Category: Voiceless Rant: The Series

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!

First and foremost, thank you for coming back after I spent the past month away from the blog and social media. This isn’t an official return and my return during Spring Break probably won’t be permanent either, but I am ready to occasionally come back to the blog and write whatever may be on my mind. I mean, this is a creative outlet away from my grad studies.

With that being said: it’s that time of the month where I like to write a little something called…

This has been one hell of a month. Within the past month, I’ve dealt with some personal things, I’ve done what possibly feels like 9 different projects for school, and I’ve been going through my own personal mental battles as I begin to finish up these last 2 months of my grad studies. Nevertheless, I feel like I had no time for myself or for others, and because of that, I feel the way I feel. But that’s not what we are talking about… well we kinda are.

You see, I’ve realized that although I’ve been begging for a break with school ever since its start back in January, I find myself being sort of afraid to not be busy with it. Lemme explain: when I say I had something to complete for my classes every single week, I mean I had something due for my classes every single week. It literally started with a class presentation I had to do on the first day of the month and I had to fight through what I was personally going through in order to efficiently get my part of the presentation done. Since then, I feel like I’ve been burying myself in schoolwork so that I’m able to focus on everything else besides what’s going on with me. In a sense, I’m not really allowing myself to fully be aware of my emotions and thoughts because I’m tired of being self-aware, and being me at the moment is honestly even stressful for me to handle.

And the sad part is I know that there are many people in my situation who are doing this to themselves without even noticing.

I started to realize this whenever I was taking breaks from writing my papers for my classes. It’d be nice to relax and watch some YouTube videos and wind down for the night, but then I began to self-indulge in some negativity with myself. I started to think about all the negative shit that I punish myself with whenever my mind is relaxing and it just becomes too much at times. I purposely worked on my Master’s Thesis for 12 hours straight just so my mind didn’t wander in insecurities and other shit it didn’t need to be thinking about. I planned almost every day during Spring Break to write up a different assignment for class when I really should be taking a well-needed break from the work. In a sense, working on grad school assignments is all that I know now, and I don’t know how I am going to cope when I finally graduate and there’s no more work left to do.

It’s a shame that there are people out there who would rather keep their minds busy so that negativity doesn’t ruin their day. It’s sad that we are thrown so much work that at one point we use doing the work as a mechanism to avoid our problems and issues with ourselves and the world. I always say this, but we are a generation of people who are very fast-paced and quick; we work extremely hard to get where we wanna be and when we do, we try to keep it up in a world full of thousands of people doing the same thing. I’ve seen people my age work themselves sick because they are continuously working to build their empire and their brand.

In my case, I see how hard my mother works to support my family. You never see how hard your mom or your dad works until you finally start to see them as actual human beings. I can see the gear in my mom’s head turn whenever an issue comes up. I see how she instantly tries to keep herself busy to balance out the stress she’s feeling. I see how much she tries to tune the world out for the sake of her own happiness and health. I see it, and it a way I find myself mimicking it. I’m not saying it’s my mom’s fault that I’m now this way, I’m saying that this isn’t just something that happens to workaholics, overachievers, and perfectionists. This happens to everyone. This happens to even the people who clock out from a 9-to-5 job. This happens to part-time/full-time students. This happens to stay-at-home parents. This happens to any living creature capable of self-destruction.

The bright side of it all is that yeah, we do get work done this way. I am now in a comfortable position where most of my major assignments are in the process of either being written or in the process of being outlined; nothing that I have to work on is not carefully thought out already. I realize that since starting grad school, this has been the only way I’ve been able to handle school stress and anxiety, and it’s worked but at what cost? Is it really worth disconnecting myself to everyone and the world? Is it really worth me not even wanting to take my own feelings and emotions seriously? Is it really worth me not knowing who I am anymore?

