floryalfonso

mostly just original stories by me, with some other musings peppered in

[floryalfonso]

There are many things

About today

That I want to remember forever

Like how easily Avani grinned when I sought her attention

Like how much Anjali enjoyed the bright colors of her rainbow popsicle

Like how high Roddey was able to kick the giant bouncy ball up into the air repeatedly

How much laughter and joy resonated throughout the house all afternoon in just playing together and getting the space ready for the week.

How I don’t take a single moment of it for granted.

How precious time felt knowing Roddey is traveling for the rest of the week.

How excited I am to share the house with my sister and her family

How anxious I am for the girls to be good listeners

How sleepy I am knowing tomorrow morning starts at an ungodly hour

[floryalfonso]

I can’t believe I’ve worried about anything other than loving you

[floryalfonso]

Is anyone else creeped out by the AI booktok fancasting all over social media? They keep making these heroines look like different flavors of Kim Kardashian. It’s weird

[floryalfonso]

Somewhere along the way I lost faith. It was replaced by impatience. Not sure how to get that back.

[floryalfonso]

When discovering something new to you, do you have a hard time not taking some ownership of said thing as though you are the creator? Or is that just the dumb way media portrays media new to them?

I have a hard time letting go of wanting credit for other people finally liking things that I’ve wanted them to like for a long time. I guess that’s just being a human being. How being a human being has been forever.

[floryalfonso]

I keep thinking about the hype that everything gets lately

Feels like there’s an ad on top of another ad for everything lately. Layers to the promoted material. Individuals taking it upon themselves to recommend things out of the goodness of their own heart, sponsored ones who figured out how to monetize every word, people just genuinely into things and figuring out how to share their passion with the world and still make a little money.

I say all that to say it feels like every single interaction online lately feels like it’s someone trying to sell something. Whether it’s an experience, a new show to stream, a book to linger over, a local market to peruse. It’s really overwhelming in big doses.

That’s all. Kinda just like the fact that I can turn it off when I feel like it, but lordy is the pull strong to keep finding deep cuts of hilarious people making 30 rock memes.

[medjoul]

[floryalfonso]

random

"I know what you're thinking.. 'How many apples a day does he have to eat to look this good?' The answer, my dear, is simply 1. As they say, an apple a day keeps the ugly away," he said with a smug look on his face before biting into a granny smith. "You've got some pulp on your chin," Flor responded, pointing to a little dribble. "YOU'VE got pulp on your chin," he sneered back. "Are you done bragging on yourself or can we finally go into the store?" Fons frowned and took another bite, finishing the apple. "I suppose I'm done for the day," he wiped his hands off on his jeans and walked past her, peeking into the store window. "Dang. I think I've found the one. She's beautiful." "Already? Which?" Flor caught where his eye landed and said, "oh nooo you haven't. That's way too big." "Come on! Live a little. I could probably eat half of it on my own." "Probably, yeah. but it's mmmy birthday. And if I decide I don't want everyone to leave with adult onset diabetes from a cake in the shape and SIZE of our football stadium then so it shall be. Look, the reason why I told you to eat before we came is so that you wouldn't choose the most obnoxious cake. It's unfortunate that I lost the bet on who gets to pick, but please stay kind with my stomach and budget." "Okay, okay. I'm thinking ice cream cake anyway."

[floryalfonso]

Everyone said it

They told me adamantly, “it’s true!”

That I wouldn’t know the depths of my love

Until I held you

[floryalfonso]

How do we go back to the time where we just indulged in our thoughts and feelings through silly memes instead of infographics without context?

[floryalfonso]

I think it’s easy to fall into a narrative that things are terrible all the time and we have to stay informed so we can make it better.

And yes, education is really crucial to changing things. But even experts take breaks from focusing on only the bad. And social media is getting WAY too good at focusing on all the negativity. It’s clickbait so it’s easy, right? I just don’t want my perspectives shifted by infographics that aren’t fully contextualized constantly. From either side of the political spectrum. I’m disappointed with politicians in general, they all kind of just suck in their own way. The only consistently wonderful things in the news are the host and episodes of 1A, planet money and Up First imho.

