Old Habits and New Thoughts

I was going to start a new blog, but since this is fairly anonymous anyway (my old friends have probably long forgotten this) and I'd like to have a place where I can look back and see how my writing has grown—or not grown, perhaps—I decided to pick this back up.

I had been working on this for a while, it's not really anything but words spilling. At some points in my life I had felt this way, not lately though because I've been happy in a way I hadn't been in a really long time. I have some plans and it's okay if they don't go really as planned, I am okay with not knowing for sure this time.

Also, since it's probably more interesting (mostly for future me) if I recounted my days instead of only writing melodramatic prose:

Tomorrow I am going to get lunch with my friend, Terry, and then we'll study together for our final next week, then we'll get dinner with our other friend, Seth, who said he knew this smoked meat burger place. I'm not too sure how smoked meat and burgers can be said in the same sentence, but I guess we'll see. Thursday is relatively planless, but on Friday I'm going grocery shopping with my new beau, Damian, and we're going to make an improvised hotpot. Next week I have two finals, and then I'll finally be free (well, hopefully, depends on how these two finals go) after five years of undergrad. Terry and Seth and I are going on a trip to Maine in May, although I do need to start planning that, and my parents are coming for convocation, and I think I'll go visit my family for the summer, but these are far off plans and I haven't really thought too much ahead yet.

There is a lot happening, and I'm pretty apprehensive, but mostly excited. I do have a lot of doubts, but I've been going to a local church lately for their gorgeous music, and they always say to have faith, which is what I think I should do. I just have to keep forging ahead no matter what happens and have faith that everything will be okay in the end.

I'll aim to update semi-frequently, nothing too serious, just a bit of chronicling of my days because it's more fun to keep it up if I pretend that I have an audience.

Well, without further ado:

would you forget me?

I can let you go in the morning as long as you come back to me at night. without fail, without doubt. you can be with the sirens or the witches or the court of roses, as long as you come back.

if you and I have no regrets, nothing to turn back to, what does our parting mean?

. . .

Adieu.

Despereaux’s mother believed in insurmountable fate, and perhaps so do I. Someone once wrote, “There are people in our lives who were only meant to pass through.” To share with us a lesson or a story or a vivid dream before they fade into the ephemeral. Three years ago, I would have rejected that thought with a brief panic. I would have quelled even the faintest hint of it with a sharp breath.

Tonight, I sit in front of my laptop. The illusions have faded, the memories no longer hurt. In my life I only really had one regret. Tonight, I feel that regret slipping away from me.

Decisive. Strong. Courageous. Independent.

Everything I want to be, everything I am not. In writing, I discard the husk and face my demons. You are not good enough, they whisper. You will never be strong enough to shake us off. My poison is reality, and writing is my antidote. Here, I can objectively say what I should do and mix it in with a batch of optimism. I should and I could. And I would.

I will.

I will, surely.

I will, maybe.

For two years, I cried. Long, lonely sobs, the cold truth of who I was and what I had done snaking its way around my heart. I put my headphones on and tried to sit in front of a screen, too, tried to free myself of a ghost that would trace its chilling fingers around my shoulders and sing in my head.

Dark, darker, let the emotions drain until there is only void.

In those dark nights, I could not imagine ever feeling free. Maybe Fate is only pulling me up through another loop in this rollercoaster, maybe my demons will break out of their confines and drag me back to their lair. But tonight, I have lit my heart on fire.

. . .

can I just close my eyes

can I just close my eyes

can I just, the music is so loud, I’m drowning, I’m falling, the halls are hollow, my voice, my voice, can’t you hear me, I’m screaming, I’m stifling, I’m holding on and I’m pushing it all away

. . .

The snow is cold on my face. It melts on contact, of course, but by then it is too late. I watch as they cloud my glasses, my vision fading into my mind.

In the dark, they are always the same. The Queen, her ever elusiveness, her reluctance to take responsibility for the throne. She closes her eyes and hopes that the inevitable will go away. When the knight in shining armor, when the prince of light himself, when the brother of Fate comes, she is one step closer to falling back into her prison.

She runs away, every time, she fights off her pursuers and flees.

Syrena is everything I want to be.

She is strong, she is cold, she can read people’s hearts and not let them get to her. She fights by herself, defeating legions, defeating her captors, defeating the very fabric of reality. She is the Queen, because they will accept no one else, they do not want to accept anyone else.

Yet even she runs away from the insurmountable.

We each have our prisons, the keys tantalizingly out of reach. We paint the walls and call them home and wait until they fade from the jarring. For the longest time, I thought my prison was reality. I tried to run away from it, to no avail. Why did something so innoculous hurt so much, why will it not leave me alone?

The demons come howling. They knock on my doors, rattling the bars as they pass by, whispering, jeering, mocking. If everything is such a big deal to you, then everyone will think nothing is really a big deal, they screech. Why do you cry, they admonish. You should not cry so much, there is no reason to cry. No reason to feel so upset, they laugh, silvery hollows. How can you be suffering if so many people have it so much worse than you?

Are you crazy? You are, aren’t you?

My mind is my true prison.

Reality is only a construct.

There is really no reason for me to feel this way, objectively speaking. There is no reason why the Queen should run away from what is perhaps the greatest honor. No one really understands, unless they too stretch out reality until it hardens into jagged shapes, scraping at the heart until it is raw. Sometimes what you feel is not real, no matter how real it feels, it is only your mind laughing at you as it dangles the key close, close, closer then throws it barely out of reach.

Do you want it, it asks, do you want to be free? Of me?

Yes, you say. I would rather be plain, flat, emotionless, anything but these vivid colors that scream at my eyes and spin me round and round on this false pedestal.

