When Unfair Blows the Wind

When Unfair Blows the Wind

By Jessica Cruz

Unruly Heart so gently untamed.

It said not a word to me when you came.

While you were here, my heart was still. 

And when you left, it showed no will. 

And now it whispers,

"Where did you go?"

It reminds me now,

Of an unspoken known.

It flits and it flutters, 

'Round me, round the world.

My heart gently mutters,

In mellifluous whorls.

Not a torrent, no. 

Not a senseless bluster.

Not like a tornado.

And still I shudder.

It nags and I see.

My being can't follow.

Circumstance glares.

I frown back at the hollow.

In a wreck I can float with the breeze.

In denial I can push against its force. 

Or I can breathe it in and wheeze,

And gradually change its course. 

I know of a strength,

When unfair blows the wind.

To feel wisps of my sorrow,

Cold air on my skin.

------------------------------------------------------------

Creativity changes the course. 

Living It

When I first started this blog about 5 years ago or something, I didn’t know that I had Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I didn’t know that the inability to connect both the Rational and Emotional parts of our own brains is often a sign of Trauma. I didn’t know that this topic was talked about amongst Psychiatrists. I didn’t know that this concept of connecting these parts of our brains was a thing. And yet, I called my blog “Feelings to Think and Thoughts to Feel”.

I remember finding out later that I wasn’t the first to coin that phrase and I was surprised. I thought it was all mine. I’m trying to remember how I came up with that. I seem to have a knack for expressing my inner turmoils in written words pretty well. And I guess I came up with just the right phrase somehow.

I also had never actually read any books by Rilke, but I saw a quote by Rilke (probably on Goodreads) that I put at the top of my blog and have kept there ever since. For those reading on a mobile device that might not show the quote, it says,

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ~Rilke With the Ultra Long Name

Yesterday, as I was attempting (that’s really all I can do is attempt) to focus on an audiobook while I mowed the lawn, the monotone man of the audiobook quoted that exact quote. It was quoted from a quote in the book called The Body Keeps the Score: Brain Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD. I missed half or more of what I was trying to listen to, and didn’t understand much of the science, but I didn’t miss that familiar quote.

I also didn’t miss the following (from Kolk, not Rilke):

For now, I want to emphasize that emotion is not opposed to reason. Our emotions assign value to experiences and thus are the foundation of reason. Our self-experience is the product of the balance between our rational and our emotional brains. When these two systems are in balance, we feel like ourselves. However, when our survival is at stake, these systems can function relatively independently.

So thinking our feelings and feeling our thoughts is actually essential to feeling like ourselves.

As I listen to this book on trauma and recovery, I am learning so much and hearing so much that resonates with me. I like things like this book that help me understand myself better. And I feel so proud and impressed at myself that before I had sought therapy, and despite the things that were overtly stated to me in my upbringing, I was headed in the right direction in this way. Without even knowing what listening to feelings really meant, I thought beyond what I had been told, that they could not be irrelevant. And I am grateful for any hints that might have pointed me to here from those rare and special souls who I came into contact with. Perhaps if I hadn’t been headed in the right direction and blindly seeking the right things, I would not have ended up in therapy with my current therapist. And I wouldn’t have developed to the place that I am at now.

I feel I have so far to go in my self-discovery and learning how to navigate relationships. Right now, though, I am glad to have years ago begun a journey on my own that I wanted to undertake. A journey that I sensed had depth, but had no idea what it really entailed. And I’m glad to now not be alone in that journey.

This is a journey that will never end for me. I am living it. And I am learning better how to live it every day. Even when it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, I have grown closer to me.

