“Patience is the master key to every situation. One must have sympathy for everything, surrender to everything, but at the same time remain patient and forbearing… There is no such thing as bending or breaking. It’s a question only of overcoming, which begins with overcoming oneself. That cannot be avoided. To abandon that path is always to break in pieces. One must patiently accept everything and let it grow within oneself. The barriers of the fear-ridden I can only be broken by love. One must, in the dead leaves that rustle around one, already see the young fresh green of spring, compose oneself in patience, and wait. Patience is the only true foundation on which to make one’s dreams come true.”
“Hehe” is probably the worse thing to look at when you’re depressed. Friends have been trying to offer me consolation… but sometimes the things they end up saying make me feel worse off. Like “hehe”.
I feel like I have no one to talk to. I think about reaching out and then I can’t help but stop myself because I don’t want to burden anyone or anyone more than I already have. I know that’s on me. But even for the times I’ve been selfish, throwing all this on another, I feel like they can’t really offer the solace I need. So why bother? I’m better off grabbing the stranger next to me, sob into their shoulder, and walk away without speaking or seeing them again. If I hired a therapist, I wonder if they’d let me do that.
If there’s any one thing I could do right now, I’d stop thinking about others. The inability to do that is so frustrating that it makes me cry. I just really want to focus on my feelings and focus on myself.
He gave me everything.
You gave me everything
And then you took it all away.
I have this overwhelming conflict in me. One side of me wants to scramble, carry out every desperate attempt so I can hear your voice, see your face, or simply see your reply again. Another side of me wants me to let you go, let you find happiness, release you from this unfair emotional vice I’ve had on you.
It’s painful, but I think deep down, we both knew that we needed this.
do no wrong
My father can never admit that he is wrong nor can he apologize. And I can’t help but hate him.
—
We had an argument this morning. I had got up early to pack for work and he was going to give me a ride.
Him: “We need to go!”
Me: “You said we were leaving at 7. (It was 6:30)”
Him: “I am going to be late!”
Me: “Then why did you tell me 7? You should have told me 6:30.”
Him: “NO! YOU HAVE TO THINK OF ME.”
I’ve learned that such an argument was not one that I could win. His mode of thinking seems to be stuck somewhere in a place of primitive selfishness. I just grabbed what I could and got in the back of the car. As he drove, we sat in silence. I was extremely conflicted. I always avoided arguing if I could but I knew that in being rushed out, I had left some essential things at home so I was stewing in anger. I couldn’t sit quietly in the back of the car like that. To be silent was to concede. To concede was to allow him to think that he could do this to me again.
Me: “Next time you want me to leave at 6:30, you say 6:30. Not 7.”
Him: “I said before 7.”
Me: “No, you said 7. I asked you if we would be arriving at 7 or leaving at 7. You said leaving.”
He paused too long before responding. He had given away that he knew he was wrong. We had discussed this less than seven hours ago. But like always, he started to divert the blame. He told me that I should have woken up earlier to pack and that I should have told him much earlier in the week that I needed a ride. It was my fault. I suffer at my own hands.
I just told him as I had always seen it.
Me: “You’re never wrong. It’s always my fault. You can’t admit you’re wrong.”
His response was that I was disrespecting him. It was his default every time I pointed out this critical flaw. He started to list to me all my supposed failings, anything to move the focus off his own. I don’t know how to appreciate my father. I don’t speak to him nicely. That I don’t deserve to be driven at all. I didn’t acknowledge any of these claims. I just let him know one more time before I shut up for the rest of the ride:
“You can never admit you’re wrong.”
For my parents, having children was a pragmatic decision. Who is going to take care of you when you’re old and crippled? How will you reap the pride from achievements of kin unborn? Forget about anything else. Whether or not they were conscious of their approach, that’s how they treated us and we took the toll.
