Time can change anything.

10-15 years ago, if you’d asked me where I’d be on my 29th birthday, I probably would have replied in one of two ways. I would either look cast down and my eyes would water. I would have changed the subject. The other option was to respond in a false joking tone and say, “Oh, I won’t be around. I’m going to be dead before I’m that age. Promise.”

It would be easy to assume that it was just that I didn’t want to get anywhere near 30 years old, to grow older. That wasn’t the case. There was nothing more inviting than an age where I could seek my own stability. In reality, I actually did believe I’d be dead before I ever reached 29. I remember writing in my journals that I felt like no matter what happened, I’d still die before that. It was this conscious decision I had made in order to push forward long enough to, I guess, “pay my dues”.

Frida Kahlo once said “I tried to drown my sorrows but the bastards learned how to swim.” and in many ways, I did the same. I was reckless with myself and would risk a lot because I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t think time mattered because I had decided that mine would be limited here anyway.

As life goes on, though, many things change our paths and lead us to where we’re really meant to be. Some people do make terrible decisions, some do finish themselves off before they’ve even had the chance to love, laugh, and live, and some just die tragically young. Then there are others, like me, who no matter what we tried to accomplish a task we had set so determinedly, somehow get bumped through the murky waters of life, only to end up on the other side with a lot of doubts, guilt, worries, but a new gratitude for what they’ve got.

I’m not saying that I don’t have my bad days, where I start to fade off into that dark hole again. Instead I am saying that when I head into the dark hole, I try to remember to bring a flashlight. There are some experiences that can work like that. They become a beacon of hope for people who are exhausted from the fight that they put up just to try and stay alive long enough for the next experience, taking it one day at a time.

It’s my 29th birthday. I’m not dead and I’m not expecting to be or looking towards it. Instead, I’m looking right in front of me and seeing what’s really there.

  A chance to make life fun, interesting, and sure, even a little complicated, but worth it. Life is worth it. 

 Mazel tov!

The Imposition of Language in MMO’S.

 

 

We’ve all been there. Hanging out, doing a raid or dungeon, and being forced to listen to that one guy who can’t stop saying “I raped that shit.” or some equivalent. I’ve been the girl who gets peeved by that terminology. I’ve been the girl watching another girl ragequit because that guy won’t stop using it. I’ve also been the girl who raises an eyebrow a little when another girl feeds into that mentality for the sake of internet popularity points. Even with all of these situations, I don’t think I ever stopped to seriously think about them or my position within them.  Until recently, that is.

A few days ago, I was listening to a rather serious discussion on how communication has become very stunted due to political correctness. I was nodding my head and agreeing with a lot of valid points about desensitized people and overly sensitive people, with very little middle ground being brought forth by either party. After a while, my mind began to wander back, kind of like an instant replay of my own behaviour and behaviours I’ve witnessed in other people while playing games, and how they could have been more pleasant experiences were it not for the types of comments being made and the reactions that followed them.

Do I think the term rape should ever be used loosely for the sake of describing an enjoyable asskicking of an opponent? No, not really. To be fair, a genuine rape victim was never and never will be an opponent. We’re not people to be conquered. So do I think another term would be suitable in a video game? Yes. I do. But do I have the right to dictate how another person expresses themselves? No. I hate to say that because it sounds like I’m conceding to the many blank faces on the internet that it’s okay to make light of the topic. That’s not the case at all though. I’m conceding that I can’t impede on their personal expressive freedom, such as I would hope that they would not impede upon mine. Let’s face it. If I tell them not to use that term, then aren’t they within their equal right to tell me to not openly discuss abuse and how to prevent it? Bingo.

If we want equality, we have to treat people as equals. Even if they express themselves in ways we wouldn’t like them to. That’s the nitty gritty. It’s reality. It’s idealistic, but it’s the reality of what equality suggests.

I did stop playing World of Warcraft because of that mentality, amongst many other reasons. It became less entertaining to play when guys were either hitting on the girls in the group (and to be fair, when the girls who wanted free crap baited them on) and when I kept hearing “I’m going to fucking rape you.” while dueling. Or worse yet, in general chat, when someone would get ragingly angry at another player for “ninjaing” their stuff. Sure, it’s usually a bunch of 12 year olds who don’t really realize the implications of what they’re saying, and a lot of the time by really idiotic individuals who can’t figure out how to express their frustration without relying on probably one of the most played out sayings on the internet. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s within their prerogative to use that language.

Does it mean I’ll be going back, creating my Pandaren character, and skipping my way down to whatever allegiance I choose? No, hahaha, no. I mean I loved the experiences gained on WoW. I even met my husband through there. But the recent changes make it a little unappealing to me. Plus, I played for a long time. I’ve done all the quests of the old expansions over and over again. Basically, I’ve moved on to different things. Still, I game. Just elsewhere.

It might be beneficial to take a step back and look at the restrictions we put on eachother, as well as the very uncomfortable boundary crossing we do, on the internet. As a matter of courtesy to one another. Ladies who get hyper offended by that term, if a guy says it once out of the blue moon in a casual way, don’t get ragingly peeved and make him feel like a horrible human being. Guys who overuse the term, consider toning it down a little. If anything, for the simple sake of maintaining the harmony in your groups and guilds.

 

 On a much lighter note, I ask you this. Should stealing stuff in a raid or dungeon really be called being a ninja? That’d be better suited for asskicking in stealth, amiright? Wouldn’t “being a pirate?” be more suited for when people steal things? Just a thought. 😀

                                                                                                                                                                                  

Down the rabbit hole we go!

There are some amazing games out there right now and some really interesting ones that will be popping out of their creative nests soon. I’m particularly eager to try a new one called Contrast since it features so many things I love.

First off, the animation is a key factor in my decision to play any game. I pick games based on their ability to transport me to another place and time. If something is pitched as steampunk, for example, but just looks like a cheesy replica of WoW but without any of the same perks, I tend to walk away pretty quickly. This game has none of that ripped-off quality that some game designers trying to make it big try to “subtley” put into their games as an effort to appeal to a specific group. Instead, it rears it’s very unique head and says “What’s up? I’m gorgeous. Come play with me.” and for once, I’ll be taking someone up on their offer to do just that.

Secondly the gaming style is important. I actually haven’t watched any gameplay and have chosen to wait to play it myself. Sometimes when I watch other people play a game, even a demo, I lose enthusiasm for it. Probably because everyone has a different playing style and makes different choices while playing a game. So since this game is so appealing to me, I’m not going to have someone elses gaming style turn me off of playing it.

Finally, music does factor in. If the game is set in a certain period, and the music chosen doesn’t suit that period (it doesn’t have to be OF that period. I mean look at The Great Gatsby film. Awesome music designed to travel through time and still suit the films needs.), then the game becomes a bit tedious for me. It’s probably due to my OCD but I do like things to suit eachother.

This game seems to hit most of my criteria right on the head, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see before I can say I love it. I can say, though, that I really really wanna try it!

Music is my coffee. I’m addicted to the beat.

To start off this post, I have to share something with you all.

It’s a really awesome fact that I will listen to almost anything as long as it’s not misogynistic or hate-ridden. I may not like everything I hear, but I give it a shot, and usually most stuff sticks. I like indie music. I like some pop music. I love love love industrial and various other subculture music. I fell hard into affection with The Cure, The Pixies, Annie Lennox, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and David Bowie at a very young age. Shoot, I even have really crazy dreams about encountering musicians I admire. In one of them, I was hanging out with the Golden Girls when David Bowie walks up to us with a goat wearing a shimmering rainbow coloured scarf and heart shaped sunglasses. We hung out. David sang for us, and Sophia told us awesome made up stories about Sicily.  If you think that’s a weird dream, I won’t even mention the really fun one I had about Daniel Day Lewis. Some things are just better left to the imagination.

