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I skipped class this morning and took a walk in the rain. I figured if it was raining, then a few more tears wouldn’t really matter or be noticed. I kept a straight face, iPod in ears, but the tears, they never came. I should have known. That’s what I’m good at – being stoic.
I landed in New York the night before and it’s a little strange, because it feels like I never left. The new house I’m moving into, it feels strangely familiar. Or maybe its just that I’m eager to convince myself that my trip to Jetsonville wasn’t as difficult and confusing as it actually was. If we stick to the superficial, aside from things at home, I have nothing to complain about. I had a great job, a great boss, met up with what friends were back, and managed to travel to Shanghai. Sweet. Except it isn’t, because it’s getting harder and harder to go back. That each time, it feels like standing next to a meter stick. I’m proud of some changes, but others – I’m not so sure. And it’s strange being alternately treated like a child and an adult by those who helped raise you. Simultaneously over and underestimated at the same time.
There’s the friend that I love, but can’t be in love with, if only because it’s impossible in a week’s time. The need I have for him to be in my life, to share my hopes and troubles with him, and still trying to hold back becuase it will only make him fall faster and harder then he’s already falling. And as for myself – I know I’m not immune. The instinct to love, nurture and care for another human being is innate. But my head’s telling me that we are in two different worlds. There’s not a place in this world that I really call home. I’ll be back in December – and then what? We’re never going to get anywhere. I need to follow my calling – whatever it turns out to be, and he still has his whole life to discover.
So I’m wondering what I could have done differently, but at the same time – it takes two to tango. How do you convince someone that you’re not the right one, when they’re determined to find out for themselves? I know this is one of those times where I need to exercise reason above emotion.. but no one ever said it was going to be easy.
And then there’s RG. We’re standing at crossroads but I can’t bear to move. Somehow after the years of thinking that some relationships are forever, it’s hard to know what to tell yourself.
It would be so easy – to let everything go, and pretend that my life here is the whole picture. To slip back into the easy relationships, the laughter and the routine. But when you’re a nomad – no matter where you go, it’s only ever a fraction of your world. A piece of the whole.
Today was a day of many lasts. Last day in the office, in jetsonville and of being an intern. As per usual, I left everything to the last minute. Final projects, emails that needed to be sent; packing. It's 2:30 and I just finished. In less than five hours I'm getting up to go to the airport. Am I ready? – Not really. But then again life isn't about being ready. It's about facing head on the things you're not ready for. Life happens in between preparation, not in the preparing. 
There you go. My two cents for the day.
And it turned out I was right about somethings and wrong about others. RG and I did not wind up meeting up or talking – but I expected that. As time goes, perhaps he'll finally diminish in importance to me, perhaps to the extent that I am unimportant to him. I need to learn to be comfortable with that unimportance, and know that he occupies as little space in my life as I do his.
Ace.. has not been so much as confusing, but an experience. Maybe we're not in love, but we do love each other. The sort of love that lasts through nine years of friendship, and a mutual rediscovery several years later. He's not another Veer – another serious, gut-wrentching, head-over-heels relationship. But he's not some casual fling. He's Ace. My Ace. He's the wild card, the unpredictable one. But nevertheless, still welcomed.
So I'm leaving. In a few hours, I'll be touching back down to another island, another metropolis. Moving into a new environment and new classes. Not really quite sure how I'll hold up. But hey – there's always writing, and hence, there's always this blog.
I picture myself formless and weightless, an etheral spirit sitting on God’s lap. “Come here my child, what would you like to be on earth? A little boy or a little girl?” I think carefully, and answer without hesitation: “a little boy.”
There have been countless times where I’ve wished that I was a boy. Sometimes I think that the scope of my ambition and dreams are too great to be contained in the delicate feminine form. I never really cared much for wiping my face, or keeping my clothes clean. Clothes only existed for two purposes: to contain the rawness of our nakedness, and to have some protection from gravel when sliding into home base.
I watched three generation of women before me, each the only female of their line, struggle with dreams and disappointments. I watched as each let go of her dreams, a surrender no louder than a sigh. Each one, they put their heads down to deal with the daily grind – mouths to feed, babies to wash, husbands to care for. And in focusing on the present, living in today, they forgot that a tomorrow was always just around the corner, waiting.
My grandmother was a revolutionary. I forget that at my age, she too ran off to foreign places, wanting to save the world. And my mother, a generation later, left the only home she knew for two decades to travel the world and suck the marrow of life. We’re not so different, these women and I – and perhaps this is what I’m afraid of.
