missing

how are you supposed to live when each day you know something is missing from your life and you know you will never forget that?

social animals: part 1

I'm not awake yet, it's almost 9am. I'm at work and bored. I've checked practically every e-mail account I have.. and on that note.. that's scary that I have more than one. hehe. Anyway, so I came across this American Eagle Outfitters email I got. And it showed a picture of a bunch of young people dressed for summer laying out on blankets and it made me think about warm summer nights and warm bodies all snuggled next to each other on blankets and/or sand and I got all nostalgic.

Ahh those were the days, when you were out with friends and just chillin' and being near each other. There's something about being near people that just brings a sense of security and well-being. I don't know what it is, but I miss it. Terribly. Yet I know things will never go back to the way they were. Life for me it seems will always be bittersweet because part of it will always be missing.

.. maybe that's why I so ardently search for love, wanting to be filled up again.. complete.. but it scares me too.. that I may never find that. Or maybe it scares me more than when I do, this aching from my loss still won't go away..

slight desperation or just PMS

So my moods go up and down and sometimes it coincides with that lovely thing we women enjoy due to the privilege that we can bear children. Anyway, I was noticing, ever since my mom passed that my PMS is a lot worse. My patience disappears quicker the week before and I'm more sensitive to issues. Things that I normally could block off or deal with on a day to day basis are a lot harder to bear during the time of month. I miss my mom a lot more and she's on my mind a lot more, I think since my defenses are weakened she creeps in. Which isn't to say I don't want to think about her.. it just hurts, a lot.

I try to keep myself busy and doing things to 'cheer' me up, but it's always hard. I have always wanted to be this self-confident girl, who didn't need men to make her feel good about herself. But the truth is, as confident as I feel sometimes, when I have a guy paying attention to me (whether it's a friend or stranger) if makes me feel wanted and if it's a friend - safe as well. It's just kind of nice to know that although I'm not drop dead gorgeous that I may still be something sexy thing men want, and not just continually the girl next door. When it's a male friend paying attention to me, it's just nice to know that I'm still thought about and cared about in that way that only guys can do. Maybe it's just me attaching that feeling of security with men when in actuality any friend will do.. but for some reason with guy friends, it just feels different.

A few weeks ago I was snowboarding up in Tahoe and I thought I was gonna hafta go alone. But it turned out my friend's friend was up there too and it was nice to just kick it w/ a guy (who was pretty cute ;) ) and talk about silly things and just be near a guy again. He stuck w/ me the whole day when he could have just taken off to do his own thing and he tried to help me out and teach me to board better. Then there are what I call 'bar men' or as my one of my friend's calls them 'single serving friends'. Even though I sometimes feel like a piece of meat walking through a bar.. it's kinda nice to know that I may have a teeny bit of sex appeal. :) My co-workers think my look is too safe. Sooo I'm trying "vamp" it up a bit.. okay not really vamp, but just change some things. I have to admit, after highlighting and chopping off about 5 inches of my hair.. it's really quite liberating.

but still.. these are just teeny moments in my life and they disappear just as quickly. I'm probably never going to see that cute boarder again and 'single serving friends' are just that.. one time only. I miss my friends in so cal, the closeness that we had and just being able to go over to someone's house and kick it. I can't do that here anymore and that feeling of being safe with friends is slowly fading away.. that scares me. It makes me feel like there's a slight desperation to my life and that if I don't make friends up here fast I'm going to lose myself and be a hermit for the rest of my life.

I'm terrified and yet trying to stay in control.. but it's scary. It's like I can feel this presence trying to suck me into this drab existence and I'm slowly falling into it because I can't find me way out.

When is it going to be too late?

Places I've been



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Spring?

It's March already!! I can't believe it. I'm still itching to go snowboarding, it's so crazy. I never dreamed it would get to the day where I'd really really want to go snowboarding a lot more. I'm hoping we'll get one more good rain in so I can go enjoy the powder. I've still got two free tix to Heavenly that have to be used up by the end of this season.. soooo if anyone's interested ;) Let me know!

