Category: #30postsbefore30

I don’t like to be reminded of mortality, but who does? That advice of “Live each day like it’s your last” just sounds morbid.

But it does have a lesson: to be present in each and every moment and treasure everything around you, because you just never know what will happen next, really.

In August of 1999, I was about to enter into high school: marching band always started around the end of July so I was busy with preparing for the upcoming football season with the band. I was a somewhat typical teen in that I wanted to spend time with my friends and not so much time with my family.

At that time, my grandmother was already incapacitated from her first stroke, so my grandfather and my parents spent more time taking care of her. When I was younger, my grandmother raised me and my younger brother so my parents could run our family restaurant to provide financially for us and our extended family. My grandmother was practically my mother in that sense, and as a child, I felt closer to my grandmother.

When my grandmother was diagnosed with diabetes, I became her little nurse, helping her check her glucose levels and administer her insulin. I didn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing, but I went along with it to be a good daughter and a good granddaughter.

With my grandmother being bedridden and unable to speak as clearly as she used to, it pained me to visit her, so I didn’t visit as much as I used to, especially once I started marching band.

The day of our annual marching band showcase (where we performed the year’s marching show for friends and family), my mother asked me to accompany her to visit my grandparents. I was adamant about the visit because I didn’t want to see my grandmother in her condition and also I was more interested in spending time with my pen pal, who happened to be my dad’s friend’s daughter, visiting from New Jersey.

I remember sitting on the couch at my grandparents’ house, bored and resigned while my grandfather and my mom helped my grandmother eat a bit of food. I remember my mother saying to my grandmother, “See? Helene has come to visit.” My grandmother looked at me and smiled slightly.

I remember I felt anxious to leave, and after what seemed like awhile, we did (the visit was probably a short one, but you know how teenagers dramatize things). I went on to hang out with my pen pal and we went to the marching band showcase.

That night, my younger brother and I saw ambulance lights flashing from a few houses down (where our grandparents lived) and we just assumed it was another hospital visit. Grandmother will be fine in no time.

The next morning, I awoke early to get ready for my eye appointment: I was to get contacts for the first time! I was getting all prepared for the appointment when my dad walked up to me. “Your grandmother passed away last night.”

I couldn’t fully comprehend the weight of his words. “What?”

“She had another stroke and she passed away.”

Immediately, my whole world fell away as I understood the reality: my grandmother was never coming back. The woman who changed my diapers, took care of me for most of my childhood: she was gone.

And bitterly, I thought back to the previous day and cursed myself for the way I acted on the last day my grandmother was alive. I didn’t fully appreciate that day because I took things for granted; I thought it was just another routine visit.

For many years after her death, I could not forgive myself for the way I acted and felt like her death was my fault. Only in this present day, with tears still streaming down my face as I recall this moment, do I feel that–well, I did the best that I could do at that moment. However, her death reminds me of this life lesson everyday: to be present and to be grateful for loved ones still alive. Every conversation, every visit matters. Cherish each and every moment because life is fragile.

Seeking help from others should never be shameful: after all, one person cannot be expected to do all things on his or her own. Seeking advice from peers, colleagues, friends, mentors, etc. should be expected.

My post today though is not about the idea of generally seeking help from others: it’s more specifically about seeking professional help for mental health. As a society, this is still somehow shunned and looked down upon. If you’re seeing a “shrink”, there must be something wrong with you!

But trust me, there is nothing wrong with that: in fact, I believe that if you have the power and strength to admit that you need to talk with a therapist/counselor/psychologist/social worker, then you are stronger than many others out there who refuse to get the help because it’s “shameful”.

I might have needed talk therapy a lot earlier than I did, but I wasn’t aware of this available resource until my senior year of college. At that point, I had a roommate situation where the actual RA of our floor lived with me and she was the problem. We did not get along but we also refused to work on compromising; I tried to keep a strong front up, but I felt this stress eating away at me every time I came home. So I sought out counseling for the last semester of school to learn skills to cope with and overcome the stressful situation in a healthy way.

When I moved to San Francisco, I sought out counseling there as well because of the transitions I was going through with the move, work, and building new relationships in a new city. Counseling always felt to me like a sanctuary, where I knew that whatever I talked about at each session was private, just between us. I was comforted knowing that I had a neutral party to vent to about the struggles I was going through.

Over the years, I have had several different counselors since I have moved around the country a bit. I have enjoyed each session with each therapist I have seen: it’s nice to see how each of them have their own style. I feel that I have become much stronger and better at handling my emotions because of counseling. Granted, I had also been on antidepressants for four years and that had also helped me better handle day-to-day life.

In the end, I feel like we all, as a society, can benefit from even just a bit of talk therapy: we need that neutral, third-person view to help us gain clarity and improve our lives. We should never shame ourselves or others from seeking out professional help; after all, it does save lives and helps our society ultimately thrive.