If God had ever asked me for an opinion, I would asked to be a boy. I would have been a stronger, faster, more durable version of myself, without the mess and the hassle. Until puberty, and our biological clocks kicked in, I saw no difference between the boys and myself. I was always one of them. I was just as fast, just as strong and most of the time smarter than they were. I was the little grime covered rebel, running like a banshee, skating and play hockey, and climbing trees – always with the boys. I was never accepted with the girls, prissy and clean with their barbies, their annoying giggles and glances and mysterious ways. And the way they move in packs. Sheesh. And then they wonder why they can’t meet a proper guy.
Somewhere along the way, I figured that the Almighty Creator had made a mistake. He put me in the wrong body. I tried to make my peace out of this situation, and walk a delicate balance between the two contradictions – ambition beyond ability to nurture and raise a family, and yet the desire for one. I became convinced that the mysteries of feminine wiles didn’t apply to me. It required grace, cunning and timing the world discredits too quickly, and at the same time was equally lost on me.
You can live your life, convinced that the rules don’t apply to you, that you don’t have what it takes to survive in that realm, and convince yourself that you’re not missing out anyway. You can do all that, but the minute you leave everything you know, and everyone that knows you, and allow experiences to change you – you’ll return and even if you choose to blind yourself to what’s already there its undeniable and you’re not fooling anyone.
This is what happens when you choose to live in Never Never Land and find that all the while, you are just hiding under the blanket. And whether you choose to or not, time is passing and you are changing, and outgrowing that baby blanket you clutch so tightly.
There will be a time when men are no longer fathers, and brothers, but suitors more than willing to maintain that pretense if it makes you comfortable, if it gets you to let your guard down, and let them in. Homecomings become increasingly difficult because it’s ever a reminder of how much you’ve changed, and how small your world was and how try as you might, who you are today can’t fit the space you formerly occupied so comfortably.
And while men are simple (not as simple as we credit them) being a woman is a mystery. Men wonder why women behave the way they do, but in turn don’t realize that sometimes, women themselves have little more understanding than the men. A woman cycles, waxes and wanes with the moon. She is deeper than an ocean, and more shallow and petty than a squabbling pack of hens. A woman’s beauty blooms without her permission, flourishes without her notice, and fades without her knowing. A woman’s power is not in force or strength but in influence, in the quiet ways whose effect is probably never fully realized, even to herself.
I have never been graceful or confident in my femininity, but I cannot deny what I am. Perhaps my transition to womanhood will be the same as I’ve moved from one stage to another in life. Stumbling, resentful, clawing at the doorframe and fighting it, every step of the way. But every day, the risks of staying blind get higher, and the realization becomes clearer. I’m a woman. Whether I choose to be. A phenomenal woman. That’s me.
“And the day came where the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” – Anais Nin
It was the summer of '97 and we wanted a tree house. At ten, I suppose most kids want a tree house. There are certain times where the absence of a parent is more poignant than others. Not just on Father's day, or Christmas. Real father's days. evenings after dinner at the park, building models and science projects. There were times when I looked at my brother and we both were painfully aware in what was lacking, and yet neither of us ever said a word.
We never hated, questioned or wondered at his leaving. It didn't come as a shock or huge disappointment. In fact, it was quite the opposite – relief. We encouraged him in his new relationship, made up little rhymes. "Find a merry merry day, to marry Marianna." We didn't ask awkward questions when we saw things we didn't understand. Somehow, at eight and ten respectively, we caught on that the road was slowly diverging, and probably for the better.
It's not that we were too young to remember or understand what was happening, or that our relationships with friends, and well-meaning adults at church were able to provide what our parents couldn't. I think it had largely to do with the fact that we had each other, and because of that – little else mattered.
But there were other times when I looked at my little brother and resented my father's absence. I felt a righteous anger at anyone who could walk out on a kid that great and that bright. I resented my mother for her incompetency, for sending us across the country alone and never having the guts to admit the truth. That she couldn't manage, that it was just too hard. That she wasn't some high-flying executive wonderwoman with a red cape and adoring, perfect family. I couldn't stand to hear the excuses week after week on the phone so I stopped answering. I was ten and refused to speak with my mother for over six months. My brother didn't. He kept answering, kept listening to her lengthy lectures and reasons. Kept taking in all the blame heaped onto my father. Not once did he cut her off, hang up or scream into the phone. He would plead with me to pick up her phone calls. I think he was the only one who understood the importance of family. It never occured to me to question why we deserved such difficult circumstances. But I did wonder what my parents had done to deserve a kid as great as my brother.