Point is: I am a music fetishist. Okay, maybe fetishist gives the wrong idea but I do love music. When I was a kid I had a ton of ideas of what I wanted to do when I grew up. I considered bar tending, so I could gain worldly knowledge and understanding of other human beings (as well as great stories for my future novels). I thought about being a poet. The thing that stuck out most, though, was how music made me feel. In the midst of a lot of craziness, hearing great lyrics and a strong arrangement could push me forward. When it came time to pick a major in college, there was no hesitation. I was going to be a music promoter and agent. I had it all figured out. I was going to ignore the cliche bands that the generic masses listened to and I was going to push the amazing underground bands I came across. I’d heal the worlds music wound.

 I was so full of shit. That’s okay though. We all are at some point in our lives.

I think it’s kind of obvious that I didn’t become a music promoter and agent. I wanted to do it so badly that I entered into it naively. I didn’t realize how sexist the industry was just yet. I didn’t realize that even with a ton of women in the industry, it was still an old boys club. Nor that my own music business professor would be inclined to treat the girls in his class as jokes. Pity, too. He was rather cute since he was still rather young. It incredibly diminishes a mans sexiness to treat a woman like she’s incompetent. Such a turn off.  After spending a year chasing that dream and giving it my all, I realized it wasn’t right for me. I wanted it, but I didn’t want that agony of pushing myself and working my ass off only to get pushed over by a guy who thought he’d found a new secretary.

I should have fought for it.

Realistically, I’m happy that that venture didn’t pan out. I probably would have been happy enough with that career and lifestyle but I wouldn’t have met the people that followed that lifestyle change if I hadn’t walked away. That’s not to say that I think I was right to have given it up. I gave it up for all the wrong reasons.  I gave up because I thought that I would get tired of the fight. It’s probably true that I would have but I’d have been doing it for a good reason. I would have been helpful in changing the way the music industry perceives women, particularly those who work behind the scenes.

Lately, I find myself going “What the HELL is this crap?!” at a lot of music out there. I say worse stuff about certain music videos and the way some female singers are treated (and treat themselves) while in the public eye. During those moments I sometimes stop and feel like such a hypocrite. Who am I to get annoyed at what’s being put out there when I had a chance to change that and make it into something better? Then I think “Would it really have been better if I’d tried?”. I guess we will never know. But I did let myself down because I took the easy way out. I opted for something I knew I was good at and that wouldn’t be such a struggle. I love art and history. I’m psyched about it any time I encounter a new gallery or museum, or an artist with a unique eye. I just can’t help but see it as something that comes easily to me because I didn’t have to discover it. My love of those things have been with me for as long as I can remember. Just as my love for literature.

My love of music was a discovery though. Like a first love affair with someone who could bring you up when you were in your darkest pit. I let that lover go for all the wrong reasons and just as many people ask themselves about their first loves, I ask myself about my first passion. People mistake love with passion. On a lot of levels the two look and feel the same but where love is soft, subtle, and nurturing; passion is chaotic, scrambling, sometimes dirty, and often times explosive. My discovery of music was chaotic and explosive. Particularly when I found the music that connected with me and how I felt.

So while I may not be a music promoter and agent, I can definitely say I love to share music and I’m going to.

I figure the best way to do that is here. I’m including several genres of music and in various languages. Everything from anime songs to dark and broody songs.

Enjoy the sound wealth!

(Billie Holiday’s music is eternal. No doubt about it. You just can’t argue with the reminiscent value it has. If you can argue it, you’re wrong. Simple as that.)

(I like how tribal some of the arrangement in this song is. Using unique instruments and making it sound fluid and modern is such a great method in music.)

(This song breaks my heart. It’s about a gay man whose father rejects him, and due to it being the 80’s and unawareness, he dies of aids, suffering and alone.)

(Nana was one of the first serious style shoujo animes I ever watched and a lot of the music was kind of transcendental for me.)

(This remix would get me going in the morning when I had no choice but to drag myself through the muggy hot mornings in Miami.)

(I really love what they did with Michael Jackson’s Dirty Diana. It feels like a perfect fit.)

(This stuff just makes me happy. It was used in the Novela “El Clon” which was (primarily) about forbidden love but had a very fascinating core story about what happens when human beings mess with the natural course of humanity. It touched on topics like human cloning and how it affects everyone involved, being and feeling lost, addiction, family, and destructive behaviour.)

(To be honest, K-on! is a lovable guilty pleasure of mine. I like to hop between happy and serious animes. The spectrum for anime is so vast that the music is really fascinating in how it captures the spirit of each anime. Especially when it’s done well.)

 

There is so much more that I could and would share in this post but it’s already so many videos that I’ll have to save more for later.  Happy to share though!

More than flesh and blood.

   I have been gone far too long. I realize that. Mainly, I realized it because of the effect it’s had on me. I go through bouts where I lose myself, lately. Then something amazing brings me back and I’m left in awe of the little things (and some big things) that can bring us back to life when we’ve begun to wither and lose our capability to move forward.

A few months ago, the ever awesome Wil Wheaton made a post on his blog that jarred me back to reality. At the time I was out to dinner with my husband and during a brief lull in our conversation, we checked up on the internet (to make sure it was behaving, obviously). I was stunned by the raw honesty in Wil’s post about his kids. The post can easily be found here. 

As I read it, my thoughts immediately jumped to my dad. My awesomely funny, abrasive, supportive dad. I immediately wanted to run home and write this post, but life and it’s many detours kept me away that night. As more days passed, I faced other obstacles which led to my feeling like, “why should I even post anything, really? I’m new at this. I’m not famous or anything. What on earth can anyone gain from anything I have to say? What right do I have to a soap box.” and I just sank. I stopped in mid-cycle and didn’t move forward for a while. So please forgive the tardiness but allow me to respond to Wil’s post with a post of my own.

Most people who see my parents walking down the street with me tend to assume that my dad is my birth father. They’re always shocked to find out he isn’t. My Aunt Pichy even found that he and I have identical “beauty marks” on the same exact spot of our right forearms. The truth is, though, my birth father is not my father. He never has been and never will be. I was fatherless until I was 5 years old. My mom struggled like crazy to provide me with shelter, safety, love, and food. My mom’s great. Flawed, like any human being, but so great. I honestly never thought I needed a dad. I had a ton of awesome aunts and grandparents, and this totally screwed up but sweet human being for a mother.

Then she met Luis, or Saso as everyone we know calls him. I can’t lie. To me, he was moms boyfriend so I can’t remember much about the time before he became “dad”. But I do remember a few things. This guy DID stuff. COOL stuff. He took me fishing, gave me piggy back rides, made donuts at home, and tucked me in. This guy came to school with my mom to enroll me. He walked me to the bus stop. And when my uber dumb cousin would pick on me, he’d say enough was enough. At the time, he was a total rockstar.

I still didn’t call him dad though. I think I didn’t know how to. I don’t even remember calling my birth father dad. What, between the constant belittling of my mother in front of me and the brilliant disregard he had for me as a little kid, it was amazing I even recognized the guy as a parent.

I don’t know what triggered it. I just remember the moment it happened. It was a slightly foggy day in Massachusetts and ‘Saso’ had walked me to the bus stop. I was wearing a yellow shirt and these blue jean overalls with flowers embroidered on the corner. As we waited for the bus to come and pick me up, he held my hand. Steady, firm, warm. He reminded me about my homework. He told me what he made for lunch for me that day. We got quiet. It was really early and the fog made for a pretty gloomy morning but as he held my hand, and as I looked at his hand holding my own, something stirred inside me and I very carefully, quietly, and with a shaky voice and tears in my eyes, I asked him: “Can I call you daddy?” and he looked at me at first with such worry, some sadness, and very kindly and quietly he squeezed my hand, and as his own eyes teared up he said “Yeah, you can call me that.”.

My dad is no saint. No one person really ever is. We all let someone down along the way. But he’s always been supportive and even when he was furious with me over something, I never once stopped being his kid.

