rainesramblings

[rainesramblings]

Reminder that I’m in a better place now #1: Starbucks Tumblers

Back then, I used to scrimp and save just to buy one of these. Now, I could easily buy a couple. But I choose not to, because I don’t need it.

[rainesramblings]

First Father’s Day

As usual work conversations go

We talk about “if we’re doing something fun this weekend”

We talk about errands and cleaning

The things his wife wants fixing

Father’s Day plans come up

And I felt my brain freeze

As he talked about his dad wanting to go

To a restaurant that’s out of the way

All I could think about was he should let his dad have his day

And how lucky he is to still have a dad that wants a buffet

I never thought I’d say this, but

I wish I could still see a message today

Asking for gifts and things and money

A cap, some sandals, some shoes

Twenty dollars so he could shop and choose

All my life these Father’s day requests grated me to no end

Felt treated like a bank with overflowing money to send

I wish I could still see his name pop up

I swear I’d respond nicely and won’t be a grump

For the first time ever, there’s no more grating

Just a Sunday in June with a lot of grieving

[rainesramblings]

Today marks the second week of me being officially back in office. Overall, it was great, albeit I am very tired to the point of maybe getting sick in the next few days. Knock on wood, I hope not.

The experience coming back to the office has made me more social, in a way. It’s been almost a decade since I moved here to the US and I’ve been mostly working from home, so I didn’t really get to have a lot of experiences outside of the ones my husband brought (or dragged) me into. Part of me feels like this is a sort of liberation; I am being freed back to explore my own self outside the shadow of my husband’s interests.

It’s also nice that I work for a pretty good employer and I get to take advantage of all the “perks” of coming back to the office. Endless snacks, drinks, catered buffet meals, and barista-made coffee at your disposal.

Even the bathrooms have supplies of tampons/pads for free, a giant, industrial-sized bottle of Listerine for mouth rinsing, lint removers, lens cleaners, cotton buds. Some have the heated Japanese bidets.

There’s a gym, showers, even a doctors clinic on-site. And I’m just talking about one building - there’s other buildings around San Francisco that have the same perks as well. Like massages and you can even choose whether you want a traditional or sport massage. Like whaaat

Yesterday, I attended the first “Happy Hour”. It was a bar about 10 mins walk from the office and the drinks were on the company tab. Typically, the happy hour is at the 4th floor where there’s a lounge with a cart of alcohol lol, but still.

Sure, it’s designed to keep you in the office. But I do like taking advantage of free, nice shit. Mentally, I seem to check out once I’m at home. Or I don’t feel so bad working for a while because there’s little “slices of life” happening at work, like an hour lunch or a 30-min coffee break in the afternoon with your coworkers and still you seem to get things done because instead of an email or chat, it turns into informal FYI conversations in between your life stories.

[rainesramblings]

At this age

I’m at this age where parental death of my friends and acquaintances are happening almost every day.

I open Facebook and BAM another post about their loved one passing away hits me in the face.

My heart goes out to them.

[rainesramblings]

Triggers this New Years

1. A hefty bill for a dinner buffet

2. The resort I’m in

3. The pool

4. The dragonfly outside our hotel door waiting for us to get home, then left after we went in

5. Fireworks

6. San Miguel Pale Pilsen

[rainesramblings]

Grief brain on pause

It’s been more than a week since my dad died. I still haven’t processed the events.

I close my eyes and I see him: motionless, stiff, blue, dead. I breathe in and I feel his skin cold against my hand as he laid in the mortuary. I breathe out and I see his body going in the furnace. I blink and I see his burned bones, brittle and yellow-streaked.

It’s all in my head. I haven’t really cried much. Over the past few days I’ve let myself be swept away by life’s mundane things. I went back to work earlier than what people expected. I stayed up late working US time, and in the mornings I stayed up until at least 4 pm. I nap and then I’m back to work. I went on errands. I did chores. I explored the area. I met with friends. It’s all routine.

The day after the funeral, I started looking at pictures and old albums. I felt (and am feeling right now) myself tear up but the tears do not fall. It’s like there’s a wall holding back my tears and feelings and I can’t unlock it. I know it’s not a good feeling and I’m very likely blocking it subconsciously. Maybe because I don’t shed tears in front of my mom. Coupled with the fact that I know if I break down, my mom will fall apart. I know she needs to cry too, and I’m scared of how things will be when we leave.

