Mami Soy Resilient?

Photo of me finishing the 1/2 Marathon

“The next time we’ll be in a hospital together, is when you give birth,” is what my fiancée told me as we exited NYU Langone Hospital two weeks ago. (Full disclosure, I am not pregnant and currently too financially unstable to aim for fertilized eggs, but tell that to my increasing baby fever.) The thought though of not entering a hospital until then though is deeply comforting.

As the White Lotus’ character Chelsea reminded us, “Things Happen in 3’s.”

My Big Three Lately:

1) We were attacked by a Pitbull- but are okay (mostly)!

My 40 pound Mini Aussie, Penny Lane was attacked by a Pitbull and my fiancée and I also suffered multiple bite wounds on our hands in our attempts to unfasten the pitbull’s jaw from our dog’s neck. Don’t worry- no one had any broken bones or stiches. We did receive 4 rabies shots administered by the lovely staff at NYU Langone, a tetanus shot, and my fiancée and I have some scarring that is healing well on our hands.

While the physical scars are rapidly disappearing from my hands, the mental impact of the attack has left me with a phobia of Pitbulls. Intellectually, I know that they are simply another dog breed, and that this Pitbull was most likely the victim of illegal dogfighting. I understand the mass ostracization of this dogbreed has led to blanket bans, which I feel are deeply unfair.

However, whenever a Pitbull is near me in Sunset Park, I can feel my chest tighten and my breathing accelerate. Not a particularly fun feeling as an asthmatic.

I’ve never had so much empathy for my mama.

I’ve never been so aware of how my own fears and anxiety create an energetic forcefield around me, and how this feelings are transmitted to Penny Lane. My mama, while she does not have a phobia of Pitbulls, suffered many early childhood losses, and as a result parented me with hypervigilance of danger. Out of 8 siblings, only 5 made it to the age of 21.

As a teen, I bickered frequently with her, not understanding that the root of her overprotectiveness comes from a place of deep loss. It took years of CBT therapy for me to understand the ways her anxiety are rooted to her loss, and how my own reactions mirror past losses that did not happen to me.

While Penny Lane is not a human, I am hyperaware that unless I learn how to control my own fears of Pitbulls, that she is likely to react to my fears by adopting them as her own. I know she can sense my breathing accelerate, and it has been painful to witness her running away when she sees a Pitbull. We are all healing as a family, and it will take time, but we will be okay.

2. Yeast Infection Land

As a chain reaction to the dog attack, I was prescribed a week’s worth of antibiotics that evidently, made my vagina take things personally, to develop a yeast infection.

Give me a Girl Scout badge for making it through my first one. Make the badge shaped like a lil loaf of bread to make it cute.

Incidentally, my future mother in law was visiting, and I learned that truly nothing can escape her. My frequent bathroom trips did not go unnoticed by her, and I, full of Catholic guilt since my baptism, struggled to articulate what was happening to me medically.

Do you know how to say yeast infection in Spanish? I didn’t know either, but the translation is Candida.

Thankfully medicine has really evolved, and made my lil yeast infection pass quickly. I started taking meds on a Thursday, and then went on a road trip to DC with my fiancée and future in laws to Washington D.C. for a 24 hour trip from Friday- Saturday.

I ran the half marathon on Sunday, mostly out of spite and to prove to the Greek Gods that this month wasn’t going to be defined by sadness. My training schedule fell off when the dog attack happened truthfully. My last three weeks of training were non-existent, but thankfully the body remembers and I managed my way through.

At around mile 10, when my “pop, lock, and drop it” knees were starting to sound like bubble wrap, a woman cheering people on looked me dead in the eyes, and said “I know this is hard, but you can do hard things.”

It was my glorious Oxygen movie finale, and I finished the last three miles with those words as a mantra and on the verge of tears the entire time. I broke out sobbing when I crossed the finish line, and found sisterhood with another woman in the same emo state. We hugged , and I told her that even though I didn’t know her, I was so so proud of her. The vibe is kind of like bar bathroom lines in your 20’s, but heighten it with running endorphins and whatever the pain chemicals are called.

3. I got laid off- and that’s 3, a wrap, please cosmic universe of mystery and whimsy!

   I’ve been laid off recently, with my job ending at the end of May. The timing is not great, but I suppose the timing never is when it comes to such things. I’m getting married in 6 months, so money was already tight.

   Two days post-layoff I was scheduled to speak at Bushwick High School for Women’s History Month for a Career panel. Very wild timing but I do love cosmic jokes. Did well- I forget that I’m actually good at public speaking. Had to fight very hard to keep a straight face while Miss New York 2024 was telling a gym full of BIPOC teens that the hardest obstacle facing women today was women not “leaning in.”

   However, maybe this will my own Doechii moment? It’s my birthday tomorrow, I’m allowed some level of delusion. 32- a mere Season 1 of Sex and the City, but alas, BIPOC women weren’t allowed on the original show.

   But really, my job had been crushing my soul from stress, ask my friends and they’ll confirm the multiple times I developed an eye twitch from it. I wasn’t meant to live life as a broken doll.

   I deserve to be valued at the workplace, be compensated fairly and to know it’s okay to start all over again.

Ah perhaps you’ve read this as an overshare and thought this longwinded girl needs therapy? Don’t worry, I restarted therapy for a bit until my health insurance winds down.

P.S. HAPPY ARIES SEASON and HAPPY ASTRO NEW YEAR!

-Mami Soy Emo and Resilient