With you, I feel invincible . . .

“Believe in yourself” Dalai Lama

I often question, am I making the right decisions? Have I chosen the right career path? Will I ever make it? Will I be the one to actually achieve my goals and set an amazing example for those around me, or will I make a wrong turn? Am I really making a difference? Can I make a difference? Don't you have times where all you do is question why, and how? I do. BUT, I am learning to believe in myself. I am learning to believe that anything is possible if I put my all into what my heart desires. Believing in yourself requires for oneself to accept something as true, to trust in something, to consider something honest or truthful.

When I told my friends I wanted to write a blog, they were all for it, but I took a moment to re-evaluate what I wanted to write about because again, I didn’t believe in myself. I have always said to everyone that I want to use multiple platforms to inspire and help people who are going through similar things as me or have similar feelings. The main purpose of this blog is to be able to break free, and make a difference using a platform that is so widely popular right now.

For a very long time, I always felt as if I only partially believed in myself. I have always let people’s judgements cloud my tunnel vision. When I was getting my Associates degree at Mercyhurst University, my Criminology professor Dr.Y. once said to me “You are a brilliant individual, you have heart, and you have the determination to be successful, never lose sight of that”. I have always wanted to be a police officer, maybe since the age of six. I always dreamt of working with minorities in deteriorating neighborhoods. I want to work with troubled youth, men and women who often mistrust the system and everyone who wears blue. I want to be someone to make a difference. I want to be someone who can sit down and share my story. I want to be someone who can be as transparent as possible, with the full intentions of being myself. For years, I have had teachers, friends, family members even question why do you want to be a police officer? Why be the one that everyone looks down upon because of a gun and a badge?

Now this post is not going to be my rant and how I want to be a police officer and why. This is to demonstrate why and how I learned to believe in myself.

I can admit, that I have been wrong at a lot of things. I have been wrong, at being the perfect sister, role model, girlfriend, and even friend: I will tell you how.

Sister: There has been times where I have been ‘too busy’. My sister growing up would try to lean on me for advice, and just to ask me questions. Yet, sadly I have been someone to handle things differently regarding life situations. When it came to me being with friends, or in a relationship, I used to prioritize my time with them instead of with family. Growing up I was always closer to my younger brother instead of my sister, which to some is weird being she’s the other girl out of the three. Yet being the oldest is not easy. I have been absent in both of my sibling’s life due to college as well since I decided to stay off campus and away from home. This is normal to many, but it was difficult to me in a way that I am so family oriented. There have been times where my brother has needed me the most, and I have failed to be there as well. As we are older now though, we all are much closer and I am able to understand where I have failed as a sister when it came to them needing me for advice and other things when they were younger.

Role Model: As far as being a role model, I am not perfect. A lot of people read my blogs and question how can I be where I am today with the past that I had? That’s simple, life gives chances. I have been fortunate enough to receive a lot of different opportunities to straighten my a** out. I don’t take them for granted now, but back then in my teen years, I thought fighting was the way to solve everything. That led to those around me following my hostile ways and portraying the same thing I was doing. When I was ready to fight, so where my friends, and that wasn’t something that I was proud of. My goal is to show people that I am human. I have a very good heart, and I do things out of love 99.9% of the time. But again, I have failed of course which is ok, because I am only one person.

Girlfriend: As a girlfriend, I have heard that I can be hard to deal with, hell I know I am. I have a feisty attitude, but I am also very laid back and fun. I just have character to me and that is something that makes me who I am. I know I can be loud and obnoxious. I can be someone who questions everything, but also someone who listens to everything you have to say. I can be someone to argue back, but also someone to admit my faults and back down. I can be someone to love with everything I have and be nothing more but loyal. But there are always two sides of the coin. You can’t always wish for the perfect side of me. I cry my eyes out for hours, I can yell and ignore you, I can be sad and just want to cuddle and nothing else: but who said that isn’t normal? I admit to my faults as a woman, I know that once you have me, you have me. I also can say that once I am gone, I am gone, regardless of the history, pain, happiness, memories etc. When I quit, I quit hard and nobody can change my mind which is faulty sometimes, but you choose the Daliana you get. That’s how I see things in life. If you can have me at my worst, you deserve me at my best. Friend: As a friend, I find it hard to fail, but I have. When I meet someone loyal, my loyalty will easily be returned in a friendship. I have had friends, who have called me fake, two faced, a b****, a liar, a hypocrite, you name it I’ve heard it. These people fortunately are not in my life anymore for various reasons. I find it very hard to connect with women for example, especially those with a lot of dominant/similar traits as me. Not that there is a sense of competition, but because females in a group always tend to gossip, lie, create secrets, pick favorites, flirt with each other’s boyfriends etc. NOT SAYING THAT ALL FEMALE GROUPS DO THIS. It is very difficult for me to trust someone once they have burned me once, which is why my friend circle is very tight niche. I have learned to choose my friends wisely because I have experienced a lot with people who I have considered ‘friends’. There are those people who come into my life, and I connect with them instantly. There also those people that I test to see if they are really worth my efforts. I can admit, I have been someone to not talk to my friends for months, someone to keep secrets, someone to second guess friendships, someone to argue and fight with my friends but those who have stuck around me know that I can be a true friend. I am faulty in some of my behaviors and actions towards my friends, a lot of people can’t handle my attitude, or my personality even sometimes, but that’s the problem with many. A lot of people like to conform to others and mold and bend their values and beliefs to have more friends or be more popular. Me on the other hand, I can’t do things like that because of the way I was raised, and because I simply know better. Friends come and go, like a dollar out of my pocket. Friendship is something sacred to me, I take it personal when I call someone my friend and even more if I call you my best friend or sister/brother. So the type of friendships I create are also based on the Daliana you want.

