Author: SparklyWarTanks

Posted in Confessions, What Just Happened: Personal Anecdotes

It Runs Deep

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

You know why its been hard to sleep at night while sleeping all day these past couple days, these past couple months?  I’ve realized myself in depths too deep to describe to people.  I’ve itched to tell someone that my issues run deeper than repression and unconscious feelings.  That I’m trying to balance my empathy with my confusion and self-protection.  That I’m an ultra introvert and feel everything around me.  That I love even when that person doesn’t love me to.  That I care because I understand even when I haven’t gone through it myself.  Situations are different but feelings, feelings come universal.  I know what depression feels like, and anxiety.  I know how betrayal feels and disappointment.  I know too well self-hate and being ashamed.  It wasn’t till Thursday that I realized that I know when someone is lying to me and when someone is being real and authentic.  When things I’ve been trying to hide have been written on my forehead all along.  I realized that I just want to know how it feels for someone to fall in love with me because then I can prove myself wrong, that it is possible.  That I can do what I want without regulation because of shame.  Shame that I haven’t noticed guide how I see my body.  I’ve been ashamed for a long time.

I couldn’t write.  I couldn’t write something, anything in the past couple days, an encouragement, a phrase like I usually do because even in the mist of a good moment I drive myself crazy with thoughts and confusions instead of just letting go.  I wanted to stop writing because no one reads. I’m better off just driving myself insane because no one cares about me or what I have to say anyway. Whats funny is I only known a person a couple of days and I just want to say everything to them. That I want to write again because I got my excitement back just over one conversation.  But the fear came back. I should keep to myself but they made me tell them things I never tell anyone and now I’m so self-aware.  I trace my thoughts back to why I hide in my room and lock the door behind me.  Why I cover my face in shame instead of embracing my flaws and things that make me unique.  Why I convinced myself that I’d never fit in in this world so I hide in the shadows. Why I convinced myself a long time ago that I’m meant to be alone and by myself all the time.  And this person said two words:

It’s okay.

Suddenly these words didn’t have the same weight like when I say it to myself.  It had denser weight and made me believe it in a split second.

Not sure if any of this made sense, but it’s way harder knowing the reasons for the scars that run deep then being oblivious to the pain and feelings you have all the time.  Just to remember the times when you felt useless, or hopeless, or lonely, or ugly brings back the foundations of why you hide things deep in the first place, but its better to know so you can work with yourself.

Its okay to let your scars show sometimes, maybe the person your showing them to will help you deal with them.  Don’t repress those feelings anymore. Work with yourself. One push. One phrase from the right person or even yourself can help the process of healing.  Things may not seem important but they are, you are important and so are you moving on.  Don’t trap yourself.  Don’t drive yourself crazy.  Let something change.  Let someone, something, a moment, a thought, a feeling change how you perceive who you are. Realize yourself.  Be happy.  You deserve to be happy.

You deserve a break from the deep. Things, better things, better moments, better thoughts, better people are waiting for you at the surface.  Let yourself loose.  Let yourself free.

Posted in Confessions

Our Collective Identity is being Attacked: We have a Right to be Outraged  

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

Took a while, hours, a day or so, to find my voice and words for the reality of whats happening to our collective unconscious.  Being an American now and one that is a part of one of several underprivileged groups, is troublesome and uncomfortable.  I’m in a state of denial and confusion.  To see the state and tone of grief our country is going through, the plaguing aura running through the streets making waking up in the morning feel like a state of emergency, weighs heavy on me.  To see so many people I know, don’t know, and feel for walk the streets of these states in anger, fear, and anxiety makes it all the more important to support and stand up for one another.  This election isn’t all about a presidency, it’s not all about politics, it’s not all about government or possible policies.  This election is about an attack on a collective identity, it’s about oppression, it’s about hindering ones freedom to be without prejudice or racism, sexism, homophobia, and islamaphobia.  This election makes people afraid, angry, and disappointed about their citizenship and because people actually feel like this is what makes this election all the more important.  

Viweing, analyzing, and reading over, seeing all of so many peoples opinions has shown me that despite peoples plea to be calm, that it’s going to okay, doesn’t seem to grasp or fathom the extent to where someone feels threatened because of their identity.  They have a right to feel and to be angered and dissapointed. Being a woman, a latina, makes me unwelcomed, it makes me someone who is in a targeted group whether I like it or not. I don’t have control over the reality of that oppression (this is not new), but for someone to be a threat to my freedom of identity is the problem. 