The Most Oppressed Peoples

I came to a new world of people. I didn't choose to come. I just came, and people welcomed me.
I did not speak the people's language.
After a while, I picked  the language up and learned to speak.
But I could only speak when the people in charge told me that I was allowed, which really meant whether they liked what I said or not, and for no other reason than that.
I soon learned that I did not have freedom of speech.
If my leaders told me to be quiet, and I did not listen, I was yelled at, physically hurt, or socially isolated for a time.
But I did not dare slap back, yell back, or even question my leader's decisions and judgments.
My leaders had strong feelings which they were allowed to express.
I dared not express mine too freely, or I might get yelled at or hit.
My leaders could be angry. I was told I could not be.
My leaders could be disappointed. I was told that I better be grateful that they allowed me to even come to this world at all. I had no right to disappointment.
I was granted food and drink and clothing and shelter, though I was not capable of working for it.
For this I was expected to be eternally grateful, though I had not chosen to be with these people.
I was given many items that I was told were for my enjoyment, and that I was expected to keep in order.
My leaders often handed them to me so they would not have to deal with me.
They attempted to buy my silence as they were far too busy to be bothered with my thoughts, feelings, and creativity.
My leaders told me that I didn't have the capability to know what was best.
They told me not to question their decisions, and they didn't explain why they made them.
I was clumsy and untrained but I tried to help.
I was yelled at, though I had tried so hard.
When the people in this land acted negatively, the label that was used for my people group was used derogatorily to describe their behavior.
Respect was not something I was given. It was expected that I could only earn it with time and with my actions.
My leaders demanded respect from me and my people regardless of anything they said or did. They didn't have to earn it.
I was expected to learn from my leaders.
My leaders were given credit for my commendable actions.
My leaders saw me as a reflection of them. My individuality was sacrificed for the sake of my leaders' egos.
I was new to this world, but I was expected to react to those in it with the most self-control of all. My leaders only acted that way with their peers. They felt no obligation toward me in this regard.
I was to endure all without question.
And told to be grateful. Always grateful.
"Because", I was told, "Your life will not always be so free. Someday you will be a slave like us with obligations when you have served your time as a "carefree" person."
But am I not already psychologically a slave? It is normal for my people to be psychologically enslaved, and threatened with a slap.
I am a child of the average, unenlightened parent.
Of all peoples in my land, I am the most oppressed.
I am a slave of the enslaved.

Happy Birthday: A Letter from My 16-Year-Old Self

"From Jessica at age 16 to Jessica at age 26"

It’s my birthday. I’m 26 now, I guess. And I finally opened a letter that I happened to find a couple of days ago while cleaning out some stuff in my bedroom. It was a letter addressed to myself at age 26 from myself at age 16. I had been waiting to open this. I was a little nervous about how it might affect me as I was sure my life had not panned out as my 16-year-old self had hoped. But my 16-year-old self seems to have had a good sense of humor, or at least tried to appear like she did. I mean, yeah, about half of it was about a boy I was insanely in-love with at the time…ugh. But the rest was a pleasant surprise. Some of it a real hug from my past self, much less judgmental than I had expected. Here are a few pieces I felt I'd share.

           

"August 20, 2018...I got the idea to write this note from possibly my favorite series of books: the Emily Series by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This is a letter from me at age 16 to me at age 26, and is not to be opened until then. Hopefully I live to be that old and I remember that I actually wrote this!"

Yeah…you are really obsessed with those books…not bad classics…but I fear they brought you a little too out of touch with reality for your love-starved soul. But perhaps I should really reread them before I make that a firm opinion. You definitely lived to be that old. And you only remembered because you were going through some crap in your room. But, hey, it worked out and you opened it at the right time.

"Just incase you wanted to know, about 10 years ago, you sat on your bed in your bedroom in [my town] and wrote this note with hairs on your legs about 4 mm long (yes, you even took the time to measure), wearing red basketball shorts, a black Creation Fest t-shirt, and a ponytail, while listening to your 4 gb ipod nano (you're probably thinking that those are way outdated!)"

Just in case you wanted to know, 10 years later, you sat on a different bed (yes, a bigger one) in that same bedroom, in the same place, and wrote this note with hairs on your legs about 29 mm long (yes, you even took the time to measure), wearing a blue hippy-like 3-quarter sleeve top, and hippy-like bellbottom leggings, and a ponytail, not listening to anything at the moment. 

