緣分

Today I wasted around two hours of my life watching Bachelor Pad. There was something initially intriguing about the show - stick a bunch of 20-something attractive people in a house for several weeks, and couples inevitably form. It kind of makes me think of the idea of destiny - or, 緣分, in Chinese. A lot of the times, the people that we fall in love with and think of as our soul mates are people that were simply conveniently there in the right place and the right time. Relationships tend to form out of a somewhat haphazard form of luck, which can be confused with destiny.

I sometimes wonder what I would be like if I were born in a different time, in a different place. Would I still be the same person, with the same personality, if I was born in 1920s Taiwan? Theres a part of me that thinks that our personalities are only semi-set in stone, that the rest is up to our geographical and cultural environments. Likewise, our 緣分 is not really destiny at all, its the product of right timing and right environment.

This is not to say that I think the men and women on the Bachelor Pad were meant to be together in some sort of cosmic way. I guess what I am sloppily trying to articulate is the idea that most of life is just made up of sheer luck, its usually only after the fact that we are able to reflect and go "aha, that is the way things were meant to be." So, I think it's time for me to go ahead and make my own 緣分. My life needs a bit of revamping.

Plotting my return

I've officially put it in writing. California, I would like to come home. I'm going to set a one year deadline on this. By the end of 2011, I would like to be apartment hunting in California (preferably the Bay) and have a job lined up. It will be time for a move.

In nearly every major world religion...

....or so I suspect, there's a great deal of focus on conquering anxiety. Those nervous moments, where we find ourselves waking up in the middle of the night or overcome as we walk down the street with an overwhelming feeling of dread -- all it means is that we're not trusting enough. Trusting in what, you might ask? I'll leave that up to you, as it's a rather personal question. If you were to ask me specifically, I would say trust in God. But then we'd be narrowing it down to just me and excluding that really sage turtle from Kung Fu Panda.



Do you see what I mean? No?

Ok then let me boil it down the specific example of me again: the particular set of religious-spiritual-cultural beliefs that I attempt to follow teaches that anxiety represents a breach in our relationship with God. If we believe in all-powerful and benevolent God who has set forth a rich life for us, then we should be able to realize that lemons can make lemonade and all that. There's a purpose to the seemingly bad times and "all will be quite okay." I would suspect that there's a great deal of calm that comes from being able to really believe that.

The difficulty is that as much as that belief has found a way into my life, so has the whole "master of my own destiny" thing. You know, because micromanaging fate is always super fun. Taken to extremes, these two bumper sticker catch phrases seem to represent polar opposites, but I would argue that that is only so when we believe we have control over much more than may be the case.

You really can't control other people, for example. Not even master politician Polonius pulled this off back in the day.

You can't control dumb luck: car accidents, brain clots, etc.

You can't choose where you were born, nor the race/culture/family that you were born into.

But, of course, we try to do all these things -- and in some cases, like avoiding car accidents or known cancer causing activities, rightfully so. The tension, bringing it back to my previous statement, is understanding what's in my hands and what's in God's hands.

I like to think that that turtle's got it down: knowing when to take the long view and short view on things. Sometimes we have to take the good times when they come. Sometimes we have to hold on to the idea that it'll all be okay in the end.

Ok. I'm talking myself in circles now, but quite a bit calmer. So, that's all for this afternoon. Until next time..

2010, the future

I think I've spent an average of 3 hours on the phone everyday with my ex-boyfriend over the last 2.5 years. We actually only dated for six months, if that. It's weird how our relationship went from being the normal sappy kind to the incredibly weird, awkward ambiguous gray area for the past two years.

Part of me knows that I need to stop playing the part of the naive ex-girlfriend who can't take a hint. But, the other part of me knows that he still cares about me a lot, and I can't help but wonder what would have happened if we hadn't broken up and if we hadn't continuously hurt each other the past two years. It's strange how loving someone isn't enough for the both of us. I know I love him, otherwise I wouldn't be able to put up with his temper, and all of the pain and grief he has put me through. I know he cares about me too, and if he doesn't love me then I'm certainly the closest thing he's come to love - I know this not because I am being a dim-witted girl, but because I have hurt him more than anybody else has hurt him.

It's odd how pain and love go hand-in-hand so easily. We are able to hurt deeply the ones we love the most - and the ones we love the most are the only ones that can hurt us deeply. A few days ago, I got into a fight with my ex, and truth be told, it was my fault. I haven't talked to him since, and being that I'm used to chatting with him for hours on end every night, the emptiness is daunting. The house feels oddly silent. I've apologized, and its all I can do. What's left for me is to wait to see if he will forgive me, or if the both of us will have finally decided to move on.

Like I've said before.... loving someone just isn't enough sometimes. Sometimes we just aren't able to erase the past wounds we've caused each other, and the only thing we can do is try to move on. If we don't talk again, I'll miss him and our conversations, and I can only hope he will remember all the fun times we had. If we do talk again, I am just worried that I am creating an open wound instead of letting my scab heal.

The Season of Pumpkin is Upon Us

Growing up in California, winter was by far my favorite season. Call it narcissism, I suppose, as I am a child of the winter and enjoy the self celebrations that the season brings. But, I like the shorter days, college basketball season, and cooler temperatures.

Now on the East Coast, fall is my favorite -- it has the same coolness as the California winter, as well as the pretty oranges and yellows and an intimate feeling of a last "hurrah" before civilization goes into hibernation for the winter.

You see, I've come to observe that spring and summer are best for making new friends. People are out and about, throwing barbecues, falling in love. Fall is about Sandy and Danny reminiscing about their "summer loving," and finding out who the winners and the keepers are. What remains after spring and summer's new blossoms fall away?

