Category Archives: Love

Abusive relationships

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Today, my friend and I went to see Waitress the musical on Broadway. The show is about a woman in an abusive relationship who works as a waitress at a pie shop cafe, and she unexpectedly gets pregnant and doesn’t know what to do. She really doesn’t want the baby, but she feels too weak to leave her husband. The depiction of the husband in the show immediately reminded me of the abusive relationships I’ve seen, including ones that both my friend and I have been in, as well as other friends we’ve had through our lives who have succumbed to terrible men.

It’s really disturbing how even the strongest women can succumb to (verbally and/or physically) abusive men simply because of what we’ve been conditioned to believe are gender norms — that women need to be nurturing and accepting, that women have the ability to “change” the men they are with if they only try hard enough, that women need to “take care of” and in some ways even mother their partners. I still remember being in a terrible relationship when I was 19 and being in complete disbelief that all these awful things were happening to me… My friend even reminded me she didn’t realize how bad he was until it was almost over when I finally told her everything. It was surreal, as though it was all just a bad dream that I thought would end, but it took so, so long to end. But instead of walking away, I kept trying to believe things would get better and that he’d change, or maybe it was just a bad work day or a bad mood… classic women thoughts. I had a good friend constantly tell me to leave him, and when I finally did officially, it was the most liberating feeling ever.

The disheartening part of watching this musical, which both of us really enjoyed, is that it made me think about all the women out there in today’s day and age who are probably feeling just like Jenna the waitress, who feel trapped and like they can’t do any better than the loser abusive men that they’re with. There are too many problems in the world, and as many opportunities as there are out there for women, it’s sad when these opportunities aren’t made apparent to these women, and they think they have to put up with horrible sexist treatment that was normal fifty or a hundred years ago. I hope all women can be as strong as Jenna was in this show and leave their abusers, even if it means raising a child on their own. We don’t want to bring children into a world and raise them to think that abusive relationships are normal and expected.

Sadness

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I arrived back at JFK at about 4:50am; the winds were in my favor overnight, and so our plane landed about an hour and ten minutes earlier than scheduled. I grumbled at the idea of going back to the office on time, so I decided to sleep a bit longer and come into the office late.

The first full day back in New York is always strange for me. It’s me, back in the freedom that New York City provides, away from the prying, manipulative hold of my parents. It’s away from all the clutter of my parents’ house, the endless screws and paper clips and razor blades that are scattered all over the floors in certain rooms; it’s also away from the darkness that is increasingly becoming my parents’ house.

My bedroom always looks a little more depressing every time I come home. It’s the bedroom that Ed and I grew up in, where both of our beds still stand, where the frames of photos of us and our parents are turned inward, looking stupidly organized (“the light will eat them up and they will fade!” my dad insisted, when he turned the photos away from frontal view. In other words, you cannot see the photos; you can just see the backs of the frames. What a great way to display photographs!!). The blinds are closed, which means no natural light comes into the room. My parents’ bedroom is even worse, with thicker blinds that block out the light even better, and piles and piles of paper, buckets with endless tools and screws, and who the hell knows what else all over the floor. There’s barely any space to get around the bed, and I honestly do not know how my tiny mother hasn’t had an accident tripping over something in her own bedroom yet. Oh, and they lock that room when they aren’t home, even when it’s just me home, which makes their bedroom even more like an unwelcome lair, hiding needless secrets that they never want exposed. In fact, they lock both their room and my old room, always fearful that someone will expose their secrets and get whatever rare valuables they seem to be storing.

In New York, I’m also away from all forms of irrational thinking that my parents have. So while they lock the two bedroom doors, my dad has had this strange desire, since Ed passed away, to leave the gate unlocked when he or my mom is home. It drives me nuts. Why would they keep the gate unlocked but lock their bedroom doors? Even though I grew up in this house and lived there until age 18, my parents don’t think I will close the gate without slamming it because many visitors slam it. My dad put in this weather stripping for it over a decade ago, which for a lot of people, makes the gate harder to close. You really just need to press it for an extra second, but everyone is too impatient and slams it. So my mom and I will usually bicker when I try to close the gate and my mom insists she will do it. That’s the kind of thing my parents like to argue about — how to close a gate and who will do it. When I’m in New York, I never have to worry when I go out with visiting relatives or friends about someone sneakily paying the bill behind my back (and thus my being “indebted” to them); I also never have to worry about others paying the bill and then getting mad at me later that they paid it. I always have to think about that whenever I go home. It’s a really irrational worry and form of stress, but that is instantly on the agenda as soon as I step into my parents’ house.