This sounds quite depressing and I’m aware that readers may read this as like a cry for help, trust me that I’m fine and I’m learning ways to cope with the workload. I’ve accepted the fact that whatever this is right now is my life until I graduate. I’ve accepted the fact that grad school doesn’t last forever and once I actually graduate, things in my life are going to change like my coping mechanisms. Just because I’m not able to balance out work and myself right now doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I know I’m horrible under pressure and I can’t juggle twenty different things at the same time; but, there are people who are able to work their asses off and still have a good head on their shoulders. If you’re anything like me, finding ways to break the habit of running away from yourself is your closest answer to happiness. Find ways to celebrate yourself. Take out the time to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if what you’re doing now will pay off. Is you running to your work a result of inspiration and passion, or are you just running away from yourself? Running to your work and ignoring your basic self-care needs isn’t the answer, and it isn’t always going to equal success.

Think of it this way: will the success feel good after months of destroying yourself in the process?

 

-Liz. (:

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!

I feel like it’s been forever and a day since I got the chance to write and post another one of these for this series, but finally we are at this month’s installment of:

February is a weird month for me. February is the month where my family and I experienced a lot of loss in the month the last couple of years. Two years ago, my childhood pet passed away and a year ago we lost my uncle unexpectedly. I’ve accepted my dog’s death because he was 15 years old and slowly becoming ill, but the way that my uncle left us has really put a scar on me, even after a year passing by.

Also, today marks a year since the last time I physically saw my uncle, at his funeral.

Before his passing, he was temporarily living with my family and me and when he unexpectedly died from a heart attack at 54, it was hard not having him around the house. His authentic Puerto-Rican personality, his cologne smelling up the entire house before he went out for the night, and his crazy stories he would come home and tell my parents are truly missed. It’s those little things I wish I cherished when he was still around.

So, this month’s rant is all around the little things in life, and why they matter the most.

I tend to forget about the little things, and I fall victim to the infamous saying: “you don’t know what you got until it’s gone.” It’s not that I’m ungrateful, it’s mainly the fact that we live in a world where we constantly have to be moving forward in order to make it somewhere in life, and as a 24-year-old woman trying to prove to herself and to the world that she could make it with solely passion, I tend to become absent-minded and very distracted. I tend to be oblivious to half of the things around me, and people tend to get frustrated when I don’t catch on quickly.

As I get older and those around me get older as well, I realize that I am fearing death more than I usually do. Is that a weird thing to admit? I mean, I’m afraid that there’s going to be a time in my life where I potentially go through something and a family member of mine isn’t around because of old age. That frightens the crap outta me. Technically, that’s what happened with my uncle. He constantly told me how he was proud of me being the first Baez in the family to graduate college and attend grad school, and that I was going places in the future. Whenever I do think about it, it saddens me knowing that he’s physically not here to see me graduate in a couple of months after physically seeing me come home late nights from class all exhausted and drained.

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I believe that because my tendency to not appreciate the little things in life, I lose more and more I don’t do so. I feel like it’s some of punishment life gives me; that one time a loved one annoy me for eating their food one way could easily become the thing I wished I heard every single day at the dinner table. I’m not saying that you have to appreciate the things that simply annoy you or the things that are toxic for your well being, but the things that make a person unique will always reign as a “little thing” about them. You might remember a person for their life journey and accomplishments, but the things that we seem to remember the most are the tiny details about a person. Something that made them, them.

This doesn’t apply to only people who’ve passed on. This goes by saying that I believe we should appreciate the little things when people are alive and present. I know there are a lot of things about my family and my partner that I tend to overlook because it’s second nature to them.

It’s second nature that my mother plays her Amazon Kindle games at every given chance she has during the day.

It’s second nature for my sister to have our cat sleeping on top of her every time she lays down.

It’s second mature for my father to play the same seven salsa songs on the speakers every Thursday and/or Sunday night.

It’s second nature for my friend Tori to text me “BITCH” and instantly knowing she has some major gossip to talk about even if she’s in a completely different state.

It’s second nature for my partner to call me at 10 o’clock in the morning while he gets ready for work and it’s also second nature for him to play his favorite song that changes every 3-4 months on the radio and blast it while dancing his heart out and it’s also second nature for my partner to do the little personal things that only he and I know about.

