The Struggle Of Being An Introvert.

I would describe myself as the epitome of an introvert. One of my favorite places to hang out is the quite room of a university library in my neighborhood. During my commute work, I can always be seen with a book in hand, and ear buds on, completely shutting me out to the outside world. I recently left a job that required me to be in front of guests 24-7 for a 9-5 office job where my only interaction with strangers would be over the phone or through email. Though it has only been 1 1/2 weeks, I feel considerably lighter and happier. On Saturdays, I work at a cosmetic store that does require me to be in front of customers, but because this is only one day a week (and I love the company!) it is the perfect setup for me.

Sundays for the time being, are my only day off. Being an introvert, am I fan of this set up because if I plan my day right, I can potentially spend the whole day by myself. I can use this time to blog (like I’m doing right now!), write friends I haven’t spoken to in a while, work on little projects that I haven’t had time for, practice my Spanish, and go on a long run. A dream day for an introvert! The trouble is, I come from a family of extroverts. My day off, to them, is an opportunity to spend time with them, which doesn’t fit my description of an ideal day off. It’s not that I don’t love them. It’s that sometimes I feel that time spend with them is incredibly draining. I am forced to feel guilty for being selfish.

With my new schedule having only been effective for a week, I am still learning how to find the balance with everything. There are so many different things that one has to juggle. Friends. Family. Yoga. Training for the Marathon. Writing. Reading. Cleaning. Sleeping. Studying.

How does one find time for it all?

A Letter To The Coach Who Outed Me As A Depressed, Suicidal Person.

**Note**It was the summer before my final year in undergrad. I was 21 years old. Looking back, I have trouble putting myself in the shoes of my former self. When I see memories of that time, I am outside myself, simply an additional person in the room, a bystander. Perhaps it is still too painful to relive everything I was feeling at that time. I cannot make myself vulnerable to experience those emotions that I had at that time. I know that eventually I will have to seek out professional help about this. Again, I cannot make myself vulnerable enough to do so at this moment in time. Every August, I am reminded of the person that I was, because that was when a suicide attempt forced me to own up to my depression. I am reminded of the friendships that I lost simply because I couldn’t face the people that I’ve hurt. I am still so guilty and ashamed. I am reminded of the Coach that told my old cross-country team that I had tried to take my own life, as if it was joke…***

Dear Coach,

I had reached out to faculty members from ***** University because I am currently fundraising for a race I am doing in autumn. As I went through the entire faculty & staff directory, I skipped your name because I couldn’t bear be in contact with you again. I’ll never forget the feeling of disappointment and betrayal I felt when I was told by my old roommate/teammate that she had heard you telling the entire team about my suicide attempt and my hospitalization.

Even now, 6 years later, my insides still ache at the thought of it. The feelings of embarrassment and of shame I felt knowing that everyone knew. I had hoped to keep this intimate secret of mine to myself, but you had robbed me of that. I’m sure (at least I hope) you didn’t know the magnitude of the situation. I know you didn’t know that this was one of several suicide attempts that I had made over the past decade. That’s right, I had been dealing with depression since I was a little girl and I had been keeping it to myself this whole time.

You had no right to tell anyone. Not a single fucking person. Do you understand that? How is the proper way of dealing with someone’s mental health issues? I was petrified of returning to school. So I didn’t. For two years. For two years, I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I lived in a depressed fog because I didn’t know how to live now that I had failed to take my life. I didn’t know how to return to a place where everyone knew my deep, dark secret. It would have been nice to know I had the support of my coach.

I hope that since all of this happened you have taken some sort of course on how to deal with these things in a more respectable fashion. I often think of confronting you, but I know that I probably won’t. I have visited ***** since I graduated (yes, I returned to the same school years later and finished my undergrad (= ), but I have been too afraid to even go to the Recreation Center where I know your office is. I often hoped that you would apologize to me, but I don’t really think about it much anymore.

Despite everything, I genuinely hope that you are doing well. I hope your sons and wife are all healthy. I read about your achievements as a coach and how well your team is doing and it makes me proud to have been a part of that institution.

