puertorican – Proceed with Curiosity

What’s coming with me.

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains e*ting dis*rders, disordered eating, body image, rape, trauma, ancestral trauma, and topics of race and pandemic. Reader discretion is advised.

It’s been a long few months. I don’t even really know where to start. I’ve been thinking about writing this post for well over a month, and frankly, this is probably going to be all over the place.

We all know about the terror of this year and how incredibly exhausting and painful it has been. The mental fatigue, frustration, illness, stress, sadness, loss. For that reason, I’m not going to be speaking much on the pandemic and its impact on my year. Because despite it being a pandemic, I really do feel like this year was one that was full of learning, growth and personal reflection. I guess I’ll just start. I’m already stalling. Here goes.

I had surgery in October. It was Bariatric surgery. Some know this, many do not. I struggled with discussing this here. Many have mixed feelings about it, some see it as “an easy way out” while others can empathize. Frankly, I don’t have time for judgement on it either, way and I especially won’t make room for it here. I was going to get the sleeve, until my doctor found precancerous Barrett’s Esophagus. He explained that I was at a 70-80% chance of it turning to full blown cancer, and if i continued with the sleeve it would only decrease to 40%. So he insisted on doing the full on RNY. This was news I was not ready for and I certainly was not expecting. It was a long, painful, and frankly infuriating road. It has left me with some major realizations and some painful traumas. So many folks say it was the best thing they’ve ever done. I am still on the fence about it. I worry constantly about what having this surgery tells my brain about my ability to love my body as it was. After the surgery, I was so emotional. I cried every day for at least a week. It was not because I was in pain. It was mourning, real unbridled grief. This grief has come from a place I did not realize existed. This surgery has asked me to reflect on my relationship with me body. But more than that- this YEAR has asked this of me in big big ways.

Those who know me, know how important bodily autonomy and control is for me. Given my past, I don’t think it comes as surprise. I was on a liquid diet for eight days before surgery. When I went in for surgery, all I remember was being in the hospital bed, my stomach completely empty, and rolling into the operating room. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in post-op. The surgery was smooth, other than a lot of bleeding. I had the kindest nurses. I was up and walking around the same day, not by choice and it was incredibly hard. This was the first time I had ever been fully aware of my internal organs. I could feel how they had been re-arranged. How there were things attached and in my body that did not belong there. I felt terrified. I knew part of me was missing, literally. I was in the hospital for two days, and on the last day, the PA removed the drain. This was perhaps the most startling portion of all of it. It felt like someone was inside my abdomen stirring a pot of soup. I had limited visitation due to COVID. I had to learn to position my body a certain way in order to get out of bed without overdoing it and ripping my incisions.

For over a month, my body was in starvation. I was smelling things that weren’t there, and having mental breakdowns. After surgery, I found myself in a very deep depression, with moments of total disassociation and complete numbness. I am still adjusting and learning the things this new body loves and hates. So far, I cannot eat sweet potatoes or broccoli, but I can handle yogurt like a champ.

I am telling you all of this because it feels like there has been a veil lifted, and it was one I was not ready to lift. But I am not sure I ever would have been. This year has been a year of truth telling and discovering and of reclamation and coming home to myself. If there is anything this surgery has taught me, it is about just how far away from myself I have forced myself to go.

I spent my whole early life so heavily focused on my appearance. I may have mentioned when I was young, my body and skin was always subject to the gaze of those around me. Approval was sought through my appearance. I worked hard to make sure I always looked a certain way– that which would allow me to be the most visually pleasing for those around me. This forced me to denounce parts of myself that truly felt like me (examples of how I did this: doing my hair a certain way, always wearing makeup, staying on top of my weight etc). But I also never really looked at what I was doing to hide from society’s gaze- to protect myself.

