My Truest Self..

"The only real way to live in an unfree world, is to live so free, so unapologetically yourself, that even your simple existence is an act of rebellion." -Albert Camus

These words are a testament of my life today.

On Monday October 12th, we celebrated International Coming Out Day.

There is so much power in the word "WE". The world, my community, my family, and most importantly I, at 26 years old, was fortunate enough to participate. Today I am free. Completely free. Existing in a world that's calls for conformity and fears change and individuality. I understand that this is a privilege. That this is growth in the most beautiful way possible. I know that today I exist as my truest self. It's a very proud and happy time in my life to date. I am grateful.

I'm grateful for my sister Ashia for teaching me to "trust the process". I am grateful for valiant and brave heroes like Bryant Basketball Coach Chris Burns. For network television producers that take necessary risks and choose to normalize homosexuality, disability and non-comformative lifestyles in the light of normative media. I'm grateful for Stanislaus Soccer for giving me positions of leadership and influence at such impressionable times in my life. For teaching me that my existence mattered, that what I had to say was important and that I was selling myself short by not being who I was supposed to be. Most importantly I'm grateful for my family, chosen and blood (Ohana), for always loving me. This is my life now...The real one. The right way.

Repeating Myself, I Know..

    It's funny that one person can be a huge radical for women's rights, but has been an ableist all their life. Or another person who marches and riots for the demilitarization of the police and fights for black rights but in another context is a homophobe. There are even people in the LGBT community who fight tirelessly for gay rights and marriage equality, but if you ask them about the struggles of the transgender community they wouldn't know what to say.

      It's interesting how we distribute hate in this country. One person can be a radical for women's rights, but make no effort to support or show interest in disability solidarity or Black rights. We have people marching and rioting for the demilitarization of the police, fighting tirelessly for black solidarity, but have no interest in supporting equality in the LGBT community. Some members and allies of the L-G-B-T community itself are selective in reference to what parts of the community they want to support. Allies and members of the community spend their lives fighting surface level battles for gay rights and marriage equality, but if you asked them about the struggles or issues in the Transgender community, the suicide rate, lack of medical coverage or the struggles of any other community, they wouldn't have a clue. They focus on the parts of LGBT that they identify with and understand. People in this country support the entities that are directly in front of them. We don't necessary support what is right, but what we are exposed to and what works in our favor. That is just the society we live in.

     One of the most important concepts brought to my attention is the idea of the interconnectivity among people. The theory that our dreams and our fears are connected and affected by each other is a idea that may lead to an increase in consciousness and a catalyst to change in our society.

Expand Your Rage

     Someone recently posted a picture that stated "To be negro in this country and to be conscious is to be in rage almost all the time". The post sparked my interest because it became immediately apparent to me that this exact vernacular and isolated victimization is representative of my frustration with all discrimination and hate in this country. We are not only experiencing injustice on Blacks. Realize that if we simply replaced the word "negro" with "minority" everyone in this country may all start to realize their privilege. We might start to respect, and maybe even internalize the rage of other people around us. LGBT, disabled, uneducated, poor, foreign etc. So this post specifically goes out to the parents that don't support gay rights until their kid comes out gay, or the able bodied person who doesn't respect people with disabilities until they experience that struggle first hand. The people that don't support the injustice until it enters their realm or until they are forced to be able relate to it. I ask you the following questions; Who's pain are you offering support for in return for supporting yours? When you ask for someone to support your pain, do you ever consider the idea that you may not be supporting theirs?

     I'm fully aware that the minds and the hearts of African American are flooded with thoughts of rage regarding Police Brutality and racism today and just about everyday for the last year. I'm also fully aware of how horrible it is and please trust that I've cried several tears this last year. I've laid in my bed crazed and confused several times because of it. Of course it hits me harder than anything else because its my strongest identity. Its relative to who I am, could happen to me at any time and it's a strong semblance of my life and where I stand on the scale of importance in this country. On the other hand, I also realize that the world is bigger than me and my disadvantages. I realize that the world is revolving. The love and fairness and kindness u put out is a portion of what u get back. So, yes I am hurting, and although police brutality on the black community is far more present in my mind than anything else, I also recognize that other people are hurting too. There are other minority groups out there that no one cares about and no one fighting for. No one is marching or rioting on their behalf, or celebrating their victories. The reality is that in the same way that we turn our heads away from them and ignore their pain people are turning their heads away from us and ignoring ours. The fight for justice and fairness has become hypocritical, ineffective, unconscious, careless and ignorant.

      So, today yes my heart is sad for people like Sandra Bland and every other African American that has suffered from police brutality as well as everyone suffering in South Carolina. My heart hurts deeply for them, but I have grown to be conscious in the truest sense of the word. I have grown to understand the importance of the interconnectivity of pain and discrimination among different groups of people. So my pain doesn't stop with Black people. I also hurt for the people that no one seems to care about. For all the transgender people who cant get a job or proper medical care. I pain for any foreigner who has worked just as hard as I have, yet it still treated like an outsider, an annoyance and a degradation to the country. More than anything, my heart is in pain surrounding the fact that there is no cohesion between the Disabled, Black and the LGBT community, yet all of them claim to be fighting for the same thing. If these groups are not marching and fighting together in what we call "solidarity" then they are basically marching against the exact entity in which we claim to be fighting for. How can someone in the black community be up in arms about police brutality, but careless about the transgender aids epidemic, or the lack of ADA compliant buildings in this country. Every community is essentially asking for the same support and consciousness that they have been careless to give to others. Again this fight has become hypocritical and ineffective.

