New year, elevated me.

End of year reflections are always heavy for me this time of year. God has really blessed me with so many things money cannot buy, in ways I’ve never expected. I’ve set resolutions, trying to find ways to make myself a little better than the year before. Sure I’ve held onto a lot of those resolutions but this year feels different. I tried to set myself up for goals each year, plan things down to a realistic T, never really able to meet those goals because LIFE BE LIFE-ING. Still year after year I create these ideas in my head of how I need to plan for the new annual checklist of bullshit hypothetical visions of what I THINK I need to be happy. I’m so tired of setting expectations on my shoulders and bullying myself when shit doesn’t go right or it takes a little longer to achieve.

I am a go-getter. I am someone who is crazy obsessed with keeping a routine, no excuses or compassion for the act of human error. Sure, I’ve experienced and achieved a lot in my life. At what point do I have to stop and give myself credit? Have I ever? Have I treated myself the same way that I’ve regressed from others? Absolutely. It’s became an ugly cycle of self doubt and pessimism.

Last year I made my last resolution checklist, reality struck down quickly and changed any idea of what a life should be. Mental health has become background noise of existence, always there but somewhat unnoticeable. I hide my shit well. Things that aren’t evident hold your truest form, mine has become like a desert dry of life & full of ruins. I never wanted it to define the person I was but eventually I forced it in my mind. That’s who I was, no matter how far I’ve proven to take myself.

One things is for sure, my children have been my reason for change. As a parent our only goal is to make life a little better for the next representation of the family name. One fact stays true, you can offer tools to anyone but you cannot force any action. Same goes for me. How many times has God given me the opportunity to put His words into action? To lay things on the line for the sake of the bigger picture? To feel and trust and let go of any inhibition to try my own thing? When have I realized for myself before it became the problem my child had to endure?

Suddenly things become relevant and faith becomes necessary, now the enemy is attacking my generations and slapping the wisdom out of my kids. They see nothing but hatred & delusions. The world is filled with filth and disgust and they both soaked it up like a sponge, with more room to indulge. Who’s to say I deserved more, when all I want is for my sons to be okay? THERE IS SUDDENLY NO MORE ROOM FOR ERROR. I FEEL AN ATTACK ON MY HOME.

I never thought very highly of myself. How the fuck am I supposed to maintain two other peoples mental capacity and my own at the same time? Sure wasn’t in my resolution of losing 15 pounds in 2023. Suddenly the materials didn’t matter any more. I didn’t care if I gained 100 pounds, I would’ve gladly taken that to verify my kids health. There is seriously no pain harder than watching your child suffer & for the first time I knew I had to change my attitude and practice compassion on myself.

I could’ve blamed myself like always. I could’ve taken this feeling and chose to numb myself. I could’ve ran away and ignored what was happening. I could’ve gave up hope and allowed what was happening to take over my home. I could have chosen to let things pass, ignoring reality like I’ve done so many times before. Finally, I had to chose ME. I surely haven’t chose myself ever before, always thinking I wasn’t worth the fight but now I had to fight for my children. They needed their mom to be so resilient without fear, this meant war.

I’ll be the first to admit I never fought for myself. I didn’t think I was worth that fight, exactly what the enemy wants you to believe. I knew I had a love and faith for God but you really have to work hard to see what God sees in you. I’ve accepted a lot of ugly in my life based on these feelings of self hate. You really don’t notice being in the dark until a little light makes its way in. I have to fight every day to keep my light shining in, this year I fought mine and my families demons simultaneously. There’s no understanding of spiritual warfare until it’s attacking you at every level. Peace is something I have always worked for but the love of God has me on vacation while He does my dirty work. How is it that I’ve experienced so much turmoil but feel the unrelenting power of peace inside me?

I gave everything to God.