So despite all the above, the truth is that as soon as I enter SFO, go through security, and reach either the airline lounge or sit down at the gate, I actually miss my parents a lot for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. I miss my mother’s love and hugs and kisses, the way she is always concerned about whether I’ve had enough to eat or whether I will be safe. I miss my dad’s sheepish hug at the end of my trip, the way he usually pats my back awkwardly in his own way of showing fatherly affection. I miss my dad always asking me if I want anything at Costco (his Costco love will never die; he’s an Asian dad, after all, and loves his deals) even though I usually decline. This time, because we had to get some wedding photos printed at Costco before dropping me off at the airport, I humored my mom and agreed to bring back women’s gummy vitamins. She was so excited; my dad wasn’t, though, because my mom insisted on buying me the name-brand gummy vitamins vs. the Kirkland Signature brand (Costco brand) gummy vitamins.

I wish they could be happier and more content with life. Every time I leave, I know that their level of happiness will decline and pick up again the next time I come home. With my coming home, it’s something they look forward to. I’m honestly not sure if they look forward to anything else in life. And that always is a worry lurking in the back my mind, that they really aren’t living for much outside of me, their one living child. It always makes me feel sad and a little helpless, kind of like how I felt when Ed was at the end of his life and I knew he was struggling, but I had no way to feasibly help.

Leaving home

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Leaving home always leaves me with mixed feelings. I love my parents very much, but the harsh truth is that I cannot be with them for long periods of time, otherwise I lose my sanity. I always feel sad on the way to the airport because I know that my mom has that sinking feeling in her stomach, knowing her only living child is leaving her for the other side of the country. She starts worrying about every last thing: the weight of my carry-on roller bag, whether the night flight will make it all the way to New York (she thinks that flying at night is more dangerous, but obviously she’s just basing that on her lack of knowledge of how airplanes work), and if the driver who takes me from JFK back to my apartment will be a creep or not. She always reminds me right before I leave her at the curb side to stay longer the next time I come home so that she won’t miss me as much (that doesn’t really make sense, but it just means she wants me around longer, even if we do argue).

I always wish my parents could be more positive, that they could try for once to see the best in people and stop nitpicking at everyone in their lives, including each other. I wish my dad wouldn’t have a last argument on my last day with me about the shower, insisting that his tiles never mildew because he always wipes the tiles down after a shower (they will always mildew, just at a slower rate). I wish my mom wouldn’t accuse people like my aunt of trying to take advantage of her. I wish my aunt would stop inviting random Jehovah’s Witness strangers to what are supposed to be “family dinners.” I have a lot of wishes, but they will always just be that — wishes. I know they want the best for me and miss me when I’m gone, but that’s why I do try to come home at least two to three times a year to see them, and when I do see them, I try to have them participate in enjoyable, productive activities together. It’s always hard. That’s all I can say. It’s just inevitable that my mom will get upset over something irrational, blame me and start yelling. It’s also inevitable my parents will argue about senseless things, too, and blame each other for everything that is wrong. It is always hard. No peace exists at the house on the hill in which I grew up. It’s just a cold place with a lot of bitterness.

Not in that chair

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It doesn’t seem to matter how much times passes. Every time I open the door into my parents’ house, the part of my brain that apparently doesn’t register reality thinks that Ed is going to be sitting in his chair at his desk in our living room. That part of my mind thinks he will swivel his chair, turn around and see me, and then hurriedly get up to hug me and help me with my luggage. I thought this when I arrived home from the hotel this morning, turned the key, and opened the door to let myself in. He isn’t there, I saw, and a part of my  stomach just fell.

It’s not that I wanted him to be at home forever, living in this house with our parents and doing all his same usual things. But this is how I remember him. In an ideal world, he would have gotten a decent paying job and moved out years ago. In that world, when I’d come back from New York to visit, he actually would not be sitting in that chair when I would open the front door. Instead, he’d come home to see me, or I’d go to his apartment, or we’d all meet at a restaurant and reunite. So many options had the potential to exist for my brother. It just makes me sick to think that all those potential realities are now dead along with him.

A talk about nothing

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Tonight, I went to dinner with Chris, my two good friends, and their husband and boyfriend. We spent almost two hours chatting about a lot of random things, but really, it wasn’t like there was anything very substantial or serious we discussed. It was a really long talk with all sorts of tangents about seemingly nothing, yet the entire time, I was enjoying myself and the company of my friends. A talk about absolutely nothing was entirely satisfying to me, and the laughter that came out of it was genuine. And when it ended, I knew this experience would not happen again until the next time I’d come visit home, and it made me feel a little sad on the walk back to the hotel from South of Market. It made me realize that I really do miss having a friend group like this back in New York. I have individual friends I can catch up with there, but I don’t have the same dynamic with them the way I do with these two friends. We can’t really talk about nothing and have that be satisfying or sufficient for me. And then I thought, why is it that I haven’t made friends like that in my entire eight years in New York City? I guess I married my best friend (not that that’s a bad thing, of course). I guess I go through these same thoughts every few months, but it still makes me wistful. I could potentially leave New York City without a real friend group developed at all.

