10 years

"Love is not just a verb, it's you looking in the mirror." -Kendrick Lamar

I started this blog about a decade ago, a decade where I'm growing to understand more and more that the majority of people are moments in time that help to connect the puzzle of life. From friends to lovers, that understanding of how life evolves has created a sense of resiliency where there is less vying to be at tables that were not built for me or to be in situations that were never supportive of my growth.

I could have been in rural North Carolina or Africa, making choices about love and marriage that Buddha prevented, but instead I am building and rebuilding as a woman in Boston, learning lessons about love and loss again of course, being also seeing that each one hurts less because of the bigger picture.

As Drake says, "Don't give them no more chances, ooh girl they had their turn
Everything for a reason, there's things you had to learn from them." 

I sense that this is the decade where I lay down some roots, start a new love, have children, get my own dog, and take on leadership at the workplace that would have been previously un-imagined. This is the decade where those things are spoken into reality and I know that I cannot be held back because I've put in the work and the building blocks to love myself despite the closed doors and the difficult conversations.

This is the decade of the two-page resume.

Realizations

I wrote so much about hyper-masculinity and Black masculinity, beginning with the young students who I teach and the men that I love and I saw the growth in slowly and very surely realizing that hurt is not the responsibility and burden of women of color and men, just as any flawed group, need to either ask for help or to do their own work. I realize that there is naturally pain. What is not ok, is for that pain to be passed on to the people who did not cause it, and what is even less ok is for society to enable toxic behavior.

I went to therapy a few times.  That was illuminating and nice... also expensive and socially exclusive. And problematic.

I tackled my fat-phobia that was likely passed down from a combination of being scolded for my curves early on with media, with overcompensating for it in my early 20s in order to gain the acceptance of white people. And along the way, I definitely passed on that judgement and trauma. I want to thank the people in the past 4 or 5 years who called me out for it. I love my body now, when it's thin, when it's curvy, any shape, any size, but I've also grown to love all bodies. It took a long time of being really damn shallow but, I think in my upper 20s and 30s, I see fully that beauty and connection comes within a person. 

I am Black. I'm not kind of Black. I'm not maybe Black. I'm not less than Black because I grew up in a Vietnamese family. I'm biracial and I'm Black. Ooop. My ancestors didn't fight all the battles they did for people to say "nah, you don't get to claim that." Being older also comes with being able to claim and not hide who you are. I have always been Vietnamese but in this decade, I have said in people's faces that I too, am Black. I will go to BSU. I will fight for African American rights. I will acknowledge the numerous privileges that come from being lighter and having different hair texture and having men be kinder because of their yellow fever but I won't belittle myself and erase a part of myself. Black is Black.

Further, it's ok to love people of color and to fight for things that are important in communities of color. It's ok to want to be with your community and to love those within your community. I love Black people. I love Vietnamese culture. I am not colorblind. It's important not to be silent, more now than ever, particularly in the age of Trump and white supremacy. Moderates or those who don't take a stance on things are on the side of oppressors. What I value in my students today that I didn't realize until well into college, grad school, and today is that waiting to claim your dignity in order to make others comfortable is bullshit. Equality shouldn't wait. Seventh and Eighth graders who see their families in fear of deportation know it's shit, and we should too. 

White supremacy must be dismantled.

Women are wonderful. Women are the foundation for all good things. The conversation around women need to include Trans women!

Most importantly, while I have clearer boundaries. I believe I'm also kinder and more loving. I have more joy than I ever had, a greater sense of self than I ever had, and a greater appreciation for all I've been given. I may not have the house on the hills with the cute hubby and the cuter Blasian baby YET (it's happening), BUT I have my joy and my life and and my kickass family and beautiful friends and experiences of love that I have grown from and continue to grow from.

To a new decade.

