I am a graphic artist/aspiring t-shirt designer, illustrator, handmade artisan, and amateur photographer in my late 20's. I'm a Spanish-born-English-learned, tropical-blooded, island born-and-raised girl from Puerto Rico currently living in the San Francisco Bay area. I can sometimes be little too silly and sometimes a little too serious, but I try to never take myself too seriously. Been doing something artsy as of the past 15 years.

I post my art, designs, and handmade jewelry, as well as cute things, funny things, tutorials, how-tos, thoughts on life, health, style, and social issues. Also feature work by other artists and people that I found worth sharing.

These are my adventures in being, adventures in living. Like something I've posted? Follow me and share the journey! I may just follow back. <3

I just feel… disconnected.

This is ranty and boring so don’t feel like you have to read it, it’s more of a retrospective/thinking to myself while I type thing. :3

(To My Dear Ariana: A letter to my niece)

¡Hola Ariana!

Es Titi Yelitza, ¡espero que estés bien! Quería decirte que te quiero mucho y que me haces mucha falta y te extraño. ¡Que bueno si yo estuviera en tu casa contigo! ¡Eres bien importante para mi! También tenía algo más que decirte. Aunque solo tienes cuatro años, ¡desde el viernes pasado eres hermana mayor! Wow! ¡Debes estar bien contenta! ¡Que bueno es tener un hermanito! Ser una hermana mayor es algo muy especial. ¡Es super especial! Ya eres una niña grande, y eso quiere decir que tienes muchas cosas grandes que hacer. ¡Mamá va a necesitar mucha ayuda de su niña especial! Recuerda siempre ayudar a Mama y a Papá con tu hermanito Sammy, y también a Abuela y Abuelo. Recuerda siempre portarte bien y seguir las instrucciones que Mama te da. ¡Eso va a hacer a Mamá muy contenta! Y ahora que eres una hermana mayor, recuerda siempre cuidar a tu hermanito Sammy. El también te quiere mucho y necesita tu ayuda. Sammy es un bebé ahora mismo, pero un día será un niño grande como tu, y como ya tu fuiste bebé, Sammy va a necesitar que tu lo ayudes a crecer. Aunque solo es un bebé, puedes hablar con Sammy y contarle muchos cuentos, también puedes cantar tus canciones favoritas. Cuando Sammy sea un poquito más grande, puedes enseñarle todos tus juegos favoritos para que juegue contigo. En muchos años, Sammy va a ir a la escuela como tu, vas a tener que enseñarle todas las cosas que aprendiste en la escuela, ¡no las olvides!

Un día, después de muchos años, tu vas a ser una niña bien grande, como Mamá, Abuela y Titi Elisabet y yo. Sammy también va a ser un niño grande como Papá y Abuelo. Recuerda que aunque Sammy sea grande, tu siempre vas a ser su hermana mayor y siempre deberías cuidarlo y quererlo mucho. Sammy también te va a querer a ti. Ser hermana mayor es mucho trabajo, pero tu lo puedes hacer, porque tu sabes muchas cosas y eres inteligente. Es un gran trabajo, ¿estas lista? ¡Que bueno que sí!

Recuerda que todos te queremos mucho! Mama y Papa, Abuelo y Abuela, y Titi Elisabet y yo también. Siempre vas a ser muy especial!

Te Amo,

Titi Yelitza

My twin sister had a baby boy last Friday. He is my first nephew. She already has a daughter, my four year old niece. I am incredibly attached to her and miss her like crazy. Although I already sent her a package with some goodies last week, I decided to write her a letter expressing the things that are difficult to say over the phone or over Skype. While I am publishing this here, I will send her a hand-written letter that her mom may read to her. The letter talks about how important being a big sister is, and how I hope she helps out and helps take care of her little brother, and remind her that she is very loved. I will also be writing a letter to my nephew with the hopes that my sister will save it and maybe read it to him when he is older, or that I will be able to tell him in person some day.

