donotfindme

[donotfindme]

I hate being in a long distance relationship so much. So much.

I'm in Iowa this week to visit Matthew. I was dying for this trip in the last three months, always longing to be in Ames with Matt. But this week I'm being eaten alive for leaving my cat alone at home. My cat needs me and I'm here indulging myself in love and care and hugs from my boyfriend.

I miss Ames and the community I have here. We went out for a drink with Gina and Reggie last night. Oh boy do I miss being a little girl with my older friends. We got breakfast with Bruce and Brenda and talked the whole morning. I miss being pampered by my adoptive parents. I wake up every day next to Matthew and am able to reach him in my sleep. It's so nice being here.

But I miss Francis. I have accepted I have a life in Michigan. I have to try and stick it out.

:(

[donotfindme]

Nhiều thứ cảm xúc lẫn lộn thế nhưng không biết diễn tả như thế nào.

Mình đang ở trường. Tháng thứ năm đi làm, burned out, mệt mỏi, nhiều việc. Chỉ muốn dc ngủ, dc nghỉ, dc ôm ấp.

Người yêu ở xa, không gần gia đình, công việc bộn bề. Lúc nào cũng cứ phải tự lủi thủi, mệt ghê.

[donotfindme]

Bà bỏ chồng cháu ạ, sống một mình. Ai cũng bảo sao lại bỏ chồng cho khổ, nhưng họ đâu hiểu được, có chồng nhiều khi còn khổ hơn. Bà mà kể xong cháu lại không muốn lấy chồng mất. Nói chung là, cứ tìm người hợp mình là được. Ở cái thời của bà, chuyện bỏ chồng người ta bàn tán ghê lắm. Nhưng biết sao giờ, ai hiểu thì hiểu, ai không hiểu thì cũng chịu. Họ nói chứ họ có khổ thay mình đâu.

Con bà đi làm xa, lâu lâu lại về. Ban ngày bà vào chùa bán vài đồ lưu niệm, tối về xóm thể dục, nói chuyện với mấy bà bạn, cũng vui lắm. Loanh quanh cũng 10 năm, 20 năm trôi qua vù vù, nhanh lắm. Một đời chẳng mấy chốc. Giàu sang thì bà không biết, nhưng bà biết như nào là vui, như nào là khổ. Và giờ bà đang vui, cháu ạ cười . I've divorced my husband and live all on my own. Everybody asked why I divorced to live in such hard life, but they can't understand, having a husband sometimes can make your life even harder. How harder? I won't go into details, or else you wouldn't even want to marry anyone. In the end, if you can find someone who is true and suitable to you, then that's good. Back in my time, people would gossip about divorcing like it's a very big deal. But what can I do? If anyone can understand me, that's great; if not, it's fine. They gossiped about it but they didn't suffer what I had to went through.

My kids work far away, came back to visit me sometimes. During day time, I would go sell some souvenir in the pagoda, by night I'd go back to my neighborhood to do some sport, chatting with some of my friends, life's good. Now 10, 20 years has passed like the wind. A life time went by. I don't know about wealthy, but I know happy, I know suffering. And as of now, I am living a happy life kiddo.

[donotfindme]

Ben and I broke up six months ago, and he has been reaching out three times in total although we agreed we wouldn't talk until I reach out first. Honestly, reaching out to him has never been in my plan, especially now that I have moved and started dating Matthew, so Ben is right that if he didn't reach out, I'd never. But I still feel uncomfortable. He waited for too long to care for me. I always question "why now?" every time he texts since the break up, but at the same time, I don't care what his motives are. All I know now is I'm happy with Matthew, I don't think I can ever find another man who is smart and caring and cares about me more than Matt. I've been broken enough by Ben, so I don't need Ben in my life to ruin it any further.

[donotfindme]

The day before the move

This move has brought out aspects of my personality that I've never seen before. After months of dealing with paper review, job application, thesis writing and finishing up grad school, I find myself tearing up with my therapist again because of the same exact reasons: my brain refuses to cut me some slack.

Yesterday, I told my therapist that my anxiety these past couple of weeks is unmatched, but I do not know why it is the case. I blame it on the move, and I know it will pass, but the move or stressful times in life must not be the reason why my anxiety gets worse and worse over time. It's the lost of control. It's the trying to please people. It's the uncertainty of the future. It's the feel of a lost kid who blames herself for every single thing that goes wrong in other people's life. It's the will to serve others, but then I forget to serve myself.

