Orange: Healing

Hello!

Welcome to another blogpost by me!
#SorryNotSorry it's a month late!

[Life sucks a little bit right now :)]

Anyway.

February:

• The month started off really well! I have this tradition that I've kept since my first Youth Group Super Bowl party in 6th grade, where I spend Superbowl Sunday with people that I really love. I got together with my friends Dianne & Jessica to watch the Superbowl and to dance to a little J'Lo and Shakira 
• I filed taxes ASAP.
• On February 8th we had an extra Emmaus meeting to prepare some elements of the weekend. It was a very nice intimate time with a few people on our Weekend #31 team. It was a little disappointing to see Community participation wavering, though. 
• Valentine's Day 2020 was a great day. I started off the day finding out that I was accepted into Southern CT State University's Master of Social Work program! My first acceptance to a graduate school was extremely uplifting and affirmed my abilities to be an excellent scholar. I'm excited, this month, to see a clearer and clearer path for my academic future. 
• It was also a great day because I traveled up to spend a weekend in Burlington! I'm always very thankful to visit some of the best friends I've ever had, and I'm really glad to have gotten the opportunity to catch up with a lot of my Burly friends, like Joyce, RiRi, Michael, Tyra, Katie, Will, Macarena, Nick, DJ, Mikasi, and my professor Anne, and then I traveled down to Boston to visit Alexa and to Worcester to visit Room Mate Nick :) I love them all and I'm so glad I got to spend precious time with them.
• I also got a new laptop because I needed one and because of my college acceptance! My Microsoft Surface Laptop has been a great tool and I'm very grateful I was able to provide that for myself. 
• The week of the 17th was a very condensed week because of President's Day- we only had school Wednesday-Friday. Despite the shortened week, myself and the other Student Council advisors worked a total of 39 hours! In 3 days! On Wednesday we hosted a fundraiser at McDonald's where we got 10% of the proceedings just by working in certain positions! 
• On Friday we had our Winter Dance: Invierno con Fuego (Winter with Fire). It was a very uphill journey to be able to provide consistent, high-quality events to the students (shoutout UPB), but the advisors and I made it work with our MAGIC! :)
• On the 22nd, I had an excellent conversation with the Dean of Andover-Newton Seminary at Yale who wished to provide support in my application and acceptance process. I'm really glad I was able to feel a home at Yale even before I've received the decision they have for me
• At the end of the month, my car got some well-deserved repair and my mom and I went to the Chowder festival in Mystic- which was great since I hadn't been since high school! I had a great trip up to Trader Joe's in RI with my sis Elizabeth and got to do my 2nd Weekend Walkthrough for Emmaus (a time in which we make sure the schedule is all set for The Weekend). I... was excited for what March brings for the community and for my life in general. 
• At some point during the month, I was also aiding my students in applying for Trade schools in the area, because many feel as if they are not properly challenged by their current academic program. I'm thankful for the opportunity to aid my students in any way that I can, but am also cognizant of the repercussions of doing so at the expense of the school I work for. I'm hopeful that these next few months will provide me with ample opportunities to aid my students and to expand their perspectives- no matter the consequences.

March was a kick in the head:

• The whole month of March was rough for the whole world, let alone me. 
• The month started off pretty same-old, same-old: work, Emmaus, Therapy, Student Council stuff
• The second week of March, we cancelled school on Wednesday because of the pandemic... and then Thursday... and then until April 1st... and now until.... May 17th...? And it's not like I was super nice to my kids on the last day that I saw them and it's just so wild that my service year went this way... everything is so up in the air and weird and a little scary. All I really want to do is see my students again and give them big hugs, but I think that will have to wait until they come back in the fall and I visit them.... if that even happens...
• On Friday, the 13th, 8 of us decided to take a day trip to Puerto Rico because the round trip cost was $72 dollars. Of course, this was super high risk behavior and unlike anything I've ever done or ever will do. We made the decision at 4pm, convinced our friends and bought the tickets at 5pm, and loaded into my car on a trip to Newark at 9pm and started the day in San Juan at 6am and ended back up in the airport for a 2am flight back to Newark.
  It was a beautiful day filled with laughter, good drinks, hot sunshine, the beach, lots of walking and sight-seeing, and good, quality time among us. It was super crazy that we did it, but I'm really happy that we did. Thank you for a trip that I will never forget, Dianne, Cherice, Roddy, Rebekah, Jazmine, Mercy, and Jessica <3 ain't nobody fresher than my mothaf'in clique.
• I found out that I got into UConn's School of Social Work and Yale Divinity School around this time as well. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to start the education that will further excel me into becoming more and more the person I want to be. The schools offer an amazing, incomparable educational experience through their Joint Degree program. I'm so very excited. 
• Emmaus Weekend #31 got postponed until the Fall because of the pandemic... which means my weekend isn't until next spring. We spent so much time preparing and praying and getting ready for the weekend, but obviously this was all out of anyone's control. I'm excited to see how our community forges onward from this setback. 
• We started Distance Learning at my school which has been... challenging. I'll most likely talk more about it in my blog post (which will totally happen on time!) at the end of this month... maybe

