equivocality — Jeff Ngan's collection of thoughts, experiences, and projects, inspired by pretty much everything
Viewing entries tagged with "friends"
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06 Feb 13
3

tin cans and string for years

Man can­not remake him­self with­out suf­fer­ing, for he is both the mar­ble and the sculptor.

—Alexis Carrel

I’ve been dis­cov­er­ing that I don’t know how to take care of myself. Not in a prac­ti­cal, every­day sense, but a cog­ni­tive one. Consistent psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse dur­ing my for­ma­tive years meant I never had the chance to develop some impor­tant life skills, like how to nur­ture my emo­tional needs, how to make mis­takes, and how to view myself with­out judg­ment. The poi­son was in the wound, you see, and the wound wouldn’t heal.

So far I’ve just started rec­og­niz­ing these issues in ther­apy, and it all makes me feel dam­aged and defec­tive, likely why I’ve been hid­ing these parts of my life from oth­ers for so long. But I’ve been hid­ing them from myself most of all. It’s hard to go through the painful but nec­es­sary process of griev­ing when I’m alone; always eas­ier to ignore things and keep going.

I asked Tiana to help me through this, cause now I know I can’t do it by myself. It wasn’t easy. Even the sim­ple idea of ask­ing for help makes me anx­ious. People who’ve had major roles in my life have hurt me or let me down in a very sig­nif­i­cant way, so trust­ing oth­ers has always been hard, and I’ve avoided being vul­ner­a­ble for so long because of that.

Luckily, Tiana responded the way I needed her to, and it’s been a great com­fort to give myself up to some­one I can trust. To be able to cry in front of a per­son with­out feel­ing guilty about my emo­tions or how I’m mak­ing them feel. To be able to talk to some­one who’s recep­tive and atten­tive and gen­tle and car­ing and appre­ci­ates my open­ness as well. To be the lit­tle spoon, cause every­one needs to be held some­times. She lets me let go, and for the first time, I’ve been able to sur­ren­der myself fully and still believe that I’ll be okay. I can sigh with relief instead of sadness.

These are still baby steps though, and the whole process is ter­ri­fy­ing. My sense of con­trol is what makes me feel safe, even if it’s detri­men­tal to my growth, and I’m still learn­ing how to give that up. But I tell myself it’s progress nonethe­less, which is what I need now.

tagged with #friends #reflection #self-evaluation #therapy #Tiana #vulnerability / filed under Thoughts
11 Jan 13
0

a heavier dose

I’ve been try­ing to stay vocal about my needs, lest I fall back into old life traps and defence mech­a­nisms. It means I’m still apply­ing lessons learned from last year, still try­ing to be open even if it means being vulnerable.

As far as I can tell, this has been work­ing in my favour. Otherwise, Seth wouldn’t be com­ing over on Saturday to teach me how to play the acoustic ver­sion of Sean Rowe’s Jonathan, one of those songs I’ve always wanted to learn before I die.

As a side-effect, it’s been a strug­gle to bal­ance my rela­tion­ship needs with over­stim­u­la­tion. The other night we smoked an apéri­tif in the car before spend­ing three hours gorg­ing our­selves on all-you-can-eat sushi, learn­ing that the small but sig­nif­i­cant priv­i­leges of our class come in plates of bite-sized fatty pro­tein made to order. Then we watched the entire first sea­son of Tim and Eric, Awesome Show! Great Job, and played Magic until 4:30 in the morning.

It left me burnt out and I must have lost two days, yet it still feels like I don’t have enough nights like that, shar­ing real moments with peo­ple who don’t per­pet­u­ally have some­where else to be or some­one else to see. I need more of those times in my every­day life, not just in the days marked on my calendar.

tagged with #friends #friendship #parties / filed under Daily Life Photos Video
26 Dec 12
3

merry x-mas

Julia asked me how long I’d been spend­ing Christmas at their house. We fig­ured out this was the sev­enth year, cause I have pic­tures of Ginger from 2005, before she died. I can’t say I remem­ber each Christmas dis­tinctly, aside from a few extra faces and occa­sional make­outs that cause some to stand out more than oth­ers. It’s strange to think that I’ve known Braiden for more than half his life. I per­pet­u­ally think of him as being seven.