It’s all these little things that the people around me do that could easily go underappreciated, and if you are any of these above people reading this post: please know that I notice the little things about you. I appreciate these unique quirks and habits that you may not even know you’re showcasing to the world, and if I don’t voice these little things out enough, just know that these are some of just the endless little things I notice, especially towards the man I’m in love with.

The little things in life are what makes a person unique and special. The little things about my uncle are what people remember the most about him and what they miss the most about him. Not his mistakes. Not where he was in life. The little things that made him, him. I just hope that the little things about me, whether I know what they are or not, are some of the things people I love appreciate about me the most.

While I’m here, and when I’m gone.

-Liz. (:

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH and most importantly, welcome back to another installment of A Voiceless Rant.

I am going to be 24-years-old in 2018. I am going to be graduating with my Masters in 2018. I will potentially get my first job in 2018. My life is going to make a complete 360 in the next year, and I’m not ready.

I’m definitely a creature of habit; when I’m comfortable, I tend to stay put. This year alone, I’ve been realizing that the things that made me feel like myself are slowly becoming distant. For the entire year, I thought was falling down the rabbit hole of depression to the point that I’ve been holding onto parts of myself that I don’t identify with, just for the sake of having one.

For the majority of the year, I felt like I wasn’t even a real person. I felt like I was just living each and every day without any purpose, without any motivation, without any drive. I’ve tried so many things to help me get back to the person I was a year ago and when I even got close to being that person again, it didn’t feel right, and I began to lose even more than I intended. Something’s gotta give, right?

As I’m now slowly transitioning into a healthier mindset, I realize this is potentially the start of a life-changing journey.

Do I sound non-sensical? When do I not? I can’t see the future and I don’t know if this will lead to anything, but it’s something you just feel. You look back at what life was like in the last couple of months and see from an outside perspective how you behaved and handled situations. Everything that I felt stems from the fact that my life is going through a transition from ‘student’ to ‘real-world adult’. I am preparing myself for the better, and undoubtedly the worst.

If you feel these things happening in your life, don’t worry. Things happen because they need to happen. Give it time and thought, yeah, but things naturally happen because they have to. You feeling this way is one thing, acknowledging it is a completely different thing.

1.) You feel the need to physically change something.

A year and a half ago, I had ombre hair. In March 2016, I decided to dye my hair all black. My black hair felt like the color I was going to keep for the rest of my life. It felt like my signature color because so many great things came with that hair. I felt like myself. When 2017 came, I didn’t feel like that person anymore. I felt like I was now wearing a wig of the old person I once was, the girl who was getting ready to graduate college with her bachelor’s, having a big group of friends in my acting class, and having a passion for cinema. For the majority of the year, I constantly bleached my hair and cut it really short just to feel like a different person. Two weeks later, I found myself buying black hair dye just so I “felt like myself again”. A month later, I would go through the same cycle. I am one of those women who changes their hair color and style whenever I feel like I need a change in life. I guess this last year alone I was afraid to let go of my comfort zone: long, black hair. I am now currently rocking chin-length ombre hair, and I feel like I am making it my own.

Also, I find myself wanting to lose weight, not because I’m lacking self-esteem or confidence, but I am starting to see and feel the potential health hazards that come with being overweight. I’m only going to be 24, but I am starting to feel like I’m 44, and I’m tired of feeling tired. In the recent weeks, I’ve considered getting weight loss surgery once I graduate in order for me to begin this new lifestyle change that I can’t do on my own. I mean, this is as life-changing as it’s going to get, but I want to get this done not just to “lose weight and look good”, but I want to feel good. I want to be able to move around like I’m in my 20’s. I want to actually live to see my 60’s. These little (or major) decisions to make to commit to physically change is as life-changing as it is. You change the way you live, and I feel myself wanting to accept that change coming my way.

2.) The things you tolerated before now annoy you, A LOT.