Sadly, from the time I was 12 until I was around 23 or 24, I honestly felt like I had lost my place in my dads world. You see, I was sexually abused as a little girl by my cousins boyfriend (and later he became her husband). For years. When I finally spoke up about it, a lot of things were turned upside down and inside out in our lives. Suddenly, for whatever reason, I felt such a huge distance between my dad and I. I felt like I could do nothing right, except academia, and my anger, frustration, and depression was really screwing that up, too. I was desolate and desperate, angry, and hungry. I was so hungry for anyone to blame for so very many things that I think I pushed people away. Especially, because I felt like I could not speak up about how I felt. My family is awesome but for a long time we were a family full of silence. We didn’t discuss our pain or dialogue our needs, and it corroded us from the inside. My mom stopped doing creative projects. My dad started reaching outside of his family instead of within it. I wallowed and blamed. Everyone, including myself. I ripped my inner thighs to shreds with cuts. I burned myself with matches just to remember I existed.

After an explosive situation with my mom and dad, I realized that I was so exhausted from the sheer silence, that I spoke to my mom first. I explained that I needed to talk. I needed her to talk, too. I needed him to talk as well. Most of all, I needed them to remember I was there. She and I came to a serious understanding that night and now, even if she does get very excited or sometimes a little defensive, when I voice things, she does listen and she does reciprocate.

Dad took a little longer. I think, because of the fact that I’m not his blood-borne, I worried about disappointing him more so than I worried about disappointing my mom. After all, if the blood father could reject and throw me away, couldn’t he? Eventually, I overcame that worry. While Mom was over in Puerto Rico helping my grandmother out with my great grandmother, I took the chance to talk to Dad. We spoke of our regrets and our worries about how we’d handled our lives as a family. I stood in the doorway as he folded his uniforms for work, and I said, for the first time in my life since the abuse, “I thought you stopped hugging me because you thought I was dirty. I felt ashamed. I thought you didn’t think of me the same way anymore.” and he crumpled up his chefs shirt and held it close. He started to cry a little and said, “I never thought that. I was upset. No one told me anything specific, no one told me what was going on. I couldn’t do anything. I felt helpless.”.

After finally understanding some of my dads distance, I felt such a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. Better yet, lifted off of my chest. I had been drowning for so long that this conversation reminded me of just how true my father was. It reminded me that I may not be his own flesh and blood but I am so much damned more than that. I am of his soul.

So when reading Wil’s post, my instinct was to want to hug him. To tell him that even if his kids aren’t all flesh and blood of his, that they are of his soul. And that Anne is one hell of a mom for taking them out of a hurtful situation.

Wil, if you ever do read this, they are so much more than blood. They are of your soul.

Just as I am of mine.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

When Not Knowing Who You ARE Defeats The Person You COULD Be.

   

When massive changes come into our lives, there are so many possible things that can occur within us. We can transform from caterpillars into gorgeous butterflies… or we can shrink like ugly brown leaves in Autumn. Let’s face it, even the bravest of people can become shell-shocked when encountering something new that’s far outside of what they could have ever imagined.  I am not particularly brave but I’m not cowardly either. I’m in the healthy middle where if poop hits the fan, I can roll with it and come out standing. Whether I’m as I was before is a completely different matter. Due to the fact that I am a (confessedly) tad emotional at times, things can often hit me very hard and even if I do tend to take things as a lesson and grow from them, that doesn’t mean they can’t leave scars in the meantime.

I am, to be completely and most unabashedly honest, utterly lost. I was once a very go go go individual, always with a project, always independent. That changed when I moved to Canada (or Canadia as I like to call it). I’ve always wanted to travel and live abroad but in my imagination it was going to be some place amazing with a ton of rich history dating back CENTURIES upon centuries. As a History nerd, that concept thrilled me in a way that chocolate, girl toys, and watching anything Bradley Cooper does never will. And Bradley Cooper thrills me. Oh he does. My husbands not even jealous about it, which is awesome because it’s not like I’m ever going to get to meet Mr. Icy Blues. Point being, I had plans.

REALITY: PLANS CHANGE.

That can kind of suck. In ways one wouldn’t believe. Where I was once on a path to being a History Professor with a background in marine archaeology and ancient art, I’m now a housewife. Don’t get me wrong. I love taking care of my guy and he is great at taking care of me (especially during tear-filled breakdowns about how I miss my crazy family so damned much it hurts)  but often times my mind wanders right back to the shoulda beens and coulda beens. I am not one of those people who picks up a hobby to fill a void. Yes, I enjoy knitting scarves and making jewelry. I love watching anime and am kinda enjoying this blogging thing a lot. At the end of the day though, it’s not what fulfills me and pretending it does is a very unhealthy way to push into the coming years. The question is: Is having a “secure” future with a job of my dreams, most likely without my awesome husband in tow, worth it?

Kind of obvious answer here: Hell no.

I know a lot of self-assured women out there probably just guffawed at that but the fact is, I DID grow up with instability. My parents tried their best. I don’t resent how I was raised one bit. The reason my husbands worth sticking around for is simple. A life filled with everything except that one cure for the hollow aching in ones stomach to know that they will have someone at their bedside if they get ill, or to understand the really dumb jokes we make, that person who can hold you when you sob at 3am in the morning over something you can’t control but wish with all of your might that you could, makes no sense. We die alone. Everyone says that. I get that. Funny thing though. We aren’t BORN alone. We’re not. Which means that whichever route you prefer to take is up to you. Live alone, thrive on money and whatever makes you tingle inside as long as it harms no one else. Or live with someone who drives you nuts sometimes but makes you laugh and smile a hell of a lot more than they make you angry. I prefer the latter.

That doesn’t mean that I’m comfortable giving up independence and the career I love. It means I have to tweak my career options to still fit what I love to do within the realm of what I can do. That’s hard as hell in a very small town that has no desire to pursue these matters. Art and History get shelved in the far back of the priority bin here. I can hope that changes or we can figure out what our lives will have to be like for both of us to be comfortable in the future. Personally, I need my family. Hell, I need a LATIN FOOD restaurant that isn’t Taco Time (which is almost 2 hours away by the way!). As a Hispanic American who has to deal with so many levels of ignorance here that I cringe whenever someone equates Puerto Rico to Mexico (I have an awesome friend from there who has many similarities to me, but we are completely different culturally speaking, and that’s just fine) or whenever someone tries to lecture me on the struggles of minorities when they themselves are not a minority, I get fidgety and fantasize buying a plane ticket back to the States.

Here are a few of my gripes:

1.  Many people I meet feel the need to lecture me about the United States. I have to listen to everything about how our education system “is” (and they are often times WRONG) to conspiracy theories about how the Boston bombing was a hoax set up by the government (which let me tell you, the governments of MOST countries have so much on their plates right now that bombing a race is probably their least priority and I find it shocking that anyone would make such an uneducated suggestion followed by “So I don’t care if those people died because like, there are people like, dying in Venezuelan hospitals, like right?!”. I grew up in Massachusetts you dillhole. I don’t want to hear that crap, nor do I have any desire to feed into the anti-anybody mentality.

2. Getting blasted about Native culture by anyone who isn’t Native. Hi. I can read. I’m well aware of the current situation. I won’t voice my personal beliefs on the matter but I will say this. I will not tolerate anyone insinuate that I’m a racist against ANY Native culture. Why? Because Puerto Ricans are TAINO’S. I.E. A Native tribe currently encountering similar circumstances and ailments, just handled very differently. Different methods, same results. So I don’t judge.

See? Not actually that many gripes. There are some things I like about where I am and some I dislike. Kind of the same as anyone else in the world right now. What matters is how we approach the situations we are handed. What matters is how we make the best of everything around us and try to be the better person when someone strives to upset us. Also, sometimes people don’t even mean to upset us. They might be having a bad day and that in itself is okay. It’s not okay to treat your friends or loved ones badly because you’re not sure how to handle whatever you’re going through. That’s when you stop, clear your head for a moment, and ask for help.

Currently, I’m in shadow-mode. I look at my own shadow and don’t even know who it belongs to anymore. So what? I’ll get to where I’m meant to be eventually. For now I make the best of it.

But for the love of all that is good, stop trying to convert me. I’m an American Puerto Rican Israeli with a bunch of other ethnicities tossed in there.

Like my dad says: “I don’t need to do anything except stay Puerto Rican and die.”

Now, to end this on a happy note:

See? Thrills. Just Thrills.