After I was raped, years and years of trauma had come to a head. Things I hadn’t dealt with. Realizations about the people in my life who were supposed to have my best interest at heart. I stopped wanting to be noticed and recognized for my appearance. I stopped putting the effort in to feel good about myself because I didn’t think I deserved to feel good about myself. So I did what was always most comforting to me. I ate. And for three years I kept eating. I kept adding “protection” to my appearance. We live in a society where being fat is criticized. Until you actually are fat, you cannot ever understand what it is like to be looked at “funny” when you are simply trying to nourish yourself. Or what it feels like to be walking around a store and get the stink eye from someone who fits the “ideal”. Thoughts like “oh, she’s so much prettier than me–I bet she’s wondering why my partner would ever choose to be with me–and frankly I don’t know the answer” would pop into my head. I did not realize until after I had the surgery, that I had pretty strong disordered eating habits. I did not realize that my consumption of food was directly tied to my emotions. I would gorge my vessel full of food, because I was not allowing myself to the space to feel real pain. I didn’t think I deserved to feel light, and flowy and full of energy. So i stripped myself of it by hiding behind a body full of things it didn’t need. In so many ways, I see now that I used my overconsumption of food as a means of punishing myself for the things that have happened to me. Trauma impacts us all in such different ways. And I don’t think it was until I really began reclaiming my heritage that I started to feel like I didn’t need food to be the thing that kept me safe. There was nothing to be safe from.

In previous posts, I have discussed my heritage briefly. I have discussed that I have always known I am mixed race, but white assumed. I am made up of years, and generations of love, trauma, resilience, culture, richness, pain, loss. These things get passed down. Trauma, if unhealed, gets passed down. Cycles remain unbroken. This manifests in fears, phobias, and yes. Body types. It makes a difference. But the reason I am telling you this, is that I had to deeply reflect on what it means to be a woman of mixed race, white assumed, and fat. And the answer is that I don’t have many answers. It means feeling the need to choose sides. It means living in a world that accepts you as white, and dismisses you when you reveal the “something else”. It means living in a world that only allows fatness to exist in certain spaces. It means that the only acceptable space for a fat woman is if “it’s genetic”. And yes, it is. But It’s not always. The body positivity movement was created by WOC, and has been dominated by whyte non-men and even so it is only accepting of a certain level of “fatness”. Gaze. I have lived my life through the lens of wanting to be accepted in by someone else’s gaze.

This surgery, this reclamation of my heritage, these things would not have happened if the events of this year would not have happened. The pandemic forced me into silence, and curiosity. The surgery forced me in to facing my music, while my heritage allowed me true escape for when it all became too much. My heritage is what has allowed me to learn to love this body again-and yet I feel the need to apologize to my ancestors for “resorting to surgery” because of the struggles they were forced to face. This relationship is complex and I have been trying to reframe this surgery as something that has allowed me to reclaim freedom in a body that wouldn’t exist without the love of my ancestors. I try to reframe to this surgery not just being for me, but for all of them. And yet, it was still a wealthy, whyte man who had his surgery stick inside my abdomen while I was asleep. There is still so much healing to do, and I doubt this will be my only post on the complexities of learning to love a body that has so deeply craved love for so long.

I know that my body deserves good, healthy life flowing through it just as much as the next person. I know that my body is worthy of not needing to justify its existence. I know that my body, simply because it exists, is enough for the stars to sing when they lay their light upon it. My skin is a history book that will never be taught in schools. My DNA is history repeated. There is dominance in the color of my skin, and stories in the features of my face. There is violence AND healing in the soft rolls around my back. There is boundlessness in the freedom my hair claims for itself when it won’t lie flat. There is joy in the wrinkles starting to form around my eyes. It is okay to use good quality skin products on the skin that serves me every day, tirelessly. I do not have to prove that I deserve that to anyone. There is restless in my toes, and when my thighs jiggle, they are having an engaging conversation– who am I to interrupt them? The scars from the surgery are simply reminders of what my body can do to heal. My hazel eyes are story tellers lying in wait. My hands, dry and cracked from the winter cold, are a direct expression of creativity. And it is okay for me to use them to love me up. I do not need to hide. I never needed to hide. I never needed to make myself more palatable. And in reclamation of myself, my heritage and my body, I am ending palatable practice.

This year was hard. It forced so many of us to come home. Whether to a physical location, or within the vessel you inhabit, you were likely not given a choice. And when we don’t have a choice, we become scared, angry, sad. We feel. We have no choice but to look in the mirror every damn day and try to make peace with what we have done to ourselves, or what the word has done to us. It’s exhausting. It’s unfair. It’s anything but beautiful, and yet there is nothing more beautiful. This year was a year full of grace. This year gifted me time. This year allowed me to birth myself once more. This year was a year full.