So even through these failures, I have learned that life, is life. There is no way to cheat yourself out of life, we can’t predict what’s going to happen, we can’t control and demand, we just have to live. There have been times were I have been at my lowest. This is where my big heart gets in the way all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I have my sass and my attitude, but I always try to love and admire the little things in life. I have been living my life for a long time, just lingering at my lowest. I contemplate all of my decisions, I question everything that comes good to me, I second guess many of my abilities when it comes to academics, or writing, or even speaking in public (which I hate). Most importantly, I have found myself to not be able to believe in myself 100% of the time.

“I remember stage fright, back when I ain't know if I could rock a stage right"- Joe Budden.

This quote was sent to me the other night by a fellow poet that I am just now getting to learn more about. We were having a conversation about Open Mics, and I was telling him how I recently attended one and was just feeling so inspired by all of the artists that performed (even though I had to many Long Islands). This quote came in the conversation because he told me that I should read one of my blog posts, my response was more of like a (HELL NO) “I am more of a writer which is why I stay behind a screen when it comes to telling my story”. A few nights before this conversation as well, on my very IG post, this same young man commented and reminded me of why I should stay positive and believe in myself a little more than what I am doing now. He mentioned to me how he was having ‘writer’s block’ something that is all too familiar to me. I decided to inbox him and he shared his story with me. He is currently going through a tough time right now, which we all have, but his positive vibes and determination to continue on and move forward, is what inspired me to write this blog. The funny thing is that he says I did the same for him, and that’s what amazes me every day.

“I write because it helps me breathe in a world that I am suffocating in”. JC

Only if you knew how difficult this is for me, I sit behind a computer screen constantly staring at this blank page, with black words hoping that I am connecting with someone on the other side. Sometimes I feel like I am treading water. I am slightly drowning, but I am like a duck: peaceful above water, but hectic under it. I feel like I am enclosed in a clear box, that I am climbing out of, one day at a time. I stopped believing in myself a long time ago. I let all the negatives get the best of me, which only made me climb right back down into this box. I know that it will take time for me to find myself again: yet I know that I have been starting to achieve that goal. I have learned how to separate finally the negatives and positives and how to simply start living my life.

My personal advice to you, be yourself. Believe in yourself. I can’t be as more direct than this. It’s a beautiful thing to feel confident, to feel like you are yourself, to feel like you are in control of yourself: your actions, your decisions, your thoughts, your mind, body and soul. Every day, I keep my end goal in mind: becoming a police officer. I want to be the best at what I do, and I want to be someone who can inspire other minorities to follow in my footsteps and believe that there is always hope in a corrupt system. That there are people who wear blue to protect, and serve with everything they have. For years, I have doubted my career choice, I constantly here how difficult it will be because I am Latina, a woman, a minority. How my own people will hate me and look down on me because I carry a gun and badge, but the point is for me to realize that I am in control of my own life. Nobody can pick and choose how I feel, and I choose to believe that I can make a difference one way or the other. The point is for me to believe in myself.

It has taken me years: it took for me to fall, to be at my lowest, but when I realized that I wasn’t happy, that there was more life beyond the horizons, I broke free. I feel like I am being reborn again, I am full of happiness, and such positive vibes. I am learning to wake up and say to myself “Daliana you are who you are, remember that”. My main focus has been on allowing myself to honestly believe that I am better, that I am worth it, that I am doing everything in my power to accomplish my dreams, that I am simply me.