Or maybe the problem is really me. You can’t really expect to have the same dynamic with friends you just met as with the friends you’ve had for two decades, right? Maybe my expectation is too high. But can’t a satisfying talk about nothing occur between two strangers as easily as it can with two friends who’ve known each other for years?

Old friends, old feelings

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It’s funny how when you are physically distant from friends, you can feel emotionally distant, but when you are put together in the same space once again, everything feels normal and like you get each other again. Over the years given that I’ve been away from home for 12 years now, I’ve gone through fluctuations in feelings regarding how “close” I feel with a number of my friends, but I know deep down that when we’re together, everything feels comfortable and good again. Maybe that’s the test of real friendship that can withstand time and distance, that the feeling you have when you are reunited is the familiar warm, happy feeling you had when your friendship was seemingly at its best and shiniest.

It’s comforting to return home and know that I will have familiar faces of friends and hear similar laughter each time I come back. It helps me think of home as a potentially happy place versus a place that harbors a lot of negativity and impending arguments and explosions.

37th

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Dear Ed,

Today marks 37 years since you were brought into this world. Happy birthday to my loving, generous, warm-hearted brother, the one who left this life too soon, too quickly. It’s the third birthday of yours that you’ve missed because your life was cut short. This world can be such a painful place to be some days. Today is one of those days for me.

You know what it is kind of funny, but not funny in the literal sense? People think that the anniversary of your death or your birthday every year are my worst days. Those days serve as terrible reminders of the loss, but I think we all know that people who have loved and lost too soon, we think of those we lost every single day. A day never goes by when we don’t think about you or miss you. It’s just a fact. Some people say it gets easier over time. My sadness and anger over your premature death haven’t subsided, though. I still have so many conflicts over your life and how you were treated by everyone from your church ‘friends’ to our relatives to even our own parents. I am haunted in dreams by them because I don’t think those feelings will ever go away. In these nightmares, I am always yelling at our parents and expressing anger over how unfairly they treated you, how they ignored your illness and struggles, and even how they ignored your birthdays when you were alive and overall human feelings. No one really understands this, and most people, even my seemingly closest friends, don’t want to know all these truths. Your life is an enigma to them. It’s not an enigma to me, though.

I’m still struggling to have faith in the world and hope for the future. Every day is a struggle against cynicism for me, before your death, and even more so since your death. I try to be strong every day, but some days, the struggle is harder than others. Some days, I have little motivation to do more with my life. But then I think of you, and I think that I can’t fail your memory. It’s an ongoing thought that sits on my head throughout all my days.

To honor your birthday, Chris had kouign amann delivered to my office today. I know you never got a chance to try these when you were here, but they are a pastry from the Brittany region of France that are like the crispier, sweeter, and slightly denser version of a croissant. They were really tasty. I know you would have really liked them. You probably would have eaten all four in a single sitting if no one stopped you. There’s so much you never got a chance to eat when you were here — here in New York, back in San Francisco, and all around the world.

We went back to Elmhurst and had knife-cut noodles, dumplings, and cumin lamb in your memory tonight. It made me remember how I never got a chance to take you to my favorite hand-pulled noodle place in Elmhurst, and I didn’t even take you to have New York pizza when you were visiting New York in 2011. It was just too dramatic that time because of our mother constantly picking fights with me that trip. They really ruined that trip for you. I’m sorry. I was in survival mode at that point. But at least I took you to the original Shake Shack when you were here?

The world is dim today for me as I look through our childhood photos together and realize that we’ll never take another photo together ever again. As adults, we really didn’t take enough photos together. I really regret that. We didn’t celebrate or memorialize our everyday moments together, even after I got my iPhone. The worst thing is that I thought about taking more photos together in March 2013, but again, our mother was in such a sour mood for the two weeks I was back in San Francisco that year that the idea of taking a photo altogether really irritated me. That was the last time I saw you alive.

What are you doing today, anyway? Are you looking down at the earth, wondering what the future is going to be like after the presidential election has ended, wondering when I’m going to produce your future niece and nephew? Do you ever think, I wonder what life would have been like if I just moved out of that terrible house and struck it out on my own?  Well, I wonder that. I think you’d still be here today. But those are useless thoughts.