The Rogers'

 

The kids are get­ting older, no longer up at 5am and anx­iously wait­ing by the presents until they’re allowed to wake up the par­ents. The idea of Santa has long been dis­pelled. Braiden’s given up being a cen­tre for goalie, lost his post-season scruff cut, and at 13 is only an inch shorter than me. Nicole’s done most of her grow­ing and will be legal in four months, but at the age where she’s still someone’s daugh­ter instead of her own woman. Julia’s sport­ing a new voice and pierc­ing, but has kept all the sass that comes with being the mid­dle child.

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tagged with #cats #friends #kids / filed under Daily Life Photos
05 Sep 12
2

going out in style

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Cause I want to has been the rea­son for every­thing lately.

I started to under­stand how we’re all dying in the Silvia Plath sense of the word, so I decided I might as well go out in style. Vonnegut got it right with his Pall Malls, though I choose not to add tobacco to the mix.

Magic draft

Steve draws some­thing really good or really bad.

I quite con­sis­tently get my ass kicked at the drafts that Seth hosts, his crew always being made up of vet­eran play­ers. The advan­tage is that I always walk away hav­ing learned a thing or two, and get­ting enough new cards to build on a con­cept is a nice lit­tle bonus. If some­one told me I’d be spend­ing money on a col­lec­table card game at this age, I never would have believed it.

Magic has been keep­ing me busy in a good way. It’s never just about play­ing, it’s also about being around friends, and the cama­raderie, and get­ting fat on Steph’s amaz­ing meals. Those are exactly the things I need in my life.

pho and spring rolls

#1, beef rare, every time.

The red bean ice is a treat I don’t get often enough.

It was hard bal­anc­ing my time around oth­ers and the time I needed alone. I have needs that require the com­pany of cer­tain peo­ple, and when I’m try­ing to meet those needs, that often leaves me feel­ing very over­stim­u­lated. The exhaus­tion had been giv­ing me flare-ups, not to men­tion headaches that dulled the senses and eloquence.

Now I have some breath­ing room, and a chance to do all the lit­tle things I’d been too occu­pied to han­dle, like catch­ing up with peo­ple I haven’t seen in a while, get­ting the car fixed (from $9k worth of hail dam­age), fil­ing my taxes (from two years ago), chang­ing the strings on my uke to high-G tun­ing, or just watch­ing a movie. I’m still in night mode though, where I tend to get the most done after 10pm, and I find myself staving off sleep to do just one more thing.

root beer float

Root beer floaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

I want to travel some­where, cause it feels like it’s time to step out of my com­fort zone again. I haven’t made enough of my own expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries for too long. But I’m in too unsta­ble a place right now, and I prob­a­bly will be for at least another year or so. Ironic that it’s insta­bil­ity I crave. It’s left me won­der­ing what I should be explor­ing here.

tagged with #busy #food #friends #music #Tiana / filed under Daily Life Photos
27 Aug 12
3

let's leave these rusted old folks back in the city

It’s been too long since we took a ride together. Too long since some­one else was at the wheel and I got to score the pass­ing Canadian fields with my new favourite songs. Too long since I saw the old crew and filmed them land­ing aeri­als on the farm.

two dogs in a car

 

We drive through lovely lit­tle vil­lages I’d never want to live in but always think of vis­it­ing some day. They’re too small for comic book stores and decent Chinese food and any pos­si­bil­ity of get­ting lost, but big enough to hold the hopes of any­one who ever wanted to build a life for them­selves in a quiet com­mu­nity full of old-world charm and decay. The tiny econ­omy based on tourism from an annual coun­try music fes­ti­val or his­toric school will make sure it stays like this forever.

