Self-sabotage. Stagnation.

Too often my happiness is tempered by melancholy. I found out today that I got into the Masters program of my choosing (I only applied to one school and one program...might have been overconfident but it worked out). For the last couple months my excuse for being stagnant has been that I am waiting to hear back whether I have been accepted, so I can get on with the rest of my life, so I can finish my Masters, get a stable job, put a down payment on my future home, my sanctuary. Now that push came to shove and I have my answer, I am simultaneously caught in a whirlwind and paralyzed.

I started dating someone less than a month ago. Someone who I could conceivably imagine a future with. Someone who might actually like me back, despite how intensely passionate, how bluntly inquisitive, how assertive yet insecure, how me I am. He makes me happy. I don't think I ever thought I would ever find someone who could understand me. I don't think I ever thought I deserved happiness. Maybe that's why I try so hard to support my clients, that maybe if I am good, like really good, I may be worthy. Like karma. I don't know what this means now. For me. For us. Long distance? Or is it better just to end something now before we get too attached?

But am I already too attached? It's back to the feeling I had going into Sechelt for my practicum. The feeling that I am always holding something back, because it (the experience, the connections with the people I will meet) does not last. It is a time-limited relationship. I never learned how to navigate that. Maybe that's why I have trouble with commitment.

I can see this going either way. Reverting back to the dismissive-avoidant attachment style, where I end things prematurely just so I am not the one to be hurt. It would be a regressive move, for someone who has tried so hard, particularly recently, to throw caution to the wind and attempt to live wholeheartedly.

I am not a bad person. I know this, with confidence. But do I deserve to be happy? What, and whose sins am I atoning for anyway?

I need to let things go. If things are truly meant to be, they would not be this hard, right?

If he ends things, would I fight for us?

Should I let him go?

Intensely

I'm over hump day.

Today is Thursday the 16th, for most people it's close enough to the end of the week that energy levels are decreasing and we are looking forward more to the weekend than we would care to admit to our bosses...Or maybe not, because at least where I am Monday was a statuary holiday.

Tomorrow will be Day 6 of my 7 consecutive work day week, and I am almost there. I keep telling myself that this is the last stretch, that I only have to be "on" for another two days. Wednesday was busy and productive and I loved it even though I had no time to eat and literally spent 12 hours without food...I felt like I was being helpful, and that what I did had value...I guess I couldn't expect to feel that way everyday.

I don't want to have to be dependent on other people for my happiness, for feeling okay about myself. But that's been happening a lot more lately. I don't like myself when I am like this. I don't want to be the cliche, clingy girlfriend.

I need some time and space to be alone and to purge myself of all these feelings that don't necessarily belong to me..and also process those that do. 2017 has been an intense year so far. I just want someone who can be there for me and reassure me that everything will be okay even if they aren't, reassure me that they will be there for me and actually be there.

Because I can't take this state of suspension anymore. If I have to go it alone then I will, but know that I will never reach out again.

When all this is over...will it be worth it? Will I be colder?

I don't know if I want to be that way. Is it better or worse to have hope?

Lately

Lately I haven't been myself, or maybe I have been too much of myself. I was so sure that I know who I am, what I want from life (generally, and also specifics), and even what it would take to get there. Despite all this, there is often a long period of stagnant waiting. Waiting to hear back, the moment of truth, the big shebang. I am usually a fairly patient person, but waiting just drives me up the wall, and I still don't have enough discipline to fill this stagnant waiting time into something distracting and productive (it's like I can do one of the two but not both; also, mind-numbingly distracting, what an amazing descriptor).

Lately I have been getting worse with my work-life boundaries. I don't think these were very solid to begin with, to be honest. I'm super guilty of answering work emails at home (or even when I'm out with friends...I suck, I know). I'm super guilty of talking/breathing/thinking about work too much when I am not at work. To be fair, I do spend the majority of my time around my clients, more than around my family or friends. I also try very hard to become emotionally attuned to my clients, in order to deliver empathic and compassionate service. I am much more attuned to my clients than even my parents, than most of my friends. Last night I was already off work when I talked to a client on the street right outside my work, trying to convince him to stay and work things out rather than sleep outside or going back to a family that was never a family for him. In my line of work I log many hours of overtime that will never be paid and never documented. In that moment I could not just walk away from him, not when someone I know is hurting. It's possible he would have returned regardless without my interference (to be truthful he isn't someone I work closely with so I know little about him except what my colleagues tell me), and at the same time I could not just walk away.