Take care and be well,

N.

I believe in music

I believe in the power of music.

I believe that a song that help lift your heart.

I believe that a song that can transport you to places you’ve never been

I believe that sharing music with someone strengthens your relationship with them.

I believe that if everyone listened to M83 the world would be a better place.

I believe that I should start my morning by listening to “Brave” to help me feel for confident.

I believe that music can change the world.

I believe that music brings people together, enemies and friends alike.

i believe that music can help achieve world peace.

I believe that some songs can mend a broken heart.

I believe that music saves lives.

My internal hair struggle.

OK, even with the risk of sounding full of myself, I’m going to say it anyways.  I receive compliments about my hair on a regular basis.

I have long, dark, wavy brown hair, that if I had to straighten, would probably reach mid-ass.  I am a lucky girl because despite the fact that I haven’t actually done my hair (short of a couple wedding events where I got it done professionally) in over two years.  My hair routine consists of washing, shampooing, and conditioning my hair almost every day and only combing my hair with a wide-toothed come during the shower.  I also occasionally use a leave-in conditioner about 4-5 days a week because my ends have a tendency to get dry.  The end.  No straightening.  No curling iron.  No blow-dryer.  No expensive serums, mists, sprays, etc.

I love my hair, but I also hate my love for it.  Let me elaborate for a bit…

For about the first eleven years of my life, I had stick straight hair.  Once i hit puberty, my hair turned wavy.  I had no idea to do with these new-found waves.  I would brush my hair and absolutely despise the frizzy mass that would result.  In addition to my hair problems, I also had glasses, severely crooked teeth (braces were too expensive given m family’s financial situation), etc.  Basically, I was every other awkward, teenager that was a target of bullies.  When I got into high school, I would only wear my hair down if I took the time to straighten it.  Otherwise, it would be pulled back in a bun.

Though I don’t know exactly when, my hair hatred turned to hair indifference sometime during my undergrad.  I began wearing my hair down and wavy, but not without some products to help tame it down a bit.  I straightened my hair probably a few times a month, which is a high amount for me.

After that, my hair indifference turned into hair love, probably within the past five years or so.  I appreciate the compliments I receive from even strangers, but part of me is disappointed in myself for being so moved by a compliment involving something physical.  I feel that I am too attached to my hair.  If it is down, I am constantly messing with it, moving it from side to side.  I internally admire it in the mirror when I am in the bathroom.

Sometimes I try to reflect on why my hair can stir up so many emotions in me.  I think part of me feels that this attachment that I have to my hair makes me a less spiritual.  I also think that part of the struggle is due to loving my hair sort of makes me a bad feminist.  I don’t believe that women need to have long hair (or any hair for that matter) to be considered beautiful or attracted, but I do feel that I would consider myself less beautiful if I had shorter hair.  I think of myself as someone who isn’t that involved in their physical appearance, but here I am writing a blog about my hair!

Then sometimes I think part of it has to do with society.  If a woman admit she loves a part of her body she’s full of herself.  If she doesn’t love her body, she is insecure, weak, too self-involved.

I guess the struggle goes on…

My Mexican Inferiority Complex

It’s taken me a long time to admit this to myself, but I have what I refer to as, a “Mexican Inferiority Complex.”  I grew up in what is a predominantly white suburb of Chicago.  For those of you who are familiar with Chicago, I promise that my suburb is an actual suburb, not one of the fake suburbs like Naperville or Downers Grove that doesn’t actually border the city.  In my elementary school that was located in my suburb, I was one of two Mexican children in my graduating class.  My first personal encounter with racism occurred in junior high, when one of my classmates, upon learning my ethnic background, said, “You’re Mexican?  That’s like the worst thing that you could be.”  I didn’t realize this at the time, but this comment had a definite negative effect on me.

At that time in my life, though Mexican made up half of my ethnic heritage, it was the only half that I identified with.  I am also half Greek, but as a child and young adult, after the divorce of my parents I had renounced that side of my heritage.  Now, of course, I understand the error of my ways.  I can identify with being half Greek without somehow condoning my father’s awful behavior and tendencies.

