Hey at least we didn't die

like everyone else. Though hey, Mr. Trump's going to be president in a few days, so we (brown people) might count 2017 as our last year on earth.

But man, this year, eh? What an absolute shit show.

Dear 2016,

You. Broke. Me.

That's right. On more than one occasion, I, the invincible woman, the Mexican Geordie, thought that it would be better to just stay in bed, under the covers, and wait until I dehydrated to death or something like that, rather than to face you.

You, with your injustice. You, with your deceit. You, with your selfishness. You, with your darkness. With your death.

In many ways it is as if you'd killed me. Like you killed my joy, my trust, my faith, my dreams, my desire to love. In some very dark days, even my will to be alive. Because there were times when I wondered: wait, is life this? Just this? That's it? I have to do this for the rest of it? And the prospect just seemed so overwhelming and terrifying that I wanted to scream until I had no voice left.

And yeah, people are complaining because you're an asshole, 2016, and you've taken away so many wonderful people and all. But I'm complaining about all that you've taken away from me. How painful the losses of this year have been.

It hurts so much, physically, to have to continue breathing even in the moments when you can't find a single reason to do so. It is unbearable to have to watch those people whose names are knitted in the very fibers of your heart suffer and writhe in pain and despair and not be able to do anything to help them, to save them, to buy them more time.

So we humans--being humans--find it easier to cope by blaming you, a year, for being an absolute piece of shit scumbag. Pardon my language. But really, when we start thinking about it, what are we doing here? Blaming a span of 12 months? For the mistakes of others? For their betrayals? For their greed and selfishness? For our own flaws? For life being life and death being death?

Life's so damn hard. It really is. I type that as I attempt to tune out the absolutely horrifying meltdown of a pre-teen boy with autism who has been in tantrum-mode for over 24 hours now. No one can help him. No one can calm him down. I'll leave you that for a picture of helplessness. A person you love, abusing himself, abusing those around you, because he cannot help it. Life is so hard sometimes that it feels exactly like that.

Why? Why does it have to be this way, right? It's atrocious. I'm telling you this with a heart full of anguish, which is my typical state nowadays, I think.

I do not know why. I do not claim to have an understanding of God, or humanity, or even myself, to be honest. All I know is that, despite it all, 2016, somehow, quite inexplicably to me, I am still here.

Somehow, stupid year, you are dying, and I'm still alive. I am a living organism and, what's even more fantastic, I seem to be able to get up in the morning, shower, brush my teeth, and hustle. In this broken world, with this broken heart. Show up early to work. Bust my ass. Get nominated for Teacher of the Year. Encounter not-so-little dudes and dudettes who tell me they miss me and they wish they could be my students again. Answer the questions of curious will-be-Catholic children. Wash my dishes. Pay my bills. Write a baby masterpiece on this blog once in a while. Make someone spit their drink with laughter.

I've spent this year feeling so defeated and useless. Perhaps I am. God knows the only thing I was ever the best at was being a footballer. Not much since, and it's been 14 years. But heck, by pure stubbornness, by just my ridiculous pride, ego, whatever you might call it, I am still kicking around this world and working like a beast and trying. Trying to do the adult thing. Trying to do the life thing.

Then I think, just for a tad, of the people who showed kindness instead of selfishness; loyalty instead of betrayal. And I realize quickly that they're the only reason I'm still here, getting up from bed and feeding myself and bathing. The loves of my life. The ones that pick me up when I'm down, and when all fails, drag me around until I get my act together.

THE LOVE. It is so mystifying to be pierced in the heart by the affection of people who love me despite my own imperfections, who take care of me when I don't want to take care of myself anymore, who revive me with their own silliness, and sweetness, and sincerity, and bluntness. People who gave me the fuel, via memories, to keep going when all systems failed.

2016, you broke me. I felt my heart bleed dry at times. I felt anxiety crawl in the walls of my throat. I felt despair gripping my head with its claws. Yet, perhaps to spite you, perhaps because God did have some mercy of me after all, I made it. I'm making it.

And you want to know what's even more incredible than that? I swam in the Mediterranean. I made a difference in at least one child's life. I saw how wonderful I am as a girlfriend. I walked more than 20 miles on two completely blistered feet. I held my best friends in my arms unreservedly and I made sure they knew what they are to me. I wrote amazing poetry. I shopped until I dropped. I did the Running Man challenge. I ate banana off the floor for 10 bucks.

Lastly...

I literally laughed my ass off.

Can't say I'll miss you, 2016. But thank YOU, person reading this, for giving me the strength to keep going. You stay in my heart. 

Fa-la-la-la-NO

I suppose you are expecting a Christmas blog (plus the blog I promised like five months ago about the rest of my summer vacation--which I honestly do not remember very well), but instead, you are getting an angry post!

