Reading through my late night Notes that I have abandoned, I see a pattern.
I keep looking for a place to fit in, even creating space for myself and invite others in, and yet I still don’t feel like I belong.
Always on the outside looking in even when I built the house myself.
Self sabotaging? Maybe. I always feel like I’m never enough. Not good enough for that house I built. Not obsessed about the house enough. Not cool enough to build that house in the first place.
And at the same time, I feel like the house is too obnoxious, too enthusiastic, too weird. That I’m too obnoxious, too enthusiastic, too weird.
Anxiety could be lying. But how consistent can it lie? You have to question that when every.few months you see the similar late night notes again. The notes you dumped out of your brain but never posted.
Perhaps it is something I need to work on with a therapist. Maybe it’s how my brain is wired. Maybe it’s both.
Maybe I have always belonged somewhere. The house I built was exactly what it was supposed to be. A place where other weirdos can feel like they belong. The place I was always meant to build.
And just like that, 2026 is a third of the way gone and I’m going to be 50 in November. While others are starting their podcasts or doing more Instagram content, I’m thinking about blogging again. Not that because I have anything important to say. I mean, God knows, I haven’t done that since I started this joint 20 years ago. But I feel like writing is probably one of the easiest “hobby” I have. No equipment needed. Doesn’t require a lot of time. I can write anywhere and on anything.
I could go on and write about my year in review, but instead, I will channel a friend and her series of “Shit I’ve Learned Recently,” and share this year’s lessons.
Life is better with cats. It has been years in the making! Brandon has grown up with cats and we wanted them for the longest time, but we weren’t able to have them because of the apartments we were in. We finally adopted the mother and daughter pair Bast and Isis in September 2021. As a first-time pet owner, it has been a lot of learning and adjustments for me in so many ways. But I have found there is no better joy than having all these warm little bodies piling up on you. Especially when your anxiety kicks in at night. They ARE the weighted blanket!
Cats can have asthma. Almost a year later after we got them, Isis was diagnosed with asthma. It had been quite an adventure for us, and a huge learning curve for me from pet care to emotional involvement. But she is worth it!
Smoking meat is both a science and an art. Earlier this year I wanted a grill, just a little one for the two of us. Then I got lost in the research and ended up learning a ton about a smoker/grill. Despite fully intending to get a small propane grill, I came home with a Pit Boss Pro. So I read a lot of blog posts and watched a ton of YouTube, and still had a lot to learn. (My StrengthFinder’s strenght is Input, clearly.)
The battles you do not see. I know people say that a lot but I got to experience a few people who have revealed their struggles to me and it was a complete surprise. And it also explained a lot. Like, a LOT. Witnessing a queer friend breaking down after hearing about the nightclub shooting in Colorado was a big one. Just because she looks like straight cis white woman to you, you’d think she has nothing to be upset about. I will write in details about that experience later on. But my point is that, I am trying to be more understanding of people and giving them grace as much as I can. (But sometimes I also have to say, fuck it, you’re an asshole. And that’s okay too!)
Adult friendships are hard. Duh. We all know this. I know this. (And I’m typing this just as I’m watching Frodo and Sam head into Mordor at the beginning of The Return of the King.) This year has been a particularly interesting journey as I lost some friends, made new ones, and learned to nurture those I already hold dear. I hope to do a better job this year.
But some people are meant to be in your life exactly when you need them. I was talking to Marcie about how we are now connected after years of “knowing” each other. That reconnection got us together with Anita to start The Asian Aunties, and we have all become great friends now even though we were traveling in the same circles for nearly 10 years.
These two lessons here are particularly hard for me, having grown up from K-11 with the same friends at Mater Dei School in Bangkok. Those friends are still friends now, 40 years later. For me, I believe friendship is a lifetime commitment. Adult friendship is different and finding someone you still talk to after 10 years is already considered a miracle. I am still learning that my Mater Dei friends are an anomaly and that I can’t expect a lifelong bond like that in adult friendship. But I can certainly try to make it work the best way I can.