The Act of Being Radiant

First and foremost, I must apologize for my absence this week.

This week has been full of tons of complications and surprises. I volunteer with the Arts Market in the town I live in, and at the same time that we were preparing for a big weekend, I had to fill out some very serious government paperwork that asked for more information than I ever thought I needed, so it has been a struggle to remain patient and graceful, but I do think it worked out and things are fine for now. Hopefully they remain so!

As for todays post, I really wanted to touch on the subject of being radiant.

Personally, I feel that people who shine the brightest are happy people who are healthy, inside and out. Positive mentality, kind, helpful, firm, and decisive. Those are the kind of people who appeal to me most. It’s rare to find anyone that perfect though, isn’t it? What if we, as human beings, strive to improve upon the world by making ourselves into these kind of people? What if, instead of hoping to meet someone like that, we became it and in that way become a catalyst for others to want to be that way too?

The primary aspect of the radiance I talk about is kindness. A lot of people assume being kind means you get walked all over. It doesn’t have to be that way though. You can always be a kind person who is capable of telling someone no if they are abusing your kindness. That doesn’t make you a bad person. In fact it is much worse to make a promise you can’t keep, just to appear kind. I do my best to look around me and see what I can improve upon. Whether it’s within myself or in the town I live in, the schools I go to, the places I work at, I consider what I can do as an individual to make the place feel lighter, happier, livable. So many places now feel like they are merely a place to exist within but they aren’t livable. It’s become a sterilized machine where humans are only cogs and bits to help the machine work, but aren’t considered necessary or particularly worth caring for. That’s a terrible way to live. Human beings have become entitled. That’s certainly true. It may not be true of everyone but it’s become true of the majority. The problem is that a lot of communities have taken on the mentality that in order to stomp out that entitlement behaviour there must be no real sense of community in the first place. That won’t work. It only makes people want more for themselves without giving anything in return. Should we give everything away and let the emotional wolves tear everything apart? No way! We do have to bring back the genuine nature of the word “community”, though.

 We do need to reteach the values, the kindness, the worthiness of a healthy community. As it is now, society will not survive much longer. I’m not saying human beings will destroy one another and the world will become desolate and lifeless. What I’m saying is that society, the core that deems certain things like murder, theft, hate crimes, etc., to be unacceptable will dissolve into a pool of disgruntled human beings who no longer know how to connect, resolve problems, or protect one another. It may not become a free for all of damages, but it will become a broken home. This planet, is in essence, a house. It houses many different people and cultures, gardens, and animals. When we disrespect our home and treat it badly, the people within it start to get resentful and won’t want to respect it either. It escalates.

I can’t fix the whole house alone but I can know that my actions do affect others.  I can make someones day great with a very simple act of kindness that requires next to no effort or I can make someones day miserable with a complicated act of bitterness that requires way too much energy to be worth it. Also, bear in mind that, when a person makes the effort to make someone else miserable, they are also amplifying their own misery. If you’re having a horrible day, don’t drag other people into it by making other people feel bad. Instead, improve upon your day by doing a kind thing, receiving a grateful smile and thank you, and see how you feel. Don’t give up just because the first person or second person you do a kind thing for (like holding the door for them, or offering them tea) forgets their smile and thank you. It doesn’t mean they hate or dislike you. It simply means that they have gotten caught up in the bitterness of the day and will need more kindness from various sources. That is not your responsibility. You’ve done your part, and will continue to do so for the rest of your day, so let others be kind too. If you take it upon yourself to fix everyones day, you will never have time to recharge. Some people are also way too far gone into their unhappiness for you to fix it in one day, and that has to be okay with you.  I prefer bright pops of kindness, random acts of sweetness, to pouring too much honey on an already sticky situation. I prefer being honest too. If I see a woman with a lovely coat or dress, I tell her it’s lovely. If a cute kid is being super awesome, I compliment the childs parent on their really cool kid. Can you imagine how many parents out there, go home and have to listen to a relative criticize their parenting methods? A lot of them get that, when in fact they are pretty good parents doing the best they can. Not all parents are good, but for the ones that have good kids and are obviously doing a good job, it should be acknowledged. It boosts their self esteem, puts a spring in their step, especially when they are already so exhausted from chasing around kids all day. That’s an act of kindness that can alter someones path in a positive way, without sacrificing too much of yourself. Self preservation is just as important as kindness but they need to be balanced. You have to know your limits and every day is a learning experience.

I have had experiences where a simple act of kindness would have made a world of a difference. A simple hug when a loved one died and I was in shock would have made life a lot easier. I once had a coworker who had lost her husband to cancer. Now,  she had some moments where she was very unkind and did try to sabotage me at work (we’ve all had coworkers like that at one point or will encounter one. It happens.) but for some reason she was looking at pictures on her phone of him at the hospital when he was dying. I’m guessing she was really missing him and couldn’t wait to get home. That’s pretty natural. She ended up having to rush out of the room in tears. My instinct wasn’t to revel in her pain. In any case, I sympathized because I’ve lost really close relatives in very sad and painful ways before. That ache doesn’t leave you. It gets milder and softer. Bearable. You can function and you can even enjoy life but you don’t stop missing or remembering them. So I told my boss I was going after her, and he being the awesome boss he is, covered for me. I went out onto the patio where she was and I let her talk. It didn’t cost me a dime. It didn’t take away any of my frustration with her previous behaviour either. That wasn’t the point of that moment. That moment was about making sure a woman who was desperate and scared wouldn’t jump the 3 stories down from that patio. It was to remind her that she still existed and needed to live fully, and that she deserved happiness and kindness too. We hugged and went back to work. When you encounter those situations, don’t assume someone else will take care of it. A lot of times, no one does. The people suffering should not have to feel more alone than they already do. You can’t bring back their loved ones, you can’t fix their burnt down homes, or rescue them even, but you can be kind and once they’ve vented you can make them smile or laugh.

Be the kind of person who can hug someone who is suffering, so that you can also be the kind of person who can receive hugs when you are suffering. It’s harder to accept kindness from anyone, if you’ve never been on the giving end. It becomes easy to assume someone has ulterior motives. The more you suspect others of shady behaviour, the more they suspect you of the same. Surprise them by being an honest and caring person and allow them to develop affection for you. A community is based on help, kindness, understanding, honesty, and even conflict, so long as it’s resolved. Don’t use your arms as walls, use them as a lifesaver.

Be radiant. The stars burn out eventually but human kindness radiates a light that is immeasurable. It can guide the fearful out of darkness and provide warmth to the sorrowful. You are at your most beautiful when you are kind.

~Nina Cazes

Stress Relief: How to unwind, care for yourself, and learning to say no.

I am by definition, an unhealthy overachiever. What I mean by this is that I have almost always had a hard time saying no to anyone. I delve a bit more into this in my first post  http://livinglikeaudrey.com/2013/04/14/10/ but I didn’t really get into how I’ve started to pull away from those habits. While most of it happened while I was unawares, I do try to force myself to take time and heal myself, emotionally and mentally, when things are getting too tough beyond my homes doors. Even if it’s my own home environment overwhelming me (neighbors, leaky faucets, etc) I seek out new ways to feel better or old comforts. I’ve stopped overeating when I’m emotional, instead I look for other alternatives. I realized I was overeating, when back in Miami, FL, I was having a nightmarish day full of angry students, constantly demanding professors, and a very cramped bus ride home prompted me to stop at the local Publix and buy 2 little trays of sushi, gyoza, a bottle of plum wine, a bag of some “healthy” chips, and before I knew it I had 5 very full bags worth of stuff. While some of it was for my parents, most of it really was for me. Later as I lay it out in my room to devour as I watched anime or a Korean drama, I came to the harsh reality that I was eating to satisfy a void, a dislike of my current situation. Then I thought back to how often I’d done that in the course of that year. How many pizzas? How many subs? How often did I order Chinese? Needless to say that just made me feel worse and as ashamed as I am to admit it, I devoured everything that was there in front of me. What came after taught me a harsh lesson though. Your body can’t contain the amount of food it takes to fill up various emotional voids. Why? Think of an emotional void as a black hole in space. There is very little way to know what is beyond that black hole or how deep it goes. (In theory, back down astronerdies). Point being, if I didn’t know the root cause of my emotional void, getting it fixed was not going to happen with a large pizza covered in artichokes and bacon. A peanut butter burger wasn’t going to resolve it either. I realized I was not listening to myself. I was avoiding confronting my needs because I felt unqualified to take care of myself emotionally. Yet, if I don’t, who will? That can’t fall on anyone elses shoulders and it can’t be stuffed down with food. Food, drugs, alcohol, they seem like they’re working but they’re just helping us avoid the real problem. Many would say looking in the mirror is hard. Bullshit, just open your eyes. It’s easy enough. It’s the looking into your core and daring to ask “what do you need?” that’s hard.

