this morning nostalgia snuck up on me and overtook me. it has a way of transporting you to another dimension where all the things you thought you dealt with return, a reminder that the ghosts of my past are always a part of me.
brooding
this is one of those days where, submerged in feelings, i just want to disappear. not die, disappear.
to get away from past and present relationship baggage and get away from sleeplessness, get away from the aftermath of flawed choices. get away from the 9-5 work trap. get away from the social justice issues that beg a different reworking of our systems. get away from meeting expectations, not meeting expectations. get away from confusion, complexity, and the absence of clarity.
away. from. here.
God in this season of lent, how do i give up the part of myself that doesn’t want to deal with the baggage? i feel stuck and my solution is to disappear. what’s yours?
trade offs
the story of working at a non-profit:
forgot to tell you but
do this this and this by next week.
wait actually, we’re supposed to do something else.
wait actually we don’t know what we’re supposed to do.
we just know that some major report is due next week.
the hilarious story of working at a non profit.
in my feelings
today i felt sad at work because i was alone in my office. and for whatever reason i had a difficult time being open with other staff.
i really wanted to share about my weekend but no one asked. i guess i got to share with the facilities person briefly but the extent of the brief conversation revolved around the LA rams beating the Saints in football.
i guess something that happened this weekend was worm-holing to LA, and getting reconnected and reawakened to the relationships i had there. it was all very familiar and comfortable. i felt known all weekend and even more so, affirmed in my identity. it was a gift and thanks nate for supporting me to go!
in contrast, here i am working at the new agency where i feel like the foreign person having to build up relationships from scratch. this time with a team who hired me for the reason being that i am not like them. i feel different and unrelatable and unknown at times, some days more than others.
at the same time, i should give myself some credit for working at a place that is outside of my comfort zone, where if i have the courage to be vulnerable, can really grow and also help make a difference.
so let me utter the prayer inspired by brene brown-
God let me have the courage to show up and be seen, show up and be known.
bystander
today as i was crossing international avenue on fruitvale, aka a big intersection, a young black woman fell off her bicycle- the car behind her slamming on the brakes. luckily there were no collisions. the young woman quickly pushed herself up and picked up the pieces of her bike, looking very focused and shocked. it was slightly drizzling and dark and the road was likely slippery.
i asked if she was ok as i was crossing the street and she said she was fine and thanked me. i told her she should probably head to the sidewalk and gestured over to where i was. she walked in the other direction and then the light turned green.
i walked away. i wonder if i should have stayed with her and i feel that i should have. since i did not, i will write a prayer for her-
dear God, keep that woman safe tonight. thank you for protecting her, keep protecting her. recover her. help her know recovery and give her relief from any shook up ness. put people in her life to care for her and walk with her. amen.
a new thing
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19)
Our trip to Cleveland brought up a lot of emotions. We were excited about the opportunity to visit Chicago and explore the possibility of returning there for Nate’s grad school program in jazz studies. We were comfortable at my brother and sister in law’s home and spending time with them. We were happy to meet up with my old housemates (one of which who shares the same first and middle name as Nate), who were also in Cleveland at the time. And then I lost my wedding ring and we felt other emotions. As a side confession I tend to lose things all the time- my phone, my keys, ear plugs, and I had tended to rely on Nathan to help me find them.
Losing the ring was really something that brought up other things hidden beneath the surface.
I think part of being married in my experience is to think you’ve moved on from the discovery phase in dating when you uncover all these interesting facets of a person. Instead of expressing anger, Nathan shared how he felt hurt and he showed me grace in comforting me and helping me look for the ring. Coming from a family that de-values material things, I don’t think I really grasped the value that the ring carried. In the year when Nate was living at church, spending most of his time at our church internship and the remainder of his time working at a cafe, he managed to save up money to buy the ring he wanted to give me, without compromising. He put saving up for the ring above purchasing things he wanted for himself that would have benefitted his guitar playing. The ring was a symbol of his commitment to our relationship, one in which he showed extravagant grace. I appreciated seeing this side of Nathan that had always been there, I guess I just never looked hard enough.
I came into 2019 feeling pretty confident about where God was leading me, I entered 2019 with a great new job, new place to live, more peace at our church, and new relationship goals achieved with Nathan. Now I see ways that I must grow because not growing affects more than me.
Goals for 2019: Be more present minded, which includes being responsible for myself (and my belongings – especially things of value)- which also includes practicing gratitude to those closest to me.
denver destroyed me, i never wish to return.
my bladder went out of control, my abdomen was constantly in pain. i felt like collapsing.
exceedingly cold, dry, dull, and white. utterly uninteresting and culture-less.
i am glad to be back in the bay, i am exceedingly grateful to live in one of the best places in the world.
mild discomfort 24/7
in denver i feel mild discomfort 24/7.
needless to say i really don’t enjoy it here.
i feel a constant pain in my abdomen and cold almost always.
it feels bland here and i can’t wait to go home
and be closer to the sea level and my bbgg
made it to the end
I made it to the end. I didn’t think I could make it, I didn’t think I could last. Every week that I worked, I felt more out of place, more incompetent, more stressed, more wary. Yet, it seemed so hard to find another job.
Today was my last day at work. I praise God for leaving on genuinely good terms with my supervisor and the other staff. I feel good about leaving, I feel there is peace.
Today was my first day meeting the team of my new job, located in East Oakland. The neighborhood is different, the team is different, the feel is different.
Where the challenge before was to master excel, statistical softwares, problem solving in datasets, the challenge now is working within a community where I can only come from a place of humility. I have never worked with the native population before and learning their history confronts me with injustices I don’t know how to respond to.
I got this job unexpectedly and sporadically and it was the same job I had applied to roughly 11 months ago. I notice that the way God works in my life is to meet me in my own internal free-flowing and muddled random-ness with his clear Randomness. In the same way that Nathan came/left/came into my life, in the same way that I ended up working with high school youth, in the same way I broke from the narrative that my parents crafted for me and moved to East Oakland for another trajectory – I see the handiwork of God in yet another random unplanned and unexpected life thing. To paint a portrait, I think it’s like me trying to have a kid or something and in the end, all of a sudden one day someone’s aunt calls my mom and is like “hey can someone adopt my baby?” and then that would definitely be another example of how I’ve been seeing God work in my life. I think a real example that I just thought of is once when I really needed a parking spot and my friend gave me her UCLA employer badge that she kept even after she left working at UCLA. After feeling good about it, I felt awful and returned the badge though did not have a parking spot anymore. One day, I noticed a really old man crossing the street trying to pick up his glasses, I got off my bike to pick up his glasses for him and we walked to his house. I would stop by and say hi and he gave me chocolate bars that his kids gave him and also bottled water. One day he asked if I would like to park in his spot since he had some space in his driveway. That was a crazy story of God! HOW COME HE IS CRAZY?!?!
Lastly, to further demonstrate his abundance, today I got to meet up with an old mentor of mine who I partnered with me (by letting me teach her class once a week) and empowered me in many ways. She happened to be in SF and I happened to have time in this two day lull between leaving my current job and starting the new one. So many layers of relationships through work meshed together today, past/present/future. A reminder of God’s blessing.
feeling stuck
today i waited for my coworker to get lunch and found later that she had decided not to go out. in the end i went to baby cafe by myself, sitting next to people on their lunch breaks happily talking to one another. I remember a time when i would escape to be alone during my lunch breaks because my coworkers were all so warm and intentional that there was no such thing as a brief lunch break. i’m grateful for my old coworkers.
and here i am, craving emotional connection for the excess of solitude.
Out of Darkness 