With this new weather feels like new beginnings.. although I kno this weather is not to last for very long. Just like new beginnings become the story. Anyways, I got promoted.. hooray for me! I'm so excited. I feel like fate is finally revealing a little bit more about my story to me. Although I'm still missing that love aspect, but anyone who knows me has already heard enough about that. I gripe and complain practically everyday.. so at this rate if the rule is that "it happens when you least expect it", it won't ever happen for me. I'm thinking about moving out. I miss my independence and my privacy, it's hard when you've had it for five years and then have to give it back or modify it. I kno.. I'm selfish.. so sue me.

I'm so tired of being the one to try and think of everyone and include everyone and not leave anyone out.. granted it's not like I've done that all the time. There have been times when I've left my own friends out and for that I'm truly sorry. They know who they are and I still love them all the same. I just want to know someone is thinking about me or have someone think about me for a change. And not because I ask them to.. just because they do.

Anyways, just like this random babble.. I'm sure the weather will soon change as will my moods.. oh damn it.

what it feels like...

good days

I'm sure you've heard about those people who are sick or have a psychological disorder or something like that and they always say.. today's a good day or today's a bad day in relation to their 'illness'.

For me today was a good day.

I woke up feeling rested and took a nice long hot shower to wash last night's going out 'grime' off myself. Got dressed in my comfy clothes and took off to meet Jessica to feed the ducks at the park. (I never knew this.. but feeding ducks is actually extremely harmful to them.. we did it anyway, altho I'm never going to do it again. Feeding Water Fowl) It was really nice, Jess and I hung out a lot in middle school and I've known her all throughout high school. We kicked it in the same group of friends and I could always be super silly with her, it was great. We grew apart in college though and after my mom passed away we managed to reconnect. It was cool to just catch up while walking circles around the park and start rebuilding our friendship. Time has definitely changed the both of us and we see more eye to eye now.

I've noticed a lot of change in our high school friends over the years and it's strange to know that we probably all wouldn't be friends now if it hadn't been for our long history together. We're so different from one another, but it's great. I love how it's opening my eyes to see who they really are and it definitely makes me appreciate them way more than I ever have. I'm glad we have our childhood history to keep us together, because it makes them all the more special to me. I'm starting to see them through my 'college' eyes. The one that looks more critically at events and situations and sees the strength and compassion and wit that lives inside each of them. We've gone through a lot and I love learning what their opinions are of issues we never discussed in high school.

Fuzz has definitely been a strong support recently and I really love and appreciate the fact that he's like this big fuzzy bear that I can lean against when I'm lost. He's always willing to listen and he can definitely empathize with me. And then there's Jen, she always means well but lately I just haven't got the strength to deal with her iffyness and whining, but I still love her. She does the best she can to cheer me up and it's just nice to know that she's always there for me no matter what. And Jane, God I love that girl and I can't wait for her to come home!! It's been a long time and I miss having her around, she's just all around great and one of the few friends that understands a lot about the high school me. And then there's Virginia too, lately I've just come to appreciate her more and more. It all started with a snowboard trip to tahoe and it felt really comfortable to kick it w/ her and Loi and just have things feel normal. She's studying up in Vallejo so I don't see her much, but I think one of these weekends I'll hafta go up and see her just for fun.

Even with my ex I see new things in him that I had never noticed before and it makes me glad that we've managed to stay friends. Although for a long while it was rough for me and we actually didn't talk much at all in the last four and a half years, but with the past becoming a fading memory it's nice to be able to kick it with him once in awhile. He's one of the few whom I'm comfortable enough to be almost completely honest with. Some 'lies' still slip from my mouth to protect my own ego, altho i usually regret it later.

It's hard when you've trained yourself to protect your own heart that sometimes the truth becomes a half truth so you don't have to face pain.

I spent so much time running away from this place because it caused me so much pain and it was the greatest pain of all that brough me back. Perhaps this is my time to make it mine again, this is going to be difficult because my heart yearns to be away, off, it calls to the beach and the sun and So Cal and England, as much as it loves Nor Cal. Things have changed and it's hard to find rest, but I'm going to try.

Anyway today was a good day.

the dark place

I've been there, that dark place where in the midst of people you feel completely alone and it seemed silly back then, but I grew out of it. I found confidence in myself and a niche where I flourished.. then my heart was broken (repeatedly) and I found myself slipping into that dark place again.. so easily over and over.. I began to wonder if perhaps one can never truly leave that darkness... and lo and behold I climbed out of it again.

