Hello world,

It's been a while since I've been here. Where I want to write about anything or am willing to. It's been a long, long time.

That's because 2017 has truly been a year of struggle, heartbreak, and disappointments.

My father died on July 9, 2017. The worst day of my life.

Anything else that has happened is so small or almost as important, but not quite like having a parent die.

This is something that changes you forever, depending on your relationship. Our relationship was shaky at times, but for the most part, it was an okay relationship that was cut short because of cancer. And I wasn't around for much of the cancer because I had school and then struggled through life to find full-time work when the opportunity wasn't there at my current job (or used to be current job where I eventually became full-time because I lost that too, due to the company shutting down at the end of November - surprise! almost as important, but still not the worst thing).

I lost time with my father because I had to keep a roof over my head and didn't have enough money to move there or to fly out to see him all the time. I was going through so much to keep afloat that I lost time. Now I am haunted by the urge to pick up the phone and call him, then remembering I can't. I am haunted by a lot of things, including his last days, But let's not get into that.

I will have time to write about all the things I am feeling.

Because other than searching for a new job, I need to do something that is right for me.

I need to write.

I woke up on the last day of the year, skimming through social media quietly as I've done for the past year or so (yes friends, I see you online though I don't do much online for myself anymore. I see you.), and something in me broke.

I am extremely tired of the rules of a writer, playing the game to get recognition. A game I haven't participated in for a year because I just got tired, so tired that I couldn't say I am tired.

I am tired! I used to have a hunger in me. An abandon where I shared my writing and nothing else mattered. The literary magazines, the fellowships, the workshops. None of that mattered to me at all.

I wrote and I shared.

That's how this blog came to life. It was many things before it was The Write Queen. It's even broke off into different parts. But it started with a hunger to share without boundaries.

I need that back. I need to take myself back.

I want the things that other writers want. I want to write for a publication. I want to be published in literary magazines. I want to be published by a press. I want validation. Who doesn't want that?

But sometimes, validation isn't worth the decline of yourself.

​Validation isn't worth the decline of yourself. Validation isn't worth the decline of your art. Validation isn't worth the decline of your life.

YET part of my education and slowly building career involves giving other people validation. Because I love the arts. I love writing. I love being a part of the foundation. I want people to have the tools they need to be seen as a valid piece in the arts world. I believe that if you want yourself out there in the world, you have to have a place to do it. You need to have the tools. 

It has to be for the right reasons. Not because this is the way things are. Not because the arts can also be a business so you must treat it as such. The only thing that matters is that you put yourself out there in the world because you love what you do. Yeah, we want quality. We want craft and talent. But are those the only valid traits for art?

No. I've seen art in all forms whether it's good or not. But it's out there because people believe it should be. The artist believed it should be. It's the hunger of wanting your art in the world. Not caring about the rules or the traditional route.

I've drowned myself in trying to get in traditionally. I've learned that I am nothing special, that my work isn't the best. I am not the best writer. Not the best poet. Hell, I am terrified to perform on a stage and because I sound terrified and I stutter, my work isn't seen for what it is. I am not good enough for some workshops. I am good enough for other workshops, but still won't get in. My writing is too similar to someone who got published the issue before so they won't publish me. I know editors and that still doesn't get me published. I am not as good as some of my friends and people in the writing community treat me as such. I am a tag-a-long. Not the strongest member of a group. Doesn't matter if I came up with the ideas that set the foundation. I am not the superstar, so anything I do is invalid. I think too big, too abstract, too much and people don't get me.

I am sometimes the weakest link. Sometimes I am no one and everyone passes me by. Sometimes I am abandoned despite being the best friend to someone. Sometimes I have an opinion and because I put up with a lot of crap that I don't speak up for, I am seen as someone who has an attitude. I yes people to death. I hold a lot of hands and soothe a lot of tears. I have been treated badly and don't tell that person that they have done something to hurt me, but the minute I disagree with them or tell them that they have treated me badly, I get shitted on like I am the worst person. Sometimes I am accountable and sometimes I can't be because people are being petty for no reason before I can process. I have to be a friend based on that friend's emotional landscape and nothing more because apparently I don't count unless I am someone's friend their way. Same thing with family. This happens because I am a quiet person who is too good to people and not good enough to herself. Who has become fed up along the way and admittedly can be stubborn when she finally shows she is fed up. But that doesn't mean I am wrong. 

