I wrote this a few weeks ago, in many ways to explain the content of this newsletter/ web journal. Due to recent events, it seems that this kind of response is very appropriate for the time we are living in
07.23.2021
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I’ve been watching the Naomi Osaka documentary on Netflix, and have a hard time watching, either due to my ADHD or just because it hits too close to home, the struggles she experienced as a 22-year-old. Having been training to be a tennis player since three, Naomi only ever knew to win her tennis tournaments. And for a while, that’s all she did. Then, after winning international accolades for beating Serena Williams in 2018, she just lost. And kept losing. Time after time after time. The only thing she knew, the only thing that defined her— for 22 years—she could not do anymore. She asked herself, what is Naomi Osaka if there is no tennis? Her answer, she feared, was no one.
Anyways, this newsletter, unfortunately, is not really about Naomi Osaka, or tennis for that matter.
It’s about digging through this feeling of what is a person. More specifically, who am I as a person? For those who know me, since a young age I’ve put immense pressure on myself, worked diligently, and sacrificed a lot to be where I am today. The narrative I had created for myself, as a 6-year-old Honduran migrant, had been fulfilled for many years. However, in the past two years, I’ve started to taste my fair share of deep failure, disappointment, self-doubt, that I've struggled to come out of, but at times cannot. During these times, I often try to ground myself in a physical craft: drawing, sketching, video making, playlist crafting, movie watching. Things that I generally don’t give myself the time to do; nurture the aspects of myself that I tend to neglect. In these newsletters, I kinda would like to share that with those I love (and those who I respect as peers haha).
I know, I know, very boring Cinthia, who doesn’t do artsy stuff or watch movies or listen to music? We’re all human.
That’s kinda the point.
The point of making this webspace to share this.
Each webpage that you receive will be completely coded (HTML, CSS, etc.) by me , and contains content created purely by me (unless stated otherwise).
These web newsletters will have no pressure to be anything but just me .
I could share this on Instagram as I share my goofy family, but to be honest, I don’t want to configure any of the content I make within the metrics of winning, or status, or aesthetics. These drawings might be ugl. My emails may be very grammatically incorrect. And I will probably start a lot of my sentences with ‘and’. And that’s okay.
That’s what this is here for.
An online journal.
That I begin three weeks before my 23rd birthday.
One 22-year-old sack of meat to another.
What am I outside of my merit?
Probably this kinda stuff.
Thank you for tuning in, and for sharing this virtual space and very real time
with me.