And just a few things:

1. Leggings are a big thing now. People wear them a lot…but not like the ones I have. They don’t wear bellbottom ones. They wear skinny jeans…and leggings…as pants…yes, pants. You all probably hadn’t even reached the point of skinny jean popularity yet. You may not know what skinny jeans are. You were outraged along with many other people during your last year of high school about all this when the rebels started wearing leggings. 

2. You don’t shave your legs anymore now. Or your armpits. At all. The rebels we are. It’s wonderful.

3. You rebelliously used that 4gb ipod nano for many, many years, longer than was cool, because you use things until they die. And boy did that nano finally die. You woke up one morning smelling something that was a combination of what smelled like skunk, burnt rubber, burning hair, and who knows what else. It was your nano charging in your ipod speaker. It’s a gonner now. May it RIP. You listen to music on your cellphone now. It’s called a smartphone. It has a touch screen. And internet. And lots of things. Yes, you have an actual cellphone. Congrats…it’s a hand-me-down.

"If you're married, what's it like? To me right now, it seems sweet, yet scary at the same time. I could never imagine myself with kids, but do you have any? What's it like to be grown up with lots of responsibility? It terrifies me to even think of it! As of now, I don't know what I want to do once I graduate from Highschool in two years. 26 seems so old! Is Dusty still alive or has he gone to doggie heaven, leaving his body under one of our trees as furtilizer? (Not that I really believe in "doggie heaven.")"

1. You’re still not married now, and you don’t know what it’s like. To you right now, it seems impossible, and scary, and even scarier to date someone. You still can’t imagine yourself with kids, and no, you don’t have any.

2.  Being grown up still terrifies you now. You’re not exactly fully independent, and you’re not meeting people’s expectations. The pressure is real. You still don’t know what you want to do now, but you graduated high school. Congrats! You’re now one class away from an Associate of Arts degree that you decided to finish after taking a break from college for 5 years. You’ve been procrastinating on that last class for the past few months. And would you believe it? You took calculus…by choice…it didn’t even apply to the AA. I know you don’t believe it. 

3. You still think 26 seems old. And you found a few grey hairs despite the fact that most people think you still look like a teenager.

4. Well, don’t you just have a morbid sense of humor. Fertilizer? Heartless. Just like Lucky the Cat, though, right? And yes, Dusty went to doggie heaven years ago. He is still in my heart. There is no puppy like him. My heart is a little sad as I tell you the news.

            

"And now! My biggest questions: Are you married to [insert name of crush]."

No. I'm not.

           

"Were you so blessed as to win his love? Or did it not work out, and you perhaps found someone else you thought special too?"

Oh girl, you were smitten. You rejected him 10 years later. Yes, believe it or not, you rejected him. And no, you did not find someone else.

"If you're single...kiss a teddybear or something, and hang in there! You'll meet your man someday...hopefully...just remember that you wouldn't ever kiss anyone unless you were at least engaged, right? Remember that promise? Hopefully you've kept it!"

1. I don’t remember you being so funny. You are snarky. You still don’t own a teddy bear. Perhaps I’ll buy one now. I’ll try and hang in there. But the truth is, you eventually woke up to the fact that most people in the world are not as innocent as you are, my sweet Jessica. You really are sweet. I don’t think you ever knew that. I might not ever meet my man. And I’m learning to be okay with that. And I have no idea how to ever tell if I “met my man”. I don’t know who to trust, and I don’t even know 100% who and/or what I want.

2. You had higher expectations than any 16-year-old I have ever met. Don’t be too disappointed when I tell you that I broke that promise. You’d gasp if I told you who I kissed. You wouldn’t believe it. You’d be horrified. It was gross, by the way. So it was probably good I didn’t wait until I married him, even though I didn’t marry him.

"Do you miss age 16? I doubt you do! Yours truly,"

You’re right I don’t. You went through some hard things. And you made me feel a little less terrible about being 26 somehow, even though it’s rough in many ways now too. I love you, Jessica. Some hugs and love from the future.

