"The girl scouts made me a feminist"

Lately, I've been trying to break out of myself. My body and skin no longer feel like something that is a part of me, but an obstacle that I need to try to escape. It's crawling and suffocating and doesn't let me move. I've come to the brick wall of a question: "How do I stop?" I've been wanting to slam my feet on the breaks, flat down to the ground so I can try this living thing. Unfortunately, despite how much I say I'm done, either projects are dropped into my lap or I subconsciously can't bare the burden of disappointing others. Well to those of you who may be reading, I'm done. I'm ready to be selfish as possible while I watch you do the work. Stop asking for me. I don't want to share anymore. I want myself for me and only me. I want to be reckless and young and make dumb mistakes in hopes that in the end, when I'm broken and shattered into remnants on the floor, I'll want nothing more than human touch again and someone to help pull me together again. I'll see you in the Spring.

"And as the snow fell, I walked what felt like nearly 5 blocks with my tongue pressed to my chin, just waiting for a snow flake to fall and melt onto the warmth of my tongue, completely disregarding the passing spectators, merely to feel something again."

"yo necessito el sol"

This is the beginning of the next forgotten ritual. A blog. The idea was first planted in my mind two semester’s ago by my editor, Professor Morris. The thought alone entertained me. Certanly enough, life persisted and left little time for me to put forth my brain to be dissected by the realm of the World Wide Web. Only a semester after that, my creative writing professor adamantly advocated her pupils to write every day in a journal. My small notepad has been left mid-short story for months now. It seems as though my command of the English language is drifting from me. I no longer articulate or vocalize my words in lecture halls, but find myself torn and conflicted as my opinion morphs and changes to the platforms of my classmates. Perhaps that’s the purpose of this first entry. Despite the kettle that’s about to burst with flames and the ignored ring tones of my cell phone, my body and soul suddenly became animated and revived. I have so much to say. Only there’s so much I still don’t know. In light, I’ll explode with what I do know. The very idea of what’s to come is overwhelming me. Once again, life has laid a platter of circumstances before me. Circumstances and obstacles that seems impossible to surpass. My vision is skewed, because many of them are in the distance, and the only internal struggling I may be experiencing is a result of drifting from the present, but the present doesn’t feel all the more comfortable than what’s to come. When I finally stop to think, the piles of envelopes from loan companies and universities are a direct result from my actions. I wanted New York. I wanted a breakaway from my small suburban New Jersey home. I wanted to prove everyone wrong. But above all, I wanted what I was led to believe would make me happy. In the present, I’m not sure what I’m feeling. I suppose I’m scared to admit I’m anything but content. But the endless list of expenses that my part-time job at a rowdy downtown bar does not afford and still keeping up with classes full-time makes it difficult. It’s at moments like this, that I find myself thinking of my Aunt Kica’s return from Cuba. I sat in what the Latina women of my family dubbed the skinny chair, for it laid wedged between the kitchen table and the wall of my abuela’s Jersey City home. Aunt Kica shared stories of my distant second cousin Marquito and his childish antics. How he’d bounce around the house on what little furniture they owned proclaiming for the world to hear, “Yo soy Spiderman!” Marquito has never seen a Spiderman action figure, better yet a comic book nor has his family owned soup that doesn’t make their skin crawl. I sat across from my aunt wide-eyed and feeling guilty for ever feeling ungrateful in my entire life. It’s in times like this that I recognize all the blessings in my life, from my decently sane job, to the privilege to earn my education, to something as simple as the dove soap that sits in the dish in my bathroom. Suddenly, I’m content with all the choices I’ve made.