why naya rivera’s death hits so hard right now

“The trouble is, you think you have time”

—Jack Kornfield

I never watched Glee. I remember a lot of people my age at the time were kinda obsessed with it. I was never into musicals on TV. Correction: on American TV. I had watched enough Bollywood movies to know that I came to Hollywood for the romance, action, drama, and some morbidity. So, this past week I’ve really been trying to figure out WHY Naya Rivera’s disappearance (updated: death) is messing with me so hard right now.

For those who aren’t aware, Naya Rivera is an actress who is most known for her role in Glee. She disappeared last week while boating with her 4-year-old son at Lake Piru. Her body was found five days after at the lake.

I know her because she was the inspiration behind Big Sean’s hit, “I Don’t F**k With You.” Have to admit, that song was/still is a banger, but I really thought Naya was legit some “crazy chick.” I mean, all women go a little “crazy” when they get cheated on, no? Not just women—men too. Cheating has that effect. It brings out parts of you that you didn’t know existed. But, I digress.

When I found out about Naya’s disappearance, I was approaching my month long Twitter detox, so you know the first place I went to was Twitter. Of course it was trending and I read every goddamn tweet and every article that could have been written about her disappearance. I was just in shock. How could a woman someone just disappear in the middle of a lake? Of course she didn’t just disappear—she most likely drowned. It wouldn’t be so morbid if it wasn’t for the fact that her son was found alone on the boat and SAVED. And also because it took them almost 6 days to find her.

https://twitter.com/NayaRivera/status/1280626721146826752

So why is it that when I talk to someone about her, I don’t tell them about the part where I stay up until 2am every night looking for updates, going through her IG, reading tweets and articles about her career, her family, in an attempt to figure out what kind of person she was. What she was doing in July 2020. What was she doing during quarantine, during COVID-19? To say I’m obsessed is an understatement.

But, this isn’t the first time a celebrity’s disappearance or death has messed me up FOR DAYS. I mean, everyone was F**KED UP after Kobe. But I was F**KED UP after Heath Ledger, Amy Winehouse, Paul Walker, Robin Williams, Chester Bennington, Anthony Bourdain, Sushant Singh Rajput… and so, so many more. That’s the type of person I am. I’m THAT girl. Who gets emotionally attached to people who didn’t even know she existed.

But here’s the thing—the people I just listed, I was their fan. Like, I watched their movies/shows or listened to their music. And another reason I can excuse myself was that almost all the people mentioned died by suicide. That adds another layer of hardcore sadness and pure curiosity. It’s much easier to get over a death by disease, car/plane accident than it is to get over a death by suicide, or mystery. An unsolved mystery, even worse.

I may not have been a diehard fan of her, but Naya’s death hits extra hard right now is because it reminds us of our mortality in so many different ways. It doesn’t help that 2020 has already shown us that in multiple ways (I mean, did we really need more reminders, Universe?) She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t in the hospital for days surviving on a ventilator. It was a casual day when she left her home with her son to spend time at the lake she had frequented before. She most likely had plans for that evening, the rest of the week, the weekend, and so much more. The nonchalancy of the day is what gets to me. That feeling of being caught off guard. She was only 33.

the irony of this is unsettling…

Why and how is it that sometimes the people who have the BIGGEST plans, who go to sleep waiting for the next day to arrive, have their lives cut short? The morbidity of the situation is that the woman wrote a message about how “tomorrow isn’t promised” just a few days before her death.

We write these things, we believe in it, but are we really prepared? Is anyone ever prepared for that day when you have to say goodbye to the people and what you’ve built here and move on to the next chapter? Sure, if you’re 90 and everyone you really gave a shit about is already six feet under, then you’re probably patiently waiting for that day. But the rest of us, the ones who are not young enough to be children but still too young to die…well we’re the ones who are sitting here posting quotes about “living in the moment,” but never, ever being ready for that moment to come.

It makes you wonder, does one get a feeling of some sorts on the day their death is written for them? Of course, we’ll never know because well, no one has lived to tell.

Rest in Peace+Power+Love,

~n

You Should Read This

This is rough. Forgiveness is so very important, friends:

“I miss you, and I’m waiting for the day for someone to come into my life and show me you never existed.