But none of this matters to me anymore. My dad died this year and none of this matters. I want my writing to matter. I want my life to matter, but I can't do it this way anymore because none of this is the most important part.

I never thought that my dad could live forever. No one does. And that is scary. But when someone that close dies. you realize that all the stuff you hold on to doesn't matter.

If I want to write, I will write. If I want to to submit it, I will submit it. If I have support, I have support. If I don't, it's okay because no matter who woke you are or say certain things, communities still act like it's a popularity contest. I no longer wish to be popular. I no longer wish for validation. I haven't made the moves to self published because I still want a press to validate me. Well, if a press sees my work, if an editor sees my work out there in the world and likes it, well contact me because unless I choose to put myself through the traditional process, this is the only way I want it. Reach out to me. My time is valuable and I am making it MY time. As the great Maxine Waters says, RECLAIMING MY TIME!

I am a good person, a good friend. I will do anything for you, but only if you know how to be a friend. I will no longer chase certain friendships or validate bad behavior. I will no longer let that interfere with my creative life. I know who my true friends are and I accept that we will both make mistakes. But if you can't talk it out and listen to me when I say you are hurting me and then turn it around on me like I am doing all the things I am saying you are doing to me when I haven't or I have since rectified a situation that you can't let go or admit your part in, then we no longer have a friendship. If you don't take the time to reach out or only reach out to me when things are good in my life, then bye, I don't need you in my life. If your ego is worth more than my feelings, then I hope your ego is a better friend. I will no longer be crapped on. I apologize when I do something wrong, not because you can't admit you are wrong or have blown something out of portion and the only way for things to calm down is for me to apologize for something I don't have to apologize for or that my feelings don't count. If you can't talk it out, get out. If we can't respect each other's time for talking things out, then go on with your timetable because FRIENDSHIP IS A TWO WAY STREET WHERE WE HAVE TO RESPECT EACH OTHER. If I didn't talk it out fast enough for you because only your feelings count, then I guess that's what it is. You don't get to decide when it's on or off because you can't handle your feelings. If you can't be on a two way street with me, then you can go on your one way and hope you don't meet a dead end.

If you don't see me as a flawed person, as a good person, as a person who has given you so much in a friendship, maybe too much where she should value herself more, if you can only see bad because your ego is more important than seeing that people make mistakes or that misunderstandings happen on both sides, then it's not a true friendship. Friendship is not only your way.

If I am seen a certain way for saying this, then so be it. My tribe knows who I am so they don't see this as a certain way. If anything, they are hoping that I keep this up because I am a lot of good things in this world and I let so much get me down.

It's a waste. We could die tomorrow and all of this is a waste of valuable time.

Standing up for myself in whatever way I choose doesn't mean that I don't see the issues I do have or that I don't apologize for wrongdoings. If I am wrong, I am wrong and I am sorry. If we have differing opinions, let's get to a compromise or agree to disagree. But that doesn't mean that I have to put up with certain treatment. Not anymore. I wish no ill will towards anyone. I wish you all the success in the world. I still love you and for some, still want you in my life. But that doesn't mean that I have to support toxic friendships, uneven friendships. I am tired of the physical ill this causes in my life. I am tired of losing my hair. I am tired of sitting alone because people decided their egos are worth more than true friendship and they make decisions before looking at the whole picture. I know what true friendship is and it isn't all of this. I've talked it out many times with people and other people let me know that it isn't all on me. So this isn't me crying a woe is me tune and I am really an evil bitch. I've been told that other people are being unreasonable. Sometimes I choose shitty friends. Or I choose emotionally stunted friends. Or I choose people who see that I will be their cheerleader and their ego wants a yes friend, not a real friend.

