“Hay mija,hay mas tiempo que vida…”
CONTENT WARNING: Mental Health, Suicide
“Hay mija. Hay mas tiempo que vida.” The first time I heard this dicho my mom and I were talking after a therapy session. I was in the 7th grade when I confessed to a close family friend that I no longer wanted to be alive, which led me to the hospital to be evaluated and enrolled in therapy.
Being a teenager is challenging. Not only was I experiencing biological changes but I had been in San Francisco for two years after having lived in Oklahoma and was still adjusting to life in this city. I had also experienced and witnessed a lot of trauma and abuse as a kid. From witnessing women in my family experience disrespect and physical abuse, to having to flee dangerous situations/natural disasters, and being placed in foster care. The life events that I had experience up until 13 were intense and I did not have the words or means to express myself nor the support necessary to navigate.
I have been in and out of therapy since that experience. Often seeking it out myself when things felt like they were caving in on me. I have had a lot of great therapists that have influenced my interests in youth mental health, and I have also had therapists that allowed me to see why so many people feel put off by therapy. In college I dove deeper into my healing by pursuing Psychology. I wanted to fully understand why I- and other people- are the way we are. I gained so much insight while studying this topic and learned so much about myself, which at times was incredibly painful. Like when I learned that I had been operating from a dissociative state majority of my life, never feeling fully safe-enough to be in the present moment. Or when I finally understood the sickening feeling at the pit of my stomach as anxiety and how it impacted everything that I did.
Therapy may not be for everyone, but it has saved me many times. Most recently when I was in therapy I realized that I was fully capable of speaking on the traumatic experiences of my life but I had yet to fully embody and feel the affects of such events. When certain things would trigger me I would find myself shaking or feeling like I was in danger without understainding why. I did my research and found a therapist that focused on somatic healing and had experience with spiritual topics. After the passing of my father in 2020 I had relied on spirituality as a way to heal. I began having an intentional practice with my ancestors and making -peace- my top priority.
The last few times I talked to my therapist I was amidst intense change in my life, or like we called it- a canon event (inspired by the recent spiderman into the spider-verse movie). I was explaining to her the inspiration for this print and she asked me how this dicho is still relevant in my life now.
In that canon event I was looking to create more time and space for myself and my goals. I wanted to take a chance and bet on myself but I was still working through the fear and people pleasing tendencies that told me that doing so would disappoint others. But the feeling that life is too short would not leave my mind. The first time I heard this dicho, I did not understand it. “There’s more time than life?” what was my mom trying to get at?? But something that my dad’s passing taught me is that life goes on. When someone close to you dies it can feel like time stops. The grief goes over you like a blanket and you are confronted with the reality that the person you loved is no longer here. But as I moved through grief and I allowed it to teach and change me I realized that my perception of time was now different. From that moment on I have valued time differently.
I began to see time for the scarce commodity that it is- at least in this society. In this capitalist society, we are compensated for the time we spend at work (if you are non-exempt). In the US the average American will spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week working for a business that does not care for the individuals well being. “The show must go on,” and if something happens to you they will find someone to replace you before your desk even gets cold. Capitalism makes it out to seem like the time and effort that individuals put in is not of great value by making it seem like they are easily replaceable. But time is the only thing we really have. All material possessions can be lost or replaced. People can always leave their jobs and start a new one, but the time spent doing something that does not bring you joy or peace is something you’ll never get back.
There is only so much time that we individually have on this Earth to “serve our purpose.” I believe our purpose is to experience life fully- whatever that means to people on individual and collective level. Coming to this understanding and creating this print pushed me to fully commit myself to my purpose and the next day I decided to cut back on my working hours to have more time to create and be in the studio. It was a risk that I was ready to take. Doing so has opened up so many opportunities for me and has brought in a sense of hope and magic in my life that I am still exploring. Right now I am committed to myself and to a life that is aligned with my values, hopes, and dreams to create a world that I believe is worth living for.