Being ready and willing to lose it all is a scary feeling to have. For a while, I thought I may have needed to take a real big step back from my career that I’ve worked so hard for. Something I would have never imagined sacrificing, it became completely unimportant. Making such critical life-altering decisions, it’s impossible not to want to call those you love, trust and confide in, however, I needed to speak with people who hold real knowledge. I have really found that God blesses through people who are willing to offer insight, information and compassion at the most distinct moments. This year has filled me with doctors, therapists, advocates, social workers, nurses, counselors, psychiatrists and staff that really put their hearts into what they do. These are the jobs that require more than knowledge but the love and art of what it takes to serve another human being. Outside of professionals, I’ve met moms, sisters, uncles and grandparents of individuals with mental health. It’s almost as if unless you have experienced it for yourself, you’ll never understand the gut wrenching emotions a person experiences. These people, some of whom I’ve never met before, offered me a space to really emotionally process what I was handling at each moment. Crying with me when I needed to just release the stress of the moment. That is how we heal. We offer compassion and a listening ear. We invite over and sit in silence. We encourage and offer solace. We call just to say I miss you. We check up on our loved ones, even if it’s a heart emoji text message to let them know you’re thinking of them. PEOPLE saved me this year. The words, acts of encouragement and love that made me feel normal when my world was flipped on its backside. Unbeknownst to me, kindness was appearing from unexpected individuals, not necessarily from those that I love and call family.

It sounds harsh but you really see people’s true colors when real hard times arise. Their actions or lack thereof can be detrimental to a persons mental, not because I hate them but because I love them. The only people that truly hurt you are people you love without barriers. Without boundaries you allow certain iniquities to be swept away under the pretense of love. Maybe they cut you below the belt so often it becomes white noise. Maybe they’ve embarrassed you to the core over and over, with age not giving wisdom. Maybe they disappear giving not so much as a phone call to check in, even when it’s life or death. Without boundaries protecting your heart and your mind, you get immune to narcissism and passive aggressive behaviors. You accept people’s inactive emotional intelligence as a trait, that’s just who they are, so you have to accept it.

Not true.

It’s incredibly difficult to handle emotional baggage. Nobody tells you when you start doing the work and breaking down your own barriers how soul crushing it is to rebuild and it doesn’t happen right away. I actively have spoken to my therapist for 8 years solid, learned meditation, bought crystal’s and sage, practiced yoga, got my cards read, started taking jujitsu and martial arts, creatively released all of my energy into an album and whatever new age guru hoopla that is available to get explored, I’ve tried to take away my pain. That is it. I never hated anyone but myself for the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve ate myself up over things that I couldn’t control, so I indulged in so much toxicity to numb it. I grew up knowing I had addict in my blood, those are thoughts that stay with you for life. I became obsessed with trying to hide my pain, doing everything I can to be a better person and make better decisions. Trying to not just say FUCK IT and ruin everything I’ve worked for thus far. I am one family party away from wasting away in a ball of coke. Minutes becoming hours. Hours turning to days. Days to weeks. Then all of a sudden I’m back to square one, hating ME. Not the world, ME.

I AM NOT PERFECT but I deserve to be loved.

2 weeks before my dads accident I started going back to church. I’ve always prayed to God and believed that Jesus Christ came and died for my sins but I never really read scripture to comprehend the purpose. I have gone to a number of different Christian churches in my life as my mom had always had her own journeys with finding her space with God. Each church providing a different experience to worship, of course with my musical interest gravitating towards Christian worship. Most don’t know, right before Frank was born I joined a worship team called Illumination. It’s amazing now when I look back how important God was during that period of my life. I was bad af. Although I had attended Catholic mass and performed my baptism and communion at a beautiful gothic revival styled cathedral, Catholic Church had never resonated with me. I think as children we have a slow attention span for time so the fact that I attend a Catholic Church now kind of surprises me. Not going to lie, it was daunting too. I think society puts a lot of stereotypes on the type of community that a Catholic Church provides. People that do not believe in radical progressive beliefs and are reluctant to people with a past. People that judge and condemn, instead of love and embrace.

Maybe all of that is true.

