About Me — Moni V.. Hi,
By: Moni Vazquez
Tags: Life Lessons, Essay, Biography, Personal Essay, About Me

Hi,

I am Moni, short for Simona, and I have no idea how to write this. I should, because I started writing the second I was given the alphabet; literally, I wrote so much in my life there was a point I was forbidden to get close to pen and paper –more on that later, it was before we all had cell phones– to force me to speak and interact with other humans, yet a lifelong of writing did not make me more confident.

Especially when it’s personal.

Personal feels vulnerable. And vulnerable feels too close, the opposite of what writing does to me. It protects me; it enables me, it expands my emotional body. Which is why this About Me might be a little more than you expect as an introduction; I need to beat my uncomfortable feeling. I need to tell the world I exist because until now, I never have. But let me introduce myself.

How did I become:

I was born in a once small town in the Italian part of Switzerland, from a German mother who fled the Russians during WWII and an Italian father who sang for the troops, scared of war. My family was highly dysfunctional, like many, but it taught me more than a normal family would.

My father was a criminal. A real caliber, those hunted by Interpol. He worked–off the books obviously–for those Big Pharma companies poisoning our food and land. He sold forbidden materials for organic and NON GMO farming under the table. Before those were a thing he’d sell growth hormones and antibiotics… those things your labels say are not in what you’re buying. They are. At least in some. And let me tell you, he was proud of it. Proud to “screw the system to his advantage”.

He taught me a lot, most of all, he taught me who I did not want to be. Ever. He also taught me how not to think of people, or life, or of pretty much anything. Also, he taught me how to love by separating actions from the person. How to see limits for what they are… I had to. Because I hated my own father, and that was confusing. And makes for poor adulthood.

I also learned to observe, too much. Obsessively alert and able to notice a fly in a stadium I tried to protect myself from my dad’s anger issues, the one’s he’d explode into without warning. Too bad I never had to use it in survival environments because the common world does not appreciate observation skills; it makes people nervous. Plus, it’s honestly exhausting to always be aware of your surroundings and rarely enjoy a couch cuddle with your beloved one through and through.

Another few teachers taught me the way of human males. The first one at six, the second right around my fourteenth birthday. They taught me not to trust those close to me and not to ever be alone with them. Especially when males, family members, or people put in charge of taking care of you. I am a female from the species and as it so happens males have a less functional brain and seem incapable of holding off their animal instincts. So I learned life is unfair and takes no prisoners.

During the same period of time I learned a lot from my tormented sister, the one I loved more than anyone on earth. At 14, she forced me to take heroin.

She did not fill me in on what it was.

Though even if she had, it would have no meaning to me and, under her insistence, I would have taken it anyhow. I trusted her with my life and she came oh so close to take it, my life.

Instead she took hers, but many years later, after enlightening me of the ins and outs of hell on earth, of inner and outer demons and of how low humans can go in the chain of existence. Seven years I spent in hell and one more to wake up and decide to see. I was naïve. Really naïve. And admitting the one you love hurt you intentionally is on the hard side of life.

As I sorted through my daily death I recognized my sister might have started something I never would have, but the following years were my doing alone and it was up to me to find a way out.

So I did. Eventually.

I stopped listening to ‘helpers’ –those saying it was for life– and run away from home –my dad reckoning I was in no need for help and should not go– to spend three years rebuilding my life, soul and dignity. The place was a miracle on earth, those you meet once in a lifetime. I met a few.

San Patrignano (go look at their website!) helped me revert my view of the world. And express it.

All of it. All of what I had lost and not become was given a chance back. I was allowed adolescence and to grow up.

My helpers trying to find, me buried under tens of notebooks, I would write, and write, and write some more still never talk. So they took my notebook. Oh my! Where did my world go now? I’m lost and lonely and scared and lost some more… I got pissed, oh so pissed.

And then I spoke.

First a few words, then a few more, then in avalanches of suppressed needs I’d never spoken before as my road to communication erupted into the uttered world. I’m still learning to shut up! That was over 20 years ago…

As I was at San Patrignano I worked on a weaver. An antique wood machine that taught me the way of patience. I had never met patience before. I was lucky to meet it there because life requires a shitload of it.

I also met the Italian President.

Apparently I was very good with my hand craft and they commissioned us to restore the arrays of the Quirinale, symbol of the Italian Republic where the Presidents give their speeches from. I was a subcontractor obviously; nonetheless he came to visit us. It did feel good and did give hope to someone struggling to put her life back into one piece.

It was also funny. I hated that job and felt less than good at it. I must have obviously been wrong.

Once my life made sense again I wanted more, and torn between communication and psychology I choose the latter. A late night school year later I was admitted at University. Ready to learn the ways of Men. Except, humans haven’t really learned much at all and after three years and a degree I changed subject to Cognitive Neuroscience. I thought a more thorough science would deliver more answers, yet again it did not. I ended up with more questions than ever and robbed of my thesis dissertation by my Professors who published it on NatureNeuroscience (go figure people!). I left research before starting, disgusted by their doing.

