Is talking really better than not talking?

Wednesday was Eric’s birthday so I texted him happy birthday. Then he asked me if I had any free time that day so I told him around lunch time. Then we talked for about maybe 50 minutes on the phone. I had to walk on the street back and forth as we talked on the phone and it was a windy cold day. I caught a cold that evening and am still recovering from it.

Prior to this call we had not talked to each other for about 4 months or more. From the brief occasional text exchanges I already felt like blocking him because he has not been emotionally available. In this phone call he thought it was difficult for us to connect. He tried to intellectualize things again. He started to talk about his relationship patterns (not just romantic ones) and he thought he was a boundary dragger, and he thought I was one too. He created this word—it meant that we tended to push or blur the boundaries that were traditionally set for other people. For example, when he came to visit me in the City of Rain, I wanted to take him for a scenic drive, and he wouldn’t, thinking that we’d definitely end up doing something sexual as a result and I had been telling him nothing would happen. He thought me asking to go on a scenic drive meant that I was dragging his boundary, although he didn’t say it loudly i knew he meant that he was married and i shouldn’t ask him to do that. I said to him, “if people think I’ve pushed their boundary they have a choice to back away. By the way, all the things I wanted to do with you,  I’ve done all of them with my coworker—we went fine dining, scenic drive, hot springs, and singing.” Then he asked him, “did you also give them a one-minute long hug?” I said, “No we didn’t touch each other because we work in the same office and we see each other every day.” I told him that he was trying to make it all my problem that I was the one who wanted to go on a scenic drive with him and to give him a one-minute hug. If that crossed the boundary he could have said no, and he said he couldn’t because it felt good but it wasn’t his point and yet he hadn’t made his point. Then we were talking about things only on the surface, because that’s just who he say, always intellectualizing. We talked about him getting older, more gray hair, and since I don’t have any gray hair yet, he teased me that I’ll get there next time he sees me, and I said “sure you mean 20 years later.”

I had to go back to work so we ended the call half way through. He then texted me saying i was being so difficult that day. I replied “Sometimes I feel that you don’t really understand me or maybe you do but you want to avoid talking to me in a way that shows you understand me.” He replied “Just because I may disagree with what you say doesn’t mean I don’t understand you”. I said, “do you really understand me tho?” He said, “Do you not understand me? I said, “I do but I think you overestimate how much you understand me.” He said, “lol just because I’m not reacting the way you want me to react doesn’t mean I don’t understand. You maybe under the assumption that if I fully understand, I will behave in a certain way.” I said, “OK so it’s the latter, you want to avoid talking to me in a way that shows that you understand me”. He said, “actually I wanted to get to one thing close to this topic, but we ran out of time today. This isn’t exactly it but I can understand how you perceive it that way. So part 2 Friday, what time is good?” Then we scheduled a time for Friday to talk.

We talked for almost 2 hours on Friday during my work hours. I started talking to him on my way to get lunch. I asked him to make his point right away, and he said a conversation needed to have a flow and i was being too…he used a word but I forgot what he said; basically I was pretty agitated talking to him. I told him he had no idea what I had lived through in the past few months. I told him about a road rage incident and another incident some white guy verbally aggressed me in a parking lot because i have a disability badge on my wind shield. He said i was giving that guy too much reaction and time—i should have just laughed at him and walked away. I said to him, “No. you’re supposed to tell me, Kendra I’m sorry this happened to you. If I were there I’d beat the hell out of this guy.” He laughed and said, “and then I’d get sent to jail?” After maybe 20 minutes of me being agitated like this, I sat down to have my lunch and I asked him to get to his point. What exactly was in part 2? The conversation flew really quickly that we covered so many things so I wasn’t exactly sure what he intended to talk about in the first place. I told him I now see people and how i relate to them like concentric circles (my talk therapist Ana taught me this); some are in my inner circle, some are in the middle circle, and some are on the outer circle. But people are dynamic and they move around on the spectrum of circles; sometimes they can be in my inner circle and then they move away to the outer circle or just out of the circles. 

He said it wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to me; it’s that people have limitations in their life—they have obligations, a career, or emotional and mental limitations. He said he really wants to change the structure of his life but it takes time. To me it all sounded like because he’s married he couldn’t talk to me more, or as much has he’d like and I don’t think he’d ever divorce his wife. I said, “sure, but that still means they’ve made a choice to prioritize those things over me”. He said, “ok but we also have this distance thing between us.” I said, “yes, and maybe if you move to Portugal, we’ll be in a totally different time zone and we won’t be able to talk again.” He said, “i already sleep on a different schedule from people and it’s like I’m living in a different time zone anyway.” I continued, “also we probably won’t see each other again and we can’t have any activities together. When you move to a new place, you’re gonna meet new people.” Then he said, “where did you get this script? This is the classic abandonment script!” I told him that on Thursday a coworker of mine made me lunch and brought it to the office for me (It was Jinu. See PS) and I also told him that about a week ago, there was one day after work that I wanted to talk to him so badly because I was bullied by a supervisor at work. I wished i could talk to him so badly that I cried in my car. The most surprising thing was that the moment I told him this, my tears fell down reflexively. I am someone who was really good at suppressing tears but I don’t know why i couldn’t suppress them at all. He said, “you wanted to talk to me and yet you didn’t tell me anything about it?” I said, “No, because I know you’d probably laugh or tease me or tell me you don’t have the bandwidth for it. So i talked to my coworkers.” He said, “No I’d want to talk to you if you had let me know you needed to talk. You’re making all these assumptions but the only way you can find out is to actually let me know that you want to talk.” I said, “No. If you go back to our text exchanges over the past few months you can see that I already had enough evidence that you don’t want to talk.” 

