29:
[From the archives: 2006.11.17]
A day off work landed me in DanShui with the beautiful Misa.
(note: Something about the looks of these Japanese-Chinese women tends to veer off course and end up lost in the territory of the exquisite. Seriously. Misa was turning heads.)
We only go because I am two snaps away from phenomenal nagging. I want to get my fortune told and according to Misa, the lady in DanShui is the one and only clairvoyant to see. And, it’s cheap as hell. So we down our coffees and hop on the next northbound subway. It’s a beautiful day out.
“Do you want your palms read or a tarot reading? Combined it’s 400NT. The palms are 100NT, but the card reading will answer the questions you have.”
I have no looming questions at present. Since I am mostly coming to the fortune teller for entertainment value, I choose to have my palms read. She takes my left hand first, then my right, looks at the lines, looks at the back, and starts to rubbing them between her hands while she speaks. From my inclinations, to my weaknesses, to my failed relationships, the woman basically digs around my 23 years, pulling out any junk that strikes her fancy.
“You are surrounded by good people. Whenever you need help, someone always shows up to help you. You have very good fortune.”
It’s true; I am very lucky to have the people I have in my life.
“You will not stay rooted in one place. You will fly from country to country and perhaps you prefer it that way.”
I have conflicted feelings about this.
“You give too much in relationships. You need to learn how to hold back.”
On this topic she stops at the edge of detail. Reading the lines on my hands, the lines on my face, the look in my eyes, she knows what I know. And she stops talking for my sake.
[I wonder what she would say to me now.]
24:
L to R : Creme de la Creme, mini Red Velvet, Cookies & Cream. Yum.
21:
“I don’t want you to be unhappy.”
…
Looking back, you now realize you spent the first year of it dreaming and the second year living. Your hair was red, then brown, then yellow, then pink. You changed it around to figure yourself out. Then you changed yourself to figure him out.
After a year, the people in your life started to fade like old photographs. He had moved away by then, and took your focus with him. Now you had to go too.
And who could blame you? This is it, you thought to yourself then. This is why.
You packed your car and said goodbyes. This is so much love, you swelled.
…
Years later, a different boy in your bed, you casually mention the days you lived in the desert.
“Why did you move out there?” he wants to know.
For a boy, you say.
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).
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