Author Archives: Yvonne

“All moms are crazy”

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I went out for drinks tonight with a good friend of mine, and we discussed my drama-filled days in San Francisco with my mom, conjuring up stories of how Chris has “hurt” her and my dad. My friend says loudly, “Your mom is crazy. All moms are crazy!” The bar we are drinking at doesn’t have that many patrons, but the ones who are in there all start cheering and agreeing. The bartender agreed and said that some people have mommy issues while others have daddy issues. She said she herself had mommy issues and got along perfectly with her dad.

“I don’t want to say she is crazy,” I said to my friend. “I think it’s kind of disrespectful.” My friend defended it and said she didn’t mean to offend my mom, but that’s not the point of what I was trying to say. I honestly believe my mom has a mental illness that hasn’t and will never be addressed or diagnosed. I mean, who else insists that everyone is out to get her and hurt her and keeps secrets more than my own parents at my mother’s insistence? We can’t just write people off as crazy when we know there is something psychologically wrong with them because it doesn’t address the core problem. We become the people we hate, the ones who make generalizations about “craziness” and then don’t acknowledge how harmful and serious these problems are.

Oh, Ed

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I think my brother read my whining yesterday, so he decided to pay me a visit last night.

In my dream, he never died. This seems to be a reoccurring premise. He’s here, a part of this world, and he acts as though nothing has happened. His death was just a figment of my imagination, and everything bad that ever happened in his life never really happened. “What are you doing here?” I ask him.

He has an insulted look on his face. “What do you mean?” he responds back. He sits there and stares at me, confused and not sure what the heck I am thinking.

“You died,” I say to him. “You left me. You jumped off that bridge.”

“What are you talking about, Yvonne?” He sounds frustrated. I don’t know what to say to him. I’m surprised, confused, hurt, relieved, incredulous, all at the same time. Did none of this ever really happen? Maybe I am the one who has lost grip of reality.

And then my alarm goes off, and I wake up. And I look up at the frame with his photos up there on the left side of my bed, and I realize that no, it was not a nightmare that he died. He really did die. That is my reality. His existence on this earth in the last few hours was my real dream.

How Three Survivors of Suicide Spent Their Last Days On Earth

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My friend sent me an article today with the same title as this entry. The article originated from a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread openly asking those who had attempted suicide and survived it how they went about what they thought would be the last days of their lives.

The three that are showcased in this specific article are very hopeful in terms of what they left that experience with. They all ended their stories by thinking in their “final” moments, “No, I do want to live. I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die and give me one more chance to live.” Some even go into professions to help others who are struggling themselves, and it’s very admirable.

All of this sounds great, doesn’t it? It sounds hopeful, very “happily-ever-after.” It makes me really sad and teary to read accounts of people who have attempted. But the truth is that many stories are not this hopeful. Many people who attempt suicide are not doing it for the very first time; they have done it multiple times, and a lot of them really want to die, even in their very final moments. Ed attempted suicide just a couple months shy of his 18th birthday, when I was just 11 years old. I was about to start middle school; he was about to begin college. He popped too many pills and he thought he was going to die because he wanted to. But in what he thought would be his “final” moments, he said to me that he got scared and realized he didn’t want to die.

Then 16 years later, he attempts suicide again. And this time, he succeeded. And I truly believe he wanted to succeed this time.

I don’t think that’s what he thought in the second before he jumped off the bridge over two years ago, though. I mean, the witnesses said he paced back and forth for over 45 minutes. I’m sure he just wanted to get it done and over with. He probably wasn’t thinking he still wanted to live. He had given up. He had settled in his mind that it was better if he had never been born, as he had written me a few weeks before, and that God gave him a mental illness for a reason. No note, no last words, no nothing.

These are the stories you don’t get to see in weepy Upvoted or Reddit articles. There’s no happy ending here — just a sad, painful one.