Maybe all the people in my church are prudes who wouldn’t approve of who I was if they really knew me. Well, I am not there for anything else but the word. I started going to a Catholic Church because I somewhat knew what I could expect. I had went a few times to a local Christian church which I liked a lot but the preacher started discussing politics and the “immigrant issues” so that was the end of that. Catholic mass is repetitive and scheduled. All Catholic Churches preach the same verses across the world each Sunday, I needed consistency and I knew that certain talks of upcoming elections would be off limits. I knew that I needed church and I needed it clean.

Todd and I had an issue at a local Catholic church who wouldn’t consider us married to baptize our youngest son when he was bored. It turned into something that hurt us both, pissed my husband off and made me NOT start my journey back there. For a few months, I went a little further up the road and started to get the hang of the routine. My mother in law, the angel on earth that she is, attended the church that denied us so one day I decided to attend 8am mass with her since I woke up early and didn’t want to wait for 11 am. Let me tell you, God has a real weird way of humbling you. Imagine walking into this church that denied you and your husband’s court marriage and having to listen to a once every 2 year sermon on the sacrament of marriage.

I finally got it.

I understood at that point that I would have to sit and listen to things that maybe I wasn’t prepared to listen to, things that had to sting hard in order to feel. To be honest, Christianity isn’t as cut and dry as people think. God demands a lot from us, just because Jesus came and died for our sins that doesn’t mean we are immune from hell. We lose our loved ones and automatically think that heaven is a right of passage but we have to take responsibility for the lives we live on Earth.

The hardest sermon I’ve had to sit through was on All Souls Day, a day to remember and pray for those who have died. Historically, Catholics have been incredibly against the act of abortion. It’s a well known fact, I get it. As someone who has had to make that choice myself, sitting through the gospel that talks about souls in purgatory and praying for the souls of aborted children, that would make anyone anxious. I think that maybe before I would’ve ran away and never returned. I would have shut down and became lost in my mind. I would have became angry. I listened. Thank God Toddie was with me that day, I cried like a baby. I weeped for the souls of my aborted children. My heart had always held that decision in my heart since I was 17 years old. I blamed my situation and my age and my inability to take care of myself let alone a child. However, NONE of those explanations made me feel good about the choice I made. Personally, the act itself traumatized me. It ate away at me every day of my life because regardless of any circumstance, I know now, I would’ve make it work. As that humbled me to my core, I poured out my pain during that mass. 18 years of unprocessed anguish is GONE. It was hard to listen to but I NEEDED TO HEAR IT. Todd wasn’t pleased, at all, yet I yearned for that reality check. A lot of my pain had been undercut with the thought that I wouldn’t be accepted into heaven. As I learn and grow in my faith I have realized that God doesn’t want me to hold onto my past pain. He wants to forgive me for my regressions but it’s up to me to own. Releasing that from my heart has only made me stronger, in all ways. I don’t feel the same way I did, pushing away the decisions I made based on my past circumstance.

I don’t want to hold this weight anymore, I deserve to be loved.

As God started moving inside me, so did my confidence. As my son’s mental health changed and I started noticing distinctive shifts in my home, it became a different type of responsibility. To be the best wife, mother and daughter I can be, I have to make myself a priority. ALL of me has to be in this. No excuses, just action. Having no room for error, that thought alone would’ve broken me. Fear of fucking something up again and destroying my child through my past trauma. Generational curses are real. This is no longer a ME problem this is a WE problem.  We as in ancestors from not only my line but his fathers as well. Chasing back where lines got crossed and family illness began.

Seeing my son strung out and delirious to reality takes another level of warrior-ish mentality. Looking in my child’s eyes and seeing something else, something deeper and demonic. There’s no other way to explain that and as hard as it is to say that about my child, it’s my truth. I watched him flip a switch like Jim Carrey from Me, Myself & Irene, completely oblivious while it was happening. From April to September this year, we were in and out of hospitals, rehab centers, psych wards and adolescent behavioral health homes. Due to Franks behavior we had to call the cops to alleviate issues while he was experiencing mania. I didn’t know what we were dealing with at first and I knew that despite the decisions that Frank was making as a now young adult, I still have a 5 year old innocent little boy that I had to protect at home. I can’t kick out a 17 year old on the street, it’s child endangerment. If I kept him in the home with the continued disturbances, arguments and restraints then I have the chance to lose my 5 year old.

