August 2, 2025

 

August 2, 2025

I am writing this journal entry on my airplane back to the City of Rain from Sapporo. In the business class. For the past 6 days I have been traveling alone in Hokkaido on my own, which was the first time I traveled by myself for the past 13 years. Before I got married, I was so sick of traveling alone and I wanted to just marry someone so that I never had to travel alone again. Now after having been in my marriage for 9 years, I have been craving to travel alone so badly. I have learned my lesson hard—being alone is better than being lonely when you’re with someone.

I did a lot of inner work during this trip. I purchased the breakfast package along with my hotel reservation but it turned out I had only had breakfast once in my entire trip, which was this morning when I had to wake up earlier to catch my plane. Every day I wrote a lot and think a lot. I also have been reading a lot—I finished Pete Walker’s CPTSD book and have listened to different parts of it again and again. I also read half of the book “The Drama of the Gifted Child”, but this book is quite depressing and I kind of want to stop reading it. Now I’ve just started a new book called “Women who Love Too Much”. I cried every day during my trip. I’d go to bed very late, often past 1 a.m. and wake up very late too so I could never get my breakfast that ended at 10am. The good thing was that nothing would wake me up before I wanted to be waken up every day, except for Friday morning. I didn’t even have to wear an eye mask or ear plugs when I was sleeping alone in the hotel room. I haven’t had sleep like this ever since I started dating the kids’ father and my sleep quality was good according to my Apple Watch.

Eric and I hadn’t spoken to each other for a couple of weeks until about two weeks ago, when he was leaving Minnesota, his hometown. He texted me to tell me that he was coming to Taipei again after his business trip to Seoul. I told him I’d be flying to Sapporo on Monday so he set up a dinner for Sunday night.

I went to pick him up from his hotel before our dinner. He was dressed more casually this time (the last time we met in June he was in a suit) and still didn’t wear a wedding ring. I was parking illegally so I couldn’t get off the car to give him a hug and I told him to get in the car quickly before I got a ticket. When he got into my car, he touched my arm and I said, “it’s nice to see you again.” After we arrived at the restaurant, as soon as I got off the car, he came to me quickly and said “I need a proper hug” and we hugged tightly for a while, before I had a chance to lock my car. Then we had dinner at a German restaurant. There was a live band Sunday night and after we were seated at our table, the lead singer was singing an old romantic English song and I was watching the band. When he was singing “I love you” he was staring at me, to a point where I felt embarrassed and had to turn around to Eric. I asked Eric, “why was he looking at me when he was singing I love you?” Eric said, “I noticed. It was weird.” 

So we spent about 1.5 hours at the restaurant. We talked about therapies, EMDR, generational trauma and people’s mental health. He said talk therapy and journaling didn’t work for him at all so he always preferred somatic therapies like EMDR, red light, and neurofeedback. He thought EMDR worked quite well but he had only done it a few times because it was too expensive. He thought that people should be more responsible for their mental healthy so that they’re not hurting others all the time; I said whether people can take care of their mental health is totally circumstantial. First, therapies are basically a luxury good. He said there are a lot of people who have the “resources” for therapies but aren’t doing anything. Then I said, the resources needed for people to be aware of their mental health problems are not just limited to money; education matters too. But even with high education, there are very educated people who are just living in tiny small social circle where they are constantly reinforced the belief that they are happy and there’s nothing wrong in them. In this case, they still don’t have the “resources” to do inner work. For inner work to happen, one also needs to be able to think critically, deeply, outside of the box, and have the courage to face what’s inside them. He said, “OK how you define resources is different from how I define it. What you’re saying sounds like luck.” I said, “yeah”. After we finished our food, he proposed that we get out of there. He paid for dinner this time. I thanked him and told him that it was like how we used to do it in San Francisco (back in San Francisco he always picked up the bill). He said, “well the circumstances are different now. I’m unemployed and we’re both married.”