I know deep inside, I am still refusing to acknowledge the events. I’m finding it hard to balance the grief and the joy of being home, being with friends and family, especially during the holidays. The conflicting feelings are negating each other, creating this wall that blocks my tears from pouring out.

The family and friends support have been phenomenal. It’s been a while since I felt NOT isolated, felt that I was held by a community of people that were looking out for me and my mom despite them not knowing me really well.

One thing I noticed, is that grief recognizes grief. It’s touching how you just know the people that lost an important person in their life. It’s in the way they tell you condolences. The way they look at you not with pity, but with shared understanding that they’ve been through where you were. The way they hand you the right thing you need at the right time, just because they know. The way they share their memories, but also know when to stop and give you space. The way they provide reassurances with concrete examples of what will happen in the future, and not empty platitudes. They just KNOW. It’s odd. Losing my mother-in-law last year was my first raw experience with grief, and unlocked a whole well of understanding that just went deeper the moment my dad died.

They know, and I know.

[rainesramblings]

The View

Huff, puff, huff, puff I go

One step forward feeling like blacking out

One step towards a heart attack

Ten feet away he's taking giant steps

One step forward to feeling freedom

One step towards the great view

We get there and I think, that's it?

We get there and he thinks, isn't it worth this?

The view is the view and that's it

The only thing spectacular is my annoyance of doing all the hard work

I don't feel any different from when I was almost dying going up

If anything I just want to collapse and sleep

And not feel like it's a cop out

I'm not a fan of hiking

Or maybe I'm just not fit.

[rainesramblings]

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, cogs in the wheel

Workers that have no right to feel

We are laying you off because of business needs

We are sorry but that’s how we lead

We are streamlining processes, that’s what we say

To find a new job, you have 60 days

The long-term strategy two years ago

Are now in the dump, but that, we won’t show

We made millions last year

But the investors instilled fear

We need to make more, more, more

And to meet that, some of you are showed the door

Thanks for your work, we got what we want

We’re taking credit for your savant

Corporate waits for no one

Gonna chase the money, we’ll never be done.

[rainesramblings]

Mantra

Wake up, roll out of bed.

Shower.

Brush teeth. Brush hair maybe.

Check phone.

Have hundreds of panic attacks before actually checking it.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Nothing’s on fire. Breathe.

YET. Internally heave.

Make coffee.

Dread starting the day.

Remind yourself:

“There’s nothing to fear,

no one’s dying

in here.”

Trudge toward the machine.

Lights hit pupils. They constrict.

Green status dot changes.

Lots of pings before your first sip of coffee.

Get millions of panic attacks again.

Pupils dilate.

Heart thumps.

Mini heart attacks every time.

“There’s nothing to fear,

no one’s dying

in here.”

Split yourself in multiple ways

all before 12 pm.

Think about your old life

and how much this was wanted then.

Endless meetings. Small talk.

All’s well in corporate tomfoolery.

Cut the BS, girl you’re going crazy.

“There’s nothing to fear,

no one’s dying

in here.”

Day ends, but it never stops.

Dread the morning again.

Never thought emails pings spreadsheets slides —

entail more hours than saving lives

“There’s nothing to fear,

no one’s dying

in here.”

Six figure salary.

Prestige and benefits.

In exchange for

a brilliant mind

but a dull life.

Sometimes you want to quit

but these golden handcuffs

are the way out of the pit.

Rinse. Repeat.

“There’s nothing to fear,

no one’s dying

in here.”

[rainesramblings]

2am sadness

dark, hot, quiet, night

phone, music, screen, bright

thoughts, you, me, write

ache, pain, sorrow, spite

playing, listening, singing, tearing

brooding, thinking, feeling, wondering

reminiscing, coming, timing, going

pondering, searching, looking, failing.

[rainesramblings]

The man of god

My thirteen year old self

Cowered in embarrassment as the man of God

Looked sternly and singled her out

In front of an older crowd

Attending this circle group therapy disguised as catechism

After pouring out the traumas

A thirteen year old could muster out

He pointed to her and exclaimed,

“You are an ambitious person”

A disgust-filled statement

Mixed with admonishment

Confusion turned to shame —

Was it a sin

To want the best?

Was it a sin

To want to belong?

Was it a sin

To want to get out of the hole?

At the back of my mind

I carried these questions all my life

Now the adult me

Stares at defiance at this man of God

Incredulously reeling from his blatant hypocrisy

And condescending patriarchy

Would you have told the same thing

To the man that owned the house you’re living rent-free in?

Would you have told the same thing

To the elders of the community

Who gave you spending money?