So as it has comes to a close, these are the things I am bringing with me into 2021:
1. Whenever you think you have fully put a button on the shit from the past, you can almost certainly guarantee that button with pop right off. This is not something to be fearful of. You have dealt with this before. You will be able to do it again, and having to do it a second time gives you an advantage.
2. I do not have to choose sides to feel I fit in. I have never fit in, and I am comfortable there. I am allowed to make space for myself in communities that are my birthright. I do not have to prove anything, to anyone, ever.
3. Colonization is the root of every single pain point in the history of this country.
4. Rest is critical if you plan on doing anything that means something to you. Sleep the extra hour. It’s not going to kill anyone.
5.No one has 100% access to you. Nor do they deserve it.
6. Anger is just a lesson in understanding when your boundaries have been crossed. Don’t ignore it.
7. Advocating for yourself might make you look angry. Do it anyway.
8. There is no judge who determines if your story is worth telling. So tell it.
9. Science is the answer.
10. Question everything authority tells you, think critically, and if you don’t know-ask.
11. Do not simply offer your time, education and knowledge to people without compensation, and a return. It is okay to be paid for utilizing the things you work hard to do and obtain.
12. Respect is an uphill walk. Disrespect is downhill sprint.
13. Hold yourself AND your community accountable.
14. You don’t NEED anyone. But community sure is nice.
15. You are not defined by anything. Not even by how you spend your time. You get to decide who you are. And you get to decide when and how that changes.
16. Transition not always lonely. But even if it is, it is only temporary.
17. Collective experience is both a unifier and a divider.
18. When someone shows you who they are– believe them.
19. Your feelings show up in your body first, so check in. The mind hears everything the body says.
20. The only way out is through. You may find that entering a cave is not always going to lead to a big scary monster, but to a small hurt animal. Be prepared to nurture, and keep going. Better to make this discovery than to be lost in the woods.
21. Support networks don’t have to be in person. And they are not always people. But human touch is something I will never take for granted again.
22. The work waits for you everyday. Pace yourself. Take breaks. Decide what “the work is for you”. And really do it.
23. Bodily autonomy and control is not the equivalent of safety. You can have all of those things and still be a danger to your own damn self. There is no formula for emotional and mental safety.
24. No one has the right to decide how you get to exist in this world.
25. The weight of the public gaze is not your responsibility.
26. Becoming a cycle breaker is not only about going to therapy. It is about reclamation, deconstructing and rebuilding. And it is going to hurt.
27. Minor inconveniences can save someone else’s life. Some people don’t care. You cannot control this.
28. Never hang up without saying you love them.
29. Sometimes there is not a solution. We have to live with that. SOmetimes the solution is going to be unpredictable, scary and hard. We have to live with that.
30. You are not the equivalent of what you produce or contribute. Your worth is so much more than that.
31. Loss is not always the predecessor to grief. Grief can show up in all that you do.

32. Nourish your body. But also your soul, and your mind.

Bonus: Wash your damn hands.

Happy New Year, Ya’ll.

xoxo Gigi

What my skin has taught me.

TRIGGER WARNING: Body image, rape, abuse, ancestral trauma. Reader discretion is advised.

“My body is my vessel. An archive of experiences. A weapon that has fought battles that only I understand.”
Sophie Lewis

I’ve been thinking a lot about skin. The journey that mine has been on and the relationship I have with it. How I have treated it. What my skin means to me. I don’t think I have ever paid that much thought to my skin–it was always something that was there, functioning as it was meant to.

I have never had a skin care routine. I would try different things because it was the thing to do, and then I would get bored and stop caring. I would hide my skin behind layers of makeup. I rarely used moisturizer. I never saw skin care as something I was worthy of. When other women would invest in their skin care, I would just get out an old cloth and use whatever soap was there. It never occurred to me that I deserved to have anything more.

When I was younger, I would receive comments about how my skin “looks like porcelain”. That it would look like it is “glowing” and all sorts of other white centered praise. I was given compliments only on qualitues passed down to me by colonizers. Any compliments given to me about features passed to me by my Taíno, African or Middle Eastern ancestors came in the form of microaggressions. Microaggressions were not things i learned about. When I was a kid, my skin was a golden brown. It was so beautiful and as I grew older, I became lighter and lighter and somewhere along the line this changed. My skin would react to the sun and I would burn instantly. It would be a burn so bad that it would leave scar tissue. It was a violent reaction to the gifts the sun was trying to offer me.

