Category Archives: Learning to Grow Up

i must be made of steel

I’ve been thinking a lot about the outcome of life and how things will turn out.

Do you believe in fate? Do you believe that everything has its purpose and everything is meant to happen for a reason?

Yes. I do. But to a certain extent. I believe that every choice I make is the choice I’m supposed to make, guided by the ways of the universe. I might not realize right now exactly how my choices will affect the rest of my life, but I’m sure to believe that that’s how things are supposed to happen.

Maybe it’s because I was young and I chose to believe in fate as a sense of relief, a sense that the choices I make aren’t completely wrong, despite the negative outcomes that may occur. I guess it makes me feel like there is a greater picture beyond my minuscule being. I guess it makes me feel like there is a safety net below me. Every choice I make is supposed to happen, don’t stress about it.

 

A lot has happened in the last few days, and I know it is partially a consequence of a path I’ve chosen for the future of my life. Everything, slowly but surely, is slowly falling apart. This has been a pretty shitty year so far, in retrospect. Everything we know and understand is simply a part of our own brains. Everything we know exists in our heads–there is no proof whether or not this reality is actually shared with others or not. In that sense, we are all the center of our own universes.

I take these outcomes like a sign from the nature of the world. One by one, hit by hit, we’ve got to stand here and take it. We’ve got to take responsibility for our choices and our decisions. karma.

My only regret…

… is that my family is being affected.

“The Self is not a fortress but rather a small open city”

Practicality vs. following one’s dreams and instinct.At this point… which is what? It can all be swapped interchangeably. Life isn’t as black and white as it used to be. I forgot how to live in grays. Practicality vs. my own feelings. This has been an on-going theme in my life.

I decided to bring my bible back out to take some time to reflect on my own life… at 3 in the morning, despite being rather tired. oh well.

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“People die from their passions. And people die because they don’t live their passions.”

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1) How are the body and self interconnected?
2) What happens through chaos and disruption?
3) How does the self survive? Does it? Can you ever be prepared for change?

There is great freedom in letting go. There is great freedom in liminality.

To believe there is a TRUTH is a social construction.

A sense of loss affects one’s sense of self and homeostatus.

The less you can cling, the less you have to lose, the more free you are.

Living in liminality — living betwixed and between.

NATURAL processes of liminality can still be stigmatizing to the sense of self.

We’re always trying to find a sense of coherence for survival of life when our lives are changed dramatically. NOTHING is stable except for change. A stable life is an illusion. We cling to it at our own peril.

It’s okay not to be okay, but NOT in society.

It’s hard to let go of dreams. But at some point, we must reconcile the self: letting go, completely separating your self from everything that gave meaning to your self. We have ALL these ideas of what life should be like. But NO one ever tells you to be prepared to abandon ship.

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Survival Strategies:

  • Set definite targets: give yourself purpose and accomplishments that are attainable
  • Make more decisions: Sitting there vs. going deeper into that which you fear. Get in, get out, and move on. Don’t just sit there and die.
  • CUT THE ROPE: let GO of anything holding you back. Sometimes, the rope will be cut for you.

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A sense of PLACE:

- Bobos: “There’s got to be so much more than this moment,” there MUST be something more, contemplating giving it all up.

- Conflict of wanting a sense of commitment and a sense of freedom

- Difficult to find comfort and belonging in our own skin, when basic things are contradicting each other.

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Is what you’re doing fulfilling a need for yourself? or to fill emptiness?

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The body is the one thing you think you can control, but it’s not. You can try to maintain a certain self, but your body often conflicts with you. Where are you in relationship to your body to pleasure and pain?

There is a great importance in people. When we’re sick, when we’re broken, all we want to be is touched. What would happen if you let others in? Why would we cut the rope to go into a place that scares us? The things we fear the most are the paths out, which threatens us.

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It’s important to know when to let go. Take care of yourself. You can’t help others unless you help yourself first. Society tells us to not be selfish. But who are we serving? We can’t serve others if not ourselves.