He also talked about that how his ADHD often makes people feel that he’s not thoughtful, and that’s been hurting his career, friendships and relationships. I told him if he was not a thoughtful person, I would not remember him for so many years. He also said that his memory is not as good as mine, and it just reminded me of so many fights I’ve had with Angel—“I have limitations”, or his mom goes “everyone has limitations”, or Angel goes “I’m doing my best” and me goes “your best is not good enough. If that’s your best, why can’t you just let me free?” 

Then Eric said to me that he thought I had always kept him in the friend zone since we first met in 2012. I immediately said, “that’s absolutely not the case. You have never been in my friend zone.” Then he asked, “so you have wanted to have sex with me?” I said, “sure.” Then he asked, “then how come you have never made a move on me? How much self control do you have?” I said, “this is why you don’t understand me. At age 5, I was able to suppress my tears when i was beaten just to make sure that my mom wouldn’t feel guilty.” I continued, “in my entire of knowing you you were never available once. When we were walking on the street in the City of Gold, we ran into your friends they thought i was your then girlfriend and called me Cassie or whatever her name was. Then after you moved to the City of East, you said you’d come visit me and you never did because you started a new relationship. It just made me feel that I am never important enough for you. Even now I am still not important enough for you.” I really can’t recall the order of these exchanges but in the entire conversation he kept saying he really cared about me. At one point he also said that he was sorry I felt this way and i replied, “ah this triggers me because Angel’s family has said that to me hundreds of times every time when something happens to me, as if it was my feeling that was the problem not what happened to me.” I also told him that I felt he didn’t even remember the things he had said to me and the things he had asked me not to forget. He said that his life is a mess right now—his wife has chosen not to renew her contract at her school so that they can move out of Manila, but Eric doesn’t even know where to move to next, although he’s trying to get citizenship in Portugal so that he can renounce his US citizenship. Eric said he’s unemployed, doesn’t have an income, and he does some consulting work but it pays so little so it’s just wasting his time; they also need to move out of their current apartment since they’ll both be jobless soon. When I heard this, I had lots of flashbacks—mostly my laughters with Jinu actually and some images or maybe ideas of Eric lacking capacity (it was a weird feeling because to me the flashbacks were visual and yet the ideas were abstract and couldn’t be visualized”, so i said to him, “our school needs a Chinese teacher.”

He asked, “has this been posted?” I said, “yes. It’s in the high school though.” Then I forwarded him the info for the job application and said to him, “if your wife gets this job, you owe me a big one.” He said, “yes”. 

When I decided to send him the position for his wife, I felt that I closed the door further on him. Maybe we will just be friends forever. At one point of our conversation, he said I was a friend who he would never sleep with, and I’m starting to wonder if he has some symptoms of Alzheimer’s or he’s starting to reframe things in a way that soothes himself by creating cognitive dissonance. I sometimes think that he’s full of shame and guilt, and by reframing our relationship as just “friend zone”, as “me never having the intention to sleep with him” he doesn’t need to face his grief and regret that when he once had a window in his life, he chose not come to visit me in the City of Rain and just moved into another toxic relationship. 

Also at another point of our conversation, I asked him “What exactly do you want?” He said, “I think you and I want the same things in life.” It’s something about secure attachment—to be seen, to be held when I’m scared. He also said that he doesn’t have that in his life and has never had that in his life. He kept saying that we’re like each other’s mirror but we somehow move in the opposite direction. He also apologized for always teasing me. He explained that in his family teasing means closeness and in my culture too. I told him teasing is also my family culture but when someone is vulnerable and you still tease them then that’s unhealthy and toxic. If he’s getting therapy he should know that (and he has been getting therapy but his plan to get a psychology degree fell apart). 

Then I really had to go back to work so I told him good luck with the job application and I’d send him what I wrote this week in the writer’s club.

Here’s what he said, “How do you feel after writing this?” I said, “Not sure. We were given a prompt and had to write something in 20 minutes. Most people can only write 2 to 3 sentences. The topic is “parallel writing” so the hobby of biking is a parallel to my character development.” He didn’t reply again.

Before I went to bed, I sent one more text, “I think the problem with the ‘mirror’ is that the image is sealed inside the glass. You can see it, perceive it but you can’t feel it or hold it and if you try to feel it you can’t only feel the cold glass in between the images.” He replied, “Is this a complicated way of saying you miss me?” I said, “it’s way more than that. There’s longing for lost time and memories, grief for the fact there’s always a barrier between us that prevents real holding, and also despair from that I’m always much more complicated than what others can understand.” He said, “that’s understandable.” 

