Yo soy tu y tu eres mi (I am you and you are me)

Hola Hermosa! It might seem a little crazy to read this but I am writing this from a place of healing. You see…there were times, days, weeks, months and years back when you faced yourself and you let the voices of doubt become louder than the voices of love. I am here to remind you of those times. The purpose of the reminders is so that you can sit with yourself, think about your experiences and reflect. Soak in the feelings you have that are still lingering, recognize what still seems familiar and work on digesting the process that has come out of it. Though the feelings may seem familiar you are not the same person you were then and you have a different understanding because of the knowledge that you gained from those happenings.

Dear girl, you have faced lessons more than once and each time you gained some insight, your body learned how to slow down and move differently. But let’s be real, not every step is a step forward, some steps took you back down and some made you take the scenic route. You see… life isn’t always pretty. You know this. But life is always beautiful. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

It was December of 2020 and you were far removed,… from yourself, from the world, from love and from reality. There was a defining moment in conversation that shifted your entire world. You decided to part ways, with a person, with a past, with a version of you that was complacent and completely unhappy. The thing is, you thought that by making this decision, you would feel happy again. That you would find yourself. That you would love yourself. That the past could be left in the dust and that you would keep your head held high looking forward and never looking back. And, “boy, oh boy”, were you high out of your mind.

Depression grew from the end of that relationship, a relationship that was so deeply engraved in your day to day, it was more like a reflex than an evolving union. It seeped itself into your mind, into your thoughts, into your body. It dimmed your light, silenced your voice, and took a different form during every silent moment. When you were around family and friends you looked like someone that had just lost something. Still yourself, still social, and still doing. And part of me was still there, but an even bigger part of me was screaming inside. It was like I was locked in an escape room that nobody can see but me. I was sobbing on the inside and nobody could hear me or help me.

So I did what any unreasonable adult would do. I went out with friends, I made sure that I kept myself occupied to avoid sitting with myself, and I even drank to drown out the noise. I made it pretty hard to feel anything other than delusion. I made delusion my safe haven and nested in it. I made a life dripped in fantasy, and frosted sweetly with delusion, I hid myself in a place where laundry socks end up. A place everyone knows exists but nobody looks for. Eventually the alcohol created a demon, a demon who became immune to its own addictions. The sadness was no longer silenced by liquor, it was at the surface. Tears, fear and sadness showed up in every path infront of me. I lost things I valued more than myself. I lost my friends. I lost my career that I worked so hard to obtain. I lost my fucking mind.
Everytime I sat alone in my room, flashbacks of my poorly made decisions with a few unmentionables brought me to tears. Because I was so desperate. I lied to myself thinking each person cared for me because our bodies connected like magnets. I thought that cuddling with a boy I liked meant he also felt the same, but this boy never took me seriously. How could he? When I didn’t take myself seriously. How could he see my worth when I didnt value myself either. I thought about all the times I accepted less because I felt like it was what I deserved. I remembered how many times I stayed quiet and allowed someone to do what they wanted with me for the fear of losing them. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was saddened by the pity I felt for myself. I cried and in my head I called myself the names I had heard from others until I made myself sick. So sick. Sick of my own shit, sick of my pity party.

I sat in my bathtub crying, talking to myself, to spirit, and asking myself for forgiveness. I called myself my love for the first time in between sobs, tears and gasps for air. And at that moment, I found the sweetest part of me. I found the wounded child. The one who finds the good in every situation, the one who craves to be loved, the one who has so much love to give.. I found her hurt, yes, but still loving. There was hope. I knew that she was who I needed. I hadn’t shown her love, I hadn’t shown her value. And so I started to show myself the love I always needed. And this my love, is your reminder. We have love to give, keep going, keep growing, keep glowing. TQM.

Con cariño,

Karina Padilla-Robles