Posts in category "Thoughts"

29 3/12: The Once Loved

When I look at this pic­ture, I see the flaws. The stretch marks on my back, and espe­cial­ly promi­nent on the side of my ass. Those strange red blem­ish­es on my shoul­der that I don’t remem­ber hav­ing. The lack of junk in the trunk so com­mon in Asian peo­ple. I did­n’t even know I had a mole down there.

I used to have body-image issues. Always think­ing I was too skin­ny, and too ugly.

Self portrait at 29 3/12

 

Then some­one made me feel dif­fer­ent­ly. She treat­ed every part of my body with as much atten­tion and love as I treat­ed hers. She was the first per­son to ever make me believe that I was attrac­tive too. Some days, I felt as hand­some as she was pret­ty.

I turn 30 in nine months, and now that she’s gone, I won­der if any­one will ever see me that way again.

The Turning 30 Series

Lover/Dreamer

(+5 bonus points if you get the album ref­er­ence.)

Thumbnail: Heart in the window

I real­ly do have love to give! I just don’t know where to put it!

—Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, Magnolia

Okay, I’ll admit it.

I need to love. I need it, the way I need to eat.

This is the same part of me that notices the faint out­lines of hearts drawn in car win­dows. Also, the same part that mar­vels about that ado­les­cent point in life, when one would draw some­thing so sim­ple and insignif­i­cant because the only wor­ry was whether or not some­one liked you back.

So when I don’t have some­one to love, it fuck­ing kills me.

29 2/12: The Lachrymologist

I used to be a crier. Any strong emo­tion, good or bad (though more often the lat­ter), could bring on tears like a reflex. Now, I can’t remem­ber the last time I cried, which means it’s been a while. More than a year, I sus­pect.

Getting misty-eyed does­n’t count; that’s too easy. A poignant scene in a movie, the right song at the right moment, even see­ing some­one demon­strate a Tai Chi move­ment with mas­ter­ly detail and pre­ci­sion can cause my heart to swell, but the feel­ing only lasts as long as a few blinks after the blurred vision. When I refer to cry­ing, I mean when the tears are enough to over­flow and leak.

Self portrait at 29 2/12

 

When I was young, the kids in school would laugh at boys who cried — much less social­ly accept­able in this cul­ture — but I was nev­er embar­rassed about it. I thought it was nat­ur­al, the way some peo­ple are gay or Caucasian. I thought I’d grow out of it, the way one grows out of a fear of the dark grad­u­al­ly and sub­con­scious­ly, but I kept cry­ing well into my 20s.

I’ve always won­dered if my dad has ever cried, even as a child. I can’t pic­ture him doing it, not even when my grand­moth­er dies. He’s so care­free and log­i­cal that I can’t see any­thing affect­ing him emo­tion­al­ly. With my dad as my ear­ly mod­el for a man, I’m sure this is part of the rea­son I don’t feel like an adult yet. Society teach­es us that adults, or male one’s at least, aren’t sup­posed to cry.

I’m not sure why it’s been so long for me. Maybe the ther­a­py, com­bined with my study of Taoism, has evened out my ups and downs, help­ing me acknowl­edge my weak­ness­es (so I’m not as hard on myself), as well as the uncon­trol­lable nature of life. Maybe my life is sta­ble enough now that I did­n’t need that kind of release.

I turn 30 in 10 months, and I won­der when I’ll cry again.

The Turning 30 Series

You Can't Go Back

During his Emmy-award win­ning per­for­mance, Kill the Messenger, Chris Rock had a hilar­i­ous bit on the dif­fer­ences between men and women. He sums it up suc­cinct­ly:

Women can­not go back­wards in lifestyle. Men can­not go back­wards sex­u­al­ly.

An exam­ple he uses for women is the first time they get into a nice, warm car after club­bing, wav­ing bye to their friends who are wait­ing for the bus in the cold. After that, they can’t be with a man who does­n’t have a car, or as Rock puts it, “That’s how the fuck you roll for the rest of your life”. This extends to guys with their own places, then guys who take them on vaca­tion.

On men, he says, “Once we get the sex we like, that’s how the fuck we roll. I like my cof­fee like this, I like my steak like this, and I like to fuck like this…Ladies, don’t get mad at us. Get mad at our ex-girl­friends. She’s the one that [sic] spoiled it for every­body” because if your ex-girl­friend licks your ass, you expect your cur­rent girl­friend to do the same.

For me, the same is true for girls in gen­er­al, but not just in these aspects. I can’t be with a girl who refus­es to try exot­ic foods or refus­es to give uncon­ven­tion­al music a chance, who would­n’t rec­og­nize the effort I put into my presents, who would­n’t cher­ish the love and affec­tion I give, who would­n’t under­stand me, or would­n’t laugh at my stu­pid jokes, because I’ve been with girls who are a com­bi­na­tion of open-mind­ed, appre­cia­tive, roman­tic, on the same wave­length as me, and actu­al­ly find me fun­ny (when not com­plete­ly awk­ward).

That's why this entire idea scares me.

I know most peo­ple get more flex­i­ble on things about their mates as they head towards (or beyond) the mar­ry­ing age but I seem to be mov­ing the oppo­site direc­tion. Each girl I’ve been with has been an improve­ment over the last. Now the bar has been raised so damn high I don’t think I’ll ever get there again, and I’d rather be alone than com­pro­mise or set­tle.

My stan­dards are get­ting high­er, and I can’t go back.

29 1/12: The Adolescent

A lit­tle while ago, I stopped shav­ing. I had the flu for about five days, and already had a five-day shad­ow devel­oped when that began. Then with a lack of social engage­ments, I decid­ed to let it keep grow­ing, lest I lose such a gen­er­ous head start that only began because I was too lazy when I was sick.

I took this pic­ture, and it was more than three weeks with­out touch­ing a razor at that point.

Self portrait at 29 1/12

 

Aaron always keeps a neat­ly trimmed beard, so I asked him how he takes care of it; which direc­tion to shave, what length to start trim­ming, etc. It was strange to be seek­ing shav­ing advice from some­one at this point in my life. Most of the hair is around the mouth and on chin, with only an embar­rass­ing half-dozen wires sprout­ing ran­dom­ly from my cheeks, so it required a touch of main­te­nance.

For a long time, I did­n’t know what to think of it, whether I liked it or not. Aaron said to me, “Sometimes, you don’t need to know”, and I went with that for a while. Maybe time would give me an answer.

Soon after, I start­ed shav­ing again. It was­n’t get­ting any thick­er, and I did­n’t think I could pull it off.

I turn 30 in 11 months, and I still can’t grow a beard.

The Turning 30 Series