I recalled a recent event to my therapist; the event went roughly like this. I received a phone call from my Mom. She told me that my nephew was hospitalized because of some flu, but my sister needs to study and take some exams, so my Mom needed to take care of my nephew for my sister. However, my Mom has been feeling under the weather as well, so my nephew being the hospital has inconvenienced her greatly, and my Mom wanted my nephew to be treated as an outpatient. This kind of conversation happens all the time, with the undertone being "I wish you were home so you could help out". My first reaction was "so what do you want me to do with this piece of information? Comfort you? Give you a solution? What do you want?". The next one is "I wish I could be home so I could help out. I wish I could do everything for you although it may mean I burn myself to death". And the last thought, with guilt, went like "I'm thankful for being away, so I can take care of myself first and foremost, instead of prioritizing everyone in my life but me. I know it is selfish of me to think so, but I'm glad I broke out of the circle and left home." My therapist smiled and told me "I'm so happy for you and proud of your growth! You of a few years ago would have stopped at the second thought, but now you have another one which is positive and focusing on you. It is the last thought which leads to action that counts". This blows my mind. I actually have grown so much, but I forget to zoom out and see my progress.

It felt good for one second, one hour, or maybe one day after talking to my therapist. But today, I'm all sad and anxious and depressed again. I need to move tomorrow, but my mind doesn't stop thinking about tasks I have to do AFTER finishing the move tomorrow. Many of these tasks are important, but I honestly cannot do much now even if I'm worried. As my therapist said "worrying about it now just means you will have to worry about it twice: now, and when it actually comes".

I feel stuck and all stuffed up inside with negative emotions. I want a good cry, a big ugly cry. I'm tired and I constantly thought about the day it all ends. Everything ends.

Anyhow, tomorrow and the next day are both moving days. I'm tired, but if I don't do it, no one would for me.

[donotfindme]

Traveling days were so packed that I didn’t really have time to sit down and unpack my emotions and thoughts. Heck, I haven’t even unpacked my clothes.

The trip to Istanbul was unexpected to me - the funding got approved three weeks before the conference, so everything was decided in a rush. It was the first time in a long time that I traveled solo in a truly free spirit. Days were roughly planned and in fact none of the days happened as my rough plans. For solid 10 days, I concentrated on myself and the new city completely and was not bothered by anything outside. I hit the major tourist attractions, tried out local restaurants and took fun arts classes while I was in the city. I indeed did my best and explored everything I could have done. I honestly do not have anything to complain and it was a magical trip.

Sometimes I lay down at night and thought to myself how lucky I am to have such an opportunity to travel the world and experience a new city, a new culture and meet new people on a completely different continent. Feeling blessed, I also recognized and wanted to thank myself for working hard and earning myself an opportunity like this. I can’t help it but feel happy that I have made the decisions I did in the past - good or bad - because they all led me to today.

I thought a lot about Ben and how the future will turn out for us. I wouldn’t be here today without Ben. I wouldn’t even have gone on the trip without him encouraging me. Going on the trip helps me realize I want him in my life not only because he’s been a constant, but also because I truly want to share my happiest moments with him. I can’t wait to tell him so! But this trip also reminds me I’m going to be completely fine without him. I hated it when he didn’t respond to my texts, but being distant to him physically pushed me to focus on other events around me than on him. Either way, it’s going to be fine. We will enjoy this moment with each other I guess.

[donotfindme]

Anxiety is an urgent, deafening thing. No matter how many logical reasons you have to remain happy or positive, when it is present, you can hear nothing else.

Beau Taplin (via quotemadness)

[donotfindme]

I did it once. I will be able to do it twice.

[donotfindme]

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

Henry Ford (via quotemadness)

[donotfindme]

Work has been exciting these days again. I'm happy to get out of the intense writing and analysis phase of the past few months and basically taking a break by only analyzing data. For a while this is the first time I only have one project going on, although all the other ones are lurking and waiting to jump at me again. I guess I should enjoy this moment.

Work now is the outlet for me to feel better about myself and less like a loser. Depression has been getting really bad in the past two months, I'm trying to fight back the onset symptoms of anorexia, and fight back my brain. Life is on fire but I really can't bring myself to care anymore.

[donotfindme]

This was me today sitting in therapy.

Today is my birthday. A lot of people texted me and wished me a happy birthday. I felt so blessed and lucky to be alive. But at several points in my life, I truly wished I wasn't. On days like today, I don't know how to handle the attention people give me. I don't grow up having this kind of attention and love, you know. We never celebrated my birthday growing up. My birthday is often during Lunar New Year holiday so sometimes my family didn't even remember. The only two birthday parties I remembered having were one when I was 4 (I had pictures of it - hence remember), and the other one was when I reached 10. I threw myself the latter birthday party with a few friends at my friend's house, buying my own cake.