Leadership may seem to come to me naturally, but it is also hard. Very hard. The bossy little girl has finally grown into her official power! Leadership is more than just organizing people and telling them what to do. I am learning a lot over most of this year since I became a manager of people. “People is your project now,” is what I was told and that is quite an adjustment for a doer like me. I’m continuing to adjust to that part of leadership, letting things go and delegating. It is a process I’m still going through right now and I don’t know if I would ever stop learning.
Differentiate when I’m “running away” from “self care.” Me emotionally running away is not new. I’m aware of it and it’s always been something that I’m trying to do better at. But I had been under a lot of stress most of this year, all with the promotion and life. My excuse has been that I’m too tired or too anxious so I would settle for mindless escape with binge-watching, doom scrolling, and getting lost in video games. Sure, those things also bring me joy, but I am a lot more fulfilled afterward when I *make* things like music, food, and yes, a blog post.
Do what you love even if you’re doing it alone. Almost 15 years ago, I took myself out to the beach to learn Thriller dance and started an adventure for the next 2 years. Having someone to go do something with you is better than going alone, sure. But sometimes you’d be missing out on things if you don’t just take yourself. I have been “running away” for so long, I really must try to run toward things I want to do instead, even if it’s by myself.
It seems like every year I say the same thing. Read more. Cook more. Make more art. Be a better friend. I can always do better than the last year.
TLDR: I burst into tears during “America” number in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and it took me 30 minutes to write this and process what the hell just happened.
…
So, I’m watching Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and we get to “America.” Somewhere as they were dancing in the streets, tears well up in my eyes. Just as my mouth moves to ask myself, “What the hell?” The memories flood my brain.West Side Story is one of my mom’s favorite musicals. You could sometimes catch her humming “Maria” or “Tonight” out of the blue.
Around 14 or 15, I took singing classes and the showcase theme was Broadway. All the individual voice students would come together to perform “America.” My mom was so thrilled! I was kind of excited too but I wasn’t into the lessons at that time.
You see, I thought I would go in and sing and sing and sing, but instead, half the class was warm-ups and the other was diaphragm exercises–as in she had me sing while holding a pilates V position! (Apparently, according to her, that helps strengthen my diaphragm and therefore better breath control. /shrug/) And then maybe, just maybe, I might get to sing a song standing up at the end of class.
I was supposed to hold the V pose every day while I practice at home! You already know me and how I feel about working out and you know that wasn’t going to happen.
So I studied the music and ran the warm-ups, but didn’t really do the workout. I learned every line and every note of “America.” But alas, I still couldn’t hold the V pose while singing anything and the instructor didn’t like that. She eventually dropped me from the showcase a few weeks before the show because apparently I didn’t take her instructions seriously and therefore I wasn’t serious about being a vocalist and so she didn’t want to spend any more energy on me.
I took whatever lessons I had learned from that class and I never went back to that music school again.
Looking back on it over the years, I felt like I let my mom down but she actually was more disappointed we didn’t get the refund for the rest of the month of lessons. She was just happy that she could share her love for WWS with me.
Life can be bright in America If you can fight in America Life is all right in America If you’re all white in America
That was the line that triggered my flood of emotions. Those lyrics I’ve sung a hundred times before and I watched original WWS many times since my mom passed. Why is it that I’m crying at this line right now? It hasn’t been a good few years to be Asians in America, to be honest. I didn’t think I was affected by it other than feeling angry, but apparently, my subconscious has been keeping a tab.
And this moment in WWS was when the bills come due.
Grief for my mom, my childhood, and simpler time pre-pandemic. All of that emotional baggage came tumbling out through my tears like the dancers spilling into the streets of Manhattan.
And I also now realized why, on an instinctive level, I didn’t like pilates when I tried it the first time.