They are thousands of miles away and while I am incredibly grateful that I have a job, a place to live, and someone who loves me here, I miss them terribly every day and missing out on the things going on in their lives has been very difficult for me. It is hard to type this without crying. 

I used to be able to write really eloquent (or so I was told), interesting, well-written blog articles and journal entries back in the day. I also used to read a lot more then. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve spent so much time online that I seem to have lost some of my vocabulary and descriptive/emotive abilities, or perhaps I was just an emo kid and so everything came out all “poetic” and pretty-like. I was told once that I wrote in a sort of “poetic prose” style, and I miss that.

This entry isn’t like that though, as much as I would like it to be, because I don’t know how to write like that anymore. I do genuinely feel like I have lost that. I remember in high school and college whenever essays where assigned, my thought was always “awesome, no problem!” because it was one of the things I knew I would excel at. Never received a bad mark on one. Writing an essay for my grad school application? Piece of cake! Flowery words and beautiful imagery where not foreign concepts to me. In English OR Spanish. I’ve always struggled more with figuring out WHAT to write about, but once I have a topic, actually writing it out always came easily.

However this entry is not one of those. This entry is my attempt at trying to piece my thoughts together. I don’t know if maybe it’s my anxiety being more severe now than it was back then, though I remember it being fairly dark even then. My thoughts now feel so jumbled that I am having trouble even piecing out what it is that I want to say in the first place. You’ve noticed this I’m sure, if you’ve been following my word. What I think most people can get out in a few paragraphs takes me walls of text to convey. I would apologize for that but I don’t really feel sorry, and I don’t think I should feel sorry. Is it something I should work on in order to become a better writer? Probably, but this is personal.

At this point I am going to cut/hide the rest of this, read it if you wish but I do not want to impose my words upon anyone and have people feel offended or annoyed at me because of what I said.

My stomach’s been bothering me a lot lately. Been going on for a couple of weeks or so.

I’m going to put the rest of this behind a cut because I’m figuring most people will consider this TMI and few care to read about these kind of things, or read another #firstworldproblem rant about digestive issues.

Or maybe it’s just “Shy Girl Problems”?

This is not what I originally came here to “blog” about, believe it or not. A few days ago I finished a necklace as a mother’s day gift for my mom. I took pictures of the progress with the intention of blogging about it, as I hear that’s apparently a good thing to do if you’re an artist (of any sort). I got my pictures all nice and ready to go, made a new tumblr photoset post and then proceeded to stare at the screen. I didn’t know how to start.

Maybe this is what’s referred to as writer’s/artist’s block, I’m honestly not entirely sure because I’ve always considered artist block to be what I’m currently going through in terms of my painting and drawing, where I can’t even think of what to paint/draw, so starting doesn’t even come into question. I don’t generally have problems starting a piece, it’s having an idea or concept that’s the issue. So for me, this wasn’t quite the same, as I knew what I wanted to talk about and had everything ready to go, I just didn’t know how to start. I like to blame my anxiety for things like that, because my mind feels like such a jumbled mess that I don’t even know where to begin most of the time. However I’m now wondering if it’s really anxiety making it that way or if it’s just my personality, a personality flaw, if you will. I’ve always thought of it though as if my anxiety does shape and define my personality, because this is what you live with, day in and day out, so that’s what you end up adapting to.

Today is currently a struggle and I am well aware of the fact that I am failing a few people right now that are currently depending/waiting on me for things but no matter how hard I try and how hard I want to, I just can’t bring myself to… move. The whole “just be an adult about it and suck it up” self-depreciating voice shouting in my head at myself isn’t working either. The usual round of excuses rear their heads, I feel too tired and too exhausted and it’s too daunting and I can’t even think. Don’t ask me what “it” is. I don’t know myself. It just is.

This isn’t an “I’m sorry”, because I don’t feel like I deserve that much.

