Echo

Naked

It suddenly hit me today.

My blog is an extension of me. It’s my way of tentatively testing the world to see how it reacts to a “real me,” which is secretly a milder, simulated me, before I risk my true self in the world outside. Just trying to learn how to feel safe and not be afraid of the world.

I guess all this time, in terms of all the people I’ve never met who comment, I’ve never really been able to visualize you as real people, having entire beautiful, dimensional universes of your own. That was just too overwhelming for me. You were almost like abstract people, almost voices in my head, characters in an imagined reality. Because a life of loneliness is like a life of being always on the run, creating your own reality because you’re playing this game all by yourself and if you rest, you might just find out there’s nothing there. And deep down, you wonder if it’s possible that there might be people who understand you out there. Like life on other planets, you know? You’re afraid to hope, but deep down, you would do anything for that to be true.

But to really think about all of you guys as real people, scattered all around this great expanse, who somehow feel connected through my writing by a sense of mutual existence…..wow.

Is it possible?

That there exists true understanding of each soul in this world?

And that in fact, each and every one of us is never alone?

Is it really possible to be able to reach out and touch people, even if in your mind, you can only see them as faceless, shadowed forms yet undoubtedly, kindred spirits?

Life is so amazing. There are so many days that I want to pause, take a moment to just appreciate how amazing and full and vibrant life is. The act of living and being in a world that is living. The feeling is so huge it challenges the notion of infinity. But it feels like the world doesn’t allow for that. Our world makes us focus on day to day mundane living, giving us no room to appreciate everything else that makes up life, our universe.

But then the day that someone opens your cage and makes you realize there’s a world out there? It changes your life.

We all live in our little cages. The cruelest joke is that we can see how to open the cages of others, but never how to open the cages which have trapped ourselves.

Sometimes I feel like there are two types of people in life. Those who refuse to let go of hope of escape from their own personal cages, and those who resolve to make the best of their caged life, embracing a narrowed vision of the world and convincing themselves that this is all that exists. Sometimes the lines are divided very closely along the division between the logical left brainer and the flighty artistic right brainer. But I’d rather have hope for me. A chance to glimpse what’s out there. Of heaven.

Okay, I’m totally streaming tonight. I’ve been on a strict diet and exercise regime and tonight I let myself have a glass of red wine (for antioxidants!) and here I am. Lightweight drunk. No not really. But that’s my excuse if tomorrow morning, I reread this post and find that I’ve been streaming about inappropriate things again (read: my sex life).

What’s it like hanging out with Geminis? I think if you just keep in mind that all these contradicting personalities are really just different expressions of a multi-directional but overall, integrated being, then it’s okay.

Hey ex boyfriend who recently got in touch with me. Were you referring to me when you mentioned “stormy women?” Well…I never promised you a rose garden…

Speaking of old memories and my going through life on auto-pilot. When Drew and I were breaking up, I told him a couple of times, “You just can’t corral the human heart to where it doesn’t want to go.” What did I mean? Was I telling him that I didn’t love him? Or was I telling him that it was okay to admit that he didn’t love me?

Why is it I can have entire conversations with people and say things that seem loaded with subtext, but I’m the only one who doesn’t get the subtext? Who the hell is using my mouth???

By the way, I made these turkey patties today with ground turkey, fresh chopped basil, cilantro and mint, bread crumbs, garlic, lime and chili garlic sauce, and they turned out really well.

If you’re an old friend of mine who stumbles upon this site, or even if you’re someone who’s been in my life, even casually, who’s hiding in the shadows, drop me a line and say what’s up. A lot of old friends have gotten in touch with me by stumbling upon my site so that’s been really awesome. I like to hear how people’s lives progress past the point in which our lives had connected.

Anyway, I’m off to do something other than sit in front of the computer. Like go into my room and listen to music by candlelight. Yeah, it’s what I like to do. Lay off.

No more games, please…you’re hurting me.

