a lost little penguin 🐧

That was a decade ago. Three years later, in January 2014, I earned my second degree black belt. 🥋🐯

Martial arts has been a huge part (about 2/3) of my life. It was my second home: a community I quite literally grew up with and continue to grow in. I have so many fond memories from the experiences, as well as many challenges I faced and eventually overcame through it. I learned far more than just self-defense and fancy head-high kicks (but those are useful and cool skills, too.) Generally speaking, it guided me to test my limits, strengthen aspects of my mind, physical strength, and camaraderie amongst peers, and how to pick myself up with the willpower to fight and try again.

For anyone that is reading this and doubts that they can’t start now, or that it’s too late to, it’s not. It is absolutely still possible. I’ve met so many people well into their adulthood that have earned their first Dan and beyond. With the right people supporting you and the right mindset/dedication, it will be feasible.

And to those that I’ve trained with past and present, thank you for working with me, instructing me, and encouraging me as a student or peer. And for sharing jokes, carpools, Saturday morning workouts, staff meetings, and lifelong friendships with, of course.

I love and miss you guys, and hope you’re all doing well.

P.S. Congrats on the 50th annual black belt test! 😄

exaggerates often

lets emotions/feelings consume herself (often unhealthily)

wishes the best of others, yet rarely of herself

tries (like, too much)

has virtually unattainable high expectations of herself

fancies perfection (even though it doesn’t fancy her back)

impatient with self and others when overwhelmed

also cries excessively if overwhelmed

puts others before herself (at times to her own detriment)

extremely hesitant to ask for help

vents personal stuff (to anyone who will listen if desperate enough)

tends to make impulsive, split-second decisions without fully thinking it through (normally precedes a huge consequence)

is a two-sided coin: acts like a know-it-all OR deliberately plays dumb (depending on the person or situation)

uncomfortable/anxious in certain public/group settings

overcomplicates/overthinks things

extremely vague and indirect verbally

bored easily

Good God, What Has Gone Wrong?

Trigger warning: Mental illness, panic attack, anxiety

I’ve been upset with my family for years on end. I’m sorry I don’t particularly see or sense the same idea of familial love as everyone else here claims. “Show don’t tell” is a strong writer’s rule of thumb, but also means so much more to me. “I’m upset!” I’d say, anger and fear and rage in my tearful eyes, twisted up on the inside, falls on your dismissive ears as “What do you know, child?” Or no words, but crossed arms, head shakes, sighs, or evident momentary shock or disbelief, as if I’d punched you in the gut.

I continue to curl into a ball and scream, unable to handle the undeniable pain shoot through my body. The pounding in my temples, the shudders between sobs, my neck straining to hold my head up, the overwhelming sensations. A meltdown, again. Everything surrounding me fades, and I’m left with a suffocatingly small and dark space. Outside of myself, I pity myself.

I worry, even though I know that in some unknown time in my future, it will not be this way. I know my immediate life and safety are not exactly at stake. However, my freedom and well-being is, and those things are valuable to me - sometimes more often than the other two. I can’t leave, as you are all family. There’s no reason to run or hide, or express myself fully, right? Yet I still want out, some way, somehow, someday. I still can’t face this now, not yet.

Listen first.

Then decide where to go from there.

Patiently listen.

Understand, fully. Don’t put words in their mouth, or assume their intentions or feelings, or blame them for what they say or feel.

Conversations must have two distinct sides

It’s you, from the future!

I miss being you. Despite what we’ve gone through, you still managed to feel happy time to time. You were always grateful for that.

Just so you know, you’re not naive. And you’re not crazy. Stop worrying about that.

You were you, and you accomplished so much by just doing that. You never let anyone influence your opinions or decisions, and that took real courage.

Yeah, you were awkward, yeah you were shy, and had a shell that needed to be broken out of over time.

That’s okay, and I’m glad you did!

You were friendly to everyone, and empathized with those whom felt left out. And you even began to accept those you didn’t like/seem to like at all, which was also huge.