The pressure of having to figure it out has always been in my life since a little child. Now as an adult, I never could stop burning myself to keep others warm. I make my life miserable if someone else is unhappy, because I think I don't deserve it.

This time around, everyone has expectations of what I should do or become after my PhD. Why now? When I decided to do a PhD, you didn't even support me. And now I'm about to make it, everyone wants something from me. Especially my Mom. When I had so much doubt about my career, where were you, or all you did was to be an outsider of my decision making process? And now you stepped in and expect me to go home to serve my duty as your child, not caring about what I want for myself. Even now, when I barely could balance my life out, you threw at me YOUR wants, and then concluded the conversations with "it's up to you, I can't help you decide". I wish you could give me some support Mom, when I need you so much.

The other day Bruce texted me to check on me, and I told him what I have been dealing with. He immediately told me we should talk, he and Brenda will be there for me, I don't have to deal with things on my own. I wish my Mom could, for once, tell me the same thing. Why could someone who is not at all blood related to me be so supportive and loving to me, while my own mother couldn't?

My therapist said it may be time to accept I will never have the mother I want. It's not in her and it will never be. I know, I know, I just wish it could be different. It hurts so much to accept.

On this birthday, I turned 27, and I began the journey of rebirthing myself.

[donotfindme]

[donotfindme]

5.5 more days, thank God.

[donotfindme]

10 ngày nữa dc đi rồi, cố lên cố lên.

[donotfindme]

For some reason I have worked myself up enough that I feel if I have to move somewhere alone and start everything from scratch again, I will be able to do it. I secretly hope for the job in SF to go through so I can move on to a new chapter of my life. There may not be Ben in it. There may not be anyone who is currently in my life in it. But I think I will be ok. It will be like 22 all over again, moving from Vietnam to a town in the middle of nowhere, but maybe 10 times harder. I will struggle and will be sad. But good things will also come...

It pains me to think of breaking up with Ben, to not have him besides me anymore, to have to find someone new who I can trust like him. It pains me because in 7 months, I may have to break up with my best friend of 4 years.

Maybe us being together is a mistake. Huge mistake from the very beginning.

[donotfindme]

My relationship with Hanoi has changed so much over the years, especially after I moved away. Hanoi growing up was an endearing place to me, but Hanoi back then was the Old Quarter and schools. When I was small until high school aged, Grandma’s place was my “hometown”, although it’s never been a town in the modern book, but it was so far away that we called it another town. Then I got to college, and my college was 5 miles away from my “hometown”, and Hanoi was forced to be so much bigger than I wanted it to be. The best thing though, was that Hanoi was where the best people were with me.

Now I have grown and have seen so much more, Hanoi is still ginormous, but empty. I’m not close to the people I used to be close with any more, or those that I am still close with have their own busy life or not staying in Hanoi any more. It is hard to accept but I am learning to.

It is so hard to wrap my head around the fact that most of my support system now is not in Hanoi. Sometimes I’m not even sure if my current support system is a true one because we know each other so late in my life, but they are in fact all I’ve got right now. And I’m grateful for them, although I’m fully aware they are all temporary, just like my old support system, and like Hanoi.

Hanoi, I’m leaving again in two weeks. I’m eager to leave. But I hope we will have another chance to get to know each other again.

[donotfindme]

These days so much is going on although not much is going on at the same time. Ben called me today and we had a little whining session and I miss him and he calmed me down so much. But I miss him. Even when we ran out of things to talk about and he had to leave I still want to stay on the phone because I miss him. I told him my mom has to go pick my visa up for me because I have covid and he said “don’t forget to thank mom,” and in that moment I realized I never could keep myself grounded when it comes to my family but he can and he makes sure he will. But then today I still get mad at mom because she couldn’t pick up my visa because of her faults and the cashier’s faults, but I guess more of the cashier’s, but I couldn’t control and still get mad. I get mad because it was my fault that I couldn’t go pick it up myself, and I listened to her and did not order delivery services.

I’m tired because the house is always full of screams and cries and complaints and I can’t talk to anyone. Yet I still miss being alone. I want to leave so bad. I miss Ben and my single life in the US. I miss being independent. I don’t want to be here.

Two more weeks and I will pack my shit and leave. Leave here.