Onto the purpose of this post: Healing!

Orange:Healing 

Orange is the color in the Pride flag that is dedicated to the concept of Healing. 

Before I really get into the topic of healing, I want to talk a little bit about why this post has been late and why it's so difficult for me to write.

I always find that the blog posts that are the most difficult for me to write, are also the most worth it to think about... this is definitely one of those posts. 

I think that one of the things that I had to get over, in order to write this post, is the fact that healing is a continual process... it's a process that takes a whole lot of time, energy, patience, and unlearning, and it's a process that never truly ends; especially if we want to continue to grow, adapt, change, and flourish. 

It's not fair of ourselves to expect the process of healing to happen overnight, or to happen in one year, or to happen within any sort of time-constraint. There will be setbacks; there will be times in which we have to learn to forgive ourselves for our shortcomings, even when the people in our lives can't seem to do the same.

Healing also means acknowledging spaces and environments that are detrimental and damaging to the process and recognizing these toxic spaces, or people, sooner and sooner, as you learn the traits and signals to avoid.

Healing means to sometimes dismiss the voice in our heads that tells us that we have to constantly be productive. It means to allow yourself to sit in your depression for a little while, and maybe use that opportunity to figure out the triggers.

I was allowing myself to sit in the depression a little bit these past few months. For me, the end of winter is usually a tough time emotionally. My therapist told me to think of a past event as to why this may be, and I really couldn't think of anything too big that's happened around this time of the year. I think it just might be a little bit of that seasonal affect. Either way, I was allowing myself to sit in these feelings a little bit to think a little more on what could be going on. And this was okay... until quarantine happened.

Now there's little motivation for me to stay out of bed all day; I just need to be present for my video calls and that's about it. There's little motivation for me to eat regular meals; plus losing weight is good for me anyways, isn't it? There's little motivation for me to shower regularly; who am I trying to impress?

More and more, especially through this time, I've come to realize that I function well when I have external pressures to do so. I want to look presentable to society and feeling productive is good when I can see the outcome of my productivity in real time.

I've been working harder to establish a routine for myself so that I can feel efficient and productive and healthy. I feel as if I have a lot of internal motivation and pressure when it comes to helping others, or achieving academically, or for a lot of things that don't relate to actively taking care of myself- and that means taking care of my basic needs. I don't respect the body that I'm in, and it shows by how I treat it and myself during this time in which I'm lacking external pressure.

Through my journey with changing my lifestyle; including my diet and exercise habits; I need to learn to love the body that I'm in so that I treat it kinder in the first place. Maybe that's one of the pieces I'm missing in developing a healthier lifestyle in the first place? I'm not sure- all I know is that how I view my body and what it can do needs to change because there's no use in just spending my energy in hating it.

Last week I had my first virtual therapy session and talked about all these concepts with my therapist- to which she replies "And I'm like, why does he need me?" which, of course, we laughed at for a minute. In my processes of healing and unlearning, therapy has been a great way for me to analyze my triggers, to break down situations and look more closely at how my body and mind reacts to different, novel situations and experiences based on previous ones. For me, therapy is an unbiased magnifying lens on my insecurities and personal shortcomings. It lets me pick apart at myself so that I can begin to heal even the smallest fragments of my psyche. I always recommend it to people, but oftentimes, others give up because they're too scared to shop around for therapists, or they feel like they're admitting mental and emotional defeat by relying on other people. And, it doesn't always work for everyone.

It's hard to accept that you can't solve all of your problems by yourself. Trust me, I know.