I’ve been meaning to update that “About me” bit for a while now, since the second/previous layout back in November. I have no idea what to write. Does writing out an auto-biography (born, raised, education, family and medical history, favorite color, times you wake up and times you lie down, how many of my niece’s diaper’s I’ve changed,etc etc etc) actually tell anyone anything about who you are? Does it tell them about what makes you tick, and what brings you joy? I’m not questioning, I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what to write, and I love talking about myself. Part of me feels like you shouldn’t talk about yourself at all though. Even though the entire point of a blog is to talk about things related to… you. Yeah. I don’t even, I just don’t know.

Maybe the problem with telling others about who you are really lies in not knowing the answer to that entirely yourself. So, what do people write, what do people say? What do you all put for these kind of things?

Ok I will stop with the self portraits for now. I’m not as huge a fan of myself as that would have me appear to be. I just dyed my hair again yesterday and it’s been a while since I’ve taken and posted any pictures of myself anywhere. I used to take a lot and I would post and share them often (anyone that has me on Facebook can note that I haven uploaded many recent pics of myself since last year and only a select few, compared to before where I had pictures every few months if not more often) but since 2010 I started going through some stuff and it became a very personal struggle. So while this may just seem like typical me for those that have known me forever, I’ve actually been living as a shadow of my former self for what feels like a really long time. While I am honestly still not happy with a lot of things, it’s been slowly dawning on me this year that I think I am starting to feel better.

In other news, seriously how do people blog from their phones? This has not been the easiest entry to write. Pardon any typos, I proofread but who knows what auto-correct has unleashed.

Or those feelings that needed to be said.

She sits there in her quiet rage, thoughts tumbling through her head.
Nothing to say, nothing to speak.
For a brief moment vision impaired,
throat tight, sting in her eyes
then within seconds gone.
All that remained, was her figure sitting there in her quiet rage.

She would like to say, that darkness overcame her
But it did not.
She would like to say that anger became her
But it did not.
As the striking of the hands moves past
Slowly, so slowly she begins to forget.

She is washed over like water to dirt
Her heart turning to stone
Not forgiving, just forgetting why
And so quiet she remains.

An opened wound, it rips and burns
She hears the laughter, she hears the yearn
And in her quiet rage, she begins to shake
And wonder why
Yet quiet she still remains.

In her lifetime many stones were thrown,
Many words were spoken.
Many promises were made
And many more were broken.
Sad and empty she sits now
In her quiet rage, forsaken, broken.

“And who will know, who will notice, when the dust covers the words that were barely spoken; that were laid out for all to find, willing, and open.”

EDIT: Felt I should mention the artwork is my own, self-portrait. Image links to my deviant art account, for the curious. ^^ Thank you for the likes/re-blogs, I wasn’t expecting that ^^;

I wrote this back in October 2005. I just found it, and wanted to share. I still pretty much feel the same way now.

Do you know my pain? Can you really take it, can you stand it? Can you stand my force, my wind, my unbending resolve to make sure I hurt everyone around me? Can you stand my tears, can you weather them, can you stand to see me cry? Can you? Can you last? Will you last? Or will you break and tear and split? Will you be weak or will you be strong? Will you be there when I loose myself, when I can’t think clearly and spit poison? Will you be there to carry me, to catch me when I fall, when I drag myself to the ground and pound myself over and over and over again? Will you be there to save me from myself? To bring me up and carry me? Will you be there to break my mask? To break my spirit and make me whole? To clean and make new? Or will you run, run and hide and give up when the truth comes out?

Will you love me no matter what, no matter what I say or do or have said or done or how I act? Will you say “Dammit, it pisses me off, but how I love that woman…”? Or will you get mad, upset, throw a fit because you can’t have me the way you want, because I’m sad and lost and confused and unhappy, and fearing what I don’t know?

Do you know my pain? Can you stand it, can you take it? Can you warm my heart the nights I’m cold, can you bring me to life, when I am dead? Can you? Will you?

Forsake everything you know, everything you are, to come and bring me home?