After all these exchanges, I just wonder whether it was better to talk or not to talk. Whether it’s better or not depends on how things unfold in life but since we don’t know how things unfold in life we can’t know whether it’s better or not to talk or not.

PS. So yes, Jinu made me beef curry rice for my lunch on Thursday. He loves to cook, and often brings his own lunch to work and asks me to try his food. The other day he made shrimp pasta and he told me how he peeled the shrimps himself rather than buying pre-peeled shrimps. When i tried his pasta, he even told me to get one shrimp. I double checked with him because i didn’t want to deprive him of his protein and he insisted i take one. After I ate it I told him that in the future when he makes his own lunch he should make extra for me. I’d pay him 20 bucks per week for my meal plan. He agreed but he had to think about what he’d be making. Then on Wednesday he brought beef curry to work and told me when he was making it, he kept thinking what i said about processed food. OK so this is another story because the other day he brought his own breakfast to work—just plain yoghurt with oatmeal and i told him even though the breakfast seemed homemade, the yoghurt was actually mass produced so he wouldn’t know what preservatives they put into the yoghurt. So when Jinu making his beef curry, he was wondering if the oil he put in was processed, the curry was processed etc. He told me he made a big pot of it, so I asked him “then where’s my share?” He said he’d bring it to me for lunch the next day. Thursday morning, he brought the lunchbox to me and it was absolutely delightful. He made an egg and folded into a perfect triangle to cover the curry and rice. There were string beans laid on the side and it was really delicious. I did feel very pampered that morning. But actually, the night before i baked apple pies (made by my from scratch) at home and brought him one in the morning as well. Friday morning when he saw me on my way to work while I was eating an egg while walking, he said, “that egg is golden because the yolk is golden.” It’s our inside joke from the omasake teppanyaki meal we had together. I laughed and said “I was gonna say the something about the egg you put on the curry rice.” The after work on Friday I sent him a picture of the lunchbox he made me with the text on the side “golden eggs, green string beans, brown curry, orange carrots in a lunchbox”. He replied “GOLDEN FROM THE YOLK”. I replied, “Oh and the curry de rice tastes like curry”. He replied, “Really??? I wonder why….” I said, “Because you must have put curry in it.” He replied, “so he gives of a curry taste?” I said, “Oh yes, and the black pepper in the curry also tastes like black peppers.” He sent me a laughing emoji and i said “I think eventually we’ll get tired of these jokes.” And he sent another laughing emoji. 

But weekends are always the hardest. I still have to see Angel’s stupid face a lot and nobody would send me any care. My father has also been asking me if I could bring the boys to see him because it’s been a few months. I don’t want to but a part of me still feels some pity for him. I told him I couldn’t because I’ve been sick. This actually may have been the flu because on Friday i felt like i was dying, even though i still worked all day and when i talked to Eric on the phone I told him i was dying and my whole body was hurting. Weekends are the days when people go back to their real life—their partners, their dates, their friends. Jinu doesn’t really text me or initiate to ask me out on weekends. After I had invited him to go on a bike ride two weekends in a row and that his timing couldn’t work, I decided that I don’t want to initiate again because who knows next time what his reason for not going could be. Maybe he’d ask me for my advice about the route so that he can do it with his date or girlfriend. Weekends and days off are so unbearable for me.

A couple of weeks ago I texted Eric a few pictures from my bike ride on the coastline. One thing led to another, I told him my HRV is lower on weekends not because of my kids but because of the people I had to deal with, and that I have no one to talk to during breaks. And he asked why he was no one, and I asked him when was the last time we talked, and he said just the past Thursday. I told him that’s called “texting” not “talking”. He said talking was also possible and I told him “It’s ok. I prefer that people want to talk to me rather people talk to me because I wanna talk to them”. He said, “that presupposes that people always and only reach out to you when they want to talk to you, and the rest of the time they don’t want to talk to you, which is false. Especially nowadays. People spend most of their lives distracted. Doesn’t mean that in the midst of those mostly meaningless distractions, they wouldn’t actually prefer to be talking with you.” I said, “:)I get it.” He replied, “particularly for me, since I’m a night owl, I tend to think of people during hours that are normal for me but may seem odd to contact others.” 

The writing space 3

​Today we were learning parallel writing and the prompt was to write about a hobby or a “hobbessesion”. I decided to ride about biking.

Biking

At age 7, my mom bought me my first bike. I was forced to ride it home on my own even though i didn’t know how to balance it, and my mom kept supporting my bike. The moment she let go of the bike, id fall down immediately and get a bruise somewhere. Within those two kilometers of my life, I had at least 10 bruises all over my body and I have never been so badly injured on a vehicle since that bike ride. In the last 50 meters to get home, I finally succeeded in riding it.

Then came my freedom. I could ride the bike anywhere as long as I could remember the route without any adult. It was a life-changing tool for me because it meant that I was independent. If I wanted to go to a park or go to a candy store, I could just hop on my bike and go there myself, without waiting for the adults to finish whatever work they were doing. I was completely free and the geography I could explore was expansive. I learned to how to ask strangers for directions and make a judgment on whether I was safe or not. The taste of independence and freedom became addictive to me.