I needed to resolve myself with my reality and my identity. I needed to confront the people who cast roles on me and told me who I was, what I needed to be, and how to do it; and let them know that I wasn’t some toy or play for them to mess about with. This was incredibly hard. I was lucky enough that my mom was open enough to listen when I express my personal needs. If I said “I don’t want to be a ballerina.” she listened. If I said “I can’t eat like this anymore. I want to try soy milk, and healthier stuff.” she went out of her way to help. My godmother is a totally different story. In fact, I don’t think she even listened when I told her I wanted her to stop telling me that I need to be her size. Let’s face it, with my frame, once I genuinely get healthy and make a better structured lifestyle, I may be at best 145lbs. Why? Because that’s really how my body is built. Every doctor I’ve been to has said so. Her expectation that I will ever be her 80lb frame, is way off and really cruel. There were tons of other occasions where telling people how I felt and what I needed either worked or didn’t. That’s okay because I did my part and was true to myself. The end result isn’t something I can afford to fret over, because it’s out of my control, but I can at least be honest with myself and my needs.

This brings me to the healthier alternatives I’ve encountered for when those moments of honesty have nothing to do with people but with myself. Sometimes I deny myself a lot. I figure there are more important things that need to be done and I contemplate putting them ahead of everything else that I want to do. Sometimes this results in them getting done and other times it just results in my stressing out and being overwhelmed without accomplishing anything. The latter is usually a sign that I’ve overexerted myself and haven’t relaxed in a long while.

When that happens I start reaching for my go to hobbies. Some are hard to accomplish in the small town I live in, but in a perfect world these are my favorite things to do. It should be noted that a lot of times, bloggers write from a personal perspective and don’t include what may seem obvious to everyone else. In this case, I’d say to consider this list more of a general suggestion list, and you should totally build on it to suit your needs. Just remember to keep it fun, keep it simple, and do the healthy thing for yourself.

1.Anime

My atypical solution, for those times when leaving the house may prove problematic (like at 1am and insomnia is kicking my tush) anime and k-dramas relieve a lot of my stress. In fact, when my mothers brother died, it was a huge shock that left me really numb and wracked with all sorts of anger and thoughts. It was not a peaceful death and that can haunt a person. Many questions are left behind and it’s almost soul crushing.

   

  I was lucky enough to find the anime Noein at that exact moment when I needed it most. Without giving away any spoilers, I will say what I took away from it. I marathoned the anime. I spent an entire 3 days in my bedroom eating cottage cheese and strawberry preserves (I have interesting snack tastes and I make no apologies.), only leaving to take care of human needs, and I watched the anime straight through. When it was over, it was roughly 7 or 8am, and my mom was sitting in the living room by the window staring out into space. I sat next to her and said, “Mom, if it’s true that there are alternate universes out there, I’m okay with my uncle dying in this one. Because it means that just maybe in another universe he didn’t make the same mistakes. Maybe in another universe he’s with my aunt and his son, and they are healthy and happy. If there’s even a small possibility of that, then I’m okay with this if it has to be true.”.  A lot of people view anime as something really shallow and stupid, but some animes have the ability to heal a person, teach life lessons, and make us think on a much broader scale.

2. Skype/Friends

When I need something more than anime, like a human voice, feedback, and interaction, I turn to Skype where I get to harass my awesome friends of almost 10 years.

These people are absolutely amazing. They’re scattered all over the place and while we don’t always log on at the same time, usually someones there to talk with. I know that many people fear the internet friendship thing. It’s natural to be concerned about developing friendships online. Some people ARE genuinely creepy and some are even downright evil. That doesn’t mean everyone should be written off though. It just means tread carefully. These people have been in my life for many many years and they know pretty much everything there is to know about me, down to the marrow of my bone, so to speak. It took a while to get there for all of us though. It’s not like we logged on, and immediately handed over our addresses, phone numbers, and our list of deadly allergies. In fact for many of us it took well over a year or two before we even acknowledged our last names. When we finally were comfortable enough to trade greeting cards, letters, and sometimes gifts, we were already deep into our friendships. In fact, I can say I can trust these people with my life, because it’s actually come into question before. I have an ex who wasn’t a very nice one. It ended badly and at the time my life was already a bit difficult. I ended up trying to kill myself. If it weren’t for my friend Chris (whom I affectionately call Psyduck) and for an awesome chickie named Ni, I wouldn’t be here. I’d either be dead or stuck in some psych ward. Let’s make something clear though, the killing myself thing was not over a guy. It was over a plethora of problems I wasn’t tackling properly. Plenty of people have had dumb exes and don’t try to kill themselves.  I was a broken person at the time and that just gave me a shallow reason to look for a way out. Needless to say, sometimes having a group of friends who can help you through anything, isn’t such a bad thing to seek out. Normally, I’m very much a loner. I actually have agoraphobia, in some of the worst of ways. I still needed friends. I still do, always will. Most people do, even if they are terrible at admitting it.

3. Video Games

        Lately, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing on Tera and playing Plants vs. Zombies!  I’m enjoying Tera a lot because due to it’s free to play status, the friends I mentioned before, can also play. My husband Chris (not Psyduck) and I both bought the game before it went free to play so we have access to all character tabs. The combat style is so much fun. Dodging is a big deal and unlike most other games, you can’t just WALK through someone you’re fighting. You have to use realistic skills when it comes to corporeal movements. There are still magical abilities like blinking from one spot to another and shooting creatures with spells, but the aspect of bodies is very firm when you’re in a fight. I enjoy that.

Plants VS Zombies is my go to one-person fun game. It’s a strategy game but it doesn’t feel complicated or as though it’s hard work. I do love challenges, and this one has several, but they are well paced. It’s a lighthearted way for me to just tune out and just relax. In fact it’s so simple and the picture really should explain it well, that going into it any further would be silly of me. You have plants, you kill zombies. It feels good!

4. Practice a new language

I do find it incredibly interesting when someone speaks a different language than I do. I become enamored with the way things are said, so one of my favorite things to do for myself is learning a new language. To date, I’ve learned bits and pieces of various languages like Japanese and Korean. In high school I studied French and enjoyed every second of it.

A lot of the time when I hear a friend mentioning that they want to learn a new language, it’s been an evolution of sorts. First they enjoyed video games from that culture, or anime, or a drama. Other times it was because of an affection they had for someone of that culture. In any of these occasions it was obvious that the language was meant to be a bridge to connect one being to another, one entity to another. As someone who loves History and civilization studies, I’m always intrigued by anyone who wants to build these connections. As a stress reliever, it’s fantastic, because learning a language is a paced study. While you can always take a course or something, if you really want to learn a language you just need some books and an audio of what you’re studying. In other words it’s within your own control. Stress comes from things being outside of our control, and by diving into a language and learning it at your own pace, you’re taking back at least some of that control. We can’t control what happens outside of ourselves but we can control how we react to it. Throw yourself into something positive and life will take you somewhere great.

5. Take up a journal

I breathe easier when I’ve written my thoughts down on paper and a major contributor to stress is simply over-thinking. If you write it down, once you know it’s committed to something more permanent it becomes less burdening.

