Mad Girl Summer
On Parental Healing, the Birthday Blues, and Roe V. Wade; the Vulnerable Hours Return
Metaphorically, time travel is challenging yet crucial when needing a reality check via your perception, as I’ve continuously written. I bitterly got a double dose of reality, which sparked the delay in Youthquake’s posting. The Vulnerable Hours return— with the Pop Culture Cold Brew coming in later tonight for a double feature.
Father’s day allowed me to have an actual adult conversation with my dad that was years in the making. Like most patriarchal boomers, he avoids conflict and emotional intimacy due to the patriarchy’s life-long conditioned stance that expressing or even having a sensitivity to emotions is a weakness. In contrast, any inkling of building bridges between conflict and resolution was demolished due to my parents’ emotional immaturity as parents. The irony is that my parents craved stable home lives from tv shows like The Waltons and the Tanners from Full House— they just never put in the work or effort to understand that kids have their own identities and that conflict or confrontation don’t have to retraumatize or engage in more unhealthy arguments. Conflict can be a meeting place for reciprocal change when it’s rooted in accountability with the potential to help or even heal each other’s emotional wounds—it just depends on how you show up. Defensiveness and deflection is an armor that can only carry us so far.
Confrontations were one-sided events in my family growing up, we were expected to fall in line and not be seen or heard as good Christian girls— until my sisters, and I united to outpower our parents, who never saw the revolt coming. Then as we got older, the Succession-like sibling rivalry and comparisons crumbled our uniting efforts. In hindsight, challenging power structures and institutions have always been a thing for me.
My dad was politically conservative, trusted the government, and was harsh when expecting greatness or following his path. He was like Jerry Orbach’s character Jake Houseman of Dirty Dancing meets Red Forman from That ‘70s Show, especially when angry. My peers were terrified by my strict and overprotective father, which he relished in because we were under strict no dating until we graduated rules— my parents later pushed this to sixteen after my older sister’s begging requests. Even adult friends tell me that my dad seems scarily stoic and hard to read, but my dad— a timid kid, bullied for being a Mexican immigrant in a small east Texas town in the ‘70s, grew up having to toughen up to life’s adversity, and harshness. Instilling this in his four daughters, he sought to prepare us for how cruel life can be and people in particular.
I didn’t fully understand my father’s passed-down paranoia and distrust of other people until several years ago, when he disclosed a personal memory that has haunted him with guilt. Eternally trying not to become my mother left me blindsided to realize I became my father at his worst— cold/distant, internalizing everything, and being reactive vs. responsive. Except when life was cruel, home life didn’t always provide that comfort or emotional stability, so confronting him as an older, more chilled version of my dad, not as a woman but human— to help reframe his defensive projections and tell him that his patriarchal harshness hindered us. My sisters and I allowed disrespectful relationships with men and behaviors because that’s what we knew. Still, realizing and understanding that both of my parents were conditioned to defend themselves by fight or flight from their unhealed childhood traumas is what I have to keep remembering.
Essentially, my dad’s still that shy kid he’s always been. Except, he’s no longer a staunch Christian conservative; now, he’s a registered Democrat— something that’s being handled in real-time with the world seeing how insidious congress is, but I digress. It was a very healing and unexpected healthy conversation where we discussed our unspoken battle with grief as it was the first Father’s Day without two incredibly important people. We also spoke about world events, politics (but not specific viewpoints because neither can without getting heated), and getting older. Our unintentional barbeque therapy session was a necessary confrontation as we carry any accustomed childhood trauma that develops into unhealthy habits that seep into our relationships, a cycle I refuse to engage in or carry. Plus, a part of healing is forgiving— not for them or their sake, but for ours— to no longer carry that heavy burdening feeling of resentment, hurt, shame, or anything else we cling to due to comforting familiarity.
Whatever our parents’ perception may be, our truth is just that. My parents tried to do the best with what they could, even when their best wasn’t healthy. Even with suffocating and unreal expectations growing up, my dad has always been my biggest and sometimes only parental cheerleader. He taught me what strength was and that the second act in life can truly happen.