There is poison out on the streets that come in colorful packaging marked 100% THC vapes that are KILLING our youth. It almost took my son, ALMOST.

The enemy couldn’t attack me directly but he sure tried to pull it with my son. Let me tell you how God works, He does NOT miss. To protect our home, He took Frank out of it. He helped me feel comfortable as I relinquished my control over to him. As we moved him from place to place, he blessed us with people. After 2 in patient stays, 1 rehab center, an additional in patient, a mental health hospital, a residential youth home and $500,000 in medical bills my boy is back home. Frank met an amazing woman who has become his angel on earth. She honed in on his talents and encouraged his personality. Frank completed the 12 step program and in the process found God. He had to experience his own journey and let God change his life on His terms. It sounds insane but had all of this not happened, I don’t know where he’d be. I had to stop going to the world with my problems, I had to give it to God.

You see, God gives me value. He finds joy in handling life for you. I don’t want to take that for granted anymore. I don’t want to set expectations that aren’t meant to be held. We need daily reminders that we aren’t alone. We aren’t our past. Our future is already written. I’ve got A LOT on my plate. I just want to be around good energy and light. I know that I can’t beg people to step up in ways they can’t handle. That isn’t fair of me. I also can’t ignore my need to live in the now. I have to hold people accountable because I deserve that respect. I can’t continue to keep my mouth shut when someone has hurt my feelings. My feelings are valid and I deserve to be able to speak about that. Whether or not you want to give me that opportunity is totally up to you but Xoch can’t ignore anymore.

My dad and Frank have gotten the best of all my abilities as a caregiver. I will leave everything behind in order to care for them wholeheartedly. They will never have to doubt my intentions or my will to provide. WE WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN. My husband has a wife that would risk her life for her man and he knows that. 15 years in and this self doubter has become a fucking bad ass wife and mom. As a businesswoman and creative, I’ve built my passion into a solid extra income. As an employee, I fucking killed my yearly review making this my highest paid year ever. At 36, I feel better than I ever have and despite my hardships have kept up with my 3-4 x a week lift and cardio plan losing 10 lbs and gaining great muscle definition. My passion for people has helped me build spaces for people to connect and give back to the community. God has opened up opportunities that have directly affected my heart during the hardest times. I have poured into so much art this year that I’m starting 2024 with a full roster of music, visuals and poetry, under the new management of a woman of God that I’ve looked up to for the past 10 years. An opportunity that arose because she was checking in on my son. GOD BLESSES US WITH PEOPLE.

I’m walking away from 2023 with no regrets at all. Instead of thinking about the past 2 years as a plethora of bad news and heartaches, I feel honored to be able to take on this role. God makes me feel like I’m needed and I’m apart of His plan. I know this sounds absolutely insane but as horrible as this year was, I really think this is the best year of my life. My therapist recently mentioned how confident I’ve been these last few months and I feel it. We’re walking into a new year but I’m walking into a new era. God needs me and I’ve stepped up to the plate.

My resolution this year isn’t on me, it’s what I ask of God. I don’t want a brand new year to inspire me to be better, help me work everyday single day. I have come to the understanding that life doesn’t always go as planned but I know with God I am powerful. I say that with confidence because that is who I am.

“You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” - John 14:16-17

As I move into this new year, I am no longer allowing fear to rule. I want to look outside of the norm and for God to take away any pessimism in my mind or around me that says “you can’t do that.” God dwells within me and He can do anything. I believe in divine miracles and find purpose in all things. I cannot preach to others without the reflection of myself. I pray that God continues to push my addictive personality towards GOOD. Use my perfectionist  personality. Let me completely engulf myself with love, music, art, health, rosary prayers, Christian music and podcasts, church, community outreach, poems, blogs, therapy sessions and time with my family so God can use me through His will.

With God all things are possible.

Happy New Year, be kind.

God loves you and so do I.

-XO