Rediscovering YOUR Why?

And there you are...

in the middle of the realization that you lost sight of YOUR why...

You feel a mix of anger, grief and a new sense of ease, knowing your own truth after so many years of feeling being clueless...You want to fight someone, cry and be held in the quickest windstorm of emotions you'll ever feel in life, a terrifying moment you never knew you needed, you will understand everything and nothing all at once.

This was me, looking down at the pieces of who everyone wanted me to be, remembering how people treated me along the journey, recalling who I was before I got lost.

Why?... why did I not keep "my why" at the forefront of my brain as I navigated my daily life? the honest answer is "I don't know", I know what I love, I know my morals, but how did I not hold on to them tightly like I held on to expectations. If you're anything like me, a young, urban child, pushed to work, go to college and live the "American dream", we're collectively laser focused on being successful without an honest answer of what success is.

They say the developmental stage, ends in adolescence, and I don't believe that to be true, from teenage years to my late twenties, I feel like I was sifting through possible versions of who I could be, not who I actually wanted to be, trying them out because I had examples of who I "should" be in this lifetime. I've done everything from a drive through cashier at Burger King, to a regional concierge supervisor, and nothing, no success, none of the things they said came from following societies play book, it comes to no surprise to me that none of those roles fulfilled me, looking back, I was good at each and every job I've had except for the timeshare job, selling invisible real estate is not for the weak, and spending my entire savings on luxury suits to look the part didn't help the situation either,

STOP, FREEZE FRAME AND PAUSE....

In the midst of consistently burying my why, in pressured attempts to be everyone's diamond, I always found myself having to do more to be their version of successful, an it never aligning with who I actually was, what the hell was I gonna do with 3,000 dollars of big and tall suits, after the "man" told me they didn't need me, but you told me in on-boarding "if I followed this model", I WILL be a top seller, my expectation is that I WILL succeed, an I did not. Imagine failing at something you really didn't want to do in the first place and having to end your day a loser, coming in dead last in what you possibly believed could be "your moment", feeling humiliated for even forcing yourself to sing and dance with someone else's tongue, wearing another persons shoes.

I now have about 16 different versions of this experience, different jobs, different states, all driven by one mindset, success by any means necessary, In my years success, by family and society standards has always been about money and status, never if you truly felt like you've accomplished something, you saw value in, I love the arts, I ALWAYS have, I remember when I was in middle school, the first semester was coming to a close and it was time to pick a high school, I was an advanced student, so my mother made it her business to have me in every program under the sun, I took countless test for prep schools and business academies, I was even considered to be skipped from 6th to 9th grade at the age of 12, as exciting as it sounds it was hell and we were homeless, having to go from a testing room to a temporary overnight shelter was a legit nightmare, I wanted nothing more than to just be, after 10 months we finally got an apartment in the Bronx, things were going well until my mother asked me undergo more testing for a specialized high schools...and that was one of the first times I ever told my mother "No".

I love my mother dearly but I wish she had paid more attention to what else also happened during year 12...

As I was undergoing rigorous testing to meet the qualifications of strangers who really didn't care if I made it or not, as long as we could afford the tuition. I was also displayed in El Barrio art gallery, we had an art assignment in school, to make a stained glass portrait, using a clear plastic sheet, a sharpee marker, and paint, I remember everyone doing cartoon characters and different symbols you pick up in NYC circa 04-05, but I went against the grain and chose a dragonfly, they were interesting insects to me whose wings naturally looked like stained glass, from young I was always fascinated with the duality of things, I could've done Pooh or another one of my favorites, but I went with what felt natural for me to display and it lead me to success but was under valued by people who didn't know what it meant to me, my mother never saw my display.

My mom was the light of my life but she was also a victim of what she subconsciously doing to me, my mother had a voice out of this world...but she did absolutely nothing with it, instead of her thinking this was her "why" her reason to be, she made it second to business woman, mother, daughter, Christian woman...and I believe my mother died from a broken heart never truly being, who she knew she could be in any capacity, I heard the way family threw expectation on her, how jobs changed her body, hearing her sing and cry simultaneously out pure exhaustion an anguish, an it still sounding like the most beautifully sad song ever written, I wish I knew more of my creative mother, anytime she opened her mouth to sing it felt real, there was so much richness an emotional depth in her tone...communities she was active in dulled her light because they knew she was a star.

(I promise all the back stories tie into the point but lets bring it back, to me laying on this carpet, typing this for y'all in real time)

Today at 32 years old, I have about 30 or more, solid artistic achievements that I can recall off the top of my head, spread across various forms of expression that I too, overlooked, winning photography and video competitions, being published in books from childhood, being an apprentice, opening up community gardens, dance competitions, plays, multiple appearance in Media for community work, being published in adulthood, being a traveling poet, being on an international poetry album, producing my own album, literally being a walking creative powerhouse...I loved these moments, these moments always feel authentic to me, I'm grateful from each and everything I've done, listed or forgotten, but why did I not look at these moments as success, when art and expression has always been my WHY?

When you aren't living by your standards, your default is not you...

Nobody could possibly know their "why" when there are 1 - 100 people, you're told to trust, giving you a road map to something...what is the thing...how do I know if the thing will work for me....am I cut out for the mental implications, this thing is going to have on me...and what if I don't want to do this thing, we often think of things in an "absolute yes" frame work...when society and peoples intentions aren't on the same type of time, a child can be showing interest in dance but because mom and dad don't think dance has value, they buy the child a cooking set and invest in cooking lessons and schools...then at 40 when this artistic adult hates being a chef, lashing out on his parents for not understanding or ever caring about him, telling his therapist his or dreams to be ballet dancer but he commits to being a chef because that's the road he was told to travel...it makes sense that most people rebel in there senior years and say "f*ck expectation I doing what I want, or they unfortunately die feeling unfulfilled.

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Extra: Old meets New arts 

In this month’s Extra podcast, Seeria explores urban art where different eras meet.