These are the things that have be plaguing me for over a year. This is why I've been quiet. This is why I've been killing myself slowly. I don't talk about it and this is dangerous. There's so much I have to work out and I have to start telling people that they haven't held up their end of the bargain. That they hurt me so I grew so quiet to avoid more conflict. This isn't healthy. I have to value myself more. I have to stand up for myself. Sometimes I even need to yell.

I need to write. I need to achieve some goals. I have to fulfill my ideas. I have to fail and be messy. I have to feel these things. I have to continue speaking even when the world feels like its collapsing. I need to be cliche and original. I need to live.

My dad would want me to push through. Even when we didn't see eye-to-eye, even when we fought about the way I did things because he had a certain view, he let me do it anyway. He would want me to stand up for myself, even if it burned down my life.

So this is the start, this messy blog post that I have been writing for over an hour. I am writing and it feels good, even if it isn't good, even if it causes problems. This feels good. This is where healing starts. This is where more trouble starts.

I no longer seek validation from the outside. I am starting from inside and if it validates me, then I have overcome half the battle.

I am writing and I am writing for me. I am becoming my own best friend, not out of poor friendships, but because this is where it starts anyway.  It all starts within.

Till next time,

"All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is from “The danger of the single story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a TED talk from TED Global 2009. The essence of the talk, as described on the TED website, is: Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. I was exploring the internet as usual and it ended up in my path. This talk is a gem for anyone who has ever seen something as singular. I was Yaaaaasss-ing my way through it and was only going to share the video and the above quote along with a thought or two when a rush of feelings overcame me and I knew I was going to write more than a sentence. So blog time!

There's a reason why I don't write about where I come from. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't want it to become my single identity. I often find that when I talk about the things I have accomplished, that they are never good enough for the many writerly things I apply for that are supposed to help writers like me, a young POC who wouldn't have the opportunity otherwise to go to retreats, conferences, be published, etc.. I won't say that I am the best writer, but I do have strong skill and some talent. I don't deserve a lot of the chances I seek compared to those who get them. But I wonder who am I really if I am not anything they put down on paper about who these opportunities benefit. I often study those who did get the opportunities I seek, so I can learn what organizations and publications are looking for, and I see patterns in what is said about these writers. For a select few, it is about their undeniable, amazing talent and where they come from. For others, who don't have the strongest writing ability or talent, it's mostly about where they came from and who they are because of it.

They come from nothing, they are making names for themselves. They come from parents who were damaging or homes that took away something from leading a normal path. You read stories of writers who live in near poverty, who have kids and all of their resources go to their families and they can't afford to take a writing class. They fell into drugs and got clean. They were sexually abused or assaulted and learned how to take back their power. They worked three jobs to get through college. There are so many versions of the poor writer's story who had to overcome so many obstacles and now are beginning to tell their story to the world. But as the quote above from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk says, we often insist on the negative stories.

We let them define how we are seen and we let them define our opportunities.

How dare I say that and diminish the stories of others, you say. How dare I? First, let me say that these stories are absolutely important. They are a part of our identities. They are our story. I don't want to diminish that. But they are not the only versions of who we are. Now it's fine if this is how you want people to see you. It's fine if you wear it proudly like a badge of honor. There's nothing wrong with others defining themselves whatever way they want to. What upsets me is how opportunities are given based on how other people see the stories of writers. What they deem as worthy. There are people who fall into many stereotypes that determines who is worthy to be seen and it's not the writing that's doing it, but how people see the writing and the writers.

All this is to say that there is a reason I don't explore certain topics or I don't explore those topics publicly in my writing. I don't want to be defined by them. If I write about my father's domestic abuse, that he was a drug dealer, that my mom left him and had to go on welfare when I was 10, that we were so poor that financial aid for 98% of my undergrad education (the kind you don't have to pay back), that we got kicked out of our apartment that I lived in for the majority of my life when I was 20 and that until I left for grad school, I slept in the same bed as my mother because we lived in single rooms together and could never afford to do more, how would you see me then?

