Maybe its because I’m obsessed with extremes that I’m able to believe in maximum potential even when other people don’t.
Even when it appears undoable, just the thought and possibility in something great is the backbone to change and innovation.
Unless we think outside the box or normality nothing new will come out of an idea.
Be revolutionary, be an outcast.
I, the spectator
See the world a canvas
An empty canvas
Where we see, we feel in our own perspective
The world is but a perception of the spectator
We create the stories
The stories of the people we encounter
The Landscapes we see
and the moments we capture
I, the spectator rule over anything I place on my empty canvas
The spectator quiet and observing
Creates and Destroys
In our own heads, through our own eyes
We are the creator and the creation
We speculate and we analyze
We criticize and we televize
Just passing by
We view
We observe
We witness
We look
We recreate everything that is perceived
We are the spectators
My nerves spilled and scattered on the pavement
I couldn’t gather them as I trudged and dragged my exhaustion to class that day
Last October
I carried what I could of last night’s sleep, maybe 3 hours, and the anxiety, a monster growing in the pit of my stomach drowning me till the world seemed like a blurry smudge painting
My last year of college came to me like a ton of bricks delivered to my front doorstep
My life turned into a war since I started to worry
Every
Single
Moment
Of
Every
Single
Day
My perfectionist tendencies paired with the thoughts of deadlines…no motivation…and a fear of tomorrow. It made a nice soup ready for panic, don’t you think?
I stirred myself daily but still seemed to make it to every class, do every assignment, and manage a research project
That’s how I was last year
I sat in a office with a woman I told myself to maybe once a week hoping that my fear of living will transform into something else
That’s how I was last year
When I reminisce and think back, I feel how I felt, that numb yet nervous feeling
I can still feel it there, lingering
Last year, I didn’t want to wake up to the sun rising and I didn’t triumph for completing 3 years of college
Instead…
I dreaded the thought of every day coming, long days turning into long nights, a hungry stomach, and the quarantine I built around my sanity
That was last year
I don’t know how I seemed to make it a whole year later though
In the midst of the strains and labor pains of reality, I managed to give birth to a project
This project spiraled in me October of 2015 until it was born
I named her SparklyWarTanks
I made her to fight back
To win the war
To let my sanity free
Every time I wrote something I saved myself and I took another ingredient out of the soup
I typed, pounded my fingers on my keyboard, to explain the motive for the birth of something new in me
I wanted to save another woman’s life while saving my own too
I wanted to burst out and say:
“Take care of yourself, take care of your mind, and your body!”
“You are important and you matter.”
“You are powerful and worthy, and beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you.”
Of course those were messages I needed someone to tell me, but instead I became the billboard
The more I wrote, the more I felt the walls crumbling, the walls crowding and containing my sanity were falling
I found the key to the cage of my anxiety which surrounded my quarantined sanity
In october of 2016, grown into an adult, SparklyWarTanks evolved into a vision, into a foundation for women empowerment and mental health, one project exploded into a space, a place, a sanctuary to be safe
My anxiety transformed its face into the partner of ideas and the employer of a plan, it turned into passion.
So as I write, I write to the woman who hates herself and to the one with depression, I write to the woman with the eating disorder and to the ones living on the streets, I’m writing to the ones going through a midlife crisis and self-realization, I write to the mother and to the survivor, I write to the women who hurt and the ones who are stressed, I write to the powerful women and the ones making a difference, I write to the lawyers, and doctors, and writers, and motivators, and to our future
I write to support our next generation of women
That we stand up for ourselves and never hold our sanity hostage
That we declare our independence from expectation and perfectionism
That we defend ourselves and fight for our will to wake up peacefully and unafraid
If I could sum up how I’ve changed from last year to this year, I would simply say
I let my sanity free
I felt it bubbling inside, so I locked it away
It felt like a monster waiting to show its face
When I took out my pen and started to write, there it was again
The monster, my passion, my power it was locked within
I’m still afraid to let it out, I have to keep it in
Who knows what will happen when I let it roam free
I can’t let that monster out, the power inside of me
And I tell the story of the girl in the shadow. She sees and feels everything, from the hurts that you feel to the tears that have dried away. She encourages those who are often forgot about and left to decay in their own sad minds and weary souls. She tells the stories of those left behind and outcast.
Shes in the shadows observing. Shes an introvert but feels all that is around her, the vibration of the strangers, the betrayal of friends, and struggles of her family. She’s empathic and can’t help but know the emotions and strains of those around her. An energy she can’t escape. She’s been running for so long, but now she just sits, watches, and writes. She writes down the emotions and hurt, and flips it. She carries with her in silent prayers the promised happiness and hope lost and buried with the dead end situation and crusted forgiveness. She’s the stranger rooting for you and the one who cries when you find yourself lonely. She feels for you when you feel the most alone. She knows how it feels. No one sees her either.
She’s learning what it means to be outside and to be strange. To not fit in. She’s learning what love is, and hate, and fear. She’s learning pain, and grief, and depression and anxiety. She’s learning what’s shes known all her life except this time she sees it in other people.
It’s persistent, consistent, and loyal, it comes to you when you least expect it, it comes to you in the middle of the night and stays to keep you company. It holds you while you cry and lingers around until you try to feel better. You argue with it, you convince yourself it’s not real, you push it away. It comes back when you thought it finally left. You miss it when you see that’s it’s gone because it was the only persistent feeling you’ve ever had. Can you be patient with it and not want it to come back? How can you get so used to how it feels that you can identify it so clearly? Its presence allows you to know you are still alive and you still can feel. Is it scary that if it goes away it could mean you healed or fell numb to its presence enough to internalize it? Do you accept it, push it away, hide it, or try to rid of it? Pain. Is the presence of pain good so you have patience with it or should you try to take it away? Does it go away by itself or do you do something about it?
I see you
When you cry yourself to sleep because you don’t feel you’re good enough
When you see those around you getting rewarded, but you aren’t
When you’re up all night working, but no one notices
When you do something great, but no one sees
When you were there for everyone, but no one is there for you
When your family eats at night and the house is clean
When everything runs smoothly and as planned
When you feel hopeless and useless because you don’t see what a gem you are
I see you, you’re not invisible
To the unnoticed
To the kindhearted
To the silent blessings
To the hard workers
I see you and thank you
You are appreciated
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.
SparklyWarTanks 