Another thing that I talked about with my therapist was what I wanted to be the meatiest part of this post. I never thought I'd find a relevant time to talk about this show, but here it is. If you know me, then you know I'm in love with the show Steven Universe. I call it my second favorite show, behind Grey's Anatomy, of course!

The original running of the show lasted from May 21st 2013 to January 21st of last year, but it was followed up with a movie in September and a 20-episode epilogue series titled Steven Universe Future that lasted from December to March 27th (the 15th anniversary of the Grey's Anatomy premiere ;) )

If you're wondering what this show has to do with healing, don't worry about it! I'll get to it! Just know though, I will be revealing a ton of spoilers for the ending of the show below. If you do not want to have the show spoiled, please don't read on. Just pretend the post stopped at "Trust me, I know."?? But also you'll miss some juicy stuff?? So just watch the show I guess?? Or just read the spoilers idk. 

Also this will include a lot of explaining of the show, so please, please bear with me.

A brief synopsis of the original show, provided by Google states: "The Crystal Gems are a team of magical beings who are the self-appointed guardians of the universe. Half-human, half-Gem hero Steven is the 'little brother' of the group. The goofball is learning to save the world using the magical powers that come from his bellybutton and he goes on magical adventures with the rest of the Crystal Gems, even thought he's not as powerful-- or as smart-- as fellow group members Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. Despite his shortcomings, Steven usually finds a surprising way to save the day." Additionally, y'all need to know that Steven's mother, Pink Diamond, under the false identity, Rose Quartz, gave up her physical form to create the Gem half of Steven. (I know, it's a little confusing) The identity of Steven and his mom are the biggest mysteries of the original series, but for our purposes, you need to know that Steven has inherited Pink Diamond's Gem.

In the series, Gems are a race of aliens that are created to serve their matriarchy, the Great Diamond Authority, with a specific purpose. Quartz gems like Amethysts and Jaspers are warriors, Pearls are servants to high-raking officials, etc. Steven, being the only one of his kind- half-human, half-Gem, ends up showing this alien race the greatest power that humans have: the ability to change. Throughout the original show, we see many different characters unlearning the hierarchical patterns of their lives on their home planet and finding things and opening to experiences that they're actually passionate about. At the end of the original series, Steven even convinces the Diamonds that they too, are capable of changing, and adapting, for the better.

The movie highlighted this ability to change and the need to heal through a character, Spinel, left abandoned by Steven's mother. While there's a lot to unpack with the movie, in terms of healing, it isn't my primary focus here. (This post is already super long!)

A brief synopsis of the epilogue show, provided by Wikipedia states: "Steven Universe Future follows Steven's everyday life trying to help Gems find new purpose; it also depicts the disappointments he faces with his new life, including the realization that there are things he cannot fix, and his own feelings of aimlessness after successfully liberating the Gem empire. He confronts old foes who are looking for revenge, tries to master a new power that he doesn't fully understand, and is challenged to decide what he wants for his own future."

The beginning few episodes show what has been established in the two years between the end of the original series and the movie. Steven opens up a school to teach Gems about life on Earth, Gems attempt to work, a few villains try and revolt against the New Gem Order, and other events that are important, but not for this post's purpose also occur.

The last few episodes ended up being the most troubling and interesting to watch. Steven begins glowing pink at times of distress and angst, and it releases new, quite destructive, uncontrollable powers, like enhanced speed, to the point at which the world slows down around him, and cracking the ground around him effortlessly.

He discovers, through going to the doctor, that while his physical body may have healed (instantaneously) from all of the stress, breaks, and fractures that he has endured in battle, the new power that he possesses may be a Gem-level reaction to the emotional trauma and stress from battle, shouldering the responsibility of saving the Universe, separating his identity from his mother's, etc. that he has yet to process. The smaller emotional incidents that happen; like him receiving a proposal rejection from his OTP (they're meant to be together, but she points out that they're teenagers and have so much of their lives to be independent beings before they need to fully commit to one another), or him accidentally setting loose a sentient cactus that spews his deepest, personal thoughts cause flair-ups of this emotional reaction because the other emotions haven't been processed!

