i turned the air conditioning on when i drove home from work today in the hopes that it would numb me to my pain. it actually just made my tears colder.
whoever said that your 20's are the best times of your life should be taken out back, put in a burlap sack, and beaten with reeds.
Tuesday
Thursday
Branching Pathways
I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, specifically about the dreaded question of “What if?”
Recently, while at work, So-youn’s email address popped up in my gmail chat list. Knowing that So-youn herself couldn’t have signed on to her email account, my brain immediately processed that someone was posing as her.
me: hello... who is this? I freaked out a little just now...
so-youn: im sorry i freaked out and signed out. this is ***. it says she is on invisible. i didnt mean to confuse anyone. im not even reading her email. i dont know why i logged in.
me: well, I'm not confused...but just surprised. Hello, ***.
Long story very short, ***is very cool and we relate to each other on several tangible (ie. she has my glasses and phone) and intangible (ie. she wants to save the world and she has played with both ends of the academic spectrum) points. She’s loads smarter than anyone I know, and it is all I can do to keep up with her dizzying intellect at times, and I sometimes have to look up words she uses during our internet conversations. Anyway, so I’ve been thinking a lot about So-youn the last couple days, primarily because of my new friendship with ***. I looked back at all our old email correspondences and chat logs on gmail yesterday and the day before. She certainly left a mark on me. She once invited me to her birthday party, and I didn’t go. Part of the reason was that I was really busy with whatever schoolwork I wasn’t doing at the time. The main reason, however, was that I feared feeling awkward meeting people that I didn’t know. Ridiculous, right? Not going to her birthday party is one of my great regrets. So-youn taught me by example the value in reaching out to those around you. She loathed at the term “networking” but regardless of that, she was really good at it. Going to that party of hers was her attempt at connecting her friends together; she said so herself. That was another thing she was good at: finding two people and seeing a thread that would connect them. That is why I think *** and me finding each other through seemingly random happenstance is yet another notch in So-youn’s belt. Even from the next life, she is able to connect people together. It boggles my mind. Wherever she is, I know So-youn is smiling.
I have been having a lot of those “what if” moments recently. Not only with all the potential time I could have spent or moments I could have shared with So-youn, but also in regards to a certain one of my friends who hasn’t yet graduated from college after 7 years. We used to be really close. The closest two platonic friends could be. And then the barrier broke, and we found ourselves infatuated with one another at the most wrong of times. Our friendship as it was ended shortly after that. We can’t go back to how things used to be. Because of what she said, what I said, what we didn’t say, or we did or didn’t do. To skip ahead to the now part of the story, she’s been at junior college for 7 years, since graduating high school. That’s a long time. I would understand if she had real hindrances to entering a university, but she doesn’t. The only thing keeping her back is herself. I have wondered if the end of our relationship, as it was 5 years ago, could be the cause of her not being able to extricate herself from community college. She had maybe 3 positive people in her life going to school with her when I was a city college student, and when we all left to four-year universities, she was left with people who could care less about succeeding in the world. I am not intending this to sound like I am high and mighty at the top of my ivory tower, and that the only success one can have is academic and monetary success. If these people showed the slightest bit of talent in any un-academic field, I would take back my statement, but other than the token wannabe musician, her friends are wasting their lives thinking that figuring out what bling to wear to class is more important than what class to actually take. If I had been there for her back then, if I had perhaps dated her like she wanted, could things have been different? Would we have worked out? Obviously no one can say for certain. I know she has dreams and she wants to do something of merit in the world, but she’s taken and dropped the same math class for the last 4 years, and that one math class is what is keeping her from moving on. What if I had been there? Could I have helped her? Would she even have asked me for help? Again, who is to say?
Ending with a haiku.
Like a cat, it stares.
It’s there, wherever you are.
Then now, then later.
Recently, while at work, So-youn’s email address popped up in my gmail chat list. Knowing that So-youn herself couldn’t have signed on to her email account, my brain immediately processed that someone was posing as her.
me: hello... who is this? I freaked out a little just now...
so-youn: im sorry i freaked out and signed out. this is ***. it says she is on invisible. i didnt mean to confuse anyone. im not even reading her email. i dont know why i logged in.
me: well, I'm not confused...but just surprised. Hello, ***.
