At which point do you really know someone?

When I first met my boyfriend, I was still trying to figure out who he was. Not like, the LinkedIn resume version of knowing. I knew he’s French, is close to his sister and loves photography. I knew that he doesn’t care for olives and that his favorite sport to watch is soccer. I mean football, sorry (cue eye-roll). Facts. Facts that he tells me that aren’t in any urgent need for proof. Facts that I accept at face value like when you buy a children’s ice-cream maker and the box tells you confidently, proudly that it comes with batteries.

But what I’m talking about are the things only time will prove true. Things that only time will reveal to be one-off quirks or habit. Things he claims to be true of himself that time and only time will bear witness to.

Within a few months, I learned that when he gets stressed, he runs a nail-bitten hand through his greying hair. I learned that when he starts talking about photography or drones, I could probably spontaneously combust next to him and he wouldn’t notice. But I also learned that when he tells me he misses me, he means it and he’s not one to feign emotion. Which also means I learned that he will always tell me what he thinks even if he knows it could hurt.  

An obsessive-compulsive check-lister, I almost plan just so I could check things off. He, I learned with time, is not the same. And unlike my previous boyfriend who cringed at the idea of making plans further out than the next week lest he fails to follow through, this one talks a big game. “Let’s go have a picnic after you get off work tonight!” he says. So I unearth an old bed sheet to serve as our picnic blanket and take it to the car. I plan to meet him at the mall where we will get groceries, cheese, wine, the like. I arrive fifteen minutes earlier than we said we’d meet. He’s fifteen minutes late, per usual. By the time he arrives, he announces, “I’m hungry, let’s just shop and eat in the mall instead.” Disappointment ensues. But in time I will learn that it was not an isolated incident, that he’s great at speaking his mind, sharing what he hopes to do, but not so great at the execution unless tied and tethered and threatened with consequence.

And so you learn these things. Things you don’t find under “Skills” on their CV, nor in your first flirtatious conversation where you thought you covered every topic the world has to offer (how you ended up talking about Tolstoy’s hair you’ll never know). You do not learn them during Week One when you’re both still so infatuated that your worlds revolve around each other and the rest fall into the periphery. You don’t learn them that one time something happens three months in and you find yourself wondering if it’s a big deal or if it’ll happen so often that in ten years you’ll wave it off as that “thing” he does.

When I told my best friend that my boyfriend said “I love you” a week into dating, she warned, “It’s great that he feels that way, but he probably doesn’t know what those words really mean yet.” I brushed her off as a cynic but those words ring true. Because at Week One those words are merely an empty promise. It is when we fight about depression and decisions, when we piss each other off and say things we don’t mean and still choose not to walk away that those words start to mean something. It’s when he tells me he’ll “never” or that he’ll “always” and each time the occasion arises, he doesn’t or he does that those words begin to earn stripes. You learn whether “always” means always or actually more like “only-when-I’m-in-a-good-mood” or whether “never” means never or really just “haven’t-so-far.”

I guess it’s only after you bring it home that you figure out if the ice-cream maker indeed comes with batteries. Does it even work? If it does, does the churner give out after a few spins? And does it really make ice cream or some sort of gooey, cold Play-doh puddle? But perhaps more importantly is the million-dollar question your parents ask whenever they buy you the toy—how often will you play with it? Well, I guess only time will tell if it’ll become your favorite toy, one you cling onto through dozens of garage sales or if it’ll become the next casualty to be stuffed in a closet and replaced in a month. But you won’t know unless you first choose to believe it could, in fact, make ice cream. And we all know ice cream is the key to happiness. That, my friend, is the undeniable truth. #Facts.

Beating.

The heart grows stronger with every beating—

Is that perhaps why they call it a beat—

Like throwing punches,

a thump, a thud.

Violent, heavy

these words we use

To describe this fragile thing

we take for granted.

In sorrow, in love,

it expands, contracts.

In tears, it tears,

With heed, it heals

Like any muscle,

It soldiers on

without a choice.

The heart grows stronger with every beating—

Relentless in its resolve to overcome

Lest it be overcome—

By this dull ache

Radiating, pulsing,

Surfacing, ebbing, finally flowing,

Until something has you

Beat.

Take heart, reset.

Still here, it says.

Bleeding, throbbing,

Hobbling, mending.

The heart grew stronger from every

beating.

I wanted ice cream. Instead, I got earrings.

I remember being disgusted by all the new restaurants in HK when I first returned. Two abominations stood next to each other in prime retails space, the first was a less than mediocre Italian restaurant that fashioned as a grocery store slash high-end canteen. You purchase a call card thing upon entering before the cashier gives a lengthy explanation on how to “maneuver” the space while I kept murmuring under my breath, "I just wanted some good pasta, dammit." But no. Instead, you walk along an open kitchen. The first counter you choose your appetizer, then your main and then because logic, you circle back to the front to choose your dessert, all the while beeping your card to keep track of your orders. Its neighboring Japanese dessert café is directly tethered to a shop that sells an eclectic assortment of jewelry, hats and candles. I have no idea why either.

It seems it’s no longer viable to simply produce good food. Even without relying on gimmickry, expensive décor has somehow become synonymous with food quality. A new mall opened in Hong Kong with half a dozen restaurants, with stories behind their décor each more extravagant/ ludicrous than the next. One enlisted a world-famous artist to craft a handful of surfboards to hang on the sunset-colored walls, then an Indonesian restaurant commissioned a whole, massive tree trunk from Bali to be airlifted into the space because a local tree simply won’t do and people can totally tell the difference. Oh you’re wondering about the food? Who cares! That’s not the purpose of restaurants, silly.

So I guess those insipid online magazine headlines of “The 10 Most Instagrammable Cafes in New York City” are really not that insipid because that’s apparently where our priorities lie.

Most of the time for something to sell, it needs to be objectively good or marketable. Preferably both. But it doesn’t always happen. Plenty of quality products die anonymous deaths and plenty of trash go mainstream.

I keep thinking about a random lady who came to look at my furniture in NYC when I listed them on Craigslist. She was a writer. She said she had just finished a novel and after I had congratulated her she gave me a rueful smile: "Thanks but, I’m having a hard time pitching it to editors because it doesn't fit a particular genre." It's not enough to produce something good, it then needs to then be a viable addition to an existing infrastructure. I didn't realize there were these invisible (or may be not so invisible) parameters to creativity even in fiction, something that by definition has no boundaries.

Have we really become so shallow that we can no longer appreciate quality if it’s not wrapped in a bow? Have we come to let packaging dictate content? Why must all food be camera-worthy? Why do all books have to know whom its neighbors are gonna be on a shelf? What happened to quality for the sake of quality? 

I ask these things because they can have deeper ramifications than an overabundance of breakfast photos. In a world where clickbait reigns supreme, where every thought can become public within seconds, sometimes to be "marketable," to find where they "stand out" I find authors relegating to talking about what will “sell.” Sometimes it means relying on their race, their sexuality, or the most embarrassing thing they did. While on one hand it can be seen as empowering, as I witness headline after headline pouring through my feed of “I’m in an Open Marriage with Four People and It’s Not What Everyone Thinks It Means,” I sometimes wonder, as a writer, would anyone even glance at me if I didn’t whip out the most exotic thing about myself? What if I'm Asian but I don’t want to talk about being Asian in any shape or form? But I guess it doesn't matter--who has the time to read anymore? Maybe I'll just post a picture of my $100 organic green juice from this rustic juicery. #yum

Hi, my name is Rosie. No, I Don't have a namecard

When she’s 5, there’s no reason to doubt that little Lucy could be a chef, a CEO, a cartoonist. But even at that age, there’s an implication that one day she can only be one of those things.

Then from kindergarten to high school, Lucy has dozens of subjects shoved down her throat, a plethora of extra-curriculars that are really not-so-extra because she must be practicing one sport, language and instrument at any given time. Personally, I remember those late nights cramming AP Chemistry, nibbling the eraser of my mechanical pencil in frustration at my apparent inability to grasp how these beehive drawings are supposed to somehow represent a tree or caffeine or fairies or something. I don’t know, clearly that test did not go so well. I just kept thinking, I can’t wait till I can just read Jane Austen books 24/7. I’d rather do 100 essays than do this.

In college, we’re told to experiment (not like that, you dirty minds!), try dozens of electives on fields and topics we’ve never even heard of to broaden our horizons, only to be told to choose a major. I had just discovered Russian literature, linguistics, and gender studies when I started looking around nervously at my friends handing in their Major Declaration forms: Mechanical Engineer, Computer Science, Economics and Political Science. Timidly I handed in mine. Major: Journalism.

“You have straight A’s in all your Russian lit classes,” my Tolstoy 301 professor said in a thick accent. “Why don’t you major in it? You clearly love it.”