If there is one single gene that we inherited from my father, it's determination. A sense of singleminded purpose to the point of blindness, and failure is not an option, so don't even start worring about it. My father's determination was the reason behind the 7 failed attempts to escape from China, succeeding only on the 8th. I saw the same determination in my eight-year old brother's eyes, as he sized up the tree and pictured what would be in it. We stared at forest in our backyard for weeks. Then he made it happen. He got a paper route, getting up at the crack of dawn. He wanted to be an architect and drew up plans. And then, my eight-year old brother hired a contractor and had that tree house built. Between the strongest pine trees we had in our backyard.
It was huge. You could easily fit six to eight kids comfortably, and we had sleepovers there. We spent our last night in Canada on two army cots that we had dragged up into that tree house, dug up an insanely long extension cable and rigged up lights, a pulley system and had a cooler stocked with food. We managed a makeshift stove out of a huge tin can, and made hot chocolate in a tiny pot that we smuggled out of the kitchen. Give us another week, and I'm sure we would have had running water as well.
My brother's tree house was his pride and joy, just as he is mine. When I came home heartbroken and in tears last night, he didn't probe, didn't ask questions, he held me until there were no more tears. Not once did he ask me to explain myself.
Sometimes I wish things were as simple as the time where climbing a ladder on a tree was how you got away from your problems. As difficult and complicated as things are, I realize that I have something better than the tree house. I have its creator.
I started this journal as a continuation of its predecessor at Dx, also under the same name. I chose Verity, for a number of different reasons, but primarily because in writing, there needs to be truth. There have been times where I've glossed over things, failed to write about them, "spun" events to suit my state of mind, but as I've gotten older the more I realized that I don't have wings sprouting from my back, or a halo illuminating my face. But my innocense was really naivety, and not purity of heart but lack of experience. And yes, there's a difference. My teenage years were really sheltered, and I think that it didn't prepare me very well for the challenges of being an adult.
She told me once that the truely innocent can never be corrupted. Maybe it's true. These past years, along with triumphs and broadening horizons, I've been faced with a lot of disappointment. I never realized as a kid what kind of impact my father leaving would have on me. At the time, it was just a huge relief. But I think I'm still wrestling with finding love and acceptance that can replace the kind of holes my parents left. Opening your life to relationships and love is a risk, and perhaps my gambles weren't as calculated as I thought. Perhaps all I've done is left myself vulnerable to more disappointment.
I leave in three days, and I have not packed, have not said goodbye, have not tied up loose ends or picked up my passport. I am caught in this state of inertia, never leaving and never coming. This summer started out so full of hope and now that I am leaving, so full of pain and disappointment that I am refusing to believe that this is how I am meant to be sent off.
If ever I believed that I could fly, or was meant for great things. If ever I believed that I could rise above the challenges of my stature and the choices of those before me and close to me, that confidence and faith has been dealt a severe blow. Maybe I'm like Icarus falling. Eyes forever towards the sun and working so hard towards it but not realizing that my wings are withering.
I am wrestling. With my own inner demons, my fears, disappointments with who I am and where my life is going. If I can come out of this alive, if I can face myself and the cold truth. If I can find grace that can see beyond my short comings, and how far I have fallen from heaven. If I can find peace beyond understanding.
God, I have never needed You more than I do right now.
"life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
- Anais Nin
You know you’re an intern in the Asia Pacific when..
- you have every one of your meals in the office, or within a 5 minute vicinity
- your collegues and you take turns buying lunch (to save time) and you’ve actually eaten it standing up, pacing in your office as you analyze performance results within your team, posted on your wall
- you carry financial, economic and performance reports in your bag for “a little light reading”
- your bag is not a bag but a briefcase, or at best – a stylist tote (for the ladies)
- your family stops calling you on your cell, but instead calls your direct line at the office. You briefly consider having the secretary filter your calls
- you have a sweater, a pashmina, a blazer and stilleto heels… in your office, just in case you get called into a meeting at a moment’s notice
- you’ve been called into meetings at a moment’s notice
- you’ve also had to write reports and edit power points for your boss at a moment’s notice
- in fact, a moment’s ispretty significant amount of time
- you left at 11PM last night, dreamt about a power point presentation, and came in this morning before your boss to work on said powerpoint
- you’ve carried your work laptop with you home, and actually used it
- you believe that the UN should expand its definition of child labor to include interns and are considering writing a petition.