The first time I ever really noticed my skin was when my grandfather told me the moles by lips were sexy. I must have been about 10 or 11. I remember not knowing how to respond. I remember becoming self-conscious about my moles. Instances that followed this were my grandfather pointing out blemishes. My skin was always a topic of discussion with him. My sister, who is gorgeous with darker skin and perfect hair, would always get a reaction from him like so: “Here comes Miss America!”. I never felt that my skin made me beautiful.

Cut forward and I begin to take notice of how light my skin is compared to my family members and I become more self-conscious. This outer shell becomes an additional source of discomfort, and now I feel like I do not belong or that I do not have a place. I am reminded frequently of how much of a shock my skin color was when I was born. This places me further out, and I continue still to find shame in my skin cells. I grew up in a neighborhood of mostly Irish Italians. I grew up when the ideal beauty was thin, with straight silky hair. I did not see girls like me represented in the media with curly hair, my cheekbones, my nose, my eye color, my large hips, my 5 foot frame, my muscular legs.

I recognize now that my early experiences with other people’s commentary on MY vessel really impacted me. When people would comment on my skin, I would actually take offense. Whether it was a pleasant comment or not, I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want this type of attention. I wanted to hide. But skin is not something you can control, and so I was stuck being confronted by some stranger about my skin–someone who felt they had a right to take some form of opinion and voice it about the layer of flesh that holds my vessel together. There was no escape. So I would rebel. I would opt out of taking care of it beyond soap and water. I would let it dry itself out. I would refuse to take the day’s makeup off. I always felt like my body was subject to the opinions of those around me. My grandparents commenting on my weight or how they hate my curly hair. Someone always had something to say, like they were entitled to it. I find myself now, wondering how often my ancestors experienced the harsh grip of entitled abusers.

I recall the first time I was allowed to become strong and feel respected based on the fact that I am a human. I was 23. I had just gotten a personal trainer. James. He was a fifty something year old, Black man. Aside from my own father and maybe one professor from college, he was the first man who never expected anything out of me. He knew I could do more, and he helped me realize it. But he did not push me, he asked me to be honest with what I could do. He never commented on how I looked. He only ever asked me how I was feeling. He told me right away, that our journey together would not be one about appearance. It would be about becoming mentally strong and focusing on how I was feeling. I trusted him. He knew it and he never took that for granted.

Looking back on all of this, my relationship with James was so healing. I wasn’t trying to change my body in our work together. I was changing how I felt about my body. I was becoming stronger. I was able to respect the time and the patience that come with devotion to this vessel.

I say all of this because I made a connection not that long ago. I was talking to a friend and I realized that after I was raped I wanted to hide from unsafe people. So I stopped caring for my body, my skin. I gained weight. I hid in very large clothing. My skin wasn’t enough to protect me. I had to hide that too, so I wore makeup. I grew furious with my body for betraying me and abandoning me when I needed it most. I disconnected.

When I left my abusive relationship, I read somewhere that skin cells replace themselves fully all around the body every seven years. I found comfort in waiting for skin that would never have been touched by my abuser. Then I was raped. I felt a disconnect from my skin in a very visceral way. I wanted so badly to remove my skin and let it become something I could hang dry like laundry and wear again when I was ready. My skin became this entirely separate entity for me. I could not associate with it because it became too painful. It held too many devastating stories. It held no scars for me to be proud of. It felt dirty. It felt shameful. My showers would entail 25-30 minutes of intensive scrubbing. So much so that I would rub my skin raw to try to erase the stories it had to tell. And I just could not escape.

In all of this, this hatred for my skin and resentment towards my body, I had never stopped to listen to it. To really hear how it works. What it was trying to say, and how my ancestors have communicated to me through it. In fact, I think there was a time where I actively tried to avoid hearing its message. I blamed my skin for so long. I blamed it for making feel like i was lacking– like i was not enough– “not Puerto Rican enough” or “not Italian enough” or not this or that enough. I blamed my body and my round frame for not allowing me to fit in and wear clothing that was never designed with me in mind. I blamed my skin for making me feel like I didn’t belong among family, or the people I share lineage with. I blamed my skin for something it was not responsible for. I blamed my skin for allowing pain in. But skin is a gentle barrier and it is porous and toxins will be allowed in from time to time.