You were brave, bc you tried your damn hardest to be the best at everything. You were an overachiever. While having ambition is good, know that it was okay to take a break. It was okay to laugh and smile at stupid, funny Snapchats. It was okay to just wanna lay in bed and procrastinate. It was okay to skip martial arts that night, and okay to just rest. You needed all those things.

Now, the weight of your actions then are starting to come and hit us again, except full force now.

All that hiding of our true emotions?

All the shit we blatantly lied about unintentionally?

Everything about letting our own anxiety and fear of “failure” rule our life?

That’s gotta stop. And you know and feel that, deep down to your core. It’s time to move on from that way of living, okay?

Bc you were never a failure. You were never gonna be disowned. You were never weird, or an attention whore, or whatever other shit you heard about yourself way back when.

You were strongly and proudly you. And I know it felt like you were wearing a mask, acting like this illusion of a “perfect girl” almost 24/7, and greatly able to fool everyone around you, and even yourself, at times.

It’s going to be okay. I knew you heard that a lot then, and trust me, we still fucking hear it now (annoying, huh?) But that’s a truth, and pls, believe that. I knew you sorta did then, but even now, we still know that fact to be true and believe it, if only a little.

We need time to heal.

Especially within the past 3 years, you’ve dealt with so much pain, and were holding it all in to yourself. You bottled it up, to protect yourself. But it was okay to cry about it, and feel upset, even if then you didn’t even know why.

You, my friend, forced yourself to grow up too fast. And even now, we wished that we could go back and change that, to worry less, live more laid back, and done so so much more differently.

But we also know that there’s no point in continuing to dwell so hard on the past.

And also, the future will always remain unknown, so don’t worry so hard about that either.

The future isn’t all cut out to what people made it, either! It wasn’t “better than the blip of high school” it wasn’t like college was duper fucking fantastic, NO!

Now, we hate that we bought in to almost all the crap that adults fed us growing up. Bc while some of it could’ve been true for most, it ended up not being for us!!! And, stay with me now...... that’s O-K-A-Y.

Yeah, life didn’t go according to your master plan. Yeah, right now, you’re really not where you envisioned yourself to be at age 20.

I know that sounds so out of this world insane and mind-blowing....... but that’s okay!!!!

We are still hella young, and the truth is yes, we still have so much time to think, to live, to wonder, to dream, and to feel happy.

Finally, we’re living in the present. At long fucking last, dude.

We’re gonna try and stay here as long as we can, bc that’s what’s gonna help us heal the fastest, as well as the easiest.

I love you, and I miss how we used to be so happy-go lucky and easily optimistic.

That part of you hasn’t completely vanished, it was just pushed aside and replaced by the you that felt the need to steel your heart, to grow tf up already, and be serious and abso-frickin-lutely careful with your words, who you chose to let in, who to trust, and who you shared anything with.

You were cautious, definitely excessively, but don’t worry about that anymore dude.

It was only easy to keep up that act for so long. Simple as that.

You’re human. You’re allowed to feel things, “good and bad” and everything in between. You’re allowed to feel scared, but don’t let that fear continue to stop you from chasing what you truly want to do. You played hella hard by the rules, by the book. It only got you so far, and now, in the adult world, with no one but yourself to tell you what to do anymore, it’s so vastly different.

Now, hun, you don’t need to ask anybody’s permission to do what you want to do. However, don’t continue to worry those people that care about you tho!! Let at least one or two of them know what you’re up to, ESPECIALLY if you think it could be sketch. Call your mom. Talk to your family. Keep in close touch with the friends/people that matter to you most. Just keep doing what you’re doing.....but this time, allow yourself to let go, of expectations, of anxiety, of feeling “obligated” to do or feel, anything.

You are very mature. You are very smart, and well-educated. You know you love to learn, and strive for self-improvement and the idea of tracking progress so much.

And I’m here to say that we’re finally one step closer

to being complete as a whole, genuine, bombass person. And that’s certainly worth smiling about and celebrating, right?