<3 MyMy

POWER/ Autumn

 "Dream a little dream of me

Make me into something sweet
Turn the radio on, dancing to a pop song
Fuck it, I love you
Fuck it, I love you
Fuck it, I love you
I really do" -Lana Del Rey Fuck it, I love you

Our moods, and our love stories, I feel can be captured in the metaphorical seasons: spring hope, summer joy, autumn's reminisce and winter's pragmatism. Romeo and Juliet, Rose and Jack, meet eyes in the spring and live bravely in the summer. But of course, there is fall and winter too, and the test is in how we deal with the fall and winter seasons. 

This thing is about that delicate balance of triumph and failure, humiliation that leads to humility, and courage that leads to miracles. And the very real feelings of anxiety that lives simultaneously alongside joy. Like a Boston day, sometimes all the seasons are one. 

I write this to say that it's always disappointing when hope hurts, because it betrays, at face value, the life/ the light that is supposed to emit from it. And in adulthood, we grapple with the fact that hope hurts a lot because we are all complicated and nuanced and hurt, to some extent. But also, because light and darkness exists together, sometimes we come to find out much later on that hope comes in the form of understanding that, as the rapper Nas said, " a thug changes, and love changes, and best friends become strangers" and that's also ok because it allows us to open a different chapter that is lighter and brighter and we begin that cycle again. 

We always root for us, the Romeo and Juliets, every classic love story, because the journey in itself makes us US and makes us worthy. What's the corny saying, "the journey is the destination."

The rapper Nas is the classic example of it. Without him, I don't know what my adolescence as the token Blasian girl in well-meaning and debilitating Maine would have been. Music, for teenagers, is an escape and he spoke about race, about loss, about trauma, about triumph, better than almost anyone. At school, my identity did not exist, except for being the brown girl who could wear colors the way white people couldn't, who hung out with the Emily's and Brittany's and Rachel's and Ally's to survive, but at home, I knew there were things going on in the world that I needed to talk about, thanks to the rapper Nas. The rapper Nas also drank too much and beat his girlfriend and his wife. The rapper Nas used his leverage as a rich man to oppress women. The rapper NaS, used his charm to silence others. He brought me hope in my teens, but in my 30s, I know he is the winter and I know I must side on the side of empowering women. 

The Emily's and Ally's and Rachel's and Brittany's, too, were survival. Pragmatically, even if my 12 year old mind didn't have the capacity to admit that we were different. They would never understand at the heart level, what it meant to be an immigrant, a minority, an intersectional progressive, at the heart level, but as a kid, they were all I had.

Options about community are for adults or really brave kids. 

I think often about the destination. About the children I hope to bring into this world. About the relationship with a loving partner that my children can be proud of. Sometimes it's hard to sit back and appreciate the anxiety inducing process that will hopefully lead there...

These bumps in the road, these Nas's and Ally's are for a reason: the clarity of self. The seasons keep changing but I become wiser.

"Summertime, and the livin's easy
Bradley's on the microphone with Ras MG
All the people in the dance will agree
That we're well-qualified to represent the L.B.C
Me, me and Louie, we gonna run to the party
And dance to the rhythm, it gets harder" -Lana Del Rey in Doin Time 

On Process

"Listen, this is a meditation for me
A practice of being present
There's no where I need to be, except right here with you
Except right here with you
Foldin' clothes, watching Netflix
Catching up on our shows, eating breakfast
Raisin Bran in my bowl with bananas and some almond milk
I never thought I'd see the day I'm drinking almond milk
You soft!" -J. Cole Folding Clothes

Whatever it is that I do, I want to set off running, sprinting. I'm ready to jump head first into this world and lay claim to all the things I want, whether it's love or freedom, adventure or growth, and most importantly, expansion. The past few years in particular have introduced complexities that slow the process and pushed me to grapple with what pace I'm willing to go, in order to also stay in the place I love (Boston), and bring along the people I love.

