17:
Here’s a bit of truth: I don’t feel ready to start the day until I’ve had my cup of coffee and my make-up applied. That’s my morning routine, and it makes me feel ready for the rest of the world.
But some days I don’t get to this step until noon or later.
On days like today, I wake up early but lounge around my room with my laptop on and my hair unbrushed. I putter around my kitchen making tea and looking for something to eat. I think about how I don’t feel like going outside.
On days like today, I am relaxed, but full of yearning. With the accessibility into other people’s lives made by the convenience of le internet, I spend an ungodly number of hours clicking around strangers’ journals, cv’s, interviews, websites, profiles, photos, and on and on and on. I think about all the things that they are doing. I think about all the things they have accomplished.
Then, naturally, I think about all the things I am not doing and all the things I haven’t accomplished, and am not taking steps to accomplish, and maybe am not really interested in accomplishing but would be moderately pleased if I did so just for the right to say I did so.
And time and time again my career friends reassure me that no one our age knows what they want to do with their lives (as my unemployed friends reassure me that now is my opportunity to figure out what I want to do with my life). Though, knowing that feeling this way is not unique to my situation is poor consolation.
For me, it’s not so much finding purpose. I have purpose. And it’s not so much achieving my potential. I have potential (ha).
It’s that I want more than what I was given. I want to be smarter than I am, more productive than I can, taller than I grew. I want to be me without being me.
But where is this coming from? Who is telling me that I should be more of someone else? My immigrant parents? My academic educators? The television?
Is it just my genetic disposition to be slightly dissatisfied with all that I have? Doubtful.
On days like today, when I can feel the slow start rolling out from under my comforter, I know that I will be spending the morning yearning.
I know that it’s not good for me. And I know that I can’t help it. I don’t smoke. I don’t diet. I yearn.
Maybe I don’t know what I want. But I know that I want it.
23:
… or whatever.
I was digging through an old spiral notebook today, searching for unused lined paper, when I found a sheet on which I had tracked personal going-on’s for past birthdays in a manner similar only to archaic library catalogues. Handwritten. Yellowed paper. Saved as reference.
20 was spent lounging, daiquiri in hand, by a pool off the coast of Mexico.
21, drunk in Las Vegas, encouraging strange men to buy me drinks and forcing my sister to be my designated driver.
22, at my parents’ house in Tustin, abnormally thin and suffering from a broken heart.
23, indoors during a rainy Taiwan spring, receiving the largest bouquet of flowers I’ve ever gotten.
24, revelling in the most beautiful part of China, letting everyone think my friend was my husband just because we shared hotel rooms.
25, in someone’s bathroom in Manhattan, sobbing because my grandfather had just gotten diagnosed with terminal cancer.
26, training in San Francisco for the half-marathon race that I completed 2 weeks later.
27? My god, that’s coming up fast.
I wonder if 27 should be the year I find myself in an authentic, loving relationship. Fully recovered from what I was almost led to believe would be an insurmountable heartache at 22, I speak with more reservation, I write with less conviction, and I run when I should stay.
And damn if I’m not ready for something else.
In a few months, maybe I’ll find myself engaging in romantic relationships where longevity is an actual possibility. Or maybe I’ll just keep dating the hell out of this city until it cries uncle and refuses to see me. I mean, I need something with which to occupy my time (lord knows I can’t find a job to save my life).
19:
him: “I tend to like things sauce-y. Pasta, stir-fry, steaks…”
me: “wenches.”
him: “…”
Dammit.
17:
I fall asleep at night with a sweater on, fighting convulsive shivers. Did I eat enough today? What did I eat today?
My bathroom is filled with products for the skin. Body oils. Butter lotions. Eye creams. I slather everything on, layering clothing over it. Long sleeves. Sweatpants. Sweatshirt.
I crawl under the covers, spreading my three blankets neatly around me and then stacking them one on top of the other. Down comforter. Tan comforter. Blue comforter.
Arms and legs inside. Head tucked in. My skin feels warm, but I can’t stop shivering.
“You’re like the Tin Man,” I tell you, expecting a protest.
“Everyone has their flaws,” you reply unconcerned.
This response has an immediately sobering affect on me. I look back on our happy moments, laying them out neatly side by side on the floorspace in my head. I kneel down to track their evolution– from surprising to exciting to so new, so fun to an abrupt end. I suppose I shouldn’t have tried to ask for anything more than a good friendship from you. Appropriately chastised, I think I finally understand. And it’s not a big deal, really.
I dreamed about you last night, though he looked nothing like you. He was missing everything that you have, but was everything you’re not. And I woke up feeling better.
24:
“Ma’am, you’re ticket doesn’t have your first name printed. Do you see that? It’s just your first initial. I’m going to need you to step to the side.”
The way the security officer speaks sounds like baby talk to me. I think about whether or not I find this condescending, but the woman with the bad ticket has bigger things on her mind. And in truth, I find his tone kind of soothing.
Going through airport security is so stressful for me. The worry that I’ll have something confiscated lurks in the back of my mind. And after reading this story about arbitrary detainment at Heathrow airport, I hold my breath going through every metal detector.
In any other circumstance, I would find his slowed and gentle speech insulting. But today, I like it. He sounds nice.
“Thank you,” he says to me after he takes my ticket and he writes something on the back of it. He points me toward the x-ray conveyor belt. I exhale.
The last time I flew to Taiwan, it was because we had just learned of my grandfather’s terminal diagnosis.
My mom rushed to purchase our tickets the week after her brother called.
“Yours cost me $700,” she told me, letting the silence hang for a while before moving on.
In the garage on the day of departure, she grabbed a tree stump my dad had dug out the backyard and beat the hell out of the stubborn, plastic handle of her suitcase, her hair and tears flying off in crazy directions like the pieces of plastic. I watched in silence.
“Shit shit shit shit shit,” she hissed wildly. My dad went into the hallway closet to bring out another suitcase. We transferred all her things over in less than a minute.
Two months later she kicked me out of the house. We didn’t speak for almost a year.
This time, my mom and I end up staggering our visits. Your grandfather is deteriorating, she tells me before I leave. He has lived almost a year beyond what doctors first projected. My mom left to see him six weeks before.
“Call me if there’s a problem,” she says before she drives off. I push my luggage to the check-in counter. She calls me an hour later.
At the boarding gate, I watch an interracial couple share a bottle of water. Her stage-like make-up is the first thing I notice. Her giant, shiny ring, the second. Our eyes meet when she sees me watching; I don’t look away.
“All women want to feel secure and safe,” I say to you on the phone while waiting to board. I can’t hear you nod or roll your eyes.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask, not completely serious.
“What is wrong with you?” you counter.
On the plane, the couple sits in the aisle in front of me. The girl notices as soon as I do and occasionally turns around to look at me. After the plane takes off, I watch her weep at a sad movie and help serve the ahma sitting in the window seat beside her. She seems nice.
I tell everyone before I leave that I am excited for this trip. “It’ll be good to see family,” I repeat. But there’s nothing I can do to help him. There’s nothing I can do to make it better. Or make it less bad. Or change anything. The space behind my sternum feels thick and weighty when I think about this.
It starts raining the day after I arrive.
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