I found love in my friends and joy in life and things were good. I was having fun and exploring the world and myself.. yet part of me still knew what alone was. I can't forget alone, it's like carrying a little bit of that darkness with me everywhere I go.. and along side of that darkness is my little ray of hope that someone will save me from all of this.

But then my world decided to come crashing down on me again, in a way I never realized was possibly. You never EVER truly understand someone's pain unless you experience what they've experienced. To imagine pain does not even come close to the actual slamming reality of it.

Anyway.. so I hadn't realized I was falling or losing control until these past two weeks. My defenses that I had put up around my mother's death were slowly crumbling, they were being chipped away and I was slowly losing it. Every little thing bothered me and I wanted to cry all the time and my whole life felt like ash.. it's the best way I can describe it.. ash. Last thursday the frustration of putting my roof rack on my car set me off and I snapped at a friend as she was drunkenly trying to console me.. which only further irritated me and for the first time I shouted the words out loud.. "she's dead and she isn't coming back." I had been bottling up this frustration and anger in me for so long. I remember standing in the hospital as we watched them turn the machines off.. a decision we made as a family.. and wanting to just SCREAM.. NO GOD DAMN IT, IT'S NOT FAIR, DON'T GO, COME BACK DON'T LEAVE US.. and just scream and scream and scream.. I never did.. I still haven't, it's too late for that now.

Then this past weekend everything just tipped over and out. I had gone up to Tahoe for a weekend and little things kept happening that just kept building on each other. I was already feeling vulnerable and then one of my friends wldn't drop a certain issue which added to my already delicate balance of things and then a certain situation including an ex caused a bit of pain to my already broken heart and then one night I have this wacked out dream which I won't describe, but made me feel like throwing up all day the next day.. and then we watch TV and in one show a guy's father ends up in a coma (which gets me thinking) and then the movie afterwards is She's All That, a story about a girl without a father who ends up finding love with a wonderful girl that helps fill the void her mother's passing left.. (hmm.... ).. and that was just it. I slipped into the back room barely holding it all together called my friend Dustin and let the dam break.

But then my ex's friend comes in the room and sees me crying and I think she tells him coz he ends up coming in and the tears are just flowing and all I can think about it how much it hurts without her.. the things I never got to say.. the last time I saw her awake.. the last words she heard me while conscious.. the decision we made to let her not suffer as her last wish was.. watching the doctors turn the machines down slowly.. the monitors levelling out and she was gone.. i watched her die... at the age of 23 I WATCHED her DIE.

It feels like someone had sucked all the life out of me and there's this void that just sits there, sometimes in the pit of my stomach and sometimes in my heart, but it's always there. I just need my heart to be safe right now and it's not and it feels like I carry an open wound around every day. I didn't realize what I had wanted was someone to just hold me while I cried and feel safe again. But the thing is, I've struggled my whole life to be strong, to never show weakness and crying... oh crying used to drive me crazy. There's only certain people I don't mind being weak around and many of them are scattered too far to be physically near me. Strangely enough the person who I long ago hated to be weak in front of the most was the person I was completely weak in front of this weekend... and it felt nice. I think I just needed someone to hold me while I cried, someone I felt safe with... but the hardest part is asking for that.

falling apart

People tell me they admire me for how strong I am being.

My Christian friends say 'God would not give you something he didn't believe you couldn't handle.'

A buddhist friend is supposed to send me materials and told me that chanting might help me find some peace.

Then why does it feel like I can barely hang on and hold up the walls that keep me sane.. the walls that help keep me moving forward. An action I took this weekend reminded me of how lonely I was. I remember from long ago what it was like to feel safe (or at least to think that I was safe) and how nice it felt to be physically near someone again, to be held. But I unknowingly unleashed upon myself a worse feeling. I was already feeling lonely.. but this was like a colorful reminder of what I haven't had in so long. And it doesn't help in this time of my life when it feels like no one is around. I know people say call if you need me.. but when I'm really in that low spot I want someone to find me.