Keep moving, find places to slow down.

Be gracious, accepting, and resilient.

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We’re always searching for a life we’re not living. If you can’t be at home with where you are, you’ll always be reaching for something else, always searching for the next best thing. You’ll always be busy, and not sitting with your own emotions.

We’re always searching for the next best thing. We’re always trying to HAVE IT ALL. And what if we could have it all? What if we really COULD have everything we wanted? Would we even recognize that we have it all? Or would we simply run to find the next best thing? Would you even KNOW that you even had it all? Would you want it all? Would you feel bad?

Take a deep breath.

Shut your eyes.

Feel the breathing of your stomach inhale and exhale deeply.

And tell yourself:

This is enough.

I don’t have to be anywhere else but here.

I already have it all.

The Things We Put Up With.

I’m so pissed off and sometimes I wonder why I even put up with this shit.

Yes. My mom is an awesome person. I love her to death.

But I swear to fucking god. I think what I hate most is that she’s one of the most critical, most patronizing people that I know.

Being detail-oriented, meticulous, a perfectionist, and all around-anal, these are the traits I know I’ve learned from her. There’s 0 doubt about this. This seems so petty but I swear….

“Where did you go last night?”
“I went to go see my high school physics teacher. He’s in town for the next few days so we went out to see him.”
“Oh, high school teacher? Was it your physics teacher?”
“Haha yeah, I just said that…”
“No you didn’t. I didn’t hear it.”
Brother: “She did say it.”
“Oh, I didn’t hear you say it. I was just making a guess.”
“Maybe you heard it subconsciously and when you made a ‘guess’ you just said whatever you processed subconsciously.”
“No, I didn’t hear you say it.”
“I know, mom. I’m saying you heard it subconsciously. Hmm… do you know what subconscious is?”
“No.”
So I begin to explain to her what subconsciousness is and go on to give examples of what they are. She would shake her head and doubt me. And I might have gone on too long giving too many examples of what we subconsciously process.
“Okay, I’m done explaining now.”
“*Laughing* I was wondering how long you would keep on talking about it.”
“Okay well sorry I went on for too long. Sorry I was trying to actually teach you what subconsciousness is. Sorry if I didn’t say it right.”
“I know, I’m saying that your way of saying it wasn’t–”
“I already said I’m sorry for not saying it right. I’m sorry it didn’t come out the way I should have said it.”

But it’s never enough. It’s never enough. And that’s why I always get frustrated and slip.

I’ve spent years and years trying to change my behavior and I KNOW I’ve gotten better at talking with my mom but these things always seems to go unnoticed. All the times I fail always overshadow all the times when I actually keep my cool and let her have her way instead of me talking back. It’s always the bad things I hear about, and never is it any of the good stuff.

I KNOW I’ve gotten better. I KNOW I’ve unlearned a LOT of it. But I have 0 indication that SHE actually knows. Her brain works to find the imperfections, to find all the inconsistencies in everyone else. It really makes me wonder if she even notices one bit of the positive things. Even to this day, she still says that I need to improve on my attitude and behavior, which I realize and acknowledge and I’ve been slowly working on to change. But what about her? It always takes two. I only talk back when she gets really condescending. There’s a difference between being a good mom and being a jerk. It takes two, and I still think that she has 0 idea of the things she herself says and the way SHE says the things she does.

I think the part that upsets me the most is that there is SUCH a high probability of me taking the same mannerisms from her. I’m pretty much a living clone of her but simply a younger, Americanized version of her. And I absolutely hate it.