“Oh, I um, I would but I already have so many journalism credits,” I lied. What I really meant to say was, “What the heck am I supposed to do with a Russian lit major after I graduate?” Sure, we’re the ones putting pen to paper on the major declaration form, we ostensibly have complete autonomy, but much of our decision is guided by things other than our pure desire: how does this translate into a job? How will I compare to my peers? Will my parents approve?

One thing leads to another and three internships in the same field later, Lucy finds herself with vast experience on one subject, and as a result is only qualified for one kind of job. If she’s lucky, maybe it could stretch to five (including waitressing). 

And so it builds, our narrative, but the higher the stack, the narrower it gets. Apparently, we’re supposed to aim for a neat and tidy title we can hand out on a little textured card with engraved text so that in less than three words, someone can figure us out. I’ve witnessed the discomfort people feel when I don’t have a namecard to offer them—how are they supposed to judge me, speak to me, without it? (The same way people are confounded when pregnant ladies say they’re keeping the baby’s sex “a surprise.” Do we call it an “it?” Without a frame of reference, they have no idea how to act, what to ask.)

After graduation, I mentally vacillated between interests, fashion, writing and event planning and at one point even took a vote amongst my friends, as I found myself forcing my inner child to choose. Grownups are focused, the little voice in my head said, they pick something and work on it until retirement. One of my best friends had her fair share of snide comments when she jumped from job to job after graduation, refusing to settle when she knew the job wasn’t right for her. Should those who stick at their jobs even though they’re miserable be venerated for being responsible? Should those who have the courage to quit despite the lack of security be berated for being entitled, lazy, imprudent? It was then that I realized, no, I will not choose. I refuse to be compressed, sealed, embossed onto a 3-inch card. The summer I worked two jobs, learned how to cook and started working out with a personal trainer was one of the most fulfilling in my life. I am invigorated by balancing multiple jobs at once, accomplishing more than I would sitting half-heartedly at one job. I enjoy writing, fashion and events in equal measure, all of which I have enough passion for that I refuse to give up any one, all of which I’ve consistently contributed to on my blog so no, I will not choose so that the world has an easier time figuring me out. I’m tired of being told to go but not too far, that I can be anything but apparently only one thing. I’m complicated, as are my interests, none of which I’m willing to give up, so Dear World, no, I don’t have a name card and you’re just gonna have to deal with it.

Be kind to those who are unkind-They need it most

“I’m just saying, if he knows that about himself, he should try to do something about it.”

I clenched my fork tighter as I bit back my anger. “You know, people with low self-esteem are the way they are because somewhere along the way, someone told them they were not worthy.” I was two seconds away from pointing the fork at her, because she was that someone to me.

I recently clicked on an article entitled “7 Signs You Grew Up With A Toxic Parent” because everyone likes to think their parents screwed them up in some way. Nothing in it was particularly revealing, as the law of confirmation bias goes, I’m sure most people can claim that their parents fit the bill on one occasion or another if you stretched things far enough. But the most interesting revelation to me was that they all usually resulted in the child having low self-esteem.

I never thought of myself as having low self-esteem, but that’s because I never realized it could come in the form of eagerness to prove one’s ability, in the inability to accept failure, in immediate need to assign blame or the lack of capacity to receive praise. All this, stems from a place of deep rejection that we spend the rest of our lives atoning for, even though it wasn’t our fault.

Sadly, we do feel it’s our fault. Was it something we’ve done? Were we not enough? Were we not worthy of their love?

One of my best friends had her father up and leave her family for another one. Another friend was sexually harassed by a family member only to have her mother berate her saying, “How could you let that happen?” I am well aware of the unfortunate ubiquity of this story, every family has a version of their own, but I was angriest and saddest about the fact that they were all hurt by the very people who were supposed to be their protectors, their God-given shields and nurses.

It feels like a betrayal that the injured have to live with, an unjust quandary where revenge would only hurt the perpetrator more. Even in acceptance, they may realize their needs will never be met but it doesn’t stop them from needing. Even in revenge, their needs will still not be met and a severed relationship would only hurt the avenger. There is no winning or way out.

But this is not meant to be a dour story, because instead of choosing to hate or drown in self-pity, these people were the first to forgive even when they never received an apology. After years of self-excoriating, they emerged not only absolving themselves but also the other party by seeing that those people who hurt them were hurt as well. Look a little closer, and you’ll find that our less-than-perfect parents probably had toxic parents of their own, and often, the inability to be considerate of your feelings is just a sign of that. So they’ve failed you, but now the power is in your hands whether to perpetuate it or make like Elsa, and let it go.

Love May Fail

Shopping for books one day, I was drawn to the title, Love May Fail (by Matthew Quick), the idea that love, the deepest, most profound emotion that one can feel or offer, may still fail. But the word “may” is what my intrigue hinges upon, it is what makes this phrase beautiful, because it means love could just as easily triumph. After all, it is this lack of surety that makes love so prized when won and so devastating when lost.  The phrase also prompts a “but” to follow, perhaps out of the human need for a hopeful resolution, but it indeed exists in the original maxim it was plucked from; “Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail.” Though a meager offering of comfort, it is comfort nonetheless, that even when the most powerful force falls short, there is still something that might hold the pieces together.

I was drawn to it because I thought it spoke directly to the disappointment I was wading through, in search of a lighthouse that would shed light on it all. I was confused because I felt like I did my best in all arenas of my life but none of them reciprocated my efforts. Where I gave love I found rejection, where I gave fuel I found a dead end. My mind at that point spouted a constant stream of why? Where? When? I felt like a walking question mark. So when I saw this book, I wanted to know: What happens when love fails?

Maybe I was blindly projecting, but as I read the novel, I felt like I was experiencing uncannily similar events and emotions to the characters—the loss, the flailing, the search for a spark. And as a result, I got to live vicariously through the aftermath, to get a peek of what’s down the road for me and, spoiler alert, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. The characters, spurred on by a sudden burst of courage to “turn things around” run about making drastic changes, seeking once-feared challenges, accepting new love, and their steely determination is quickly battered by the realization that the world does not change just because you suddenly decide to.

Yet there is a strand of hope that runs through every deflated dream with which the characters and readers use to climb back up. It is a hope almost sentient in its ability to coax the demoralized characters into believing again by taking the form of unanticipated blessings or distant corollaries gently whispering: Just because something didn’t happen the way you envisioned doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing.

The novel was proof to me, an accustomed cynic, that one can be a realist without being a pessimist. Paraphrasing one of the main characters’ words repeated throughout the novel: we are guaranteed failure and sorrow just as we are entitled to hope and happiness, and just as you don’t get to control when it fails, you won’t get to dictate its victory, for better or for worse.

we're all being brainwashed, and it starts with our underwear

Much like the way Pinterest as an entity has a specific style (close your eyes and think about a typical Pinterest page, what kinds of pins are on there? You're the only one who's envisioning them) whether you're aware of it or not, the media is also steeped with a distinct set of values—that it is always better to seek the next thing (“37 Ways to Ask For A Raise”), that neediness is the root of all relationship evils (15 Reasons Your Boyfriend Left You”), and you are taking massive gulps of it every day. That's because in their attempts to be informative slash sensational, writers behind these pages must make sweeping generalizations and assumptions about the reader that may not apply to every person. But we’ve become so lazy with our consumption of information that sometimes we adopt and accept their axioms without further review. In Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, renowned psychologist Maria Konnikova divulges a weakness in our brains with a simple example: Think about a pink elephant. No doubt your brain somehow conjures up an image of a pink elephant, but here’s the catch: we know that pink elephants do not exist. And so, it takes a further step for us to correct the previous thought and acknowledge the facts. Our brains mostly function on auto-pilot, passively allowing random bits of observations and information to enter unfiltered, and it requires conscious effort to parse through the junk and make necessary corrections. Scary, isn’t it?

I fancy myself a mostly self-aware person, but then I was sitting in my therapist’s office, rattling off thought after psychotic thought about everything that’s wrong with me and the world and she was like, “Hold up—why on earth do you think that neediness equals bad and ambition equals good?” I was stunned to silence for a moment because I couldn’t cough up an answer. I went through my mental rolodex, Hmm no, it wasn’t my mom (always the first suspect), nope it wasn’t something I picked up from school either…and then it hit me: without even knowing it, I had internalized the institutional values proselytized in every magazine and social media account I was subscribed to. As unbiased as the media pretends to be, there is a cogent value structure imbibed in every headline it hurls and every story it publishes. With so much crap in the digital ether, even the most vigilant browser will likely find himself one day having an opinion about The Best Underwear To Wear To A Job Interview and he’d have no idea why. More accurately, an opinion he didn’t have up until he read it somewhere, and probably never needed to have. Try it yourself: if you take a second to think about why you have a certain opinion about something, you might find that it's because the media told you so and not actually because you believe it, or that maybe you never had a chance to form your own opinion before you were told what to feel or think.

