marco

needed time to take a step back and sort through my emotions. everything just feels so heavy, it’s suffocating.

i can’t breathe

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woke up to another new nightmare. i swear the sirens are louder tonight than yesterday and the police cars seem to quadruple in number at every corner of my neighborhood. today trump called a maga rally at the white house, in response to the (peaceful) protesters across the nation that are marching in defense of black lives. a race war is born tonight, as los angeles calls on the national guard and issues a city wide curfew.

i recognize my privilege, i understand that my skin color grants me immunity from systematic oppression. i’m sorry george, ahmaud, breonna, and all the other black lives that were carelessly taken before them, i’m sorry to all of their families and friends. i’m sorry that this is our country, and i’m sorry that i’ll never truly understand what it feels like to be born black and live in fear to wake up, run, drive, go to the store, church, or breathe.

i pray that we do better, that we evolve, that we are helpful, understanding, and teach our future generations to be stronger and greater than us.

i’m not black, i’ll never understand what it feels like to be black. but i’ll sign the petitions, i’ll protest with you, and pray with you. i’ll be actively anti-racist, and call out those that are when i witness it. i celebrate you.

praying for strength, safety, and justice.

its an odd feeling. just floating around in space; waiting for something to make sense, waiting for the seatbelt sign to turn on and the severity of life’s turbulence to strike me during my flight to greatness.

i never wanted to work the way that i do — or did (barring current circumstances). marrying myself to clients and companies and projects that didn’t add to my peace or fulfillment. constantly sacrificing time and my emotional well-being to people and entities that hold no viable judgment over the future of my life. yet somehow i still find ways to give myself up when there’s nothing left, repeatedly seeking recognition and praise from others.

so now what

the perpetual need to reinvent myself is mandatory at this point. stuck between knowing/doing what i’m good at versus what i’d rather be consumed with. somewhere deep in the back of my brain, the notion that all of this shit is trivial anyway, the inevitability of the end; apprehensively wondering if making a difference or leaving a legacy is even remotely possible for me at this point. infinitely counting how many re-do’s i get before i figure out what the fuck is going on — if i ever get to figure that out at all, or if i really am just floating in space.

or

if i believe everything i told myself as a child. my third grade teacher gave us a project that was centered around, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and all of my classmates filled their posters with different careers and dreams — when the only thing my paper said was “happy.” somewhere, a free-spirited me still understands that there’s good to be done, even if my own pessimism gets the best of me 78% of the time. success is subjective, and if there’s one thing that i know about myself — it’s that i believe that even my greatest accomplishments have room for improvement.

i’m going to take this “L” as a reminder that at this time in my life, the universe is just making room for something better.

cheers to another re-do.

i watched fireworks on a rooftop with an asshole that told me he loved me.. and used that L word to make it ok to treat me like shit for the rest of this year.

four years ago, on july 4th, i found out my boyfriend of three years was cheating on me.