Would my poetry and myself be defined as these stories, these facts of my life? Would you always see these first and what I am doing with my work second? I am more than the girl, the young woman who has had these things happen in life. I write about love, I write about seeing myself as something better or more. I write because something sounds pretty and because we still have schools of poetry such as language poetry. I like to experiment with writing and sometimes others don't understand it. Sometimes I am not universal enough. Sometimes I am not simple. Sometimes I am told that we don't get to see the real Christina within my good poems even though a lot of them are deeply personal for me, even if they are not about all the aspects of my life.

Sometimes people want to insert tragedy where there is none. I was recently in a workshop and the majority thought my poem indicated an assault that I went through. NO, it's still just another love poem using images of power and submission through the helplessness of loving someone. But if I wrote about the time a guy I really liked came to visit one of my undergrad campuses after graduating and when we had some alone time, he tried to force me to give him a blowjob when I wasn't in the mood to do so AND that I had to run away from him and hide in another building until I saw he walked off of campus, how would you define me as a writer then? Am I worthy because I've been through that or am I worthy because it's a good piece of writing?

There is such a thing as being a bad writer. Experiences in life do not equate to good writing. Being something or defined as something doesn't equate to good writing. The simplest pieces of writing that anyone could have said on a good day are being defined as prolific pieces of poetry and sometimes it's because of the story behind someone's life and not because of the writing! I've seen bad or okay writers receive opportunities to study with great writers and yet I see very little change in their writing. They still get the praise because of the life they lived. What they have survived. Which is all well and good because we all need to be cherished for what we do, what we try to do, and even what we fail at. But this does not mean that we throw opportunities at someone just because of their story. They are more than that. We are more than our negatives.

Our talents aren't defined by the negative things that have happened in our lives.

So I won't write the narratives they expect me to write because I am Latina, because I've been poor (or I am poor, don't let post-grad life fool you - I don't know how I will pay my rent for September), because I am fat, because I am homely, because I am a New Yorker, because I live in Chicago, because I have lived in a home full of domestic violence until I was 10, because my family is screwed up.

I will say that I've been through a lot, but I rather talk about surviving grad school like any other person, about the businesses and organizations I want to start. I want to talk about how I love Grey's Anatomy or how I really love tomato soup after trying it for the first time last year. I want to talk about the good! I want that to define me as well. I want my opportunities because I am a decent or good writer and you see something in me that should grow, even if I only write love poems for the rest of my life and never write about how dementia changed my grandmother or how much I miss her now that she has recently passed. Those would be beautiful poems, but these are my stories if I chose to tell them and these stories aren't who I am when you meet me. They are a part of me and yes, I fall into some of the stereotypes - but they are not the complete story. I am so layered and so are you.

#wearenotasinglestory

Till next time and with much love,

Because everyone should watch this brilliant TED talk:

Hello Write Queeners,

What better way to get back into blogging by writing a rant piece about a video I saw on UpWorthy. In a post titled, "A Dad Took These Photos Of His Daughter. They're Raising Some Eyebrows," we find a video about how a dad, who is a photographer, took photos of his daughter while they were on a trip. She is nude in some of them. He posted some of his favorites on Instagram and it started a controversy that inspired his exhibit and video about the situation.

This man's name is Wyatt Neumann. He is a pretty fantastic photographer. If you look at some of the photos on his site and in the video, you'll see that the moments he captures were ones where his child was carefree. Don't we all snap one or two of those ourselves of our children? Sometimes we post them. Sometimes we just send them to friends. As a photographer, he posted them because they were beautiful moments he wanted to share.