      I don't suggest that you stop fighting for the things you believe in. I'm also not suggesting that you be equally as passionate about the things that affect you directly as you are about all the other injustice in the world. But I do however suggest that while you are asking for people to be conscious of the injustice that is so close to your heart, that you consider supporting the justice of people around you that don't necessarily look like you. I suggest you giving out the same support in which you are asking for. That you open your eyes and your heart to someone outside of yourself and your identity. I challenge you to take on someone else's rage, harness their pain, support their injustice. And maybe, just maybe, they will do the same for your in return. I think we may start to realize that the things we are all fighting for, the groups we represent and pain we all feel is truly not all that different. After all, pain is pain and hate it hate. There is no pain, hate, or discrimination that is greater or more important than the other.

USWNT and My Favorite Coach Gabe Bolton

     Finally makes sense! Reading this article explains why on one hand, the '99 World Cup is so nostalgic for me, and on the other hand when I watch this tournament I find myself just frustrated and terrified. I spend the majority of the games waiting for them to eventually get "unlucky" and lose to a team playing better soccer. I'm disappointed every time I see them play and although I want the USWNT to win, I mainly just want to get good use of the money I spent on a trip to Vancouver for the final in a couple weeks. I am not really emotional about it anymore because I don't feel like they are. In 1999 I wanted the them to win because I felt like they were giving the nation a reason to care about Women's Soccer and Women's sports in general. I felt like their hard work and inspiration gave us a chance and could maybe make me a better person and player. Things have changed and for a while I thought it was just me, but as Gabe described it right. It appears that the WHY has changed. Dreams of inspiring the nation, changing gender status and stereotypes are no longer important. The important thing now is to sell overpriced jerseys and gear, celebrate celebrity on social media, and do whatever it takes to stay in the spotlight as long as possible(even if it means talking about games 2 months from now in the midst of the largest soccer stage in the world!). It was unclear for me for  a little, but  Gabriel Bolton​'s article below helped it all to make sense.

      If  you are wondering why I invest so much time and support in Stanislaus and the Women's Soccer Program there... its because I played for the best coach and teammates possible. Gabriel Bolton is such a great coach and he knows how to inspire a team to play for the right reasons. We had a WHY at Stan, and that WHY made my 4 years of college far more effective than it ever would have been without it.

 http://www.gabebolton.com/#!Dear-Team-USA-What-is-your-WHY/c774/558ace8d0cf2bba695360534

 

Believe in Better ; )

We Let It Be..

     The idea that our dreams and our fears are interconnected is the difference between incessant pain and promise. Consciousness and lack there of is the single item driving our society in opposing directions. Its not a white vs black or liberal vs conservative issue. Its a lack of understanding and the idea that until the issue directly affects us we don't need to accept connection or responsibility. We just let it be..

Gator Love Letter

Living in the moment...

         I've spoke of this in a previous post, but one of the most famous teachings uses the example of an hors d'oeuvre tray. They say that if the tray is in front of you, eat happily what you want from it. If it has not yet come to you, do not crave it, and if it has passed you by, do not long for its return. 

        We all root from the same innate lack of satisfaction and desire for more. 

We are all in some way the same person, and we all want the same things. "More" of whatever it is that you don't already have or don't have enough of. Whatever you're afraid of losing or afraid may not come your way. If we are smart in our endeavors to get "more" or be "it" then we will do good things with whatever is that is placed in front of us. 

To truly experience the privilege of having good people and great opportunities in our lives, we must appreciate the nature and the presence of everything around us. We must be dedicated with absolute devotion to the moment and the very instance that we live in. 

Consider a life where we're constantly racing to the next best thing to acquire whatever it is the rest of society wants. If that is where we live, constantly longing for something else, than what happens to the moments, the people, and the instances that we currently have now? We will have indirectly lost them all in the desire for something that we think is that much better. 

         If you are sitting on the bench, waiting for your shot, than you should be longing for far more than your spot to open up. You should be hoping for more time and opportunity to prepare yourself. Acquiring more strength and the courage for that very moment.You should relish in the opportunity of proving everyone wrong, in being the unspoken and doing the unexpected. You should live for the second you get your shot and make them hate that they've waited this long. 

         In everything that you do you must figure out a way to love where you are and realize what you have. You've got to find a way to ice everything in front of you, regardless of whether you thirst for it or not. 

You must STOP constantly wanting more, and by default eliminating what you already have. 

When I was at Stanislaus I felt like I could live forever and loved everything that was right in front of me. As much as I no longer wanted to be in school, and was so ready to move on, I realized that the people around me, my teammates and my family were people that I wouldn't find in any other part of my life. The girls I met on that team, my best friends, my mentors, were the catalysts to making me who I am today. The program I played for was, in my opinion, the best in the CCAA. Our growth spoke volumes to the conference, and we had the pleasure of playing against teams that hadn't changed since the first time we played them. 

We were constantly overwhelmed with opportunity. Not because we had any more than others, but because I knew we had it so much better than everyone else. We loved the team we played for and we may not have been the best in the league but it always felt like we were. 

SF State who had the same shitty game plan, same hideous uniforms and same crappy ass field was our perspective. They were never changing, yet always longing to play better soccer. I always felt like they were the worst team to play, yet the best confirmation of our blessed reality.

       My point is to say that although I love where I am now, I also really love where I came from. I spend little time worrying about the future, or how great the next best thing was, because I am so busy in awe of everything right in front of me. 

This life, for all of us, is so much better than it is for everyone else. We've got to stop trying to change it. Stop longing for  something else. For we have so much work to do with what we have right in front of us today. 

      I'd rather sit the bench at Stanislaus, than ever sport that awful yellow at San Francisco State. 
      That is my perspective.

I like to think that I don't appreciate any entity that isn't worthy, and I by default love my Alma Mater and the current place it has brought me to. I guess I'm STILL living in that moment.

       Appreciate that.