Of course you never had a chance. Once learned, the mind does not forget.

Normality is the key, it does not come to those who lust after it. The more you reach out, the more it falls back, teasing, coy, flirting with those who do not care for it.

Why does your mind torture you so when it is only torturing itself? Why can it not run away from its own trecherous grasp? Why do I stay up so late to spill my thoughts onto paper, only to shove it into the corners when I wake up?

Will I remember tomorrow the cold fantasy I felt tonight?

How long will this illusion of happiness last?

. . .

music like mercury flowing through my veins

take my soul and keep it captive

pillars of light my staircase to a false heaven

steps like feathers covered in tar

deeper, deeper

spiraling

. . .

Doubt is like sand sifting through to the bottom of your heart. Each tumble of grain scratches at the walls, reminding you of the inevitable drop at the end.

In the winter I always order iced drinks. Coffee, tea, even smoothies. Smoothies are of course the ultimate enigma. Why do I keep ordering something that I know I never like? I have unfortunately fallen in love with the idea of them, a silhouette, just enough to keep up the insanity but not enough to make them palatable.

Anxiety is something you can never outrun. When the clock strikes twelve, the stories come. A traffic accident? Criminals robbing at gun-point? Apocalypse come early? The clock taps furiously. When you open the door and stare into a thousand pairs of eyes, the whispers grow frenzied.

Those whispers belie a more grotesque reality: that they are not whispers, but knowing laughter.

The road is long, monotone, I want to close my eyes but this is what I have always wanted. It has been a while since I really enjoyed the journey. Lately, the destination becomes overwhelming, especially how out of reach it is. The trees drag by in lines of green, gray, and black. Fantastical creatures live beyond the canopy, their eyes stalking the car. The mile markers are keys to a great piano that only entralled one. Sunlight filters like fairy dust, landing on the asphalt to make dark shimmering lakes.

My biggest lie is my love for adventure. It is the idea of it, a spell, a lullaby, taking me by my hands and luring me into the bright of day where I inevitably wake up and crawl back inside. Happiness, too, it eludes me, it puts on the airs of a French queen right before her beheading. The vultures of paranoia encircle me, just at the edge of my perception, patient, consistent, waiting for the lull.

Inevitable. Inescapable. Eventually the fears become prophecies.

Insurmountable.

Fate.

. . .

softly, softly, are you a horrible person? am I a horrible person? you say I am heartless, heartless, flitting like a bird through these tangled vines

razor teeth, razor teeth, you hold me down, we spin around, in the mist we wait, we wait to be found, to be found and discarded

I pick up my dreams and set them down, life is art, art is knowing when to move on

. . .

Why would you throw away three years like it was nothing?

There are no teary goodbyes. It is an instant affair, once the decision is made. Standing steadfast. No longing looks. Head held high, pacing forward, always forward.

Sometimes it is uncanny, how all the people and all the places can be such a blur, and how neatly I can pack them up and stow them away. People have dates, locations, expiration times. They turn into oversaturated polaroids stacked in the attic.

Was it a defense mechanism? Maybe I can know with years of therapy.

New places, new people, new adventures, it does not matter what they are or who they are, I always dive deep, head first, no reservations, no holding back. Maybe this time is not quite right, maybe the sand is too dry, or the sun too bright, maybe the best had already gone by; none of it matters because right now I want what is right now.

Surely they will still be waiting for me when I wake up in the morning.

But I will not wait until then.

Falling out of love is not instant, however abrupt the ending. For me, it is always inevitable. I was always never truly in love, so falling out of love is merely a formality, to demonstrate the finality.

What is real is what is in front of me after the night settles, after the whispers waltz in, after I fall back onto the soft void of my bed and stare at the ghosts that haunt me. What could have been, what would have been, what could never be and would never be and yet so tantalizing idyllic deceptive. How real is reality, how real are these wisps of stories braided together like fog?

Uprooting my life is as simple as flipping the page.

Planting it again is as ephemeral as the light dancing across the words.

One day the pages will fray, the binding harden and crack, the paper musty and heavy, sinking into place. One day the wide-eyed girl will no longer visit this library.

Tonight, we lose ourselves in our own minds.

. . .

tell me darling, why do you keep feeding your demons, why, oh, why darling, you try to run but you keep them on such a short leash, you turn to look at me with such a wistful smile, darling, you run, you slam the door but you smash the windows, you jump from the swing but hold on to the rope, darling, why, why do you need them so much?

why can’t you wake up from your past?

. . .

Have I lied before?

I lie all the time, to other people, to myself. Mostly to myself. I had said I have no regrets; that cannot be true, so patently untrue. If I had no regrets, why would I have these demons nipping at my heels?

There are many shades of reality, each one painted by a demon. Each so fresh, so real, their soft pastel watercolors bleeding into the bold acrylic. Rococo and romantism. My two favorite styles. If I close my eyes for long enough, I can almost feel my skin melting into the canvas, my soul weaving itself under the paint, where I too can pretend that I have frozen myself in that perfect moment where everything was just right and everything will go just right.

Which one is real anymore? Does it even matter?

No artist tolerates reality, Friedrich Nietzsche said.

There is no illusion more deceptive than reality, the pamphlet I picked up at the laundromat said. The artist reflects at length on reality and then magnifies it and turns it into a shimmering work to be shared with the audience, a group of strangers harbouring a thousand contradictory realities.

A group of strangers can have a thousand contradictory realities. I, too, have a thousand contradictory realities. My artists are my demons, instead of shining light they shove on shadows, instead of an audience there is only me. I alone walk down this neverending gallery, the long and dark hallway punctuated by angry canvases.

This is what could have been.