I was at JCPenney Christmas shopping (that's my store--do not judge me) and I noticed a man who kept staring at me from the other side of the shoe aisle. I knew that he was going to talk to me because his gaze was fixed on me, so I tried my best to pretend like he wasn't there (naturally). Then, of course, because men are men, he can no longer contain himself:

"Hey, how are you?"

I look up. I can see a familiar face, but I am having a hard time thinking of who this is. High school? Yes. Friend? Definitely not. Name? No clue.

"Oh hi, I hadn't recognized you!"

He comes around to shake my hand. I see his eyes traveling up and down my body. Then he says, in an animated voice:

"Wow! You got fat!"

You wish.

No, I did not punch anyone. But I think my facial expression did enough for me, because the dude tried to correct himself by saying "well, you've got a fuller figure". He then proceeded to ask me if I had children, then if I had a husband. For both of those answers in the negative, he rebutted with an almost-reproachful "But why?"

So let's break it down:

1. Insult her body.
2. Question her womanhood by being outraged that she has no children.
3. Question her adequacy as a female by being outraged that she has no husband.

And people think I'm going to end up alone. Pshhhh. This guy is a winner in that category.

Or is he? Because, chances are, there is someone, out there, pining away for this asshole. Willing to surrender her heart, her intimacy, her blood, sweat, and tears, for a man like this.

Well, I suppose I am not just writing this to let you know how my day went today. So here's my two cents. Absolutely not suitable for work. Pardon my french. Sorry, mom.


To you, oh high school guy who's name I can't even recall,

First off, go **** yourself.

Secondly, I feel truly sorry for you. I feel sorry that you didn't have anyone to teach you better. I feel sorry that women are to you just a body to produce children and be bound to a man. I feel sorry that you even considered that you had a shot at speaking to me (because, let's face it, a random man does not ask a random woman if she is married and has children for no reason) and that something was going to come out of it. I feel sorry for you as I recall your panicked face in my mind when you realized that you had screwed up your chance with me (as if you ever had one-- 15 years ago or now).

But above all, I feel sorry that you are so wrapped up in your assumptions of what a woman is that you will never be able to love one properly or make her happy. Because, whichever woman falls for you (if there is ever one) will only be an attractive body, or the bearer of a child, or a wife to satisfy your needs. She won't be worth to you anything else. You won't see her for who she is, beyond motherhood and marriage. You will not understand her. You will not support her. You will take, and take, and take.

Perhaps I'm wrong for assuming these things. But it is just so mind-boggling to me that you had the nerve to speak to a strange woman you barely know the way you did. So I can only assume that once you get to know a woman, it only gets worse. Could I safely assume that you suddenly become a vindicator of the rights of women the moment one of us earns your respect or affection?

Well, if that is the case, I still feel sorry for you. Because you shouldn't need to love a woman in order to respect her. You should just... well, shit, respect her! But what do you know? You were brought up in ignorance, in violence, in lewdness. You've grown up in a culture that teaches you not to feel, that tells you it's okay to use people, that throws pornographic images at you and orders you to knock yourself out. You were bred in the dark, pestilent bosom of sexism. Even worse, you were knit in the fiber of selfishness.

So I feel sorry for you. You are pathetic in your blindness. You are a laughingstock in your lack of respect. You are a caricature of what a man ought to be. But don't feel bad. You are most definitely not alone.

I mean, I am acutely single for a reason. The bad ones literally make me want to become a hermit. The "good" ones are riddled with insecurities, self-doubt, and the self-righteous pretentiousness of thinking that they are the best thing that could happen to you.

Which brings me to  my next point...

Dear men,

Yes, it's me again. I'm aware that we do not get along very well, mostly because you all insist on being assholes, but hear me out...

STOP BEING ASSHOLES!

It's the future already-- why am I having to tell you this??? Like, we are past the Back to the Future year. What are ya'll doing, seriously? I'm going to give you the advice (lecture) I give my male students, who are riddled by hormones and sex-crazed:

"If you wouldn't say it to your mom/sister, don't say it to her."

or

"If you wouldn't like it said to your future daughter, don't say it."

It's really bloody simple.

The moment you treat a woman like she's a) an object, b) a baby maker (also an object), or c) your own personal source of marital pleasure, you blew it. She's officially too good for you. She's out of your league.

To the good guys who feel constantly victimized by women who only "want the bad guys": grow an actual pair. Love yourselves enough to be brave to fight for the women you love and brave to retreat when said women do not want anything to do with you. Your "goody-goodyness" doesn't entitle you to anything. Again, we are not a trophy. The moment you feel like you deserve a woman, she's already too good for you. She;s out of your league.

To the few men doing what they're supposed to: I'm not going to congratulate you because it's your job. But well done. Don't get cocky.

Dear women,

Stop. Enabling. These. Assholes.