I was having trouble falling asleep as usual last night so I figured I would watch the rest of Notorious C.H.O. At least keep things light, right? At the end of it, she gets really serious and talks about self-esteem and her eating disorder (s). She talks about how her father enforced this need to be thin, showering her with positive attention when she was thin, and acting like she was invisible when she was fat. That was really, really hard to watch, because as much as comics are all about telling jokes, most of them have just excelled in their defense mechanism of using humor and detachment to deal with a lifetime of pain and perceived rejection. And Margaret’s pain while talking about her father was palpable.

This subject struck such a chord for me. Made me so, so very sad. Mothers will nag, but it’s that kind of rejection by a father to a daughter based on physical appearance, that can cut the deepest.

My father came from an environment where the very basic things like security and love were withheld. His mother divorced his father and remarried, thus abandoning her children from the first marriage. By all accounts, my dad took it the hardest. He used to go to her house with her new family and meticulously do all of the housekeeping while her kids from the second marriage sat around acting like he was “the help,” all in hopes of winning her love. But of course, it didn’t work. She’s a cold, selfish woman.

So given that upbringing, you would think that he would be mindful of not perpetuating these negative cycles that can hurt a vulnerable child so much. But thus is the nature of bad emotional/psychological cycles…unless you recognize them and go out of your way to fight them, you perpetuate them.

Growing up, for both my brother and I, food became a touchy subject. We were always anxious about eating, because there was always a risk of suffering a cutting comment directed at us about our weight. Food…it was something we needed, yet sometimes, if our dad was in a sadistic mood, all kinds of issues and mind games came into play. Ironic considering he’s not exactly skinny himself.

There were always the questions of, “Are you still eating?” “Haven’t you had enough?” “You want MORE?!?” Made us feel like pigs if we were hungry.

Sometimes he would bring home food and eat it in front of us without offering. The choice would be…ask him for some, or not. But the risk with asking him for some, would be him saying, “Yeah, keep eating and getting fatter” before giving it to us. But if you were hungry, that was the price you paid. It was often the feeling that he was setting up the situation that way so we, as people dependent on him, would have to beg. So that, as someone who had come from a life of begging for the basics such a mother’s love, he would be in the situation of being the one who has the power to give or withhold. Often I wanted to be proud so I didn’t ask, going hungry, even though I knew that he knew I wanted it, and was so smug about knowing that he was making me ask for it. Kind of like being homeless but being too proud to beg for money even though you need it to survive. And the smug rich people only giving it to you if you show suitable humility. Fucking bullshit.

My brother and I would sneak food when he wasn’t around. Before he came home. After he went to bed. It shouldn’t have been a big deal…eating. But it became this covert thing you did, but were ashamed about doing the whole time. It became this thing we were ashamed of, being hungry. Being fat. Being disdained by our father.

I used to hide food in my room, so that if I was hungry, I could have it without getting caught, without having to deal with any comments that would hurt my feelings, hurt my self-esteem. I remember one year, some ants got into my stash and it was a mess. And he went ballistic, about why anyone would keep food in their bedroom. That was a really bad day.

Years later, living out here, I was going to a therapist. We were talking about other issues (if you’re Asian, you have all kinds of family issues), and she noticed that I always brought up the issue of food…how conscious I was of eating healthy and of everything I ate, and how self-conscious I was about other people judging what I ate, how much I ate, how often I ate. I told her the story about my dad bringing home food and my being too proud and afraid to ask him for some, even though I was hungry. And I remember, her eyes teared up. Trust me, it’s a scary thing when your therapist does that. She told me, “That is so sad.” And I got angry, angry at her for saying that. Because anger was my only defense against that slide into the dark well where all those demons and grievances reside. Because I didn’t want her to tell me it was sad, I didn’t want to feel or understand that it was sad, because once you do, then what? Sad is such a hopeless thing. Vulnerability is such a sad, hopeless thing.