Idealistic. Realistic. Fantastical. Grounded. Just a little bit more, I just wanted, I just thought.

Someone once told me, you don’t have to always be happy. Some days you can be sad, and that’s okay, if you were always happy then happy would be normal and you’d be forever chasing more happiness.

Late at night, I feed my demons with greed. Sheer desire, naked, grotesque, I can feel my weak will crumbling against the gnarling teeth. This is my addiction, I get under the covers and I cry, I make myself so miserable until resignation sinks in, and then, then, I reset my expectations, I start the new day without looking back. These demons tear me down and I rebuild myself. Some days I even hold a paintbrush and go over the lines.

I have invited many people to the exhibition, but they simply shake their heads. Why do you torture yourself like this? None of this can be real. All of this can be real if you only tried. They see the art in front of them as art, and the reality in front of them as reality.

To me, art is merely reality in another dimension. Reality is merely art made present.

Soft rhetoric to comfort myself with as my demons drag the curtains over my eyes.

When We Stand on Guard, Even in Certain Death

“All is fair in love and war.”

. . .

Here is the age old moral dilemma: would you kill one person to save five?

What about this one: would you kill five people to save five?

Of course you could say, these five people I am saving are close and dear to me, I will save them no matter the cost. These five people are incredibly smart and talent and will accomplish great things in life if they had the chance. These five people are fighting for the righteous ideology, the one that will save the world.

What if one of those five was a young earl, born of a military family, eager above all else to fulfill the family tradition and loyal to his country? His charming grace and good manners had won him favorable opinions even from those who did not agree with his position.

What if one of those in the other five was an extremely talented speaker, rallying behind the unshakable ideals of freedom and liberty? Even if his motives were shaky and half his supporters had more practical purposes in mind, were they not noble goals?

As I muster up my virtual troops in an Age-of-Empires-like game readying for the next attack against the “bandit chief,” so, too, must a real general have, throughout the ages, prepared his army for an uncertain fate. Perhaps he did not want to fight the war. Perhaps, more than anything else, he did want to sit by the river and fish with his hookless fishing rod.

But, as with all things history, one must decide. Despite John Rowe’s best efforts at peacekeeping, he could not preserve the fine sanctuary where the regulars dined with him and the townspeople kept on their smuggling trade unhindered. And the one hundred and eight heroic warriors forced to leave their hometowns and band together defying an unjust government? They could not hide in their mountain base forever, whiling away the days.

Their leader decided to obey the emperor in the end. Even if it meant one hundred and eight deaths.

Is there really the right decision, the right thing to do?

In twenty years, the right people were the Bostonians who had their Pope Day mobs and overthrew tea into the ocean. History only favors the victorious, and soon their sacrifices are the only ones that matter, their concerns the only ones worth mentioning, their hopes and dreams the only ones to be pursued.

But in the moment, perhaps we can only make the best of two horrible choices and map out our course using the painful moral compass in our hearts.

. . .

I am a horrible decision-maker.

There is no hiding around it. Whenever there are choices to be made, I strive to retain all of them as long as possible. I am the girl who kept multiple bookmarks in her “choose your own adventure” books so she could go back and read every possible ending. I am the girl who has five different variations of the same item that does basically the same thing in a game, because I could not decide which one to pick.

I, too, am the one who always sympathizes with the villain, because what if they had a really good reason for what they did and who am I to judge? I do not want to make anyone unhappy, and yet most of all I do not want to be unhappy.

They say you can’t make everyone in the world happy all the time, but how could I choose who to make happier and whose hopes to crush? Maybe the one who I care about more? But how could I figure that out when all I want to do is curl up and fade away slowly?

If only my misery could bring forth something good.

Then again, I suppose it wouldn’t be called misery, would it?

I know I am hurting everyone in my impasse, but even knowing so I am indecisive as ever.

. . .

The night before Joseph Warren was supposed to take up command as general of a fledgling rebel troop, he stayed up the entire night and fell asleep the next day until noon. Perhaps, even until then, his subconscious was not sure what to do.

But when he woke up, he knew.

He marched up the hill, not as a general, but as a footsoldier, to his death.

Love Is a Smoke Raised with the Fume of Sighs

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes.

Summer is half over now that my circuits class is done with, and not a moment sooner. Each day I had spent half awake, promising myself that after this, I would get to sleep more than five hours a night, and in a bed too. Sometime before then my cat foiled my plans by chewing apart my phone charger, although to be honest if the only thing that can lure me home is the promise that I will still get to talk to the people I would normally talk to online then maybe I would have come up with some other excuse why I should sleep in a moldy chair in a poorly ventilated basement rather than in a bed, in my even messier, smelly apartment.

This summer I had gone to Boston, the first since I last visited Yuma. We took the train into the city and saw the statues remembering civil war soldiers and the red brick paths meant to be historic. We took a detour from the Freedom Trail into a cafe tucked away in the North End, then stopped by Paul Revere's house, where we saw the bells he casted and the fine silverware he made. We had the obligatory trip to the aquarium, which was under construction and so much neater because they had the sharks, stingrays, and other big fish in the area where they normally kept the penguins, and you could see the daily shrimp feeding much clearer. There was also the trip to Chinatown, the long dinner of hotpot and inappropriate jokes, and the subsequent stay in Cambridge.

I had thought to visit old friends but I had not contacted them in so long I did not know if they were still in Boston or had gone home already. And of course, what would I say? "Hello, I haven't talked to you in over a year, yes, yes, well you know me, I never stay in touch with anyone." That is not strictly true, because once I mailed a letter back to a friend who had somehow found my address, although she never contacted me again and I left it at that.