Yours so Sincerely and Understandingly, 

Jessica

Calculus-Tired and Gender-Unfriendly: A Poem

Most Definitely My Leg Hair

I write in verse because I’m falling asleep.

My Calculus final this morning made me weep.

Simple statements are all I can make.

I can’t think hard anymore for goodness sake.

It’s been a while since I wrote any shit.

I was just thinking about the hair in my armpit.

Just staring at my leg hair while I sit.

I decided that I’d write a bit.

What I wanted to say was a short little rage.

That if brave enough, I would shout from a stage.

Of one of the ways I am put in a cage.

I can’t think of anything else that rhymes with cage.

What I wanted to say was simply this.

I am not “gender non-conforming”, “gender fluid”, or “cis”.

Gender labels are things I wholeheartedly shun.

I identify with none, not any, not one.

This is because gender identity doesn’t truly exist.

So save your breath. Don’t read me the list.

People are creating boxes to break boxes that I diss.

The irony of it all just has me pissed.

My leg hair isn’t an expression of gender.

Though it makes me a “hairiest woman” contender.

I didn’t choose my leg hair, it’s just part of my genetic race.

If more women didn’t shave, you’d see that was the case.

I grew to be a woman, and with that came body hair.

I didn’t grow to be a man, and this is a case that isn’t rare.

A woman with leg hair, well how do I dare?

When this is healthy, natural, and normal, how is your question fair?

But back to my point, about the gender I reject.

For which I’m writing bad poetry so very direct.

My problem with gender is that it’s not real.

It’s not an objective label, it’s simply how you feel.

Gender isn’t what you are, it’s what you choose to be.

That’s fine for all I care, but don’t force it on me.

As if I have one, cause I assure you I’m gender-free.

And that isn’t a gender in itself, it’s just what I be.

My sex is definitely female, biologically so.

My XX chromosomes still let my leg hair grow.

Despite the social norms that tell them "no".

And to hell with people who don’t want it to show.

Loving my leg hair, really took me a bit.

Social pressure really got to me and it hurt like shit.

I’m not an exception to have leg hair, you know.

Hispanic women often have black body hair, often even on their toes.

I don’t shave my toes either anymore, by the way.

I don’t find it at all embarrassing to say.

My body fought me, growing hair upon hair every day.

I finally decided to respect it and let it stay.

Rage, Deep Breaths, and Unacommodating Math Tests

I sat in the closed off room of the disabilities center taking my fourth Precalculus II math test of the quarter--the last before my final. Having not done so well on the last test, I felt my anxiety exacerbating my Attention Deficit Disorder as I frustratedly tried to get my calculator to graph the given parametric equation. In the end, for whatever reason, I couldn’t get it to work. I muttered angrily to myself as I started sniffling and tears began streaming down my face, enraged while working on another problem of which my instructor so cruelly assigned solutions I would be required to use a calculator for and round…another exacerbant for my ADD, since making sure I type numbers correctly into my calculator is one of my biggest struggles in mathematics, and while feeling rushed on a test, my anxiety makes it impossible for me sometimes.  I quietly muttered angry words at my instructor who wasn’t present. I thought my mutters were quiet, at least. I don’t really know how quiet because I was wearing sound cancelling earmuffs.

After a moment, it occurred to me that I wasn’t in the small room that I usually take the test in, and that there might be somebody still in the room with me. I looked around the cabinet to my left and sure enough, there was a man taking a test on the other side of the cabinet. Ugh! He had 100% heard me sniffling and muttering…there’s no way he hadn’t. My feelings first turned to embarrassment and shame and then my mind began trying to sooth my shame feelings by telling myself that I would never see the man again (hopefully), that he only saw the back of my head and not my face (hopefully), that others would think it was funny that I was crying during a math test (like, “oh, yeah, I don’t blame you…”…hopefully), and that because of these things, it didn’t matter at all that I was acting so strangely dramatic. It embarrassed me the most that I was crying.