There’s things I can’t shrug off, and the loneliness is always there. In a crowd, the thought of you consumes me, and the evenings remind me of what I thought we had. But when the daylight comes back—I’m reminded of what you did, what you said, and who you were. I want to crawl back into my fantasy of you that I was in love with. I want to forget the reality of you and who you really were, and still are.

I miss you so much and miss everything about you, from your eyes to your lips, I miss feeling you. I wish you didn’t do what you did, and sometimes, I hesitantly wish we were still together. But the reality isn’t such. Sometimes I want to live in the fantasy I had created for us all along; I don’t dwell in it too long, just when the loneliness gets overwhelming. I know I still love you, although I doubted if I ever did. I did and I still do. I wish I didn’t, but I know I do. I can’t forget you. It’s so hard, and your absence kills me.

Although I miss you, although I know I love you, I don’t wish good things for you. I hope you feel the same pain I’ve felt all these days. I wish your days are full of loneliness, and your evenings are full of despair and regret. I wish you truly, genuinely fall in love with someone, who rips your heart out in front of your face. I wish you meet the person you make your night and day, and they show you that you’re nothing but a speck in their eyes.

I know I love you, but I don’t wish good things on you. I loved you with an all-consuming love that I wanted so bad to be reciprocated. I wanted you to feel what I feel. I want you to feel what you’ve made me felt. I want you to meet the person who makes you melt, and makes you think you can forget about me once and for all, but they take all you had from you. I want you to know what it feels like when love shows you where it is and it isn’t. I want you to know what I felt.”

~n

Thoughts on Shitty Choices

I was all ready to write and get all my thoughts together an hour ago, but I ended up reading something else I wrote almost 10 months ago… Scary. It was very, very scary to say the least. Hindsight is truly something. If I had just pushed, pressed, and listened to what was being said to me and done to me … I would’ve been out of this thing 10 months ago. That’s about 5 months before than it happened. 5 months of my life I would’ve had back; 5 extra months of healing. Actually, if I really think about it—I could’ve ended that horrible relationship before it even bloomed into a real “relationship.” I could’ve ended it when it when it was only 5 months old. I guess 5 is a thing or something. But, I was too weak. And optimistic. I was also always a big romantic, and wanted to fall in love. I wanted to take a chance, live my life, and enjoy my life… Didn’t know 3 years would fly by and all I had to show for it was absolute shit. I’m really not trying to be cynical or super-negative about it LOL really—but aside from all the “life lessons,” I really have shit. I could’ve learned these life lessons from A LOT OF OTHER PLACES AND WAYS, YOU KNOW. But I didn’t. I was with a shitty human being, who didn’t teach me good things, but taught me that shitty human beings exist everywhere, and many of them will be pretty, pretty close to you. (Larry David voice). I guess it’s still a lesson. Shitty lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.

Oh, well. No point in regretting the past, and beating myself now.

What I have recently learned, though, is that I really need to accept the fact that I was in a very bad relationship. Despite how positive and zen you try to get about it — you really need to face the facts eventually. It takes some guts to admit that you made a really shitty choice in a partner, spent time, money, and love on them, and you ended up having a really horrible relationship. Your investment, unfortunately, didn’t pay off. You took a risk and guess what, it was not a good idea. You can spin it a thousand ways — but rationally, it was a bad decision. A poor choice. You must’ve had some idea of what ways it could’ve gone, yet, you made your decision. And believe me, I am in a really good mood right now LOL, and am writing all this with a feeling of content. I’ve been trying to avoid the fact that I made such a bad fucking decision, but unfortunately I did. And the only thing—BELIEVE ME, there’s only one thing—I can do now is make a better decision next time around. More like 1000000000% better.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a key difference between successful and unsuccessful romantic relationships, and it’s not that one ends up in marriage or a forever, oh my god I will love you all my life type thing. What a successful romantic relationship does is teach you more about yourself and about the world—which includes its humans and all its lessons—and leaves you a better, well-rounded person regardless of the outcome. Not a broken, bitter, cold, destroyed person with trust issues and insecurity. The ones that do that, well, they were truly unsuccessful relationships. And you, my friend, did not succeed.

