Posts tagged with "realization"

pana-vision

I chose to brave New Year’s alone this year. The tim­ing of my seda­tives worked out where the option of tak­ing one was avail­able, but I even­tu­al­ly decid­ed against it. Isolation was some­thing I need­ed to face head-on, when every­one else was cel­e­brat­ing with friends and loved ones. If I could make it through (rel­a­tive­ly) sober, I could sur­vive the great­est fear I’ve had since I was a child: aban­don­ment.

alfie

At the casu­al box­ing day gath­er­ing I had the plea­sure of meet­ing Alfie, Cristina’s dap­per res­cue mutt who deals with the same social anx­i­ety issues as I do. Maybe that’s why we got along so well.

Probably also the fact that we were both dosed up.

It did­n’t end up being any­thing spec­tac­u­lar. Just a night with a gen­er­ous three hour win­dow to catch up on Nolan’s lat­est work1 and some extra time to fin­ish a cam­paign in Halo’s Master Chief Collection2.

Normalcy end­ed up being a gift I did­n’t real­ize I need­ed. The approach of each hol­i­day sea­son has been a loom­ing spec­tre ever since I cut the pow­er cord off a stand­ing Ikea lamp and made a noose to hang myself from the ban­is­ter 10-ish years ago3, and the anniver­sary effect still hits me hard.

Being alone was a way to prove to myself that I’m not so help­less now, that I don’t have to be trapped in a past that still haunts me. I’ve come a long way since that fate­ful morn­ing, when I was inter­rupt­ed by two cops who would­n’t leave unless I agreed to let them dri­ve me to the hos­pi­tal. Developing a wider emo­tion­al vocab­u­lary, nur­tur­ing healthy rela­tion­ships instead of tox­ic ones, work­ing with a ther­a­pist every month, and con­sis­tent­ly step­ping out of my com­fort zone so I can learn and grow are all things that have giv­en me bet­ter tools and resources to sur­vive.

opening presents

A new set of match­ing paja­mas for the whole fam­i­ly each year is the kind of tra­di­tion I’ll nev­er get to have for myself, a fact that was much more painful for me to accept before I start­ed look­ing for ful­fill­ment in ways that don’t depend on oth­ers. Instead of feel­ing a tinge of sad­ness, I can now enjoy and appre­ci­ate expe­ri­ences like this.

Spending Christmas with Aaron and his fam­i­ly this year cer­tain­ly stayed any feel­ings of lone­li­ness.

When I told him how scared I was of being iso­lat­ed over the hol­i­days, he insist­ed I stay with them or risk dis­ap­point­ing the kids. It was a touch­ing threat, as well as a sign of how pro­tec­tive Aaron is of the peo­ple he cares about (and some­thing I would­n’t have noticed until Heather point­ed out).

A few years ago, I might have believed it was a ges­ture out of char­i­ty or pity. Now I’m con­fi­dent enough in my self-worth to know the invi­ta­tion was extend­ed because he gen­uine­ly enjoys my com­pa­ny and believes I’m a pos­i­tive influ­ence on his chil­dren (who have referred to me as “Uncle Jeff” ever since they could talk).

hand drawn Christmas cards

I col­lect my birth­day and Christmas cards, one of the few tan­gi­ble things I receive from the dwin­dling fam­i­ly I have left, and prob­a­bly a sign that there are lin­ger­ing inse­cu­ri­ties. Hand-drawn ones like these are par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial; I feel seen when some­one appre­ci­ates the meals I make them or my gam­ing abil­i­ties or sim­ply myself as a per­son.

To be loved by chil­dren and ani­mals — beings who are too inno­cent to have ulte­ri­or motives for express­ing such feel­ings — is some­thing I’ve come to cher­ish a great deal after a life­time of emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion.

Being around four kids and five adults left me so wired that I had to leave a night ear­li­er than planned so as to avoid burn­ing myself out, even if years of unbear­able lone­li­ness meant I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to stay. It was com­fort­ing enough to see me through one of the most dif­fi­cult nights I’ve annu­al­ly come to dread.

When I thanked him after­wards, he told me it would mean a great deal to every­one if I joined them each year, but no pres­sure. Having a place to go, but more impor­tant­ly, know­ing it’s because my pres­ence would be val­ued instead of an oblig­a­tion due to rela­tion, has giv­en me a feel­ing of accep­tance and belong­ing I thought would be for­ev­er beyond my reach, and a sense of hope I believed was eter­nal­ly lost.