Whether you’re a guy, girl, guyish girl, or girly guy, there are journals for every type of personality and if you can’t find one that satisfies you, there’s also the option of making your own. Most people think of journals as a venting device, and yeah that’s great, but there’s so much more to a journal than that. It can hold your ideas, your funny anecdotes, and when you’re feeling down or lost, looking back on it can rev you right back up and make you want to try again. I used to do the venting, whiny journal thing. Hey, I was 14 and it was the end of the world as with most 14 year olds. It was over time that I started to add in more quirky and positive things to these journals and use them more as a symbol for hope and goals than despair and gloom. I am confident in my belief that that helped me overcome a lot of troubles as well as a lot of my immaturity.

6. Hiking

Are you thinking that hiking isn’t elegant or nerdy? I can see why anyone would jump to that conclusion but it couldn’t be any further from the truth. Firstly, there is nothing more elegant in a person than knowing how to be at peace with their surroundings, and there is nothing cooler than a nerd who understands nature and it’s influence on all of our lives.

Think of all the perks, too! Hiking means you get a fun workout. Instead of being stuck in a gloomy stinky gym, or one with tons of fluorescents that accentuate every drop of sweat, grime, and unappealing lumps of flesh, you get a fun outdoor adventure, sunshine, rain, whatever, and you see things you can’t see within four walls. Hiking also means that if you get out to a solitary area and you’re in a terrible mood, you can SCREAM YOUR HEART OUT and nature won’t treat you like a jerk for doing so. The final perk is the best one. Once you’ve given it you’re all, and are so tired that you can’t feel anything and you DO feel everything all at the same time, your mind clears, and is not thinking of all the things that stressed you out in the first place. In other words Stress – 0, You – 1000. You win the game.

7. Prepare some tea and spoil yourself for the day or night

We all have those days where any of the effort we would have made to cheer ourselves just seems like way too much. Those are the days when a nice big mug full of tea is the best solution. Like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory says: The societal norm when someone is upset is to provide them with a warm beverage. A warm beverage soothes them.

It’s true, too.

That’s why if you have the opportunity to take the day or evening and make it all about you, go for it. Stay in your pajamas, make some tea, grab some tea cookies, a few magazines, books, or movies, and just relax. Turn off your phone, don’t check emails, heck, if you can bear it, don’t check ANY social media at all. Keep it drama free, stress free, and let life happen.

8. Go comic book hunting, antiquing, or to a museum.

Sometimes a quiet outing where you find and discover new things helps us re-evaluate where we are heading and what we really want. Something as simple as grabbing a bunch of comics for a rainy day says a lot. It says you want that rainy day to come, and are open to relaxing, as well as having your own space for a little while.  Heading to an antique shop can reacquaint us with the life we envision for ourselves and can help motivate us again. Everyone has something from the past that they cherish. A fragment of a person who we so admired, that we sought to be just like them. Seeing things that remind us of these moments and people can help gear us back onto the right path, and sometimes come to terms with whether that path is no longer for us.

Inspiring yourself to move forward is never a crime. It’s a weight lifted off of our shoulders when we can confirm our biggest worries or genuinely cast them aside. Be quirky, check out a comic book museum, or a quiet little antique shop outside of town. Try new things.

9.  Cooking

If you’re at your worst and feel like you can’t do anything right, one of the best things you can try is cooking a meal. Not an overly complicated recipe, but stuff that comforts you and that you can share. Preparing a simple meal for family and friends can start to relax you if you look forward to the end result and don’t overthink the process. Turn on some music and let yourself get inspired. Make a nice strawberry salad, some baked potatoes, steaks, and try your hand at sauteing some baby carrots in a ginger garlic butter sauce. These are just suggestions but they’re pretty healthy and easy to make. More than that, they make you feel good. ginger is known to lift the spirits, garlic is good for a persons heart, strawberries incite happy feelings (unless you’re allergic, in which case, go for mandarin slices), potato starches actually soothe people, and steak is awesome if you’re a meat lover. If you don’t eat meat, Portobello mushrooms work fantastically.

The point is to make a meal that makes you happy. Not one that will stuff you to the brim and make you feel worse about yourself, but rather one you feel happy about sharing with people you love.

10. Have an impromptu Tabletop Game night

Invite your friends, or your family, hang out at home and order in and just enjoy one anothers company while playing a game and letting the days frustrations melt away. If you’re so caught up in the game that you forget all about the stress of the day, you will sleep better and probably wake up in a better mood. That can be key in changing anything that’s frustrating you. When we handle a stressful situation at work, school, or in every day life under a really bad mood, we pretty much just make it a lot worse. If we give ourselves a breather, though, and enter the situation in a better mood and with some perspective, things can improve a lot.

All you have to do is give yourself permission to have some silliness in your life and a lot of the anxiety that’s built up could go away. Sometimes it’s just that we take ourselves too seriously, but tabletop games allow us to put down those walls and simply have fun.

At the end of the day, your stress won’t go away because someone else changes. They can change a million times over and still not be whatever you want them to be. If you allow yourself the opportunity to enjoy your life, without feeling like you have to rescue everyone, or without procrastinating all the time and then feeling guilty about it, you spare yourself a lot of agony. Work hard, play hard, but playing hard doesn’t have to mean playing stupid. Getting drunk until you can’t be disciplined enough to control your reactions, or getting stoned until you don’t feel anything anymore, is not going to improve your life. There are a million other options out there for improvement and it’s up to you whether you want them to be the awesome options or the mediocre ones.

Personally, I opt for the more awesome variety. Mediocre options tend to be filled with the same exact kind of people who help induce a lot of stress. Just some food for thought.

Embrace the interesting and allow yourself to be an interesting, fun person.

On a final note, don’t let anyone bully you into doing stuff you don’t want to do. If you’re doing any of the stuff mentioned here, it makes it a lot easier to find a reason to say no without feeling like you’re lying or being a jerk. Let’s face it. So many people out there hate doing their own work. If you’re doing yours, why should you have to do theirs? Isn’t it so much easier to say no, if you can say, “Sorry, that doesn’t work for me. I have plans.”? Even if you don’t have plans, the minute you feel like you’re starting to get used, come up with one and do it. You’re not a doormat. You’re an interesting and fun person, in your own way. Keep that in mind the next time someone asks you to take care of their work.

Combining your personality with the elegance of someone you admire.

Claudette Colbert

It’s hard, isn’t it, to combine your quirky and unique personality with elegance and grace? With certain role models, and the way the media portrays them, it is. The media portrays them as infallible, perfect, pristine. In many cases, if these role models died many years before we were aware of their existence, it’s hard to differentiate the truth from the facade. We see Audrey Hepburn as the quintessential it girl who was all grace, charm, and adorability. In a strange way, we almost liken her to the innocence of a child. That’s almost unfair to who she once was. After all, she was a grown woman when she became famous. She WAS elegant and graceful. She was charming. She was all of these things and more but we also need to see her for who she probably was in reality too. She was married. She had children. In other words she had sex. There was probably quite a bit of sensuality to her, too. She had a temper. She was spontaneous. Same goes for Claudette Colbert who was probably one of the more uproarious women in her industry at the time. She didn’t bite her tongue, she could drink and could smoke with the best of them, and she could stomp her foot and have her way any time she damned well pleased. In other words, she was a black sheep covered in soot in a time full of diamonds, but damn could that black sheep shine. Claudette radiated confidence, strength, determination. She could dress up in the finest of clothing and still carry this aura about her that said she could shoot you down in an instant if you gave her a gun and were then dumb enough to make her angry. She was definitely a tomboy nerd.

That brings me to the major part of this post. Nerds anywhere can tell you that there’s a variety of nerd classes. Like in a video game full of different races, classes, and sub classes, there is ALWAYS another layer to the nerd kingdom. I’ve had time to figure out that I don’t classify as just a nerd, and I’m not just some girl with a princess complex. In any case, I’m too complex for that. I totally did that on purpose by the way. I’m both. I love pretty things, elegance, and I love Batman, Gumby, Comic Books, X-Men, action movies, and video games.

I’m a nerd but I am (or at least try/want to be) an elegant nerd. I’ve got a Vargas Pinup girl dressed in pink on a postcard right next to one of Janine Basil’s postcards that features a pretty girl wearing one her of “Kapow” headbands. I make steampunk jewelry because I love quirky things and I collect plushies because they’re adorable.

