Daniela

Daniela’s five words are Outgoing, Genuine, Honest, Loyal, People pleaser. She grew up in a small mountain town where her whole extended family lived walking distance from each other, became a mother at fifteen and raised her son alone until she met her fiancé three years later. They moved south, had two more children, and are now a family of 6, with a small dog. She cooks, bakes, makes crafts and takes photographs, and she says plainly: I try to live a healthy life style but my family makes it pretty difficult.

Her kitchen came from her grandmother, the typical Spanish woman always cooking, house always smelling like fresh tortillas, who taught her ALL comfort foods. Healthy foods not so much. Her own mother surprisingly doesn't know how to cook, and the family ate at her grandmother’s five days a week. Now Daniela cooks most nights, asks the children what they want, keeps a weekly log to save money, and lets the kids cook while she supervises: I told my kids I'm not gonna be here forever. Mexican food is her favorite to make. Her healthy-food ad has children eating veggie burgers unawares, And a mom winking at the camera like yup got em.

Her food words are hard to read: Snacker, comfort, depressing, sad, idk. She describes diets she could not afford or keep up, and, briefly, a past time of making herself sick after eating, from long-standing weight insecurities. She writes of it as something behind her, and this portrait leaves it there. Her collage, she says, shows my ups n downs and pretending I'm happy when my weight truly effects my mood. Under stress she cannot eat. When it is all too much, I lock myself in the bathroom or car until I can pull myself together. One cautious reading is that the bathroom and the car are the only rooms in a busy household that are hers.

Her lifeline is family. She changed her life from partying to becoming a mom! She met her partner, lost a pregnancy, had her second son and moved far from home, which was very overwhelming. I missed my family. She moved again and had her daughter, and learned that I could do things myself & didn't need my grandma to do it all for me. In the past year a teenage brother she had never met in person was killed. She carries guilt for not reaching out, and drew the lesson always tell your loved ones you love them. That autumn her mother had COVID-19, and Daniela, such a natural caregiver, felt very worthless not being able to help her. Roles run both ways: I'm definitely like the parent to her and my dad. Her mother is also her 2 a.m. call.

Her generosity reaches past her own door. Children from the neighborhood who sometimes go without food come to her house every day, so we feed those babies. The question about compassion for animals unsettled her: Saying this question out loud really makes me consider not eating meat. Bastian and Loughnan (2017) describe how people manage the tension between caring for animals and eating them; Daniela, unusually, let the tension stand.

Asked what would help, she named two things: more money, and the gym daycare reopening, I miss that so much. Her favorite affirmation, which her daughter now repeats with her in the mirror, begins You are beautiful, you are strong. Her letter: I am most proud of becoming what people said I couldn't which is a great mother!