You might not understand or fully be able to unpack everything, but please know that you are of utmost important to me, (pain). You get me to move and not move, you look out for me, and you scare me. As a result, you have left a lasting impact on me that I’m still experiencing. I see the epigenetic legacy of pain and violence that liter my family’s past and seep into my own life, and I work to unpack, heal, and unlearn those patterns. I recognize that this is a work in process that requires a lot of time, effort, and work, but I also refuse to let it “be okay” because violence should never be okay. Yes, I’ve been hurt and my ancestors and friends have been hurt, but reciprocating pain and violence is not challenging or changing anything. Just because someone else hurts you or acts violently towards you does not justify you to enact violence and cause them pain. If someone punches you does not give you the right and justification to punch them right back. It’s not an issue of being moral, it’s a fundamental understanding, empathy, and love for a fellow beings life and quality of life.
Recently, I’ve come to realized how troubling violence is for me. I strive not to enact it on others or myself, but two recent events have made me realize I still need to grow in this aspect a lot. After being with the someone for some time now, I’ve recently realized how normalized violence is in our relationship when they hit me a little harder than usual, and they didn’t apologize immediately. The hit was not terribly painful, but it’s blow left a deep sense of hurt at my core.They tried to reason that I was going to hurt them or that I had in the past, and I found myself looking more and more like my parents, my grand father who beat my grandmother, and the countless others in my life and in the lives of my loved ones that have accepted and internalized violence. Have I truly taken up my oppressors’ tools to continue the cycle? Fundamentally, the answer is yes, and that reality greatly disturbs me.
The truth is that I’ve internalized my own pain, so much so, that I’m replicating my oppressors’ cycle of violence. I normalize in how my friends and I “drag” each other around, in how I play fight with my boo thang of the moment, in how I say something hurtful without thinking it through, and in how I am violent towards myself. And while all these have varying degrees of severity and impact, none of them are all that great and are definitely not okay. All of these acts normalize pain and undermine the shared life essence of each one of us. It decenters and corrupts the essence of life by commodifying and devaluing life itself. It’s okay if your best friend says mean things to you because they still love you, it’s okay that your partner digs their nails into your skin sometimes because they don’t mean to hurt you only “play”, it’s okay if you harm yourself because you aren’t dying or trying to kill yourself. None of these are okay, and in no way is violence ever okay. So, I’m going to stop play fighting, verbally dragging friends, and saying harmful things without thinking of their true impact. I am done inviting others to hurt me and done hurting others because this is still participation in a cycle of violence. I refuse to let my trauma and legacy of pain harden me, therefore, I will continue to love and give myself fully to those I love and care for. It may be hard to do so since violence is so second nature to me now, but putting in that extra effort and strain to do so is worth destroying and unlearning a harmful cycle of behavior. I strive to celebrate and center the life that flows through me, my family, my friends, and my fellow beings. Here’s a short poem that further defines and celebrates the Mayan’s conceptions of the significance of life (essence), community, and humanity as a whole.
IN LAK’ECH
Tú eres mi otro yo.
You are my other me.
Si te hago daño a ti,
If I do harm to you,
Me hago daño a mi mismo.
I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto,
If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo.
I love and respect myself.
(“Pensamiento Serpentino”, Luis Alvarez)
Thank you for reading,
❤ life as an agoraphobe
life as an agoraphobe 