Like, when someone has lost many friendships before and invites conflict into their newer relationships because of a lack of processing, and, therefore, a lack of trust, self-love, and self-worth. (@ me in early college and in some ways, even now tbh)

Or, when someone has processed these lost friendships, but is afraid to open up to new people because the wounds are still fresh (@ me crying that one time @Joyce)

Or, when your favorite student, that you view like a little brother, refuses to talk to you and so you get super anxious because it reminds you of the time you lost your friendship to the person who was supposed to be your brother for life. (@ me now)

These emotions don't go away without work on yourself! They will find their way back to the surface at some point or another. You need to process them in order to move on. And there's a right way to process them as well.

Keeping with my analogy with Steven Universe, the last six episodes tell us a lot about ways to process trauma. Below is a synopsis of each of these episodes provided by Wikipedia or myself with a little bit of my personal feelings attached.

"Mr. Universe" follows Steven going with his dad, Greg "on a road trip in an attempt to help him figure out what he wants out of life. They end up at Greg's childhood home, where Seven learns that Greg rebelled against his restrictive parents. While Greg encourages Steven to find his own path, Steven envies Greg for having grown up with structure and supervision." At the end of the episode, Steven grows angry with his father for not providing structure and for letting him go off on dangerous missions as a child. While Greg tells Steven that he wanted him to have all the freedom he never had, Steven compares him to his mother, in that they both act selfishly in their decisions, not thinking at all about the consequences of their actions.

In my process of unlearning and healing, it's easy for me to blame my mom and my grandparents for a lot of my emotional trauma and some of my own mistakes. Questions I often asked them and myself include: "Why didn't you force me to do therapy after my father passed away? Why was that decision left up to a 13 year old?" and "Why didn't you tell me more about the financial burdens of college? Why weren't we more prepared for this?" and "Why didn't anyone ask me if my major was right for me after I came home with horrible grades?" and "Why is it that I had to raise myself in some ways?"

It's important to not only separate the decisions that were ours and that were our caregivers'-- taking responsibility and accountability for our own actions is a very important step in a process of healing-- but to also learn to forgive them for their shortcomings, to utilize those as learning opportunities in order to not make the same mistakes, and to decide what we want to do differently as we become more autonomous beings.

More important questions to ask ourselves are ones that Uncle Iroh asked Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender: "Is it your own destiny, or is it a destiny someone else has tried to force on you?... ...It's time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions: Who are you? and What do you want?"

Further thoughts on this are explored in The School of Life video: Should You Complain to Your Parents About Your Childhood? The School of Life is amazing collection of media that I mainly follow on YouTube that deals with modern philosophy. I highly recommend checking some of their videos, especially this one, out!

"Fragments" follows Steven with a worsening mental and emotional state. He ends up running away from the Crystal Gems to seek out guidance from the first main antagonist of the series, who, at this point, lives as a hermit in the woods because of her lack of purpose. She tells him that she controls herself by exerting her overwhelming amount of power through aggressive, anger-based training and promises to help him train, so long as they can battle when he is finished. He quickly becomes more and more powerful, and remains in his pink state throughout his training. In the ensuing battle, he grows power-hungry and admits that he had been holding back, and subsequently shatters Jasper- essentially making Steven a kind of murderer. Upon reforming her, she bows to Steven as her master, scaring him into realizing that he may be as destructive, reckless, and manipulative as his mother was.

This episode shows us that aggression is not the answer to our problems. For me, this manifests itself  most in my lifestyle changes. As I said earlier, I often allow myself to really hate my body and hate the person I've let myself become. It's important to treat ourselves with grace and love, because if we don't do that, how are we ever going to be able to allow ourselves to feel worthy of anything like love? or how are we going to be able to start loving other people? Truly loving one another?

In the words of RuPaul: "If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?"

"Homeworld Bound" sees Steven leave Earth to see if the Diamonds can help him with his problem, considering he too is a Diamond. At some point, he comes into contact with the head matriarch, White Diamond, whose new ability allows her to let other Gems control her body. (Her old power was controlling other Gems.) At the end of the last series, White Diamond had attempted to remove Steven's Gem to reveal the real/old Pink Diamond, his mother. (Of course, it's revealed that Pink Diamond is now, actually Steven, permanently.) When Steven sees himself as White Diamond, it freaks him out to see himself as a Diamond, more officially. He is triggered by this, both because he doesn't want to be anything like his mother OR White Diamond and because of his past trauma with White Diamond. While controlling her body, he exclaims that all his problems are her fault and attempts to shatter her as well. The episode ends with him going back to Earth.