Back in junior high, I only expressed my Mexican heritage, so finding out that being Mexican wasn’t acceptable amongst my peers made me embarrassed and full of shame.  If I can’t identify with being Mexican or Greek then what am I?  I now blamed my Mexican-ness for all of my “ailments” that came along with being Mexican.  I blamed it for my arms that had a furry appearance because I didn’t have light arm hair like my white school mates.  I blamed it for my hair that was wavy and unruly and unmanageable.  I hated my brown eyes and hair because they weren’t lighter like all of my friends  I blamed my mother because I felt that as a Mexican mother, she couldn’t give me the life that my school mates enjoyed.  We were poor and because she was there, she was the one that received my wrath.  My father was absent and nowhere to be found, so he was able to avoid all of his responsibilities as my father.  In grade school , I was able to attend a private institution on scholarship because of the efforts of my mother, but I was incredibly jealous of my peers.  I also couldn’t keep up with all the different luxuries that they enjoyed because they came from more privileged backgrounds.  My mother couldn’t afford braces, which made me an easy target in school because all of my teeth were crooked.  My clothes weren’t as nice as everyone else’s, which made me resent my mother’s job.  When my peers learned that I lived in the basement apartment of our my older classmates, I got teased and humiliated for being poor.  All of this made me resent my mother and in effect, being Mexican.

When I looked back, I am embarassed of my younger self.  Though my mother had her own psychological issues at the time that were made worst because of the traumas of divorce, she did all that she could.  And everyone has hair on my arms.  And nowadays I quite like my brown eyes because I feel that they have depth and personality.  Since I learned to stop brushing and styling my hair, I found that it behaves much better when I do nothing to it at all.  I have had braces and feel much more comfortable smiling.  I have also met adults my age who have not had braces, and this doesn’t make them any less successful or beautiful or smart or funny or anything else.  If I could speak to my younger self, I would give it advice and encourage to do things differently.  I would tell it to GET A FUCKING JOB.  Yes, in junior high I would have been quite limited, but there was a country club that some of my classmates had jobs at.  I could have started babysitting upon turning 12 or so like my sister.  I couldn’t have told my teacher about the racist comment of my classmate.  I should have defended my mother and told those little shit children that my personal business is none of theirs.  They didn’t know my life and the struggles of my family.  I should have been proud of my mother because she had the courage to leave her family and start anew in a foreign country.

In high school, things got a bit better.  I went to a private catholic school upon my mother’s  insistence and met some other girls who were also attending that school on scholarship.  While I had quite a few Mexican and Hispanic classmates, I almost felt like I was not Latina enough for them.  They had all spoken Spanish quite fluently.  I suspect that they had learned it first or were taught both English and Spanish at the same.time.  I remember always being surprised when I learned that one of my wealthier classmates was actually Mexican.  I look back on this now and think of the different instances with embarrassment. What kind of person thinks those type of things for their own people?

As a semi-well-adjusted adult, I still experience residual thoughts similar to this, but I am fighting hard to purge myself of these terrible habits.  I read about different successful Mexicans, with the hopes that eventually I will realize that ethnicity doesn’t automatically make someone more of a success or failure.  It is about perseverance and determination.  I read about people that have had success stories that have started with difficult and underprivileged beginnings.  So many people have risen from the ashes and have created great success for themselves.  I am desperately trying to rid myself of this Mexican Inferiority Complex because frankly, it will never do.

I Cannot Be Your Everything

You come to me with your frustrations and sadness.

You need a shoulder to lean on and cry on.

You are hoping for someone that lifts you up

Who can listen while you vent.

I cannot be this person for you.

And I need you not to take it personally.

It’s not that I don’t want to help  you.

It’s not that I don’t care.

It’s not that I somehow enjoy your sadness.

But I can barely keep myself afloat.

I am struggling, while I tread water, trying so hard not to drown.

Don’t you know that if you put any weight on me

it’ll make me that much more unstable?

I wish I knew I way to convey this to you

Without making you worry,

Without making me seem insensitive.