- you would, but you don’t have time (which pretty much covers everything)
BUT! It’s Friday! and I’m OUTTA here!
I wrote a post this morning and 20 minutes later, deleted it.
That's rather uncharacteristic of me. For as much as I'd like to do it with reality, I don't edit my life. I don't delete, insert, post-date, or rearrange the sequences and thought processes that led me to a conclusion – however ill-fated said conclusion may be.
I didn't even bother re-reading that post and consider sparing it. I just hit the button. Sometimes writing isn't so much about the product as the catharsis that comes with it, the release of abstract feelings and impression into a concrete and linear trajectory. Sometimes writing is about the experience and not the end result.
I didn't need to read the words to know what they screamed out – weak. Emotional. Irrational. Evidence of masochistic self-loathing that makes me time and again stand defenseless, barreling towards what can only be a painful, bloody end. I didn't need to re-read the post to know that when I had written it, it had been because I wanted comfort and found none, and instead chose to give in and wallow in a moment of self-pity.
There aren't many of those moments that I allow myself to give into, but I can't help but feel angry and disgusted with myself when I do.
What I was agonizing over, and clearly – still am, is a relationship that is nine years running, has morphed over the course of time from teacher-student, mentor-disciple, paternal, non-existant, friends, best friends, unplatonic, estranged, on-eggshells, platonic and currently: confused.
At least, confused is where I am. Where he is might be entirely different. He could be confused, he could be platonic, or he might have entirely walked away and forgot all about the confused girl behind this blog.
I've been here over a month, leave in a week and only once has he called, but only to discuss how I would handle a business trip, and when I answered the phone it was in the airport and I didn't recognize his voice.
There is something unsettling about the thought that I might not recognize his voice, or he mine. How you could devote so many years, invest so much and give so much of yourself and that one day, not know your protege, your teacher, your mentor, your friend.
And what really kills me is that it's probably nothing. It's probably a combination of his work, my work, his too-often travel, my too-soon departure, the too little time and too much to do-ness that is intrinsically woven into the fabric of life in Jetsonville. It comes with the territory of being in a metropolis. But here's the catch-22: you always make time for what's important to you. And maybe the reality is, I'm just not that important to him anymore.
It sounds self-centered, I know. But know that this relationship was one of the few things that really kept me stable and focused over the years. And that as much as I need his guidance and advice, I know he needs my unconditional respect and unquenchable thirst for life. Everyone needs someone to believe in them – to believe even when we've given up on ourselves. And that's what we are to each other. He believes that I am a superstar, that I have a long way, will acheive great things, and will go as far as my imagination will take me. I believe that he is wise beyond years, kinder than anyone I will ever meet, more talented than humanly possible and whose decisions and actions changes lives. In this way, we nourish and nurture each other, encouraging one another through trials, discouragements and insecurities – through unyeilding, unapologetic faith.
Except that time and silence has made me lose some of mine. Not in him. But in my deserving. In my ability to impress, charm and retain his interest and love. I suppose its the natural outcome of an overachieving child who was left – you compulsively feel the need to prove your worth, that you are worthy of love and kindness.
It's ridiculous, and so text-book-psychology that it is humbling to write it. But there it is. What I feel is that I've become a burden. Just another thing, another task vying for his time. Years and distance has rendered my wit, humor, talents and helpfulness useless to him and so I will disappear, into a vague memory recalled one day in passing followed by "I wonder what ever happened to.." and a shrug.
So I try my hand at reason, to sort out this muddle. Because clearly logic and reason defy emotion every time. It's the natural course of things… better this way. Revise expectations to adjust to new circumstances. You're not family, and never will be. You're stronger, better, smarter than this. Than to be wallowing in self pity and dramatizing pain that isn't there.
But all the logic and reason in the world can't stop me from the full realization. That what I feel is abandonment. What I am is unimportant. What I will be, is forgotten.
It is in these thoughts, born of insecurities, yielded life through tears and given form through writing, that make me so ashamed at my weaknesses, humbled at my own need. The irrepressible feeling that none of it is within my control.
And I am ten years old again, watching my father go through the airport turnsiles for the very last time.