I still don’t know what my result is on the test, but it’s likely that I didn’t do as horribly as I am expecting. I went to the math center afterward and checked my notes to see if there was a problem on how to change a given polar angle into rectangular coordinates, something we didn’t practice in our homework. I was surprised to see that my logical thinking made up for my lack of knowledge on how to do the problem, and I’m pretty sure I got that particular problem right. That made me feel better as I tried to sooth my deep feelings of incompetence that made me feel like I should give up mathematics for all eternity. Annoyingly, feeling intelligent again caused me to feel dissatisfied about the fact that I had been dealt a frustrating hand of having a very intelligent brain and disorders that were hindering it, while I had insanely successful, intelligent siblings. All of a sudden, I was worrying about the fact that there was nothing particularly special about me. That I had no significance.

While all of this was going through my brain, I was also trying different thoughts and angles and techniques to calm my internal shame-based lonely chaos. I breathed deeply, tried not to mutter to myself in public, tried to laugh off my feelings humorously, and tried to be grateful that I wasn’t still stuck learning basic fractions like some of the wonderful people I’ve met in the math center whom I am hoping to help soon as a tutor. I never truly calmed down until I imagined that I was walking next to a replica of myself or rather that I was two identical persons. That there was another of me with me and she was holding my hand and knew exactly what I was feeling and she welcomed me as I was. I imagined her smiling, skipping, and not caring that she probably didn’t get an A on that math test. I had her say to me, “What a lovely, sunny day! Thank you for listening to me. I know that it’s hard for you to listen to me right now because your feelings are so intense, deep, and dark. I respect your feelings, and I appreciate that right now, you’re still respecting mine too. We are one.” I started to realize my complete negative feelings as unfairness and cruelty to myself. I tried to feel what it would actually feel like to have her hold my hand. It was not easy as I don’t typically hold peoples’ hands. But when I felt like I could connect to the thought to an extent, I felt much calmer inside.

The past few days, I have been reading a bit about Enneagrams. The Enneagram is a personality theory that describes different personality types, each with a “dilemma” or “complex” around a certain theme that each type has developed in life regarding certain core basic fears and desires. I currently closely relate to Type Four and Type Five. As I think about it, how fitting that my blog which I started many years ago should be called “Feelings to Think and Thoughts to Feel”. With the seemingly paradoxical combination in my personality of the emotional dramatics of type Four and the emotional withdraw of a Five, my life can feel pretty confusing. I read on one website that somebody decided to describe the type 4 and 5 combo an “existential insect among humans”. Jerk. Haha! I’ll ignore that label…or just laugh at it, because I don’t even think they were necessarily trying to be insulting.

In past, I had gotten really involved in personality theories like the Myer’s-Briggs theory, and later ditched that theory as inaccurate and inadequate. I had heard about the Enneagram before, but hadn’t looked into it much until my therapist mentioned it to me. She said that if I was triggered by a situation because of my CPTSD, and I had really deep feelings of Depression that made me want to withdraw (not something I’ve experienced as much recently, thankfully), then I could remind myself that I wasn’t alone, and I was just acting very much “like a Four” right now, but that wasn’t all of who I was. Having read more about the different types, I relate a lot to the core worries of many of the types, but in particular, I think the type Four and Five types really resonate with me overall more than any other personality descriptions that I’ve read because, for one, it gets to the root of what has formed my personality and what I can do to move in the direction of growth, and two, it seems to be the only theory that accurately describes both my intensely dramatic emotional life (type Four) as well my feelings of complete emotional disconnect around others (type Five) until I am able to find some alone time to feel safe and secure enough to feel at all.

I both experience the intense need of a type Four to cry during my math test and rage at someone, as well as to the immediate feeling of lack of safety like a type Five once I have discovered that my true expression of feelings might have been seen by someone. I have experienced the dark side of extreme love-stricken longing and grief as well as the beautiful poetic thread it caused in me (typical type Four). I have also been the extremely rational, emotionally disconnected person in a crisis (typical type Five), like when my mom, brother, and sister were upset when our family dog died; and when my mom came to get me and tell me, my response was simply curiosity to the point of almost a feeling of excitement at what death could possibly be, along with a disconnected suppressed horror of it, and if I felt anything including sadness at all, it was simply empathy while I comforted my crying little sister (a kid at the time).

