{"id":293,"date":"2004-05-15T17:17:00","date_gmt":"2004-05-16T00:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2004-05-15T17:17:00","modified_gmt":"2004-05-16T00:17:00","slug":"293","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

I woke up feeling gloomy today, as I sometimes do the morning after going on a date. I couldn\u2019t quite put my finger on it, except that sometimes, I wonder if things will ever feel right, or comfortable, in a way where you can\u2019t help but be anything but yourself around someone. Sometimes I think that maybe my life should be more about embracing loneliness rather than doing things to solve it, like looking for companionship. Maybe some people wouldn\u2019t be able to do what they need to do during their lifetimes with other people too close to them. I don\u2019t know. That thought makes me sad but if that\u2019s the way it should be for me, then that\u2019s the way it should be.<\/p>\n

I woke up at 11am and had 3 hours to kill before going to my physical therapy appointment for my back, so I went to visit the kids at Starbucks and to read. They were all going to Wango Tango so they were bouncing off the walls hyper (Calvin called and invited me a few minutes ago, but I can\u2019t go. That was sweet of him though.). I read a few chapters of White Oleander\u2014the 14 year old character was learning about the \u201cpower\u201d of beauty and so she gave a guy a blowjob for a bag of weed, just to see how it felt. And it didn\u2019t feel good. That kind of made me sad (that whole book makes me sad. It\u2019s so damn honest). So I left and did what I usually do during times when I\u2019m feeling a little bit lost\u2014I drive without a destination, letting my internal radar guide me to where I need to be.<\/p>\n

I ended up at Woodlawn Cemetary in Santa Monica. It\u2019s this little cemetery from the 1800s that\u2019s tucked in the middle of the concrete jungle with a Foster\u2019s Freeze across the street. I drove by it and knew that was where I needed to be so I went in. It was peaceful inside and there were two other people there\u2014a man standing still over a headstone with his head bowed, and an old woman with snow white hair walking with a sense of direction. I followed her, about fifty feet behind, wanting to see where she ended up. She paused occasionally to look up at the sky, her eyes so sad, then exited the cemetary through another gate.<\/p>\n

I looked at some markers, thinking about who these people were and what their lives were like. I found a bench under a tree next to a \u201cLoving Grandmother,\u201d and sat quietly, with my eyes closed, feeling the energy around me. The energies of older cemeteries are not as strong and aggressive as those where the recently deceased are buried. I think, after a while, those who have passed on become less and less connected to this world, perhaps as those they left behind cross over as well.<\/p>\n

I think that when I die, I don\u2019t want people to bring me flowers. I want them to plant something near my grave, so that these flowers can grow and bloom and live. I want to be marked by a symbol of life, not to be honored with flowers that have been severed from their life force and sacrificed to my memory, in order to slowly die where I lay. I hope that in my lifetime, people will understand my dedication to life, and will honor me with life rather than sacrifices.<\/p>\n

I think about how, Michael and I are like turtles without shells. We\u2019re ultra-empaths, and we can feel people\u2019s pain without them even realizing it themselves. We reach out with kindness because it\u2019s the only way we know how to reach out. But man do we get burned. I have always made sure to protect Michael and to make him strong to face the world that is often so cruel because of its own self-loathing, because what he gives to this world, pure kindness and love, is something that the world needs but doesn\u2019t always accept. But sometimes I get scared\u2026who will look out for me?<\/p>\n

I walked around some more, turning rightside flowers that had been tipped over by the wind and returning cards that had been blown away from their recipients. Sometimes it was hard to figure out who the cards belonged to, and I had to read them to figure it out. One in particular did not have a name, but was addressed to \u201cMom,\u201d from a daughter who was still so sad over her mother\u2019s death. She talked about how hard it was not to be able to mail her this card or to say the things she wanted to say to her, and how hard it was that this was the first Mother\u2019s Day without her. She wished that she could call her up just to say how much she appreciated her and to say that she loved her, or to hear her mother say, \u201cI love you.\u201d I stood there reading this card, tears falling down my cheeks, feeling the pain of this woman, and how hard separation is. There was no name on the card and it had been blown onto the sidewalk. It was suddenly really important for me to return this card to the right person. I closed my eyes and prayed, silently, Please\u2026I need your help. Please help me find you. I opened my eyes and walked to a grave about 15 feet away. It was somewhat fresh and had flowers next to it, as well as another card. Robin. Beloved Mother. She passed on earlier this year. I\u2019m positive this was the woman this card belonged to; I put the card next to the flowers, making sure it was secured enough to not be blown away again.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t put off until tomorrow what you can say today. It\u2019s so sad that people are most upfront about their appreciation of someone at their funerals. Why not give the love and appreciation that you have for everyone today, while we can still share it together? <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up feeling gloomy today, as I sometimes do the morning after going on a date. I couldn\u2019t quite put my finger on it, except that sometimes, I wonder if things will ever feel right, or comfortable, in a way where you can\u2019t help but be anything but yourself around someone. Sometimes I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-signficant-days"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbl5mn-293","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}