My shrink goes on to reason with me and lay down the pros to my “problems” where I could previously only see cons. “You make neediness sound like it’s a disease, but what is so wrong with needing human connection? What about all those potential hazards that come with being overly independent? And what makes you think wanting more or better is always a good thing? There are people who don’t want a raise—is that any less valid of a decision if it makes them happy?”

I knew I was paying her for a reason.

On top of telling us what to wear or who to watch, the media often also tells us what to think. Unless it’s an op-ed, you may not think they’re pushing an agenda, but in what they choose to report on and how they phrase each lead, they’re framing your mind for how to digest the information. All I’m saying is, if you’re allergic to strawberries and they’re serving a fruit salad, make sure you inspect the bowl before consuming to figure out if this it’s really for you.

You are not fine, but you will be

Unlike a headache or stomachache, when you’re going through something like this, you sometimes have no idea. It’s just one bad day, or a bad week, you think. It’s just because I’m fighting with Mom, you think. It’s because I’m tired, you think, and the reasons go on. Only when you don’t feel it anymore do you realize that there was, in fact, something wrong.

I can talk about it and even write about it now because it’s over. But I couldn’t then. While I used to babble and vent to my boyfriend whenever something was wrong, there instead was a glazed silence. I’ll tell him tomorrow, I don’t feel like it now, I think. I stopped writing—I had neither inspiration nor desire, and styling for my blog felt like a chore. It was a sudden disappearance of energy, vivacity, even taking a shower felt like it demanded energy I couldn’t afford. I wanted to get things over with, anything, everything like I’m waiting for something but I looked forward to nothing. I felt neither nostalgia for the past, nor excitement for the future but I didn’t want to be in the present either.

Maybe I was waiting, I was waiting for my boyfriend to visit that Christmas. I thought his presence and support would pick me up, or at the very least distract me. I thought I’d tell him everything I was feeling then. But perhaps that was the biggest mistake I made. Because when he arrived and nothing changed, it plunged me into deeper isolation, watching his happy face while we prepared our skis or sat on the flying swings, I was irritated that he could enjoy the same moment that I couldn’t, that I was forced to perform the same motions but feel none of the same exhilaration. I felt stuck.

Stuck. Something I felt daily for the last few months, the feeling of wanting to run away but having nowhere to run to. Sometimes my thoughts and emotions spin around so much, growing heavier until I feel like I need to back away from myself, but I can’t. I felt stuck. I felt stuck after many inconclusive quarrels with my mom, all of which had roots in the anger and disappointment I’ve buried from my childhood, but only came to light upon my moving back. So when my longtime best friend who’s known me and my mother since forever candidly asked one day, “Do you think your mom will ever be the mom you need her to be?” and I finally admitted to myself, “No,” I felt stuck because I naively thought this realization would automatically lead to acceptance and forgiveness but it predictably didn’t.

Just as there are a several inches between the brain and the heart, there is similarly a lag time between logically comprehending something and feeling okay with it. It is not, as I had thought and hoped, a matter of flipping a switch. Upon finally seeing my mother for who she was, I thought things would only get better from there, so when they didn’t, I then pointed a finger at myself and asked, so is the problem me? Is there something wrong with me that I can’t seem to get a handle on this fact? Turns out, the only problem with me was that I forgot to let myself grieve. To grieve the fictitious mother I clung onto, but now know she could never be. I forgot that where I used to feel anger, I will naturally feel sadness because to be angry is to still have hope for change, but when the hope disappears there leaves a trail of sadness, a period of mourning for what will never be. Instead, I subconsciously slapped myself with some sort of absurd deadline, as if it were crucial to stop feeling animosity right now. I forgot to give myself time.

Thankfully, I spoke to a friend who relieved many of my anxieties, most of which I learned were entirely self-imposed and therefore self-relievable. But most importantly, she uttered the words I hadn’t known I was waiting to hear: “Take your time,” she said. These words felt like a warm hand on my shoulder that replaced the imaginary burden I bore because for so long I forgot I was allowed to. Allowed to take my time, allowed to be sad, allowed to be anything but okay, right now. It’s an obvious truth that we all, sadly, forget sometimes.

That following day as I took a shower, I felt a strange peace. I had no reason to feel particularly elated but at that moment at the very least, I felt neither anger or sadness. I didn’t feel worried or anxious or tired, and it was only then did I realize I had been wearing the tinted glasses of depression and only now, for the first time in months, had they been removed. 

P.S. I wrote this for anyone who has ever been plagued by depression. Many will say you’re just having a few bad days, that you don’t have a reason to be unhappy, that you just need to look on the bright side. But there isn’t always a reason, it isn’t something you can will yourself back to health or logic yourself out of. So you just have to know that you are not alone and it will pass, maybe not today or tomorrow but it will. Just take your time. 

An Open Letter To Everyone Who Asks Me “How’s the writing going?” I Love You. But Please Stop.

When I first moved back home, I was determined to land myself a freelance gig before I met up with any of my friends to deflect the inevitable “So what are you doing now that you’re home?” question. That way, I can be all casual and say, “Oh I’m doing some freelancing.” If I'm being honest, it accounts for 60 percent for why I picked up freelancing—to get people off my back.

The other 40 percent of the reason is so that I would be keeping my knives sharp, being given consistent deadlines to meet so as to not fall into a rut. But who am I kidding? I have a blog where I have self-imposed deadlines already so really it’s just to get people off my back.

But my clever friends are not to be fooled and would often press further, making me reveal that actually, I’d like to spend my “funemployment” doing some writing thankyouverymuch. No, not for a magazine. No not really purely for my blog either. Ugh, I don’t know! Just! Writing, dammit!

You see why the question causes much anxiety.

Okay so, they now know that I want to spend the next year pounding on the keyboard for some vague purpose but that actually leads to the worst question in the history of all questions: The of innocent inquiry of “So how’s the writing going?” inserted near the beginning of every exchange of pleasantries. In the case of my gym trainer, that’s as often as twice a week and that’s just one guy. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked The Question in the past fortnight, I’d be J.K. Rowling minus the actually writing half a dozen best-selling novels part.

You see, when someone asks The Question, writers often hear it as if we were caught not doing our homework. No matter the inflection, we hear it like “So, how’s the ‘writing’ going?” And then, like having an accusatory finger pointed at our noses, we’re quietly panicking, saying “I’m working on it, I swear!” but on the surface all we say is, “It’s going okay.” 

Because really, how do we quantify progress in writing anyway? In the number of pages we’ve written in between our meetings? Because if that’s the case, I can churn out 25 pages of correctly spelled words in proper syntax that form grammatically sound sentences every day if that’ll answer the question. That came out sassier than I intended. I apologize.

But before I burn every bridge in my life, I have to say that the completely sane side of me (if that exists) knows that this question is asked out of love and not harassment. You see, the reason why The Question comes across as such is because it’s like the verbal incarnation of the black cloud hovering over every writer, a constant reminder whispering Hey, you haven’t written anything awesome lately. So when the dreaded Question is heard outside our own self-berating heads, it feels like an accusation at ourselves by ourselves through the inquirer. I told you I'm sane.

What many people don’t understand (and it was something I used to feel guilty about but now know it’s an inescapable plague all writers share) is that writing often looks like doing nothing at all. In a panel called What’s Character Got To Do With It? the revered writer of The West Wing and the new Steve Jobs biopic Aaron Sorkin said:

“I'm often asked ‘How long does it take you to write a movie?’ The answer is actually a couple of years. But most of that doesn't look like what a passer-by would say was writing.  It looks a lot like me lying on my couch or watching ESPN.”

Or, in this not-as-articulate excerpt from Jenny Lawson’s book Furiously Happy, she writes:

“There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that non-right-brained people don’t see happening. For example, when I have writer’s block, I sometimes have to ‘refill my creative cup.’ [It] means different things to different people but to me it looks a lot like watching Doctor Who marathons or reading David Sedaris books while screaming, ‘WHY DO YOU MAKE IT LOOK SO EASY?’ In summation, I spend an impressive amount of time doing absolutely nothing. Like, I’m at pro level. Because that’s how artistic genius works. And because I’m very, very lazy.”

So how does one say “I watched Gossip Girl till three in the morning then bore witness to my foolhardy Schnauzers picking a fight with the cat for half an hour but trust me it was integral to my next piece of writing” to my politely concerned gym trainer?

The answer is, you don’t. You say, “It’s going okay.”

Yes, You Can Love Fashion and Be a Nice Person, and Jesse Garza, Co-Founder of the top Luxury Styling Firm in New York City is Living Proof

“What do you mean by he’s particular?”

“Well, he doesn’t like red. The color red. So if the bouncy ball at his gym was red, he wouldn’t use it.”