I don’t know when I’m going to see you again. When are you going to come back? I really miss you. Visiting your niche in San Francisco isn’t enough, especially since every time I go, I have to go with our parents. Do you ever miss them?

Life is going by really quickly. We’re already five months past our wedding that you were watching from above. The worst thing is that while life passes by quickly, the slowest moments are when I am thinking about you and how I’ll never see you again. That’s when life really, really sucks.

It’s okay, Ed. I’ll be okay without you. I think I’ve been doing decently well since you’ve left us. The rest of the world may not acknowledge you on your birthday, but I do. I acknowledge you every day in my heart and in my mind. I don’t really care if other people think it’s obsessive on Facebook or in person. They can continue living their miserable lives. You never forget the people you love most, regardless of whether they are still living or have passed on.

Fundraising time is about to begin. I’ll be thinking of you and our happy memories together, and hoping that your life now is far more peace-filled than it was on this earth. I love you.

With love and longing,

your little sister Yvonne

8×8

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I spent a couple hours this afternoon finally working on an 8×8 photo book to compile all of our wedding photo booth pictures. I’m working on researching formal photo albums and photo books to compile our wedding photos, and so I thought it would be a good idea to make use of all the silly photo booth pictures all of our guests took at the wedding (that apparently not everyone was aware that we get every single copy of every single photo taken in that booth). During the course of planning our wedding, I read about all the lazy brides and grooms who never really do much with their wedding photos other than frame a few in their house (it’s amazing how many wedding boards exist out there on the web), and it made me sad to think that so many great photos would then ultimately get wasted and never have the chance to be appreciated. The same can be said of our photo booth pictures. They need their own place to shine.

It’s also convenient when your cousin works at Shutterfly and can get you discount codes for freebies. Things always feel even better when they are free or discounted.

Three

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Dear Ed,

Today marks three years since you left us. Every year when we begin approaching the anniversary of your escape, I always feel an agonizing feeling inside my stomach and wonder if you will come back for a visit. Well, this year, I am not as naive. This year, I didn’t expect you to come visit on your anniversary in my dreams. This year, I was stronger than the last two years, and I knew I could get by without seeing you again. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel as miserable.

This year has been an emotional year for me. Chris and I had our wedding in March; in fact, I saw you when I walked down the steps to the aisle. You were there. No one else saw you. But I did; you were staring right at me and smiling, just like I thought you’d be. We did all these things to get you to come: we named the tables after your favorite foods, we had photos of us together around the venue; we put your name on our wedding program. Chris even gave a speech and talked about how important you were to me, to us, and how much we missed you that day. It brought tears to my eyes and to all three of my bridesmaids’, my childhood friends that you saw all the time when we were growing up together. There was some surprise regarding how much you were in the wedding, but I didn’t really want it to be a surprise. I wanted every single person to know that I’m painfully aware that you’re no longer part of this life physically, but you will always be in my life — in my head and in my heart. I miss you more than anyone could possibly imagine, and I don’t want you to think that on what is supposed to be the biggest day of my life that I had forgotten about you for even a second.

This year is an election year, and a scary one at that. Donald Trump could end up being our president, and that is absolutely terrifying to me. Sometimes, I slip back into my cynical thinking and I think that the world is going to be a worse place, especially if he ends up getting elected. But then I am quickly reminded that if I keep thinking negatively, I will do you and your memory a disservice. I need to be strong, even when it’s hard, for you. I need to work my hardest to prove to you that life is worth living, that the world is going to be better place in the future for the future children of the world. You know what I want? I want the world to become a better place so that you can look down on us and think, “Man, I wanted out on that? What was I thinking?!” We have a lot of work to do to get there, though.

I don’t want to upset you, but our dad didn’t say anything about the anniversary of your passing as I expected; he never has, and he probably never will. He’s too out of touch with human emotion to be able to do that with me or anyone. Some people and things will never change, sadly. Our mom is picking fights with me about Chris and his family since the wedding, but you probably already predicted yourself that would happen; you probably know our mother better than I do.

When I look back at our time together, I have many regrets… as useless as they are. But one regret I have that I always get reminded of every year is that we didn’t spend your last Christmas together. Under my bed in our tiny apartment here in Manhattan, I still have the collection of ornaments that you and I collected, and many that you so generously bought for me (70-80 percent off at Macy’s after Christmas, no less!). What I want to do is to have our own Christmas tree to hang up all these ornaments, and it would be an ode to you and how much you loved Christmas and everything about it. That home we shared never truly embraced Christmas, but you always looked forward to that time of year anyway. It would be amazing for us to have one more Christmas together, just us, away from the dysfunctional and maddening family we share. You would no doubt drive me crazy with your obsessive compulsive ways and your lack of desire to wash dishes or clean, but I’d suck it up since I haven’t seen you in too long.