I was never a person who spoke up because I was never confrontational. For the most part, it worked, I just dropped things, but in a way it allowed people to treat me a certain way, and I would have no reaction to it. I always felt that I was able to fix things without actually sharing my side of things. I’ve been seeing that in the last year, I’ve definitely been more irritated and annoyed when people do that to me, and I never understood why all of a sudden, I was acting like that.  I was growing tired of the fact that I felt people weren’t giving me the respect I know I deserve. Because of that, I lost a lot of people in my life in the last year. It’s still hard for me to stand up for what I feel and believe in because I hate arguing, but it’s needed to let others know that yeah, I’m cool, but don’t disrespect me in any shape or form and my voice matters just as much as yours. 

3.) Your emotions are on a constant roller coaster.

Yeah, most of us will call it our hormones and PMS, but when it happens randomly at any time of the month, any time of the day over anything in your life, you begin to wonder what the hell is wrong with you. Ultimately, you may think that you’re just unhappy with life, but maybe you’re just realizing how to properly express how you feel. Just because you become more in touch with your emotions, doesn’t mean that feeling them and expressing them is a bad thing. Yes, there is a time and place for every emotion, but personally, I find myself feeling a lot more because, for years, I suppressed them. I always thought feeling too much was problematic so I would bottle them up until I forgot about them. But like everyone says: “bottling up your emotions doesn’t solve the issue.” This year I’ve cried more than the last three years combined, and I’m not ashamed of it.

4.) You are more aware of yourself; you are more in-tune with your soul.

This may sound weird, but I personally believe people who are going through this transition in their lives know themselves best. People who have their shit together got an idea of what they want, what they like, and how they react to situations, but I feel like, in this significant part of your life, you learn more about yourself. You go through different shit just to see how you react to it and handle it. You’re able to see yourself in an outside perspective. Because you are more aware of yourself, you are able to make decisions more efficiently; you begin to see what really in life makes you happy. The last couple of months have shown me that what makes me happy is the things I already had, or already was doing in my life: writing for TNTH, Obie, family, listening to some really good music, and honestly watching some Game Grumps. The simple things that I absentmindedly did or enjoyed before were now absolute cheer-me-ups once I acknowledged their uses for me. For example, a 2-hour long Game Grumps compilation of their funniest moments can instantly calm me down from an anxiety attack. It’s knowing how you respond to things in life and knowing what to do when put into a situation.

5.) You feel lost, or you don’t feel like you’re getting enough in life.

I think this is what made me realize that I might be possibly going through a transition in my life. I am constantly thinking about change. I know personally that whenever I think about change it’s because I feel lost or stuck in life. I feel like I’m not moving up to better myself or I feel like I’m not experiencing life to its full potential. I constantly think about finally graduating so that I can make TNTH a serious part-time job and going out into the world to find a full-time one. I am constantly thinking about traveling outside of the city to experience new scenery and hobbies. I am constantly thinking about where I want to be by the time I’m 30. Yeah, it’s great to live in the present and get things done now in order to get to where I want to be, but sometimes you need the break in order to move forward. Last weekend, I took an entire weekend off from school work and did the things I wanted to do (which was just a YouTube binge), but it felt good not to worry about school work for once in a really long time. Just because you have to go through hardships in order to get where you wanna be, it doesn’t mean you throw your happiness out the window.

Like I said: most of us are going to go through these major transitions where we feel like we’re changing for the worst. I felt like I was walking backward for most of the year because of it. If you allow yourself to think that way, you’re going to indulge in it some more. Misery loves company. Acknowledge how you’re feeling, and take into consideration why you feel like that. Think of it in a positive perspective. Think of it as getting to know yourself again. People change, you change, and it’s okay to feel like you are. Change is definitely a risk, but don’t be afraid to take it. Don’t sell yourself short.

 

-Liz. (:

 

Hey guys, welcome back to TNTH!

Even more so: welcome back to another installment of:

I’ve been wanting to do more of these little sitdown rants about just what’s been up with me and what I’m currently feeling and going through, but I always try to gear my conversations on TNTH general and broad so that they can be relatable to a larger audience.

Still, I miss these voiceless rants.

Anyway, as October flies on by and December is practically rolling around, the thought of my 2017 New Years Resolutions came up, and it had me wondering if I ever achieved them this far into the year.