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tagged with #friends #travel #Trolley / filed under Daily Life Photos
29 Jul 12
1

just another diamond day

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In the mid­dle of this heat wave has come a hail­storm that’s dented the shit out of every panel of my car, fol­lowed by a series of unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally cool nights. I slept with the win­dows open, and the breeze kept me con­tent to be wrapped in my duvet until waking.

It may as well be a lazy Sunday morn­ing in Autumn as I write this, sit­ting by the warm light com­ing through the blinds, wax­ing nos­tal­gic about more than I care to admit. I’ve been try­ing to write, but I don’t know what I’ve been feel­ing lately.

airplane ride!

 

Maybe it’s cause I haven’t had time to think. And it’s only going to get busier in the fore­see­able future. I’d like to spend more time alone, but that seems a lux­ury that’s quickly dis­ap­pear­ing. When I’m try­ing to nur­ture the rela­tion­ships that are impor­tant to me, it’s hard to refuse a hang­out, and mak­ing reg­u­lar plans quickly fills the week.

playing Magic: The Gathering

Tiana taps two swamps to add two black mana to her mana pool, and increase her sex­i­ness to nerds every­where by 500%.

Probably a good thing, cause I also feel like I’ve been spend­ing too much time alone dur­ing my bouts of introversion.

It’s also been a while since I stepped out of my com­fort zone. I guess I did enough trav­el­ing last year to know where my bound­aries are. Since return­ing from my sojourn in the Old Dominion, I’ve been too com­fort­able, and slowly I’m being forced out of it as life catches up with me. But I know I can han­dle things, cause I’ve done it before.

So I’m try­ing to enjoy what I have now, caught some­where between day and night, iso­la­tion and over-stimulation, work and play, sum­mer and fall.

tagged with #busy #friends #reflection #seasons #Tiana / filed under Daily Life Photos
09 Jun 12
6

happy child

The sum­mer started unevent­fully, with a mix of rainy weather and cold nights. I long for after­noons in the bright sun, Lou Reed dur­ing his Velvet Underground years croon­ing to me over small speak­ers, with noth­ing bet­ter to do than wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion off a cold drink. It’s a life that doesn’t seem far away, and yet a life I never imag­ine mak­ing for myself. I always think it’ll just hap­pen some day, that things will fall into place if I can take care of every­thing else.

Friday Night Magic

It’s okay to be OCD about how your cards are orga­nized as long as every­one else is.

Aaron has me over for din­ner every week with Karen and the two kids. It’s a rit­ual he has yet to break, even though he told me he didn’t want it to be a cal­en­dar event when I asked him if we could do some­thing on a reg­u­lar basis1. Every Wednesday he leaves work early to let me in the house, and makes up the time by work­ing longer hours on other days, a sac­ri­fice that means more to me than he’ll ever under­stand, and some­thing I never had to ask him to do. It’s nice to be able to look for­ward to reg­u­lar plans, and some­thing I share only with him that makes me feel like I belong.

About as often are Magic nights with Trolley and Steph, and these invari­ably include some­thing deli­cious for din­ner, when Steph takes the culi­nary arts to a whole new level. They take care of me with food and con­ver­sa­tion and booster packs that they never let me pay for. I’m sure I owe a great deal of my san­ity to them, when Magic was the only thing that took my mind off the fact that every­thing fell apart.

pretty wolf

Nobody fucks Pretty Wolf.

In between are things less fre­quent, but no less impor­tant. Musical projects with Jesse or Seth that give me the kind of goals and pur­pose I’ve been look­ing for. Sessions with Lisa, when we get to share the things we don’t share with any­one else. Hangouts with Tiana to debrief on our ever-changing lives, and to give each other advice or a pair of ears. Dinners with Heather when I need my dose of opti­mism and adven­tur­ism. Not to men­tion the peo­ple who send me mes­sages of check up on how I’m doing when they can’t be here for me physically.

big dog and two girls

HOW ARE YOU SO BIG

It feels strange to be busy again. To be pro­duc­tive, and social, and to need days off when I’m not even employed.

