I wrote this in 2002. It was one of those moments when I was having one of those moments where my self esteem was high and I was like fuck love, I’m awesome by myself.
me in 2002 when I wrote this poem
She is not that woman who needs a man She alone fulfills her dreams Without him, her face still beamsme
She is not that beauty chick Who has all the men at her feet She’s got something else When the world of beauty fails
She is not that pushover girl Submissive with the golden curls She’s got her own mind Love is not worth her time
She is not that Ms.Prom Queen Who wants an engagement ring A husband she could care less about She’d rather not take that life route
So today marks my 10 anniversary since starting this blog. I’ll admit that until the summer of this year I didn’t take this blog as seriously as maybe I should have. I started this blog in December of 2011 after my house was broken into and we were robbed. It was traumatizing to me and my family and I needed a way to process it so I started blogging. Here is that blogpost:
Since starting this blog, there have been a lot of life changes. I’ve blog about those life changes few times when just writing it down doesn’t do the trick. The way that I have explained it to friends and family is that the blog is like screaming into the void of cyberspace.In October of 2019, I started posting my poetry and this was another level of intimacy for me because I don’t share my poetry with just anyone. I will share my poetry or writing with one of my close friends or sometimes at open mic at my local pub .Then I started a second job and I didn’t have the time needed to dedicate to this blog but I always kept writing. Then I got into a relationship that lasted until July of this year. While I’m not getting into how that relationship ended or why (that’s blog content for late next year-lol) it was one of the reasons I started blogging again. The demise of that relationship was unexpected and devastating for me so I turned to my first coping mechanism-writing. Shortly before my breakup in July, I started therapy and was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and that was a lot to process in itself. Being broken up while dealing with a new diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder felt like I had experienced 2 really horrible car wrecks within a week. I compare it to a car accident because that’s probably one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life. Except this time, it wasn’t my car that was totaled and unrepairable, it was me. I felt like I had lost part of my identity since I was no longer someone’s partner and I gained a new part of my identity in being diagnosed with BPD. I felt completely overwhelmed with no sense of direction; I honestly didn’t know what to do next. All I wanted to do was lie in bed and cry while Alexa played my sad girl playlist from Spotify. Here is that playlist:
And while I did do that some of the time; I understood I still needed to get up every day and show up for myself somehow. And showing up for myself meant writing. And so I wrote every day in my journal and in my numerous notebooks. I wrote letters at 3 AM that I would never send, journal entries full of immense sadness and rage, and tons and tons of poetry.
these are just a few of my journals and well Sylvia Plath is of course one of my favorite poets
A few days after my breakup, I decided to blog about my diagnosis to start to make sense of it and here’s that post:
After writing that post and it got more than a few views and a couple of likes, it made me realize that there are other people like me. I also got the idea at that time that healing for me would look like me revisiting past traumatic situations through my poetry and reflections or writing a blog post. And this was chaotic in itself because I started posting poetry from all stages in my life. So around late October and early November, I started posting poetry for the most part chronologically from the early stages of my writing with the very first poem I wrote when I was 15 and here’s that poem:
My writings and poetry are confessional, sometimes childish, and at times super emotional. It’s meant for people who have felt misunderstood in their anger and grief, it’s meant for people who feel everything at once and feel overwhelmed by it, it’s meant for people who have traumas they’re still not over, and it’s meant for people who have given their trust and vulnerability to the wrong people only to be broken over and over again by doing this.
so I kept writing
My future plan for this blog is to continue to post poetry, essays, playlists, and other writings. Without intending to, this blog has become a storytelling blog. And it’s a story about a woman who is far from perfect. It’s a story of woman who lies, who loves hard, who hates even harder, who loves sex, who has been abandoned by lovers and who has abandoned lovers, who’s crazy, and who feels immense sadness and rage when trauma hits. It’s a story of a woman who fucks up continuously but still manages to get up and try to become a better version of herself than she was yesterday. It’s also a story of a woman who has continued to triumph after trauma. Most importantly it’s a story of a woman who is done accommodating to people’s and society’s expectations of who she should be and at 40 has realized that being authentic and true to herself is the only and right way for her to be. I may have changed a lot within a decade but what will never change is my love for writing and my purpose to continue to share my story.
Here’s to 10 more years of writing about my vida loca
I wish I could’ve spent more time picking up a hobby than writing all of this salty poetry about this dude. LMAO. This is of course another poem inspired by the “great breakup of 2001”.
I wish I could Forget all of you And take back the time Spent loving you I wish I could make you see All of the misery you caused me I wish I could make you feel My pain that is so extremely real I wish I could see you hurting It would be something I would take comfort in I wish I could just not care But life isn’t always fair
When me and my family first immigrated to the U.S in September of 1986; Thanksgiving was a foreign concept to us. We were introduced to Thanksgiving by our extended family members who were seasoned veterans in celebrating this American Holiday. I was 5 when I immigrated to this country so my memories of our first or second Thanksgiving are pretty blurry.