I want someone to read that subtle, or sometimes not so subtle comment I make and just call or if they're in the area grab me and take me away from here.. even if it's only for an hour. This loneliness eats away at me.. it's like i'm standing at the edge of a cliff and the darkness looks so soft and quiet and peaceful below.

i want to fall apart.. into that soft darkness and know that someone below will catch me and that i can have a moments peace and that they'd watch over me.. just for a moment...

i want to fall apart.

love.. or lack there of..

So, with my mom gone, I've come to realize there's a void in my life. Especially since I've had to move back up to Nor Cal. Don't get me wrong, I love Nor Cal because it's where I grew up. I love my friends that I've made here, they're great. But somehow, things just don't seem to be enough up here anymore. Hardly any of my friends are really around, most of them are seeing people, so it's even harder to get ahold of them and life just isn't the same anymore.

I miss So Cal, I miss having roommates and my own independence and place. I miss having guy friends around!! (Seriously, most of my high school friends are girls.. something you just want to 'dick' around and be stupid and guys are just better at that.. haha).

Anyway, I'm glad my friends have found 'love' in their lives, but I can't help but feel jealous too. They say it hits when you least expect it too.. well shit I'm in trouble then coz I want it and I can't get it out of my head. I read an article off MSN on speed dating which really amused me and then I decided what the heck, nothing to do go look at personals on craigslist. And as I got to reading them.. the lower and lower my confidence dropped.

Which brings me to what I've been thinking lately.. maybe I'm just not cute enough for the guys I want. I know that's stupid, soooo I'm NOT drop dead gorgeous, but hey I'm worth loving for sure!! I guess it's a lot easier to remind yourself of that when you've got lots of friends around to boost your ego for you. And I think without them, I'm having trouble. Especially with all that's happened to me.. I'm running low on love. I know I've got my dad and my brother, but it's not the same. Sometimes you just want to curl next to your friend and feel that love. I don't even know what I want anymore. I think about the qualities I want in a man and it just gets all muddled and confusing because I'm never going to find that!

I'm stuck in a rut and I hate it, but there's really no way out of it. I don't trust random people I meet and let's face it, I'm really not going to meet anyone through my friends at this rate. So basically?.. I just frustrated and annoyed.

I really did have it easy, I had a family who loved me, both my parents, loads of friends around - and now? It just feels like I've been left with next to nothing. My dad is in some ways a 'broken' man without my mother, my brother seems to be bottling things up.. and me? Well.. everyone tells me I'm strong and you know what, I WANT to fall apart and scream and kick and fight and blame someone for all this shit that's happening to me. I want to GIVE UP. I know I'm not without love.. my brain tells me and part of my heart knows.. but it's still really hard coz I just can't feel it anymore.

All I know is that I have this void, and something had better help me fill it.. I can't be this strong forever.

numb

i'm done. this is it. no more. my heart just won't take it, it can't take it. that's three people in less than a fucking year. THREE loved ones. my grandfather last december, then my mother in october and not even a month past and my grandmother passes away too. is this some kind of sick joke.. it's almost funny.

DON'T

ask me if i'm alright. i'm not, how could i be. devastated isn't even a word that means anything. it's not enough. anguish is not enough. grief is not enough. none of it is enough.

i'm done. i'm over.

i'm fine.

DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU HAVE?!

lost

I didn't think it would actually happen that she would go. I thought the specialists at Stanford would find some miracle to save her life. And although they kept telling me the chances were slim, I kept thinking God would bring a miracle and bring her back to us. The day before she passed away my dad said the docs said she might not make it through the night. I hurried to the hospital and sat by her and with my family and friends and we left that night seeing her oxygen levels at low 90s. That's great I thought, she's fighting, she still has a chance! God can still give us that miracle!

Then the next morning my dad wakes me up and says O2 levels dropped to 40%.. she might go soon. I sat in the car stunned as my father had a burst of emotion and then calmed to continue driving to the hospital. Sixty percent is when brain damage occurs.. she had been at 40 for at least and hour and when we got there she was at 55 for a good two hours which later went up to 60 something. But it was too late.. I knew she wasn't going to make it, and even if she did.. she wouldn't be the same woman. She had made it clear to us repeatedly and to our family members that should she ever need to go on machines to let her go. She couldn't bear "living" like that.