The first time I listened to my skin, I can remember the love I felt. I was overwhelmed to the point of tears. That it replaces itself to ensure I am always refreshed. That regardless of how I feel about it, it will never stop loving me. The love my skin and my body have for me is unconditional. I can’t help but feel like I wasted so much time wishing it was different, all the while it always just wanted to make me feel like I am enough. This unconditional love is where my ancestors speak to me.

When I really listen to it, I hear it ask for my patience. I hear it tell me how rewarding patience is. I hear it tell me that my hips are big because my body was designed for resilience. This resilience is not loud. It makes itself apparent in my womb as it has within all the women who have come before me. My skin holds stories of violence, and death and rape and sorrow. My skin holds stories of pain. It holds stories of hurt and helplessness. But it holds stories of love too. It holds gentleness, tenderness. It holds stories of hope. I am here now because my ancestors prayed for me. My ancestors prayed that I would be the one to heal this pain. They show up for me everyday in the way my skin does.

My skin heals slowly, showing the fruits of patience each time. When I nurture my skin, and my body I am nourishing and healing for my ancestors who were never allowed to nurture their skin; they were criticized for their skin; they were not fortunate enough to have restorative time. They were made to feel non-human. The sun left visible kisses on their skin and they were punished for it. When I rest, I am resting for my ancestors who were never allowed to rest. My body has blood from the oppressor and the oppressed. Its very existence means it is at war with itself. I have to work extra hard to find peace in that every day. Every individual cell in my body works hard every day so that I can continue to work at healing the pain of the wounds I have inherited and encountered along the way. My skin did not originate with me. It was passed down to me by the people who prayed for me to exist. This makes it so much easier to love.

When I wear soft, clean clothes I am providing tenderness that they needed and never received. When I cleanse my body with water, I am washing away pain. When I nourish myself, I am giving nourishment to the vessel that carries me. I can cherish the shape of my eyes knowing that my soul speaks through them. When I rest, I tell the women who came before me that the struggles they encountered were not in vain.

My skin means more to me now, than ever before. I have been unkind to it. This was a learned behavior. I work everyday to unlearn it to honor the people who have come before me. This skin and this body do not exist for the commentary of others. It is strong. It is healing. My skin has taught me so much–

It is not similar to the vessels of the many folks I encounter each day. It does not have to be.

It does not have to be perfect for me to love it. Each time the sun kisses it, wounds heal.

My skin greets each day with softness. It allows everything it meets in, and pushes what does not serve it right back out. It teaches me to learn everything and use what serves my healing best.

The skin on the bottoms of me feet is rough and calloused. It is deliberate and prepared for the steps which propel it forward. It teaches me to be fearless on the gravel path of lessons ahead. It is ready.

The skin on my legs is thin, and weathered and yet it is unwavering. It holds scars that tell stories. It teaches me to carry the stories of my past, and to move forward with intention.

The skin of my stomach is always warm and soft. It stretches as it needs to, teaching me flexibility. There is nothing rigid about this skin.

The skin on my chest hold lines and marks from where it has been confined. It remind me each day of how liberating it is to be let free of constraints. It graces cloth and the reward of freedom is sweet.

The skin on my shoulders is scarred from a sunburn. This scar will likely last a year before my skin fully heals. This teaches me patience and an admiration for what i cannot control.

The skin of my neck is covered in tags. I used to hate them but they are companions for one another. Teaching me that nothing in this life that makes itself known does it alone.

The skin of my hands is my favorite skin. They teach me every day to pay attention to detail. each cell so well defined and embracing whatever sweet relief they can find.

The skin on my face clings to a bone structure passed down to me by my ancestors. It teaches me the importance of knowing where I have come from. My skin is the gift and the language of my ancestors.

I leave you with this today:

I would only encourage you to consider the things that your skin is saying to you. What healing do you need to provide for your skin? What do you know about yourself because of your skin? What is your relationship with your skin?

Be soft with yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Be tender with yourself. Be well.

Gigi