Being mirrors of our parents can be challenging, especially when our parents see and know the flawed reflections are unflattering. Learning and recognizing familial patterns of generational trauma helps us recognize red flags and cycles— until the cycle is recognized and worked on, truly breaking it. Being told my entire life that my deeply or often intuitively felt empathy and sensitivity was too much when, in reality, I grew up in an environment where my parents didn’t know how to express emotions healthily, let alone process emotions— react now, respond later was life.
The difficulty in carrying a substantial generational trauma that weighs my mother down is that my maternal Abuela had children she couldn’t take care of or necessarily want due to societal pressure and expectations.
My maternal Abuela was a nagging but loving human who was kind to me but extremely reactive and judgemental towards her kids— especially among my tías, leaving them all with their unpacked trauma and undiagnosed mental health issues that my mother carries. Like her mother, my mother married young out of cultural expectations of how life should be— later passed this down as my parents often told us to get married and have kids, careers were okay yet never pushed because the man is supposed to care for everything. This expectation of only seeing us child-bearers and not humans didn’t sit well with me— even as a child— only added to my tumultuous and contentious relationship with my mother.
Never truly having the same bond that my dad and I have, my mother never understood me. Nor did I understand her— we never tried to. Her emotional unavailability was felt early on, as I later learned was passed on trauma from her mother (my Abuela), who had children she wasn’t ready to have. Like any other chemical toxin, resentment is an emotional toxin that stimulates. Realizing and learning through therapy that my parents were emotionally absent and even cold at times, I grew up and learned to unhealthily cope in two ways; attachment and complete lack of commitment. I was raised seeing unhealthy examples of loving someone the wrong way. Still, my parents tried their best— even if it was toxic and damaging in a supposedly safe environment rooted in the so-called love that is Christianity. Culminating in tragic romances and relationships littered with ignored red flags and a distaste for the overwhelming feelings of love or affection, I gave unwavering attention to others before myself. Unlearning this toxic trait was a rebirth in itself, freeing me from those who undeservingly had my time and attention due to constantly overextending myself, thinking that loving someone enough will make them change or become emotionally available.
After dealing with such an emotionally heavy Father’s Day, celebrating my birthday that following week hit a little more solemnly than usual this year. However, they’re never my favorite— is it even your birthday without breaking down or at least crying once? On the heels of Supreme Court Justices overturning reproductive rights— among many more surely to happen later— hearing my future discussed by other people’s expectations of what a woman my age should do or have sent me into an abrupt spiral of ire. The juxtapositional feelings of simultaneous fragility with forced resilience are exactly how my birthday felt. Struggling with needing to express an internal entanglement that is my bereavement— not affected by turning older, but because of the actuality that my Abuelo wasn’t here and that my present or future bodily autonomy is at the hands of the state government. June 27th was a hard day; existentialism was at an all-time high.
Despite my angst about being raised in Christianity, I’m not against religion. Nor having a partnership, getting married, settling down, having children, or any milestone moment. I am against organized religion blurring the lines between church and state as the most extreme Christians think they’re being persecuted for their beliefs— as they force everyone around them to their hive-mind mentality while closing resources of opportunities for the ones they think their martyrdom saves. It’s fascinating to watch people carry this ideology that makes their entire personality become a distorted projection of what they think is happening to them— as the social media expression goes, ‘they want to be oppressed so bad.’ Nevertheless, the assumed pro-life agenda is a forced birth movement is a decades-long history of political violence under the guise of a supposed pro-life Biblical narrative. Until babies are born, then it’s a state issue and not so much of a blip on their political radar. Our bodily autonomy belongs to us, and the freedom of choice is ours. Yet, congress’ growing militant organization has been slyly assembling and lobbying itself throughout the years as society is engulfed in culture war nonsense with collective indifference. American democracy has been a collapsing institution with its final metaphorical nail that the 45th POTUS finally annihilated with his attempted coup; albeit, the assumed justice-driven democratic system has always been uneven to those without direct wealth or privilege— or both.
Yet the U.S. Supreme Court has now made guns more accessible, limited the ability to enforce Miranda rights, gave religious schools public funding, and limited EPA’s power to combat climate change— while public schools have outdated or lack resources. A judicial coup d'état is in tandem with an even bigger and major concern: privacy and digital surveillance in our post-Roe V. Wade world.