Comedian Phoebe Robinson said it so eloquently when she gave advice about letting go of the word "should." We ought to let go of the idea that just because the world tells us that we should have certain things or do certain by certain ages, that that is our destiny. We should go to college, we should get married, we should have children, we should own a home.... the societal norms are obviously projection and trash, but even more than that, it doesn't take into account that we don't control other people and their lives too are a process that they're working through. And... at the end of the day, we don't need everyone but we do need people, the type of people who grow into better versions of themselves through time.

That's hard for someone who has goals informed by the American dream that my parents and grandparents worked so hard for, so that I could have a substantially higher opportunity to realize it. 

I've been thinking a lot about joy, and how it's come so much more easily this year than it ever had.I think it's come easier this year because vulnerability has come easier and I'm not as afraid of being naive. If I trust people, I trust people but I learn my lesson eventually and more often than not, the people began as good and whole anyways. That skepticism is really against courage, optimism, and love.

But that too, is a negotiation, a compromise, a process. I'm pushing hard for the space I deserve in this world and in people's hearts, while still LISTENING to where they are in the process and consistently figuring out if that space is available.... when to fight, when to leave.

At 31, I should be married and have a house and two kids and a six figure salary but I'm happy, youthful, and growing.... and loving. And I think that counts for a lot.


"I'm on the way
We ain't got no time to waste
Popping your gum on the way (love me)
Am I in the way?
I don't want to pressure you none
I want your blessing today (love me)
Oh by the way, open the door by the way
Told you that I'm on the way (love me)
I'm on the way, I know connection is vague
Pick up the phone for me babe (love me)" -Kendrick Lamar Love

Butterfly

"I see you duck and dodge at every bend
Afraid to play your card, be forced to show your hand
I hope you take from this that it'll make you no less of a man
To break your walls and simply grab my hand
Love shouldn't be contraband
It shouldn't treble on your confidence
Shouldn't be seen as less than compliments" -Kehlani

I almost understand Taylor Swift and Ari Grande.

Loss is hard. You bend and contort to create space when there just isn't any. It takes more than conviction. It takes more than choice. It takes more than one body letting another in.

When you've grown soft around your edges because of idealism, loss is hard.
When you've been hard long enough and your age finally allows you the privilege of air, of softness, loss is hard.
When you feel the heartbeat of potential. The pulse of his smile. Loss is hard.

--

We exist and then we vanish.
The only thing we have is the space we occupy while we're here.
Boldly. Unabashed. It is our space.
I claim it. Stubbornly. It is mine.
I carve it out with time and sweat and memories.
It is fucking mine and in my mind, that means it's ours
But you aint got a shovel so you don't fit in the allotted space.
As much as I bend and contort
It is uncomfortable. It is uneasy.
Love forced is... not.
It takes more than conviction.
It takes more than love.

--

You see me
I miss you deep
Though I can't say it, I hope it seeps into your pores and you drown in the affection because it keeps pouring out of me with nowhere to go.
It is yours. It is unapologetic
because you see me.
There is nothing to apologize about. Nothing to shrink.
Though it takes more than love, I still love and I don't apologize.

----

4/15/19

Dreams come to me, with lots of poetry.  I am reading poems, that are my inventions, because they are my dreams but then when I wake up, they're gone. They're fleeting; I only have bits and pieces of them. I hold a lot of my loved ones in my dreams; much more than I do in real life. It's comforting because those opportunities don't always exist and all we have is the moments even when they're in dreams.

In-addidable
Delectable
Legendary

I want a love that's legendary but there are so few legends.

Maybe the dreams are telling me that good things will come because they already exist and are just looking to make waves? 

--

May 6

I was looking at my feet and I realized they were tired.
My calves were tired. My breasts were tired.
I haven't taken a sick day ever because JLo doesn't take sick days,
Beyonce doesn't take sick days
The most successful people schedule their friendship time, their sexy time, and their family time so seamlessly... so that they make the most out of every minute and every hour.
My parents have never taken a sick day.
And they have more to be sick about than me.
They fled war, for goodness sake. I only worry about my outfit changes.
I am perfectly healthy. Have never gotten so much as a minor flu, or a cold, or a headache.