Not that it’s been an attempt to stay occu­pied; more like mak­ing sure my needs are being met. That I have ful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships that pro­vide me with what I need, involv­ing peo­ple who make me feel hope­ful and worth­while and con­nected and nur­tured and pro­tected and sat­is­fied and accepted and under­stood and val­i­dated and loved and con­fi­dent and safe and in control.

  1. Only because it’s some­thing he wanted to keep casual, where nei­ther per­son felt any pres­sure. [↩]
tagged with #Aaron #friends #Lisa #summer #Trolley #weather / filed under Daily Life Photos
17 May 12
3

the tide you swim against will carry you back home

How quickly my world fell apart. How sud­denly things have changed, never to be the same again. No one blames me for being unable to cope when so much has hap­pened all at once.

When diag­nos­ing the sever­ity of your mood, the pro­fes­sion­als always ask if you have a plan. Even the two cops who show up at your door at mid­night cause your friends fear the worst will pose the ques­tion. I guess a plan is the sign that you’re in imme­di­ate dan­ger, and I had three.

It means I get to be self­ish now. I get to do what I need to sur­vive. I get to think of myself for once in my life.

Even if my friends have never been through this, even if they don’t under­stand, they still care, and they prove it to me with every lin­ger­ing hug, every meal they leave me, every call to ask how I’m feel­ing, every mes­sage left to let them know if there’s any­thing they can do, every reminder that they don’t want to lose me spo­ken through tears from those I’ve never seen cry.

I used to have noth­ing but guilt for wor­ry­ing them, but now I under­stand that guilt is the last thing they want me to feel. They only want me to be okay. They’ve done so much to make me believe this, and that’s exactly what I need right now.

tagged with #friends #life / filed under Daily Life
11 Mar 12
0

booster draft

Today, I got to intro­duce some very good friends to each other. Everyone got along famously, although it couldn’t have gone any other way with these guys.

It was the first booster draft for three of us. I was mas­sa­cred in every game, and didn’t have any less fun los­ing to such great sports.

Magic: The Gathering booster draft

Two Innistrad and two Dark Ascension. Oh what glit­ter­ing golden sym­bols lie beneath these wrappers.

Unfortunately, noth­ing inter­ested me when we were pick­ing out rares1, so I got noth­ing for the deck I’m cur­rently build­ing, and no direc­tion for a sec­ond deck. But as Aaron said, even if you lose, it’s cheaper than a night of poker. Sometimes you lose it on the river, some­times you draw 13 con­sec­u­tive lands, and some­times you OH GOD WHY ARE MY CREATURES DEAD ARGHGHHGHGH LETS PLAY AGAIN.

  1. And there wasn’t a sin­gle green rare — exactly what I was look­ing for — out of 17 rares. I have no idea what the chances are on that, but I know they’re not big. [↩]
tagged with #Aaron #friends #Trolley / filed under Daily Life Photos
13 Feb 12
2

sine wave

It’s per­pet­u­ally night in my lit­tle nest. A gui­tar is never more than an arms length away, and two cats are always will­ing to curl up against my body under the sheets (though never together); some days it feels like these are the only things I need in the world. Perhaps I’m lit­tle too com­fort­able here, where I can watch the snow fall out the win­dow, and sel­dom have to ven­ture out of my com­fort zone.

I’m con­stantly start­ing over. Throwing away a page so I can have a blank can­vas. Losing another friend to adult­hood, then find­ing new ones in the most unex­pected places. Riding the oscil­la­tions of a sine wave.

The only thing that’s con­stant is how much Byron is grow­ing, his paws and tail hav­ing sur­passed Dolly’s in girth many months ago, and I can’t wait to see how big he’s going to get once he’s fully into adult­hood. I relate to my friends only when one of the cats is afflicted with acne or her­pes or an upper res­pi­ra­tory infec­tion, and I have to play mother to a kitty who can’t fight the sick­ness by them­selves. Dolly has been espe­cially sen­si­tive lately, and needs a lot more atten­tion and affec­tion, still jeal­ous of the new kit­ten in the house.

cats sleeping butt to butt

Butt to butt.