One day, at about age 9, one of my cousins, who was 5 years older than I was, invited me to ride the bike to the park with her, which was about 5 kilometers away from home. We first had some fun at the park, but the big crowd and loud noises overwhelmed me so I wanted to go home, but she refused. She told me she hadn’t had enough fun yet and if I wanted to go home then I could go home on my own. It terrified me because that was my first bike trip to the park and it was guided by my cousin. I wasn’t exactly sure about the way home, but because my sensory overload made me want to get out of there, I said to her, “OK, I’ll go home on my own.”

I used my vague memory of the buildings that I saw on my path to the park to put together the route home, but it was not very clear. I was nervous and scared, sometimes thinking maybe I wouldn’t be able to make it back home. At one intersection, I finally decided that I was completely lost, and I decided to ask someone for help. This man didn’t seem like a trustworthy person; he was the kind of man my parents would tell me to stay away from—chewing betel nuts so that his mouth was full of the red juice that looked almost like blood, broken teeth, wearing a tank top, middle-age. My fear was that if I let him know that I was a little girl who had lost directions in the city, without anyone accompanying me, he might take advantage of me, but he was the only human I could find at that intersection so I had no choice. Fortunately, my mom had my hair cut really short at that time so most adults mistook me for a boy anyway. I decided to fake a boy’s voice and asked, “sir, which direction is the way to Victory Road?” I had a serious look on my face, without any smile, and he gave me the direction. I thanked him and left quickly.

To my surprise, he did give me the correct direction and I arrived at home safely. That day I had realized, sometimes the most terrifying things and people aren’t so bad after all; the things that people try to threaten me with aren’t that scary after all.

Let the wind and waves carry the pain

​I hosted a birthday party for Little O on Saturday. It took me a week to prepare everything and arrange logistics, and Saturday morning I had therapy with Monica at 9. After I finished my session, I came out of my bedroom seeing that Little O had been crying for almost the entire session of my therapy because Angel couldn’t regulate him. He wasn’t well because he thought every birthday party in his life had to be identical in its routine, including the things he’d eat and do in the days leading up to the party. He had been very agitated lately and I was just so overwhelmed. I wish he could be grateful, or at least just happy for just one day. But he couldn’t. He kept screaming and crying and couldn’t be reasoned with at all. The more I tried to reason with him the more agitated he got because he couldn’t understand my words. I did what I wished was done to me as a child—a tight hug, mommy telling me everything was ok, and he punched me twice. It got me so angry and depressed and I screamed back at him, but it obviously didn’t change his mood, only making him more scared of me. Then I started crying, saying to Angel, “you have no idea how painful it is to offer so much care for someone and they don’t feel it. Maybe we don’t belong to this world and after tonight I’d die with him.”

My depression is almost non-existent now, but chronic depression seems to be still there. I said those things because being unable to regular Little O pains me. No one in this world can understand the level of pain I have endured if I don’t use such language. At his birthday party, I listen to other parents talk about their parenting and their kids’ fixation. Sure, other kids seem to have some limitations, but at least they could all communicate socially while Little O and I couldn’t. It feels like hitting a wall again and again, just like me talking to Angel.

Saturday morning I told Jinu that I wanted to go back to the bike trail, but he said he had a dinner plan Sunday evening so he wouldn’t be able to make it if he had joined me. I didn’t specifically invite him but he said he wanted to go but couldn’t. He also said that he forgot to tell me that my story was very well written in the writing club and I thanked him for telling me that and introducing to the club. However, prior to this conversation I cried in front of Monica again as I told her about that Jinu went on a date a week ago. The reason why I cried was more about that I wished I didn’t feel that way, because when I look at other people, I think most of them wouldn’t cry over a friend going on a date. This thought makes me very sad—like I don’t fit in, still am too sentimental and full of drama. Monica told me she’d be sad if she was in my position because she thinks the connection I had with Jinu was real, and we did a couple of day trips together alone, and there was a lot of laughter. She said many women would be sad if they were me.

On Sunday, I was gonna spend hours at a cafe going through the final divorce settlement and the translation of Little N’s various reports for school admission, but Little O was still dysregulated a lot and kept throwing tantrums and feeling anxious, so I asked him if he wanted to go biking with me on the coastline, and he did. We went back to the bike trail on the coastline and we had a tandem electric bike. He told me he liked the ocean, and I told him we could finally scream. As we were speeding through the wind and the sound of waves, I screamed and I asked him to scream like me, and he did.

Our time alone strengthened my attunement to his emotions and regulation, but a part of me still feels so much sadness that he can’t just converse normally like how I do it with his friends that came to our party and often with other children from Little N’s school, or even just converse with me like Little N does, and I just feel tremendous pain and jealousy that other children understand so much in a language and are capable of empathizing. Both Little N and Little O have empathy, but it feels so different from other children who would just intuitively follow mommy’s instructions and tell mommy what happened at school today. Being understood by a child is an important nourishment for motherhood, but I don’t have that. I’d hold him tight like a baby whenever he’s upset but he’d do whatever to escape as if I was a monster. I gave him what I wished I could have from my parents but he was still not happy.