I matter.  Everyone of us matter. The ones who are targeted, the ones who are seen as unwelcomed, the ones who are marginalized and oppressed every day.  We matter.  And because we have to prove that we matter makes America dangerous. Because we have to say black lives matter, and women lives matter, and muslim lives matter as phrases of their own proves the urgency that who we are as a collective is not being seen as important or valued.

We have to help each other feel safe and supported.  What is happening is not being overexagerated, its a response to a threat to our emotional, physical, and mental well being.  We are responding to what has been said to us by power and privilege.  We are defending our right to ourselves. Be outraged. We matter. I matter. Our lives matter. 

Posted in Creative Writing, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Potential and Worth, Power, Quotes, Self-Talk

Enough

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

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Enough.

One word that has the power to halt the existence of things that don’t need to exist.  Things that hurt, things that bother, things that harm, and things that blind.  Things that need to be extinct. Extinct in the ways that make you hate.

Enough of the drowning, and enough of the hopelessness.  Enough of the self-harm and the self-hate.  Enough of the vices, and the things that you surround yourself with that aren’t helping.  Enough of the pain.  The pain that is so comfortable, making itself at home.  Ingrained in the way you think and interact. Enough.  Enough of the toxicity in your life.  The people.  The places.  The ideas.  Let go of those things that are killing you from the inside.

You don’t need a new year to start or an occasion to do something different.  You don’t need someone to tell you to stop.

Enough.

Enough of postponing yourself for the betterment and comfort of someone else.

Today, right now.  Make something change.  The way you see yourself, the way you handle situations that are not productive.

In one moment you can say enough and in that moment you’ve set yourself loose.  You’re starting again from the point where pain started taking over.

Enough.

You did it.

 

Posted in Confessions, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Quotes, Self-Care, Self-Talk, What Just Happened: Personal Anecdotes

I Love Myself for the First Time in My Life

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

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I’m beautiful because even though I might not believe I can at first I still try, even though I struggle to see that I’m beautiful I encourage others to believe they are, and even though I sometimes don’t think I’m good enough I push through anyway.

I love me because I’m persistent, I continue, and I’m learning.  I love me because although things have been difficult, I still have a vision and I still want to pursue it.

It wasn’t until a year after I did this project, a project where I walked around and asked various women why they loved themselves and found themselves beautiful, that I realized I do love myself and find myself beautiful. Before, I didn’t know why I thought I was beautiful or if I had any reason to love myself.  I was only concerned about the women I asked.  I wanted them to realize for that split second, the few minutes that we shared, to think, and to write down why they were beautiful.  I was focused on them and not on me.  I didn’t think I mattered.  How I thought about myself didn’t matter. I don’t think I found myself beautiful at all previous this realization.

This poster is what I looked at every day in my room at school for the last semester of my senior year.  It motivated me to figure out why I would love myself or find myself beautiful.  However, I found it difficult to pinpoint the reasons.

After I graduated I brought the poster home and placed in on my sister’s side of our room, parallel to my bed where I could face it and see it every day.

Fast forward to last weekend where I found the Dr.Pepper Tuition Giveaway Competiton.  Unlike me, I joined the competition and the first step was to write a goal I have to save the world and explain it.  Of course, it took me some time to think about exactly what I wanted to say, but here is what I said:

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It took a day after when I was trying to accumulate votes to be able to upload a video, that I realized then that I wanted to expand SparklyWarTanks into an actual thing.  Dr. Pepper helped me to see why I’m beautiful.  It helped me to realized what I wanted to do with my life.  How I want to impact the lives of others and why this is so important to me. I want to change how women see themselves and communicate their perspective and understanding to others through their culture, ideologies, and values.

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I don’t want other women to feel like me.  Where the first 21 years of my life I didn’t love myself or find myself beautiful.  I don’t want women to look and confide in outside things to make them happy.  I don’t want women to drown in their own societal expectations and obligations and not be able to give one reason why they are amazing, worthy, and able.  I saw SparklyWarTanks bigger.