Lately I have had to reflect on my privilege as a cisgender woman who can pass as heterosexual. I don't remember when I began questioning. It's possible I had a crush on a girl in high school, but I also had a much stronger crush on a boy at the same time, and I am such that I can only be romantically inclined towards one person at a time. My answer has always been, how can you know for sure you are heterosexual when it's possible you just haven't met someone of the same gender that you are attracted to? It's not like heterosexual folks like everyone of the opposite gender, we all have standards, right? Also reflecting on what bi/pansexuality means to me, is that I (and likely a lot of people who identify this way) do not like both or all genders equally. I will always prefer males over females, and I likely would end up finding a male life partner. That doesn't mean that part of me that is attracted to females doesn't exist, however small this part may be. I am ambivalent to the concept of "coming out". First, because I never intentionally tried to hide this part of myself, it took a lot of introspection to get to this point where I think I likely am attracted to more than one gender. Second, it gives me satisfaction to (if I do) date someone of the same gender and smash heteronormative expectations. Third, it's not like anyone asked. On the other hand, I don't want to feel as though I am lying by omission, because it is part of my identity, and I want people I care about to know me for who I really am. Two friends I talked to said it's not necessary to tell anyone until I do end up seeing a female-identified person. Perhaps they are right, and I shouldn't be agonizing over how to break it to my dad, or to my grandmother.

Life has been shit, lately. I guess it all depends on perspectives, and there's no point dwelling on the bad parts even though that's what my mind is primarily preoccupied with. The good parts though, I am hoping I would eventually come to appreciate when my mind is not in such a depressive state. I read somewhere that the more often you feel depressed, the stronger each successive depressive state becomes, because that is what we are used to. So I will attempt to be more strengths-based with this situation and see where it takes me. I have a long estranged uncle who recently got in touch. He's also this dedicated historian with multiple PhDs who actually went back to China to the village my family is from to find out exactly where my ancestral family is from and retrace all the family history from as far back as it gets to present day in Canada. Wow, right? What an amazing opportunity to find out exactly where I am from, and how it may or may not shape where I am going. I also recently heard from a cousin I have never met, who is the sister of a cousin who is partially estranged from my family due to longstanding family feuding of previous generations. Adversity brings people closer together, and here are some family members of my blood, reaching out and wanting to connect. I told my mom that I like both girls and guys, and she was totally supportive and unfazed by that, which also is amazing and awesome. I basically told the person I have a crush on that I like them, and can they please stop chasing after this other girl he doesn't even really like when it comes down to it...? That ended partially in disaster, but I think I am getting better at this "live wholeheartedly", "be assertive", "wear your vulnerability as armor" thing. And that's the thing too, I'm not afraid to be vulnerable (compared to most people), and that's probably because there are so many more layers beneath that, and that from a cost-benefit perspective, the things I share with you, even if used against me, I can take that loss, so to speak. I am starting to lose my coherence here, so I will sign off. Lately...

Letter to a future lover

I know what I want, but I may have forgotten how to compromise along the way. Do you know what you want? Do you know if I am what you want?

Lifestyle is important, and I don't mean just music. Although it would be ideal if we listen to similar genres, rhythms, tunes, it's equally as challenging to find someone who has an opinion on music. Saying that you listen to "a bit of everything" is not an opinion. Only listening to Top 40, or what is the trend of the year, is not "an opinion". I'm not saying you need to know all the greatest bands that ever lived, but it would be nice if you knew who Nirvana was beyond "Smells like Teen Spirit".

When I say "lifestyle" I really meant "values". I'm not talking about good old family values, the white picket fence, the dog, the Betty Crocker, the 9 to 5. Maybe it's getting easier for women to find men who are not ashamed to identify as feminists without it turning into a "but men are oppressed too" argument; because we are not saying that your lives don't matter, you assholes, we are just saying that ours do too, and we are talking about ours right now because we are the ones disproportionately being date raped, sexually assaulted, trafficked, abused, murdered. I am also talking about mental health and addictions awareness, being trauma-informed, being culturally sensitive and aware, being respective, being a LGBTQ ally, recognizing that it is a privilege to live on unceded First Nations land. You don't even have to be passionate about or as knowledgeable these things as I am. Basically I just want you not to be an asshole, and I want you to educate yourself if you realize you are ignorant.