What I do remember is going to my uncle’s house where my aunts, uncles and numerous cousins would gather. My mother sat with my aunts and grandmother while they shared the latest chisme (aka-gossip) while they cooked and later on served dinner to the kids and the men. Yay for machismo culture <insert sarcasm>. My father and my uncles drank together while they joked around. I remember playing with my cousins or following my sister upstairs with our teenage cousins to the bedroom with the TV to watch music videos with George Michael ,Rick Astley blasting on MTV. Maybe that’s how I acquired my sometimes basic taste in music.
I also remember that since we were away from adults, our cousins took the opportunity to teach me and my sister all of the bad words in English. Haha. Another fond memory that comes to mind is the newest babies being passed around the aunts or the older female cousins. There wasn’t such a thing as asking permission from the parents for their baby unless of course the child is being nursed. I also remember hating the taste of turkey. It tasted like rubber to me.
me and almost all of my cousins circa 1987, I’m in front in the frilly blue dress
There was warmth and laughter in this idyllic setting of Thanksgiving but that’s not the whole picture. There was also unpleasantness. My mom is one of nine children and with that many personalities; there was no way to avoid drama when all of them gathered in one space. There were more than a few petty conflicts between family members on Thanksgiving and other holidays gatherings.
My mother decided after a couple of Thanksgivings it would be better to celebrate Thanksgiving at home by ourselves. So my mother learned how to season and make a turkey and stuffing. Instead of the traditional green bean casserole or sweet potato pie; our sides were Peruvian Potato Salad and Macaroni Salad accompanied by Peruvian Hot Chocolate and Dad’s famous alcoholic Peruvian eggnog. We would watch movies rented from the local video store while we waited for the turkey to be ready. When my dad started getting tipsy, he would start playing Spanish Christmas Carols, Huaynos, and Musica Criolla. It was music that my teenage sister would cringe at and me and my brother would tolerate. I didn’t realize then but I do realize now that my father was in his own way trying to make sure that we wouldn’t forget our roots as we were living this new life in America. My parents tried their best to make sure that our strong Peruvian culture and traditions were not forgotten as we acclimated to the the new Americanized way of living. When dinner was ready, we would sit down at the table. I ,being the youngest and most impressionable by my then Catholic School upbringing, would ask the family to say a prayer and ask them to say something they were thankful for. I think I was seven or eight at the time but I guess my parents thought it was a good tradition to start. And of course, my siblings would get annoyed but they did it.
Despite those first few Thanksgivings when we lived very much under the poverty line; it was still a happy time for us as a family. My parents made sure that Thanksgiving was almost always filled with warmth, love, and laughter. One could say that what Thanksgiving meant to my newly arrived immigrant family then was learning how to incorporate our culture into a new American holiday like Thanksgiving. While my parents understood the importance of assimilation; they still made sure me and my siblings didn’t forget our culture. Today, I’m filled with gratitude that my parents brought the best of both cultures to Thanksgiving and most holidays in their own unique way. I’ve been able to bring these bicultural traditions to my own family while also making new traditions.
me and my family circa 1986, I’m the one sitting on my mom’s lap
I wrote this in 2002 after a trip to California. That trip was strange for me. I was filled with nostalgia but also felt triggered by revisiting traumatic parts of my childhood during that trip. I did make peace with my past during that trip. I don’t talk much about my childhood because of the trauma attached to it but I think I need to. We should talk about the things that are hard to talk about. I believe that my childhood trauma played a big part in me having BPD.
The 2 bedroom apt I grew up in from ages 5 to 11 My aunt, me and my grandmother during that trip. My aunt was not a nice lady BUT thats another blog post .
Gone back to my old miserable childhood world Everything has changed and yet remains the same Old memories I had buried in the back of my mind Come crawling back to the surface Of the pain, poverty, and misery That scared little girl emerges once again But this time as a brave woman To proclaim that she is no longer Frightened by the people who caused her so much hurt
you wear many faces, sometimes you have dark hair sometimes you have blond hair but you always take me in your arms and make me feel loved and accepted for who I am you don’t care that I’m too crazy or too much It’s a type of excitement, an almost adrenaline rush for you and if I annoy you-you’ll tell me I’m being ridiculous but apologize right after I burst into tears and you’re not afraid of my tears or screams because you know it comes with the territory when it comes to loving me and then I wake up- in my self imposed solitary confinement and I wonder if this dream could one day come into existence like my other dreams or it it will become another fulfilled fantasy Because love stories aren’t meant for someone crazy like me
I wrote this poem in 2018 shortly after the death of my maternal grandmother/mamacita. My grandmother lived in a time where her opportunities were very limited by society’s rules about what a woman should be.
Life on the BPD 