I think that winter will always be my absolute favorite season, but I like the flavors of fall. Things just seem to ripen.

Indeed, 2010 may finally be starting to taste good.

Dear SJC, what if you hadn't followed your heart to Taiwan?

Would the legal market be any less unkind today? One day (full disclosure: it may take decades), I think that you'll look back at that time without regret. A hard lesson about love and "growing up," is learning the risks of it all.

I am thinking back to this time of year three years ago. I was standing in my parent's drive way with a boy I had spent nearly two years in varying degrees of romantic relations. In a few days, I would leave for graduate school in London, and I threw down my ultimatum. I wanted to "stay together." The answer I got? "No, I've never really had feelings for you." I didn't want to believe him, but just a week later, as I was sitting alone in my new London flat, I saw the photos of him and his new girlfriend. These were the days of facebook gifts: the little cartoon hearts, cats, and flowers flooded my news, making the reality of the situation inescapable. I really did mean nothing to him.

And luckily, I was an ocean and a continent away and proceeded a dream year in my favorite city in the world. Sometimes I think about what if that conversation had panned out differently. What if he did return my feelings? I'm not sure that I would have had the courage to go.

So, you may be thinking now- I have no London to distract me. Not even a job to give me something new to complain about. But, you will sometime soon and from here on out, every new guy who happens to momentarily tame our hearts, we get to think: "Are you as good as a year in London?" or "Are you worth the suffering of lost momentum and professional opportunity?"

I can say with confidence, you are at the very least -- that much wiser.

What? I graduated?

This year is the year in which I should be starting my career. Of course, with the economy the way it is and my lack of job prospects growing dim in the horizon, there hasn't been much to celebrate lately.

Last year, I still thought that I could graduate and do anything. I thought that if I followed my heart to Taiwan, I would have a great time and still be able to find a great job. Before I went on my internship, I was in love, and totally naive. I came back more than slightly bitter, but wiser.

Dear California,

I spent Saturday afternoon driving to Ikea and watching Seinfeld with a boy that is somewhere in between being just my ex boyfriend and the love of my life. Such dramatic language for a Monday evening, I know. But when the mundane (buying household effects and watching re-runs of 90s television) becomes more appetizing than a trek around the world, there's something special there.

I'm struggling today to not ruin those few hours of domestic heaven with worry over "forever." He told me once "I don't love you. I don't see us lasting in the long term." (And yet here we are.) Sometimes, I feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop -- for him to leave like he said he wanted to do months ago. How I get by is remembering that today was happy, tomorrow could be too. These are gifts to be savored in the moment, rather than ruined by the lack of promise that it will last forever.

Pride is also quite the nemesis. Every now and then, I'd like to be one of those girls that's pined after and pursued. I want him to yield first and not feel like the ex girlfriend that maybe "just can't take a hint." Past a certain point, though, dwelling on things like this are more about power than about love.

Yeah. Love makes me an idiot, and I am somehow okay with that.

Lastly, from my ritual morning newspaper reading:

What is love, anyway?

Ah, best for last. If I were Spock from “Star Trek,” I would explain that human love is a combination of three emotions or impulses: desire, vulnerability and bravery. Desire makes one feel vulnerable, which then requires one to be brave.

Since I’m not Spock, I will tell a story.

Say you decide to adopt a baby girl in China. You receive her photo, put it on your refrigerator and gaze at it as the months pass, until finally you’re halfway around the world, holding her in your arms, tears of joy streaming down your face.

But later in your hotel room, after undressing her, you discover worrisome physical signs, in particular a scar on her spine. You call the doctor, then head to the hospital for examinations and CT scans, where you are told the following: she suffered botched spinal surgery that caused nerve damage. Soon she will lose all bladder and bowel control. Oh, and she will be paralyzed for life. We’re so sorry.

But the adoption agency offers you a choice: keep this damaged baby, or trade her in for a healthier one.

You don’t even know about the trials yet to come, about the alarming diagnoses she’ll receive back home, the terrifying seizures you’ll witness. Nor do you know about the happy ending that is years off, when she comes through it all and is perfectly fine. You have to decide now. This is your test. What do you do?

If you’re Elizabeth Fitzsimons, who told this story here one Mother’s Day, you say: “We don’t want another baby. We want our baby, the one sleeping right over there. She’s our daughter.”

That’s love. Anyone can have it. All it requires is a little bravery. Or a lot.

I wikipedia-d "love" today.

I'll have to take the author's word on this, but according to Eat Love Pray's Liz Gilbert, even people in the most dire of material circumstances still sit around and obsess with love. "Does he love me or not?" supposedly asked a group of Cambodian refugee women. I share in the author's wonderment... of all the the things these people had gone through, this is what stung the most?

On the flip side, being at the ripe age of 25, I find myself quite entrenched in the whirlwind of wedding season. I'm told it gets slightly less turbulent in about 5 years time, but right now, however, I am in awe of those among my peers who somehow have found it in themselves to publicly declare, "I will love you, forever." The cynic in me suspects that some of this lot are merely getting up there on the altar because it's the thing to do. Kind of like getting a college degree. But the cynic in me can't also help but observe the tenderness of these ceremonies-- the friend, who on normal circumstances I would (lovingly) characterize as an "ice queen," walking down the aisle visibly overcome with emotions.

There's something to this love thing. And while according to wikipedia, it can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, the end story is kind of all the same. Most people will have experienced it sometime in their lives, and all people will have struggled with defining it. It seems that only after getting kicked in the gut a few times do we ever get brave enough to walk down the aisle in tears.