On the first morning of 2017 (and by morning I mean 4 o’clock in the morning), Obie and I stayed up and ate a late-night meal after spending the night at the bar, celebrating the new year. Something personal in my life happened that night, and I was still very shooked up about it, and Obie could see in my eyes that I was clearly still upset about it. I was visibly getting more upset because that’s the type of person I am; if someone can see that something is wrong with me, I completely break down. Tearfully, I just told him “Just talk. Talk to me please.” The first thing he said was “what is one thing you want to accomplish this new year?”

“All I want this year is to be fearless,” I said.

I pictured 2017 to be better than 2016. Last year, I’ve set a new years resolution to finally be peaceful and happy, and I accomplished that. It was one of the best years I had in a really long time, even if I did have some problematic areas in my life. I realized that I was beginning to get anxiety when I graduated college and started grad school. I began regretting and doubting a lot of things in my life, even if they were the smallest things like “damn, I shouldn’t have worn this outfit today.” It was getting really bad.

So I decided to enter 2017 with the mindset that I wanted to be fearless. I wanted to do simple things like work out without feeling fat-shamed, go to social gatherings without feeling extremely anxious, and make choices because I want to do them, not because I have to. I wanted to stop being so afraid of taking chances, and I committed to doing so in 2017. It’s pretty much how TNTH came to be. But like everything else, life happens, and New Years Resolutions get forgotten by the second or third week of the new year. LOng story short, most of the year didn’t go as planned. I kept making rational decisions about this in place of “taking risks”, and my anxiety rose up as grad school got more tedious.

For the most part, I didn’t do what I wanted to do in 2017.

As the year comes to an end, I came to revisit this idea of being fearless. I still want to stop feeling anxious over the littlest things and take risks without regretting it. I want to defend myself in situations where I feel people are taking advantage of me or my kindness. I wanted to feel great in my skin because I’m good enough to feel good in my skin. Ultimately, I didn’t get to achieve those things. But the year isn’t over yet.

In the last two weeks, I found myself taking risks. I spontaneously got my second tattoo, I defended myself in a school situation I was a part of, and I bleached my hair as well as cut it even shorter. Now, I know that for most people, hair isn’t important but to me, it’s an accessory. I feel my best when my hair is done the way I want it to be, and in the last year, I cut about 6 inches of my hair. For a while, I was one of those girls who kept the length of their hair just to say that it was long. I grew tired of it, I was playing it safe. Up until this point, I told my sister to “trim it just to keep the length”. The last time she cut my hair, I told her to cut it “as short as it needed to be because of the damage my hair had. Currently, it’s really short. I’ve had people all around me try to discourage me and say that “I look like a boy” and “I should stop cutting it because I look ugly with short hair and all I’ve said to those people is why does it bother you so much? 

Short hair is liberating. New tattoos are liberating. Standing up for what I believe in is liberating. Defending myself in situations is liberating. Being fearless is liberating.

Although I am nowhere near I want to be, I know that I am not afraid to get there. Being fearless is something that I haven’t been since I was a child, a time when I didn’t have anything to lose. Being fearless is basically the opposite of who I am and how most people know me, but I’m ready to do it as an adult. I’m ready to get the respect I deserve not only from others but from myself too. I let things dictate the way I live my life and at the end of the day, I suffer from it.

To not go off on a tangent, I am ending this year on something I started on at the beginning of it.

I know it’s still way too easy to make New Years Resolutions for 2018, but I hope that I don’t give up on myself. I hope that the struggles and obstacles I’m facing currently don’t completely affect my mental health. I hope that I am able to take on tasks and make decisions just for the sole reason being that I can say that I tried doing it. I hope that I continue to work hard on my studies, to finish grad-school on time, go for job interviews without letting my social anxiety get to me, to conquer every self-doubt I ever had about myself.

If you had new years resolutions you forgot about, take a moment to think about them. Why did you want to achieve that in the first place? Why did you stop going for it?

Most importantly, would you try again?

 

-Liz (: