My mother has always told me I have terrible posture. “Saca pecho Manta.” Shoulders back, boobs out, chin parallel to the ground, and most importantly Latina bootyliciousness (or lack thereof) out.
You know those personal signals you learn to watch out for with regard to yourself, and your mind. I have two, and when they go on, little red flags shoot up. (1) I start to blush uncontrollably in situations that should not matter. (2) I look at the ground when I walk to avoid eye contact or having my existence acknowledged.
Today, I challenged the sidewalk to a staring contest, and it met me with an unfaltering stare. As I was examining every canary flower on the linen of my flats, and memorizing every crevice and crack on the sidewalk, befriending every puddle or mound of mud, I pulled all the books in my mind off the shelves, searching for answers.
Why was I looking down? Hoping to be swallowed by the world? Because I am not proud of who I am at the moment.
*******
Quick intermission to cross the street.
*******
1) why are my academics going down the drain?
2) Why am I not fulfilling my duties as a daughter and c0-head of the family?
3) Why am I so selfish lately?
4) Why am I such a shitty friend?
5) Why am I always blackout drunk as of late?
6) Why have my priorities shifted in a negative way?
7) Why the fuck is my social life so important to me?
8) Why am I such a bitchy girlfriend?
9) Do I still believe in love?
10) Who am i?
The gum wrapper on the sidewalk didn’t have any input or advice.
I want a support system. Im not used to having a support system. I’m not sure about the relationship I am in. Im the romantic idealist. I play it safe. I’m lucky to have such a great guy as a boyfriend. The fact that a person of the opposite sex treats me right scares the shit out of me. I want the internship. Will I get it? If I get it, do I do something for myself and take it, or do I go home and put my mother first? I need to be a better daughter. When do I let go? Do I ever let go? Especially if I am all she has? Who else will take care of her?
Decisions, decisions.
And then, to put the cherry on top, my father calls. The so-called father, more of a sperm donor really. Why cant I forgive him? I can forgive the two bastards responsible for all the distrust I have in the opposite sex, but I can’t forgive the lesser evil that is my father for abandoning me, picking me up, setting high and increasingly higher expectations and dropping me everytime?
Question 1: do I drop the past or hold onto it?
· A) Forgive and Forget
· B) We are a sum of our experiences
· C) DGAF it and drink
· D) be morally correct : A&B
· E) none of the above
The correct answer is Ralph Waldo Emerson:
· “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
You want to know the formula I used to reason that one out?
There is no formula.
There are no right answers.
There are only relative solutions.
Think about it? Can you ever really know ANYTHING for certain???
No. everything you hold true, as simple as the fact that 2+3=5 could be completely wrong. You could have been spoonfed bullshit about everything you’ve ever known.
But at the same thing, everything you know is real and true.
Everything that you know is real and true is real and true RELATIVE to YOU because you give it its value. By making everything that you know is real and true, real and true in your mind, you make it real and true.
What’s the reality of the situation? Everyone’s reality is real. But everyone’s reality is different.
Fuck.
So what I’m altruistically, but kind of self-righteously, saying in this stream-of-consciousness-like disclosure is that I am the center of my universe?
Selfish no?
Fuck. Now im selfish and completely to blame for everything in my life.
If chose to switch the following in my mind, and use the terms according to my definition for the rest of my life, say George W. Bush and toilet, that would be my reality. Our former president would legitimately be a receptacle holding fecal matter as its center, and the toilet would be equated with 8 years of the downward spiraling of our nation. I mean that may be my actual reality, but that is beside the point.
Your reality is what you make it.
Mind over matter.
So maybe being the center of my universe isn’t all horrible? What about all that I have done right?
That’s the product of my decisions.
You know what else that means? That from this second until the next I can start over. Shift my reality, my habits, my choices, my morals, my mindset into a different mode. And maybe it wont overlap into everyone else’s reality, but it sure as hell will change mine, and maybe that will be enough. Maybe people will notice that I want to be the best me I can. That I want to come from a place of love. That I have made horrible decisions in the past few months, but that I can start over tomorrow morning when I ritually repeat the phrase “en nombre de Dioz” as I bid goodbye to the picture of my mother and my 7-year old self sitting on my windowsill, take 9 steps to my door, double check that I have my keys, look into my room one last time to make sure nothing will catch fire and burn Dickson down, take a deep breath, and shut my door tight, ready to face the world one more day.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll smile at the guy in my modern philosophy class who I think is an arrogant dimwit. Maybe tomorrow I’ll make a to-do list and finish. Maybe tomorrow I’ll apologize to my friends for being an ingrateful drunken bitch of a friend, and tell them how much I love them. Tell them that they are something that has gone right in my life. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell my boyfriend about my life, maybe I’ll trust him, and his intentions, and revert to my idealistic ways, and recognize that he is good, that he is good to me. Maybe I will tell him he has made my life brighter. Maybe I will call my mother and actually listen to her scold me for the first 17 minutes of conversation and tell her that I miss her every morning when I get dressed and remember when she put my hair in ponytails every day before day care. Maybe I’ll stop drinking for the carefree feeling that comes with being high and start dancing for the high that comes from the liberation of dancing without a care in the world. Maybe Porsia, and Steph, and Matt, and Babes, maybe I will tell you that I love you.
Because I do.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll ween myself off the pavement, and feel the sun on my face, notice the warmth of the couple holding hands, and astounding beauty of the campus that has brought me what may be some of the first, and most real sensation of ecstasy, and hope, and happiness, and love.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll look up.
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