Categories
Chinese Culture learning life love

Relationships, Residual Trauma

Flowers in my hair, hoping to attract that perfect mate…(taken at the Swedish Midsummer’s Celebration, late June 2012)

This thought had been circling around my mind all day yesterday: how parents protect children so much….but in the end, they cannot protect us from heartache [in relationships].

I will go ahead and be transparent: I never had a boyfriend until the age of 25 (just two years ago). And that was a roller coaster trauma of a relationship: alcoholism, secrets, manipulation … I’ve torn the chains away from that relationship, yet residual pain still seeps through.

And all this time I think about how, well, if only my parents could have protected me from ever letting that happen. Yet, they couldn’t. I can seek comfort in them over things, but they cannot fix everything for me. After all, how old am I now? I can’t just go crying to my parents like a four-year-old with a booboo. I need to suck it up and learn from my mistakes, no matter how big or small.

Sometimes I wish that I could have an arranged marriage. Then I wouldn’t need to deal with this constant searching, seeking, “you’re not good enough”, etc. etc. I find myself these days trying to protect my feelings by telling others how I am all about “no attachments” for the time being. I find that I often fall too fast too quickly…only to be hurt. I care too much and then I … end up hurting myself.

Of course, by telling myself “You cannot get attached,” I still do. And it hurts; every time I fall for someone new, I see them walk away with another woman. Someone better than I am? I can’t say, but my mind twists the situation that way. I always hear the same, comforting words of “You’ll find someone better.” And I hype myself up with this thought, but it only lasts for a little bit. Then I’m back to feeling like I won’t find a nice guy. It’s a vicious cycle for me.

Categories
Denver Life love

My Small Denver

These past two weeks, I’ve learned so much about the Denver community I’ve immersed myself into.

Mainly, that the community runs in small circles & people are well inter-connected. I went to two events last week where I ran into colleagues I wasn’t expecting to see; we walked up to each other & asked, “How did you get here? Who do you know?”

This is the feeling that makes me happy here in Denver: it is a metropolitan area (albeit smaller than SF & NYC) yet the community runs small like my hometown. I like that delicate balance.

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Categories
love

Daily Post Day 12: One hour to live

Thank goodness the folks at The Daily Post had a bonus prompt for today; I wasn’t in the mood to disclose a secret.

If I only had one hour to live…

…in an ideal world, I would have all my loved ones nearby. We’d have a grand feast before my departure, and there would be pictures galore.

Rather simple, but with only 60 minutes left in my life, that’s all I need: love.

Categories
love

Daily Post Day 4: What Makes Me Smile

It’s hard for me to narrow down one thing that makes me smile. But flowers are strong symbols for what I feel happiest about: love, being around the ones I care about most, etc.

January 4: A day that made me appreciate my past and my present. Holiday lights still up at big hotels and some houses; lovely to see it all.

Writing has taken  a back seat for the past month as I focused more on my freelance work rather than my own creative writing. Time to get back into the groove.

Categories
death family life love memories mistake reflection Who I Am

When one takes another for granted;

Disclaimer: Today’s entry touches upon a more personal issue than usual entries. Please read with an open mind.

Too often, I read stories (real life, no doubt) about how people had neglected their relationships with loved ones, only to have their loved ones pass away/die suddenly in the end. The people who neglected the relationships, they were taking the relationships for granted, thinking “I’m too busy, but they’ll always be there when I’m not busy.”

It’s sad to say, it happens a lot, since I continue to find stories like this strewn across the magazines I read and on the Internet.

We, as humans, are all guilty of this feeling. Even I am, with the death of my paternal grandmother almost ten years ago. Even though so much time has passed, I still feel guilt over how I was acting on the very last day she was alive. I was just a young teenager, sure; just wanted to spend more time with my friends, all of whom I don’t even talk to in the present time. My mother had to practically drag me to my grandparents’ house that day so I could pay a visit to my ailing grandmother. It wasn’t that I disliked my grandmother; I loved her very dearly. Yet, seeing her sick, bed-ridden–it was a pain that I wanted to try to avoid, to try to mask myself from.

So, on that day, even though I was there to visit her, I was in denial of her health, the preciousness of her life. I wanted to avoid the thought. I thought to myself, “She’ll be better soon.” And I took for granted the time that I had left with her.

The next morning, my father told me how my grandmother had passed away the previous night, after having another stroke.

At that point, I tried so hard in vain to make up for the time that was lost between my grandmother and I. In the final months of her life, I spent little time with her due to my denial, but also due to my being “too busy” with marching band, school, etc. Even though I was only a young teenager at that point, I was still thinking then–“I’m too busy.”

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What goes around, comes around.

I find myself these days, feeling worse and worse about a lot of things in my life. I fear my health is failing in many ways, and I try to reach out for help. However, over the years, I have pushed away many friendships, many people who wanted to help me. But I kept saying, “I’m okay” and let the people go their way.

The few friends I have kept around, we, in turn, have taken each other for granted. Right now, I feel thoroughly neglected by the few I had thought were my closest friends. The other day, after feeling a horribly emotional low, I tried contacting those friends to seek comfort, solace.

Nobody answered, and even though one did, they said they could not talk, because they were “too busy”.

It was like a knife through my already bleeding heart. Here, I find myself left alone, with nobody to lean upon. And the thought continues to eat away at me–what if, suddenly, something happened to me? Would anyone care? Would anyone regret?

“I’m too busy.”

Saying this to someone in need is essentially an emotional murder. How come we, as humans, continue to do such a thing to one another? We say we love, we say we care, yet when the ones we love need us the most, we say “No” and go on with our own lives. Why?