In a few weeks I will go south, to where Khajiit is, to where another friend of mine now lives, to where my parents eagerly await me. I have not called them in a while now, first because of exams and then because my phone died, but mostly because I am putting things off again. If I did not need to perhaps I would slowly set my parents aside too, like my other once-upon-a-time friends. The thought is unsettling only because it seems true.

Between then and now I do not know. There are tentative plans for visits to the Old Port, maybe some horse carriage rides, a visit to the gallery that never made sense to me, figuring out whether to go to the cathedral or basilica of the same name (and which one is which), a glance at the overpriced touristy cafes and restaurants catering to the old yet not quite old French way. Maybe we will climb the mountain that is really a stumped volcano. Maybe we will see the stadium that is now full of plants and animals. Maybe we will even see fireworks, red and white and glittering bright.

But emotionally I do not know what will happen. If I am prepared, at all, or if I would rather confine myself to my stale basement and microwaved food and the occasional venture above ground to feed the cat that both brings me back and sends me away.

She is oblivious as ever.

Find Freedom On This Canvas

I have been listening to this song about Bob Ross, who happens to be one of my two favorite artists (Turner is the other one). This song reminds me of why I picked Turner's work to imitate for my painting class, and why I spent so much time into it—that sense of endlessness and that a piece of art can express what words cannot. I see art sometimes as a drudgery (after all, I only painted decently on my still life picture because I sat behind a perfectionist that made me feel bad), but maybe I have been going about it the wrong way.

A long time ago, I drew because I liked it—so much I dreamed of becoming an artist. Coming from a family of pragmatists who could not understand anything except academics (I mean this not as an insult, but my parents never even signed me up for the stereotypical music classes because they were hopeless in that field), this was not much of a dream at all. I never knew what my parents wanted me to be when I was young. I don't think any of us looked that far.

Somewhere in elementary school, drawing became a chore. It was a class, after all, and when people like your art they want more and you feel like you can't let them down. One of my classmates was really good at horses, and I tried to learn her style, and when my classmates asked me to draw a horse picture for her I was absolutely mortified.

I never quite did this with writing—maybe I have been influenced subconsciously but I never set out to copy someone else's style. I write from my heart, but I haven't drawn from my heart very often lately.

I drew a picture of what I thought Veronica's character in D&D would look like (she is a grey elf ranger), and it's one of my best drawings lately (in terms of anatomically correctness and expression). But what I really want to do is draw the pictures that haunt my mind, the same way I put them to words. I want to draw that void where the wind blows through, and the grass flows like sand.

I want to paint that quaint town nightscape, with the lanterns glowing faintly under a hazy sky, set against towering rugged mountains. I want to hear the stories from my art.

And maybe it is true, maybe every day is a good day when you paint.

. . .

I had completely forgotten when I gave Sam her nickname how ironic that would be, but this time I want to talk about the real Sam. I am—I won't lie—quite infatuated with him. What started out as simple gaming buddies turned into quite a fiasco. (And talk about a fiasco—Cain, who quite the benign Youtube-watching, Facebook-lurking guy, has now become a fanatic LoL addict on the verge of becoming a rager too.) I'm finding myself logged in to a particular place not for any other purpose but to catch him online—and on his end, I know he's been pretty much glued to his computer to chat with me when he has lots of other things going on (eating, for example).

I know Khajiit has taken this nonchalantly—even with a bit of joking encouragement—but I wonder if that is really how he thinks. Obviously, I don't want this to turn out like how it did with Yuma and I, and Khajiit and I have completely different rules when it comes to stuff like this, but, well, I still have to ask.

Does it count as cheating if I really, really like to spend time with someone more so than I normally would anyone else? If so, is Khajiit really okay with it? And if not, can I keep it this way—just really good friends—because it's pretty nice the way it is now.

Sometimes I feel a bit silly. Sometimes I wish I weren't so flippant with regards to such serious stuff—and yet, I think I have been this way ever since kindergarten when I decided I had a crush on two cute boys in my class. What can I say? I have always matured faster in romantic-attractions more so than my actual maturity.

. . .

Alas, I am hungry again. Must set out for food.

Push Or Knock; Or Roundabout Gone

Some things I wish I felt more comfortable talking about, out of principle, because I know part of my inability to talk about them stems from a societal prejudice: my mental state, sex, and my inner dialogues. One of my favorite bloggers of late, The Bloggess, does all of these perfectly, so if I were completely honest with myself it's not just societal prejudice but also me.

Then again, how many of us are brave enough to talk about sex in a public forum?

The other two are harder to write about, for me, but they are easier to hint at. To skirt around the edges, like in Fragonard's The Swing, which I drew once as a book cover for my French textbook. Both rococo and romanticism I learned from my European history class from sophomore year.

The other thing I remember from sophomore year was a hazy mix of staring out windows and anonymous crowds rushing past. I wrote about it a lot before, things I kept locked up in the depths of my laptop and hid for two years before I showed some of them to Yuma.

. . .

There is an old Chinese legend (one thing the Chinese have no lacking of) that a poet, late at night, could not decide whether to use "push" or "knock" in his poem to describe his character's internal battle when opening the door.

These days, the two words together mean deliberation.

When I was younger, around seven or eight, I always wondered how people remembered all of these proverbs and legends and folk lores and idioms. It wasn't merely enough to know a saying, you had to know the story behind it too. There were entire books dedicated to the formal four-word proverbs and their origins that schoolchildren my age were required to know.

That, added to the pictorial nature of Chinese words, and you have to wonder: why is it not fading away in favor of something much easier to learn?

I like to cite the poetic nature of it—because, to me, no language is better suited for poetry as Chinese is—down to each word imbued with meaning, but who am I to say? I am neither a poet nor am I a proficient writer of Chinese.

. . .