Our family made the hardest decision of our lives.. the choices from the doctor 1) keep her on the machines for the next two days and let her die on the machines or 2) slowly take her off the meds (other than sedation to keep her comfortable) and let her pass peacefully. She wasn't coming back he said. We didn't let her suffer.. but up until the point of her last breath I kept hoping.. until I looked up and saw the machines registering no oxygen, no heart beat, and no brain function. The doctors had given her paralysis drugs so the machine cld help her breath better.. they let the drug wear off.. but she had regressed so much that she never started breathing on her own.. as soon as the machine slowed down she went on peacefully.

This is the hard part now.. the reality of what's gone from my life. My best friend and the only person in this world who knew me better than myself. It hurts to know she will never physically be with me in the next steps of my life, although I will forever hear her voice and feel her love. It hurts more to see the people who she touched, from those who've pratically known her all her life to those she had brief encounters with. It hurts the most to see my father lose his soul mate and for the first time look lost. But I thank the Lord for all the love he has surrounded us with, for the family and friends who share our burden and most of her for the time we had with my mother. It is her love that will keep us safe and heal our wounds in time and make us better and strong enough to continue our lives without her physical presence.

Mom, I know you can hear me and know that I love you more than anything in the world and that I will never stop loving you and that my world has forever changed from your presence and your absence. I will miss you always and love you always.

i need your help

It's October and you can definitely feel it up here in Nor Cal. And my life in the last two weeks have been flipped upside down tremendously.. it went from having to give up a job to giving up my place in So Cal and moving back up here to my mom going to the hospital and then suddenly in the last three days - to her being in the hospital under heavy sedation and on machines helping her breath. I'm so scared we're going to lose her soon and the doctors aren't sure how long she's got left and she's not even conscious because she'll fight the tubes in her throat helping her breath if she's awake. They transfered her through helicopter to Stanford hospital yesterday and I pray the specialists there will be able to help her.

If any blog readers of mine know my mom, she's a really wonderful and caring person who's given so much to her family and more if that's possible. She is our reason for living and so selflessly gave everything to us and took less for herself. If you believe in a higher being send up prayers for her please, chants if your buddhist, and positive thoughts if nothing else.

Thanks.

ps. don't send flowers coz she can't be anywhere near them. cards are okay and if you wanna reach me, leave a message on the 'spill it' link.

stupid, smart people

So i've been applying to AmeriCorps Vista jobs lately and been getting numerous interview offers quickly. But of course, if you know what AmeriCorps is you'd kno they don't pay much and that it's basically like the national/state version of PeaceCorps. Which is cool with me, coz that's ultimately what I want to do. But my dad says it's perfect for people like me.. the smart, dumb people who will do a lot of work for basically no money. But it's okay, coz it's helping me realise what my focus is turning towards:

Community outreach, public service, national service, helping the people, doing programs, outreach, development, etc.

It's nice to have a direction in my life and feel that familiar feeling of confidence course through my veins in knowing that I'm going towards a goal that will fulfill my psychological and emotional needs.. however money as usual is always an issue. But I think after doing this AmeriCorps job (if I get one of them) it will definately open up doors to new places.

And hopefully give me ideas about what I want a masters in.. hehe.

Can't wait, sooo excited.. hope I get the one I want. *sigh*
Hope my mommy starts to get better too. :( ... ouch..
I hate it when my heart hurts like this.

sorrow halved

they say happiness shared is happiness doubled and that sorrow shared is sorrow halved.. well i need to be majorly halving my sorrow. because my mom is sick, and i'm scared.. the worst case scenario is that we lose her. how do you deal with preparing for the worst? my dad wants us to talk this out, i don't want to talk it out, at least not with him or my brother for some reason. this has definitely put things in perspective for me. it's funny how we can go along with our lives and when something this drastic happens this quickly.. you find out what really matters to you will over power even the things your heart once desired.

i want to scream and kick and fight and cry and lose myself into something like stress or work or anything where i don't have to face this ache and uncertainty. i want someone to pick a physical fight with me because i want to blame someone and hit them and beat them into a pulp until all this frustration is gone.. and yet if i do i'd still feel guilty because i know they are not the reason for my anger and frustration. i want to cry, but i have to be strong for her and my family. i know they're there for me.. but i just don't want to talk to them about it.