Guns and mental illness

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I think this country really needs to shut up regarding the issue with mass shootings and linking gun violence to mental illness. The entire thing is so ludicrous that I can feel my face getting red and hot whenever I hear another ignorant Republican say that mental illness is the issue when it comes to massive shootings. Mental illness needs to be addressed; guns don’t need to be taken away, they say. If you want to take away guns, why not also take away pencils and cars because those things have the potential to kill people, too? No, guys. That’s not accurate or even relevant. When did people who were mentally ill suddenly become a violent risk to society in large droves? Yes, mental illness is a huge problem in this country because no one wants to face it as a real health problem but as a weakness that is stigmatized and must be ostracized and swept under a rug (or behind closed doors), but it is a very separate issue from guns killing people. The majority of mentally ill people are not violent or a risk to society. Ed had a mental illness, and he had zero capacity to cause any real harm to anyone… other than himself. A lot of homicide that happens in this country is done by people who are seemingly unaffected by mental illness. When John Oliver is calling out Americans only discussing mental illness to thwart the discussion on gun control, you know something is seriously screwed up. Deal with the gun control issue. Deal with the mental illness issue. Stop linking the two and blaming the mentally ill for the shootings and the awful number of deaths from guns every year. It’s not accurate nor is it even remotely true. Address the guns, damn it. It’s an embarrassment to me not only as an American, but as someone who has lost her brother to mental illness and suicide.

Meatballs

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I spent the early afternoon making meatballs for dinner since Chris was finally coming back from Australia after two weeks of being away for work and family. For the first time, I made gelatin out of leftover homemade stock, minced it up, and added it to my meatball “dough.” I formed each meatball, about 3.5 ounces each, and laid them out neatly on a foiled baking sheet to pop into the broiler before dumpling them into the tomato sauce I made.

As I formed each ball and gently placed each on the baking sheet, I thought about Ed and how much he liked meat. He rarely cooked. The few times he did, he never got praised for what he made. I guess I praised him once when he made chocolate chip cookies. He was so excited about finally making something himself… until they came out of the oven and didn’t seem that brown. He asked me why they didn’t brown as well as the cookies I’ve made, and I asked him if he remembered to use brown sugar. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed, disappointed. “I forgot to use brown sugar!” It was okay. They still tasted fine. Another time, he splurged and bought filet mignon when I wasn’t home, and he cooked and ate it himself. I think our mom ate a little bit, but my dad declined to eat any. He would have loved these meatballs, but I know he would have thought this recipe was way too complex.

I always look back and wonder if we should have spent more time doing things together. Maybe I could have asked him to cook with me, to share in some task that I found fun, instead of just asking him to help me wash the dishes afterwards, which was never fun for him or me. But the realistic side of me knows I would have been a control freak, and it may not have ended very well for either of us. I feel like we didn’t spend enough time together when I was around at home, and I feel bad about it now when I look back. It’s terrible to even think about this now because it’s clear the reason I think this way is because he is gone now. It makes me feel really crappy.

Calligraphy

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The wedding industry in this country will make you go crazy when you see the overwhelming number of things that you could spend money on and how much each of those individual things could cost. One of the things you could potentially “invest” in would be calligraphy, as in, calligraphy of the addresses on your invitation envelopes, calligraphy for your invitations themselves and all wedding stationery, as well as the calligraphy that writes out every sign or post at your wedding. I have decent hand writing, but not writing that I would want to grace all my wedding signs, so I started looking into how much work this would entail if I could do this myself.

I found a great website that even has videos and downloadable guides for different types of calligraphy last night, and apparently all I have to do is invest $5-10 in a calligraphy pen set, and I can achieve “the look” I am going for myself instead of spending $2-5 per invitation for someone else to write it out for me. There’s even a calligraphy hack where you can trace the letters and run over them again with the same color ink, and no one would know it was a hack except you.

It’s the little wins sometimes.

Queens

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I miss my old borough. Well, I don’t miss everything about it. I don’t miss the longer commute. I don’t miss how the general neighborhoods there are a bit seedier, the trains get less love from the MTA and so they run less efficiently, especially on weekends. But I do miss the food, the quality and the cheapness, and the variety of types of food that is just within a few blocks of each other. I miss my old laundromat, where the guy who worked there was always friendly with me, and he had the cheapest possible prices for the few times I actually did dry cleaning.