I was socially inept and unaware of myself for a long period of my life. I completely understand why I was bullied and why I didn’t have friends until my early twenties. It took me a long time to learn simple things like understanding social cues, how to speak to people and how to carry myself. I blame it on the way in which I was brought up and ultimately on my parents. I’m sure that a lot of people can relate with this: all the interactions that my parents had with me were all for maintenance. Eat this. Stop that. Why aren’t you the best in class? They didn’t speak to me outside of teaching me, berating me, and telling me what to do. In other words, we didn’t have conversations. My parents had no interest in knowing who I was as a person. They didn’t know what my interests were or what my days were like and I grew up thinking it was normal, not ever talking to people about those kind of things. My siblings, even. I spent a lot of my childhood around my brother. We had to share a lot of things together like the TV, the Playstation, the bunk. But we never discussed anything because, like conversing with our parents, that very notion was unknown to us, or just me at least.
To this day, I have never had a conversation with my dad. But to be honest, I don’t have any interest in having one. His vacant and listless life requires no discussion but what more is that I do not like him as a father or as a person. We are persistently reminded by proverbs like “blood is thicker than water”, that family relationships are more important than friendships and that familial love is unconditional love. But why? And is this right?
E.R. Wednesday
Deleted the last post. Let’s start all over.
These past few weeks, I’ve been having occasional sore throats on-off, on-off. Maybe three weeks? I didn’t think much of it. I thought maybe I had been drinking too much or maybe I wasn’t getting enough rest, etc. I put in some effort to cut out alcohol on a few nights and put in some extra hours of sleep on others but besides that, I didn’t pay much mind to it. It did seem to resolve itself at times but during my stay in Boston, I suddenly got these bouts of extreme pain in my left tonsil. Painful enough to keep me up at night and to make eating very unpleasant. And things got worse. Since last night, I’ve had trouble breathing, especially when I’m lying down and this morning it hurt so much I couldn’t even drink water. I took a look in the mirror with a light. My tonsils and my uvula were so swollen and enlarged that they were covering the opening to my throat. My uvula was so elongated that I could catch it on my tongue and I was basically choking on it while gargling water. I concluded to myself that I have viral tonsillitis and that I had to see a doctor ASAP.
So I came home this morning. I intended to stay in Boston much longer but I’m happy I’m here. I have to pay off bills and I desperately needed to see a doctor. When I landed, I went straight to the clinic. The doctor took a look into my mouth and told me that what I had was an “emergency situation”.
She knew I was having trouble breathing already and told me that what I had was a life-threatening abscess growing at the back of my throat as it could potentially block my airway and suffocate me. She told me to go to the emergency room right away.
Honey, you hear how you have a hot potato voice? That’s really bad.
I couldn’t help but smile really big when she said that. Jak gan tang girl.
So here I am. I’m at the hospital right now. I have a peritonsillar abscess. They’re either going to have to drain it or cut the whole thing out. I’m still waiting to see what exactly is going down. Three hours in so far. Life is a long wait. I don’t want to spend the night here but it’s likely that’s the case. I’m alright though. I’m very happy to have people to watch out for me and take care of me. Was surprised to get a visit too. Thanks J, J and J. The upside to all of this is that there’s a chance I’ll stop snoring if they remove my tonsils. And maybe being on a recovery soup diet will help be lose some extra pounds.
Give a man a knife and he’ll…
Being sharp is polishing a knife
Being clever is sharpening a knife.
Being wise is knowing when to use the knife.
— M.M.
no pants, no phone.
I woke up with no pants and no phone.
I did a bit of drinking last night but not more than I usually drink. I’m a little freaked out because I don’t remember anything after a certain point. This is the second time that my memory is completely shot from a night of drinking.
I’ve maybe seen you half blackout drunk maybe once in the 5 years I’ve known you, Liz.
The first time was in New York, this January. I was sharing a bottle of wine with a friend but since he had a cocktail, I didn’t realize that I was virtually drinking the bottle to myself. He was pouring, I was sipping. Top that off with two amari (plural of amaro; just learned that) and gin straight up… and I was already well past my limit. When I blacked out, I was at an event called Sleep No More. It was a theatrical performance based on Macbeth that took place at the six-floor McKittrick Hotel. People act throughout the whole place, simultaneously, and you can watch it from wherever you decide to go. People do different things in different rooms and different floors so every performance is a dissimilar experience for every person. Just imagine a Shakespearean haunted house minus the haunted part. You’d walk into one room and people would be fighting each other, and, in another, a lady’s washing blood off her hands. That sort of thing. And we all had to wear masks. They were meant to enhance the performance, stripping identity from the guests to direct focus on the actors. It was a beautiful place to be in and I wasted the experience by getting drunk.