It really does suck to fail. (SUCKS TO BE ME RIGHT NOW! Like Nacho says). It sucks to know you made a bad decision, whether it’s buying a shitty t-shirt, making a bad business decision, or a bad choice for a partner. But really—what the fuck are you gonna do about it? Cry about it forever? Hell fucking no.

-n

My Life Right Now—

At least I admit it. #NoRegrets

All this time I drank you like the cure—when you were the poison

I’m reading all the things I wrote to myself months ago and realizing, regretting, and hurting. I knew all of this so long ago—but was kept in the dark, manipulated, lied to—I was uncentered and drowning in doubt to realize the truth. Everything feels meaningless and yet so meaningful. It’s hard to understand the deceit and betrayal—but it exists. It will always exist. The difference might be that it won’t matter as much, it won’t hurt as much.

The mornings and nights are the worst. I’m too busy all day to dwell, yet I fall asleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. It sucks, but it must be part of the process. I’d like to erase everything from my memory, but that won’t really happen, and I no longer want it to happen. This is a necessary lesson, for someone like me. I needed this because I wouldn’t have learned anything if I didn’t actually go through it. However, there’s a difference between losing someone because the stars just aren’t aligning for you at the moment, and actually being deliberately betrayed — and that’s something I don’t think everyone should go through, that just fucking sucks.

I’m going through all the motions, the rollercoaster of an awful, awful breakup. Every day, I think of something different to wallow over. Another lie comes in my brain; something reminds me of him and I realize—oh, that was a lie too, huh. And then, I move on to realizing how not special I was to him. How he could do the same fucking things with her that he did with me. He didn’t leave anything — everything he did with me, say to me — he said to her. Then, I move to beating myself up; I regret not acting on my intuition, putting my honor + faith on the line, disrespecting my family, putting them last—all for someone who was never faithful to me. I regret letting myself get duped, used and abused. I’m embarrassed—no ashamed—for what I did with him and for him. I acted from a place of love, but it was sinful and sad, and the end could be nothing else than what it is now. The show is finally over and I am so glad.

And then I move on to my life that I finally have back. It’s back in my hands, clean and ready for a new story, a new journey. I think about all the great, amazing things that can now come out from a toxic-free, single, whole life. I realize I finally have that one opportunity to understand what it means to be a whole person. Then, I realize that there is someone out there for me whose going to be everything I’ve imagined. I always thought of him, even when I was with another. I know we will meet when the time is right and perfect for us—not a day sooner, not a day later. I know I will look back to this time of my life when I had the most growth, when I was the strongest although I felt the weakest, and I’ll know that this is when I defined myself, found myself, and built myself. I’ll look back and really understand why it didn’t, and never could, work out with anyone else in the world. By that point, I’ll be happy and satisfied by myself, too.

I know that I was meant for other things and the reality is finally here. And all I can do right now is accept this reality with an open heart, thank the God that loves and cares for me, and be ready.

 

That Cliché Resolutions List

Happy New Year, friends! I’ve decided that this year, I’m actually going to make a real resolutions list. I’ve never done one of these legit resolutions before, where I want to actually work on something on myself consistently. From what I can recall, I found resolutions rather silly — I usually just expected things to change, if they were meant to, year by year. Of course, there will always be certain things that you don’t have control over in your life, but most things in your life are. We don’t realize how much control we have over our lives. Most of us let the people around us control us, let circumstances influence our decisions, our moods, our behaviors.

2013 was one of the most mixed years of my life, for the lack of a better word. It was extremely hard, disappointing, painful, devastating, yet exciting, full of wisdom, love, and happiness. I lost very close people to my heart, friendships and relationships changed drastically, I got my first official job post-college, made new friendships, and got my feet a little wet in the real world. Obviously, there’s so much left for me to discover and know, but 2013 was a year that has begun to carve me into the kind of person I’m probably going to be in the next 5 years. The choice is mine, to stay in the dark places I was in last year, or hold on to the light I found. I’ve realized, I’m going to hold on to the light I found; and those of you who are having troubles (who isn’t, really?), there must have been some moments of light in 2013 —the choice to hold on to those moments is yours, no one else’s.