Don’t take my word for it though. Look at the many examples around us of how nerdy meets elegance. Actresses like Kat Dennings, Zooey Deschanel, Pauley Perrette, and Felicia Day. Consider the cosplayers who don’t fall into the sloppy, slutty, or even crude categories. Factor in the history and the very definition of “nerd”. Why can’t a nerd be someone who is passionate about elegance too?

Take Pauley Perrette as an example. Here she is in her typical Abby (from NCIS) garb. Keep in mind that she actually dresses like this on a regular basis in real life as well.

She’s definitely goth rock, punky, nerdy, and absolutely awesome in every way you can think of. In fact, Abby is love, and if you don’t know that, I feel sad for you but that’s okay because you’re awesome anyway. Pauley is love too. I guess she has to be since they’re the same person.

Point is, she’s still elegant. She doesn’t look sloppy even when she is wearing all black, and combat boots. Her clothes are clean, she smiles, and she encourages the people around her. She has confidence in herself but doesn’t put others down. These are all amazing things that any elegant person should have. Oh, and that whole expectation that being goth means you always have to fit into the “goth” mold? Bull. I happen to also be a goth. I just don’t need to advertise it in some form of rebellion against society. I’m cool with who I am inside and while sometimes I waver and falter on who I am on the outside, and worry about how I’m perceived, I know without a doubt what I really enjoy in life and who I am. That brings me to another image of Pauley. This time dressed for an event in Hollywoodlandia. Yeah, I make names up too, and I like it that way.

She sparkles, she shines, she’s Pauley. She just isn’t in the same clothes people usually expect her in. Does that mean she’s lost her identity just because she changed clothes? I’m guessing not, since she’s still smiling and excited in the picture. I’m also guessing not because while she has adapted her wardrobe for a more appropriate ensemble for this event, she keeps a few key pieces that retain their rocker essence. The cuff, the smokey makeup, the jet black hair, even the front zipper (a usually no-no thing at gala events), all radiate this feeling of unique amongst a sea of similar dresses and styles.

It’s not a matter of how much you spend, or how true to your roots or style you are. It’s a matter of being as true to yourself as you can possibly be. If you like something cute, go for it. If you like something dark and broody, go for it too. Eventually you’ll figure out exactly how much of each you want to pour into any outfit. Especially since there are ALWAYS days when you’ll want to be a bit more sparkly than dark and vice versa. All you have to keep in mind that the keys to elegance are a smile, a kind heart, a tiny bit of effort to keep things clean and well kept, and these words each morning when you look in the mirror.

“I can’t control what happens around me today, but I can always control how I react to it. No one can take that away from me.”

Since we’re on the topic of roles and personality, what about cosplays? If you browse the net, it’s easy to assume that most female cosplay features women who look sloppy, tacky, or almost obscene from just how much flesh seems to pour out at all the wrong spots in their outfit. That’s not always the case though. There are tons of awesome cosplays which don’t turn a girl into a horrifying colorblast or into a stripper on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nope. There are elegant cosplays out there and they feature some fantastic characters. This one is featuring the lead couple from Paradise Kiss. Keep in mind that very rarely do human beings ACTUALLY LOOK like any of the characters in an anime. It’s almost unheard of. That doesn’t mean that just because you don’t look like them, you get a free pass to slap together anything that’s sloppy or tacky. It’s not about the character. It’s about how you perceive yourself too. If you throw on whatever and look sloppy, then what does that say about how YOU feel? Even if it weren’t that you felt bad about yourself, the lack of effort makes it seem so, and you just won’t have as much fun. Make the effort because the experience will be that much more enhanced for you. The memory will be one of the best and not just “good”. These guys made an amazing effort and pulled off the attire really well. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t have to be, but it’s clean and well executed.

If you’re thinking that this must have cost them a fortune, then it could be that you’re right. It could be that you’re not. Either way, money doesn’t have to be the main factor in your cosplay. Quality is. If you don’t have a huge budget to blow on a pre-made costume and lack the skill to make one yourself, consider great characters who don’t have as elaborate an outfit but still make an impression, like Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck from Bleach. Now, I’m not a Bleach fan (I know, I know. Sorry. Not really sorry though.) but I do think this is one of the best ways to pull off this character on a slight budget. 

I couldn’t find this girls name anywhere, but if anyone knows who she is, feel free to let me know so I may credit her for the image. I’d also like to tell her she’s makes a fantastic Nelliel. So as you can see, it doesn’t take a fortune, and it doesn’t take you being Asian to pull these off. It takes intention, delivery, and the effort between the two.

Now, not all nerdy people appear nerdy. Not all are into the goth scene or into cosplay. Some may not even care about action figures or comics (okay, most do, but not all). Otaku is a term considered derogatory in Japan, to describe someone so incredibly obsessed with a particular subject or subculture, that they renege all efforts of living a normal life. Amongst anime fans, it’s sometimes a badge of pride. In North America, however, the term nerd was viewed very similarly until more recent times, and in very subtle ways we began to notice that even people who didn’t appear nerdy, could have a nerdy aesthetic to them.

Kat Dennings and Zooey Deschanel can usually fit this category. They both are kind of tomboyish and from what the media would have us know about them, apparently they both like comics and things like that. They don’t seem like they belong in the nerd category though, and that’s okay. Even nerdy people and quirky people have the right to be pretty. It’s obnoxious to think otherwise. That would be like saying that someone who is considered unattractive has to be completely excluded from the entertainment industry because it’s for “pretty people”. Hello, calling Steve Buscemi! Many find him unattractive but, personally, I think he’s the cats meow because of his confidence, his effort, his courage to stand on stage or in front of a camera to take a hit. That marks a gentleman, and being a gentleman is an elegance in and of itself.

As far as I’m concerned these two ladies are nerds and are gorgeous. If you think dressing like them is impossible, then think again. With companies like Modcloth and with thrift shops, it’s very possible to pull off their retro looks that they seem to have effortlessly. Here’s a secret: It’s not effortless. They have a team of people who help them get ready for photoshoots and big events. I bet you already knew that though. You can achieve their styles with a twist of your own and still be as elegant.

 

If you’re a full on nerd who loves quirk and uniqueness, but do want to incorporate more elegance into your daily wear, these aren’t a bad way to start. Your accessories can amp up the quirk, simply by adding an element of the unexpected.

         

These are all really quirky and adorable pieces that would go well with some of the more recent fun clothing that the actresses mentioned above are wearing. I could see Claudette Colbert wearing the northern lights ring from shanalogic (second to last image), since it has that quirky ethereal vibe to it. Some of these pieces suit Pauley Perrettes style while others suit Kat Dennings or Zooey Deschanel, and some ore just quirky and fun that can appeal to a variety of outfits while being simple enough to not detract from an outfits elegance. It’s all in how you work them into your wardrobe, and more importantly, how you work them into your confidence. As a human being you have value. As a person you have rights. As an individual, there are many things that can define you and there should be no shame in the way you carry yourself. As long as you harm no one and don’t knock yourself down, then embrace yourself and your quirks. Tattoos are neat. Just be smart about them. Quirky earrings are fun, just wear them however you want. Mix and match even. Who is to say that what you’ve chosen isn’t “the right way to wear this or that”? Just carry yourself with grace, confidence, and remember that no one can tear you down unless you let them, and you’ll be fine. Treat others with kindness and be genuine about it. If you don’t like someone, then just don’t harm them. No need to pretend to be besties. Just be honest without being cruel. Wish them well, move on, and live your life. These things exude grace. The rest of your actions are just an accessory to your inner person, but they do add to who you are. Same as an accessory adds to an outfit.

                                                 

 When I consider the most defining elegant nerdy girl, I see Felicia Day. She’s kind, hard working, quirky, and doesn’t try too hard. Her awkwardness is even graceful in a way.