Khajiit says the younger generation of French people are slowly abandoning the rigid structures their language imposes upon them in favor of their own blend of French. What the equivalent would be for Chinese I do not know, but I hope it does not happen.

Because it is a language of thousands of years' worth of stories, legends, and lore, and there is a part of me that finds peace in allegories.

. . .

Writing for many people is ultimately a cathartic process. Haruki Murakami speaks of writing as a poison, and writing to overcome that poison. Natalie Goldberg believes you should write "what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about." Tim O'Brien uses his writing of a fictitious yet real world to make sense of the absurd yet very real world he had to live in. Andre Aciman repeatedly writes about place as a cover to what he really wants to write about.

For me, writing is about making sense of the past. It is about digging up what I have buried in the past—what I have been afraid to face—and putting them in front of me to finally digest after all this time.

I have been told many times, by many people, that I do not have the courage to face reality. That I am weak, that I do not have the determination. Writing is a cheap alternative, a way to pacify those claims without having to make any painful progress. I can say that writing has helped me to name my demons, but in the end, didn't Seymour Glass still shoot himself? How far can you go with writing when your demon is reality itself?

. . .

It is now six in the morning. This far north, the sun has already risen, although I wouldn't know sitting here in the basement of the tallest building on campus. I woke up yesterday morning at 8:25AM, with ten minutes to spare for my morning class, and with an apathy that has set in lately, told myself it didn't matter and fell back to sleep. The next time I woke up—fully, truly awake—it was already getting dark.

On the bus from New York, I thought about how I used to tie myself to the road. The music I listen to, the colors I love, they all have one trait in common: they're hollow. This emptiness inspired historical fictions, with Vermont and their Green Mountain Boys being my favorite, although any road could evoke endless stretches of fields and the nonchalant wind mussing up my hair.

This is my American dream. The loneliness is only a requisite.

For some people, a vacation is a relaxing break, and when they get back from their far-fetched locations they can settle down and work another half year in their fascinating fields. I am from a family fueled by wanderlust—my father, who cannot settle in any one place for long, no matter how tempting the place; or my mother, who takes to trips as other people take to hobbies.

I can stay in one place for a very, very long time if I had to, and if it were the only option in front of me. I would be okay with an entire year without vacations if it meant a regular schedule and the expectation that this is it. But once I am on the road, no amount of travelling will satisfy me. I have been on day-long trips, and week-long trips, and month-long trips, and it is all the same. If I start, I cannot stop.

. . .

Deep in the nights, we talk frankly. Khajiit about his cuts, me about my panicked nature. He tells me to take a deep breath. We talk frankly but nothing much meaningful ever comes out of it. We revert to the same conversations.

My parents say I never write about anything truly meaningful. It could be because I do not show them the extent of what I write, or because I have not, in their eyes, suffered. I have not lived an entire year on pickled radishes and plain rice because I could not afford anything else. I have not woken up before sunrise and come home way after midnight working in a lab to sustain a meagre way of life. Compared to that, I have lived a life of luxury.

I think it is more than that. When Khajiit and I give someone on the streets a dollar, I wonder where our moralities lie. When we talk so frankly of being nineteen-year-olds and of the world giving us more responsibilities than we can handle (Khajiit more so than me, obviously), of, as he calls it, "Everything conspiring against me," I wonder if we truly know ourselves.

Through this year of tumult, political and personal, can I claim that I know myself?

. . .

The first time I formally learned about allegories was also in sophomore year, when my English class read Lord of the Flies. There is something to be said about things coming full circle.

Tentative Steps

On CNN, Kirsten Haglund, the winner of the title Miss America in 2008, says, "I remember the first day I decided to throw away my lunch, and I drank a Coke instead. I felt really good. I remember that day and the choice I made. And it was a choice made out of fear, not logic."

Maybe that is why I took out that bottle of diet coke Khajiit got for free from the vending machine. We are chronic Nestea drinkers, and when we are not drinking it we're drinking Lipton tea, or another latte from Tim Hortons. When I took a sip from the bottle, the fizzy drink caught in my throat and burned. But I kept on going. It is addicting, this heady mix of aspartame and carbonated water.

We have our reasons for choosing the drinks we do. Years ago, Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar wrote, "My wife and I have both been addicted to soda for many years. On an average day, I would drink six cans of soda and my wife would drink four cans, meaning we would go through ten cans a day at our house." General Duck prefers his soda sparingly, but the bottle in his hand has still become a part of his persona.

For me, picking a drink has much to do with the mood I want to convey in my life. Coffee in those ambivalent preteen years when public transit gave us a freedom I haven't tasted until recently (not surprisingly, I have adopted a new caffeine habit lately as well). Bubble tea to soothe a nostalgia that seeps through the edges of my vision so that there is always something there, something in the corner of my eye.

Hot chocolate? Well, because I wanted to roll up the rim. Not that I won anything.

. . .

Islandtown's metro line is asking people to name their new train. One of the names was related to the Greek god of time, Chronos. I told Khajiit that one of my characters was called Chronos. He said, "Everyone has a character called Chronos."

I have tried to read more lately. I checked out Middlemarch from the library, and Khajiit and I read the first chapter (and a very wordy prelude). There is something special about the way a book can make you laugh, but I had never quite experienced it until now. So I think George Eliot is something special, critics of her other life be damned.

On the radio we hear Adele over and over again. They are tragic songs, completely not fit for a coffeehouse with bright red and yellow banners promoting its new jalapeño and asiago cheese bagels. On her YouTube videos people says things like, "She's pretty inside and out," or, "She's not fat, too many celebrities today are too skinny." They remind me of the "compare her to Marilyn Monroe" posters, of the idea that arguing men like women who are not bone-skinny is still objectifying women, because the standard-holders are still men.