Another thing that occupied my mind was that Monica told me I don’t have a problem attracting men because it was obvious that men remember me for a long time, like Ken, Eric, or Ivan, and Eric is still in my life. She doesn’t want me to talk to myself negatively because often times it’s the core values of someone or the complicated circumstances of life. Then I guess in the end nobody has my core value—love takes priority over everything else. To Ken, marrying a billionaire without emotional safety matters more. To Eric, marrying someone who listens to him but doesn’t understand him matters more. To me, emotional attunement and repairs come before anything else, but in the 21st century, who believes in what I believe in?

The writing space 2

I went to the second session of the writing space today. Here’s what I wrote with the given prompt within 20 minutes:



What is the spiritual background of your upbringing?

My spiritual background is not the one my parents, my mother mostly, would like me to have. As Taiwanese, not particularly sophisticated or well-traveled, they would do what most other people would do here—mixing Taoism and Buddhism, visiting temples during major festivals, praying for some kind of safety and stability whenever they felt like it.

My beliefs were not tied to those buddhas or whatever historical figures they put on display in those temples. My childhood circumstances taught me that those figures could not answer to my prayers; I must find the answers on my own. When I was left at my grandparents’ house, 300 miles away from my own home, at age 5 without any prior notice from my parents, I prayed to whatever Buddha image I had in my head that it would not be permanent, that my parents would come back to pick me up in just a few days. No one answered, and I didn’t see my parents again for the following 6 months. That was the first time I learned, religious figures couldn’t really see me; they must be too busy with all the other prayers from other bigger people, and I must find a way to create a majestic force on my own to get myself out of whatever situation I was in.

As I got a bit older, maybe at age 7 or 8, I started to find spirituality in stories about people and animals. I was reading constantly, fictions or non-fictions, for magical stories that absolutely did not align with my real life. I tried to figure out why events in life often happen in a chain and why some people could break them while others continued to be chained by them for good. I began to narrow down to a few things—will power, patience, temperament. When I was slapped on my face or humiliated in public by my caregivers, nothing spiritual would come to my rescue; when my siblings were covered in blood from domestic violence, no matter how hard they prayed, nothing could stop it from happening. The only way out was to build the will power to be independent, away from home, so that safety and stability could arrive, at least for a while, at age 9.

In my teenage years, I developed even more understanding between people, animals, children, and nature. I started to see the goodness in those things and somehow the real magical things actually happened around me. Friends and teachers remembered my help and inspiration for a long time, and whenever I was overwhelmed and scared, the nature always had a way to catch me. Since then, I have believed that spirituality was in me, around me, and between me and everything and everyone else.

Protecting my nervous system

At age almost 40, I'm starting to see how important it is to protect my nervous system. After my 21km bike ride on Sunday, I had terrible night terrors and heart palpitations all night and barely sleep before my Monday morning class. Whenever I woke up, my heart rate would calm down, but as soon as I fell asleep, my heart would be racing and then I'd be sweating--an autonomic system problem.

Last night I got so angry at my mother. It is really quite painful to live under the same roof with someone who doesn't understand me, especially she is my mother who has abandoned me, never protected me, and now is just using her labor to make up for her lost time and alleviate her guilt by helping out with my kids.

She made broccolis for dinner again, and I asked her, "why do you still buy broccolis these days?" She hates broccolis, and I'm not a fan either, and we used to have a lot of broccolis for meals because before I had a restraining order against my dad, he used to buy a lot of them because they were the cheapest greens in the market. My mom said she hated broccolis and it was all purchased by my dad, but now my dad is out of our life (sort of), but why do broccolis still show up at my dinner table?

She said "didn't you guys need to have greens every day?" I said, "yes, but I prefer green leaves, not broccolis." Then she got defensive and angry saying that "how are broccolis not green leaves? You just despise everything I cook. Whatever you wanna eat, why don't you make a list for me?" I said, "you used to say we had so many broccolis at home because dad bought all of them, but how come you still buy them even though dad's not here?" Then she started to make it all about me looking down on everyone in my family. Honestly, I do look down on them. They do not understand my world, but I understand their world, even though my mom claims that I don't understand her, but I have triggered her so many times because I've spoken the truth for her, which means I do understand her. They don't like to read, they have never lived abroad, and they don't know my bilingual world. I now have more and better connections in my work community and I find that the shame carried by my family makes it really hard for me to connect with anyone of them. Whenever they see me, they feel ashamed, and they always think, for decades, that I look down on them, because I'm intellectually gifted. If I used therapy language with them, they don't understand it and would just say I'm the only with problems and that's why I get therapy, because I'm rich.

When you try for so many years to believe that your family are the people who love you the most and have got your back and these are the words that they're giving you, it's just masochistic to keep believing in that and keep trying.

My mom is in my house because she needs the money, and I don't know how much more it'd cost me if I had hired profession helpers. There just seems to be no way to escape from destiny. I really don't want to hurt my nervous system anymore and have to yell at anyone anymore. Little N was disturbed and kept trying to ask me to play with him while I argued with my mom for almost an hour. Later when I apologized to him for yelling and told him that I was sad because nobody understand me, Little N replied, "Mommy I recognize you." My tears just rolled down like that when he said that to me.