So after work today, I went all the way out to Elmhurst, my old neighborhood, and I picked up my favorite Indian Chinese takeout and dumplings — in the rain. That’s how much I wanted it and how much I missed the area. I got my boots wet and almost broke my umbrella from the wind, but I was so happy when I brought it all back to my apartment and ate. You can’t get Indian Chinese or dumplings of this quality on the Upper East Side. And if you did, it would probably cost two to three times as much. But realistically, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Nail salon outing

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Ever since that infamous New York Times article was published last spring about the unfair treatment and pay of nail salon workers, I’ve been painfully cognizant and wary of nail salons and have pretty much resisted any impulse desire to get my nails done anywhere. Granted, I rarely get my nails done outside of my apartment, mostly out of my own cheapness, but I resisted the idea even more after I read this article even though I knew beforehand that it had to be a bad lifestyle for the salon workers. I mean, the cheapest manicure to be had in New York (which I personally have benefited from) is $10, and how could anyone possibly be making any real money at that level of earning?

As a little indulgence that would perhaps happen on my own dime about once a year, I started looking for nail salons that pay a fair wage and have safe working conditions for their employees; these places typically charge $25-45 for a basic manicure, which probably makes more sense given the cost of living. A publisher partner has asked to take my team and me on a mani/pedi outing, so now we’re scheduled to go to Ten Over Ten next Friday at my request. Now I can feel a little better about supporting a business that treats its employees properly.

Another death

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I was at the airport this evening waiting to board my flight back to New York when I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed on my phone to discover that a former colleague’s wife had died earlier this month from lung cancer. She had never smoked in her life. This colleague isn’t just any colleague; he was one of the hiring managers at my last company who decided I was smart enough to work on his team, and so he hired me. The same year I was hired in 2009, he got married. I even remember contributing to their wedding gift from our company. I just can’t believe that just six years and one son later, his wife is gone. They weren’t even married a decade.

As soon as I read his very brief but sincere post announcing his wife’s passing, I felt choked up and had to catch my breath. He posted a photo of her posing from their wedding day, and I felt sick to my stomach. Now, he has to go through life without the love of his life, the mother of their only child, and has to raise this son all on his own.

I haven’t spoken to him since he left my last company, so I felt weird reaching out to him, but I did anyway. I feel sick when I think of all the potential negative things that could face me in the future; there are too many bad things to think about, so I try not to do it. But sometimes I think, losing Ed and the way in which I lost him was so bad that maybe I could face anything now. And perhaps everyone who loses someone so dear them is bonded through their shared despondency. We’re all bonded through our losses.

“Is your friend a king or something?”

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I’m spending the next couple of days in Tampa for a work trip, and my friend’s friend, who lives in the area, invited me over for dinner with his wife, their one-year-old son and 13-year-old dog. It was a really enjoyable evening spent eating, catching up about life, and giggling with and kissing their incredibly enthusiastic and intelligent baby.

On the drive to Lutz, my Uber driver was talking about his life in Tampa, working as an IT worker, not making much money, but working as an Uber driver to earn extra income. We pulled into a gated community where my friend lives, and my driver had to not only get his face and driver’s license photographed, but he had to announce who he was, who he was seeing, and how long he intended on staying as my driver. When we arrived at my friend’s house, which in all honesty resembled a replica castle complete with a footbridge entrance over a moat, the driver exclaims, “Is your friend a king or something? This house is definitely something!” I thanked him for the ride, got out of his car, and immediately felt bad. He hated his job, didn’t think he earned enough money so took a second job as a driver, and had to drive me, some random tech girl on a business trip, to an area he was unfamiliar with to visit my friend and his castle. Great. I became so painfully aware of the separation between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, and my own privileges then.

My friend’s friend owns a video game company, so he is obsessed with all things gaming related. Each room of his house is themed after a different warrior, and his formal living room space has coats of armor and medieval style lights and tapestries. In the master bedroom, they have a large wooden axe that is mounted above their bed. Their mischievous one-year-old has unlocked every freaky thing in their house and has even climbed up the bed post in an attempt to get the axe. I wonder how they don’t think this entire house could potentially be a death trap of wooden axes and coats of armor and swords.

This friend told me that he bought this house during the economic downturn five years ago when no one was buying, and homes were being sold for less than 60 to 70 percent of their actual value. And because it was only partially finished, he got to custom design the undone spaces and rooms to his exact preferences. It’s his dream home at a fraction of what the real cost should have been.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’re really, really cheap,” my friend says while the three of us are enjoying ice cream in one of their common areas.

“Yeah, you can tell that to the Uber driver who took me here,” I responded, laughing. “He’ll really believe that!”