Social justice is important to me. It is not just my work, it has always been my life. You don't live through being called a "chink" in elementary school without being forcibly reminded that you are different, that you somehow don't belong. You don't grow up with a brother who has autism without learning a bit about people who are not "neurotypical", who may not understand the same social cues and norms that we do.

More than anything, I need someone who can understand me without wanting to change me. Someone who can sit with me in the dark rather than thinking they need to bring a light. Someone who I can be vulnerable with, and someone who can be vulnerable with me.

Letter to a former lover

I didn't think that it would hurt me that we are no longer talking. You asked me if I had felt anything, and I didn't, and yet I feel as though I have lost a friend, and that makes it somehow worse.

We had a lot in common. We had nothing in common.

You are optimistic, naive. Someone once told me that we all have this thing, called the "saving people" complex, but in my line of work it has been hammered into me that we are not here to "save" people, that the people we work with do not need to be "saved". Because who are we to say that we have all the answers? What is it about us that means we have our lives so together, that we can salvage the remnants of someone else's? There is no us, no them. We are all the same. We are all different.

And you wanted to save me.

It didn't make me hate you, that part of you that implied I needed saving, and that you, in all your pretentious white knight glory, you, think that you can bring all the light I need into the darkness that is my. life.

It didn't make me hate you, but over time I would have resented you.

Because who the hell do you think you are?

There is that moment, when being yourself becomes the mask, when being cloaked in yourself meant that you were powerful, invincible, because you are shouting to the world that you know who you are, that these parts of yourself that other people keep hidden, that other people are afraid of because they refuse to acknowledge that they can be just as selfish, as petty, as ugly as the next person.

I am not depressed because I am me. I am depressed because you are you. You know how they say "it's not you, it's me"?

It's not me, it's you.

Circular.

 
One day, he dropped into the seat in front of her without a word. She had put her book down a few minutes prior, and that was the only reason she reacted when he sat down.

“The seat is not taken.” She said, “But thanks for asking.”

He shrugged carelessly, his boyish hair flopping on his head as he did so.

“I see you’ve finally finished reading.”

They both glanced down at the nondescript book on the coffee table.

“I’ve been meaning to approach you for ages and ages, I guess today is my lucky day.”

“How long?”

There was the faintest hint of a question in her intonation, just two syllables expressing a veiled sense of curiosity and surprise.

“Days, weeks maybe. You always sit at the same table.”

“I see no reason to change my habits.”

“It must be a fascinating book; I haven’t seen you glance up even once.”

“It is.” She flipped the book over onto its front. It has a plain dark green cover. He already knew what he would see there. He had been watching her long enough.

“What is it about?”

“You can’t tell from the cover?”

He shook his head.

“I suppose it’s an autobiography of sorts. It starts with the narrator walking down a long, long hallway.”

“With thick carpet?”

“I suppose so. His footsteps are muffled, so that could be why. During the walk he thinks about a lot of things. Basically, he reflects on his life and the people he knows.”

“What about his life and the people he knows?”

“I can’t tell you the whole story but I can give you an example. There was one relationship that he had been in; the girl he fell in love with told him out of the blue that she can’t be with him anymore. She says this: ‘It doesn’t matter how many things we’ve been through or how long I have known you. None of this is enough. After so long, I still feel like I don’t know you and I can’t go on trying anymore, it’s too tiring.’”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“I thought so too, and then I thought about it. It’s true what she said; you can’t know somebody to the extent that you know everything about them, and it doesn’t matter how hard you try. A lot of the people we are in relationships with, it’s not about how compatible you are, or how much you have in common; it’s about who you meet, a lot of it is just geographic correlation.”

“Like this café, the fact that I have seen you here for weeks now is that we both live or work around this area.”

“Precisely.” She took a sip of her coffee, now long cold.

He stared at the way her fingers wrapped around the mug for a moment, before musing aloud.

