identity

back from louise's wedding in the south of france! it was actually so much fun, not at the same level as but similar type to palestine and taiwan trip vibes. if I'm feeling sad to be done with trip, can't imagine how louise feels.

• the other wedding guests, especially road trip guests, were so fantastic. everyone was so nice, friendly, down to chat. everyone was also down to pitch in and help. gosh.
• also everyone was down to play blood on the clocktower. everyone was FUN and involved. likely the destination wedding and group trip component selected for these traits (a homebody wouldn't even attend), but I also see it as a result of louise and khoa being self-proclaimed "picky" about their friendships. while I am less picky, this has inspired me to nurture my favorite friendships more.

 feeling a very bittersweet mix of emotions

last winter after my dad's GI issues and it being evident that his health is declining, I wondered if I could ever feel pure happiness again? like my happiness has peaked, and how can I be happy when there is something so permanently, profoundly sad in my life. specifically: how can one be happy after they lose a parent? won't every happy moment in the future be tinged?

I feel happy and sad today though.

sad because willa just sent an email to mommy and me, urging mommy to send a note to daddy's PCP. this time it's not a specific incident (that I'm aware of, but surely there was one that prompted this), but a reminder. it's impossible to deny that there is some illness, not just regular aging and slowdown. likely lewy body dementia. putting a name to it, reading through the symptoms, it feels real.

but also grateful to have an older sister to take charge on this. I know, older sisters carry unfair burden. but you know what, I'm going to let her, in this moment. she's eight years older than me, and she has the wisdom that being a mom has conferred. 

I'm also actually really touched by the way she wrote the email. it's the alternative to anger that I have always wanted. she said that she was wrong, that she had changed her perspective on certain things. for instance, she realized the importance of work to mommy.

and somehow, I feel a rush of confidence and optimism. like daddy and mommy will be okay, because they have willa and me. we will figure it out all together.

I also just came off of a fun weekend at louise's bachelorette. it's a marvel to have close friends, and to be ensconced in others' friendships, their bonds and chemistry built over years. I'm also thrilled to have helped plan and execute an event. I rented a car under my own name for the first time and drove my friends around.

work is in a sweet spot as well: post-launch, room to breathe, new teammates to keep me company in the NYC office.

this week I'll be hanging out with jill, NYC maxxing, going out finally (or at least to a sam karaoke session). next week I've made plans for figure drawing with a potential new friend. and just a few days after that, I'm off to switzerland and then france for louise's wedding.

hello~

writing whilst sick. it was mild; I woke up feeling really bad, but after a day of lazing in bed and on the couch, I feel much much better.

it's really such a luxury to get to recover this way!! having my own apartment, my own space. freedom to cough loudly, to walk around in pajamas, to leave the kitchen a mess.

some conclusions I came to today

ofc while sick, you don't dream of work...

I miss brian :'(

if I think of nyc as a sort of study abroad period rather than a new home, I feel like it's been incredibly fruitful so far. somehow the framing matters a lot.

watching claire & peter, I also want to quit and travel for a year !!! I guess I'm grateful for a partner who is brave enough to consider it (I think, I've never proposed it)

the air is turning warm again here in nyc, and with it my spirits lift. the smell of summer, of warm rain in the city streets, is so happy and nostalgic. it's a bit deceptive; was my first nyc summer even that great?

oh but it was — I arrived in the middle of june and sweated for a month in my west village and williamsburg apartments, where I had weak window AC units. no more, this year. I battled mosquitos and the walks to work or the subway were brutal. the office AC was heaven. and even though I was new in town, my weekends filled pleasantly with plans. the first week, I hung out with visiting friends: dani and aditya and aditya's friends. jennifer (and jayant) also came to nyc for a month shortly after, so we met up as well, and with ivy too. 

the winter has weighed on my mood a bit. I feel lonely at the office these days, without the luxury of getting invited for lunch daily. yes, atul still swings by sometimes to say hi and I've joined them at the table once on my own accord... I need to do it more. things started off so well last year, with the moma field trip and that one mahjong night. anyway, outside of work, I've also been craving deeper friendships, and my fyp knows that truth. still, objectively, my weekends do fill. in january and feburary, janet/yinran and I made plans to try different restaurants every weekend. I feel like I'm getting to know them better too, and it all culminated in a trip to oaxaca this past weekend. and when interpersonal relationships are not filling my cup, I turn to other things: soulcycle in a crowded room, runs in central park, a figure drawing class.

I think it may just take a little more patience. I signed up for one of those organized "meet new people" things this weekend, 222. it's a yoga class in UWS, which is prime activity and location for me. I haven't yet turned to bumble bff, and I'm torn about whether it would be a good avenue or if I should be annoyingly opinionated about organic friendships only. 

while I'm here, let me write out my wishlist of friendships to manifest them into being: I would love to find 

• a friend to go clubbing and to gov ball (or equivalent, since I will probs be out of town) with
• friends who are loud and fun, mainly because I have already found some who are restful and chill
• a friend who like to do DIY and low budget things
• a friend who I can have a heart to heart with, good conversations
• a friend to read research papers or books with
• a friend to go to sample sales with
• and finally, a medium to large sized friend group, with a group chat.

now that I live in an apartment where I don't have to share a kitchen (and bathroom) and curtail my time in it, how have my cooking (and grooming) habits changed?

now that I can spend my hours outside of work freely in my apartment (e.g, stay up late working, binge watch shows), how have they changed? 

without social obligations or anyone to judge me or hold me accountable for my social life, how has my social life changed?

with new freedoms, how do I choose to spend my time?

are there new factors that influence my life now?

with these changes, am I living a life more true to myself?