I didn’t know what to think when my colleague tried to sum up my elusive, jet-setting boss on my first week of work. I had only met him for 30 seconds on my first day, when he was just stopping in to pick up his Bottega Veneta duffle before flying off to either D.C., San Francisco, or Chicago—it’s hard to keep track. But he’s flying back to New York today, and the office is in a scramble.

“Make sure you file everything you see on the conference table, then Windex it,” Jill, the office manager, instructed as she lit the Diptyque candle—the first time I’ve seen her do so all week. “And make sure the blinds are open to the same height.”

At this point I’m convinced the man is an obsessive compulsive crazyperson, and I would be completely terrified if it wasn’t for the smiles I see on my coworkers’ faces while they sweep up their respective desks. I conclude they are just too afraid to not smile.

“Helloooo!” Jesse’s singsong greeting rings through the hallway. He looks immaculate in a black T-shirt and dark jeans, hair perfectly coiffed, smile perfectly white and biceps perfectly toned. He resembles a wax figure—almost a tad too perfect. Then he stops mid-stride in front of the wilting orchid perched in the reception area. “I don’t want to go all Miranda Priestly on you guys but is there a fresh one coming this week?” Jill smiles and nods “yes” then Jesse smiles back and says, “Cool.”

My mind does a double-take. Wait, that’s it? No scowling, no further questions, no berating? Just…cool?

He then moves towards Ksenia, our Social Media Director slash Jesse’s Personal Assistant. On top of managing the company’s blog and social media strategy, she’s also on Jesse’s speed dial for when he needs a stray hair edited out for his Instagram, or when he needs a prescription refill.

After some cordial exchange in “How are you’s,” and a brainstorm session on new post ideas for the blog (with Jesse firing thought after excited thought and Ksenia typing furiously to keep up while trying to maintain a cool exterior), he asks if she was able to rent out his apartment through Airbnb while he is away for his next trip. I had to drop off something at his apartment that week and let’s just say from the Hermés throw blanket to the ornamental horns, this $4500 a month one-bedroom immediately adjacent to the Empire State Building with 360 views of Manhattan from the rooftop is not a place I’d want to rent out to strangers. When I expressed my curiosity to Ksenia later on, she simply shrugged and said, “Jesse always says things are just things. They can be bought again.”

I started the day thinking I more or less had the man figured out and I was quite ready to take all subsequent evidence as confirmation, but by the end of the day, I was more thoroughly confused than before: Who is Jesse Garza?

Over the course of the next several months, I would see him fewer than 10 times. Sometimes, like before, he’d just stop in for half a day. Sometimes though, I got to assist him as he shopped or saw a client.

The Jesse Garza when shopping is a force to be reckoned with. It isn't uncommon for him to shop at least 10 boutiques as well as all five floors of Barney’s and Bergdorf’s before he considers the day finished. I remember one of the things that uniquely stood out to me was the speed with which he walked. You would never guess it because he neither shuffles nor jogs. Instead, his upper body remains poised and static while he takes long, sweeping strides across the floor. As a general rule, if you let him turn the corner out of your sight, he has most likely already ascended to the next floor by the time you bolt over. That’s the thing, Jesse Garza always needs to be going, going, going and can never be at ease when he has a random day off in New York to kick back at home (hence the popping into the office even if he only has 2 hours before his next flight). I once asked him if he ever gets tired of it all, the constant flying, the repetitive, never-ending seasons, and after a thoughtful, tired pause, he says, “No, I do love it, and I’m very lucky to be doing what I love.” But at 50, his tiredness peers through the determined smile as it strains to reach his eyes. Then again, at 23, even I had to stealthily shake my feet throughout the day.

“...things are just things. They can be bought again.”

The Jesse Garza in front of the client is energetic and encouraging, regardless of the cold he’s fighting or the client’s moodiness. He often says his job is part cheerleading part therapy, to tell the client she’s not fat or to lend a sympathetic ear when she’s going through a high profile divorce. As he stoops to tie a client’s shoelaces, he chuckles as she tells him of an encounter she had with her friends, “…Well of course I’m not a size 2, unlike those girls I don’t just drink tea for lunch.” He stands to smooth out the back of her dress, tucking up the hem and cinching the waist here and there to mimic the alterations. His gaze is fixed on the reflection of the garment in the mirror, but he responds lightheartedly to her comment, “Who wants to be a size 2 if you can only drink tea??”

With clients who own entire buildings on Manhattan, who frequent the White House, who make headlines, there’s a level of sensitivity needed to navigate these expensive, rocky waters. On top of cheerleader and therapist, sometimes he tacks on the occupation of ninja, when he’s secretly ducking from one suite to another if two clients are staying at the same hotel but would be offended to know they’re sharing the service with someone else. Or the role of cultural ambassador when the client invites him to style her on a trip to India, and it is his job to figure out what is culturally appropriate. But sometimes, he takes on the role of a mute when the client and her husband are having a screaming match in the bathroom.

Even when he recalls these high, low, and downright strange moments in his career, Jesse always speaks with a tone of resignation, like he’s well aware of the wide eyes and dropped jaws he elicited but he himself seems to sweep these stories into a bin of “people are only human” and never speaks of them with any bitterness or regret. “Do you have some really crazy clients that are incredibly difficult to work with?” I asked. “Yeah some can get really crazy, but you know, everyone has their own problems they’re struggling with.”

Not one for the grime of buses or trains, we would often take a cab to see the clients (his glossy hair and general fresh-out-of-the-spa radiance would stand out too much on the subway anyway). But one of the first times we stood on the corner of 5th Avenue, hands flapping to flag down taxi, a young couple stepped out from behind the bus and reached out for the same cab. Jesse immediately retracted his outstretched hand, smiled, and motioned graciously for them to take it. Did you catch that?? He let them take the cab. In New York City. On 5th Avenue. I looked at him, stunned by this rare act of courtesy, and he simply said, “There’s no reason we can’t be nice to other people. It’s just a cab.”

Once we settle into the swerving cab, Jesse is a figure of solitude. He thumbs at his phone, checking his emails and texts. At first, I’m surprised at this sudden change in demeanor, and I fear it’s because he doesn’t like me (as is my conclusion in all awkward social encounters), but after relaying my worries to Kellye, who often works with Jesse, I’m relieved to hear that it apparently is “just the way he is.” An introvert, he uses the travel as time to recharge before he gets all talked out at the client’s, much like the way singers would save their voices before a performance. He does, after all, always say, “Show time!” right before he enters a client’s manor. Over several cab rides, though, I am able to piece together a brief biography.

Jesse was born in a small town in Indiana to Christian missionary parents. 

I remember once picking up the office phone to an old man with a deep, gravely voice who claimed to be Jesse Garza. I almost blurted out, “No you’re not, liar!” before he clarified that he was Jesse Garza Senior. Thrilled to get a peek behind the curtain at Jesse’s personal life, I asked him how he was doing, to which he replied, “By the grace of God, quite well today, thank you.” He was looking for his son to ask what time he should pick him up at the airport but when I told him Jesse’s not in, he thanked me and said, “You have a blessed day.”

“[He] chooses to see people as who they are and who they can be.”

One question immediately took over my mind as I hung up the receiver: “How on earth did they take Jesse coming out?”

“I don’t think they’ve fully accepted it, even now, but it’s never stopped them from loving me.”

“…I knew that I would be working in fashion at an early age: in pre-kindergarten, instead of playing with the trucks, I marched to the corner where the girls were dressing their Barbie dolls. Instantly, I felt the urge to make them over. My mom realized back then that I had a gift: an eye for fashion and style. Every now and then she used to slip me a doll, and say, ‘Don’t tell your father,’” Jesse wrote in a piece that appeared on Maria Shriver. “Instead of trying to push me in another direction, my mother always told me that I was special, and could do anything I wanted to do. She encouraged me to go into her closet to help her put looks together for church, and thus, empowered my gift.”

Perhaps this is how the anomaly that is Jesse Garza Junior began, when he witnessed his parents’ ability to fundamentally disagree with something and yet never allow it to detract from their love.

Sure there may be moments where he could resemble the notorious chief in The Devil Wears Prada, but what makes him distinctly not Miranda Priestly is the fact that he references himself as such. It’s in the way he apologizes for the inconvenience it causes others, but he doesn’t apologize for having high standards.

It is how he could be very much immersed in the industry, have his nose up against the painting yet retain perspective, and fully comprehend the absurdity of it all. How he can love the game but not be bitter if he loses.

Once you can accept that this man can be a part of the multi-billion dollar machine that constantly tells you that you’re too fat, need more clothes, or simply aren’t enough, but decides to tell his clients and employees that they are beautiful, to accept that humans are flawed, and to choose to see people as who they are and who they can be, then Jesse Garza is not that hard to figure out after all.

