And today...
What do you do when you can’t see yourself?
I forced myself to be who I thought people needed me to be. Years, circumstances, people.
As a girl I demanded of myself to be proper, not to say more than I should, to do what was expected, to be sweet and calm.
Then, growing up, I began to doubt where I belonged, because essentially… who has their eyes on me? And that led me to question and rebel in silent ways.
I found in the words written in a grubby notebook everything my sub-world needed. I spent school breaks between music, books and my notebook. Always peculiar, always seeking attention through anything external associated with me, but never through my real self.
After years, relationships, breakups (with family, with lovers and with friends) I also understood that I didn’t feel comfortable playing a self-imposed role that created high expectations about who I was becoming. It made me uncomfortable to hear praise about my achievements, about what I had accomplished… but so few words about who I was behind those titles or goals. I couldn’t find a real understanding of who I was underneath all that pretty paraphernalia, full of colors and celebrations. The tender me, the sensitive me, the utterly movable me. That was the main break between my before and my after.
With Pralad we have portrayed three important stages of my life: when I left home and took over the Yungay neighborhood. When I left my job and gave shape to my first child, Nativo Lab. And today… when I rebel against every structure and every perfection I have demanded myself to live by. Now it’s just me, my reflection and the music.
In the middle of the pandemic, and after an emotional fracture that had left me drifting in the real world, I began to get rid of the Cali I didn’t like being. I gave my body a chance: to love it, understand it, enjoy it, and also to show it off. To take out of me the idea of this sacred, insoluble, trapped temple. I finished adorning it as a cry of: I’m here the way I want to be! and to break out of my eternal “should be” and the girl who doesn’t dare. I gave my head a chance to rewrite its story. Historic damage, psychosis about how things should happen, and the inner war over why they aren’t that way.
I spent years fighting with the people around me because I imagined things would happen one way instead of letting them happen. Learning to let go, to look from the other side of the street and say: it was what it was, good. I gave my heart the chance to hear “you go for it”; you’re tired, overwhelmed. Get into your hole, sink into the mud, roll around and kick. But come out, because tomorrow you’ll want to be better. I convince myself every day, I tell myself as soon as I wake up, and here we are, one more day to look at the sun.
Now the reflection in the mirror smiles at me and says “you’re doing better”. I’m not perfect, that’s the beautiful part. I’m not who they expect me to be, nor am I exactly who I imagined. But at least once a day I meet myself, make myself something tasty and a cup of tea. I look at the sky and say: I am the best thing that has ever happened to me.