Colour My Words.

String Theory.

"Fear isn't so large anymore. Which means faith doesn't feel like a leap, so much as the soft earth beneath my feet--grounding and fertile and boundless.

Because good things do happen. Because there is a grace to the chaos of the universe. Because string theory is a thing. Because I am human--flawed and imperfect and made of flesh--which is to say soft and mutable. Because we've got one crack at a this--so far as I know--and I'll be damned if I don't swing for the fences. Because there is no such thing as perfection.  And very often the things we fear most are not only bearable, but transformative. "- Meg Fee

This is probably the best thing I've read in quite a long time. 

The Important Questions.

There was this time I revealed to a group of friends how much I disliked our “selfie” culture. I let the words slip out of my mouth very much how one lets slip that you don’t give a shit about typography to a group of graphic designers. Everyone sported looks of mild surprise. And everyone pretended not to be offended. When in reality, I knew I might as well have pointed fingers and told them straight up that I didn’t like them.

 One of those friends later commented on something I posted on Facebook and said, “Yo. Wait a second. I think selfies are awesome. Selfies are about self-acceptance. Your appearance isn't everything—but the whole point of a selfie is that you feel beautiful no matter what the beauty standards are. Because everyone is beautiful. Everyone deserves to look at themselves and say, ‘wow, I like myself.’”

 Everyone takes selfies nowadays. Even our parents are doing it. Hell, my grandparents took a selfie this morning.

 I don’t dislike people because they decide to participate in pop culture. (I also went through that Taylor Swift craze, I sure make use of those hashtags, and I sure as hell take selfies too, from time to time.) There’s nothing inherently wrong with taking a selfie. That’s not the issue, nor is it what I’m getting at. It is the prime status it has achieved as a symbol definitive of our culture. It’s the subtle power it has slowly acquired to guide the way we feel about ourselves. And I’m so annoyed.

 Jennifer Lawrence told The New York Times last week that she has has googled herself “Jennifer Lawrence Ugly”. She also admitted to how much anxiety that bout has led to every time that she’s out in public now. Afraid to say anything that could be spun a negative way. Afraid to be deemed “ugly” when she comes out of her house looking like I would when I’ve spent considerable time doing my hair and makeup.

 Social media is a wonderful thing, kid you not. It has the power to connect us, to empower us, and challenge our way of thinking. It very much serves as a mirror upon which we judge our lifestyle and our way of thinking. We follow publications and organizations that reflect our belief system, and therefore have the power to change those, too. But this power also comes with a caveat. Its main liability is its predilection to also become a mirror upon which we judge ourselves.

 And the issue isn’t only seen through the overabundance of selfies in social media and whatnot. That’s just a small portion of it. It is also seen through the way we look to our profiles, our statuses, and our followers to be definers of our significance, and our importance. How many times have you gone in search of an Instagram filter that will hide that imminent zit in your forehead? God forbid you’re not this perfect human. And, holy shit, think of all the likes you won’t get.

 So, I’m sorry, friend of mine, who said that the whole point of a selfie is that you feel beautiful no matter what the beauty standards are. But that’s exactly the main problem. You hit the nail in the head. I’m appalled that you need a selfie to confirm that for you.

 I’m just afraid there won’t be a time when we learn to fully revel in our experiences by being fully present in them without the worry of being liked or disliked, without the search of a little elusive recognition. I’m a little afraid that we’ll forget the value of complex thoughts and ideas we can’t reduce to 140 characters on Twitter. That we no longer give way to getting to know ourselves the old-fashioned way; getting lost in thought, asking ourselves questions, finding within us the answers. That we won’t read books that no one else is reading solely because they please us (but because we want to know how many likes that post could get), or that we no longer spend time daydreaming for the hell of it. I’m just afraid we longer find ourselves to be enough; that we need this immutable mirror of social media to tell us so.

 What is it that we are so afraid of? When we post all those statuses for the sake of the likes, or when we feel the need to push out our breasts and “duck” our lips for the “candid” photo (as if that even existed nowadays)? There’s this implicit obsession with being overly interesting to others. #CanSomebodyDefineInterestingAnyway #WhatIsLife. Not only interesting, but attractive, appealing, available. Enticing.

 What I’m trying to say is this: I think maybe we are just afraid of being plain, just ourselves, just skin upon skin, upon muscles, upon bones. And social media is just a way to disguise that reality.

 The other day I was reading a book called The Art of Making Magazines for a graduate school class and in it Robbie Myers, editor-in-chief of Elle, talks about the short time she worked at Seventeen. She says, “ At Seventeen, readers kept asking us questions like, how do I get a boy to like me? And I kept saying, ‘Stop asking that question, that’s not important. Do you like yourself? Do you know who you want to be?'"

 

Small Things To Remember.

 The sweet perfume I used to wear when I met you. The time we colored our hair pink. Paint on our arms. Tripping on ice, letting go, falling. Catching yourself humming in the kitchen. The smell of freshly roasted coffee. Sweaty palms, shaky legs. Twinkly lights on a fall evening. Myriad of books still left to read. The moment you put on your sweater. Margaritas and nachos. Beginnings. Sometimes endings. The new CD we burned. The moment we licked the seal. The letter we sent. Right after. The moment we got the good news. Unstoppable twirling. Uncontrollable laughter. The Mad Libs story that ripped us apart. The moment you finished taking that picture. The moment you finished packing. Dotting the last sentence. The waiting. Water, water, water. The cobblestone streets. The stars, too.  

#letsgetreal.

"Today I wanted to jump back on a plane and make it back to Iowa…" so begins my journal entry dated June 30, 2015.

"MOVING DAY OF HELL. First, we woke up at our motel and as we're about to leave we discover we have a flat tire. So we had to call AAA for roadside assistance that cost $85. Second, when we're going ahead with our move-in shit (I'm so thorough in my journal entries) we discovered that we actually had to pay $1890 to move in, as opposed to the $745 that I anticipated. I wanted to cry. That's not counting the $300 from the repair on the hole in the exhaust we gotta fix on the car. Third, we call the utilities company so we could set the gas and electric and the soonest they can do is NEXT WEEK. By then I was numb. My mom and I spent the rest of the day moving the stuff from the storage to the apartment. By the time I hit the bed I was so gone." -- July 1, 2015.

"…mom and I have been heating water to shower with a bucket at night. It's actually kind of funny." -- July 2, 2015.

I guess after a situation is already bad you might as well start laughing...

I wonder if the last time we talked I told you about these things. About the fact that I have no money, that my credit card bill is pretty damn high on all the expenses I incurred when I moved to New York, that I work a job that pays minimum wage, that I have purchased absolutely no groceries in the past two weeks, or that I go to sleep at night feeling horrible about my recent eating habits, my lack of security, and the fact that I can't even afford a new mattress that won't obnoxiously creak at night. 

The amount of times friends and family have asked me in glazed wonder about my new life in New York I've probably said "Great! Still adjusting," because who wants to hear about all this other garbage? I mean...like apart from my mother? So let me tell you something for the next time you look at my Snapchat story and wonder about my charmed life: I have no money. That's the biggest worry. Most nights I come home to cereal. I avoid conversations with my mom about that because they stress me out. I wake up late in the weekends and the day gets away from me. I hate lack of productivity. I feel pressured. I miss so many people. I feel so transient, so ephemeral. I don't have half my shit figured out. Sometimes I reject invitations because well…I don't feel the push to make new friends just yet and my electricity bill will be greeting me real soon. 

But let me tell you, not everything is half as bad. All those smiles you see and all that joy is real. All the hustle is also real. My  exasperation with homework is real, as well as my sitting in front of Adobe Photoshop hours on end with my palms on my face. It's all real and crude. But real nonetheless.

I don't worry. It's one moment to the next. 

But be clear on this: what I decide to post on social media is the final product.It is almost always beautiful. The picture I shot, the poem I wrote, my published article on Elite Daily…what you get to see is the thing that will get all the praise, all the comments, and all the likes. I don't get to tell you about that time I almost pulled my hair out, or when my software crashed and I had to start all over again, or when I spent a whole day working on something that was later deemed garbage. I don't get around to tell about in equal amount about my failures. 

Some days I worry more. There are some days in particular when I search the web in a frenzy for internships and hate every single opportunity everyone else has already gotten; when I question my abilities as a creative. Because I do. I questions my abilities day in and day out. All the fucking time. But I've decided I do what I do for the love. I don't raise a finger because I think I'm good, but because I want to be. So below all the pretty flowing dresses I like to wear, my carefully curated Instagram feed, and my penchant for making fun of myself, half the time I really don't know what I'm doing. And it's aggravating but it passes.

There isn't a single wrong thing about wanting to focus on the positive aspects of life. Absolutely nothing. If anything that fixation pushes us to want to be better, to set higher standards, to aim to be like that one thing deserving of our praise. This is also the worst kind of roadblock. We easily tend to forget we're also entitled to a little breakdown from time to time. Because we don't tend to share our failures with as much impetus we often forget that that is also a huge part of this life.

Just think about that. The next time you feel inclined to assume yourself of lesser value, or the next time you think everyone else is leading a better life than you, think about that stinky impostor syndrome. We're all doing what we can. It's a cliche, but it is because it's so true--Everyone is fighting a different battle. If we all embraced that as well as we embrace comparisons, we'd be a million times kinder to one another; life a million times sweeter. So by all things that are heavenly, stop comparing yourself to your ex's new girlfriend, or feeling white envy over your friend's recent trip to Istanbul, or thinking that you're the only one at rock-bottom. In real technical terms, there's rock-bottom, 50 feet of crap, and then there's us. And everyone feels that way at some point. (Thanks, Rachel).

Do you remember when we were little and our moms asked us to clean our rooms and we'd just stow all our shit under the bed, moldy pizzas, crusty socks, and all? And then she'd be about to inspect and we'd break into a cold sweat? That's how I picture this whole deal of opening up and being real about the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. If our mom's our audience, what are we doing with all our junk? What is everyone else? It may be unperceivable, but it's there.

It does not matter what others are doing. 

An Ode To Your Ears.

I like the curvature of your ears,

for what their swerve reflect about

the rest of your character,

the promise of ply in the rest of

your scenery,

and the varied trajectories I could

take down your body.

Because I like the thought of

losing grasp of the helix, and

slipping down the lobe, and

crashing against faintly murmured words, into

the middle of nowhere

with you. 

 

Originally written Feb. 23, 2014

15 Random Facts About Me.

Because the really fun thing about going to graduate for journalism, is that assignment may look something like this. This is my professor's version of "let me see what you can do with a camera and iMovie under a minute", and my lackadaisical response, "Fine."

What I'm Jammin' To.

You Are Dying.

 You are dying because you are so alive          

I clump your damp earth 
by fistfuls          I exalt your guts and lowlands

         your territories overrun with horses 
I fill up your hollows

-Brownyn Valentine, "Dear Body"

Leaving The Door Wide Open.

I am receding tides.

I kill whales.

I flake out on turtles.

And neatly folded laundry.

Terrifying, disaster-on-the-brink

perfection.

I am the the house you grew up in,

a cold, distant memory,

a lasting inflection.

And spilled coffee on white cloth

precipitous, uninvited

impression.

 

I am all the times 

I said too much,

loved too much,

left too much.

All the times I held my heart out

like kindling,

willing the smallest spark

to kill me,

to be done with me

and all the letters I swore 

I'd never send.

 

For the most part,

I'm a train ride home.

A baseball bat to the nose.

I'm pulled teeth.

Darling, I know

I'm hard to love,

but whatever I am

you can be the rest

of me.

My Best Friend Is Getting Married & I Am Beside Myself.

