Month: January 2015

I have been thinking about baby names recently, not because of plans to have a baby, but just in general.

My first concern with baby names is that they weren’t too gender specific (but I was definitely on the fence about this), but another concern is that I want it to be unique. I loved when I was at school where no one else had my name. I wanted my future child to have a name that didn’t necessarily signify to people a specific gender, to feel boxed in about their name (since names are so integral to our identity). At the same time, I want to challenge other people to think beyond gendered names. It’s so confusing and I have so many different ideas about this.

There are names I just love that are gender neutral, Alex, etc, but they’re also generic. They aren’t very unique. So I guess I’m still on the fence about this and I’m sure I’ll come to this hurdle when I do have a baby. But I think it’s important to think about it now.

Maybe the solution is to make up a new name that is both gender neutral, but also unique?

I have had so many experiences throughout my life where people have approached me speaking Chinese or what not. For my life, I’ve had a mixed love hate relationship with that. There’s been some of me that says, well I’d love to learn, but another part of me that wonders what that says about me.

I wonder, do I need to learn Chinese to validate my cultural existence? To validate my claim to that identity? To prove something to other people?

Because of these questions, I haven’t done anything about it.

But, I would love to learn, it seems so useful and there is a part of me that would love to break this trick out at parties. I can’t take on that task at this point in my life where I have to finish my German, but I think after that, I will try to tackle Chinese.

BUT, those same questions from above still exist. I’ve gotten mixed reactions from people who have approached me in Chinese ranging from disappointment to shock to anger. And I don’t want my own motivation to learn to stem from appeasing these strangers. I don’t want it to stem from an insecurity about my own cultural identity.

To answer these questions, I still feel ambivalent and fearful about that.

I am worried that the motivation will be this, and perhaps it even reflects my own disappointment in myself for not learning? Whatever it is, I still feel apprehensive about learning. But the bottom line is that I want to learn for its usefullness at least. I don’t have any answers to these questions.

This is clearly the day for reminiscing about Christmas.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Christmas sermon I listened to. It was about, why do we celebrate Christmas. There was a ton I didn’t understand, but what I did understand (I think) was the most important.

Message: It is easier to say no and to critique and not believe, than it is to believe, have an open heart, say yes, and create.

And after I heard that, I thought, wow that is so true. It is so easy to shoot down ideas and be negative and say hurtful things. It is so much more difficult to be positive, create ideas, and say genuinely nice things.

I am pretty good at doing the easy thing, which is not what I want to be good at. I want to be better at the hard things, being positive, believing, and creating things. Cue new years resolution idea. I am going to try this year to be more positive, to believe more, to create more life and positivity and happiness in the world, in my world, and with the people I care about.

I think we all could try a little harder at that.

This last Christmas has taught me a lot about traditions. I know I’ve harped on this and what not, but, I mean, this is what the blog is supposed to be about, my adaption process.

This Christmas was actually really fantastic, it wasn’t perfect, but it was truly lovely. A new Christmas tradition. It was the creation of something with my whole heartedness and willingness to try something new and create something. It was rejuvenative  and it made me feel a lot better about traditions.

So I have multiple traditions on multiple continents, and I’m okay with that.

I was reading an article earlier this month about chronically unhappy people, and it made me stop and think for a second about my own life.

The numbers that resonate with me is 2, 3, 5, and 6, which of a list of seven is over half….I feel a bit worried about that.

I do find it difficult to completely trust people. I feel that sometimes I operate with the assumption I won’t be able to count on someone in life. I feel that is close enough to not trusting, I feel a lot that i need to be self reliant and do things myself…which creates a self fulfilling prophecy. Since I don’t rely on people because I think they will disappoint me, when I try, they usually end up (since the standards are quite impossible) which reinforces my belief about counting on people. At least I’m aware of it, that should count for something right?

I do feel I look at what’s wrong instead of what’s right…I’m not sure what to do about this one. There’s a lot of bad and in my studies and hobbies I’ve had to focus on a lot of that. But there are moments of laughter, and I guess I need to get better at basking in that moment and concentrating on it.

I do strive to control my life…a lot. Really no idea what to do with this.

I do consider my future with worry and fear, mostly because I don’t know what I’m doing with it. I know some people feel that’s the fun and what not, but it doesn’t feel fun most of the time. Maybe this one and the previous one are related!

So do I feel I am chronically unhappy? Yes. That’s super sad, but I think I do spend a lot of my time sad or unhappy or angry. I recognize that’s a problem. I would like to change that this year.

And what’s amazing, is that I’m together with someone is such a chronically happy person. Yeah they have their ups and downs, but they are so upbeat, funny, and positive. Nothing bad really gets them down, they’re positive, patient and tender. I’m really lucky they put up with such a grump like me. I’m really lucky I have someone to help support me.

The first step to change is acceptance right?

Did any of me stick at all?…There’s a part of you that stays with me Someone else gets to know Did any of me stick at all?…But I need to know Do you remember who I am?

There aren’t a lot of things I regret, none actually. I am a firm believer in the idea that all my past mistakes have taken me to the place I am and the person I am. I don’t regret who I am and where I am. I am who I am, tomorrow I shall be some one else and I won’t stay the same forever. I don’t regret my mistakes, but some of me wonders about the lyrics above.