Now this is my vision to make this, what I’m doing, bigger.  I want to help.

I never felt like this before, ready to save the world.  I hope I can make this something, something huge, something that can really influence the spread of self-love.

Posted in Confessions, Quotes

Some People’s Purpose is to Break your Heart

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

Some People’s Purpose is to Break Your Heart

It’s one of those nights where my brains ability to reminisce creates uncomfortable memory recovery.  Where I do not understand why some people have come and gone in seconds, some in months, and some in years.  I learned that not everyone is meant to stay in your life, they’re just meant to teach you lessons, but it also occurred to me that some people are just meant to break your heart.  I’m not only talking about the casual break up with a significant partner, but also family and friends.  Some people enter your life to break you down—some short term and others long term.  In other instances they will just leave while others will linger then leave eventually. Some will even care then stop caring.

This realization has made me, yet again, afraid to create new bonds and friendships but hopeful of the possibility to create and learn from new experiences at the same time.  Life has a way of masking hurt and pain by revealing those wounds into experiences that you would not have witnessed otherwise. I’ve had a fair share, I would say, of rejections and disappointments of people who said they cared but didn’t and a whole lot of self hatred because of it, but I learned (even though those incidents still haunt me in the deep hours of the night) how to appreciate myself and my own company.

Don’t let the illusion of brokenness from people who’s purpose in your life was to break your heart keep you from becoming yourself.

Try to let go of past relationships that didn’t work out. It will take time and probably a lot of tears, but someone else is waiting and they will come with purpose to build you up, stay, push you, and help you get to your power and worth.

Don’t allow past actions of other people to keep you from becoming, teaching, and building those you encounter.  You are not alone.

Be great and be yourself.  That’s all that is necessary.

Posted in Creative Writing, Quotes, Self-Care, Self-Talk

War zone Quote: Thank You

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks
Thank You to the Struggles and the Pain
Thank You to the Struggles and the Pain

Thank You Note on My Trending Stories

I pose a toast to everything that has killed me inside and out, that I never let it take over or make my insanity show. I won’t break down and let my wombs seep out with desperation. I won’t crash and burn at the sight of my biggest fear showing it’s face at the doors of my desires and dreams. I will constantly fight until I’m able to do everything and anything it takes to get me where I need to be.

Thank you to the struggle, without you I promise I wouldn’t know what breakthrough feels like. The breakthrough that has shown me that I’m strong enough and well enough to do whatever I was afraid to do. Thank you to those long nights where I couldn’t sleep, or those mornings I felt would never come. Thank you to pain I felt with every rejection and betrayal. Thank you to those moments I felt of freedom, joy, and peace. Thank you to silent moments of war and every victory. Thank you to sleep and relaxation. Thank you to support and love. Thank you for self-realization and self-acceptance. Thank you for words that become actions and lessons.

Thank you.

Thank you to the struggle, without you I promise I wouldn’t know what breakthrough feels like.

Posted in Confessions, Quotes

A False Saying: Expect what you Deserve 

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

It bothers me that people actually think that they shouldn’t expect happiness and kindness once they’ve done something great.  It bothers me that people don’t expect for others to care and love them back.  Whats the point of loving if your not going to receive love back? It’s not about materiel expectation but having a will to give back and keep being great.  Sometimes it gets discouraging to always be the one to step up and be the bigger person.  Sometimes you just want to see someone else care as much as you do. You want to see someone else extend a hand when you need them too.  You should be able to expect love to come back when all you’ve been doing is putting it out.  It’s not fair that this world has taught us that we shouldn’t expect goodness to come out of goodness.  We shouldn’t stop expecting, we should be dissapointed in people saying we should stop expecting.

Posted in Challenges, Love, Self-Care, Self-Talk

Beauty Week Challenge 

Posted on by SparklyWarTanks

I challenge you to think about who you are this week. Think about what you like to do, who you like to be around, and what you find interesting. Think about your favorite color and animal. Think about what you love about yourself and write it down or type it somewhere. Write what makes you different and unique. Write down what you hate and what you look forward to. Write about your break ups and what you learned. Write about significant events and how they shaped who you are. I challenge you to write through your beauty. Find and own your beauty.

Share and comment below some things you’ve written or thought about! Beauty week is about understanding who you are and want to be.