  1. Oppenheimer was the first of his films that was­n’t my thing, but as with Scorsese, Malick, Anderson, Tarantino, and Villeneuve’s oeu­vres, I’ll always be pay­ing atten­tion. [↩]
  2. I’ve nev­er owned a Microsoft con­sole, so while some mechan­ics and lev­el designs are extreme­ly dat­ed, I’m still enjoy­ing my delve into the his­to­ry of such a huge cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non as the Halo series. [↩]
  3. Dates and mem­o­ries tend to be very hazy around that time, espe­cial­ly when I try not to think about it too much. [↩]

200 miles just to learn

The only time Rob and I ever had a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion was the night before Aaron’s wed­ding, when we were the last ones up out of the grooms­men stay­ing at my house. Aside from that, I was­n’t sure if I’ve ever con­nect­ed with him on a per­son­al lev­el; I’ve been dis­cov­er­ing how dif­fer­ent­ly some behave when oth­ers are around, and with Aaron or Mel in the mix, he’s got even more to prove than usu­al.

But I could always tell that under­neath the brash and indomitable impres­sion he gives the world is a wis­dom not shared by many. It was exact­ly that kind of aware­ness I was look­ing to be in the com­pa­ny of, so I took the chance to vis­it when it would be just the two of us. Even though we’re so dif­fer­ent in so many ways, it turns out the things we have in com­mon are more sig­nif­i­cant, and I dis­cov­ered he’s exact­ly the kind of friend I need right now.

photo montage

The man-cave most­ly fea­tures posters of com­ic book heroes and car­toon fig­urines, the only pic­tures being found in a lit­tle frame next to the com­put­er. It was strange to see two of myself in there next to one of him suck­ing back a beer with Trevor. That was back when I rocked my hair with a part down the mid­dle and occa­sion­al­ly some sol­id colour, though I don’t remem­ber any­thing about it oth­er­wise — a strange anom­aly in a per­son with a pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Lost the hood­ie, still have the coat, won’t be caught wear­ing those glass­es again.

The only oth­er peo­ple who have a pic­ture of me in their homes are Aaron and Alex. I always take those pho­tographs as a telling sign of your rela­tion­ship with some­one. It means they care enough to want you around even when you’re not there. I guess that’s why each of them have more pho­tos of me than both my par­ents com­bined, and why Rob calls me broth­er.

changing dressings

The nurse comes every day to change the dress­ings and keep an eye out for infec­tion. Aside from the list­ing hob­ble, you’d nev­er have an idea of the pun­ish­ment this body has borne under­neath, until a wince when the tube drags against his shirt. That and the fact that there isn’t a bot­tle of Blue in his hand. Otherwise, the acci­dent did­n’t change Rob at all. He’s still the hap­py-go-lucky, take-it-on-the-chin kind of guy. To him, the world has always been sim­ple, an equa­tion that can be solved with mus­cle and mass, and he car­ries both answers in spades.

Under any oth­er cir­cum­stance, I’d hate him. He’s obnox­ious, stub­born, and proud; a type I don’t get along with. But I’m also on his good side, which means he’s loy­al and lov­ing unlike any oth­er, and he shows this every time he squeezes the breath out of my chest until I’m weak and com­ing up for air. Through him, I’m learn­ing to under­stand and accept the peo­ple I’d oth­er­wise turn away from.

frame of mine

I’ve made peace with this body. It has­n’t been an easy peace to come by, as I seem to get con­stant reminders about the diminu­tive size of my stature. Most recent­ly, I met an old­er Chinese woman who admit­ted that she thought I looked sick and weak only after she dis­cov­ered I had col­i­tis. It was as if she thought col­i­tis caused some kind of mal­nu­tri­tion that stunt­ed my growth, and she did­n’t want to bring up the fact that I was this size because it would have been too embar­rass­ing unless it was caused by a med­ical con­di­tion.

Asian male self portrait

 

I’ve been deal­ing with all kinds of sim­i­lar com­ments since I was a kid, so when a girl­friend would say that she liked a par­tic­u­lar part or por­tion of my body, I always thought they were just blind­ed by love. Eventually I real­ized that if they could come to love this body, then I could too. It will nev­er look right in any­thing but slim-fit extra smalls from Mexx. It will nev­er be good enough for my par­ents. But it will always be who I am, and I’ve learned to accept that.

cause you're bored and you can doesn't mean you should

I always won­der if I’ll ever reach such a com­plete peace that I’d stop writ­ing com­plete­ly. One of the rea­sons I start­ed this blog was to have a place where I could get things down and sort my thoughts out on a page, but I don’t need to do much of either nowa­days.

I know so many peo­ple who’ve con­tin­ued writ­ing, even after find­ing that kind of hap­pi­ness in their lives. Unfortunately, hap­pi­ness has robbed them of lit­er­ary inspi­ra­tion, and now they have noth­ing inter­est­ing to say. It would­n’t be so bad if they stopped writ­ing, but they post for the sake of post­ing instead of hav­ing some­thing to say or express or vent, and it reeks of des­per­a­tion and inse­cu­ri­ty.