When we were walking around, he hugged me from the side twice. Each time I’d melt into his arm. He saw the Ferris wheel and I asked him if he wanted to ride it, he said he kind of wanted to so I said let’s do it. We took the Ferris wheel and looked at the neighborhood. I pointed out to him the location of the condo that I wanted to buy; it’s just been broken ground and will be built in 5 years, and it’s $1.3m USD for 550 square feet. He said he would never buy something like that. I said the location is prime though; the riverside is the most expensive neighborhood in the City of Rain. In the Ferris wheel, there were times when we’d lock eyes and then I had to look away because otherwise it would be too much chemistry. After the Ferris wheel, we thought about doing karaoke at a Coco bar, but both booths were occupied so we gave up on that. It was also raining so we got back into my car, then we talked for a while in my car. He asked me why I had been distancing from him for the past couple of weeks, and I denied it. I said it was him who was distancing from me because there were times when I texted him and he just wasn’t there; since I was his mirror I’d just reflect back at him what he gave me. He laughed and called it bullshit. He said, “OK do you want me to give you a full account of my travels over the summer?” Then he talked about all the travels he had done and how busy he had been. He also said that because he had ADHD he tended to be focused or easily distracted by what was in front of him. I said, “I’m very surprised you’d come back. I thought I’d never see you again.” He asked me, “after so many things I’ve told you about how I feel about you and you still fear that I’d abandon you?” I said, “Sure, because you’ve done it before. Remember how you disappeared in 2013 and we lost contact for 12 years. 12 years is a long time.” Then he continued to explain again why he couldn’t send me that letter he wrote 12 years ago; he was afraid that once he sent it I’d never talk to him again. The fact was that even though he didn’t send me that letter 12 years ago, we still didn’t talk for 12 years.

Then we kept chatting about racism, politics, Michael Jackson, etc. He said that in all of our interactions from 13 years ago to today, there was always sexual tension between us. He felt comfortable but the other part of him was nervous because he had to contain his sexual tension. I laughed and said “that sounds very exhausting.” It was 10pm. He said that I should really drop him off at his hotel or his wife was going to freak out. I asked, “she checks on that…? OK.” Then I drove him back to the hotel. He asked me to park the car somewhere a bit far away from his hotel so that he could be parked legally and we could have a proper goodbye hug. At one point I cried a bit and told him that I didn’t know when I’d see him again. Then he kept talking about nonsense and something funny that I can’t even remember, which made me want to cry more. I told him “the more you talk the more I wanna cry!” He asked me why I was crying, and I said “because you’re too funny.” He said we’d definitely see each other again. He said the City of Rain is like the closest city to where he lives, even much closer than his wife’s hometown. He said I can visit him too or we can meet in a third country. We had long hug and he had to stop and said, “ok I should go before it gets too comfortable.” And he left my car.

The next morning I got up before 5 a.m. and had only a few hours sleep. I drove myself to the airport right after the kids’ father arrived home from New York. I was excited to be traveling alone again, finally. I only had one carry-on suitcase and I could get to the boarding gate so quickly because I didn’t have to check in any luggage or get a boarding pass in line. I finally felt free, and light. I finally had to take care of just myself and no one else. I completely passed out on the airplane.

I tried not to have an agenda while I was in Sapporo. I wanted to be able to sleep in every day so I didn’t go to anywhere far to see the lavender farms. Every night I’d take my time to think and write, and chat with ChatGPT sometimes. On Tuesday night, Eric texted to check on me, and I said I missed talking to him, so we talked on the phone for a couple of hours. He was already in KL. In our phone call, he told me that the last hug we had in my car gave him a feeling that he never had before. It was electric that he felt a sensation in his head, from left to right, rather than from head to toe. It sounded confusing to me so I asked him whether it was a good feeling or a bad feeling. He said it felt so good that he wanted to do it again. I said, “then come to Hokkaido.” He said, “I don’t wanna incinerate my marriage.” I said, “before we met in June, you said we should meet when the timing is right. But after we met, nothing happened!” He said, “that’s because I made sure nothing could happen.” Then we laughed. He said even the Ferris wheel we had was dangerous because so many people would make out in the Ferris wheel. I was surprised and told him that we took the Ferris wheel so that we could look at the neighborhood with lightning in the sky. Oh one interesting thing I had observed was that Eric started to call his wife using her name in front of me. Before we met this time, he had always called her “his wife” but he’s started to call her by her name. That actually gave me an opportunity to google pictures of his wife online and I was successful…I’m aware that this wasn’t so healthy so I tried to delete them and forget about them.

