Perspicacious Penner

Love is very difficult for us to define. We often will not invest our energy in love that isn’t reciprocal, and if we do it’s because we’re trying to fill a void. Sometimes we avoid love, either because we do not trust that it is real and without negative consequences, or because we feel we do not deserve it. Sometimes, when we love someone, we hurt them because we want them to love us so bad in return that we push them beyond their limits.  Sometimes we hurt others because, in saying we don’t deserve love, we deny others the opportunity to express their very real love for us. They, in turn, feel left in the dark. Sometimes we set ourselves to extremely high standards. We think that if we meet those standards, it automatically means we deserve a love from a specific person or group of people. Other times, we feel we are unable to meet those standards and are therefore unworthy of love. The truth is, in order to truly understand what it means to love others, we must learn to love ou...

"Head in the clouds." "She's in her own world." "Air-headed." "Absent-minded." "In La-La Land." These are things I grew up hearing from every member of my immediate family—save my father who wasn't around. I was a dreamy little girl with an imagination far more interesting than real life, as many children often have, but I tended to live in the extensive mental void, even at times considered most inappropriate I think, because my family consistently made fun of me.  I am dreamy by nature, often lost in deep fantasies--sometimes as a way to escape or incorporate my deepest emotions--and I need a lot of time to myself in order to safely access this side of me or I fear being criticized for being so spacey when I s hould be present with the people in front of me.  I can't help it. To this day, I'm unsure if my consistent daydreaming and disconnect from my physical environment/body is a result of dissociation from PTSD, my ...

  I don't hate Christmas, really, I just hate the visceral jealousy that I suppress at stockings hung innocently in the homes of my friends. It's not that I hate Christmas, It's just the impulse I get to seclude myself on a mountain at the sight of city decor lighting up streets, homes, and stores. It's not Christmas' fault that I get the urge to cope with sweet oat nog and cookies so I can at least taste nostalgia, alone in my car, before regretting my sugar intake. I promise it's not Christmas it's just the constant chill down my spine whether from the cold or from bodily flashbacks that come with seeking physical closeness with others. It can't be Christmas that has me reliving all the times my mother threw my unwrapped gifts at me a couple days too early as she screamed slurs and insults in my direction. I love Christmas, I do, I just hate the fear of being left that my mother instilled by running away, having me believe it was forever, and wondering...

"Maybe the reason I want to live in a van is so I can feel in control of what is foreign from my stable little home pod,"      I thought to myself earlier today.       It's a rainy day, which means I couldn't do the van work I needed to do for today, so what else to do than sit and psychoanalyze myself in hopes of combating my depression?      So that's what I did all day, and of course that meant diving into my childhood trauma, wounds, etc. Somewhere along my metacognitive, inner child rabbit hole I came across this thought I've been holding onto for a couple years now: The word "Mom" feels foreign in my throat.       When I tell stories about her, and when people ask about her or my family in general, I'm struck with this self-pity that I use that word less frequently than the average person who has a living mother. The word "Mom" has therefore begun to feel more like a tonsil stone than a word when it comes out. ...

  Aliens? Mexicans? The aliens are Mexican? What aliens? What is happening? My 5-year-old mind spun as my mother rolled down her window to yell profanities at the people holding signs on the corner of Rancho California and Ynez roads in Temecula, CA. "We're not f*cking aliens! Leave us the f*ck alone!" This is what my now 25-year-old mind can recover from my memory. My very much light-brown hair curtained over my prevalent whiter-than-sour-cream skin, freckles, and curious green eyeballs as I peeked out the window at the angry people crowding around the duck pond.  And that was how I found out I was, to any degree, Mexican. But first I thought we were being invaded by extraterrestrial creatures and was terrified at the prospect of being one of them. I was 5 after all. What I recall myself envisioning. The imagination of a 5-year-old is quite colorful. This is a part of my identity that I have suppressed most of my life primarily out of confusion. Much of it was because of...

You don't have any eyebrows. Your music is weird. *sneers and turns the volume all the way down* You don't know anything. Your reality doesn't exist. You f*cking idiot. You're never going to amount to anything. You were the product of rape anyway. Moti, moti, moti! ("chubby girl" in Hindi) You're too white to dance. Your teeth make you look like a hamster. Oh, stop being so dramatic. *As I'm breaking into hives as an allergic reaction to an ant bite* Give me some of your dirty clothes so I can always remember your smell. You did a better job finding him than he did you. Your music is like rape to my ears. *unplugs my phone from the car* I don't give a f*ck about Brittney! It's not like I'm going to get anything any other way! *While fighting my hands to get to my breasts* You're not funny or clever enough to do that. You're okay, but you look perfect with makeup on. Get off your fat *ss and help me get ready for work! You're too...

 "Turn the lights off, be absolutely quiet and, whatever you do, don't look outside," my mother said as she herded my brother and I to our room. At 3 years old, I could sense the urgency in her tone and, perhaps that being a driving force in my curiosity, I looked anyway. Just outside my bedroom window, between the blinds, was a man donned in plaid, rifle in hand, scanning my apartment building. I found out, as an adult, that the man I saw was one of a few involved in a hostage operation involving the next door neighbors. In Riverside, CA, especially in the 90s, much of the neighborhoods were riddled with crime. I remember a time when my mother was working in a Day's Inn when a group of men stormed in with the intent of armed robbery and held her at gun point, in execution-style, while they claimed what they came in for. She quit immediately after it was all said and done. At 4, my mother and I were walking around what was formerly known as Tyler Mall with her friend ...