A relatively fit bitch with a few curves thrown in.

But I am tired. I am tired of being gracious.
I am tired of monotony. And, tired of owing other people my time,
tired of the pressure to explain my time, and it's efficiency or the lack there-of,
tired of smiling, tired of being expected to work til I'm tired....

Intrinsic

"Been through some things, but I couldn't imagine, my kids stuck at the border (Straight up)
Flint still need water (Straight up)
Niggas was innocent, couldn't get lawyers (On god)" 21 Savage 

I don't watch motivational speakers because I tend to feel that all motivation comes from within. Every ounce of motivation, from what you do to who you love comes from within.

People who do not do things for self-less reasons, when left to their own devices, will undoubtedly do selfish things.

For example: men cheat because they intrinsically want to and they apologize because the world provided them with extrinsic motivation, also known as guilt and threats, which showcase the consequences of what it might cost them to not repent. But if there were no consequences, no one hurt, no family destroyed, no image shattered, there would be no apology.

Hence every time a Carmelo, or an Off-set gets caught, I jokingly hope that the Lala or the Cardi leaves them in the dust forever. They did the thing because they are grown-ass men who wanted to do the thing that they did and they apologized because they were gonna lose their kids and because they were being clowned on twitter. In other words, will-power is real and no one can make anyone do something he/she doesn't want to do, regardless of his/her ideas of right and wrong.

This post is about friendship and relationships and communication and love. And also growth.

Communication is an interesting thing because communication is important and refreshing and difficult. But, to me, one has to walk the line with communication. There's a line between communicating how you feel, what you want, and what you want the other person to do. Because to me, it's vital that people arrive at what they're meant to arrive at on their own, without coercion.

Which makes desire a tricky concept because reciprocation at its purest in intrinsic.

I don't want you to do what I want you to do. I want you to do what you want to do. And though it's hard and frustrating beyond reason, it's only when what you want to do and what I want you to do matches without any ounce of guilt or coercion, only when it matches through sheer destiny, that it was meant to match.

Another example: I ask my friend out to breakfast. She could go but it requires her to wake up 45 minutes earlier than usual and it's cold.  She says yes because she wants to see me and she would do it for me (intrinsic motivation.) She says yes because we haven't seen each other in a while and there would be hurt feelings or a continued disjointed friendship where it's not awkward but fewer things are shared if she didn't and it's probably the right thing to do (extrinsic motivation). Intrinsic motivation is always better.

As I've grown older, I've grown better at communication but I also know that guilt, hurt, and disappointment don't work. Punishment, like is done to prisoners, does not work. Threats do not work. Growth, for me, is knowing the difference between the effort that is vital for every connection, and not being any person's extrinsic motivation.

I don't push anyone to do anything he or she doesn't want to do, not students, not lovers, not my parents, no one.

I've become the "you do what you want. You do what makes you happy. You deal with your own consequences." girl. None of us are all-knowing so we can't dictate someone else's truth and desires.

What gets tricky then is having it perceived as giving up on people, or a lack of effort, or lack of communication. What it gets perceived as then is saying that if I were LaLa, I wouldn't work on it with Melo because his intrinsic motivation caused him to be a dog and it's not my job to make him feel enough shame and guilt to not be a dog, especially if he wasn't going to arrive there on his own. So maybe it is giving up.

But people are their own humans with their own human hearts and their own human minds.


P.S.- Maybe this post is also about men of color who say society expects them to act in some harmful ways towards the women in their community so they do. To which I say, intrinsic motivation should be stronger.

P.S. -This post is not about anything other than relationships and certainly not about systemic racism.