As I packed up my Starbucks tumbler and retired my notebook on my last day of work, I watched as the new girl Windexed the table with the same quizzical and anxious look on her face. But as I took my last few steps to the door, I smiled encouragingly at her knowing she’s about to work with the best in the industry, and I’m not just referring to fashion. 

The Pursuit of Imperfection

I find myself at a crossroads in my career and like a grandpa inundated by the different kinds of milk at the grocery store nowadays (would you like skim, two percent, whole, almond or soy? In a quart or gallon? which brand?) I am rendered completely petrified. In a way, yes it’s a good—and dare I say—privileged problem to have, that I have so many opportunities to cherry pick from. But what’s interesting is it’s not the plethora of options that’s hindering me, but rather the fear of picking the wrong one. And perhaps more infuriatingly, when there really isn’t a “wrong” choice, how the hell can I know what the “right” choice is?

I reckon it must be how this girl felt in a reality TV show I was watching. She always had a knack for coloring—that’s right, not drawing but coloring—because she felt relieved of the pressure of actually creating the picture and could (excuse the cliché) stay within the lines. So when she was invited to an artist’s studio and the artist offered to teach her a lesson in sketching, the girl froze, her pencil centimeters from the page. Her mind went blank and she had no idea what to draw. “I can’t do this,” she said. The artist then laughed gently and said, “Most people think they can’t draw because they’re too concerned about making it pretty or perfect. Sometimes you just have to start drawing.”

It suddenly struck me that sometimes the drive for perfection can be the very thing that stunts us from doing the thing we most want to do. Not just in art, but also in life, because perfection is neither realistic nor meaningful.

I can be an inveterate prude when it comes to certain things, never choosing to act until I’ve carefully analyzed every angle. My boyfriend also noticed that when I do well on a test, for example, I would immediately say “Well, it was probably just an easy test.” I wish I could tell you it was to feign humility, but I do in fact believe that. When I tried to find the root of this insatiable thirst for perfection, my gaze invariably landed on my parents once again (when in doubt, blame your parents, right?) but this time I still couldn’t find the grounds to assign fault. Sure, they gave me the finger-wag if I didn’t do well in grade school, but before long they were singing quite the opposite tune, telling me to go to bed and stop stressing about my tests as early as in middle school. So what could it be? Is it simply, as Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman, “It’s easier to believe the bad stuff?” 

It turns out that while my parents dole out their fair share of obligatory “I’m so proud of yous” and “It’s okay to fail sometimes,” the truth is, I’ve never actually seen them fail. Neither do they ever speak of their struggles or frustrations in front of little ol’ me. So subconsciously, I may have learned to discount the praise as mere courtesy. Unhealthy, I know, but still, not their fault entirely.

Once again, it was my suddenly omniscient boyfriend who nailed it on the head. It would appear that I can’t seem to take a compliment or make spontaneous decisions because I lack courage in myself, the courage to believe that I am indeed deserving of praise and that I would have the strength to overcome it if I made the wrong decision and failed. I may not be able to command the elements and guarantee calm waters before I set sail, but if it’s a matter of courage, it’s good to know at least that’s something I can control. So instead of pursuing perfection, maybe it’s time I acquire some grit.

can we help turning into our parents?

It occurred to me lately how strange it is that we can “dislike ourselves,” because it means we have a vision of how we should be and have actively chosen to disappoint ourselves, that we can know what the right thing is to do and consciously act against it.

It means, on a day-to-day basis, we make decisions that adversely affect our self-image. I suppose it’s like pigging out on burgers when you’re supposed to be watching your weight, then feeling guilty and defeated the next day. But the bizarre part of it all, is that we had 100 percent control over the situation.

A friend of mine was feeling guilty about a relationship decision she made, but when she confided in those around her, she found no sympathy. One girl even blatantly remarked, “Well, it was your decision to make.”

It all comes down to the fact that what we should do is not always what we want to do. Now why on earth would we want to do something that would make us hate ourselves? That sounds masochistic if not at the very least counterproductive. Then I realized, it’s because somehow, deep inside, there might be a delusion that this ostensibly “wrong” decision could make you happy.

After some further probing comparable to a thousand-dollar therapy session, my friend found that in some way her relationship decision was a delayed reaction to her absentee father. She was subconsciously trying to exert her agency (though erroneously placed) to compensate for the lack of her ability to do so in her familial relationship. She thought it would make her happy.

But what about our conscious tendencies to err? If we are aware of our adverse inclinations and we choose to give into them, does that make us worse off than if we had no idea in the first place? So many of us are afraid of becoming our parents (nothing is more offensive to my mom than saying she’s starting to resemble my grandmother. Comes in handy when you’re trying to get her to stop doing something, but let’s keep that our little secret). Yet, as we all know, we always end up more like them than we’d like to be. So if you know that your mom has a bad habit of interrupting people when they talk, and you find yourself doing the same as you age, but you don’t make a concerted effort to curb it, does this make you a bad person? Or can we just blame genetic predisposition?

As I hear more and more of my aunts, uncles, doctors, and even shopkeepers remark on my growing resemblance to my mother, I stop and take a third-person look at myself. I remember just yesterday venting to my best friend about how my mother is stubborn, pessimistic, high strung and then I realized, those are some of the characteristics I possess, some of which have led to my proudest successes. So yes not only do we often desire to do that which harms us, sometimes the “bad” can lead to a good outcome. So you’re welcome for bringing to light yet another one of life’s enigmas without any conceivable solution, but know this: you’re not alone if you feel like sometimes it’s hard to make the right decision, because after all, if it were so easy, the world would be a perfect place, wouldn’t it?

the only limits are the ones you make

Perhaps the phrase that will earn someone my absolute steeliest glare would be the words: “That’s just the way it is.”

“Why do I have to print this two-paged document she emailed me when it would have been quicker for her to print it herself?” “That’s just the way it is.”

I’m sure many of these things have reasons maybe beyond my comprehension or began with reasonable logic but have since been diluted and rendered irrelevant. But what about when it comes to slightly more conceptual things like “Why do I have to spend 10 years at this job level before I might get promoted?”

When we were toddlers, our parents’ words were law. We had to clean our rooms, eat our veggies “or else…” and the ominous uncertainty was enough to make us do it. But let’s be honest, the worst that was going to happen was a talking-to or a slap-on-the-wrist (I’m talking about relatively normal households here. Lord knows there are some creative parents with bizarre methods of discipline. A friend of mine said his father would make him face the wall then he’d start humming tunes from the 50s and he wasn’t allowed to step away from the wall until he’s correctly identified the song). As teenagers, our teachers and tests became our governing bodies, doling out punishments and rewards. But at the end of the day, school is school—you leave it at some point and nobody cares about where you went or looks at your transcript beyond your first job. But the one thing that our parents and teachers have successfully instilled in us beyond these safe bubbles is the tendency to follow rules, to narrate our lives through the lenses of the American Dream—go to a good school, get a good job, get married, have a family. And within that, there are also guidelines, and within that there are more and it’s like a never-ending-story-onion-thing. But it might actually be more a smelly onion than a cute never-ending story because it also makes us put arbitrary limits on ourselves.

My boyfriend recently decided to go to business school because he was fed up with the corporate ladder at his enormous company. Apparently, almost all the managerial positions are occupied by people over the age of 40. Okay so maybe there’s a little bit of that entitlement that social psychologists have attributed to us Millennials, and the older generations of “Lifers” aka people who got a job and stayed at it until retirement, would say we’re being impatient knuckleheads, but why does someone have to go through the motions if he or she has a better way? If we only do what our predecessors have done then progress would be rendered moot.

Steve Jobs (quoted by Ashton Kutcher) had said: When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is and you have to live your life inside the world and try not to get in too much trouble and maybe get an education and get a job and make some money and have a family. But life can be a lot broader than that when you realize one simple thing and that is that everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own thing, you can build your own life that other people can live in.

I know a guy who at 27 is an International Director for Starwood Hotels. Of course, I asked him: HOW??? He landed a Sales Executive position before he even graduated from college so he was obviously sharp to begin with, but as he rose through the ranks through hard work and supportive mentors, he eventually found himself offered a high managerial position, but guess what? He turned. It. Down. He looked at the job description and found that it didn’t require any traveling, something he desperately wanted in his career. So he countered them, not by whining about wanting to travel. He did his research and said, “If you allow me to manage accounts in China, I will increase your revenue by x in four years.”