I hate that she’s trained me to see imperfections like she does. I hate that she’s trained me to be as critical about everyone and everything as she is. I hate that I’m becoming her, that I’ve internalized everything she’s critical about. I hate that all my life she’s always vented to me about her problems with my dad, making ME dislike my dad. I hate that I’m the only person in this family that will actually challenge her own behaviors. I hate that because I’m the only one that sticks up for myself and tries to make some change, I’m always the one that gets put on the spot as a disobedient child. I absolutely hate the Chinese cultural belief that people are not supposed to talk back to elders simply because they are older than them–what the SHIT is THAT? I hate that when I calm down later and have a talk with her about what just happened, somehow or another things will work out with me accepting that I was wrong and she barely did anything wrong. I hate that we ALL try to always be the ones that are right. I hate that I still CARE to be the one that’s right. I hate that she always NEEDS to be the one that’s right. I hate that I’ve changed but nothing’s changed. I hate that I’ve changed but nothing’s changed. I hate that I’ve changed but nothing’s changed. I hate that I’ve changed but nothing’s changed. I hate that I’ve changed but nothing’s changed.

But I know I love her more than anyone ever could.

As Promised… My Christmas Eve

It’s one of those things that I promised I’d have to write down. I’ve slowly been trying to get back into blogging so might as well, right?

For once, Henry woke up before I did and called me to let me know he was coming over. Ooooppssss, it was already almost 1PM and I was definitely still dazed. I had to finish up Nancy’s present, which kept me up until 3AM the night before (whoop-dee-doo for procrastination)! After Henry came over, I finally finished around 3ish.

There were a lot of little errands to run:
- Pick up something at Henry’s place
- Drop off Nancy’s present
- Drop off something at Ryan’s
- Pick up my present at the UPS before 5:30
- Go to the mall to pick up a few more small items
- Make it back in time for dinner at the So’s before 7:30

Everything was going well. I saved some time by writing Nancy’s card in the car, we picked up the thing we needed to pick up Hanry’s, and I called Nancy to find out that she wasn’t home yet. That’s fine, we’ll just go to Ry’s first, which we did.

This is definitely one of those times that being “too safe” and too “just-in-case” bit me in the ass. While Henry was on the phone with Ry outside of his house, he wasn’t home so Henry dropped something off in his mailbox, while I sat in the car that was still running, I just have a habit of locking the doors, okay? You just never know, right? And I even closed Henry’s window, “just in case.” Oh, I should put Nancy’s present in the trunk now if we’re going to the mall later. So, I manually unlocked just the passenger side door and stepped outta the car.

*click* The door half-closed.

…
shit.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhh babe? We can still open the door even though it’s half way open right?”

You see, Henry’s passenger side door doesn’t open from the outside. It only opens if someone opens from the inside. So here we were, standing outside of Ry’s house, Henry’s car running in the middle of the residential street (thank god we weren’t blocking the road too much), keys in the car running the engine, and all the doors locked except for the only door that isn’t open-able from the outside–which was half-way open, like a tease.

Of course, we tried tugging the door open. The trunk was open so we tried climbing through the back. No luck. Thank goodness Henry’s quick to act, calling AAA immediately. I woulda kept trying to get in somehow. And so we stood outside. Too bad Ry wasn’t home. We could have at least, you know… sat. Or something.

We had a good time talking and stuff (“You better remember this the next time you want to get mad at me! You better remember this!” -_____-; ) and Ry’s bro came back and kept us company while we waited an hour or so for AAA to get there.

Moral of the story: Roll down windows? Buy a wedge to get enough of your door open to get a long pipe/stick in there to press your unlock button, which you should also get? (Good thing there were blankets in the trunk! and water!)

Consequently, UPS closed before we could pick up the present Henry got for me (I have no one to blame but myself!), and when we stepped into the mall, we found out we only had 10 minutes left before the whole mall was shutting down. We made it back to his place for a deeeliiiicciouuuussss dinner with his parents, E-jeh, V-dawg, and AJ. Elaine is a BOMB-ass cook! Omigosh potatoes…

Irregardless of the locked door situation, I had a great time Christmas Eve! “You know that if the situation was reversed you would nooottt be happy right now.” So true. =XXX Thanks for being x10 patient with me all the time. I gots a long ways to go.

<3