When Adele said she wasn't "some blonde, skinny, fake boob, white teeth" girl, there is something sad in that statement. Something that sits uncomfortably in my stomach, even though I am not sure what it is.

A few nights ago, Veronica and Khajiit were working on our web design company (which reminds me, I need to get going on that), when they came across a photo of a group of students posing for what looked like a case competition. Veronica said, "Those girls look more natural, because girls take more photos of themselves."

Little things like that hurt. They hurt on a personal level, so to me they grate on my heart.

. . .

I stood in front of a class of one hundred on Friday. Made a public announcement about the film my environmental club was screening. I have not done something like this for a long while, especially not when I could see every single face and recognize people in the crowd.

The film itself was a success, if not a haunting one. We saw lovely paintings made of aluminum cans stacked on top of each other and baby albatrosses dead, bellies splayed open to reveal all the plastic inside.

Why must it be so sentimental?

I sleep at night panicked, tossing around, half-starting when I am about to fall asleep. There is something about the night, how still it is, that makes me uneasy. My body is failing me, or I am failing it, whichever one explains the aches and pains and dull anxiety.

Yesterday, in a fit of curiosity-laden panic, I looked up whether our house was likely to flood in 2100. The site says that if it does, it will be because of some harbor in the city near our house, or the beach, or the river. On SMBC, Zach Weiner describes a superior race that falls because of its impeccable ethics. I jaywalked across the street bordering my university today, against my usual rules of strictly following the roads.

. . .

In the depths of my blankets and shaking, I am lonely. I don't fully understand it, because I am not alone—I am far from alone—but I am still lonely.

. . .

When I wake up these days, it is usually to realize I have missed another class, or that it is now late afternoon and I have been sleeping all day. Khajiit, woken by my frantic prodding, would say, "We knew this was going to happen," to our promising ourselves the night before that we would wake up early. Then I would roll over and he would wrap his arm around me, and that would be my favorite part of the day.

These days it has been getting warmer in Islandtown. I pulled out my pair of red tights, paired them with the ridiculously high heels I bought from China, and got out a red shirt I had almost forgotten I owned. The lady at the food court eyed my outfit as I stood up next to her to throw away my cup.

Cosmic Gate is playing on my Pandora station. The other day Khajiit showed me how to set up a proxy so I could access Pandora from his server-in-a-closet. I took a jab at it yesterday and wondered if I had done something wrong when a firewall message popped up. Today, after a few changes to the procedure, I bypassed the firewall prompt. I don't know what triggered it though.

I was reading this very, very sad site that made me almost cry.

Somewhat unrelated, I had always thought that being an activist in one group made you much more likely to sympathize with activists in another group. My university, my city, and my province has proven me otherwise.

. . .

Maybe I have just been cooped up inside for too long.

Down The River Valley

It seems so long ago. The other day I painted Khajiit's nails a gorgeous sonic bloom color, although I have no idea what a sonic bloom is (I think it's a type of flower). We brought my rice cooker to the office, along with some canned food, and at the meeting Khajiit pointed to the rice cooker.

"Don't do that," our chair said. "Your nails, when you wave your hands. It's so distracting."

Something about sexism came to mind, sexism against men in this case but also against women, because who is to say nail polish (or anything "feminine") has to be for women? At the very least it is stifling, if not borderline deriding the practice not worthy for men. But I am not as brave in a group as I am alone, so it went unsaid.

Later, Sarah brought her bag of nail products. She plopped down in front of a computer and looked up rental cars. We sat around as she made the calls.

"What's the minimum age for car rentals? —Oh, okay. Yeah, no problem. Thanks. Good bye."

Khajiit started looking up buses. His dad had called earlier. We could have five in our party. There are talks about seeing musicals—"The Book of Mormon," for Sarah, who is Mormon—and buying shoes—Veronica is a shoe addict. We considered contacting the guy behind the sketchy van that left for the city every week.

It is so surreal. Only two weeks ago, I was in another office three doors down listening to a Veronica I barely knew cry about her relationship problems. The next day, Sarah confessed that she was really stressed out because of school troubles. As Khajiit puts it, "We're all failures." That was the day I slept through most of my classes. Somewhere amongst the snarky, angry jabs at ex-boyfriends, we decided to go to Khajiit's house over spring break.

We are a group of teenagers, Veronica included. I once remarked that Khajiit, in the car, suddenly possessed teenage qualities he lacked out of the car. On the streets, or in a room, or when we are sipping lattes at the coffee shop across the road, he is either a middle-schooler or an adult. But in the car, he is a teenager. This impromptu decision on all of our parts make us all reckless to some degree. When I signed up for college I did not think I would be signing up for this.

It's an exhilarating sort of freedom, one that has me up at three in the morning in a sketchy corner of the city where people have been known to be stabbed, drinking white hot chocolate from a mug and eating ranch-flavored potato chips. The buses at Islandtown run all night, one every hour or so, in a grid-like pattern. Khajiit and I took one that snaked through the northern part of the city. We sat in the back seat, munching on rainbow rice krispies and drinking iced lemon tea, and joked about staying at seedy motels because we were so tired.

We are always tired these days, sleep-deprived, because I have my games and Khajiit has his games (to program). Late at night we do crazy things, like walk in sub-freezing temperatures just so we can sleep on a futon instead of a single bed, or go to the coffee shop we always frequent late at night, so often that the night shift cashier greets us with, "Hey, it's you guys again."

The next day is sometimes full of regret. Why did we stay up so late? Why did we go to the apartment half an hour away from campus, when we had another one five minutes away? Khajiit regretted his bright red nails and took them off with acetone, although he painted them again in dark blue. A more "manly" color, he claimed. Some guy we didn't know with access to the office said, "Nice nails."