I was a Doctor in Psychology now and made it to my license, where now?

I did the logical. I helped others get back into their lives. I worked in bars because studios don’t work with trust. I worked on the streets where people lived. Over ten years spent giving to others what I received. It built me stronger, and once more showed me we are what we believe we are.

Believe you can’t and you won’t. Believe you can and you will. But belief has to be followed by walk or talk is a waste of time.

A belief confirmed by my travels (Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, Austria, Cape Verde, and 12 States in the US where I lived my last 8 years). I have lived and seen the way of cultures: beliefs abided by because there is nothing else known of. The US the biggest example of centric beliefs. Some people go all the way and fight for the right to never be proven wrong. Or different. Cultural –spiritual and religious– wars to ensure one needs not to think, ever.

Yet I was different; my whole life. Doomed to crash beliefs and not fit in. Too peculiar to be normal, too gay to be normal, too open to be normal, too lived…

Amongst my lessons I was thrown out of my house at 16 because gay. Daddy did not like gay. Though he did not care about drugs it seemed. But gay was ‘disgusting’.

A theme for years to come… when I first got married –oh that was all my fault and desire to belong– we were prevented from buying wedding rings. Two same sizes meant two same sexes. Not happening. The contradiction of law and cultural appropriateness. You can, but you won’t dare. I dared…

We got them online one at the time.

I’m also different because I have a very hard time pretending. ‘They’ say it’s ‘spectrum’s issues’ but only in the last edition of the Book of Psychiatric Gods. They might take it away again in the next version.

Too bad for me though, Americans love to pretend. They live pretending, they pretend so much every American has several social media accounts with different names to pretend better up to standards.

America almost killed me. I tried, I really tried, but my fake smiles were never as good as the original fake ones. I never passed the test. And my small talk always, always ended up in a dangerous zone of ‘I actually care about this, let’s talk’.

The room would empty.

I did lots, in America… Even grew as a Master Grower (I’m chuckling right now!) because my license in psychology was not recognized. Cannabis is a plant and I love growing plants, and flowers, and everything that lives. What I don’t like was people wearing guns in their pants at work, because they fear the FBI storming in.

The FBI would have been right to do so. I tried different workplaces and in different States yet it was the same everywhere. We grow in the front and sell in the back… My dad’s hunting.

I moved to America because America gave me the best present I ever got from life: my current wife. Almost 8 years and looking forward to the rest of my life with her. She encountered patience sooner than me, that’s why she’s still here, at my side. I’m a good person but I have my weird ways… Life made me this way… I improve though, I never give up in becoming better, yet I’m thorough and it takes time to get over fears and hiccups.

She loves me a way I’ve never felt loved before. My wife. She loves me. Not an image of me, me. Just me. And she’s honest. Real. Herself. No lies, no pretenses. She’s an American immigrant’s daughter and probably was not infected by it’s desire to fake it all the way. I’m so glad for that.

Now we’re back to Europe. We left the US in crazy mode… we sold our house in the middle of a pandemic, we put our 4 pets in our car, drove from Portland, OR to Chicago, IL to sell the car and get on the only plane taking all of us on a flight oversea where we would, hopefully, find the house we bought online. (I’m writing a memoir of the adventure, it was quite interesting, I promise!)

Now I can breathe again. And I feel safe enough to tell the truth. I am allowed to, here. Funny thing, isn’t it? My wife is seeing Europe for the first time, and after 3 month here her comment was: “America is dying!” This because she’s felt for the first time what it is like to be free to really be yourself. And be safe in doing so. Not fearing an illness will take your house and car and all you have.

What do I do here? I write!

I self-published my first poem collection because I decided it’s time. I have so much material I might as well give it to the world. Make it public.

Share it.

So far no one has found it but I’m a writer not an entrepreneur. It’s my limit. And writing takes me a lot of time. Currently, I am writing a book about dog training for a publishing company and that’s fun –I told you I did lots of things in life — because I loved dog training.

I found Medium as a wonderful place to read, mostly, then I started writing too. I tried writing listicles hits, but they bore me to death. As do other articles written just to be read by those with no idea on how to find information themselves. I really tried.

I stick to poems.

And some essays…

And short form! I spent a few weeks playing with them and came op with a double gain for me. I write short form fiction now, on Medium.

I challenge myself to write full stories in 150 words. I made my own publication just a few days ago.

0 followers. But I like the feel. I like having something mine with words.

It teaches me to edit to the bone, to funnel condensed creativity into durable bits. I can’t write 100 books a year, but I can write 100 short forms a year and choose the one I like best to be a book.

Or not. It will matter when it is. And if you feel inspired to challenge yourself come and write with me.

I made it!

And apparently you did too which really surprises me.

This was a short version of how I became to be the me who is right now. I might be different next time you check in… I hope this answered the about me question, the why I’m here and why I write… It’s my beloved prison of words…