photo by me: Boston Commons, March 24, 2019, unedited<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have been depressed for four years.\nI have felt less like the woman I used to be.\nMore than anything, I have lost myself.\nI lost my father when I was six months old. I happen to resemble a lot of his physical traits. The loss of a familiar face and an intense \nspirit, a lot like mine. \nI lost my tribe.\nI lost my structure.\nI lost my sanity.\nI lost my passion.\nI lost my possible career path.\nI lost my happiness and drive to make more music.\nI lost my desire to continue my \u201cmusic dream.\u201d The music industry \nhad changed drastically from when I started ten years ago.\nI lost my \u201cyouth.\u201d\nI lost my \u201cbooty shorts\u201d days.\nI lost my \u201csmall busted\u201d days.\nI lost my gorgeous \u201cskinny malinky\u201d high school body.\nI lost my \u201cheat-tolerance.\u201d\nI lost my belonging with people my exact age.\nI lost my privilege to go to prom, which I cared less about anyway.\nI lost my invitation to what would have been my ten year class \nreunion in 2026.\nI lost my chance to walk with the kids I went to school with for\n most of thirteen years. \nI lost my \u201ctraditional\u201d senior year, I chose to homeschool the last\n two years. In exchange, our family took a couple of out-of-state \ntrips during the course of the year (with our schoolwork on board, \nof course!). I closed the year with almost all A\u2019s and honors as\n a homeschool graduate. \n\n\nI\u2019ve aged a bit on my face. At twenty-two years old.\nTwo cute smile lines that I actually admire.\nFaint fine lines on my forehead. Two between my eyebrows \nfrom dealing with constant stress and trauma since \nfourth grade. \nI don\u2019t have a skin routine. It\u2019s \u201ctoo much\u201d to fathom with.\nI am a very anxious person who can be triggered with the \nsmallest of things, sometimes the \u201cwhy\u201d is unknown.\nI\u2019ve always wanted to be \u201colder.\u201d It validates my \nalready-innate wisdom.\n\n\nI gained human empathy for myself.\nI gained a wider perspective of what dreams are.\nI gained a regular sleep schedule.\nI gained more modesty.\nI gained more maturity.\nI gained back my innate spirituality.\nI gained new unforeseen, unexpected, true friendships \nthat originated online.\nI gained more trust from my parents.\nI gained a (surprisingly) more frugal, less impulsive \napproach to money.\nI gained a healthier way to eat.\nI gained my love for iced coffee and iced lattes. I ditched \nthe Frappuccino (I call it a Crappuccino now, lol)\nI gained a budding interest in baking. I don\u2019t like to \ncook, but baking is a little more fun for a sweet-tooth creative.\nI gained my passion for kickboxing, when I was afraid \nto try \u201cviolent\u201d workouts before.\nI gained my love for a new city. Boston, Massachusetts is \na place I want to call home, when Houston, Texas has \nbeen the only place I\u2019ve known as home.\nI gained a more realistic approach to my fixated \n\u201cNortheast utopia\u201d I had created when I was\n seventeen, after visiting Washington, D.C. (Obama\n was still in office then, it was a much more pleasant place).\nI gained comfort in leaving my house without makeup on, \nand wet hair in a bun on occasion. \nI gained appreciation for my middle school years when \nbefore I\u2019d skirt around the intense impact of the trauma.\nI gained new music tastes, more mature and \u201cself-fitting\u201d\n ones for the matter. \nI gained more self knowledge, thanks to the \nEnneagram. You\u2019re reading a blog post by a type 4, wing 3 \n(the Enthusiast, or the Aristocrat).\nI gained an experience and memory I had only dreamed\n of years prior: meeting my queen, songwriter Kara \nDioGuardi (I still cannot believe that actually happened,\n and the way it did, LOL). She really is a queen, genuine\n human being, and is exactly like I had imagined she\u2019d be.\nI gained more comfort in my insecurities and realized that \nthey aren\u2019t as uncommon as I thought they were.\nI gained acceptance of the fact that I didn\u2019t want to go\n to college at eighteen, I still don\u2019t at twenty-two. \nI gained more relationships with people that have some \nof the same fears as me, especially when I wasn\u2019t looking.\nI gained more comfort in being an observer of the world\n around me. \nI gained more courage to speak up about things\n that bother me, but I still cannot stand the anxiety\n that it brings. \n\n\nI gained realization that my parents want me to live my \ndreams, support me, and help me follow them. My parents \nare not setting up a trap, they have sixty years of life \nexperience. However it can be difficult when your \nparents are older and you\u2019re just getting your feet \noff of their foundation. Don\u2019t wanna brag on my parents, \nbut I\u2019m telling you, they\u2019re in FANTABULOUS shape \nat sixty. Half of my stepdad\u2019s hair is grey, the other is \nhis natural black color. People are often shocked when \nI say that my mom is sixty - she looks so much \nyounger - I\u2019d say about fifty. \n\n\nAnd most of all, I gained the possibility that I could \u201clike\u201d \nmyself, thanks to a badass girl boss named Lizzo. #BLACKLIVESMATTER \nWhen you listen to her music, it\u2019s almost as if she\n MAKES you \u201clove\u201d yourself. I\u2019m not at \u201clove\u201d yet,\n I think \u201clove\u201d and \"accept\" are a bit extreme. \nBut for now, I have moved away from the \nepicenter of \u201chate,\u201d and closer to the \u201cthere are \nthings I like about myself\u201d stage.\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThank you for reading this post. I feel grateful. \nOftentimes I will write things with little or no editing, \nbecause I want to keep the feelings that I \noriginally felt while writing something \n(grammar edits will be made, DUH). I write for the \nexpression of my complex personality; my emotions \nand thoughts come out better in writing. \n\nAnd finally: WELCOME TO MY PAGE!!!!!!!!!! \n***I'm so excited because I can say that now***<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
photo by me: Boston Commons, March 24, 2019, unedited I have been depressed for four years. I have felt less like the woman I used…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,6],"tags":[45,38,49,31,48,28,44,23,53,54,21,20,47,52,22,30,46,42,50,51,40,25,19,37,39,41,26,18,43],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/IMG_5431-1-scaled.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}