Cupids 2020

I was suppose to publish this a few weeks ago, better late than never !

Another Cupid's Undie Run has come and gone, and I cannot wait for Cupids 2021! This year Angie's Amazingly Awesome Angels welcomed two new members and raised over $600! This year Cupid's was more heartfelt than the past years. This year, I dedicated this day to my friend Kathy; she passed away due to complications with NF. Kathy was an intelligent, vibrant, beautiful, funny, and full of life and goals.

For some, Cupids Undie Run is simply a 1.5-mile run that raises money for the Children's Tumor Foundation. I'd go out on a limb and say that some participants do not even know full heartily what this event is for and why thousands of people run in their undies every year, even in frigid temperatures. Despite this, I enjoy every second of the day, seeing all the fun outfits ( some of them inappropriate) all the dancing, laughing, smiling, and of course, the run!

I do not like to think or even consider the fact that the cause of my death someday could very well be due to NF, but I cannot entirely dismiss this possibility, especially when my friend Kathy died due to NF. By every sense of the word, she was healthy, living her best life and not letting NF rule her. I will forever carry her in my heart and promise to live my best life without letting NF interfere.

So, why is Cupid's  Undie Run so crucial to me? Because I do not want any other Kathy's have to die because of NF. I believe that there is no better death than one caused by old age. I will always do my part in the crusade to finding a cure to Neurofibromatosis, even if it means running in a tutu and underwear. My wish is that in the near future, medical students will be reading about NF and how a brilliant team of tenacious individuals found a cure!

Kathy

NF has taken a warrior. Tonight I learned that my dear friend Kathy has lost her battle with Neurofibromatosis. I am still in shock and do not want to believe that she is gone.

How does this happen? Last time I spoke with her she was fine by all accounts, we talked about Cupid's and the possibility of her joining my team, we left it at maybe, but never brought it back up.

I was really hoping that my first blog post of 2020 would be more positive and motivational, but sadly it's not. Instead, I will dedicate this post to my friend.

 Kathy was and will forever be a fantastic, amazing and beautiful human being. We became quick friends, connecting through CTF and meeting for the first time in our native Barranquilla, Colombia. We talked sporadically, but had a deep connection from the start.  Last year she and I were interviewed by a local journalist in the Tampa Bay area, we shared our life experiences with NF and how we do not let this relentless condition control our lives. Kathy talked about her foundation and her goals as a fashion designer. Unfortunately, despite not allowing NF to run her life, it took it. 

Kathy, my dear friend, I love you and promise to continue spreading your message. Rest in Heaven. I know we will meet again.

NF & Halloween: A Love/Hate Relationship

In my post-Spooky Halloween, I express my dislike for October 31st. In this post, I want to go a little more in-depth on the psychological effects that these comments had on me. I think it is essential to have this conversation because words hurt and can have catastrophic consequences.

As an adolescent, I already had a poor self-image and spent a good portion of my teenage years comparing my body to that of my girlfriends. Not only was I already insecure because of my face, but I was also petit, I would look at my girlfriends and saw their bodies transformed, mine did not( at least not in my eye).

So the last thing I needed was to receive comments about something that was entirely out of my control. Especially when I am doing my best to put aside my insecurities and socialize.
Despite everything, I do have fun memories of Halloween as a teenager; of course, these all involve me hang-out with friends and family. My cousin Caro and I threw Halloween parties for a few years, and I went trick-or-treating with a group of ten to twelve friends, so nothing bad happened.
This was not always the case.

The last time I went to a haunted house, I was accosted by one of the zombies. I remember walking a few feet away from my friends, I heard someone approaching me, so I decided to play it off, when he approached me I laughed and said," you didn't scare me." His response, " your face is scary." That brief encounter ruined my entire night.  For the rest of the evening, I kept replaying his words, I did not understand why he would say something like that when all I did was joke with him.

On other occasions, people would focus on my face and not on my costume. That just made me feel like there was no point in joining in the fun when the only thing people would see was my disfigured face.  And so, I became reclused and avoided everything having to do with Halloween.

As a student in USF, I attended the Halloween party that the Hispanic club would host on campus. I would always go with my group of friends. However, that did not save me from the comments. On more than one occasion, some idiot would say something, and instantly, I would shut down and want to go home. Thankfully my friends have always known what to say and would turn things around for me.