I am learning to embrace these different aspects of myself as all of me. And it is nice to be recognized in an impersonal way on paper, through the Enneagram, what struggles I have endured in life and how it has shaped me. Observant Fives, like myself, want very much to understand and rationalize everything in order to feel protected from an environment that might (and sometimes does) demand more than we are capable of offering, and thus reveal (supposedly) that we are incompetent, useless, wastes of space. Individualistic Fours like myself have lost sight to our core of the fact that we are connected to all people and things, and struggle constantly with feelings of abandonment and a lack of significance, and so stress our individual selves so strongly so as to try and feel as if we have not been forgotten.

Yesterday at work, a nice elderly lady customer said to me a couple of times, “Slow down! You’ll run out of steam.” I thought to myself, “I might be running through the store getting lots done, running to help customers, but in general, I’ve accomplished nothing in my life in comparison to other people. Other people are always on the go constantly, and I just feel like the world demands too much of me that I don’t have to offer. As I thought about it more, I really do need to slow down. Because on the inside, I keep running and running and running and running…

Slow down.

 Be present. Know yourself. 

Feel your thoughts. 

Think your feelings. 

Learn to work with them and not against them. 

Hold your own hand when things get hard, 

Even if someone else is holding it with you, 

And even if they aren’t. 

The Betrayal

The Betrayal

As a little girl, I was as tough as you. I ran and played outside like you—with many of you. We played cops and robbers. I arm-wrestled you and beat you. I had bigger muscles than you. We had mud fights. We were friends—so I thought. 

There were prejudices against me even then. And they stung. Some of you sexualized me, even when we were so, so little. Curse the adults who taught you those things.

I went fishing with some of you, and I always caught more fish than you. We had fun. I did more chin-ups in P.E than all of you in my class and flex-hanged for longer than you too. And you didn’t seem to care all that much. You were just impressed. It was just fun competing like that. 

We painted pictures together. Watched Cinderella together. Played house together. Played with Barbies together. And you liked it. You had special stuffed animals that you slept with. I never understood that emotional connection that you had with your toys. 

And then we hit the age where our bodies started to change. You grew taller and more muscular, and I grew some fat for the first time in my life. I thought it was humiliating that I got fatter when you got stronger. Mostly because it hurt that you wanted absolutely anything but to be considered like me—a girl—the most humiliating thing for you to be. You believed that would be humiliating for you, but thought I should be okay with it. Even when I lifted as much as you, the fact was denied and ignored. Suddenly, any strength in me was a threat.

We hit puberty, and the attitude that females should be and should want to be consumed and dominated over only grew. This mindset toward me that I felt when I was a little girl was suddenly forced upon me so strongly, and I knew I was stuck. I had no way out of these attitudes. They were all around me. 

I who was your equal, you now began to see me as definitely lesser. And the big difference now was that the adults began to treat us differently too. And they taught me to hide. 

I did. In a lot of ways.

I begged God not to let my breasts grow any larger despite how small they already were. I became angry if someone told me I was turning into a young woman. I thought I was despised. To be ashamed of. Gross. Lacking any respect or dignity.

And never was most of this stated out-loud overtly. It wasn’t even consciously acknowledged, perhaps. It was implied through everything, in everything. In the porn you watched. In the remarks you made. And in the way you treated me. Suddenly, you expected me to be manipulative. To manipulate you. Suddenly, you wanted me to manipulate you. As if it implied something. As if this was my role as a female to not be straight-forward any longer.

And I wanted none of it. And you teased me for not wanting any of it.

And what I don’t understand is how you forgot I was human. You forgot we both had hearts, and minds, and wills, and power. You forgot. 

My humanity betrayed. 

(The above is not directed at any individual person. It is using a mixture of my own hard experiences to represent a larger dichotomy.)