We’ve been through all of this before.

I know I put you through hell.

I cannot bare doing that to you again.

Please don’t mistake my inability to handle any of this for aloofness.

I love you more than words would ever express.

But I cannot be your reason for living.

I cannot be your crutch.

I cannot be your everything.

Thoughts before bedtime

I may speak softly and gently,

but that doesn’t make my words less meaningful.

My words of anger and frustration are no less true,

despite the fact that my voice is a bit high and feathery.

Just because I am “nice” doesn’t mean that I deserve disrespect.

Just because I smile doesn’t mean that I am happy;

I shield my true emotions from those that I am not comfortable with.

I find it hard to express myself,

though I am well into my twenties.

My self-confidence is all but completely nonexistent.

While I am trying fully know my worth,

please tread lightly around me.

Be generous with your love and kindness.

I may seem unoffended,

but assume that I am too afraid to confess this.

Hold on to me gently, but firmly.

I need to know that you are here,

but sometimes I may need you at a distance.

Ramblings of a Night Runner

I started running the summer before my freshman year of high school, which was July of 2001.  A couple years or so after that I began running at night.  I normally wouldn’t purposely go running at night, but sometimes it was the only time my schedule could accommodate.  During the winter the sun also sets at 4:30, which suddenly makes late afternoon look like midnight.  At first, my mother would forbid or strongly discourage me from running at night, but eventually, as I got older she gave up and I probably stopped listening.  The more I ran at night, the more comfortable I became.  I also appreciated the beauty of the night sky and my surroundings.  Everything was just more peaceful at night.  I found that I was less likely to get bothered by strangers who were driving or walking by (probably because they weren’t as aware of my presence).  I also found that I am able to breathe easier in the night air (if I am running in the summer).  There’s something about the night air that I find much calmer and less taxing on the body.

Fast forward over a decade later, I am still running outside.  I have become a smarter night runner by wearing reflective or lightly colored clothing, keeping one ear free of my earbud so I can hear surrounding noises, and also occasionally carrying my pepper spray.  I am happy and grateful to report that I have never had any sort of trouble with anyone while running.  I realize that I am probably lucky, but it doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop running at night.

Recently, I had a conversation with three of my new coworkers who reprimanded me because I was running at night!  This was so strange to me because all the people that are currently in my life know about my night running habit and do not express any sort of disapproval (whether or not they feel it is a different story).  My night running was the topic of conversation for at least 10 minutes during our lunch one day!  This seemed so absurd to me.  They began telling me different plots in television when a person was attacked while running.  I had to wonder if they would have made such a big deal about this if I was a man.  I despise when people try to make women out as defenseless victims.  Ys, I may be small in size, but I don’t think that I am asking for trouble by running at night.  Also, I feel that I do a good job of keeping aware and I only run on streets that have a high level of vehicle traffic.

I can’t help that I prefer running at night, nor would I want to.  It is clearly a preference by far and it is one that I intend on fulfilling.

Confidence, Self. Confidence

“It’s no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy, ’cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me.”

This line from a song that was popular in high school (I’m sure you know it) always spoke volumes to me.  Perhaps when I was in my early teens I probably just enjoyed the line because it swore, but as I got older I understood the meaning behind it and also assigned it a more personal meaning that allowed it to resonate with me.  I would also hear the line “I am my own worst enemy” in conversation with others.

What does it mean to be your own worst enemy?  For myself, it means that I am my worst critic.  No one, I repeat NO ONE has ever uttered the hateful words that I at times think about myself.  I would absolutely not tolerate it if someone spoke to me like that.  If they spoke to me repeatedly like that (as I do to myself), they would be cut out of my life.  I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way, but I can only speak for myself of course.  Why do I allow such internal verbal abuse?

The reason (or at least one of the major reasons that I am conscious of) is that my confidence is essentially nonexistent.  I truly struggle.  I find it very difficult to take a compliment.  What I mean, is i always have to make a sarcastic comment afterwards or disagree with the person.  If I say “thank you”, it is simply because I am not in the mood to argue with them about it.  I used to label it as being humble, but I know that it’s not the truth.  A person who is humble does not deny the positive qualities that they have in themselves, they are quite aware.  The difference is that they are also not arrogant.  The still remain down to earth, but not down on their self.