Recently, Brandon and I have become breakthrough COVID-19 cases. For him, it was an unvaccinated colleague who brushed off his symptoms as allergies when they went to lunch. (He thought dude’s already vaccinated except that he wasn’t.) Inevitably, as careful as I was taking care of Brandon when he became symptomatic, a week later I also became symptomatic.
At the beginning of his symptoms, I stayed away and checked in on him when he was awake. I would pop in if I hear him moving around upstairs as I isolated myself to the guest room on the second floor. I’d take his temperature and check his oxygen level, and ask after what medications he was taking and when. I was letting him take care of himself somewhat during those days.
But then Day 4, I didn’t hear him move around in the morning and came up to check. He was running 103F temperature.
At this point, “Nurse Ratched” took over me.
There was no panic. No anxiety. Just calm.
I moved through the house, fetching electrolytes and ice packs, and getting him broth, and all the things so efficiently, in almost a dream-like state. My voice was very serious. I talked to him with an eerily calm voice that surprised even myself, almost patronizing in my tone, my demeanor cold, detached.
Put this ice pack on your head and this one on your chest.
You need to wake up so I can take your temperature and you can take your meds.
You need to finish this water.
I told him I love him and kissed him on the back of his head and left. When I closed the door and let him go back to sleep, that is when I felt the Nurse leaving me.
I went back downstairs, a bit shaken as to what just happened. Like I just activated a secret mode I didn’t know I had.
Then I realized it wasn’t the first time I’d done this. The Nurse has come out before.
Since I was in 4th grade learning basic first aid as we started our Red Cross Youth training.
You see, I used to have a blood geyser for a nose. Blood didn’t bother me, my own or otherwise. When a friend fell down, I was right there with my handkerchief to bandaid her up. When someone else had a nosebleed, I knew exactly what to do.
In an emergency or life-threatening situation when someone else is in distress, I am the calm one.
And that FIGHT mode came out even stronger when I have to tend to someone I love.
I was like this when Brandon got strep throat on our first romantic getaway, and during all subsequently major health moments–broke his wrist, tore his calf, and went through other minor surgeries over the years.
Hell, I actually remembered tears in my mom’s eyes when I was the “mean nurse” after her first chemo. I was stern, firm, would not let her refuse or whine her way out of anything.
I demanded that she drink water that she said smells like chlorine. (It’s boiled, filtered water. That was all of our drinking water at the house was at the time.) The housekeeper was out buying different brands of bottled water, hoping that she might find out she could drink. But meanwhile, she must drink something.
I remembered she cried because she didn’t want to, but she eventually did. I stepped outside and cried alone in the kitchen. I was the bad guy in that situation but I had to because I didn’t want my mom to get worse.
Now that I know myself more, thanks to therapy, I understand why that would be.
Anxiety usually takes over the little things, and my emotions are superglued to my sleeves, more or less. But when the going gets really tough, as in lives are in danger, all of that went somewhere else, and out came this calm-under-pressure, rational, methodical, stoic person.
I guess that’s the way my subconscious helps me put a sense of control into a situation I have no control over. Putting order into the chaos by stuffing my emotions and anxiety away.
Because the truth is I’m scared shitless for my loved ones during these situations. The only way for me to pull through is to put on the armor and go to work.
I was especially tough with my mom because I was scared. I was scared she would be super sick after the chemo. I was upset to see her so scared. I had never seen my mom like that ever in my life.
I didn’t want to feed into her anxiety. Babying her felt like I would be hinting that she was weak and fragile, and I didn’t want that for her. That obviously backfired. She *was* scared and she wanted us to *comfort* her. My militant, stoic coping mechanism was not what she wanted or needed.
But it was the only way I knew how to be when my heart was breaking inside my chest and I was never more scared in my life.
That was how I felt when Brandon’s fever hit 103F.
Now that we both are feeling well again, I talked to him about it. Even in his feverish state, he noticed the shift the moment I read the thermometer. He told me he’d noticed from the very first strep throat incident and every major illness since. He understood why I did what I did before I knew it for myself.