 There are probably tons of women like this, and just as many men who are nerdy gentlemen. We all probably have completely different ideas of what fits into the nerd category and just as many different ideas for gentlemanliness or elegance. These are just my own, and while the focus is on womens attire on the surface, the message that I feel is most important is the effort to be kind. Not just to others but to yourself as well. Give yourself the best chance for happiness. Give yourself the best chances for success. Your OWN idea of success, too, not someone elses. Define yourself, for your own sake and not for the sake of others.

As for the curvier girls, like myself, keep in mind that your curves are a part of you. Don’t shun them. Don’t let anyone define you by them either. Kat Dennings, Christina Hendricks, and Octavia Spencer are all curvy girls who are also topheavy. That has not changed their kindness or their ability to function in society. It has not diminished their worth as people or artists. In our case, the nerdy case, we may not fit the ideal image that most guys have from watching movies or playing video games where the girls are completely different than us, but we have worth. We are real. We exist beyond a screen and that gives us value. Don’t ever doubt that. If you also wonder about clothing, don’t doubt that it’s out there. If these women can find it then so can we.

 

It all begins with effort, and once the initial effort is made, a lot of it becomes effortless.

Elegance = Effort + (Kindness)2 x Confidence

In other words, elegance is effort and kindness towards others and ourselves multiplied by confidence. It becomes easier to be kind the more you do it. It becomes addictive. Effort becomes easy once you get the ball rolling, and you gain confidence as you do these things. With that confidence you gain energy to do it even more, and just like that you’ve begun a very healthy cycle in your life.

Don’t Throw Yourself Away.

                                                                                                                             

No one likes to be thrown away, forgotten, or considered less than valuable. It’s this simple fact that makes me wonder time and time again why people choose to behave in unfriendly or even cruel ways when chances are a lot of the time they are aching to be attached to something, to be remembered in some way. It’s probably safe to say that there are exceptions to this rule but fact is, not a single person in this world WANTS to disappear without having contributed in some way to the world around them. Some choose to do it negatively but many strive to somehow stamp the environment they are in with their mark and make a lasting impression. Some strive to make a difference for the better.

I know what it’s like to be the forgotten one, the unwanted, the black sheep. I’ve had ups and downs in life. I’ve been abused, ditched by my birth father, felt as an outcast in the majority of my family. On my mothers side, primarily because the abuse stemmed at the hands of a man married to one of her relatives, she cut herself off completely from that side of the family. Due to that experience, the part of the family that remained just didn’t feel like my own for many many years. It didn’t help that I never saw them, and that as a young girl, if I wanted to see them, we always had to go to them. I can’t recall a time when they made the effort to visit us instead. I don’t think they consciously excluded us. I think it’s just that they had so much more want in them, to see what the rest of the world had to offer, to improve their own lives, that a cousin, aunt, whatever, just didn’t factor as majorly into their traveling plans as I was naive enough to hope for. On my birth fathers side I was buried in guilt, ambiguity, and so much confusion. My father is far from a saint. In fact, I wouldn’t put much past him. My cousins (his siblings children) are amazing though. When my mother and I were forced to make the conscious decision that my father being in my life would be too unhealthy and unsafe for me, I sadly had to forfeit my cousins too. It was like having a huge part of me ripped away and it never fully healed. I do communicate with them now, but the act of ripping myself away meant that I missed out on so much of their lives that I really feel irrelevant now. I haven’t spoken to one of my aunts in over 15 years. An aunt who was once like a mother to me. I’ve reached out but I guess maybe I just missed out on too much and her circumstances right now would make it close to impossible for us to bridge the gap that occurred over the last decade and a half. All I can really say about that is that I genuinely do miss her.

The point to all of this is that, while everyone else had some strong root and connection to one another, I remained the forgotten. At least, that’s how it felt. I have my mom, who has many flaws but is a really supportive mom for the most part, and my stepdad, who has always been more of a father to me than my own father. I have two grandmothers who have made every effort to help me overcome anything in life and who struggle to do the same in their own lives every day. Even then… I felt that particular loss of having once belonged and suddenly feeling like a ghost. Of never being in on the inside jokes. I also felt like I couldn’t breathe without losing yet one more person. I began attempting suicide at a really young age. I once asked my therapist why I wasn’t succeeding and we ended up discussing several of the things that triggered it. She basically said something like, “Maybe you’re just the only one who was strong enough to survive it.” and that my failures at suicide weren’t really failures, they were an obvious sign that I wasn’t meant to die yet because I was too strong to go out like that. I struggle to believe that, constantly. Half the time I walk around feeling like I have invisible weights tied to my wrists and that my arms will fall off, my head feels cluttered, and I fight to breathe through all of the thoughts in there.

I’m not sure when the attempts fully stopped. I just remember feeling like I didn’t need to try anymore. There are times when I have panics and in an instant make a bad decision. That probably won’t ever change, because unlike people who can take medication to stabilize certain aspects of their depression or anxiety, mine isn’t chemical. Mine is so far gone into this realm of confusion, that I don’t know where it started. This isn’t a disregard towards meds, at all. Fact is, I’ve tried them. At 16 I was on Zoloft, then it was Lexapro, then another, and another. Eventually, I made the decision alone to never take another pill like that again. I walked around like a zombie most of the time, with tears in my eyes that just wouldn’t fall. I didn’t stop BEING sad, angry, or deadly towards myself. No, instead it squelched every symptom that could tell anyone I was in trouble. That’s when I knew that it wasn’t for me. Had it been for me, there would have been some form of progress or alleviation in the 10 years I took them. So it isn’t a disregard on the field that helps people with their depression, it’s an actual fact that it just wasn’t for someone like me. My issues stem from the events that led to who and where I am now. In order for those issues to be resolved, they have to be worked through in therapy, and that’s okay.

It was in therapy that I realized I had done the worst thing a person can do. I had forgotten myself. While I worried about how everyone else had forgotten me, about how I was no longer of value to them, I left myself behind. While I struggled with the ache of BELONGING to my own family, I threw myself away. I did not LOVE myself. I did not treasure myself. I, instead, became an overachieving workaholic. I had to succeed at something, anything, everything. If my family didn’t want me (as I felt then), then I’d make myself invaluable to someone or something else. The problem with that, though, is that you lose sight of the big picture. You forget that corporations generally view their employees like ants. It’s a sad reality, but let’s face it, most people at the head of a corporation can’t view each and every single employee as an individual because then they’d never get anything done. That’s why there is managerial staff and even they can’t really view you as an individual because they have to be the face of the company and are forced to cater to many people at once. In other words, even there, I was stranded and alone. I made friends but a great deal of the time it felt like I was outside looking in.

Curiously enough, they weren’t doing the isolating. I was. I was again, forgetting myself, not treasuring myself. So what happened? I was tired all the time, I felt inadequate so when they invited me out, I didn’t go.  I ended up spending a lot of time alone. I got to build up memories with a lot of wonderful people, but I held myself back by suspecting the worst in everyone and by expecting myself to fail. I did this all of the time. Sometimes, I accidentally still do. 

That’s why I look up to women like Audrey Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Grace Kelly, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Greta Garbo. Hepburn had secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the Dutch resistance during World War II. Claudette Colbert lived as she saw fit and rebelled against the low expectations set for her simply because she was a female in an industry that treated females like a commodity. Grace Kelly exuded grace, even under pressure. Greta Garbo struggled through poverty in Sweden, and eventually made it to a completely foreign land to become a world renown film star. They did not allow their pasts to dictate who they would be in the future. They didn’t allow it to crush them and make them lose their sense of self. That’s why Audrey Hepburn was right in saying “Never throw out anyone.”. She may or may not have meant it solely as a statement about others, but I choose to view it as a personal statement as well. Don’t throw yourself away.

The minute you’ve thrown yourself away, you’ve given everyone else a free ticket to disregard you, or to treat you however they like. There is nothing wrong with being strong, assured, or weak, and confused. Those things are all understandable. The vital key in any of those things is being true to yourself, loving yourself enough to realize that even throughout the vicious and ugly moments that can occur in life, there is one person fully capable of ever understanding you, loving you completely, and encouraging you all the way. That person is yourself and the only person who can make that person change their mind is you.