage and not allow myself to fall to pieces. Triggering myself was my plan to practice coping on a small scale. I was not the master of my fate, the captain of my soul. Fear is the mind-killer. Mantras, mantras, mantras. Visualization. Breathing. Counting. Cutting? (Nope). 

I am supposed to try and understand my fear, according to Marie Curie. 

Fear is supposed to pass through me, according to Paul Atreides

I simply want to combine the two and survive. 

I triggered myself, tried to understand my fear, and let it come and go. I cannot find myself an anchor, only a process and a promise. I will get through it and look back on it. The shame that I feel is my own and can be managed. That 25% of my life is 1/4 of it, significant time I am wasting when I could be bettering myself, working, living, loving, enjoying life. 

My father has endless amounts of energy. He attributes it to nerves.  I say it’s more like the schedule of a prisoner- you keep to a routine because there is nothing else you can do to keep your mind occupied.

He’s up at 6, even when he isn’t working. He vacuums, he cleans, he cooks. He does laundry. He runs out for coffee (because Kelly, dammit, why don’t you own a coffee machine) and the paper. He redecorates a room in the house. And then mops. And that’s usually when I get up to start my day.

It’s this never-ending supply of energy. It’s the buzz that you hear when computers or televisions are on, but not being used, not being looked at. It goes, and goes, and remind you that while you aren’t doing anything, they are.

This buzz encircles my childhood. And as it grows louder, I grow smaller. Why put yourself in front of a speeding train? There is no point in getting in the way of a force like that, one you know you’re not going to win.

If I were to list all the things my dad does in a day, you would wonder why I complained. See above, plus laundry three times a day. Grocery shopping. Getting that stain out of the carpet you’ve been walking by for once. Whitening the sneakers that you just stopped wearing. Your life isn’t so bad. Doesn’t this show how much he loves you?

What happens to the buzz of productivity when there is nothing to keep it occupied? It becomes louder and angrier. More forceful. You try to look away, ignore it, be a person, but you can’t. You also can’t stop it. The buzz becomes a swarm of angry bees and you’re the only target.

A target that was taught to fight back with words, not fists. To value brain over brawn. Right over wrong. Fact over fiction. To explain this to a sound, a buzz, is pointless because it does not listen.

Yes, reindeer are real. No, I never joined a sorority (because you probably would know that, wouldn’t you?). Flying on an airplane is so simple a child could do it (and they do daily) alone. Yes, I’m your daughter and there are many qualities that overlap between us. But, I use them differently, because I refuse to live in a bubble of someone else’s creation.

I never put much energy into cleaning skills. Not because I can’t do it or am choosing not to, but my day does not revolve around cleaning. And, some days, when I am depressed and anxious and curled up on my couch, I can hear the faint buzzing in the back of my head from my father telling me all the shoulds. I should be doing this. A woman should not do that. You are not a successful person if you don’t do this now. You deserve everything that is coming to you because it is your fault. You go into you can’t go anymore.

But anyone can wash a floor. Anyone can dry a dish. Anyone can learn to do laundry. It’s not a skill, it’s a societal necessity. If my father had his way, I would live in his house until I died. I would obey his (backwards, misogynistic, fear-filled, ignorant) rules my entire life. I would listen to him curse at the TV about fags and lesbos. I would jump at the sound of things falling of shelves, listen from my bedroom to the crescendo of screaming and yelling daily. Waiting, feeling my anxiety heighten, listening to the buzzing grow louder and louder.

Feeling my self-esteem shrink with every jab, every criticism, every comment until I became the people pleaser the hides deep inside me. The one who jumps at the chance for tangible praise when I do what I’m supposed to. That helps people. The girl who hit rock bottom so hard it has taken five years, three therapists, two self-harm episodes, and one prescription of medication to come back from.

I am not that girl. I do not have the luxury of being that girl. Of allowing the ebb and flow of the buzz to consume and harm, and then disappear to only rise again.

So, I ask is a clean house worth it? Kelly, doesn’t your father love you so much?

I set this account up years ago to write my feelings. 

Well, today is that day. 

I’m crying. My boss doesn’t see me as a clinician and my mother blames it on my weight. 

“People perceive you differently.”  

“You’re less confident.”

“After February, you’ll be happier.”

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

I rant and rave that I don’t have support. Right now, I need to be strong for me. Just because I don’t like myself naked, that doesn’t change my clinical ability. Just because I weight more than two other girls put together, that doesn’t make me any less smart. 

I am not lacking in confidence. I am learning. And. That. Is. Fucking. OK. 

People tell me I’m harder on myself than other people are. But, when I look at people’s responses to me...I say that I don’t have the best examples. I would say I’m hard on myself because I’ve been taught that, in most situations, I could’ve done something differently or better. But excuses are just that- excuses. They are a reasons, but not acceptable at this point. 

Skinny does not equal happy. Skinny does not equal confidence. Because people aren’t supporting me now doesn’t mean they don’t support me on the whole. 

Correlation does not equal causation, bitch.