Ballsy? Yes. Were they surprised? Yes. But did he get it? Yes. That’s when I realized, most of our lives, especially when we’re still young, we’re told to keep our heads down and just be grateful for the opportunities we’re given. But if we know we’re capable, we have the agency to receive these opportunities on our terms. As my boss always says, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” So don’t let precedence or your peers make you afraid to ask. Your life is yours to build. 

the fairytale we're afraid to live

When I was 5, I told all the adults I wanted to be a pianist by day and mermaid by night. Then I wanted to be a painter-figure skater. Then a writer slash Ben & Jerry’s taster. But somewhere along the way, I was forced to choose, and the choice hardly felt like a choice because it had to be realistic. And even if some of those little dreams I had are still in me somewhere, somehow, along the way, it was embarrassing to ever speak of them.

After a certain age, cynicism and realism are valued and sadly we learn them through the way others respond to our dreams. Sometimes I look at high-schoolers or even freshmen in college and my friends and I take pleasure in shaking our heads knowingly, and calling them “naïve.” But then I realized that when we laugh at someone because they’re so thoroughly and obliviously happy living their fairy tales, however blissfully ignorant, we’re actually the laughable ones in the equation. One of my friends who pursues acting made the very difficult decision of entering into the industry whole-heartedly after graduating from a prestigious college, without a part-time or backup job (much to the anxiety and despair of her corporate job father). On a coffee date, she ranted to me about a friend of hers—let’s call her Gretel—who works at some office job fulltime and who consistently badgers her, asking “what have you been doing?” but always with a tone of skepticism. “Gretel just wants to force me to say I’m not doing anything all day.” Gretel is miserable at the office job, and so to encourage the acting would be to somehow admit she simply never had the courage to pursue something she liked, even if it would mean relative instability. 

But why should we be ashamed to love something that might be a little unrealistic? Why should we adamantly deny any association with something we once held so dear, like denouncing an ex boyfriend in front of our girl friends just to feign indifference when you cared so deeply just a month ago?

It’s as if there’s a deadline for our dreams. A five-year-old who wants to be an astronaut? Cute. A 45-year-old who wants to be an astronaut? Delusional.

Of course, a healthy dose of realism is encouraged—at some point we need to accept that eating a pint of ice cream a day will inevitably lead to a larger jeans size (Yes, I’m afraid it’s true). But cynicism should never be welcomed. In fact, issue a restraining order because you should never let it even get near your front door. Cynicism is simply reveling in being the grouch who gets to say “I told you so,” without actually benefitting from or being above the situation. If holding a grudge is drinking poison while waiting for the other person to die, then cynicism is both of you drinking the poison and you holding out on your last breath just to say “I told you so.” It means you get to be bitter for longer, and who does that benefit, exactly?

More often than not, cynicism stems from a place of fear, the fear of trying and failing so the safest thing to do is to despair in its inevitable failure. Whether they’ve simply never tried or have tried and failed multiple times, the cynic is afraid to feel. And personally, I’d rather be slightly crazy and happy than realistic and empty. 

the art of burning bridges

A friend of mine once said to me, “I’m constantly so in awe of how honest you are on your blog. You are so brave.”

I suppose you can call it bravery. It did take me a long time to muster up enough courage to expose my personal pieces to the public, pieces that I wrote in high school that I never intended for a soul to see. And I’d like to think that I strove to write in a similar manner of pretend-blissful ignorance ever since. It was a great relief and release from my journalism training where I was constantly whacked over the head to “Remember the audience.” In a way, those pieces were a little easier to write, required a little less “bravery” if you will, because your voice is not your own, at least not entirely, and so the impartiality of it all meant you were safe, and any attack would be on your reporting, your execution and not your style or personality. 

So I suppose it was a brave feat to project my unfiltered voice to the world. But I think the honesty that my friend was referring to also had to do with how readily I used the people in my life as talking points. While I never used names, people could usually tell who they were, and I’ve gotten one or two snide remarks through the grape vine when the reference wasn’t in their favor (hello again if you’re reading!). “I could never do that,” my friend concluded. “I’d be too scared they’d see it.”

I’d like to think that my references to people in my life are in good faith, that they’re not so much the main subject as the agent with which to expand upon a larger theme. But my friend’s comment made me realize that the same qualm that might rack her nerves never did cross my mind the same way. It’s almost like in signing up to be in the realm of writers, I’ve committed and become resigned to the fact that sometimes I’m going to have to draw upon my life experiences, and my life experiences will often include other people. And if I’m going to be terrified of it and apologize for it, I’ll never be able to put pen to paper.

I remember during one of my Medill classes, a GQ editor and Medill alum who recently published a memoir came for a brief meet and greet. In the Q&A portion, a girl asked him, “In your book, you dig up unpleasant stories and memories about some of your family members… did you brace yourself for any repercussions?” The GQ editor paused for a moment, surprised to be asked a question about something other than “How do I get an editorial assistant position in a dying magazine industry.” He then shrugged his shoulders and said, nonchalantly, “I mean, yeah, there will always be repercussions, but they were important to the story.” Ah yes, The Story. 

I guess the ever-lofty Story is the writer’s justification for essentially numbing themselves towards other people’s feelings, a willful ignorance, if you will, of said repercussions. In many ways we’re no different from Taylor Swift—the moment you start writing songs about your exes, the harder it’ll be for your next boyfriend to trust you. It’s like this failed novelist I read about in a recent article in The Atlantic. Besides having to deal with a bust book and continue to live in anonymity and poverty, she also lost the good graces of her loved ones. Whenever her and her mom experienced any sort of friction, her mom would yell, “What are you gonna do now, write about it again?” Or when a New York Magazine writer did an exposé on the founders of a laundry app, I have no doubt he was fully welcomed into their graces in order to obtain the level of detail that he reported but the resulting piece was laden with sarcasm and judgment: “The brightest minds of a generation, the high test-scorers and mathematically inclined, have taken the knowledge acquired at our most august institutions and applied themselves to solving increasingly minor First World problems.” Ouch. I have no doubt the eager interviewees must have gotten quite the surprise when they read this disparaging account of their livelihood. There goes another bridge. 

It’s the high price you pay for the Story, the many bridges you burn in the ironic attempts to get to an elusive destination that is the Story. In a piece I wrote about my mom, she read it on the bed next to me and started crying. I thought it was a good kind of cry, maybe she was touched or just nostalgic, but then she put the paper down and glowered at me, “I didn’t know you thought of me as such a villain!” I was absolutely confounded, having no idea that I depicted her in any other way but truthful. I was sorry she felt offended, but I realized I wasn’t sorry at all for writing what I did. It was then that it occurred to me, write with vitriol, write with grace, people will take offense where they want, so the only thing you can do is write the truth.

 After the initial shock, my mother and I both became inadvertently aware of some of the unspoken emotions and tensions between us. It’s like all our dirty laundry that had been shoved into dark corners suddenly exploded into view and sure, it’s unpleasant to witness, but at least now we’re fully aware of exactly what items of clothing we own, especially things we’ve bought and completely forgotten about, and now we can start cleaning them. 

In the wise words of the inimitable Gloria Steinem: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

going all in

They say talent is a responsibility. I've had several of my friends applaud me for my determination to my craft. Just the other day, one of them Facebook messaged me out of the blue to tell me when she thought about creative people, I was at the top of her list. But instead of a warm glow of pride bursting through my chest, I couldn’t help but feel like a phony.

I feel like I never actually put enough time and effort into “being creative,” whatever the hell that means. When most people think of creative people, they envision slightly disheveled writers scratching away at a notepad while sipping hipster coffee. There’s a sense that they’re always frustrated, always searching, always groping for the next line. There’s a sense that they’re dedicating all their time to this never ending pursuit. And quite frankly, I’ve never done that.

Sometimes I blame the fact that I have "other serious responsibilities" like a 9 to 5 job. Sometimes I blame the fact that I’ve always struggled with the whole “Your talent should be shared” thing and that to hide it would be a sin. For a long time I never permitted myself to think of my writing as anything more than a passion project, mostly because I always felt like what I did wasn't good enough, but also because there were simply writings, drawings, things that I wanted to just keep to myself. 

After a while though the unsatisfied itch always came back and my 9 to 5 job ceased to feel fulfilling. It wasn’t until it shoved its big, persistent face in front of my windshield that I realized, this whole time, my goals have been about getting into a good college or getting a job that would sponsor me, and that I’ve been using my writing as a tool to help me bullshit my way through essays or cover letters. My talent has always been an afterthought, a tool, in my periphery and it was now telling me “That’s not enough.”

So after griping about how I don’t feel “successful” for the 75th time to my boyfriend, I realized, I’ll never feel successful unless I make my talent my 9 to 5 job. Despite my many fears of inadequacy and the haunting uncertainty, I was beginning to understand that at some point I’m going to have to invest in my talent 100%, go all in, put all my eggs in one basket, stop these asinine maxims, and just try. Instead of using my writing as a tool to do other things as I have all my life, I need to turn around and say, “Hey talent, what do you need from me? Do you need me to go back to school or read five books a day so you’ll be better?” Because if I don’t believe that my talent is worthy of it, how can I expect other people to believe it?