It’s fight or flight in a life-and-death situation, and my fight mode happens to be a stone-cold bitch.
But of course, the moment I’m “off duty,” I started to go down the anxiety spiral as per usual and had to pull myself out of it again. But that signals that the crisis is over.
I’m sure there is the right in-between mode. But it’ll take some time for me to get there.
It has taken me all of 312 days to process everything I have been feeling.
You know that meme question that’s been floating around social media, “What have you learned about yourself since the beginning of quarantine?” That and other things that had happened recently got me taking stock of my feelings and perception of the world.
So, I started writing, and words just came pouring out of me. Apparently, my subconscious has been giving it a LOT more thought.
Functional Introvert
After the first month or so, the meme was going around to check on your extroverts. And my friends were checking on me. They were surprised to find that I was doing just fine.
As a matter of fact, I was doing really well.
For work, I think I’ve done my best work being at home. I can keep better focus without people coming around to distract me. I’m super comfortable in my pajamas, not having to fidget in my business casual attire, and in a comfortable temperature instead of the usual office blizzard.
Socially, I would be lying if I say I don’t miss the hugs. But being one who’d rather stay home than go out most of the time whose best buddies are spread out across the country and the world, not seeing people doesn’t bother me as much.
That distinguish me from true extroverts who are all suffering at home, away from their people.
The last time I saw a whole lot of friends was the St. Patrick’s Day party I threw the Saturday before the actual date. I mean, weeknight St. Paddy’s is not the same in your 20s than in your 40s, am I right? By that time, the stay-at-home order was out so it was a “come at your own risk” thing. At that time, many made the decision to come by as if we all knew the actual lockdown was coming.
The world turned upside down for everyone came that Monday. I was glad we did break the rule that weekend.
Apocalypse Anxiety
My mom always worried about something. She was worried about us, or scared about something or to do something. She was horrified by dentists and hated hospitals. We said she was a scaredy-cat and a worrywart, but now that I know what anxiety disorder is like, my mom had suffered it all her life and nobody knew.
It seemed I had inherited some of her anxiety issues of which I only became aware a few years ago when I had my first anxiety attack.
I have since learned to work with and through my anxiety and I think I have managed quite well. But that’s the anxiety I know–either from work or from my personal life. But I was not ready to deal with apocalypse anxiety.
I remember going into the grocery store at the beginning of the lockdown to see if I could get extra canned goods. I mean, our pantry and refrigerator thankfully were just stocked because of the St. Paddy’s party, but I want to add something shelf-stable, just in case. I found the shelves stripped bare and refrigerated cases emptied. It was a disturbing sight for sure but I didn’t think too much of it.
About a week later, Brandon mentioned something about stopping at the store, and I broke into tears.
The anxiety about the state of the world made itself known that day.
This apocalypse anxiety monster is different than the ones I’ve dealt with before. I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night with my pulse racing, but I was/am lowkey worried all the time. The monster often keeps my brain looping on all sorts of things late into the night. So, I try to fill my head–and my hands–with projects.
I have hosted a weekly drunken talent show on Instagram. I have recapped two Thai novels for my friends on Facebook. I have sewn and donated masks. I have themed out our electrical panels in the garage as Ghostbusters. I have painted D&D miniatures. I have participated in a daily sketch challenge. I have worked in the garden. I have baked. I have cooked. I have started running again and picked up new workouts. I have organized and decluttered, at least three times.
All the busy work seems to keep the monster at bay at least on the surface. My subconscious is still feeding it just by the fact that Brandon’s at risk of getting COVID every day he goes to work with the first responders.
Now, at Month 10, the monster mutated into depression. My brain just wants to escape without my body. So, I retreated into television shows and movies. This past month, I abandoned all of my handy projects and just about all physical activities and retreated to the couch. I binge-watched and re-watched all kinds of things. I tried to shake this monster and made myself do all the creative stuff again, just to end up staring at my sewing machine for 30 minutes or sitting on the stairs with my running shoes on.