Lisa keeps me sane nowa­days, a role she’s par­tially taken over from John ever since he became a dad. She’s the voice of female rea­son in my life, the only excuse I use to watch great movies now, and the one who talks me down from drunken e-mails to ex-girlfriends. But some­times I need more than half a Lisa and half a John, cause not every­thing can be solved by a stolen con­ver­sa­tion or bury­ing your face in a cat’s belly.

I’m learn­ing that life goes on, whether you’re ready or not. You can only con­trol so much. This real­iza­tion is the rea­son I don’t worry about the future any­more, even when it feels like I should be worried.

I’ve also dis­cov­ered that my writer’s block hasn’t been due to a lack of things to talk about, but the fact that noth­ing I write is sat­is­fy­ing any­more. I’ve lost my rea­son. The only thing I’ve fallen in love with lately has been my set of extra-light chrome flat­wound strings, cause they have such a crisp sound off the nail, but main­tain a warm, aus­tere overtone.

I used to go to bed and dream, but nowa­days, my mind is empty. I don’t know what to make of it all any­more. Can’t fig­ure out if I’m stand­ing on a crest or trough.

tagged with #Byron #cats #Dolly #friends #friendship #John #Lisa / filed under Daily Life Photos
29 Sep 11
1

chapters

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I’m writ­ing this over break­fast — a sim­ple flax bagel with cream cheese and hon­eyed tea — some­thing I haven’t done since back in the day. How weird is it that I don’t write any­more. At this point, I can’t tell if it’s a shift in inter­ests, or just a lack of need.

I lose track of the days cause I don’t sleep reg­u­lar hours. Or talk to John. Or play games. I can’t under­stand where the time is going. I won­der if life will ever slow down again, or if this is it, this is the rea­son old peo­ple whine about how quickly the years have passed and how some small food item used to cost some small amount.

man holding baby

This is how I want to be woken up every day.

I haven’t had a chance to recharge my bat­ter­ies in as long as I can remem­ber. The Christmas hol­i­days will be nice, when I’ll actu­ally be tak­ing the time off to her­mi­tize and relax, when I won’t have another video to edit, sub­ject to write, song to learn, or friend to visit. I may even treat myself to Portal 2.

boy playing with Lego

 

The Fall has started like no other. The air is clear and the sun is out, but it’s start­ing to get nippy at night. Every morn­ing I wake up with the pave­ment dark from the dew, and soon I’ll be scrap­ing ice off the car, instead of wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion from the windows.

It’s still not cool enough to leave the win­dows open all day, but the antic­i­pa­tion is enough. There’s some­thing com­fort­ing about a pre­dictable cycle, know­ing that snow will fall and melt, that things will die and grow.

mother holding baby

 

I can finally see the grand scheme, the chap­ters in the book we’re con­stantly writ­ing, where an end­ing means a begin­ning is on the next page.

In a way, it feels like I’m finally here, except I don’t know where here is, I just know it’s exactly where I want to be.

tagged with #busy #friends / filed under Daily Life Photos
29 Aug 11
1

You're my big bear

and that means you’d get a big bear hug the next time I see you, but they say you’ve shat­tered your rib cage, lost a pile of teeth, and bro­ken every bone on the right side of your body, save the arm.

I’ve been there man. You know that. That’s why you know I’ll never judge you for what hap­pened. You told me we could always talk cause you were once on the edge of the same blade, so you should have known the same, but you didn’t pick up when he said maybe there was a bet­ter chance you’d lis­ten to me. All I could do was sit there, try­ing to keep calm, but expect­ing the next call to be about a body.

I should be angry. Not cause you didn’t call me to say good­bye before you took off, but because you hurt your­self and you’re my brother, and that means you hurt my family.

I can’t stay mad cause you’re con­scious now, your vitals are sta­ble, there’s no brain dam­age, and relief has sur­passed anger. They say it’s mainly injuries to the bones and that bones heal, long as it may take.