Of course, after this brief moment of enlightenment came an onslaught of worries and self-doubt and fear. Ask any brave soul who’s chosen a career in a creative field and they’ll tell you they’re no stranger to that feeling. But I guess there’s a naivety in anyone who dares to be great, a foolhardiness involved because it means putting all your proverbial eggs in one basket even when it’s ill advised. The euphemism for it is "being committed" and it sounds so good and all, but it really is more like recklessness, ignoring all the things that could go wrong. Sometimes I think of my mother, and how there’s almost an ignorance to the consequences of some of her bold actions that I know for a fact is also the very impetus for her success. It's kind of like entering into a relationship with someone when all your friends and family disapprove of him/her and only you know and love them and believe (or rather, hope desperately) it could work out. And the only way forward is to prove them wrong. In this case, those disapproving figures are the voices and adages that say you're too young, too inexperienced, too poor, too whatever, and you just have to revert back to your naive 8-year-old self, plug your ears and go “blah blah blah.”

I’ve been taking my talent for granted and so far, it's been good to me. But like every relationship, it takes two, so it's time to invest back into it, give back to it, believe in it, believe that it can take me places if i just set it free.

"have you thought about getting married?"

I’ve gotten so many marriage proposals in the past month that I’m seriously considering going on The Bachelorette. But let me back track here.

When I got my first job out of college, I was thrilled to have found a company that would sponsor me because I’m not a US citizen. So when the decision was made, and I called up the lawyer, instead of welcoming the enormous retainer fee and subsequent paychecks, this is how our first conversation went down: 

Lawyer: “Ok so you want to apply for the H1-B work visa. Do you have a bachelor’s degree or masters?” 

Me: “Bachelors.” 

Lawyer: “Hmm. What was your major?” 

Me: “Journalism.” 

Lawyer: “Do you have a boyfriend?” 

Me: “Yes.” 

Lawyer: “How long have you been dating?” 

Me: “Four years.”  

Lawyer: “Why don’t you just marry him?” 

America, you know your country’s immigration system is messed up when even lawyers would rather eschew the money to work around it. To be fair, my lawyer wasn’t the first and certainly wasn’t the last person to ask me that question. In fact, in a brief moment of frustration, my boyfriend and I asked the same question ourselves. It would just be So. Much. Easier. But (for a lack of something less cliché) it just didn’t feel right.  

I consider myself a romantic and I attended a Christian high school but the idea that “marriage is sacred” never really sank in. What does that even mean? If you choose to live together and commit to each other without ever getting married, is your relationship any less sacred just because you didn’t sign some papers?  

I’ve never liked to look to rules and laws to govern something as free as emotions, but funnily enough, it was the law that truly enlightened me to the sanctity of marriage. As we all learned in Legally Blonde, Aristotle once said, “The law is reason free from passion.” But, just like Elle Woods, I beg to differ. When it comes to marriage, the law is the most romantic figure of us all.   

When Chuck pushes his father off the building in Gossip Girl with his girlfriend Blair the only terrified witness, they knew the authorities would come looking. So they got married the next day, because in the eyes of the law, no court can force you to testify against your spouse. That is how powerful the bond of marriage is, that your husband could commit murder, an act against man and nature and you’re  not obligated to say a thing. Your right as a spouse is so significant that some other laws don’t apply to you.   

And I’m sure we’ve all watched enough crime dramas to know that when someone is hospitalized and everyone and their mother rushes in to know more, the doctor always starts with, “Who here is family?” If you’re their spouse, you’re the first to get ushered into the room and if needed you make medical decisions that could potentially end their life. From two people who once never knew each other to bestowing them the rights only given to family and kin, marriage is man’s promise and proclamation of commitment but it is through the law, through a couple of flimsy papers, that it is made real when it counts. And I've gotta admit, that’s pretty damn cool.  

it's okay to not be okay

Leave it to Pixar to take something as complicated and often inexplicable as emotion and break it down into digestible and entertaining characters. Many people left the theater after watching Inside Out with a handful of tissues, but I left with a curious thought on my mind: of all the lessons Pixar could have taught us from watching an 11-year-old child’s emotional landscape, they choose to teach us to not be afraid of feeling sad. Why? 

When my dad died six years ago, contrary to how it’s portrayed in the movies, my immediate reaction was not to cry. It took me a while before I could cry and even then, the bursts were few and far between. In fact, my aunts and uncles literally took me aside and squeezed me too-tight on the shoulders saying, “You don’t have to be strong, you should just cry—let it out.” It didn’t help. It actually made me angry. And whenever my mother went into hysterics, I shut myself off even more, becoming stoic and even cold.  

It wasn’t until later that I realized it was because I have this intrinsic need to balance out the person I’m interacting with. I’m predominantly an introvert but if I’m speaking to someone even more reclusive than me, I somehow find myself being as chatty as the next extrovert. And vice versa, if I’m in a group where there are more than enough people vying for attention, I’m so silent most people think I’m upset.  

But I guess that's the difference between adults and children--the ability to suppress your emotions. After all, social interactions wouldn't be sustainable if we threw tantrums or burst out crying every 20 seconds. But a baby will cry whenever anything feels uncomfortable or whenever it feels like it, really. An adult knows better than that and can defer their reactions. And children often feel emotions singularly and thoroughly, hence the independent colors of Riley's memories in the movie. And it wasn't until she was forced to grow up a little that her emotions started to meld together, that a memory could become bittersweet. But as adults, perhaps it's because we feel so much all at the same time, we actually end up emoting less. A child will quite literally bounce off the walls if you give her ice cream, but something remarkable like a raise might only bring a soft smile to an adult's face because she's also thinking of the many long nights and sacrifices it took for it to happen. Sometimes I wish I were three-years-old again, when having my parents on either side of me as I clutched their hands and swung freely like a swing in between made me totally and utterly happy, because I felt like nothing bad could ever happen.  

I get it. Emotions sometimes come at inconvenient times. As the years wore on and I became better at coping with my father’s death, I also came to compartmentalize my sadness. Sometimes when a wave of memories come over me maybe from being triggered by a current event or person, I literally shake my head and push the entire thought aside, thinking “I don’t have time to feel sad right now.”  

After all, sadness is a debilitating feeling. Once you allow yourself to feel the tingle in your nose, the lump in your throat and the tears brimming in your eyes, there really isn't much you can do to stop it. And for at least the next couple of minutes your body takes control and there's no point trying to do anything else. Then, as if that's not enough, crying is emotionally draining so that it leaves you depressed and lethargic afterwards.  

But sadness also facilitates healing because it means admitting that there's something wrong. And you know what? It's okay that there's something wrong. I still remember that scene in Bride Wars when Kate Hudson breaks down and laments that she's tired of being perfect: "It's exhausting having to try to be perfect all the time. That's how I held it together ever since I was a kid. I figured nothing - nothing bad would happen again if I was just...one step ahead of everything and everybody, all the time." And her husband simply replies: "Life isn't perfect, hon. It's messy. Besides, I've always wanted a human wife."  

When you let your guard drop and just feel, you allow for connection with other people. After all, emotions are a universal language.  

the pink elephant in the room

“When I came out, my mom cried for a month, but my dad was really sweet. All he said was, ‘The only thing I’m sad about is that you’ll never get to experience the joy of having children, the joy I feel having you.’”

When I told my boyfriend what my gay boss said about his coming out experience, he (the boyfriend) immediately reacted with “Wow I thought the dad was going to have a much harder time with it than the mom.” I paused for a second and thought, "What made him think that?"

I’ve come to realize that most of our gut reactions to new things are informed by our worldview. The vague word, defined by Dictionary.com to mean “A particular philosophy of life or conception of the world,” was better understood to me as something I learned in 9th Grade Bible class (Yes, that’s a thing). “If your pencil is missing,” my teacher boomed, “Do you automatically assume someone stole it, or that you misplaced it?”

I guess what he was trying to say is that the cumulative influence of our environment, our upbringing, and our experiences determine how we act in future scenarios. In negative terms, they form our biases. But in positive terms, they help prepare us for future experiences to better know how to respond. Because we’ve learned that biases can turn into prejudice and in turn be limiting and sometimes harmful to others, we learn to curb our instincts a little when we can. Which is why our gut reactions, our subconscious fight or flight reply to things we’re less equipped to handle is what fascinates me, because that’s when our uninhibited, unfiltered biases come out.

“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are ”

— Anais Nin

Tolstoy always inserted these moments of self-censorship or lackthereof into his characters’ private monologues. We first read what they think, often an error of judgment, before the character self-corrects the thought. Tolstoy was always acutely aware that our minds are constantly creating erroneous, even impossible thoughts and to edit or filter them takes a conscious effort. To take an example from Maria Konnikova’s book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, she tells the reader to think of a pink elephant. We all know that pink elephants don’t exist, and yet our minds immediately create the mental picture before we are able to suppress it. But I digress.