As soon as I heard this song on Ingrid Michaelson’s album (my favorite musical artist) I felt something resonate with me. It’s a question and thought that always comes back to me no matter what. I don’t want to open up the conversation or the gate between my past and I, but I do wonder if I made any impression, any mark, any change.

There were a lot of things I did wrong, a lot of ways in which I wasn’t the best, and didn’t know what I wanted. But I know that I feel I have changed a lot, that my past relationship taught me a lot about standing up for myself, taking blame, and being my own person. But I wonder if my past believes that too? That our relationship taught them about blame, consent, manipulation, lies, cheating. I wonder if any of the things that happened stuck. I wonder if any lasting imprint of me remained.

Because isn’t that what we all wonder about our past? If they think about us, if some memory, some glimpse of us remains? I know it’s not that we want some crazy obsessed stalker, but I think all of us, or at least most people I know, wonder about if any of them stuck. When you spend days, months, years with someone, don’t you want to know if that made an impression?

And isn’t there no bigger let down than the illusion that it meant something to someone when they don’t even think twice? (Well maybe there are bigger let downs, I will miss my tea store….) But isn’t it that gut dropping floor collapsing feeling when something you think about the world isn’t true? When you thought someone loved you, when you thought you were in an exclusive relationship, when you thought actions were agreed upon, but you turn a corner and suddenly the tables turn.

I don’t know the answer…obviously, I just know that sometimes I do wonder if any of me stuck at all.

Today is my birthday and I’m pretty excited about it. I’m one of those people who love their birthday. It’s a really nice day and I really like it…for obvious reasons.

I have been thinking a lot about my birth mother this month, last year, and today. Clearly I have one, since I am here, and I’ve been thinking about her. For a while I felt really sad about it because I felt I was very much abandoned. And that is true, I was, but it’s much more complicated than that.

During my birth, keeping me as a baby, would have been very difficult and I know that. It would have been very difficult and risky to keep me, but she did it for five months, enough to ensure I was okay and then made sure to put me somewhere I would be found and taken care of.

When I was younger, that didn’t really feel like much, it just felt like despite that, I was left. But now that I’m older, I’ve gotten a lot of perspective on it. It would have been incredibly difficult and dangerous, but she did. I was loved and perhaps she loved me even more for giving me up and trying to give me a better life than she could offer.

So I’ve gained a lot of perspective. I feel good for having this new perspective. It makes me feel more adult. I will always have issues having to due with my childhood, but I think I’m on a good path towards dealing with them now. I can’t promise I won’t ever revert back or feel that way again (that would be unrealistic) but I can move forwards. New year, new perspective!

I feel like a lot of my life is structured in terms of punishments and rewards.

Like if I have to read an article for school, then I think, “I’ll read this article, then reward myself with watching an episode of a show next”. I know it’s a motivation tactic, but I just thought the other day, what if it wasn’t like that?

What if I just did things I had to do, because I had to do them, and didn’t think of them as punishments? Or necessary of rewards? What if I gave myself things because I loved myself, not because I’ve done well the semester? What if I spent time with loved ones, not because they’ve been good, but because I love them?

It’s extreme examples, but it really made me think about my life and how I’ve been living.

Can’t I just do things to do them? To enjoy them just to enjoy them, instead of to offput something else?

Does it cheapen the good things to weigh them against the bad?

Perhaps a new new years resolution will be to stop thinking of my life in terms of punishments and rewards and instead in experiences, happiness, and work. Because work isn’t that bad, you gotta do it, so do it. But life isn’t just about work and happiness, life is a pile of good and bad things, and, I think, things that just are things you do (brushing your teeth). And they can just be that.

My memory, as I’ve mentioned before, is pretty horrible. I have these flashes of thoughts that I have to write down, before I forget them. I have a ridiculous amount of post its on my everything, my books, my computers, etc. I think this is usually so annoying and it makes me sad when I forget things. I usually feel it to be a negative thing.

However, it has made me really stop and appreciate things at the same time, the view, a feeling, a moment. It has made me stop and try as hard as I can to cement something in my mind, something which is usually impossible, but to really stop and see it, to feel it.

I guess it’s a double edged sword, because I know that sometimes, no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t stay.

But that moment in which I try to remember is beautiful.

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but when I am reading a book, I get completely absorbed, to the point where I feel that book’s potential for life in my own life…Confusing right?

I’ll give an example. I just recently finished Dracula and so for the past nights I have been super terrified that a giant bat will knock on my window, as impossible as that might sound, it’s become a real fear. Or the fear that fog will creep under the door and mean that he’s coming!

Maybe it’s more pronounced for Dracula because it touches a bit on the eerie supernatural side, which, is a large kryptonite spot for me.

On a side note, I get really scared about this type of stuff (demons on the ceilings, ghosts in my mirrors, etc) to the point where it almost makes me not do things, but anyway.

I almost felt like Dracula had become so real to me, that I could imagine it happening.

And this isn’t the first book that has happened like this, almost all, and definitely the most well written (or really, the ones I like the most) has infested my imagination.

But isn’t that the glory and wonder of books? That they have this power to not only change the world you see, but to manifest themselves inside you?