This lack of confidence has become even more apparent to me because I have recently started a new job.  I work as a spa host in the city.  This is the first time that I have ever worked in a spa, but it is not the first time that I have had to answer phones in a receptionist-like position.  My lack of confidence becomes apparent when I stumble over my words and speak in a very roundabout fashion, using many words but somehow failing to say very much.  It is an issue.  I am also just not a phone person to begin with.  I’d much rather talk to people in person or via texts.

I beat myself up verbally by thinking things along the lines of, “why is this so difficult for me”  “the other new girl didn’t need this much training…”  This means I am not only an asshole towards myself, but I am an asshole towards others as well!  I’m truly appalled by my brain sometimes.  I’m flirting with the idea of forcing myself to write a list of 25 or so things I like about myself and for every negative thought that crosses my my mind I have to write another positive.  I’m not sure I have time for such an activity, but I will let you know.

People will surprise you… Let them.

People will surprise you.

What do I mean by this?  I mean that it is really easy to claim you have someone all figured out.  I’d like to think I have evolved from when I was younger, but it’s much harder for me to consider the same regarding someone else.  A girl I have recently friended I actually knew from high school.  In fact, we were on the same cross-country team for 3 years. I remember disliking her immensely because I felt she was not a genuine person and I would see her teasing one of the other members of our team.  Looking back at it now, with the mind of a 27-year-old, semi well-adjusted woman, I understand that essentially all teenagers are inauthentic.  Let’s be real, when I think back to my teenage self, I cannot help but cringe.  I cringe because I too would sometimes tease others (rarely, I will say, but still) and I didn’t always speak my mind, which also makes me an inauthentic person.

I also find, that memories whose events have taken place over ten years ago aren’t the most reliable bit of information.  Even if my memories are 100% accurate, they are old bits of information.  You wouldn’t trust a ten-year-old newspaper clipping to portray information that is relevant today, right?  Moreover, would I want someone to judge me by my 16-year-old self?  Absolutely not!  Then why is it, I ask myself, am I so willing to do that injustice to somebody else?  People evolve.

Another example of someone surprising me is my Aunt.  Before my time, and while I was too young to have a memory of these events, I was told by my mother that my Theia (Aunt in Greek) was very mean to her because she was not Greek.  She had wanted her younger brother to marry a Greek woman and my Mexican mother, in her eyes, was simply not good enough.  According to my mother, she made her life a living hell and was one of a multitude of reasons why they ended up divorcing.  I don’t doubt my mother’s words, but I also cannot judge my Theia for events that happened before I was even born.  Maybe she was as bad as my mother described.  More likely though, since my mother doesn’t like to tell me too many details of the past, she was much worst.

I recently reconnected with my Greek side of the family which included meeting for the first time in my non-toddler life two of my cousins (who are my aunt’s daughters).  This eventually led to me meeting my aunt for the first time as well.  It was the strangest of experiences.  I was terrified, though I know I had no reason to be.  We hugged and she had tears in her eyes.  She told me, “Thank you so much for wanting to meet me.”  I could see in her eyes that she felt terrible remorse.  She truly felt sorry for whatever she did to make my mother’s life more difficult, but truth be told, my father was not the right man for her regardless of my aunt’s actions (and it has nothing to do with her being Mexican, just to be clear).

In a related note, one of my cousins is even married to a non-Greek man, which my Aunt fully supports.  The evolution that took place in the past 25 or so years, I know nothing about.  But I am grateful to be welcomed by my other half of the family.  I am thankful for my aunt’s ability to change and my ability to forgive.  I have to constantly remind myself to not be so hard.

“Keep your heart open,” I tell myself.  “Don’t be so jaded and negative.  Give people a chance. Stay light.  Forgive often.  People will hurt you, yes, but don’t take it personally.  You can only know your half of the story.  Their half is a mystery, and it does no good for you to dwell on it.”