📷: May 1, 2020 – Self Portrait

The construct of time disintegrating into a Salvador Dali painting made of sand.

At the beginning of this year, I decided I would take a self-portrait on the first day of each month. Well, on the first day of May, I had forgotten entirely about my self-portrait until I was comfy in bed, ready to take off to dreamland. So, I grabbed my phone and started snapping away – and I really like the resulting shot. It captures the peace and surrender that I have found within to navigate this pandemic storm.

Roses & Thorns:

Roses:

• Celebrating Easter with a charcuterie board and Trolls World Tour
• Hosted a happy hour with my sister and two of my besties
• Discovering Mindy’s 5 mg THC edibles ( I like the Clementine and Key Lime flavor)

Thorns:

• Emergency root canal
• Car being broken into

April was filled with way more roses than thorns. Yes, I had an emergency root canal on my front tooth, and someone broke into my car. The bounty of the said thief was a tin full of coins that contained my storage unit key, and now I have to hire a locksmith to saw off the unit lock. A mild inconvenience in the big scheme of things. My life has been filled with mild inconvenience as I am sure a lot of people’s lives have been, I’m not unique. However, I’m incredibly grateful that it’s just been a series of mild inconveniences and not something more severe or worrisome.

I don’t know where the f*ck April went; the month flew by in the blink of an eye. Even now, already nine days into May, how are we already here? Is this what pandemic life looks like? The construct of time disintegrating into a Salvador Dali painting made of sand.

First, I have to acknowledge the overwhelming amount of privilege and luck I am experiencing in my life at the moment. I am no better or more deserving than anyone else for my lot in life. When I was born, the universe gave me a pretty decent hand. My cards included a bi-racial upbringing in sunny Southern California in a middle-class family that has automatically put me a few steps ahead in life simply by that economic privilege alone. Then let us include the fact that I am healthy, intelligent, well-educated, and hustled my ass off into a career in digital marketing, I’m lucky and blessed as all hell. Marketing is a sector of the economy that has been hit, just like EVERY other industry. Yet, there has been an increase of use on social media platforms. And my particular talents and experience is a necessity for clients in this time of uncertainty. Social media providing a life-line of communication to connect and engage with their consumer/audience. Plus, at the moment, I am safely nestled inside a large marketing group within a niche agency. Bonus — the industry that my clients are in is also not being directly impacted by Covid-19, like travel and hospitality, for example.

With that all said, because the direct impact on my lifestyle due to the pandemic is nominal, I’ve been able to really lean into the self-actualization bucket of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’ve taken this time to self-reflect, challenge myself creatively, and address all those little things (existential or physical) that I always had an excuse or justification for ignoring. The results of which have been me stepping into the most authentic, truest version of myself; and having a sense of security in my skin that I wasn’t sure I would ever experience. I have tapped into this well of confidence, esteem, and resilience that I always knew was within me, but was held back by an “ego wall” built my trauma and shame. My self-worth trickled through the cracks. Thankfully, I’ve taken a sledgehammer to that wall, perhaps the magnified perilous nature of our existence and how life is so fleeting gave me the power to obliterate the ego barrier finally, and now I find that my self-worth is a free-flowing river.

I am me. I love me. I love you. I’m thankful.

I’m human and will completely breakdown, cry, and likely throw a tantrum at some point too. But I don’t want to hide from the world or myself. My favorite people are those without filters, and not in an arrogant asshole way – but don’t have filters for the purest most authentic version of themselves.
Orville Peck is one of my new favorite people, and he said it best when describing his mask as not a façade or persona, but the embodiment of his truest form.

He explains it best in this interview from 1:55 to 2:30.

I’m just here to express myself. I don’t know if I’ve figured out the heightened version of myself at its core like Peck, but I think it involves designer dresses that are out of my price range – so I’m looking at Rent the Runway as an alt option.

And on that note, I’m closing out my April Snail Mail wishing you a May filled with joy or hope or a little bit of both. Its joy and hope that will help us all grow deep roots to weather this pandemic storm.

Be Safe. Be Clean. Be Weird.