We've all got baggage, let's unpack it
How to chuck, sort, and re-organize the human experience + what this newsletter is about + 3 fun facts and 1 serious piece of baggage
I’m not a one trick pony. I have no niche. Nobody puts baby in a corner.
When I meet people in real life and tell them I write a blog/newsletter, they ask a question that makes me cringe.
“What do you write about?”
The response in my mind goes something like this:
“Alksdj foawijdcka mcdlsa jfawoeindc!!??!”
I find myself unable to articulate what I write about because I don’t write about any one thing. Plus, it’s weird to say, “I write about myself!”
Obviously, I’m a fascinating person :) but that’s not the reason why people read my work.
This newsletter is a collection of personal essays that examine my experiences in hopes that it could resonate with one of you. Many of us are constantly working through common themes of emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical baggage. We all know it and we tend to carry it around with us everywhere we go. They are the issues we perpetually work on.
Maybe mine is similar to yours.
This is a space where I unpack all the weird, wonderful, difficult parts of the human experience. Maybe we can make a little more sense of the madness in our lives by unzipping our baggage and unpacking it.
Last week I wrote an essay that was deeply personal. The experience was unique and, at the same time, it wasn’t at all. The comments section was incredible. People from all over the world came to share their very different yet similar upbringings, all in the safe space of this newsletter.
A fellow writer said "the comments were some of the most honest (often heartbreaking) and real conversations I’ve seen. You created a space where we could share, because you shared so openly.”
This is a “who the heck is writing this?” post.
Let me (re)introduce myself and explore what this newsletter is about.
What to expect
Conversational essays in your inbox/feed on Fridays(ish). The ish is because deadlines are amazing for holding myself accountable and they also suck because arbitrary deadlines can be debilitating when life happens. I may send you something midweek (like today) if I feel like it’s worthy. Yay to rules so we can follow them, and break them.
I tend to write like I think and talk. It may not always be pretty. It may have some “bad” words in it. Also, I typically record myself reading my piece if you’re too busy to read.
What I’ve written + topics I’ll likely explore in future newsletters.
Identity, race and “otherness” as a millennial first-generation Filipino American. I ask myself, how do I recover from being whitewashed? I unpacked the loaded question, “what are you?”
Experimenting with and evaluating all sorts of stuff related to mental illness and mental health, like entering a k-hole, trying to do “nothing”, and microdosing shrooms and dissociation.
Our consumption problem. With buying stuff (especially from Jeff B, wtf!). With social media. With doing too much shit with not enough time.
Non-angry feminism. I explore RBF, also known as resting bitch face. And our obsession with staying young (because society does not care about aging women!)
Random stuff. Like my weird wellness routines that my husband is horrified I shared with the world. The beauty of symbols. Advice from my mom. An epic before+after of my home, a place no one wanted for a long time.
Motherhood topics you don’t read about often. Like mothering my teenage nephew. And my nanny made me cry.
Speaking of motherhood. I co-host a video podcast on the many realities of motherhood. It’s called Real Mother Fuckers. Subscribe and follow wherever you listen to podcasts. Here’s a link to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
What not to expect
I don’t preach. I don’t tell you what to do. I write about my own experience and you can take what happened to me and how I interpreted it, learned from it, or realized from it… with you. Or you can leave it.
Inauthenticity. I try my best to be real and honest. Want to know a terrible writing secret? I typically write my newsletter the week of publishing. I don’t plan ahead because I like to write with a fire under my ass, which means I typically write what is true for me that week. Does that mean I write breaking news?!
3 fun facts
My middle name is Jucar, which is my maiden name and technically pronounced “who-car (accent on the car)” instead of “joo-car” but I grew up saying it the second way because my parents “Americanized” our name. It’s also Spanish because my ancestors are from the Philippines and, if you didn’t know, it’s a colonized archipelago. Also, Jucar is a river in Spain, which I’d like to visit someday.
I once flipped my car on the freeway. The roof was touching the ground. I was hanging upside down thanks to my seatbelt. Now that I’m thinking about it, I should probably write about this experience one day.
When I was a kid, I used to talk to Stephanie Tanner (the middle child in the TV show, Full House) alone in my bedroom.
1 serious piece of baggage
On my podcast we ask each of our guests this question at the end of the interview:
What’s your baggage?
One of mine is the fear of not being heard, listened to, or understood. It comes out in weird ways, like when I react and yell at my children. It shows up in my dreams, where I wake up screaming because no one is listening to me, like my world has put me on mute. Maybe it’s from a childhood living under an authoritarian father. Maybe it’s trauma from relationships with narcissists and people who gaslight.
Some people have fear of abandonment, issues with trust. I’m working through guilt issues and removing my self worth from how much income I make (more like, how much I do not make). The list goes on!
I like the focus of this newsletter, and where you're headed! 💜
Great post. And that podcast photo is terrific, by the way. It evokes joy!