Will I rec­og­nize you the next time I see you? Will I cry? Will you ever under­stand how scared I was? I can’t call cause the nurse needs to be by your side, and I can’t visit yet cause only imme­di­ate fam­ily are allowed for now. Otherwise, I’d be in a car, dri­ving down there with a case of Blue ready for you when you’re out.

I don’t want to worry any­more. I want to see with my own eyes that you’re okay. I want you drunk at my wed­ding with your cap on back­wards, scream­ing your ass off when I walk down the aisle. I want you at every New Year’s party, cause you’re one of the only rea­sons I go any­more. I want you to teach my kids how put some­one in a proper choke-hold cause they should know how to take care of them­selves, and you’re smart in all the ways I’m not.

We all need you as much as I do. That’s why you’re still alive, and that’s what I’m going to make you under­stand one day.

tagged with #friends #letters / filed under Random
22 Aug 11
2

small world

The drive to Toronto is get­ting eas­ier. It’s my only chance to really lis­ten to albums nowa­days1, not to men­tion the com­fort of see­ing famil­iar towns on the way, like the names of sub­way stops you can’t help but mem­o­rize as a child on the way home from school. And in a way, so many years later, Toronto still feels like home. Getting there is a jour­ney, but the peo­ple always make it worth it.

My patience tends to wear out about a quar­ter way in, when it becomes hard to main­tain a rea­son­able speed. It’s a test of whether I can drive safely to see how far I’ve grown as a person.

I fail every time.

Toronto view

The view from Alex’s down­town apart­ment. You can eas­ily tell Yonge Street apart from how brightly it’s lit.

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  1. Editors in both direc­tions this time, cause any­thing I lis­ten to nowa­days is Antje rec­om­mended. [↩]
tagged with #experiences #friends #high-school #memories #Toronto / filed under Daily Life Photos
01 Jul 11
1

Protected: round my hometown memories are fresh

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tagged with #Darren #friends #music #realization #Taoism #writing / filed under Daily Life Photos
03 May 11
4

friendship cycles

I haven’t talked to John since he got mar­ried, which was almost a month ago. This is an inor­di­nately long time, con­sid­er­ing the fact that he used to call me almost every other day. I don’t blame him cause I know he just got back from his hon­ey­moon, moved into a new house, and is catch­ing up on work. I’ve never been hap­pier for him, but that still leaves me long­ing for the com­fort of the only per­son I say so much to. He was my only con­sis­tent source of inter­ac­tion with the out­side world.

cutting the wedding cake

Head table, bitches.

Alayna just had her 20 week ultra­sound, and they’re going to have a boy. When the baby’s born, I’ll have even less of him.

It’s not like I’ve given up on John, but I have to face the fact that he’s in a very dif­fer­ent place now, and needs to focus on his fam­ily. That means I need to give him space; it’s exactly what he would do for me if our sit­u­a­tions were reversed1. Considering the fact that the rela­tion­ship, mar­riage, baby, and house weren’t on the hori­zon only half a year ago, it’s a very sud­den change for me.

I’ve learned that all rela­tion­ships — roman­tic or not — have unique begin­nings and end­ings. Some are short-term and run their course quickly, oth­ers are long-term and last until pass­ing, and they can all come and go at any point in our lives.

It makes me won­der when I’ll meet another friend I can spend time with the way I can with John. Someone I can call up and hang out with spon­ta­neously, with­out feel­ing like I need to keep them enter­tained. Someone I can have on the phone with­out say­ing any­thing, and for whom I can have an excuse to cook. Someone around whom I can let my guard down, which is prob­a­bly the most dif­fi­cult thing for me to do when it comes to being social. There have been a few peo­ple like that through the years, but things fall apart, and that’s why I’m left here, miss­ing the com­fort of a close friend.

  1. Although I’m sure it’d be eas­ier for him cause I’m more depen­dent, even though I tend to be the one in con­trol in our friend­ship. [↩]
tagged with #friends #friendship #John / filed under Thoughts
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