{Blog #5} Week 1

Week 1 of this project.

24/4 - Where were you 5 years ago?

In many ways I was exactly where I am now: typing away on this very laptop, having made a Right Choice. At the time, it was transferring from the university I had always dreamed of attending but had deeply disappointed me, to start over at another, much better, university (the reason I hadn’t originally applied there: it's a Catholic institution so I was reluctant, and foolish). I was working as an EFL teacher, a job I loved, and generally fancied I had most of my life figured out. I was on the track to sure success. 

I have since changed a lot of my life plans. Or rather, I’ve unravelled the neat tapestry I had interwoven with such care in the interest of stability and pleasing others. I know myself better now and I have become braver, but that’s just what a good life is supposed to do to you year after year. I look back to that teen about to enter young adulthood and I feel proud of her, and I’m thankful for her good decisions decisions so I can now reap what she’s sowed. 

25/4 - A Delivery you Can’t Forget

Not to be that person, but this can be interpreted in two very distinct ways, even more—perhaps that is the intention. If they meant receiving an object, I have a bittersweet anecdote about the last birthday present my mother, a Jehovah's witness, ever gave to me. It was a CD-DVD she knew I really wanted, and her and my dad woke me up that school morning to bring me breakfast and offer the precious item. It might have been the single best thing that happened that year. 

If they meant a speech or a performance, I will recall the nights I performed as Aldonza on our school production of Don Quixote. My first ever experience lip-syncing to music on stage, mind you. I not only remember it because I killed it (wink), but because I was absolutely dedicated to doing a good job and performing. And I was only in fourth grade! I wish I could be that strong and determined now, to be honest. But it’s okay: I can spend the rest of my life trying to regain that spirit.

26/4 - We all come from someplace. Where do you come from?

Santiago, Chile. 

Right in the city center too, born and raised.

It should be as simple as that, but the fact is that very early on this desire to ‘get out’ settled in my chest and it never dissolved. The longest I’ve been away has been little over a month, but I’ve enjoyed every single hour of those experiences. 

Although (now) I do treasure where I come from and whenever I travel I feel my city as part of me more than ever, I didn’t actually relate to it that much growing up. I was always looking outwards, and partly I still am. I don’t know how much of that longing is me not being attached to Santiago versus an innate pull towards elsewhere, a pull I would have felt no matter where I came from. I suppose I’ll never know, but I’ve made my peace with that.

Of course, no matter how much time passes, I will always come from Santiago, Chile. 

And I’m (mostly) okay with that.

27/4 - Something people get wrong about you.

That I’m overconfident. It might seem that way because I have strong opinions and am the complete opposite of soft-spoken—but that’s just passion bursting out of me. In reality, I suffer from severe impostor’s syndrome and am constantly second-guessing, reevaluating, analyzing everything. 

I also get a lot of “uh, I envy you, you have everything planned and figured out!” And oh, honey, I do not.

Really, both misconceptions spring from my high-functioning anxiety combined with my headstrong determination. I need to have plans and outlines, I need to know that I’m making the most informed decision, or I will be constantly looking back and wondering what if. I also have zero motivation to follow tedious or stagnant paths, so I’m always pursuing the happiest possible alternative. Thus, though I’m a serial overthinker, my ever shifting fiery nature has also forced me to learn to go with the flow (my flow, at least). I’m not saying it’s easy for me, accepting that not every single thing can be controlled, but it’s a struggle that I conquer a bit more everyday. For everything else, my planners are my best friends. 

On the other hand, my effective coping mechanisms may actually be a testament to the fact that I do, indeed, have things “more together” (togetherer?) than I give myself credit for.

28/4 - Tell me about your mother’s hands.

They are small and soft, so soft. They reflect her pragmatism: short trimmed nails, no polish. The same dainty inexpensive rings day after day. 

I admire them. I also fear them. 

They have been possessive gropy aggressive things.

29/4 - Something you’re proud of this week.

I sent in a scholarship application I had been putting off for way too long. The reason was how emotionally draining the first process of applications turned out to be; just thinking about sitting on my desk chair to continue stirred some light dread. So. I stopped thinking about it when I wasn’t doing it! Well. I tried. I wasn’t entirely successful, but it did the trick. (As a previous psychologist of mine used to tell me: go from preoccupation to occupation, meaning both “do something about what worries you instead of simply fretting about it” and “if you can’t do anything at the moment, then it’s not worth worrying about it at the moment”.) I finished it and sent it in and it was done.

I have been able to put this attitude in practice throughout the week, and I’m proud not because it hasn’t been a struggle but because I have pushed past it and managed to have more productive, fulfilling, anxiety-free days. 

30/4 - Write about a time you didn’t feel alone.

It’s a memory I call to mind easily, often; me walking by myself along the Thames, going from the Southbank Convention Center all the way to the Tate and back. It was a lovely London summer afternoon (before the heat waves, mind you), and it occurred to me that I could stop wherever I wanted, have whatever I wished, talk to whomever I wanted, experience all I desired, and that I was, at that very moment, as free as one can be.

Loneliness couldn’t have grazed me back then.