Long story very short, ***is very cool and we relate to each other on several tangible (ie. she has my glasses and phone) and intangible (ie. she wants to save the world and she has played with both ends of the academic spectrum) points. She’s loads smarter than anyone I know, and it is all I can do to keep up with her dizzying intellect at times, and I sometimes have to look up words she uses during our internet conversations. Anyway, so I’ve been thinking a lot about So-youn the last couple days, primarily because of my new friendship with ***. I looked back at all our old email correspondences and chat logs on gmail yesterday and the day before. She certainly left a mark on me. She once invited me to her birthday party, and I didn’t go. Part of the reason was that I was really busy with whatever schoolwork I wasn’t doing at the time. The main reason, however, was that I feared feeling awkward meeting people that I didn’t know. Ridiculous, right? Not going to her birthday party is one of my great regrets. So-youn taught me by example the value in reaching out to those around you. She loathed at the term “networking” but regardless of that, she was really good at it. Going to that party of hers was her attempt at connecting her friends together; she said so herself. That was another thing she was good at: finding two people and seeing a thread that would connect them. That is why I think *** and me finding each other through seemingly random happenstance is yet another notch in So-youn’s belt. Even from the next life, she is able to connect people together. It boggles my mind. Wherever she is, I know So-youn is smiling.
I have been having a lot of those “what if” moments recently. Not only with all the potential time I could have spent or moments I could have shared with So-youn, but also in regards to a certain one of my friends who hasn’t yet graduated from college after 7 years. We used to be really close. The closest two platonic friends could be. And then the barrier broke, and we found ourselves infatuated with one another at the most wrong of times. Our friendship as it was ended shortly after that. We can’t go back to how things used to be. Because of what she said, what I said, what we didn’t say, or we did or didn’t do. To skip ahead to the now part of the story, she’s been at junior college for 7 years, since graduating high school. That’s a long time. I would understand if she had real hindrances to entering a university, but she doesn’t. The only thing keeping her back is herself. I have wondered if the end of our relationship, as it was 5 years ago, could be the cause of her not being able to extricate herself from community college. She had maybe 3 positive people in her life going to school with her when I was a city college student, and when we all left to four-year universities, she was left with people who could care less about succeeding in the world. I am not intending this to sound like I am high and mighty at the top of my ivory tower, and that the only success one can have is academic and monetary success. If these people showed the slightest bit of talent in any un-academic field, I would take back my statement, but other than the token wannabe musician, her friends are wasting their lives thinking that figuring out what bling to wear to class is more important than what class to actually take. If I had been there for her back then, if I had perhaps dated her like she wanted, could things have been different? Would we have worked out? Obviously no one can say for certain. I know she has dreams and she wants to do something of merit in the world, but she’s taken and dropped the same math class for the last 4 years, and that one math class is what is keeping her from moving on. What if I had been there? Could I have helped her? Would she even have asked me for help? Again, who is to say?
Ending with a haiku.
Like a cat, it stares.
It’s there, wherever you are.
Then now, then later.
Monday
Friday
untitled
The sun breaks
and here I am, still
again.
Please do not stab at
the bloody heart of my blackened womb
where the love of you once sat
now burned
now crispy and brittle
and dry.
The sun breaks
and here I am, still
again.
Cry with sorrow as you break my bones.
Wail wildly as you gouge out my eyes
and stab at the bloody heart of my blackened womb.
Red and violet lights flashing under my skin.
Angry purple scars streak over my soul and chest,
where the love of you once sat,
now vacant, cold, and deafening in its silence.
The sun breaks
and
after you have had your way
after you have shattered my will, my soul, my love
thrown against the wall and ravaged on the floor.
After that.
Here I am.
Still.
Again.
and here I am, still
again.
Please do not stab at
the bloody heart of my blackened womb
where the love of you once sat
now burned
now crispy and brittle
and dry.
The sun breaks
and here I am, still
again.
Cry with sorrow as you break my bones.
Wail wildly as you gouge out my eyes
and stab at the bloody heart of my blackened womb.
Red and violet lights flashing under my skin.
Angry purple scars streak over my soul and chest,
where the love of you once sat,
now vacant, cold, and deafening in its silence.
The sun breaks
and
after you have had your way
after you have shattered my will, my soul, my love
thrown against the wall and ravaged on the floor.
After that.
Here I am.
Still.
Again.
Monday
Body of Lies
The first thing my father said to me today was ::head nod::. The second thing he said was (in response to me asking if he was going into work today) "yeah." The Third thing he said to me, and his first full sentence of the day, was "you need to not eat."
And thus encapsulates my relationship with my father.
It wasn’t always that way. I was 5 once, and things were good then. High school was when the talk of weight started, when I switched from Shaolin to Aikido. Aikido is slow moving, and emphasizes internal exertion rather than the physical sort. You should be able to throw your opponent across the room with little more than a nudge in that direction. I suddenly switched from a high impact and fast paced martial art to one that requires you to move as little as possible. My body responded in kind, as I continued to eat the same things that my mother cooked.
Through high school, I was a large kid. I never “fit in” in the usual sense of the phrase, partly due to my mixed heritage and partly to do with my physique. Very long story short, I developed an eating disorder in senior year.
Anorexia nervosa.