Why do you think these men were where they were

Why do you think

You’re the hotshot catechist

Traveling around the world

Converting “lost sheep”?

I wish I could hug

The 13 year old me

It’s time to heal, child

You will have the best

You will belong

And yes, you will

Get out of the hole

[rainesramblings]

For the artists who went unnoticed, who filled margins and sketchbooks but never let the pictures see the light of day. For the writers who never could get the people they loved to read their work; who spent hours a day pouring effort into pages only to never have readers, never have positive feedback. For the dancers with the “wrong” body type. For the actors who only ever got small roles. For the musicians who had choir voices or ninth chair skills or nobody in the audience.

For hearing “what’s the point of taking a class that easy,” for not being allowed to take the class at all. For hearing “I can do better,” or worse, that noncommittal “oh”. For hours working not even given a second of someone’s time. For parents that occasionally glanced it over but mostly waved it off and said “it’s fine do your homework.” For knowing you’re not good enough to make a profit from it, for being told a lack of commission quality was the same thing as being worthless, for believing it. For not being considered “talented” but somehow remaining passionate. For the not-good-enoughs, who never got famous, never got seen, never got anything.

For the creators. Even when you were unnoticed and unloved and embarrassed of your passions. Even when it hurt and got annoying and felt foolish to be doing. Even when nobody was looking: you made things. You saw empty space and pulled from the ether. You put your heart and soul into things other people never bothered knowing. You were told you were wasted on what you loved; you loved what other people considered a waste.

No more making in the dark. I want to see what you do even if “it’s bad”, even if nobody else ever asks you to. Come into the light. Make to spite them. Make for a younger you that didn’t have the energy, make because they couldn’t kill what burned in you even after years of suffocating, make because the idea of not-making is scary. Make for the sheer sake of making, because all art is an act against entropy. Make and be happy. It doesn’t need to be amazing. Do you know what you’re doing every time you’re creating.

The word “abracadabra” means “I create as I speak.” Tell me you aren’t magic. You force something from nothing. You made. And you make. How much more powerful can one person be?

And you deserved better than what you received.

[rainesramblings]

To the woman on the train with tissues

The lady on the BART

Saw me and placed

A pack of tissues on the armrest

For half a second

I wished I haven’t met her eyes

So I tried to look at something else

Then my eyes grazed the neon green paper

Stuck on the pack

“If you were a single mom

And have a 2-month-old son”

I stopped reading then

I didn’t have to know more

Because I know what it’s like

To live from day to day

I gave her a dollar

And she said “God bless you”

And she smiled like she meant it

I don’t have a 2-month-old son

I am not a single mom

I am an immigrant and jobless

And a dollar is still a dollar

But it’s a small price to pay

To be a human blessing today.

[rainesramblings]

Xenophobia

It started to proliferate

When a woman called the police

Over a family in Lake Merritt

That’s barbecuing in peace

Then there’s the girl in L.A.

Hanging out on the train

Someone told her she’s ugly

And to go back where she came

And have you heard about the old woman

In the supermarket near here?

She made faces at the couple

“Get out of here,” she jeered.

How sad it is that what people see

Are the differences between you and me.

Skin color, slanted eyes

Covered hair is also criticized

Black, yellow, brown, white There’s no point in living with spite When we shed off our skin We are everybody’s twin

[rainesramblings]

Life is funny that way

Just when you think you’ve lost your spark

Your shine

Your creativity

Your spirit

Your courage

Someone or something comes

to that candle again

And it saves you

Just in the nick of time

[rainesramblings]

Home

There comes a moment when all the negative things that happened in your life start to make sense.

Everything --- every tear, every heartbreak, every decision, weren’t wrong turns at all.

I was merely taking the long way home.

[rainesramblings]

Something Wrong

Stop looking at me as if there's something wrong with me.

Almost thirty and jobless Almost thirty and loveless Almost thirty and scared shitless.

Because Life happens to everyone And there is nothing wrong with me.

I see the falter in your smile When I tell you Yes I'm unattached Never married No boyfriend

And I try to lift my chin up A little bit higher To show you that I am perfectly fine living My life right now

Stop looking at me As if my flaws are so scary They drive men away from me.

Because Life happens to everyone And there is nothing wrong with me.

And even though your looks of pity Cut me from the inside I know I'm doing just fine So stop shaming women Who doesn't conform To the pressures of society

Stop looking at me As if it's my fault That they leave me. I am the fire and they are the water All they did was put me out.

There must be something wrong with you.