it was a sudden onset and my mother's lungs seem to not be functioning well and her body is basically attacking itself. and there's nothing i can do, but be there to support her.
i look at her and i love her more than anything and if she was gone.. my very heart would break forever and there is nothing that could heal that heart ache. i'm trying to stay positive and hope that she recovers quickly.. but recovery seems slow.. if not uncertain as well. she seemed to be doing so well and she was scheduled to come home today.. on her birthday but i walked into the hospital room this morning and i knew that was not going to happen today.

so we wait and be there for her and hope that the chemo will start working and that she'll recover and be herself again. it's just hard knowing that this strong woman now hardly has the strength to even walk around her room without losing her breath. yet admist all this.. i selfishly want my life back, i want to be back in southern california doing my thing.. but i can't be. i'm angry, not at her or my family, but at the situation and as life likes to prove itself over and over again.. it's not fair.

all i have is hope.. and hope is so little in the face of such great hardship and it's hard to keep my mind on that goal. but i will carry that in my heart and pray that she gets better soon. i have to be strong for her..

yet..

je suis fatigué d'être fort


.. if i could ask that if you're spiritual in any way to send out a message and a thought for her. thank you..

soon to be...

over: the internship, thank goodness! It's been a great experience I've learned a lot and it's the first internship I've walked away from really thinking it's helped me look forward to the future and possibly a career path of some sort. Not to mention I've met some really great peopl in my fellow interns and the intern coord/ admin asst.

23: it's august, I'm turning 23 in 14 days!! Scary... I still look like I'm 16. *sigh* I wish people would treat me as if I were older, I'd think I'd start acting older.

fall: it's been soo hot lately, haven't gotten to see the OC beaches yet :(

home: yay get to see mommy, daddy, and jon. i miss them. i love them.

ha ha
I was cleaning out e-mails and came across this link my friend sent me.

http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2003/03/26/1048354635257.html

Click the Ladder Theory

the right guys

So my friend was telling me this story about how she was eating lunch with some co-workers and one of them a white male told her he has never dated any non-Asian girls (Asian fetish perhaps?). Anyway, he's married now to a vietnamese wife and has kids and all that. And he says to my friend: man this language barrier thing's really getting annoying! i mean it was cute at first but we have so many miscommunications. Now what the heck is that?! I don't get it. I tell my friend this and she throws this back at me, well you like white guys who like asian girls. Okay.. so maybe at one time I was highly attracted to white men.. can you blame me? Look at what society teaches us, prince charming is never asian and that knight in shining armour - white. Sure there's the tall, dark and handsome.. but are they ever black or hispanic or asian? No.. they're white.

Anyways, I thought about my past experiences with men. I have only once in my life dated a white guy (okay this isn't saying much, coz I haven't exactly dated man men at all).. but basically I'm saying I've only dated one guy who's had an 'asian fetish'. Don't think he's got one anymore, but I'm not about to really check in on him with that one. Anyways, I then started thinking about the guys I'm attracted to nowadays. There have been the Asian ones, the Caucasian ones, the Hispanic ones and I've seen some beautiful African American or actually African Brits.. (haven't exactly been attracted to them, coz I've only seen these guys from afar, never really made friends with them). So you might be wondering how I get attracted to these guys? It's not just looks, although that plays a small part at first, but then the one thing that makes or breaks something like this - the personality. If it sucks.. forget it, they just getting fuglier and fuglier. But.. if they are really genuinely cool people then damn.. and when they're sincere and do things out of their way, or notice something you need and goes and does it for you.. damn imma about to give you my heart right now! haha.. but the one killer.. is when they do it for everybody and I just melt into a puddle, coz how many people (girls and guys) do you know are just really good people like that? I've met a lot of those people in my life and I think I got lucky.. too bad all those men that I did eventually 'fall' for just didn't feel the same. But at least I know I'm not picking them wrong, how I be? :) One of these days I'm going to find one that's like that and likes me back! As for right now, I'm glad to say I'm still really good friends w/ all those guys, even if some of them don't know that I've ever liked them.

Still looking..

http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/