Words hurt. Words cause deep wounds that are hard to heal. I am 32 years old, and I can still vividly recall the mean comments that were said from 15 years ago.

The picture I am sharing in this post is from 2014, I dressed up for work. I still remember my hesitation as I was getting ready because, in my mind, all I could think of was that my co-works were not going to see that I was Olive Oly. Instead, they were going to see this petit woman with "awesome eye make-up" and nothing else.  I almost chickened out, I made myself believe that is was stupid, silly, and pointless. I thought, why bother, it's not like you can be Olive Oly! Clearly, I was wrong.

What do you think?

Not Funny...I say, Yes

A few days ago, at a family dinner, my sister-in-law Rosie asked, " Who has eyes on Tay?" I responded with, " Don't worry, between all of us, there are  13 eyes on her."  She just looked at me and started laughing.
Another time, my cousins and I were playing drunk Jenga ( I do not know how else to call it) when the block I pulled read, "become a pirate, play with one eye closed." I immediately started laughing uncontrollably, my cousin Felipe looked at me and asked what was so funny, so I showed him, and he too began to laugh.

I share these two anecdotes because they accurately demonstrate how I take on life. When I make comments like the ones above, I am not doing it to belittle myself; in reality, it's the contrary, I am entirely comfortable in my skin.  Yes, of course, I would love to see from both eyes, but then again, how can I miss something I've never had?
It took me a better part of my life to truly love my body and see myself as beautiful. I have never had the confidence that I have now as an adult. Ten years ago, I would never make jokes about my poor vision or my prosthetic eye.  One of my favorite sayings is, " three eyes are better than two." I take great pleasure when I get a shocked reaction from the receiving end of my statement. Most people do not know how to react, so they just laugh nervously. 
Now, don't be mistaken, there's a big difference between being rude and disrespectful and being playful when making comments concerning my NF, physical appearance, or anything else for that matter; and trust me when I say I can tell the difference way before you even finish speaking and I will let you know whether or not I approve.
I learned at a pretty young age that if I demonstrate self-confidence, then that will transfer over to others that may not necessarily know how to interact with me because they feel uncomfortable.  I will never apologize to someone that feels uneasy in my presence or accommodate into someone/something I am not for their comfort, and that includes the words that come out of my mouth.

Looking Back

This time last year, I found myself in a dark place. I was healing from the surgeries I had had earlier in the year, but emotionally and mentally, I was broken. My anxiety was affecting every aspect of my life.  I was depressed, losing weight, and my hair was falling. I felt completely out of control. My life was off-kilter.
In February of 2018, I had one of my most significant panic attacks.  I had just returned to work, from having major surgery. It had probably been a week when I quietly started having a panic attack that started during a meeting and lasted until I left work a few hours later. I remember my chest tightening and a knot forming in my throat midway through the meeting. My brain stopped processing information, and I was unable to speak. After the meeting, I went to the bathroom, cried in a stall, and then washed my face. When that didn't help, I did a few laps around my building, I sat at one of the picnic tables and again cried. After some time had passed, I once again washed my face, walked into my office, put on earphones, and zoned out until my shift ended.
The job that I loved had become a trigger for panic attacks. I dreaded going into work. I stopped enjoying the challenge of supervising 30+ people. I became resentful, and everything was negative. No matter how hard I tried to turn things around, I could not find the positive. I cried myself to sleep on most nights, I distant myself form everything I enjoyed. I barely cooked, wrote, or took long walks with Ki-Bo.
By mid-May, I had told the program manager of the department that I did not see myself working at CCTB in five years.  It was both the best and worst decision I have ever made. I felt the tension release after I told her how I felt, but at the same time, from that moment on, she would ask me when it was that I was resigning as supervisor. I put in my notice at the end of September, my last day as supervisor of Gateway service was October 1, 2018.
To make things more complicated, In August of 2018, my ex walked into my life once more. After almost two years, since our relationship ended, I saw him again, standing in my driveway with the words  I wished to have heard when we were still together, " I am sorry. I am sorry I hurt you.  I don't want to live with you not in my life."  As much as I loved him and what we had, I knew then and still do now that our story had ended and there was not going to be a sequel.
The same day I decided to put in my two weeks notice I bought airfare to visit my family in Colombia. I did not have specific plans or things I wanted to do. My goal was to find my inner balance once more. After all, I needed to find work upon my return.
As 2019 is nearing its end, I can happily say that I have no regrets on any of the decisions I have made that have led me to where I am today.  Ironically,  I could very well find myself unemployed on January 1, 2020, the company I currently work for will be closing. I've known this was coming since April, but I am not worried, I know that I will find myself employed soon enough.