---

"To all the good girls that love hustlers
To the mothers that put up with us
To all the babies that suffered 'cause us
We only know love because of ya
America is a motherfucka to us, lock us up, shoot us
Shoot our self-esteem down, we don't deserve true love
Black queen, you rescued us, you rescued us, rescued us" -Jay Z

Taylor Dahl

 "Tienes mi corazon. Eres mi obsesion." -Luis Fonsi

Taylor Dahl died when he was 14. We were in ninth grade lining up to leave class for the winter recess when I asked Taylor if he'd be doing anything over break. I suppose I was trying to make polite conversation because Taylor was like me, in many ways, average, a little chubby, short for his age, a good student but not a star student, just there trying to survive high school, and approachable enough to talk to, even though I wasn't wildly interested in doing so.

It was sort of like a bar scene or a get-together at a friend's house where you'd mingle with friends of your friends and make polite conversation to pass time. Taylor told me he was going to Colorado and I told him I was jealous. At that point, I hadn't ever left Maine yet, and while I didn't have the words for it, I felt trapped economically, and socially, so that part was true.

When I came back in January, a counselor came into our geometry class to address us. Taylor had contracted or been hit with something over the break, it might have been pneumonia, but he didn't make it. The counselor stayed in the room for a few minutes, a few students were crying, some looked into space. I felt bad but I didn't feel much and maybe that's why I felt bad. Taylor had a single mom and he was her only child.

It's been about 15 years. I don't remember the names of most of the people I went to high school with and, except for one, Miguel Dubon, I don't consider anyone a friend but Taylor Dahl's name, I remember.

Maybe that's how brains work or maybe I remember his name because he had a story, and it shouldn't have been that short. We're all the same in some senses, I was just like Taylor but because I made some mistakes, and was given some stepping stones, I'm able to be more ambitious and less invisible. Unlike Taylor, I was able to argue and lose a few best friends who served as place holders for the place and time being but did not grow in the same ways and did not transcend space and time in the same manner as me. Taylor might have grown up to a be a conservative, like some folks did or he might have grown up to have children by 17 like others.

All I know is that I'm at a crossroads that Taylor did not live to see. I'm looking into careers that make me happy and make me financially secure and independent. I'm constantly thinking about how my ideological differences with friends and loved-ones help me grow to be simultaneously more accepting, more mature, and more brazen with the lines I draw. I have always been an open book online, a clobber of mush and emotions and thoughts, but I've grown to be more vulnerable and honest about hard things in both my personal life and at work, and I keep around people who like my feelings and my heart and leave people who don't.

All of these things have been afforded with time and growth. The trajectory, while painlessly slow, and at times inadequate to the trajectory of others who I consider my contemporary colleagues, is upwards. And sometimes it's fast too. And sometimes it's unfair based on race and education and class. But sometimes I also get wildly lucky. Taylor might have gone to Colby, then Harvard, too, and I would've looked at him like "here is another white boy joining the white boys club at Harvard."

Time is wildly precious. For those who heed its lessons, it teaches you to be open and soft as you age. It did that for me. It's done that for my parents. Mistakes shape us.

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, it's never been my thing, but I do want to write more, even if it's scrambling, because A. No one else is writing my story B. Taylor deserved to have his story written and maybe most importantly C. everyone's story teaches you about you.

I want to write about the time I got rejected by a hairy red-head working at a non-profit org one summer in Maine, his name was Chris, and he was a bro and I am now out of his league. Or the time when I was pursued than rejected by a gym guy who had a thing for Asian women who are 5-6 years his senior. But those stories are silly and fresh, and though I think I might know the lesson from them, I probably don't yet.

--
What I tell my students and my loved ones is "if you think you're about to make a mistake, don't do it. Or DO do it and risk seeing what the outcome is, I won't stop you, but if it is a mistake, and you knew, don't apologize, don't apologize to appease, don't apologize because it's something to do. Live with the mistake, hold it, and grow from it within you. Don't place the onus of forgiveness on someone. They'll come to that when or if they ever get ready."

So I'm silly in that I'm thankful that I didn't make those mistakes with those boys or, more accurately, that the heavens didn't allow me to and I'm also thankful that my last words to Taylor were "I'm jealous" instead of "have fun. I'm happy for you" because, since I subconsciously wish I'd been kinder and more invested, those words remind me of my privilege.