She was this walking set of white teeth, molars and all.  And I was this awkward set of brown eyes that always managed to look like deer in headlights.  One day she stopped me by the water fountain in school and told me she loved my eyes and I secretly wondered what that stain-looking thing on the edge of her bottom lip was.  After school, as we waited for our parents to pick us up,  I asked about it and she told me with a straight face that somebody had punched her, and that her name was Rebecca. I totally believed her. That was about 12 years ago. That is my very first memory of us. 

Of course, years later I was slightly less stupid and found out her so-called bruise was just a birthmark. And she found out my eyes only got more dramatic with age. I had especially perfected my eyebrow raise aimed at anything overtly ridiculous. In the twelve grade I learned how limited her creativity was after we were grouped to make a scrapbook for english class. My days quickly turned into a constant travail to tell her that her scrapbook pages were shit in the least hurtful way possible. To this day I'm not sure I ever told her. So if you're reading this, here it is, my dear. I still love you despite all things.

 After we had buried the scrapbook project deep in the earth, our life that year proceeded to be a whirlwind of sleepovers, movies, parties in San Juan, friend-dates, and occasional stay-cations at our friend's beach house. In school we would sit together during lunch time and recount the whole weekend, complete with somebody's first kiss, someone else's drama with Mrs. Vega, what-did-you-get-in-calculus?, dammit-I-got-a-90- (we're obviously pointing out the important things here), discussion of The Scarlet Letter and La Casa de Bernarda Alba, and days where I was a complete train wreck and she stopped me from crashing. 

When we're asked how long we've known each other I like to say "forever". Although we only solidified this thing we call our "friendship" after high school was done and over with and we had moved on to bigger and better things. Little did we know that our lives would be so intertwined since that moment after prom when we travelled away from the crowd and took pictures of each other in the hotel's beautiful staircase. Me with a peach chiffon dress, her rocking a strapless one that was the color of cobalt. I still remember it so well. This rite-of-passage, this opening sentence, this crisp wrapper.

Maybe it was the promise of new beginnings, or the fear of them; maybe it was that we'd both moved to Iowa (of all states); maybe it was that we both were swarmed with nostalgia for home; or maybe we just got each other. We only grew closer since then. That summer right after our freshman year of college proved to be the one that defined our relationship the most. And I still look at that summer with particular fondness for the babies we were; the hard-ass, shit-eating, overly confident, but-secretly-a-disaster, babies we were. I particularly remember all the times we had to remind each other to pick up our dignity off the floor. Do you remember this too? And all the domino games, all the domino games. 

That summer we both spent back at home, alternating between the beach, her house, my house, the pool, the mall, San Juan, random parking lots, random houses. Boys. One in particular. I was so convinced he was good for me. She was so convinced he wasn't. 

The amount of hours, all-together, that we spent poring over his text messages analyzing every period, exclamation mark, emoji or lack thereof,  is probably ridiculous. And a little embarrassing. So I'll just skip to the part where I tell you that of all the epochs we lived together, this was probably my favorite one.

We have so many inside jokes, so many, about that time in particular. We coined the phrase "There are two ways to go around this" for absolutely every endeavor involving a guy, a domino game, an outfit, or plans for the night. We learned that you just don't crack jokes when people are swimming or are about to if you don't want to witness death by asphyxiation. We learned that we can't sleep together; that she is literally a hurricane, and I'm an angel. We learned that we would still sacrifice potential nights of amazing sleep just to be able to whisper words of encouragement through the dark. We learned that my cat gives us both horrible allergies. That we love him anyway. Or at least I do. I learned that I could always go to her when I felt like my boat was on the verge of sinking; somehow she always found a way to keep me from drowning.

There was this one time I pulled up to her house and yelled out to her from the car ,“It’s sunny. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” I love how hungry we were for life. I love our drive, our motivation. I love how happy our happiness is. I love how pure. 

I love her in the present tense. And love isn't always pretty. Or self-serving, or easy. It sure came wrapped up in all the times I looked at her sternly and said, "Becky, just stop."