Predictable

​everything that happened over the past 3 days were just predictable.

1. Richard never followed up again over the past week about coming to the City of Rain. As Friday approached, I became more and more anxious, rather than excited, because I knew he would not just surprise me and show up. So I started the day on Friday as if he would show up and got myself ready for work looking sharp. Then I texted him to see if he was coming to the City of Rain. Then he told me he got sick and couldn’t hop in and out of Taipei for one day from the City of Richard. I wished him well and chitchat for a bit. He said we should do a call at the end of January, but I couldn’t really care less.

I had imagined that the past weekend would have been filled with a lot of fun and great conversations with Richard, so yes there was a lot of disappointment. I tried to move on with the day; it’s not that I have any romantic feelings for him, but for some reason, there’s always a part of me that craves to know in this world who would make me their priority. I know this part of me is very childish and unhealed and honestly I want to call it stupid and naive but it’s just there. I don’t know why no matter how much reading, writing and therapy I do, this part of me just can’t grow up. I want to know so badly how I’d feel today if the newborn me was born into a loving family and was held as soon as I came out of my near death birth. What kind of life would I have today? How would I feel in a relationship with Angel, or with any man that I’ve had feelings for? Would I have cried so many tears in a lifetime? 

At the end of the day I was in a bad mood because of Richard and also Little N’s school admission. Our school wants me to translate his joint evaluation report into English and I’d been spending hours working on it even with ChatGPT. I worked on it all day at work and still haven’t finished it.

After work I left the office with Jinu at the same time. He asked me what I was gonna do this weekend and I told him “nothing”. He said “that sounds nice” and I said “no…it’s not a good nothing.” He asked why, and I couldn’t quite verbalize it. Then he said “you seem anxious today”. And I smiled and said, “you’re good at picking up on these things”. So I told him what was bothering me. As I go through the process of applying Little N to our school, I still have the anxiety of him not being able to get in because our school dismissed my older son Little O in pre-k after just 9 days. Even tho the people and the system are changing, I’m still afraid they might do the same thing. What are my evidences? I spoke to the director of belonging (a new hire this year) about creating an affinity group for parents of special needs, and he mentioned that there are people in our community who think affinity groups are actually exclusive. Call me paranoid, but I don’t feel good when he mentioned that to me because that means he might yield to those people. Affinity groups are so harmless and yet he had to tell me there are opposing forces at our school. A few days ago our head of school at our school wide address said that our students’ parents are the “customers” the “clients”, which makes me feel that in the end the director of belonging would yield to the parents and what our school told me before—we’re transitioning to become more inclusive and to create an academy for special education will all be killed.

Then Jinu said it’s like if you’ve watched your friend get killed by a jaguar you’d be afraid to go into the forest again. I said yeah but I wanna go into the forest again and even play with the jaguar. He said yeah you learn to be more careful and how to be safe when you go into the forest again.

I also told him that the local school where Little N will be placed thinks he’s cognitively ready for the first grade but I don’t think so. He was born in late August so I want him to delay matriculation by a year. Jinu told me that he had to repeat the first grade too and I said that’s very common in the US but doesn’t happen here. He totally understands that Asians do not want social stigmas. He also told me that when he was teaching in the US and teaching AP government, the school wanted him to teach 9th graders in the class to boost their AP scores. They claimed that 9th graders are ready for AP classes cognitively but Jinu thought they were only looking at one aspect of their life; the students had all the other things going on in their life and they needed a balance. I totally agreed with him and told him that I have the guts not to let my kids play his game because as someone who succeeded in this system I know the cost is way too high. But if both here and US are playing the same games, that means I’m still an exile. He also said that I am living with resistance and the cost of it is high. 

What makes me sad is that I wish he hadn’t stayed with me and talked to me and understood me so well, because I do have feelings for him and it’d be easier if he simply couldn’t feel me or understand me.

Saturday was just another day running errands. The weather was so perfect—sunny, dry and cold with clear blue sky. It’s exactly the weather I loved back in the City of Gold. Then I really had this impulse to go to the north coast and bike on the coastline so I decided to text Jinu.

2026/1/10, 12:05:09 PM] Me: The weather is so nice this weekend. You interested in biking?

[2026/1/10, 12:06:22 PM] Me: https://maps.app.goo.gl/somewhere I feel like going back there

[2026/1/10, 4:27:09 PM] Jinu: Oh shoot! Sorry for replying so late. I was with some friends in Xinyi. Did you go on a bike ride?

[2026/1/10, 4:27:49 PM] Me: No. I meant tomorrow.

[2026/1/10, 4:29:31 PM] Jinu: I got dragon boat in the morning but I want to check out ikea about some furniture. What time are you thinking about going? (I don’t have a bike btw)

[2026/1/10, 4:33:22 PM] Me: I’m thinking 11am. You don’t need a bike. I’m renting an e-bike when I get there.

[2026/1/10, 4:41:07 PM] Jinu: Ah ok. It might depend on how I feel after practice. I can get home by 10:45-11:00. Can I be a soft yes?

[2026/1/10, 5:46:36 PM] Me: Sure. I don’t want to keep messing up your IKEA shopping

[2026/1/10, 5:49:25 PM] Jinu: It might be really busy on the weekends so who know if it’s better on a weeknight.