Since then, I’ve managed to keep Ana in check. There was a stretch back when I was living with Justin that I toyed with the idea of starting up again, and pushed the boundaries of what is safe and sane. Of course being around taekwondo kids all the time hasn’t helped. I always feel worse about my body around cutting time, and everyone else being anorexic encourages me to go there too. I personally have refused to cut weight while competing for Cal, so that I might not jump back into the comfortable routine of starving myself. That is likely why I have been largely (pun intended) unsuccessful in my taekwondo competition career, having only won 1 fight as a black belt. All the other middle weights are so much taller than me! While my taekwondo years were my healthiest ever, I still had trouble every day with eating, and it’s probably a good thing that I’m no longer in that environment anymore.
I attribute the biggest portion of blame for my eating disorder on the media. Easy scapegoat, there. But, and it hurts to admit this, I know that the primary blame rests with my father. Through high school, his comments every day piled on top of one another until it became too much to carry. Just so that he would stop criticizing me, just so that he would look at me with love rather than disgust, I looked for a quick fix. If it weren’t for a couple great friends, I might have stuck with it for longer. I would very much like to say that I had some intervenors back then and it all went away, but once you date Ana, you can’t let her go.
Now that I have this cursed broken foot of mine, cardio is very much out of the question. I’m overweight, and the comments he makes are getting louder in my head. I live at home, and it is harder to tune him out when his room is right next to mine. My own personal body image has always been skewed and warped, and I am never sure if what I am seeing is what other people are seeing. When I was at top fighting condition, I still saw flaws in my body. Picture me then and picture me now and try to tell me that I haven’t changed that much. I don’t need my father’s disgust to wash over me when I have disgust of my own.
I would like to say that it’s not a problem anymore. I love food, and I love to eat, but there is still a twinge of guilt at the back of my neck every time I finish a meal. I’ve been able to ignore the itch for a while, but it’s an ever present reminder of the easy way out.
Last week’s episode of Glee (the one titled simply “Home”) made me cry. Christina Aguilera and Linkin Park got me through high school. My love for my friends keeps me going today.
I need to move out. All the negativity is eating away at me and my defenses. Slowly. Slowly.
Surely.
And thus encapsulates my relationship with my father.
It wasn’t always that way. I was 5 once, and things were good then. High school was when the talk of weight started, when I switched from Shaolin to Aikido. Aikido is slow moving, and emphasizes internal exertion rather than the physical sort. You should be able to throw your opponent across the room with little more than a nudge in that direction. I suddenly switched from a high impact and fast paced martial art to one that requires you to move as little as possible. My body responded in kind, as I continued to eat the same things that my mother cooked.
Through high school, I was a large kid. I never “fit in” in the usual sense of the phrase, partly due to my mixed heritage and partly to do with my physique. Very long story short, I developed an eating disorder in senior year.
Anorexia nervosa.
Since then, I’ve managed to keep Ana in check. There was a stretch back when I was living with Justin that I toyed with the idea of starting up again, and pushed the boundaries of what is safe and sane. Of course being around taekwondo kids all the time hasn’t helped. I always feel worse about my body around cutting time, and everyone else being anorexic encourages me to go there too. I personally have refused to cut weight while competing for Cal, so that I might not jump back into the comfortable routine of starving myself. That is likely why I have been largely (pun intended) unsuccessful in my taekwondo competition career, having only won 1 fight as a black belt. All the other middle weights are so much taller than me! While my taekwondo years were my healthiest ever, I still had trouble every day with eating, and it’s probably a good thing that I’m no longer in that environment anymore.
I attribute the biggest portion of blame for my eating disorder on the media. Easy scapegoat, there. But, and it hurts to admit this, I know that the primary blame rests with my father. Through high school, his comments every day piled on top of one another until it became too much to carry. Just so that he would stop criticizing me, just so that he would look at me with love rather than disgust, I looked for a quick fix. If it weren’t for a couple great friends, I might have stuck with it for longer. I would very much like to say that I had some intervenors back then and it all went away, but once you date Ana, you can’t let her go.
Now that I have this cursed broken foot of mine, cardio is very much out of the question. I’m overweight, and the comments he makes are getting louder in my head. I live at home, and it is harder to tune him out when his room is right next to mine. My own personal body image has always been skewed and warped, and I am never sure if what I am seeing is what other people are seeing. When I was at top fighting condition, I still saw flaws in my body. Picture me then and picture me now and try to tell me that I haven’t changed that much. I don’t need my father’s disgust to wash over me when I have disgust of my own.
I would like to say that it’s not a problem anymore. I love food, and I love to eat, but there is still a twinge of guilt at the back of my neck every time I finish a meal. I’ve been able to ignore the itch for a while, but it’s an ever present reminder of the easy way out.
Last week’s episode of Glee (the one titled simply “Home”) made me cry. Christina Aguilera and Linkin Park got me through high school. My love for my friends keeps me going today.
I need to move out. All the negativity is eating away at me and my defenses. Slowly. Slowly.
Surely.
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