Getting My Head Out Of This Haze

I read about 6.001 today, the MIT course on Scheme, and in essence abstract programming. Is it a bad thing that I instantly thought of 6.01?

I once promised myself, on the campus no less, that I would never go back until I was there by my own merits. I never knew how true that would turn out. There was once upon a time I would say, "Oh, yeah, he's at MIT, no big deal." And I said it out of jealousy, because I really, really want to be there. Being related to something always hurts more, because you are so close, yet not there. Not quite good enough, or, in my case, not quite smart enough or special enough or whatever else it was.

The people around me have different goals. They want to get into the best med school possible. But it's similar, isn't it? And if I focused enough, I should be able to do this. But it means a kind of dedication and work ethic I haven't been able to muster up in a long, long while. I have been relishing in my newfound independence but I haven't been putting up much effort. This past semester has been a few months of rehashing things I have already learned and scrambling to put together things I haven't.

I have some good plans for next semester. I need to schedule them into my calendar, and more importantly, I need to follow my calendar more strictly, rather than just putting things on there. I think I can block out times when I will be able to get work done without being disturbed, and then fill them in week by week. After that, I'll also schedule in all the application work I need to get done, and studying, and it should work out nicely.

Other people can make it work. I don't believe I'm any worse than them.

So this is my next few months. Maybe I can even fit blogging in.

Capitalism And Outer Space

We were going to go to the Space Center today, and it would definitely have been neat. The last time I went to one, it was in Florida, and I remember looking over my head and pointing out the rusty orange and white rockets. That year I was seven, maybe not even.

Sometimes I think about being a third-generation engineer, and being in a family of engineers. It's like being born in a family of bakers, or cobblers or blacksmiths or tailors, except without a long term of apprenticeships. I was born predisposed to math, to science, born with my parents expecting that I follow their footsteps, if not completely then at least partially, into the scientific world.

My dad is lying on the bed now, snoring. A while after I got off the plane, maybe when we were in the car coming back from the airport, he turned to me and said, "It's still not too late if you want to change your mind and be a doctor." My mom says this sometimes too, in that joking yet all the same serious tone, "Are you sure you don't want to be a doctor?"

I tell them, "Yes, I'm sure. I want to be an engineer."

For people who come from this life they are not satisfied with it. They have worked hard, all their lives, fought against the waves of unfair disadvantages at an age where they should have had things under control and relaxed a little. They see people around them in seemingly easier lives, people who earn more (and money has always been an issue in our house), and they want that life for me, whether directly or vicariously.

. . .

These days, my dad spends a lot more. We went to the mall today, everywhere we go we look at the dazzling new clothes and bags and jewelry. He picks something out of the pile, points at it and asks, "What do you think?"

I shake my head. It is the wrong color, the wrong texture, or something, any excuse. He goes over to the stands of watches, stoops down and try to find the same style as the one on his wrist. That one he bought a few days ago. The strap is still too loose; it hangs low. He smiles when he realizes it is more expensive than the one he bought.

I am happy for him, proud, almost, that he is finally achieving the middle-class lifestyle he always wanted, yet also sad. There is something about the way he walks, shorter than ever before, that scares me. I am afraid that he won't be happy, I am afraid that he might lose this, I am afraid that after all these years of struggles he will look back and think, "What have I done with my life?"

And come up empty. I am afraid for him, even though he himself is not afraid. I am being paranoid again.

He walks up to the cosmetics counter. I watch as he talks with the sales lady, the two of them discussing the new brand of anti-aging cream available. He looks at the price and chuckles, shakes his head. "It's too expensive." And we leave. I wonder if he ever wishes he could afford this, for his wife, if he ever laments his inability to buy everything he wants for his family. I wonder if anyone will, in the future, do the same for me.

. . .

He woke up just now. Held my hand. Earlier today he had said, "The days pass by really quickly." He is going back in less than a week, to the misty southwestern Chinese city, while my mom stays with her parents until after Chinese New Years.

I am not sure what I want. In a few days I will be leaving too, heading back to icy Islandtown by myself. But in a few days I will be a few more days closer until Khajiit comes back. Those last few days, however, will be void of both, and they will be long and torturous.

. . .

In a few days, we will be headed somewhere. To the Gulf, maybe, or to Dallas or Austin, we are not sure yet. I am supposed to be the one planning all of this, but I have been way too distracted. When I wake up in the morning, I add up the hours to see if Khajiit will be awake, then I call him, and we cycle between being awake and being away and all of the other complicatedness of us being in different continents.

For example, right now, it is 8pm here, which means it is 3am over there, and way too early to call him.

He sent me photos of Paris today, and I really liked them, especially the one of the details on the Eiffel Tower, and the one where he is eating smoked salmon. Smoked salmon has other connotations for me, it reminds me of a summer that could have been had there not been other obligations, other obstacles.

They are all of the past now, although I still have the souvenirs. I still have a lot more I need to clean through before all the vestiges are gone, if that is even possible. I took out the wallet photo the other day. I had already changed the lockscreen image on my phone.

There are some clothes that need to be exchanged, photos returned, books taken back. We had really tried to make ourselves part of each other's lives, even though (and maybe even more so because) we could not be involved in person. I look at the calendar I now share with Khajiit, and it is almost empty, and that does not make me wonder because I know he will be with me, and those days he will not be are not for long.

. . .

My dad is considering moving back to the US again. My mom will surely follow him if he does. I may see them more often now. Maybe one day they will even settle, and I will visit them, just as other people visit their parents, without the hassle of trying to remember where they have ended up this time around. Although I will miss seeing new airports. I have seen many airports in my life and I am hoping to see more.