I still recall with uncanny clarity that day that we were both loitering around her kitchen sampling her latest baking disaster when her mom walked in and blurted out, "Who do you think will get married first, of all of you?" To which we laughed and said "Of course, Andrea". Her mom rebutted, "Nah, probably Bianca," which we didn't argue. Let me clarify that none of these girls are married yet. What we did point out was that I would be last, because of course, the hypothetical guy has all these books to compete with, and that Rebecca would be next-to-last because, of course, the hypothetical guy has all these domino games to compete with.

But that was that summer. That was then. This is now. And throughout the rest of the years that were to come, nothing changed. We only got better. We grew in our love for God, and we grew in our love for each other. Boys came and went. She visited me in Ames, and I visited her in Davenport. We met in Puerto Rico over the holidays. I was the only one of her friends to attend her mother's remarriage. We've shared everything. From deodorant to a bed, from flip flops to sport bras, from our food to my mother's affection. We've even passed the cat around at times. 

One day during that first summer that made us, we sat in her balcony overlooking San Juan, being girls like it was the only thing we knew how to do, and she told me,

"I have this feeling that when we're older...these other guys will come around, and they'll think just how lucky they are to call us theirs."

"You won't be last. I know him. The guy you'll marry. It's like I can see him in my mind. It's so weird."

If I could rewind time and be the one to say those words, I would. 

Because, my dear one, I know him. The guy you'll marry. He has a name. It is Jared. 

And I still can't believed I introduced you.

I met Jared through my Church's family group the Summer of 2012. Out of all the people I met that summer, he was one of the only ones that truly got me. We didn't drive to church listening to Hillsong or Rend Collective; we drove all the way switching from Thrift Shop to Jack Sparrow to Gold Digger. We made fun of ourselves, and we shared the same apathy towards swearing. He taught me many things. Like the fact that sometimes we don't need all these external things to prove to the world that we are children of God. That we are that already, and we are free. Our hearts will forever say more than what our outfit choices, musical tastes, and word choices can say. That a heart that says "dang" instead of "damn" has the same intention, and that that is everything. I've loved him like a brother ever since.

The story of how they met is for them to recount. Just know this: It had something to do with Rebecca coming over to visit me in Ames, and Jared, in his unique awkward way, cracking a joke, to which Rebecca wasn't sure how to respond. She responded the way she always does, cackling wholeheartedly and asking him "this is a joke, right?"

I wonder if she has ever thought about us that day after school when she told me someone punched her and she told me my eyes were pretty, or when we were in the same volleyball team for a semester, or when she did my mom's dishes at home, or when she was in love with that boy in high school, or when we were at prom taking pictures in the staircase. I wonder if she has thought about how every single moment since then was just leading up to this. How wonderful. And how inordinate this path. 

We'll be different now. 

This time there aren't two ways around the fact that when I have some stupid news to share with her I won't just show up at her house and yell at her that it's sunny, that life is now. There's no way around the fact that when we go back home to Puerto Rico she won't stay with me, with the horrible sleep and the allergy-inducing cat. There's no way around the fact that she's a part of something bigger now, the sanctity of marriage. In the most selfish way I'll miss her. I'll miss us in all the ways we were us, just us. In all the ways that that was the most important thing; the center of all things. But there's so much more. If we were a caterpillar, this is the butterfly. There is so much more. 

I thank her always for teaching me the value of time and reciprocity. That friendship is a lot like running a race and extending your arm behind you to see who will keep up. Real friends understand the value of time, yours and theirs. For teaching me that the best relationships in life are built on the base of intentionality and selflessness. That to truly love another you must both love yourself and be beside yourself at times. That these things evolve. That we evolve and so do our friendships. And that maybe we should spend less time fighting that and embrace it headlong for the uncontrollable, nasty plane crash that it can be. That we should just burn right alongside it. 

And on that day of her wedding I hope she jumps for joy. That she celebrates herself. That she celebrates God. That she celebrates him. That she's still just a walking set of white teeth, molars and all, after all.