• hemmed and hawed until brian asked me what I thought of this trip
• I said the "vibes were off" in the beginning, though I did also bring up maman on sunday (end of the trip) as an example. him scrolling [reels] on his phone after he had finished eating. yes, he did put his phone down and engage when I started serving him softballs (what's a harder trip, A vs B)
• he asked for "actionables" and I said there were none. I think we do approach problems similarly — if there's no "ask" for the other person to change, there's no impetus to bring it up. but I do think back to the principle, one I do not follow, of bringing things up when they bother you, even if they're small. of course, there needs to be a threshold, which I am struggling to find.
• ultimately, I did not say this explicitly, but I said everything around it: even though there is nothing I want him to change, I want him to know that I felt unhappy. because if we break up in the future when there is a conflict that can't be resolved with someone changing, I don't want it to be out of the blue. I don't want a "I never knew you felt that way."
• one good takeaway from our discussion though was establishing that I feel most connected when we have conversations, and he feels connected when we do activities together, like having dinner or walking around.
• I am feeling more and more that I am more needy than average, or at least more needy than I previously thought. I need to be entertained. I need to be engaged with. almost everyone I have mentioned this to tells me it's unusual. I haven't yet decided if I should (1) just accept that most men or most people are not interested in or perhaps not capable of constant engagement, or (2) accept that I have this unusual standard and take advantage of it as a barometer.
• what exacerbates things is two-fold. one, I'm not confident that brian's big picture and my big picture are aligned. if I were fully bought in, would it not be adequate to watch him thrive and to thrive myself? two, I guess I'm not thriving myself. if I were buoyed by fruitful coworker and friend relationships, maybe, just maybe, I would be satisfied with what I got from him this week.
• and truly, what helped me shake free of the overwhelming bad vibes at the beginning of the week included: finding out that sam is leaving notion, which made me think about my own path, of things outside of my relationship. and also, this is so bad, but when it occurred to me that I don't have to marry this man, I felt relieved. it's okay, it's not like we're going to get married. every time something happened, I thought this, and I felt better. BAD SIGN. but then, by the end of the week, it flipped the other way — every time something happened, I thought it's not like we're going to get married, and I felt sad.
• brian has been very upfront and honest and loud about who he is. he has told me and he has shown me. I'm the one who isn't honest. I keep telling myself that we are compatible. from the beginning when we first started dating, there has been this recurring loop of me thinking things are over, and then something nice happens, and I'm convinced to stay. over time, we've accrued both happy memories and a list of reasons I like him. I have started to take some of the really special bits of our relationship and of him for granted.

it sends me spiraling how things seem to be falling apart back home. I didn't realize that my family was actually such a big part of the foundation that holds me upright, because I've always been able to point fingers at parts of my childhood I was unsatisfied with. but in truth, my 20s were so, so blissful. I got to pursue career and life, and drop in on my parents any time I wanted. I had a good relationship with my sister. for the first time this winter, when nancy was talking about her sister and will and I had not yet made up, I felt a twinge of jealousy and shame. only then did I realize I've always had such a good sister relationship, this was the first time I felt anything other than sunshine when thinking about sisterhood.

my dad's dementia (it's impossible to beat around the bush anymore) is getting worse. he can't remember his bank passwords — though he can still recite his SSN, which is good. I worry even more about his emotional state though. how he feels like a burden for walking and moving slowly. I worry that my mom treats him poorly. she talks fast, she pivots without warning. and something she said scared me last time when I was at home, about how the death of one of our relatives was a relief to their spouse.

I worry about my mom too. she has so much on her plate. I hate the way my sister villainizes her. willa and mommy just can't seem to understand each other, and it feels like they never will. I fear becoming my mom, but I also empathize with her more and more. I feel sorry for mom. yes, she has flaws like how she gaslights her kids, but all of those flaws fall away when I zoom out. I feel sorry that she married a man who was so angry, scary, and self centered. I feel sorry that she feels her first daughter is similarly terrifying. I feel sorry that she still feels loyal enough to take care of them both. I don't know how to put this. it just feels like she has sacrificed and squandered her entire life. and yet, she has found the bright spots and done her best in every scenario. it's for my mom that I think to myself — I can't marry someone who isn't good to me. she and my dad didn't put in so much effort to raise me, not for me to end up stuck with someone who doesn't treat me well.

and my sister. to be honest, our relationship has not mended from my perspective after she flipped out at me over the holidays. it will take more time and effort for me. I need her to understand and agree that her expression of anger, her not regulating her emotions, is not acceptable or healthy behavior and is something she needs to work on fixing. still, I get that motherhood and postpartum is extremely hard, in ways I can't understand. I am sad that she doesn't have the support she needs. she is like a vampire sucking the life out of everyone around her, hurting everyone that she loves and who love her, but nevertheless she is in pain. it's sad to me that she's an emotional, family-oriented person surrounded by people who value and pursue the opposite. I don't believe in karma, so I guess it's either bad luck or some kind of attraction.

I feel drawn back home out of obligation and loyalty. I can help, so I must. I would feel sick otherwise. if home is a swamp, no I would not find joy wading into it, but I just... I should share the suffering because it might lighten it. yes, here I am in NYC trying to be "present" and "in the moment." but not for much longer.