“But maybe that isn’t the point about relationships. It isn’t about how much we know about each other; love isn’t defined by whether we know everything about each other that other people may not, it’s about making the most of what we do know. It is a miracle that two people can meet and have coffee together; it may have everything to do with geographic correlation, but it also has everything to do with how much time and effort we are willing to put into the relationship, despite not knowing everything about the other person.”

He paused, his eyes softening.

“Tell me how the book ends.”

She pushed the book toward him across the table.

“The last page is missing.”

He reached for the book, taking out his pen as he did so. She glanced at the upside down words as he wrote. When he finished, he walked around the table and took her in his arms.

“Oh god, I’ve missed you so much."

Fin

Part 1: Doubt. To be sure.

Picture taken from Pinterest.

You look into the silver grey eyes of your newborn baby girl as doubt gnaws at your heart. There is no question of who the baby’s father is; she is yours, you are the father. Why then, is there this doubt, this worry like an incessant headache of the mind, pounding, pounding, shaking the foundations of your soul? You smile mechanically at your wife who wraps you in her tender embrace. Waves of memory overtake you as you remember how you two had gotten together. It was not the happiest of beginnings, to be sure, and it continues to be scarcely mentioned for that reason.

You see, there were three of them---the classic love triangle.

You were brothers, not by blood but by choice. Both excelled at the same sports, preferred Coke over Pepsi, enjoyed listening to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan while studying, and even saved all the orange skittles for last. It was not so much a surprise when you both fell in love with the same girl, and she with you. It was never clear who she had preferred out of the pair of you, and it is your greatest fear that, despite your ring on her finger, the matter is still unresolved.

It was a tragic accident in senior year that was the deciding factor; both of you were involved in a car accident on the way home from soccer practice. You were lucky and had your seat belt on, your friend, not so much. The screeching of tires was still echoing in your head as she threw her arms around you in the waiting area of ER and sobbed, glad that you were still alive.

“Adam, how is Adam?”

That was the first question she had asked and it haunts you to this very day.

“He…he didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”

The words, unspoken, remained in your head.

There is just the two of us now.

She fell into your arms, weeping, her fingers occasionally feeling for your heartbeat, reassuring herself that at least you are still alive. Later, she would tell you that she loves you, that it has only ever been you, and not Adam. Adam, who is buried ten feet underground. You were so happy, so happy when she had said yes to your proposal. You thought you had won, that she has chosen you, but you can never and will never be sure.

Staring into your baby girl's eyes, the colour so much like your own. 

You wish you could be sure.


to be continued...

Golf: A lesson on commitment (first draft)

The smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of golf balls churning within the ball dispenser machine; these are all familiar sensations from long ago, brought again to the forefront of my mind after so many years. This was not really a happy place, nor was it a sad place. It was the place that I have often ended up after being awoken at 7 in the morning on weekends when I didn’t have school. You may ask, who has classes during weekends, how is that even possible? But I did. Life as a child with Asian parents is never carefree, and when one finds oneself far from one’s place of origin, it is paradoxically even less so. I never regretted my childhood or lack of one; it is what gives me the discipline to excel, to be good at time management, at organizing my time so I can have a life outside of the rigidity of the activities planned for me. For Asian parents, however, mine were probably more on the lax side. 

Signs of Life

She sees the world in black and white, with no colours. Feelings come to her slowly, or not at all, but mostly she just feels like she is living under a sky in perpetual threat of rain, and the fear of not being able to find shelter in time. In her world there is no asylum, no one to trust and none of the ships have safe harbours. Despite all this, she is not afraid of getting hurt; she lives life in total abandon, like a leaf fallen from a tree, constantly drifting, borne along the current of a merciless wind. Or is it because she is too afraid of getting hurt? Maybe she thinks that hiding behind a facade of apathy will lead others to accept her because she has nothing to lose. There is something about her twisted sense of logic that I understand, but the strands are so tangled that there is no way it could have ever been logical to begin with. Pretty soon, there will be no sign of life behind her facade at all, and I am scared that I will not be able to save her from this process of self-decay.

Foreign Blood (Masochist)

I cringed again as I dipped the silver-tipped needle into the vial of crimson liquid, pulling up the plunger to the syringe with meticulous care to get the precise amount. Closing my eyes, I grabbed the syringe and stabbed it into my arm, not caring where it sank as long as the blood made it into my veins with as little resistance as possible. There were so many pinpricks in my body now; pretty soon I would be covered in nothing but holes. My skin continues to heal, however, and every time I examine, there would be an empty patch just begging to be violated.