The End, This Time Really

It hurts less than I thought it would. Perhaps I had long ago gotten tired of it, and had only held on because of an ideal that no longer exists. It was almost a relief. I am not sure I should feel this way, but it is what it is. It was over a long time ago, he was right, and this time I actually agree.

I finally took off the ring. I saved the photos, but they are now only mementos of the past. There is only one thing I regret, and it's not ending this earlier. I could have saved him from more pain.

But it's over now.

Over, finally.

There is still so much that reminds me of him. I even wonder if he will still read this blog. After this post I might start talking about my day-to-day life again, instead of these incredibly cryptic posts. I would still like to be a part of his life, as the friends we never quite were, because we had rushed into things too quickly and out of them too slowly.

If he is reading this, I would like to apologize. I know it won't make it much better, and I don't expect you to forgive me, but I am really sorry. If I had known how it would turn out, I would have chosen things differently, but as it is now I am just sorry.

I do not have the panic I had last time. None of the heart-wrenching feelings. It has truly gone on too long, and although I still love him, as much as I know how to love anyway, I don't want to hang on anymore.

It's such a strange thing to say.

It's been a year full of surprises at every turn, so I shouldn't be too surprised it ended up this way. I always knew I would be the one, but I never knew what that would imply. Now there is another foolish boy who is saying he won't mind if I hurt him, someone who doesn't believe me when I tell him I don't know how to love.

I am like a black hole, always wanting more, always reaching out but destroying what I get in the process. There is this hole in my heart that stemmed from my past and it's lonely, and it's never satisfied. I never learned how to properly keep a long-term relationship, not just with the people I love but with anyone.

Maybe one day.

But for now, it is the end, and an end that is, although slightly regrettable, at least not that painful.

It's Winter, But We Pretend Otherwise

I usually turn to Google for these types of things, because who else could I talk to? Who else would not judge me and still be impartial? But this phrase is too clunky to search, and even though I have broken it up into two chunks it is still not exactly what I was looking for.

The empty pocky wrappers lie crinkled in my trashbag. I have the remains of a bus ticket, snappy sorbet nail polish, and a rubber duckie to remind me of what once was, what I could have had and the neverending dreams. In my dreams they are eternal, and the objects mere crags to be avoided. They are faded souvenirs of a past life, a past lie.

I am at a crossroads now, more than ever, and decisions have always frightened me. I wrote my college app essay on road trips, on crossroads, and on choosing my path, but when it comes down to it I am a coward. I have lost my power to dream like I used to, and this upcoming trip to somewhere warm and nostalgic might be just what I need to bring some of that magic back.

A smile and a bit of panic. The past few days, I have been wavering, wondering, reconstructing my thoughts until they become tangled messes of strings. There are consequences to this. Whether I want to keep on dreaming or if I want to fall back into routine. The idealistic or the practical. Which one is which, I am not sure anymore.

I was once told to make up my mind. I was once told to focus on my goals. They are easy words to say but I have been trying to act them out and it is harder than I ever imagined. And now, as a coward, I am looking for that sense of security, that knowledge that if I take this step I will not fall. And what then? What if I do receive it?

Is it what I really want?

The End, Or Ostensibly

Outside, it is snowing.

There is not much more for me to say. I have wanted a lot and hoped a lot and wished for many, many things, and in the end they were, once again, not mine to begin with. I have horrible doubts now, and yet I wish for them to stay, because without doubts there will be truth, and I do not know if I can take the truth.

I have, once again, forgotten to heed my own advice. I have gone beyond where I should have gone, and have suffered as a result. There is not much left to say, except that I should have known this, and thus, I have no one to blame but myself. I alone could have prevented this. And yet I failed.

I once said to Tea that I wasn't sure about this. I told Yuma that this, whatever it was, was not to stay because I was incapable of it. Yet I still went along. I lost myself halfway and here I am, trying to piece myself together. It is always easier to lose yourself, because there are two people to do it, but much harder to find yourself again, because there is only one person left for that.

This ending is much like the previous one, and so I know how it will go. I know how I will respond and how everything will evolve because despite all these years I have not learned anything in this aspect. I know each obsessive move I will take, and how much they will hurt me in return, and yet I can't stop them. They are ingrained in my heart.

Perhaps this limbo feeling will last for another year. Perhaps shorter, perhaps longer. And then I will see how foolish I have been all along, and perhaps then it will finally end.

All of this has been a horrible, horrible dream. And yet, at the end, I don't want to wake up from it. I will drag the sleep and snooze as long as I can, I will because I always have, because I hate to be the last one. I hate to be left alone.

There were many things I wish I could have said in person, but alas, this end is much like the previous one, and even my method of saying goodbye is the same, because there is no other way. I am the one left behind, this time and the last, and something in me tells me I should not do this anymore. All of this trust, it hurts more in the end, and when the labyrinth is broken I must build it back up again, stone by stone.

But dwelling on the pain will make it hurt even more. Perhaps it is time again to say goodbye to another world, another place that is no longer mine. At least the memories will be kept pristine. And in a few years I will forget the pain and only remember the good, and I will be happy. I will. For a short time, at least, because happiness and love, they are not mine to have, and like Roscuro with his light, they are things I will never truly have.

The snow is still falling. The first snow of the year. I stare at his gray dot and know he will never come back. It is not in people's natures to do so, not for me, at least. I wish I could have said many, many things, and I wish I could have done so much more, but in the end they have all come back to haunt me.

At least the snow is constant.

One year ago, I should have known better. I should have said no from the very beginning.

But now, I do. And perhaps next time, I will know enough to do so.