As a society, we’re always rushing around to the next job, the next event, the next anything. It’s no surprise then that I am one of those people who feels rushed to get to the next thing. I’ve been conditioned to be in a rush, but I have also been conditioned to give myself the time to get to wherever I need to get to without any rush.

Since childhood, I have been an early riser, or at least one who knows to wake up with enough time to eat breakfast, get dressed and be at school before the bell rang. I’ve followed this ritual even after college: when I worked in San Francisco, I made sure to give myself a couple hours before work began to get up, work out, get dressed, eat breakfast, and commute downtown with time to spare. I made sure I was always early to work, giving myself some buffer time to relax a bit and get into “the zone”.

Even though I now work from home, I still make it a point to wake up with enough time for breakfast and get myself prepared mentally for my work. I do my ritual even when getting ready for events I attend, making sure I give myself enough commute time before the beginning of an event.

In the times where I lose this buffer time, I find myself panicking about being late. I don’t know where this panic originated from in my past, but I always feel so anxious when I know I am running late to something. Oftentimes, though, when I finally do arrive (albeit a few minutes late), I see that there was no real reason for me to stress out…that no, I didn’t die because I was late. I may have been embarrassed but no, nothing dramatic happened.

Many times I still have to remind myself to not stress out if I am running late to a place, although I still make sure to notify the interested parties about my tardiness (if necessary). No, the building won’t burn down, and pretty much, if the other party is empathetic enough, they’ll be fine with the tardiness…well, as long as it’s not past 15 minutes late…that’s another rant for another day.

Life’s too short to spend stressed out rushing around, so remember to give yourself some time beforehand to get to your destination and then unwind!

Today I attended my first Bible study in quite awhile and we studied Psalms 108 during our meet up. When the group discussed the passage, one thought stuck out to me: “Others’ opinions about me is none of my business.”

This got me thinking about some recent things happening, such as someone remarking about my financial instability over the years due to my entrepreneurial dreams; meanwhile, this person has had trouble keeping a job. There are other examples of others pointing out my “wrongs” that I have made in my life over the years, while frankly, the ones making the remarks don’t exactly have stellar lives either. We all know or have encountered people like this.

My point is this: stop the criticism of others and examine your own life. Why are you doling out advice if you yourself don’t have it all together? I understand that many of us want to feel like we’re helping, but that’s a fine line to walk upon.

None of us have the exact same paths in life: what works for one person might not work for another. Just because I am entrepreneurial and working on my third business does not mean that I fail as a “regular 9-to-5” person. It’s just not my path in life. Respect that as I respect those who admit they themselves cannot venture out on their own and start up a business.

Only I know how to run my own life, and God has a special plan for me and for every other individual out there. Don’t think you know better than I do about what to do with MY life. Do I know what’s best for YOUR life? Probably not, and you’d probably be resentful if I tried to give you life advice on things I know nothing about.

Now, this post isn’t to say that I won’t take or give advice anymore; just when people start to give unsolicited advice about what they think is best for me.

I don’t remember when I first tried kombucha, but I know I enjoyed this slightly bitter and bubbly drink after the first time. In early 2012, I became curious about brewing my own kombucha at home; coincidentally, at that time I was a member at Creative Density, a coworking space in Denver, and another member was very much into brewing his own kombucha. We got to talking about the whole process and then he offered to give me one of his parent SCOBYs and his recipe.

After that, I dived into the world of homemade kombucha, following the guy’s instructions on how to brew my drink. I bought mason jars and hand towels to hold my kombucha: the brewing process took about 3-4 weeks in order for the tea to fully ferment. When I tried my first batch, I was hooked!

So all summer that year I made my own kombucha; because the SCOBYs grew “babies” each time I made a batch, I started to accumulate way too many SCOBYs. I knew my acquaintance didn’t need any more SCOBYs since he probably had an excess of them as well, and I didn’t know anybody else who was brewing kombucha. Sadly, I had to throw away a lot of the SCOBYs since I couldn’t keep them all (my fridge was getting too full).

My passion for brewing kombucha slowly tapered away as I grew tired of waiting for each batch to be ready; I had also moved into my second apartment in Denver and had limited counter space to store the kombucha, so it became inconvenient.

I remember one of my last batches: I sipped the finished batch to taste it and it was highly acidic. At that point, I wasn’t sure if I had botched up the brewing process or not; however, I also took that as a sign that I was now finished with satiating my curiosity on the home brewing process of kombucha. So I threw away the last of the SCOBYs and stopped making my own kombucha.

These days, I don’t drink kombucha as much as I used to, but I am thankful for the opportunity to learn to brew my own kombucha back in 2012. After all, now when I do have some kombucha, I am much more appreciative of the hard work put into the process.