Identity

I guess I could write about being a girl, or being straight, or being raised in an upper-middle class household, or not really identifying with my Puerto Rican heritage but none of those really feel like they define who I am as person. As I run my finger over the thick, black lines that lie just below the crease of my inner right arm, it hits me. This symbol I've chosen to get etched into my skin is my way of telling the world my beliefs. 

I don't remember when I realized I was an atheist. I know when I was young I would beg my mom to send me to CCD at the local church. Not because I was some religious freak, but rather, I had serious FOMO. When you're young and none of your friends can play on a certain day of the week because they're getting their religious education, you want to be there too. My mom would always try to explain to me that CCD was not some big party like I thought and was actually super boring. Eventually, I came to my senses and stopped asking my mom to send me to CCD. 

By the time I got to high school, I had realized that even if God was real, he's an asshole. I had watched my grandfather, one of the greatest people I have ever known, deteriorate from an illness with no cure, right before my eyes. I had seen Hurricane Sandy rip through my town, destroying everything people owned including their homes, businesses and cars. I had seen the disgusting, vile things that people who were supposed to delivers God's message do to children. I can't comprehend how people can see these horrible things that happen in our world and still think that if God is real, they are some great almighty being to worship.

I think a big problem I have with religion, or rather, religious people is that a lot of people use religion and the promise of some sort of afterlife as the main reasoning of why they try to be a good person. As an atheist, I don't need the promise of anything after this life to be a good person. I strive to be a better person everyday to help make the lives of those around me better. If I ever buy a meal for a homeless person I see on the street, or donate to a charity, or reach out to someone I think may being going through a rough patch, it's not because I got some message from God saying I needed to help that person, it's because I have compassion and realize that sometimes people are dealing with a lot of shit and could use someone of their side. I don't need the voice of God to tell me to be a good person, I use my own voice, my own conscious to decide those things.

The tattoo on my right arm. The Darwin fish is a parody of the Jesus fish you have most likely seen on the back of some soccer mom's minivan. The Darwin fish symbolizes that you believe in evolution rather than creationism.

Two of my great-grandmothers and I at my christening. My mom is an atheist too so I am not really sure how she was convinced to get me Christened. I think it was mainly to appease my grandmother's and get them to shut up about it.