I waited with baited breath as the blood began to take its effect, the next part that I could never get used to. I gasped as a roiling sensation had me on all fours, my immune system struggling to comprehend this unexpected, nonsensical invasion by alien blood cells. What was perplexing was how despite the many times that I had done this, these planned invasions always caught my system by surprise, the pain never lessening with each time as sharp as the times before. I tried hard just to focus on breathing, hoping that this time it would finally kill me, but also fearing that it would.

I hated myself for being so weak, constantly making excuses for myself in my head, telling myself that I could not help doing what I do because I am unwell. As if psychological frailties could ever hold the key to all my answers! As the battle within me subsided, I was wrung out with exhaustion, heap of rags on the floor. Already I was thinking of the next hit.

You would think that fighting for your life continuously would make you appreciate living more, but all I want is for mine to end…and oblivion.

My Generation

You can save all your indignation about how my generation is worse than yours, how things were so much simpler and how there was so much more quality to relationships when you were young. Maybe you are right about some of those things you hate us for, the parts about us loitering around the 711s, breaking glass bottles...wait, are you sure that was just my generation?

The Twisted Road

I look back and see the twisted road, the empty faces and the saturated smiles. The lost key in the locked car, the red ribbon trailing behind me on the floor, a way home I will never take. I've got empty pockets but there's still a way out for me. No light ahead only headlights behind me. A harsh glare and the Doppler washes away to the west, the path of a dying sun. As the sparrow's wings eclipse the moon, I wonder where my feet are taking me, each step an effort.

Geoff

It feels like the way it should feel, strapping on the helmet, slapping down the visor and pulling on the well worn leather gloves. They say road rash hurts a lot, and they never lied. I have fallen so many times on this bike and was almost killed once when I skidded on a pool of oil in the middle of the highway. Each time, he had been there to help me up, to guide me as I safely steer my scratched up bike back on the road. I love the feel of the wind breezing through the tips of my hair not under the helmet, the freedom of riding this road to the end at unhampered speeds. I feel light riding this bike, almost as if the wheels were not touching the ground. Almost as if we were borne on wings. It gets claustrophobic under the helmet sometimes and the visor decreases visibility as much as lab goggles sometimes do.

A Story for Rebecca

It was bright and cloudless the day they made the final decision; sunny, but not hot because of the delightful wind that wreaks havoc with stray hair and wayward leaves. She was sitting on the curb of the parking lot that belongs equally to the nearby church and hospital feeling a bit forlorn, having recently escaped the stifling confines of a hospital room crowded with members of her extended family. It was not that she felt nothing that she was outside while the rest of her family grieved by her grandmother’s bedside. She did not know how to comfort people, did not know how to be both eloquent and soothing, to say the right words at the appropriate time and to accompany all of the above with a warm gesture to show that she cared. At times, she wondered intermittently whether the people who were able to remain articulate were sincere or merely repeating like automatons what they feel is expected of them. Her arms ached to hold her mother but hung uselessly at her side as her mother resisted various attempts to be touched. Watching her family consoling each other in soft voices, she had never felt so awkward or so hopelessly inarticulate for a very long time.

In Memory

Image from ~YaraKlaproos at deviantart. 

It was a scorching summer day.

She was sitting underneath the large oak tree in her favourite park located in the out fringes of town, a pretty picture of insouciance, twirling a freshly picked daisy between her thumb and forefinger like she had not a care in the world. Nature was ringed in a beautiful sunlit halo around her, but her eyes were unfocused, vacant and unseeing. She was remembering; voices carried to her by an unfelt wind.

Time can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend.

On Fortuitous Occurrences

He noticed her from across the street. It was not the first time he had seen her, with her flowing chestnut- brown hair and her acoustic guitar. He would watch her sometimes, watch her fingers stroke the strings lovingly, strumming both unfamiliar and nostalgic patterns. But that was not why he had been following her for months, or had it already been a year? When she sings...he sighed in remembrance. She was his muse, but he would never tell her this because he had never spoken to her. He lacked the courage. 

***