Silly enough, writing this out right now helps me deal with the monster. Being in the moment with my fingers on the keyboard typing up my thoughts, feeling all the feelings, and seeing my thoughts on the page gives it actual visibility.
The first step is always realizing that you have a problem. And I see you, apocalypse anxiety monster!
Grief Gets Smaller…and Bigger
We jokingly called Summer 2007 “Summer of Death” as I lost my mom right before our friend Justin lost his. Many friends back in Thailand also lost their parents around the same time.
In that same spirit, 2020 was “Winter of Death” for my American friends. Starting in the fall all the way through now, at least 5 friends I can remember have lost their parents.
Their losses dredge up my own.
That’s really easy to do since that grief was already buoyed by my not being able to go home to see my family this past Christmas. Suddenly 13 years felt like it was just yesterday. If it’s this hard for me, I cannot even imagine how my middle brother feels, he with the grandchild my mom didn’t get to meet.
The other day my brother sent a video of the baby toddling around the living room talking on the phone, just like how my mom used to do. My mom was a pacer. She walked when she was on the phone. She used to just pace by the phone in the olden days, but once we got the cordless phone, she would traverse the whole house while talking with her friends for hours. She often said that was her workout. She was not wrong.
In addition to my mom’s anxiety, I also inherited her pacing. Working from home now, if I don’t have to look at the computer, I would pace around the living room and sometimes up/down the stairs while on a call. I always thought of how my mom used to do it.
But my grief extends beyond that of the loss of my mother. Someone said this before at the beginning of the pandemic that we are all grieving the loss of our “normal life”. I guess that might have been a part of the apocalypse anxiety monster too, and I didn’t quite get around to process it. I also didn’t get to process a lost friendship that happened earlier last year just as the world was going to hell.
And in there somewhere is also the grief of not seeing my best friend Tamara at all this year when she usually comes down from Portland in the spring and I would go up to see her in the fall.
How did I end up processing this fresh wave of grief? It’s started by me bursting into tears when James Taylor’s “Carolina in my mind” came on a few weeks ago.
A song came on my random playlist that has no significance to any of the things I’m grieving for, and I was crying. And then I couldn’t stop. I was just in the shower feeling just fine and then I was crying. A tear-jerking moment of a TV show or a movie I was watching that I usually wouldn’t cry for, and I was crying.
Cathartic, absolutely. And clearly, I didn’t know I needed it, and thusly, it kicked start this post.
Processing It All With Gratitude
When I was done crying, I realized I have just been taking the edges off this whole pandemic emotions, but never quite dealt with it fully. I have been dealing with it incrementally though through all the busy work and whatever little exercise I made myself do.
I have to say one of the little things that helped the most was practicing gratitude. I know people say this to a point of cliche but it really does help to say out loud or write down what you’re grateful for. It helps me focus, remember what is important, and realize how fortunate I am.
When my anxiety was really bad, I would write down 5 things I am grateful for before I went to bed. Some nights if I was startled awake, I’d run that list through my head and gently tap myself over my heart/collarbone, the EFT tapping point that works best for me. (I didn’t even know it but I had been tapping my collarbone when I’m nervous even before I learned about EFT!)
One item of gratitude for that moment. One night of good sleep. One step out of bed. One day at a time.
And here we are. After 10 months of slowly processing my feelings, dealing with anxiety, working through depression, all the trials and errors of finding the best ways to care for myself, it all comes down to the key thing that got me through it all.
Gratitude.
For all the big things like our jobs, our health, and our families–blood and chosen. And for all the small things like the super-soft $10 blanket from Target that makes me just giddy when I get in bed every night, the racket made by the birds that have taken residence under our solar panels, and how Brandon would giggle at his own joke sometimes he couldn’t breathe.
So, thank you for being here. I am grateful that you stop by.
She was just happy that she could share her love for WWS with me. 