Just had to rant cause keeping up with shit makes me just feel helpless and it’s getting old. Here’s to keeping my head down and trying to make positive change locally, in my capacity, on my terms.

[floryalfonso]

loving

loving someone/something/yourself is such a risk 

what a foolhardy thing to just put all faith and hope that this thing will turn out alright 

and when it does, how is every moment not a gift?

working in healthcare/learning in healthcare can shape such an anxious perspective. but, hopefully, maybe, it can also create a newfound appreciation for things just simply being without complications.

[floryalfonso]

a dream is a wish your heart makes

when i was little

i’d watch the hour on the digital clock display

praying for the night to pass quickly

hoping the bright streams of light would envelop me in the warmth i so sought during dark moments alone

now i wait

expectantly

counting down the hours until it’s morning

till you finally arrive

open armed

warm-hearted

full of love.

[ladyausten]

“What I want to say is that the past is the past, and the present is what your life is, and you are capable of choosing what that will be, darling citizen.”

— Mary Oliver, Devotions; “Mornings at Blackwater”

[floryalfonso]

Reflections on depression

As I get older I’ve come to realize that depression can sink its claws into anyone. Anyone who acknowledges the fleeting nature of life and instead of moving on from the knowledge, is gripped by it. The ferocity of the grip depends on whatever else is happening in the moment. Whether it’s the enormous change that comes when reaching adulthood and realizing the ones you looked up to don’t have all the answers, whether it’s the time you realize it’s actually up to you to find the answers that could help a little, or when you’re responsible for a life outside of your own. The crushing weight of knowing another’s contentment is dependent on your own when you can’t remember a time you felt contentment deeply enough to prevent other feelings from creeping in to mar it.

Sometimes I think about a time in my past as the depression era. The time when I couldn’t make myself get out of bed. The time when I couldn’t figure out what the point of doing anything was. The time before Rocket. The time before Roddey. Now I realize pockets of depression can seep in anywhere. It can be the first thirty minutes of my day. The last hour of sunshine before we sit down to dinner. It can come and go and take as it pleases.

But I can’t and won’t think of it as a chained weight anymore. I want to believe I can progress no matter what. It’s not a phase to deal with. It’s a thing that exists but can be overcome. I’ve made strides in the past two years in a forward direction to that point.

I will choose to continue that forward motion. Find comfort in a blank page. Find solace in facts that help build my  knowledge of being. Of thriving. Of helping others to survive.

[pascalcampion]

Better

#pascalcampion

[floryalfonso]

Judith Ortiz-Cofer introduced me to a world of literature that I never knew existed before I was in middle school.  Her works were deeply personal accounts of a woman who straddled the line between two different cultures, a strong bond to her identity and her ancestry while being able to evoke piercing emotion in both languages. There is so much grace and rhythm to her words.  Style that is untouchable. She was a Puerto Rican girl growing up in Brooklyn, both Spanish speaking and a lover of English. She was different from her peers, but that only made her voice stronger. Better. 

I didn’t think it was possible to find books about adolescence that I could relate to so well.  I just want to thank her for making me feel blessed to be different, that I could be so much more because of my upbringing, that I have the opportunity to be both Indian and American, not just either or neither at all.  The straddling of both identities changes my voice, it draws from multiple rich histories and rhythms and virtues, and I love it. 

It is a dangerous thing to forget the climate of your birthplace, to choke out the voices of dead relatives when in dreams they call you by your secret name. It is dangerous to spurn the clothes you were born to wear for the sake of fashion; dangerous to use weapons and sharp instruments you are not familiar with; dangerous to disdain the plaster saints before which your mother kneels praying with embarrassing fervor that you survive in the place you have chosen to live: a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls, a forgetting place where she fears you will die of loneliness and exposure. Jesús, María, y José, she says, el olvido is a dangerous thing.Ortiz Cofer, “El Olvido”