You are worth so much more than objectification. You deserve to be an absolutely adored wife. You deserve to be a proud mother. You deserve someone who practically has a meltdown over the fact that you've given them the greatest gift there is: unconditional love, a family, and offspring. Anything less than that is settling.

Of course no one is perfect. But they have to at least try. For you. Because they love you. Because you are so damn beautiful, and smart, and sweet, and fierce, and amazing. Do not settle. Even if it means renouncing to your dreams of being a wife and a mother. Do not settle.

And that is perfectly okay. 

Dear world,

I am a fat woman. I have a back roll. I have stretchmarks not caused by pregnancy. I have arms that flop like wings. I have thighs that rub until they bleed. I have a triple chin. Sometimes I have to unbutton my pants after a big meal.

I am so FUCKING beautiful.

My legs are so mightily strong.
My arms are a fortress.
My face is the sun.
My eyes sparkle like redwood in the flames.
My hair rages like a sea of waves.
My mouth's small but my voice roars.
My hands are regal and rough.
My shape is heavenly, forged in bronze.

Add to that is the fact, as all of you know, that I am incredibly funny: I make my supervisor spit her drink. I make my principal break character and go from dead-pan face to a meltdown of laughter. I make my best friend snort. Most importantly, I make myself laugh, and even laugh again when I remember what I did later on.

I am literally brilliant, the love child of two people with crazy high IQs. I, thankfully, inherited the emotional intelligence of my mother. And her charm. I suppose that also comes with the comical awkwardness courtesy of me dad. *Eye roll*

I am a force to be reckoned with. Stubborn to no end. Determined to death. Dedicated to the core. Passionate in every fiber of my being. I might be shot down (now more than ever, it feels), but I carry on, running, walking, or crawling (this last one seems like the means of moving around, so to speak, in the last couple years). Who knows, I might secretly be a gorilla or something.

I am kind. I mean, maybe not to jerk-faces who call me fat in public. But I try to give of myself. I try to remind myself to love others. I put my heart on the line for people I consider my friends. Once someone accepts me in their life, and I them, I take them up in the figurative arms of my soul, and cradle them, and then put them to sleep, "sh-sh, there, there, baby love", and then keep them in my heart forever. I swear I am not drunk. This is the best metaphor I could come up with. Creepy and stalker-ish. Hilar!

I am honest. I am a hard-worker. I am sincere. I am a nurturer. I am a fighter. I crave justice. I am brave. I am independent. I am self-sufficient. I am compassionate. I am empathetic. I am hella loyal. I'm an awesome cook. I'm a pretty decent dancer. I am creative. I am crafty. I am musical. I am a fairly good writer. I try to live up to a moral code. I am horribly flawed. I fall short all the time. I am riddled with fear and anxiety most of the time.

But I love myself.

It is so hard to love one's self.

It's easy to do it when a petty asshole calls you names in a department store because you don't give a shit about him and he is nothing to you and will always be nothing. It's easy to love yourself when you are fighting trolls on the internet because you know there's something terribly wrong with their own self-esteem.

But it's hard to love yourself when that one person you look up to tells you you'd be so pretty if you lost weight; or when the people you care about say that you're a little bigger than last year; or when the man you love with all of your heart, who says he loves you just the way you are, who swears he adores you with all your imperfections, suddenly decides that you're not what he wants and walks away, or stops fighting for you.

Yet, you have to love yourself. Because it's what God wants. Because it is your duty.  Because you have to lead by example. Because, sometimes,  you have no choice because if you don't then you'll sink in a sea of despair. You have to love yourself, even when you look shattered, when you have to donate your beautiful clothes away because they no longer fit, or when you look at high school pictures and realized you've let yourself go. You've got to do it despite the nights of utter sadness, the comfort eating, the anxiety attacks, the thinning hair due to stress. You've got to do it because you're worth it. If God thought you were worth creating, then you are most definitely worth loving. Especially being loved by yourself.

And by God, you are so phenomenal and out of this world, that if someone could comprehend what you are, the thing that you embody, they would hold onto you and never let go of you, a beautiful, bright, mighty supernova.

So  you're going to say that if no one sees that greatness in you, why should you believe me? Well, if they can't see it in themselves, if they don't see God's likeness and image in their own face, how will they see it in yours? Moreover... if you don't see it in yourself, how can they see the blinding shine if you cover it up with self-loathing?

Well, I'll tell you this: even if no one ever does see it, it doesn't mean it's not there. Sometimes the sun shines so bright that people shield away from it. That doesn't make the sun less powerful. It just shows how weak people are.

So dear former classmate,

1. Insult her body.     Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. 
2. Question her womanhood by being outraged that she has no children.   Love Thy Neighbor
3. Question her adequacy as a female by being outraged that she has no husband.   As Yourself.