The point is that, try as we might to be politically correct, or verbally conscientious, we can’t always stop how we feel about the situation. I think there’s no better example now than the topic of Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender ex-Olympian who sent the media into a frenzy. I myself have witnessed a range of reactions, from utter indifference and shy discomfort to fearful acceptance and eager support. But whatever your opinion is on the subject, your gut reaction to her in a satin bustier on the cover of Vanity Fair is a sure sign of your worldview.

We like to dismiss those from the older generations for being “narrow-minded,” myself included, but it’s simply that their worldview was drastically different. Gays who once faced imprisonment and torture just a mere few generations ago for their sexual orientation are now (mostly) openly accepted and valued as equals, something that many in my generation take for granted. It makes me wonder what are some things I view as “impossible” or illegal that might soon become the norm when my grandchildren inherit the world.

When I suggested this to my boyfriend, he responded with a straight face, “Public nudity.” 

I burst out laughing and elbowed him to be serious, but I realized I just reacted the way my grandparents would have if you told them Caitlyn Jenner would grace the cover of a magazine.

daddy

My dad was six feet tall, but he had hands and feet fit for someone five inches shorter. He was born in the Year of the Rabbit, a zodiac that exudes calmness and inherent aversion to the spotlight, and yet he became a tutor, which drew him more attention than most other jobs in the city. He could afford Porsches in his forties, but he grew up having to walk many miles to school.        

He used to tell me stories about the 300 square-foot room all 14 members of his family lived in. How he’d squeeze into the corner of the bed to study for a test, while his older siblings were forced to work at 13 years old. How the whole family shared a small fish for dinner and he’d be given the eyeball because his mother loved him best. But there was never a hint of bitterness or self-pity in his voice as he recollected the summers he spent manufacturing key chains to earn a few cents. He’d just stare past me as he spoke, with an unintended smile on his face and his voice would drop to a whisper. But just as he started to touch upon the severely impoverished moments of his childhood, he’d end it with a punch line. “Then one time my sister got the fish eye instead so I tackled her until we broke the chair and this is how I got the scar on my nose.”

Some people find it incredible that someone who came from threadbare shoes could still retain a sense of humor. But my father would say that humor is what keeps one going in the direst of times. So as he became the first one of his family to receive a college degree and earn the highest salary, he couldn’t resign from his position as CEO of Cheeky Inc.

As we lay by the infinity pool under the Balinese sun, a waiter came and placed a little glass jar on the table that seemed to contain some kind of white fluid. Curious, I asked him what he ordered to which he replied, “Milk, for my alcohol.” I nodded, “oh” and returned to my magazine when my mother joined us after her spa. When I turned back to him, I saw him lathering the “milk” all over his body and my mom said, “Honey will you pass the sunscreen when you’re done?” Till now I don’t know how many other times he has deceived me with an impenetrable poker face, but these are the moments that I attach the word Father to, the one who conceals the truth from me to make room for my imagination.

My mother is a tiger by the Chinese zodiac, so she enjoyed taking the reigns that he so willingly relinquished. He would ask her what she wanted to order at the restaurant, then he’d order her second choice, so she’d be able to have a taste of both. He’d peel her pears before she woke up for breakfast or wait hours for her to get ready for a dinner at Prosecco with his only complaint as, “Why do you look so beautiful? Now I have to go change to match you.” When my mother was deeply dissatisfied by a service, they would lapse into their good cop bad cop game, with my mother wielding the baton. But occasionally she would hand him the stick:

            “What the hell do you mean we can’t get a refund on our taxes? We don’t even live here!” he said exasperatedly, as I stood embarrassed by the racket we’re causing at the Taiwanese airport.

            “He means, please give us our money back,” she said, as the staff member shook her head.

            “I LOVE TAIWAN, YOU KNOW?? I COME HERE EVERY YEAR! I AM A VERY RICH MAN! I DON’T NEED YOUR MONEY! GIVE ME MY REFUND!” he yelled hysterically.

            “Honey, don’t scare the poor lady”

            “I LOVE TAIWAN! DO YOU LOVE TAIWAN? WE LOVE TAIWAN! GIVE ME MY MONEY NOW!”

            And what do you know? We got our money back. And it’s probably because he succeeded in confusing the poor lady into submission. To those standing behind us in line, my dad would have come across as someone who has forgotten to take his pills, but he just simply didn’t care what they thought of him. He’d tell me, “live your life as someone who people fear and not someone who fears others.”

Indeed, fear has never been able to govern any of his actions. On one of our first ski trips to Japan, my mother, the escape artist who flourished on the steep slopes of Canada, was determined to teach my dad and me to ski. I was up first, so we left him near the chairlifts, and I skidded down the slope, slowly but surely, my legs spread in a V with my mother following closely behind. Suddenly, we catch a glimpse of my dad speeding straight down the hill, and just as I was about to be impressed by how fast he was going, we hear a brief yelp, and realized he was skiing uncontrollably, straight into the trees below. When we finally reached him, his skis were flung into the snow like javelins and his laugh echoed off the trees.

            “What on earth were you thinking?” my mom demanded.

            “I was bored waiting at the top!” was the only explanation we got.

Yet beneath his eagerness to fall lay an unwavering resolve to always cushion the drop for those he loved. It was almost a stubborn drive to be there for me or my mother, an impulse so urgent and necessary, that it felt as if something in him was broken and he was trying to fix it, to compensate.

My mother, the face of their company and an outspoken public figure, was always the less available parent. While she would inflict violence on anyone who disturbed her precious few hours of sleep, my dad woke up to the sound of me creeping into their bed after dreaming about someone chasing me. Some nights when the birds’ chirping jolted him out of his worry-plagued stupor, he’d make hot chocolate for me as I got ready to go to school. All that was said was communicated through the silences of these mornings and troubling dreams of the night where he’d let me know that he loved me and would always be there for me. He wanted to be sure I knew that.

I don’t know when it started, but every Sunday while my mother and I were sleeping, he’d take a rag and stool from the kitchen and sit on the balcony near our seven-foot plant. Then he’d gently wipe the surface of every heart-shaped leaf, his knees cracking as he stooped for the lower branches. He’d lock the glass door so nothing could be heard from the living room. I could not understand why he seemed so pained, why his thoughts withdrew into himself so that the corners of his smile seemed pinched, stunted. He’d forget his keys, wallet or phone every other day; I’d have to ask him the same question over again because instead of looking at me he was looking at himself the first time. But one day, he spoke to me.

Coming home from work, I followed him into their bedroom to tell him about the school concert. He stared into the basin intently as he washed his hands and said, “You know, every time I wash my hands, I think about the days I’d come home from visiting your grandma at the hospital.” When my grandmother was ill with a kidney disease that slowly eroded her time, my dad was her only child that watched over her. But when she passed away, he felt that he could have done better, provided her with better doctors, put her in a more expensive hospital, anything. The success he had accomplished seemed futile, the money he earned seemed excessive if she couldn’t be here to share it. And so he punished himself, shut off his ability to feel, and only smiled to keep other people’s worlds turning. 

The duality of his personality could come across as bipolar or neurotic, but it is only now that I realize, he was always responsible for everyone else and reckless when I came to himself. It was how he could pull any antic to make a somber room laugh, but couldn’t bring himself to smile. How he could protect me or my mother at his own expense, but drive with his laptop open next to him. How he would ensure I wore my seatbelt but go racing his car that night that took his life.

Didn’t he realize that his audacity could inflict consequences on the very people he swore to protect? How is he supposed to protect us now? How could he be so stupid?

As these thoughts pounded through my head and hot, angry tears streamed down my face, I stared at the white roses the congregation placed on his coffin. He was about to be cremated and everyone was circling around to say goodbye as the priest was mumbling a prayer. Suddenly, the coffin began descending into the platform where the furnace would be. The priest looked startled and realized he had accidently pushed the lever, and there was no turning back. While everyone exchanged horrified expressions, fearing this would upset my mother, she and I looked at the coffin that was slowly disappearing into the ground, glanced at each other, and burst into laughter.

We laughed because we could see his face, and the smirk that always danced around his lips when he was about to pull a prank. We could see his brows raised in impatient defiance at the grueling pace of the procession and his brimming desire to purge the room of tears. As the coffin was cast into the fire, we could hear his voice echoing above the priest’s, chuckling, “I just got bored waiting at the top!”

P.S. I chose the song "Alone Again (Naturally)" not for its lyrics but simply for its melody. It was the song I listened to as I wrote this piece and I felt that its melancholic yet happy-go-lucky tune also perfectly sums up my father's disposition. Thanks for reading!