Bloodstream

Wake up and look me in the eyes again
I need to feel your hand upon my face
Words can be like knives
They can cut you open
And then the silence surrounds you
And haunts you

I think I might’ve inhaled you
I can feel you behind my eyes
You’ve gotten into my bloodstream
I can feel you flowing in me

Words can be like knives
They can cut you open
And then the silence surrounds you
And haunts you

I think I might’ve inhaled you
I can feel you behind my eyes
You’ve gotten into my bloodstream
I can feel you flowing in me

The spaces in between
Two minds and all the places they have been
The spaces in between
I try to put my finger on it
I try to put my finger on it

I think I might’ve inhaled you
I can feel you behind my eyes
You’ve gotten into my bloodstream
I can feel you flowing in me

I think I might’ve inhaled you
I can feel you behind my eyes
You’ve gotten into my bloodstream
I can feel you floating in me

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nowadays, I’ve been living for those few moments of love, passion, & ecstasy—
granted, they are happiness for maybe the short-term, but they feel so amazing.

Sometimes, when we’re going about our day, engrossed in everything we’re supposed to be doing, we easily forget how strongly someone leaves a part of themselves with us. Or rather, how much we leave ourselves with them.

 -n

Waste—

“My parents have since divorced (believe me parents divorcing when you are an adult is no easier than having them divorce when you are a child … especially when there is ‘another woman’ involved. Because you are an adult you are not shielded form any of the sordid little secrets as you would have been if you were a child; you are not protected from the screaming matches or the crying or the utter despair, the hurt and the depression.  You are put in the middle of it all and made to take sides. My little brother was 6 years younger than me. He was protected. It sent me into a deep depression. I just wish my Dad would have had the guts to end it all sooner […]”

It is both heartbreaking and heartwarming to know that most of us, in any corner of the world, go through the same exact thing.

Source

Distracted from Death

I am so devastated. If there’s one thing almost all of us have to deal with our lives at least once in our lives, it’s death. And the worst  part is, no one will teach you enough about it, how to cope with it, how to accept it, and what to make of it — you just have to figure it out all on your own. No matter how many degrees you have, if you’re the CEO of a company, or if you’ve reached the ultimate level of spirituality, there’s something unsettling about coming face to face with our mortality. And wondering what your loved one’s soul is going through over — and over — and over — and over again.

Two months & ten days ago, I lost my uncle. And my cousin, who is nothing less than my sister, lost her father.  I can never imagine how she felt, I may one day, but the fact that someone I love so dearly lost someone who was such a large part of her life, has just broken my heart. Today, I found out my sis-in-law (truthfully my ‘ex’ sis in law)’s mother passed away early this morning. I can’t even fathom what she’s going through right now, I may one day as well, but once again, someone I love so dearly has lost the only person she really had in this isolated world. Even worse, our relationship was so strained the last few months of her life, that I didn’t even have the opportunity to make amends. The most heartbreaking part of all this is that this time last year, we didn’t even think we’d be losing these two people in our lives. I mean, do you ever think that? Why would you even think that?

However, the reason I’m actually writing this right now is because I’ve been walking around, acting, talking, sleeping, laughing like none of these things have happened…I’ve been distracting myself soo well. I guess working 9 hours Monday-Friday helps a lot as well. I’m not too sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing —I guess writing about it helps when I’m distracting myself in the day-to-day life. But, I do know at the end of the day, that this just sucks. I guess I have not reached the levels of spirituality, reality, acceptance taught by Buddhism, that everything we cherish we will lose….it’s not sad, but it’s the truth, and from knowing the truth, you will grow and move on.

But at 22, this truth really freaking hurts.

Not there yet,

N.

Whoa :O

Tomorrow I’ll be ending my first full week of “work,” plus three days from last week. And yes, I am employed; it’s so weird and happened so awfully fast. Ever since I’ve started ‘working,’ I’ve realized so many things about so many things. It’s not like I didn’t know some of these things before, but now I see them from different perspectives.

However, most things haven’t changed. For example: Time. It’s still going by so goddamn fast, not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m not sure the things I’m doing right now are the right things, or the best things for me, or the worst. I really don’t know, and I wish I knew if I was or not. I guess that’s the challenge for a lot of people, and overall, our lives. Are we wasting our times or utilizing it? Are we really doing the things we want, or are we just following what everyone around us have shown us?

Sorry, I dwell in these rhetorical thoughts once a month.

—N