identity

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.

in early january, I read this in the new york times morning newsletter:

The original Roman calendar had 10 months, starting with March and ending with December. What we now call January and February were an unnamed expanse of dark days, useless to the agricultural and military concerns of the state, which would recommence when the weather improved.

so basically january and february don't really count. they suggested using the first two months as a trial period for your resolutions:

It’s a finite period, a testing ground for the rest of the year. If making grand declarations for the year feels destined for failure or just too much, you might try a goal for the next two months. If the resolution sticks, you can extend it.

but I've decided to do the opposite and put off setting goals for the year for a bit. (if you see a post with resolutions before this, I actually published it after this post...) at the same time, as we transition from january to february, I feel inspired to check in.

what did I do in january? let's see.

• I leaned into my crafty hobbies! 
• brian gifted me some sewing accessories for christmas, and when I came back in january, I pulled out the sewing machine a few times. I finished a plaid wool mini skirt, hemmed cargo pants, and started altering the potato sack shift dress I got in thailand for $10.
• I also spent many hours on my ipad drawing a gift for brian and my second anniversary.
• in the first week, I worked on a crochet unicorn amigurumi in hopes of finishing it before willa had her second baby. it didn't happen. but I should finish the plush, it's so close! yeah the first week of january was crochet and watching shine on me.
• I read two books (kinda, let's just call it january hehe): intermezzo, first book on the new kindle, and stay true, which I picked up at a thrift store on MLK. I love reading my kindle in bed, in the dark. part of me wants to keep it a clean, "bed-only" electronic. but I will have to bring it on the plane to enjoy the benefits of that some time right? my shelves are now filled with memoirs (current count is 5), including two by asian americans that feature prominently death.
• I've reconfigured my apartment to be more cozy! the biggest thing I'm missing is a floor lamp to light up the couch area and make it more suitable for reading and crafting, but overall I greatly enjoy both my bed and living areas these days. I know I've moved beyond the P1s when I look around and feel like I really need a... clock.
• one of my publicly stated goals, a trivial one to commit to, was to decorate my apartment. I've acquired five frames for $10 (!!) and will work on filling them with art next!
• I've been cooking more meals. I'm always more inspired at the beginning of the year. and I also have a letterboard that I've been udpating with dishes — partly because when I see something, I crave it, and I want to dictate it myself instead of letting instagram dictate it, and partly because brian doesn't believe I can keep it up. this month, I've rotated through vodka sauce rigatoni, doenjang jjigae, and most recently I've been DEVOURING cottage cheese. I have a really good thing going right now with a crispy flatbread + tomato slice with salt and pepper + dollop of cottage cheese + home pickled red onions YUM and alternating with a simple smoked salmon variant.
• I've hung out every weekend with janet and yinran, and some friends have also visited from california!
• I fell off the volunteering tutoring train :( but I think I want to volunteer in person somewhere

here is v1.0 of my apartment:

- more separation between sleeping and living areas, including a divider and separate lights

- decor on the walls

things I want to do!

on repeat

1. decorate my nyc apartment - splurge a bit
2. learn about politics - what better time than mamdani's first year in office?
3. continue volunteering as a tutor
4. volunteer at an animal shelter / foster animals
5. switch up the workout routine - pick up running again? weights?
1. posture!
6. read 20 books
1. bonus: write about them
7. make a zine 
8. mail cards for everyone's birthdays
1. bonus: and some presents
9. [second half of the year] plot career moves
10. give mommy a break that isn't work (take daddy on a trip, or encourage mommy to go on a trip)

with those (below) thoughts in mind, it does feel like my life is no longer in the "monotonically increasing" part of the graph. you know, where each year is better than the last. once something tragic happens, something that can't be undone, you have to live with it. isn't every future happy moment tinged with sadness then?

at the same time, I really enjoyed some parts of the holiday season this year. I was extremely anxious about the first weekend I spent in south bay, 12/11-14. I wrote down all of the things I was worried about, and they were overcome one by one. the items on the list were: 

1. Daddy driving me home from Caltrain (2/5) - turned out totally fine, daddy is a decent driver especially on familiar roads. but he did greet me with "we have a family crisis" which turned out to be "no one in the family cares about each other" and translation: mommy yells at him sometimes :(
2. Dentist on Friday morning (5/5) - I had black spots on a back molar and feared the worst, but they were mostly stains and small cavity. turns out I do have another cavity to be filled at the next visit, plus also I had to endure two cavity fillings at this visit, but not getting prescribed a root canal was a huge relief and everything else seemed light.
3. Sat morning running 10k (3/5) - I was worried because I usually get very nauseous after my first run after a long hiatus. however, I was able to run the whole thing (at a 11 or 11.5 min pace) ! was very sore the two days after, but overall it felt good. I went running one more time during the holidays after that. I appreciate sheila for being a good running buddy!
4. Sat morning driving (2/5) - I'm pretty fine driving by myself, at least when traffic isn't crazy. I also had to drive sheila from the race to ikea, but that was a short 6 mins and we made it. after this break I feel pretty confident driving on my own in the bay, but still need work driving with passengers.
5. Family meeting (2/5) - this actually went worse than I expected because willa started yelling, but we survived I guess...