The Handmaid’s Tale comparison is now being realized by those that had the privilege to turn away from communities and activists— only to now claim foul as liberties are at a collective risk as we’ve come to know that many women prop up the patriarchy. The women of my past life are a testament to that as they ignorantly celebrate the overturning of Roe V. Wade— not truly knowing the dangers or the beginning of the future as far as other rights being overturned soon.
Not communicating or vocalizing my truth and, therefore, the power it holds made me complicit— even when I knew better. Now, no matter how alienating or terrifying it’s been, seeing how being a product of an emotionally and creatively stifling home life where I constantly lived my life through a heavy filter of people-pleasing left me depleted. This incredibly conscious and assumed presentation of self is no way to live; after all, why should I be expected to walk in their line, be, or say by anyone who thought they had the authority of my life just because they’re scared or any other projected emotion that makes them think they have a say.
Much to my immigrant parents’ chagrin,’ the first-gen and religious guilt were enough for any pressure cooker until the inevitable happened. Being on this spiritual quest initiated my self-combustion like a collapsing dying star— an inescapable reality for me. Yet, realizing that I don’t need or desire anyone’s validation in my life or towards my bodily autonomy is how I birthed a new sense of self— my body, my choice.
To say that the news is grim would be an understatement. Feeling down or defeated is understandable as more than cis women are at risk. This scary and taboo subject by society is a common and life-saving medical procedure that is unjustly vilified— and yet a go-to resolution for right-wing authoritarians and philandering politicians during their ungodly indiscretions.
Ultimately, anti-abortion legislation enables men to control with a growing need for policing, punishing, and exiling the ‘bad’ women who challenge male dominance or leadership. Institutions are all about power and gaining control. Pro-lifers seem to forget about lives and their well-being once children are born as they fail to provide adequate or accessible healthcare coverage. Force-birth or pro-life doesn’t protect children; it uses it while punishing birth givers for the patriarchy’s benefit. Below are some films about abortion that are favorites that feature how the patriarchy can stifle it.
Black Christmas (1974)
Obvious Child (2014)
Reversing Roe (2018)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Vera Drake (2004)
Grandma (2015)
This call to action is to help; we won’t be going down without fighting tooth and nail. Consider donating to abortion funds in every state below.
Abortion funds via the abortion link fairy, @helmsinki.
🪐 Get Into It
Below are some current reads or fascinations that I’ve been indulging in, so as we say, get into it.
Reading:
Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential
Came the Lightning: Twenty Poems for George by Olivia HarrisonWatching:
Films:
Lightyear
ElvisTV:
Stranger Things S4 part II— my thoughts: it’s okay for beloved characters to die when well written/executed (looking at you, The O.C.). Max and Lucas deserve the world. Eddie Munson is like most metalheads I went to high school with and knew (including my assumed first love/high school drummer boyfriend). Chivalrous, skilled musician, and deigned a bad seed by those that didn’t know him. Big Joey Ramone vibe— bullied kid and undercover romantic/softie in a leather jacket.Hulu’s The Bear— an intrinsic look at grief while struggling with my own was the balance I needed. Also, there’s a John Bernthal cameo along with a fantastic soundtrack. Chicago, I miss you.
Rewatched:Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules— my favorite trashy comfort and only reality show.
FRIENDS— at my sister’s request. The show has aged like curdled milk in many ways. My opinion hasn’t changed, Monica and Chandler > Ross and Rachel.
✨Random interests:Gregory Robinson Fixed NASA’s James Webb telescope and gifted the world with an incredible image. I remember the telescope mentioned fondly during my 2016 tour of NASA Johnson Space Center, so to see the images come to life is extraordinary. Space really is that girl, but now, do the ocean— James Cameron, what’s going on in Marianas Trench?
Trying to regain a semblance of myself and pushing through my grief has gotten easier, but it’s also a day-to-day thing. For now, those that can catch all the heated smoke are members of congress, as I owe many emails to kind people, but even as life seemingly devastates us more every day— finding joy or moments of peace can be the mood stabilizers we deserve so that we don’t completely lose ourselves to the rise n grind. Or completely emotionally harden ourselves because we HAVE to be— sometimes, breaking down is breaking through— so do find time to do what you love and find joy with those that bring the best in you. Now, more than ever.
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.” ― Oscar Wilde.
Con Amor,
Naomi x