[2026/1/10, 5:52:51 PM] Me: I find it stressful to go there on weekends because I can barely push the shopping cart around and the neihu store doesn’t have most furniture ready on site

[2026/1/10, 5:53:49 PM] Jinu: Haha right? Maybe this is a weeknight activity

[2026/1/10, 6:01:28 PM] Me: Anyway up to you. I already disrupted your IKEA trip once😅

[2026/1/10, 6:03:49 PM] Jinu: I forgot about the first one haha

[2026/1/11, 10:06:36 AM] Jinu: Hey Kendra, I’m leaving Xindian now. I don’t think I can get back in time to Tianmu.

[2026/1/11, 10:14:09 AM] Me: I can pick you up from where you are

[2026/1/11, 10:14:42 AM] Jinu: I got to shower first to wash the sweat and river water.

[2026/1/11, 10:15:57 AM] Me: Haha got it. No problem.

[2026/1/11, 10:16:28 AM] Me: I can wait for you if you really wanna go

[2026/1/11, 10:16:39 AM] Me: But if you’re tired then it’s totally fine

[2026/1/11, 10:16:39 AM] Jinu: Normally it wouldn’t matter but last time I waited to shower at the end of the day, my skin got rashes.

[2026/1/11, 10:18:57 AM] Jinu: I would go but Ive had disrupted sleep last night. I woke up at 3 am because a mosquito bit my hand and arm 4x. So I woke up and sat in bed to catch it. Right when I was about to give up, I remembered your advice to look at the ceiling and walls. And I FOUND IT!! And killed it. There was blood.

[2026/1/11, 10:20:05 AM] Me: Haha sounds satisfying 🤣

[2026/1/11, 10:20:10 AM] Me: You should take it easy then

[2026/1/11, 10:20:34 AM] Jinu: It took weeks to find!!

[2026/1/11, 10:20:54 AM] Jinu: If it was a Saturday, I’d come with you! That tunnel looks fun!!

[2026/1/11, 10:24:33 AM] Me: Some other time. It’s more than a tunnel. It’s a 20km loop around the north coast

[2026/1/11, 10:24:51 AM] Jinu: Oh ok. I would have died.

[2026/1/11, 10:25:51 AM] Jinu: I was gonna tell you during our car chat this but text will have to do. I went on a date last night!

[2026/1/11, 10:26:14 AM] Me: Aww how did it go

[2026/1/11, 10:28:58 AM] Jinu: It was good. It was about 3 hours so I guess you can say we enjoyed each other’s company. It’s a bit complicated because she’s heading back to London for work (she lives there) but she’s trying to move to the City of Rain. So as of now, we’re keeping in touch and trying to get to know each other.

[2026/1/11, 10:37:15 AM] Me: Is she a City of Rainer? I was hoping for something juicy like it could be someone I know.🤣

[2026/1/11, 10:37:23 AM] Jinu: Yea

[2026/1/11, 10:37:32 AM] Me: Yea to which question?

[2026/1/11, 10:37:35 AM] JC Kao: 🤣

[2026/1/11, 10:37:46 AM] Jinu: But was born and grew up in Vancouver.

[2026/1/11, 10:37:49 AM] Jinu: 😂😂

[2026/1/11, 10:37:59 AM] Me: Ok yea to the first one not the second one

[2026/1/11, 10:38:02 AM] Me: 🤣

[2026/1/11, 10:38:03 AM] Jinu: Yes to first question

[2026/1/11, 10:38:23 AM] Me: So it’s someone from online?

[2026/1/11, 10:38:28 AM] Jinu: Yaaaa

[2026/1/11, 10:38:33 AM] Jinu: She chose me

[2026/1/11, 10:38:40 AM] Me: lol

[2026/1/11, 10:38:45 AM] Me: When you say it like that

[2026/1/11, 10:38:56 AM] Me: It almost sounds like destiny 🤣

[2026/1/11, 10:39:36 AM] Jinu: This is gonna require a lot of it for sure.

[2026/1/11, 10:41:29 AM] Me: Lol wait

[2026/1/11, 10:41:37 AM] Me: You felt love at first sight already?

[2026/1/11, 10:43:39 AM] Jinu: Oh no no I feel after my last relationship, I’m more tempered now. I like her enough to keep talking but I want to truly get to know her. But because of the circumstances, I feel it will require destiny if this turns into something more serious and long term.

[2026/1/11, 10:44:20 AM] Me: Yes. Exactly how I feel.

[2026/1/11, 10:46:04 AM] Jinu: I can always count on you for your perception!

[2026/1/11, 10:46:11 AM] Jinu: I did bring up the topic and I appreciated how clear she was.

[2026/1/11, 10:46:31 AM] Me: I don’t think that’s a good idea 😅

[2026/1/11, 10:46:45 AM] Me: How old is she

[2026/1/11, 10:46:44 AM] Jinu: Haha why?