Like I've said before if NF hasn't been able to break me, nothing will.

Kissing Frogs

As an adolescent, there are certain activities that are a rite of passage; experiences that the vast majority of teenagers live through before they graduate high school. As I have shared, my childhood and adolescent's was anything but typical.   I rarely went to parties, and as for school functions, my friends had to drag me to them. So it may come to no surprise that I did not partake in your typical teenager party games, such as, spin-the-bottle, truth or dare, seven minutes in heaven and countless others.  I was always the spectator, wishing that somehow the cute guy will think I was pretty enough to kiss.
And the one and only time I played one of these games, I ended up in tears and was completely embarrassed.
I was about sixteen or seventeen and went to a classmates birthday party. We were all sitting in a circle, I think there might have been about 25 people sitting in a small living room. The game consisted of spinning an empty beer bottle, and whoever faced the mouth would then dare the person that had the bottom facing them. I sat within the circle, but I was not an active participant.  I was distracted and speaking with someone else when all of a sudden, I heard in Spanish, " I dare you to kiss Angela on the lips." At that moment, my entire world froze.
The room became silent ( at least this is how I remember it)  I distinctly remember him sitting in the circle looking at her and shaking his head, he then looked at me and said, " I will only kiss her on her cheek" I was devastated.  A  so-called male friend egged him on, saying, " come on, just give her a kiss, a small one." The guy laughed and said, " Don't be an ass, I am only kissing her on the cheek." He crawled towards me and placed his lips on my cheek.
At that moment, my world fell apart not only because I was not kissed but also because I was humiliated in front of everyone that attended that party. After the game ended, I called my parents to pick me up, while I waited for my dad, I stupidly told my guy friend how I felt, he could not understand why I was so upset and hurt. To him, nothing terrible happened, he was unwilling to show compassion. 
Now, years later, I am thrilled that I did not get my first kiss from some loser that had been swapping spit with other girls that night. In retrospect, I was actually lucky because in my 32 years of life I have never kissed a frog, and that is something very few people can brag about.

NF Single Lady

~I used to be terrified with the thought of being single because I equated singlehood to not being attractive to the opposite sex.~

I am a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic; I believe in true-deep-crazy love that can drive you insane. Even as a kid, I created love stories for my barbies and also partnered up my stuffed animals.  By the time I was ten or twelve, I had envisioned my own love story. I told my self that I would be married by the age of twenty-five and mom of four by my thirties. Of course, I would meet the love of my life, either in high school or college. We would both be successful professionals that would travel the world. 

But then everything changed. By the time I was in high school, I had started having doubts that I would ever find my prince. After my dad left and moved in with his mistress, my believe in true love had vanished. Despite this, part of me still had that glimmer of hope that one day I would be swept off my feet. This frame of thought continued well into my first relationship. Brian brought back to life the hopeless romantic in me! After my relationship with Brian fizzled, I knew that if it happened once, it could happen once more...

In September of 2013, I met Joe, he and I would date for three years. At the age of 26 years old, I had truly debunked the idea that men wouldn't find me attractive. For the longest time, I kept replaying the words of someone I called a close friend,(someone I had a massive crush on)  that deeply hurt me. On many nights, I would hear his voice in my head say, " Angela will never have a boyfriend because men will never find her attractive." Just because he did not think I was pretty, attractive or worth it does not mean that others thought the same. He was obviously wrong. And to be frank, he missed out on an awesome chick.. me!

It has been over two years since my relationship with Joe ended, and I am perfectly happy being single. I know perfectly well that being single has nothing to do with men, not finding me attractive because I know that I am attractive. The only real reason I am still single is that I am incredibly picky.

I am no longer terrified of being single!