This reminds me a little bit of finding those external things and clinging on to them for motivation like I discussed near the beginning of this post. At the end of the day, we do need people in our lives to help us, but motivation to change and to heal needs to be intrinsic.

"Everything's Fine" finds Steven insisting that Everything is Fine. He attempts to be helpful around his hometown, but "his denial of his problems and lack of control over his powers causes havoc." It ends with him being confronted at home. He recalls a few of his mistakes in the previous few episodes as he begins to further unravel:

"You're making a big deal out of nothing. Have I done some thing wrong? Sure! I trashed the house today. I broke an anvil. What teenager hasn't? Dad and I had a little disagreement. That's practically a rite of passage!

I mean, it would be weird if we didn't, right? And maybe, I've had a not-so-nice thought or two about like, you know, slamming White Diamond's head through a pillar, but it's not like I actually went through with it! I only actually shattered Jasper!"

When everyone expresses major concern over what he had just said, the episode ends with him saying:

"Oh, don't worry! I fixed that too! I can fix anything. I can just keep messing up and fixing things forever, and you'll never have to know or think about any of it!

...How messed up is that? That I've gotten away with this for so long. You have no idea how bad I am. You think I'm so great, and I'm so mature, and I always know what to do, but that's not true! I haven't learned a thing from my problems! They've all just made me worse!

You think of me as some angel, BUT, I'M NOT THAT KID ANYMORE!
I'm a fraud.
I'm a fraud!
I'M A MONSTER!"

Okay, there's quite a bit to unpack here.
1. Ignoring our problems and hoping they'll go away is not going to work. (Easier said than done)

2. While it's natural to have disagreements with our friends and family, it's important that these conversations be productive and not filled with blame or drudging up problems from the past that we cannot change. (Easier said than done)

3. Our main goals as friends to one another should be to help each other become better and better people. We shouldn't hold people to the unrealistic expectation that they are going to continue to be the same person they have always been. Change is good and healthy and necessary for us to grow and evolve and become better people. When we think of others as static, we could be holding them back from their potential, or make them feel stunted and shackled by our expectations.

4. Oftentimes, when we continuously hurt ourselves and the people we love, we tend to let doubt, fear, and shame take over our minds. We think of ourselves as monsters: irredeemable and beyond repair.

"I Am My Monster" sees Steven become the form he sees himself as; a giant monster threatening to destroy his hometown. His trauma has completely washed over him and his friends have to do what they can to save the city and to save him.

Throughout the episode, multiple people, Gems and human alike, blame themselves for the problems that they've caused Steven. His best friend/OTP Connie explains "Yes, you hurt him, but this isn't the time to make this all about you! That is not helping! Maybe Steven would care how sad you are because he always puts everyone else's feelings first! But he can't do that for you right now, because he needs us this time! We all had Steven when we needed him, but the only person who's never had Steven is Steven! He's always been there for us, so, how can we be there for him NOW?!"

They then come together to show their support to Steven by telling him that they understand how he feels, that they will support him, and they hug him. Connie states "Steven... you must have been so afraid to show us this side of yourself. But we're not going anywhere. We're all gonna take care of you the same way you take care of us."

Steven transforms back to normal and the episode ends with all of his closest friends and family around him as he finally breaks down, lets out all his emotions, and sobs.

This episode showed me that we need support from our friends and family to heal. 
We need to be loved unconditionally. 
We need to be fundamentally understood. 
We can learn to not think of ourselves as monsters.

"The Future" shows Steven preparing to leave his hometown months after his meltdown. The Crystal Gems don't react super emotionally and it is revealed that they did this so that their emotions didn't dissuade him from leaving. He finally moves on, knowing they will always remain a part of his life.

The conclusion of the series was nostalgic, beautiful, simple, and provided great closure. It showed me that, although it's hard to say goodbye to our loved ones, we just have to trust that they'll remain a part of our lives and that the best thing that we can do sometimes, in order to heal, is to leave.

Groton will always be my hometown, and Burlington & Bridgeport both helped me find pieces of Home, but I need to find the rest of that Home within myself and within my future journeys. I have learned when it's time to say goodbye to people and places that I love, and I'm excited for my last years in CT in grad school.

Thanks for Reading
Hopefully the next wait won't be as long! :)