inotherland

[inotherland]

echo park be reading your soul sometimes

[inotherland]

This is 30.

It's a Thursday and the sun is starting to peak through the mountain valley across the sea. I don't call it the sea for nothing. The sea you see is the Caribbean Sea off the shore of the small island I was born in. The same sea that bathed my brother and I butt naked on the shore when I was five and he was eight. The same sea I visited nearly every summer when we moved to Florida 20 years ago. You can't surf in this sea. There are no waves. The waters lay still they don't raise their voice or stomp their feet unlike me at the brink of turning 30 years old. This is the type of beach you go to when you need to let the Ocean help you carry the weight of the world with one hand behind your knee and the other behind your neck. Here you change your perspective. You play mermaids. You are carried around from one end to the other on your lovers back. You play footsies with your mother. You come home to yourself.

[inotherland]

The moment when lighting strikes water

[inotherland]

[inotherland]

How do you feel about yourself?

[inotherland]

{Words by Charles Bukowski/ Mary Oliver from invitation}

[inotherland]

The Rip XV Watercolor on paper, 8x10″ 2021

[inotherland]

Hajime Sorayama: Erotic Robot (1989)

[inotherland]

HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE ハウルの動く城 2004, dir. Hayao Miyazaki

[inotherland]

[inotherland]

“I continuously trip over the body I I fall out of assuming this is who I am inside and then it turns out … it is not.”

— T.L.R

[inotherland]

3 Attempts at Becoming a Better Person

Daily: Gratitude List (can be 1 or 10 listings/it doesn't matter)

Weekly: Kind Gesture to a Stranger

Monthly: Mail a Handwritten Letter to a Friend

[inotherland]

what worked for me in the past is outdated. that mindset is outdated. the boundaries are outdated. those habits are outdated. leveling up requires shedding outdated methods and embracing growth. a new mindset, revised boundaries, and upgraded habits accompany each level-up. adaption is key to sustained personal development.

[inotherland]

[inotherland]

the whole world changes right around you <3

[inotherland]

Haruki Marukami

[inotherland]

November is

• Finally feeling more settled in Puerto Rico

• Unshakeable feeling of otherness being Puerto Rican while being Gringa

• Culture shock in the same house I learned my ABCs

• Getting serious about budgeting

• Being loved so fiercely while feeling so underserving

• Switching from Zoloft to Wellbutrin

• Being told my ex has moved on

• Teaching myself how to fix random stuff on my 1992 Toyota 4Runner on YouTube

• Forcibly enduring a marijuana smoke break

• ARFID

• Recommitting to my gym routine to get fit for my 30th

• Learning I have cousins for everything

• Watching my extended family of an older generation embrace my partner (for the first time ever)

• Sobbing cathartically to my LDR bffs on FT

• My gf and I calling it quits on couples counseling for now to refocus on individual therapy

• Feeling so distant from characteristics I thought were integral to my identity like being adventurous with foods and having a high libido

• Facing my attachment style head-on and seeing my family reflected back

• Realizing I suffer from people pleading behaviors that make me abandon my sense of self

• Seeing red. Seeing myself be avoidant. Seeing no light at the end of the tunnel. Seeing a monster.

• Turning around and pointing my finger at my girl instead of myself for not standing up for my boundaries out of fear I'll hurt my girlfriends feelings and disrupt my false sense of peace

• Acknowledging that losing my job, experiencing financial insecurity, and expediting my relationship with my girlfriend at an accelerated pace felt like what was necessary and not what I chose. Acknowledging this has been detrimental to my self- image and inner-world.

• Seeking unapologetic "choice" every moment I get to restore my sense of self and feel more liberated in my day to day life.

• Trying.

• Trying.

• Trying.