The next day there was tsunami warning in Hokkaido so I had to delay my trip to Otaru. I went shopping and bought myself another Louis Vuitton bag. I bought it out of pain. The night before in my conversation with Eric, we talked about my relationship with the kids’ father again and how I had been abandoned repeatedly since I was pregnant with my second child. The last few straws on the camel were the times when strangers verbally attacked me, out of racism or sexism, and he did nothing when he was there, and still nothing afterwards. Eric said when he heard this about the kids’ father, he’d think he’s a disgrace to the world and he should have no place in the world. He said he had the opposite problem—if someone mistreated his wife he’d be so confrontational that his wife would be angry at him. Hearing this triggered me because in my entire life nobody had ever stood up for me; it was always me standing up for others. Eric and I had another conversation about this a few months ago. He recommended the movie The Brutalist to me and after I watched it we talked about the movie. He said there was a scene where the wife went to confront the employer of her husband at their mansion in front of their dinner guests, telling everyone that the employer had raped her husband. He said this scene made him almost cry because it made him realize that’s what he’s been missing his life; nobody ever stood up for him. I told him that in my life I have been the same; I have stood up for everyone so often and yet no one would do it for me. It was hard for me to explain what exactly led me to buy another Louis Vuitton bag because I just bought one about 3 months ago. Rationally speaking it was 20% cheaper than what it costs in Taiwan. Deep down, I think I needed to feel powerful—nobody wants to or can protect me, so I protect myself. My money, my achievements, my elitist status are my hard-earned armors. They protect me. But is this healthy?

Wednesday night I got back in touch with an old friend, Ian, from my middle school. We’ve known each other since we were 13 and we had a crush on each other when we were in school. We lost contact in high school, but then got back in touch again in college. We made out once, and only once in our lives when we were 24, right after I came to Taipei from Houston and right before I moved to DC. He was also in the process of applying to grad schools in the US so I helped in out. When I was working in San Francisco he happened to be studying in Monterey as well so we hung out a few times. After I moved back to Taipei in 2013 we stopped talking again. Now he’s living in the Netherlands. He had been living and working in California, Tokyo (his wife is Japanese), and he’s just quit his job in Tokyo and moved to Europe, simply because he had always wanted to live in Europe and he didn’t even have a job lined up. Fortunately he had accumulated some wealth from investment so he can keep spending money without having a job; we also compared our wealth in our phone call. I told him that he didn’t seem to have changed, still quite impulsive and always looking for a chill life. I asked him if he was still into the same things like surfing, motorcycling, guitar, etc, and he said yes. That’s what he wants to do for the rest of his life; he has zero passion for the work he’s done and he just wants to be able to what makes him feel happy. I asked him if he was still rebelling like a teenager, and he said probably because his dad was too strict with him when he was a teenager and always wanted him to go to the college I went to. He had to take a gap year after high school so that he could take the college entrance exam again and get into a better school, but it was still not my school. Both his parents were teachers who really excelled academically when they were at the teachers school and his dad was a really well-known teacher. I told him how my net worth went from negative $50k USD in 2013 to $1.3m USD today and I told him I have been the most impressive person I know who’s made this much money from absolutely nothing. When I was working at a cram school, I frequently had to pay off debts of my parents’ behalf (every time I’d just give away $8000 to $10,000 USD whenever they needed it) and sometimes I had to pay for my brother’s tuition for his master’s degree in Melbourne. Ian asked me if anyone had ever paid me back, and I said, “absolutely no.” He asked me if I’d want to kill my dad, and I said, “no. At this point of my life, after knowing their upbringing, you can see that everyone makes their choices as a result of their inevitable circumstances upon birth.” He agreed. By the way I don’t have any romantic feelings for Ian now; he was just a really good friend of mine from over 20 years ago.