I used to wor­ry that hap­pi­ness would make me a bor­ing per­son too, but now I would­n’t mind as long as I real­ized it and gave up this blog. It’s so embar­rass­ing to write out of a belief that it’ll make you inter­est­ing. Or even worse, to be obliv­i­ous to the fact you’re writ­ing about the most inane things.

round my hometown memories are fresh

It’s good to be home.

By the end of my jour­ney, I start­ed long­ing for the com­fort of my house and slip­pers, as I imag­ined being splayed out on the couch, watch­ing a movie with a bowl of ice cream in my hands. It’s been more than a week since I’ve been back, and I’ve yet to do this. It’s hard to pull myself out of the old habit of being pro­duc­tive. Sometimes I need to be wait­ing at a ter­mi­nal in New York with a three-hour lay­over to be able to sit down and enjoy a film.1

large bud

It’s dan­ger­ous to go alone! Take this.

At the same time, I’ve nev­er been more indul­gent, my lat­est vice being those bags of York Peppermint Patties. I fig­ured out that life is too short and I should be enjoy­ing myself when I was sip­ping café allongé on a patio with Karin on a beau­ti­ful Paris day, and I could final­ly appre­ci­ate this fact when talk­ing to Dennis over our lager on an Edinburgh after­noon.

This is prob­a­bly why I don’t feel over­stim­u­lat­ed, even though I’ve been going full-tilt for the last two months. Darren came over as part of his sab­bat­i­cal, and we did the things I rarely find an excuse to do myself, like going shoe shop­ping or order­ing sushi. Last week I staked him $20 and watched him win $600 when he hit his num­ber at the roulette table, five min­utes after we stepped in the casi­no. He gave me back a per­cent­age of my win­nings, and he spent the night play­ing black­jack while I bet on the elec­tron­ic hors­es. We did­n’t end up win­ning much after that, but we both left up.

Lisa even took us danc­ing2, where I learned that the entire appeal of strobe lights is their abil­i­ty to make every­thing look like a Michael Bay movie filmed in 24p. It turns out this is also a great way to do some peo­ple-watch­ing, although you start to get depressed when you see a pair of kids from their respec­tive groups pick­ing a fight with each oth­er cause they’re drunk, then mak­ing up and play­ing grab-ass on the dance floor. Ironically, I end­ed up being the one sober enough to dri­ve home.

sushi platters

From left to right: Yummy roll (deep fried crab, avo­ca­do, salmon, white fish — served warm), spicy salmon piz­za, eel spe­cial roll, green drag­on roll (avo­ca­do on tem­pu­ra shrimp and cucum­ber), shrimp tem­pu­ra roll, and Philadelphia roll.

Last time I checked, there were over 5000 unread items in my feed read­er, and tweets from over a week ago in my Twitter time­line. It’s strange to be so dis­con­nect­ed from life as I knew it. I haven’t writ­ten any­thing in as long either, which is a very long time for me. I con­sid­ered delet­ing this blog, then tak­ing a month off instead, then decid­ed I’d write when I felt like it. The thing is, I always feel like writ­ing, but late­ly this urge has giv­en way to being pro­duc­tive in oth­er ways or hav­ing fun. It’s like I’m final­ly on the Taoist path, dis­cov­er­ing that my trip has changed me more than I first thought.

  1. I end­ed up watch­ing sev­en on my trav­els, which is prob­a­bly more than all of last year):
    • Sunshine — good as long as you can get over one real­ly big, real­ly stu­pid plot ele­ment. Which I could­n’t, so on the whole this movie sucked, even though it had some of the best direct­ing I’ve ever seen in my life.
    • Network — Unbelievably ahead of it’s time in terms of media com­men­tary
    • The Last Picture Show — a great com­ing-of-age movie direct­ed by that guy who played Dr. Melfi’s psy­chi­a­trist on the Sopranos, and Cybill Shepherd in her debut role
    • Ladder 49 — I don’t trust Pat’s taste in movies any­more
    • Kung Fu Panda — they were pret­ty good at the Chinese details
    • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — a fun movie over­all, the best part being that it’s set in Toronto. Also, very dis­ap­point­ed at how much of a sell­out Bryan Lee O’Malley is for chang­ing the end­ing based on audi­ence reac­tions at test screen­ings
    • To Kill a Mockingbird — I want­ed to be a lawyer after see­ing this

    [↩]

  2. Which for me is pret­ty much just sway­ing back and forth while being mes­mer­ized by the gui­tar play­ers. [↩]