I think it was less than hour before I went down. But before that point, I was mean. I think the anonymity the mask gave struck up some impish impulses. I was toying with people. I got face-to-face with them, laughing at them, circling them. It hurts me to think that I was interfering with people’s enjoyment of the show but at the time, I very consciously did that. I got brave… and dumb. I also stole a mask. I really wanted one as a memento so I shoved it in my waistband. One mask on my head and another on my butt. But the masks were already meant for guests to take home at the end of the night… What a steal. When I passed out, I was in pretty close proximity to a couple of actors, doing their thing, so my friend told me that people thought I might have been part of the show. I eventually got kicked out and carried out by security guards. Guards, plural. Apparently I was really heavy.
I was with a couple of friends and I feel extremely guilty and I owe them both. Got separated from one of them and the other had to take care of me the entire night. He said I was saying a bunch of stuff but I couldn’t imagine myself saying those sort of things. Things like demanding for him to take care of me. Christ. I was a mess and I lost the scarf J got me…
Last night I did things I don’t remember. I woke up without my pants. They weren’t even in the same room. I had panties on and I was wearing everything else. I know this is a pretty disconcerting situation but I can’t help but think thank god I wasn’t on my period. I was due to have it sometime these few days. Anyways, I was at an Airbnb that my friends were staying at. I didn’t wake up next to any one. I interrogated my friends. I was trying to understand what had happened. Four out of five people had already went to sleep before I knocked out. The remaining friend carried me to the sofa. I asked him about my pants and he had no clue about them. Did I take them off? And apparently I had gotten up in the middle of the night and jumped into the bed with two boys to sleep. And I must have done so without pants. I don’t remember taking off my pants. I don’t even remember moving to the bed.
….Are you sure they’re not roofieing you?
Someone that I just met did pour me a drink. Apple flavoured Ciroc. It was disgustingly sweet even with a ton of ice but he was carping about the bottle being $40 so I drank it to be polite.
I hate that we live in a world where we would have to worry about this. But… Just take care…
I’m pretty confident that nothing crazy happened and my friends assured me so but it’s a little frightening not to remember what happened just a few hours ago. I think the mostly likely scenario was that I was feeling really uncomfortable so I pulled them off and then move to the bed to sleep(?).
I felt very lost without my pants and my phone. I found my pants pretty quickly; they were somewhere by the sofa. But my friend had thought I had left so he took my phone with him. Also, I had a show to run at 10 so I couldn’t even go home to shower and fix myself up.
Just look after yourself, ok?
I promise to be more careful. Not just for myself. The people I love don’t need unnecessary worry. I still don’t really know what happened though. I’ve been drinking for a long time now. I know my limits very well… or at least I thought I did… so I don’t know how I’m slipping up like this. I’m losing my grip on things a little. What’s wrong with me? I’m better than this.
self project(ion)
Do you think I lack empathy?
“I think you have a tendency to seem disinterested or cold. Which could be interpreted as lack of empathy. But no, I don’t think you lack empathy. Not more than the average person.”
“…I’d say yeah a little bit. I think you have different priorities then the norm that makes you that way… I think you’re a little more selfish due to the fact that you’re always trying to get ahead of the game and improve yourself so you just have a different way of thinking.”
“Hm well i dunno if you lack it or you simply choose not to show it. But sometimes i wish you did? Lol … I think you’ve grown negativily in certain aspects over these past few years.”
“Your family exhibited no examples of empathetic concern. Your template is flawed. It’s awfully hard to re-learn how to approach the world when you’re an adult – once those coping mechanisms have ossified and you’ve managed to find survival strategies that mostly work.”
a proverb
“sheun do kiu tow jee yeen jic”