On Thursday I did some sightseeing, and I wrote a long journal entry for my EMDR therapist. I wanted to work on the traumas I’ve accumulated from past relationships. I wanted to focus on protection—no one had ever protected me and I want to believe that I am worthy of protection. Then, Friday morning at 8 o’clock, I couldn’t sleep in anymore. Messages and phone calls were waking me up, and gave me an anxiety attack. Both my mom and the kids’ father were asking for help. They were about to call the police. What happened was that the kids were physically fighting for toys again. Their father was too incompetent to stop the fight. He would not physically separate them or communicate with them in an effective way; all he did was that he kept yelling “stop stop stop stop” but obviously that doesn’t work for the kids. My older one had kicked the younger one and the younger one almost bumped his head, so my dad went to grab the older one, trying to get him out of the bedroom. And the kids’ dad said to my dad, “This is my house and you don’t touch my kids” and he grabbed my dad’s hand. My dad took that as an assault and yelled at the kids’ dad and grabbed his arm. The kids’ dad thought that was an assault and wanted to call the police and he recorded the fight with his camera. Then he FaceTimed me telling me that for our divorce settlement he wanted to hire a lawyer to do that and that he wanted to be contribute financially to the kids’ expenses. I said if that’s the case, I would hire a whole legal team and fight for sole custody of the kids and he’d still have to pay alimony. He kept saying that he didn’t feel safe and he has PTSD from his childhood from being bullied. All of these were so overwhelming for me and I didn’t have time to get breakfast before my EMDR therapy session. In my EMDR therapy I cried like a running faucet, nonstop. Even after my therapy, I took the train to Otaru, I was still crying a lot. I had been crying from 10:30am to 4pm on Friday, while I was sightseeing in Otaru. 

How did I stop crying? Eric texted me to check how I was doing. He was in KL on his way to the airport, ready to fly back to where he now lives. I told him how I had been crying since the morning and didn’t have my first bite of food until 1:30pm and that people in Taipei were giving me a hard time. Then we talked on the phone for about 30 minutes; I told him what happened and I told him it was really so stupid and yet it was so overwhelming for me. Then we kept laughing as I verbally ventilated about the incident. He said, “well now you know once you’re officially divorced you won’t have regrets. Many people regret their divorces.” I said, “that means they’re lucky because their marriage is still alive.” He said, “not all divorces happen because the marriage was dead. Some people just grow apart or their values don’t align, etc.” I said, “I guess.” He also told me about his insomnia problem—we’ve been having the same kind of insomnia problem both for 8 years. We can’t sleep through the night. We wake up too early and can’t fall back to sleep but then we’d have to go to work so we’d feel like total shit at work. I told him that’s long term fatigue and sleep debt. If the problem has been there for 8 years then you’d probably need 16 years to fix it…hahaha.

After that phone call I felt much lighter and I wanted to see the sunset. I hired a rickshaw and it was so much fun. The rickshaw guy “Toshi” worked so hard and did his best to entertain. He took so many great photos of me; we chat, and he showed me the best part of Otaru. After that I had dinner in Otaru and took a walk alone the canal; it was finally cooling down. Otaru was so lovely and romantic; it was where “First Love” was filmed and I kept listening to Hikaru Utada’s First Love and cried a bit more. 

In my EMDR on Friday, we worked on “I am worthy of protection and I am protected.” The therapist wants me to protect myself before I protect anyone else; ChatGPT says it’s just like on the airplane you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you put on your kids’. She also told me to start to look for things that can give me some protection. Maybe a piece of clothing, a doctor, a lawyer, etc. I have been working on visualization. The safest place I feel is actually the grassland in the south. I went there about two weeks ago when I was doing a road trip. I also had COVID at that time. Oh this reminds me—a year ago, we also caught COVID in Vancouver. My older son had a high fever and everyone was sick. Their dad was sick first and just slept in bed for the whole week when we were in Vancouver. I had to struggle with my jet lag and take care of the kids entirely on my own. I drove them to places on my own and tried to buy food that they would eat so they wouldn’t be dehydrated and malnourished. I felt so abandoned at that time but back then I never had the word “divorce” in my head. And it wasn’t the first time that their father did something like that to me; every time when he was sick or tired, he just had to be bedridden and be totally dysfunctional. Anyway, there was a typhoon in the south so it was pouring rain but when I got to the grassland, the rain had stopped. I was standing on the cliff, overlooking the ocean. The air was fresh, mixed with a light scent of wet grass. The sun was setting and the clouds were low. It was quiet and humid, and that was when I felt truly safe, when I was completely alone. This is also another sad thing about my protection—I feel protected when I am surrounded by nature, not humans. In this image, I don’t want there to be other humans near me. My EMDR therapist told me that’s good because no one is demanding or needing anything from me.

I am going back to work next Wednesday. I am actually so happy and relieved that I am finally going back to work. My only hope is that I’d still have enough time to keep journaling after work starts.