Then people started to say things about the photos, calling Wyatt sick and much more that you can hear in the video (I don't want to promote the negativity of it). Protesters of this even questioned the child which really is irksome. In one photograph where her hands are down her pants, do you think she is doing something? Why would you automatically think that? Kids do crazy things all the time. She may have ran outside like that and Dad said "Hun, look at the camera," and she may have been cold and decided to put her hands in her pants!

If we took a picture of our child taking a bath in the tub and they suddenly grabbed their crouch mid-shot, is it inappropriate? Or is it funny and innocent?

It's not like the man took his child and decided to pose her in 50 million provocative poses. She was acting naturally. I've seen parents dress their little girls in clothing that doesn't look appropriate because it looks too "adult" off the bat and some people don't bat an idea because it's a kid's version (which obviously covers parts and so forth). Any different?

Take a look at the video before we continue. I have a few questions that I would love people to respond to and start a dialogue with (which you can in the comments).

This was so innocent. It's amazing what people turn things into.

Questions: Had this been a woman photographer, would this had happened? Had it been their son and not their daughter, would there have been a different response? Do we automatically demonize men in situations like this?

If the father of my children was a photographer, I would be okay with photos like this because it's innocent. I would know him and his love for his children and his art. If it was anything otherwise, I would kill him. The only thing I would want is for him to run it by me because I am their mother and if I don't think it should go up, then it shouldn't go up.

Which brings me to this point: If Wyatt's wife is okay with the photos, no one else should care. Parenting is between two people if there is such a partnership in the family unit. If both parents feel that it's okay, why the grief?

They say that a child should have the right to consent to things like this as well. Which they should because it teaches them the freedom of choice. If they have been raised in a certain way, then their yes or no's will reflect on if they want something out there. If they have been taught to cover up or are scolded when they have been running around naked, then they may say "No." But if they haven't been taught that, then they may say "Yes" because they like the photo. They still may say "No" because they feel like it. But what parent is going to post pics if they actually ask their kid if it's okay and they say no? I'm sure if consent was present in the situation, he wouldn't have posted it based on what his daughter said.

His intention wasn't to take these photos and have this kind of exhibit; he was creating memories and wanted to share BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT ARTISTS DO! This came about from the Internet's response and what happened to him. ALSO HIS RIGHT AS AN ARTIST AND A PARENT.

I don't like the fact that the person who posted this on Upworthy says that he can't decide what to think in the description on Facebook. You think something. You expressed it. "Some of the images definitely feel creepy; don't get me wrong. I definitely was shocked when I first saw a couple of them." You showing bias and expressing it to your viewers before they even get to watch this. Poor sharing and reporting on your part Joseph Lamour. At least save that opinion for later on in the post if you have to have it. But that's another issue for another time.

Wyatt, you are a great photographer and dad. I hope that as an artist, when I have kids, that I can turn negativity into something powerful like this!

Thoughts, comments? Share them! Let's talk.

Til next time!

To have the NYC marathon is an insult to all of those in distress after Sandy.

I see Facebook pages popping up and unless you take the time to read them sir, I know that you are still going to go through with this. Hell even if you saw all of the comments, you would still do it.

That's not what a mayor does.

Your people are suffering. I am fortunate enough to be okay, but I know people who are not.

Resuming school on Monday? Great! So what are you going to do for the kids whose schools were damaged in the Rockaways? What is the plan for schools in lower Manhattan if you cannot restore power by then? Are kids going to be penalized for not coming to school next week because they don't know when they are going back to their homes? I would like to know that.

And Staten Island...what are you going to do for them? People are needed everywhere yes, but do you have a plan to get people to Staten Island to help. We can't exactly walk there.

Saying, "We are doing the best we can." is not easing anyone's mind, especially when the next minute, you are saying that the marathon will go on!

If I had the chance to talk to you, I would ask every question in this entry and more. If you cannot come up with a good answer for these questions, then guess what...you shouldn't be having this marathon!

Please use the common sense that the good Lord gave you (but is obviously hidden in the shadows of preparing for a marathon that should be postponed!).