The prompt immediately reminded me of the song above: “A brief description about myself” by El Cuarteto de Nos. Thank you, professor, for such a deep question to start us off. Now, y’all get to see me struggle as my identity spirals in this blog.
“But I’m not that complicated to try and escape, or stay here in silence. But I’m not that simple to not warn that there are no three minutes nor a hundred words that can define me” – El Cuarteto de Nos
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the window into my world is my eyes, right? If so, how much are my eyes telling for me? I wish they could take over right now and try to explain what my world is, what my eyes see, and what my perspectives are.
Forged in a delusional revolution, I am full of contradictions — pain, violence, injustice, and ignorance wrote my destiny from the moment I first opened my eyes, yet there was also so much warmth, fun, love, compassion, and kindness around me. Always confronting dichotomies, I learned the price of freedom and the effects of resistance at an early age, which killed the child in me. From there, my perspectives were shaped, and life became more serious. More grim. As if all that was left to do was to fight for survival. Everything was a matter of life or death, literally, so my defenses rose, and my trust was locked up in a box in the middle of the ocean.
America softened me, and for a few years, I reinvented myself into someone I didn’t know. Open to try new things, enjoying said things, making friends everywhere, at peace, safe, insecure, and very, very, very naïve. I thought I had already seen everything; I truly had seen a LOT by 19, but I had never been exposed to such diversity as America’s before. It kicked me in the ass, and I felt like Sting, “An alien. I’m a legal alien. I’m an Englishman in New York.” Legal or not, an alien in the end.
When the agent called Alien #310, I stood up. My new life was waiting. I didn’t have to think about pain or violence; fear didn’t control me anymore. Soon, I was going to be given the space to be whoever I wanted to be, not what I was forged/forced to be. But the years showed the full picture. Tied by the neck under the sun with the gate wide open, so they can see me try to escape without strength.
I don’t know how to define my world, my space, or my perspective anymore. I’ve lived too many different lives and still can’t find myself in the scraps they leave behind. I have memories that don’t seem mine and facts that don’t seem like they can coexist. But writing it helps me see and draw connections to finally understand myself, so if you see me crying while typing, ignore me, I’m just trying to cope.
An overthinker by nature, I find myself drowning in a sea of possibilities, realities, and dreams. Who I was, who I am, and who I want to be.
I am so thankful to be a part of this class. After four years of trying to register for it, it finally happened. I’m here, and at a moment when I needed it the most.
Thank you, prof. Z.