There have been a lot of times in the last three years when I wanted to take a break from reality, pause it all, and just come hang out with you. That sounds ridiculous and is clearly impossible, but it doesn’t mean I don’t wish it could happen. I promise I wouldn’t complain about our mother to you, and I also promise that I wouldn’t try to beg you to come back. I just wish I could see you again. I know it’s selfish, but I occasionally find myself envious when I hear about my friends or my colleagues spending time with their siblings like it’s no big deal. I feel even more hurt when they express how close they are to their brother or sister. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is to me because I no longer have that option anymore.

A number of colleagues and friends, after learning about your passing and how it happened, tell me they’d like to chat with me about it sometime. For the most part, it doesn’t happen. In the beginning, because it was so new and still raw for me, I didn’t always answer the question of “how” directly, either. It was too much at the time. But as time has gone on, I’m more comfortable talking about it to reduce the stigma around it and to help other people understand what they may not want to or be able to understand. Now, I’ve realized that I’m not really creating the problem; the people who want to know but fear knowing are adding to the problem. I would love to openly tell anyone about this in an effort to potentially help someone else’s life, but so many people are scared. They are scared of my getting hurt (I’m not), they are scared of understanding, and they are probably scared of how they will react. I would love for the day when people would cut the bullshit and just ask what they want to ask and listen — truly listen and not just listen for the moment and move on to the next idea. I’d love for them to listen, digest what they’ve heard, and see how they could apply this knowledge to their lives potentially in the future. I’m sitting here waiting for that to happen.

Well, I decided to do a few things for you to remember you this weekend. I’m making one of your favorite soups — West Lake beef soup. I even made my own stock, used the egg whites, and everything. I’m also making Chinese sticky rice, and contrary to what our grandma used to do, I’m stuffing it like crazy with meat and seafood filling, so the ratio of filling to sticky rice is almost 1:1. I’m sure you would have enjoyed this. If you were here, I also wouldn’t have made you wash the dishes since I know you hate that.

It’s time for me to say goodbye for now. I’ve never really said goodbye to you because it’s too hard for me to say. I couldn’t even say it to you when they closed your casket, and I couldn’t see your face in the flesh again. I couldn’t even be there when they closed it because it was too hard for me that day. I hope you aren’t upset by that.

Each night, I still wait for you to visit. You only really come about once a month now, but that’s okay. You can do whatever you want now since you’re free. You’ve escaped. I won’t see you again here, but just like that Puff Daddy (or P. Diddy now as he’s known) song, “On that morning / When this life is over / I know / I’ll see your face.”

Hope you will be patient with me for that moment because there’s a lot of things I need to do in this life before it’s over. Until then, I’ll see you in my dreams… because that’s all I can really hope for. Love you.

Love,

your hopeful sister Yvonne

One week visit home

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Last night, I dreamt I went home again, and this time surprisingly, Ed was there. My scheduled visit was for one week, and when I realized Ed was home, I was so happy to be there for a full week and wanted to soak it all in… except, he didn’t really feel the same way. He was being moody and negative the entire week, making passive aggressive comments here, snapping at me over there. It was not fun at all.

When it came to the seventh day and I was packing my bag to leave, he said to me, “You must be really happy to be going back to New York.”

I was furious and let him have it. “Happy to be going back to New York? Happy to be going back to New York? I spent an entire week here with you, and you were being negative and annoying the entire time!” I yelled. “And now, I won’t be able to see you ever again! We wasted an entire week together!”

He was quiet for a moment and wrinkled his brow. Clearly, he felt confused. “What do you mean you’ll never see me again?”

My frustration was growing and growing. “What do I mean? I’m never going to see you again BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD! You aren’t even alive! You aren’t even really here right now!!”

It was as though someone hit him over the head, and he finally understood the situation. He really wasn’t alive. He wasn’t human. He was just a spirit visitor pretending to be one of us. He perked up for a bit and said, “Okay, why don’t we go out together now, then?”

“Okay,” I responded. At least we could have an hour together alone and being seemingly normal without the watchful eye of our parents. And together, we left the house.

We’re almost at the three-year mark of his passing. He always manages to come back around this time, as though he thought that somehow, I’d manage to forget. Little does he know that I’ve never forgotten — in fact, that’s quite impossible, and not a day goes by when I don’t think about him and his eternal absence in my life. It doesn’t really matter where in the world I go or what current events are happening or what people I meet or how I may choose to ‘escape’ my reality — he’s always there in the shadows of my mind.