[2026/1/11, 10:46:48 AM] Jinu: 36

[2026/1/11, 10:46:55 AM] Jinu: Older than me

[2026/1/11, 10:47:24 AM] Me: I think I’m not mature enough…or experienced enough…or healed enough. Whichever one it is

[2026/1/11, 10:54:29 AM] Jinu: I’ll still take it into account haha

[2026/1/11, 10:54:54 AM] Jinu: I think both of us are too old enough to play games.

[2026/1/11, 12:00:29 PM] Me: Yeah. Life is too short to be wasted on games

[2026/1/11, 12:00:41 PM] Me: I just arrived at the coastline

‎[2026/1/11, 12:00:55 PM] Me: ‎image omitted I’m imagining myself in California. 

[2026/1/11, 12:41:43 PM] Jinu: Wooooow

[2026/1/11, 12:41:53 PM] Jinu: It does give off California!

[2026/1/11, 12:42:17 PM] Jinu: We were pretty clear in what we’re looking for and values.

[2026/1/11, 12:42:27 PM] Jinu: What did you have for lunch?

[2026/1/11, 12:43:43 PM] Me: Haven’t had it yet, but I’m planning I get the local delicacy which is squid vermicelli or congee and fresh catch cutlass fish. For only 150ntd

[2026/1/11, 1:01:26 PM] Jinu: Cutlass fish!!!

[2026/1/11, 1:01:36 PM] Jinu: Please send me a picture

‎[2026/1/11, 1:05:32 PM] Me: ‎image omitted

[2026/1/11, 1:05:53 PM] Me: The weather here is like perfect City of Rain weather. 13 degrees, dry and sunny.

‎[2026/1/11, 1:08:11 PM] Me: ‎image omitted

[2026/1/11, 1:38:25 PM] Jinu: That looks so good!!

‎[2026/1/11, 2:21:23 PM] Me: ‎image omitted

[2026/1/11, 2:21:41 PM] Me: I rode to the City of East Coast from new City of Rain and then back to new City of Rain.

[2026/1/11, 3:13:07 PM] Jinu: Wow!!

[2026/1/11, 3:15:29 PM] Me:

‎[2026/1/11, 3:15:30 PM] Me: ‎video omitted

‎[2026/1/11, 3:15:30 PM] Me: ‎image omitted

[2026/1/11, 3:16:48 PM] Me: I saw several Harley Davidson clubs and one Volkswagen Beetle club driving on this route today. Perfect weather!!

[2026/1/11, 6:18:43 PM] Jinu: I definitely missed out!

[2026/1/11, 6:38:40 PM] Me: Wish I could find a Sienna club and do a coastline drive with them😌

[2026/1/11, 8:17:37 PM] Jinu: Oh that would be grand

****

The moment he said that he went on a date last night, my heart completely sank. But you know what, I had predicted it. I had visualized the moment a few times before—I knew once he’s found someone to date, we would never go on our outings again and he’d never have the same conversations with me. As you can see I’ve been very chill and adult like in the chat, but I had cried my eyes out as soon as I got on the road for the scenic drive and bike ride. At one point on the bike, I screamed: you were supposed to be doing this with me but you didn’t come! And then I started crying. At another stop, I was alone in a pavilion looking at the ocean waves, and I cried and yelled at the waves: why am I always so alone???? Where the fuck are you??? And then I cried again. (No one could hear me because the ocean’s sounds took over all other sounds and there were barely anyone there anyway.)

I tried to focus on photography. I had my tripod and my phone with me and I kept reminding myself to take photos because it helped me focus on the present visuals and when you give purpose to a day trip like this, your mind sometimes exits the grief mode. Sometimes I wonder if Ivan feels what I feel whenever I take a photo—I’d look at my surroundings, find an angle that gives the best structure and decide what to fit into my photo. Then my mind would just be focused on what I see and try to encapsulate what I see into a picture that stays in my phone forever.

On the other hand, the camera cannot capture everything I see—the proportions of things shown in a photo is never the same as what you see with your bare eyes. More importantly, photos and videos cannot capture the smell of the salty ocean, the touch of humidity on my skin, the icy cold wind trapped in my hair. There have been so many times when I feel the sun or the moon is so big in real life but my camera just can’t catch that. In these situations I’d tell myself to just focus on my senses and not take photos at all.

Somehow my crying today reminded me of Robyn from How I Met Your Mother. She cried her eyes out when Ted started dating Victoria even though she was the one who broke up with Ted. And I think that was how she and Barney ended up sleeping together. I felt that moment so strongly today: I wish I could just be cool and happy that Jinu is going on dates, but when no one is looking I cry my eyes out. Sure, you can say I wish he would choose me, I wish he would realize that we could spend 8 hours together talking and laughing nonstop, I wish he would think of me as special and want to cherish me. I wish for all these things but he doesn’t feel that way. Nobody ever feels that way about me. My therapist asked me to catch myself when these negative thoughts emerge and to tell myself these negatives voices aren’t mine, but it’s been so hard to do. It hurts less for me to just believe that nobody would want to be a part of my messed up life—a life that’s really not about me at all. Before I met Angel, everyone thought my upbringing was messed up and didn’t want to touch my life; now I have two special needs kids and even though I’ve cut myself off from my birth family, people still find my life messed up and would not touch my life, let along walk beside me through the storms. Just no one.