In Chicago, some old stories are revisited, reversed, and renewed.
I visited Chicago 16 years ago. I only had a brief 2 days here, there was a shooting, and I was only a very scared young foreign student to be traveling alone. Well, technically I got stuck at Chicago Ohare airport A LOT (Thanks, United), so there’s always that negative association, too.
I’m visiting a good friend that I met in California who recently moved back, and he has completely renewed Chicago for me. For context (and it will be important to the subsequent stories), he’s black. It’s a little bit sad that our communities do not traditionally bond together in North America. My theory (unverified) is that America exports its racism so well through media, that Asians usually associate our black neighbors with negative stereotypes, and our black friends often think of Asians as model minority, stuck up, and, ironically, racist. Yet, with the pandemic, with movements like Black lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, we are stronger together now. More than that, more than strategy and oppression, we found ourselves appreciating each other’s culture, vibrancy, and love. The world needs more Blasian babies
So I’ve been accused in the past of making everything about race. Well, maybe so, in North America. But it’s hard to notice these stories, the evidence, and the traces of histories in the communities. It’s more profound here in America It’s more profile here in Chicago. We see the gentrified neighborhoods. We see neighborhood and trains that are working-class and older compared to the upscale neighborhood. We see that even in a diverse communities like Boystown. Race issues and stories are everywhere, and only the privileged get to ignore them and turn a (color)blind eye.
Instead, there are better stories out there. I highly recommend the show “Insecure” to anyone interested in a more nuianced story-telling approach to black excellence, and black love, and living in a different America, even in the “woke” epicenter of Hollywood. Also, try to get this song out of my head and failing
The story of Chicago runs deep, in its architecture, in its food (that is not my favorite, but hey, some love their hot dogs without ketchup and their pizza filled to the rim. I respect that), and in its people. Also, in its black gay woman mayor that is kicking ass and taking names (and really needing a better haircut, I’m sure the gays will line up to do her hair).
We all should know (and learn) that stories can change. Stories evolve when 2 elements are in place, when there are new characters in place (my friend) and enough time have passed and new baseline has established. Chicago has changed. The world has changed.
Yet, in the packed gay bars, and in the diverse multicolored murals of places and people I saw in Chicago, there is that famliar sense of aliveness, of the old stories, of love and embrace and resilience.
We all have our stories. We saw them. We experienced them. We made them up in our head (some made up more stories more drinks they had). I saw my younger self in someone else, strong and insecured, caring and controling, passonate and neurotic, kind and blunt. Contradictions that co-exist in an “and” form. Conflicts that co-exist in one person. The most important thing to realize is, that we need to acknowledge our imperfections to to be a better person, yet we need to embrace our humanity and flaws to be authentic. We need to all be our guacamole and not ketchup (you pay extra for guac). There will always be people who call us a c*$nt for our BS, AND they love us AND they stay anyways. Enablement and encouraging is care. But honesty and true authentic feedback is love. We all deserve to be loved. We all deserve to not settle. I hope he finds his way, and his version of happiness, similar to the way I did. Not the same version of what I have. Better. Because he deserves better.
Everyone loves stories with happy endings. Every story with happy-ending has an immense amount of struggles in every episode.
And my version of happy-ending is not “Fin” – “the end”. Mine involves having abilities to have more stories, to tell more stories, of growth, and love, and earned happiness.
So I met the 28-year-old resident for a “date” (don’t freak out, I asked for permission, the guy knows I’m married, and we didn’t do anything). We spent four hours walking around Boston, through the parks, the bridges, the streets. The diffused sun behind us illuminated his teal jacket, as if a tasteful indie director is making a rom com with Zoey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt (I’m Zoey of course). We exchanged stories. We talked about coming out in a brown immigrant family. We contemplated death (he’s a doctor and I’m just…morbid). We talked about Bridgeton and Grey anatomy. We shared future aspirations and how we will change the world. We talked about Arts and alcohol. We hugged and said goodbye at a train station, promising to meet again in Canada. Except we won’t. Because a rom-com with Zoey and Joe set it Boston with one being married has zero chance of going anywhere. Also for my hubby who is reading this, I love you and no one can replace you. It’s just… One of these experiences that you thought to yourself that it must be from a movie. The last time I had this was with a guy from university and the circumstances we meet was very “how I met your mother”. And we never met again.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to ever date again. Dating is horrible (stay in school and stay married, kids). Exchanging stories as you are making new ones, in a new city, new setting, new world is so exciting. I think humans were built to tell and share stories.
I’m loving Boston. Well, not Boston. I’m loving the trip, with the backdrop of Boston. The libraries, the museums, the walks, the marketplace. It allows for new stories.
I bought a smoothies for a black homeless man. And almost an hour later, a black homeless lady cursed me in mumbles because I didn’t have change for her. It didn’t bother me. It just made me incredibly sad. I love my BIPOC. Yet we live in a place where we are trained to hate each other, to compete, to climb this ladder of minority got the scraps of what capitalism allows us. It’s a story I wanted to alter, to change. It’s a story that reminds me of Philadelphia, how I learned to unlearn my racism and fall in love with my African American neighbors and their culture, their resilience, and their unrelenting love for life.
I got an unexpected call from my coworker in my last job. He was looking out for me and informing me of some news. This came as I am sitting in a crowded place at lunch full of old white people. It’s a reminder that I am now an old white person eating lobster at lunch on a Monday. Kidding. It’s a reminder that my Canadian people are kind. They are loving. They lookout for you even when you left them. It’s another story worth repeating. Canada’s weather is cold, but its people are so warm.
And here I am, with the stories I wrote and wove in my head, as the sunshine and warmth starts on a spring day in Boston. Some days, in my life, all I needed was to step out of my life and reminded me of the choices that I’ve made in my life.
(No – I have not gone crazy. This is called Meditation – For easy to follow, I have called alternative me Mr.P)
Mr.P: “How’s Boston?”
Me: “it’s going great I think. Gorgeous weather. Sunshine. Warm. Not usual this time a year in Boston. I’m a bit too early for the spring flowers. But it’s still gorgeous”
Mr.P: “And the seafood”
Me: “Yes the seafood. I wish I had more time to plan it better. The trip was a little rushed and I didn’t have any time to plan”
Mr.P “But you are having a good time, though”
Me: “I think I am. Some 28-year-old resident at Massachusett General hospital called me sexy today. He even evoked my all-time-favorite pick-up line – Your mind is very sexy.”
Mr.P: “Aint that a good thing?”
Me: “I don’t know. Maybe 16 years ago a compliment like that would have made my heart jumps out of my chest. These days, I don’t know. I somehow feel like an imposter in my own body you know. I’m 37. Where did the years go? It’s always hard for me to classify myself as desirable”
Mr.P: “But this isn’t just about your look”
Me: “Yeah. But my brain has been feeling a little foggy lately. I don’t know if I’m doing ok at my job”
Mr.P: “Didn’t your boss say he is grateful he found you or something?”
Me: “Yeah. I guess. But the last 3 directors quit so he might just want to keep me by buttering me up”
Mr.P: “You’re not even grateful, are you?”
Me: “For what?”
Mr.P: “You’re alive. What’s little pain compared to that?”
Me: “You’re seriously NOT quoting Six Feet Under to me”
Mr.P: “It’s you who insist on quoting that pretentious show that your husband hates”
Me: “He hates a lot of things I like”
Mr.P: “Do you resent that?”
Me: “It’s like food. You can’t force someone to like what they don’t like, since they are adults. Unlike how you can force children to eat broccoli. To be honest I’m grateful for him. You know I am.”
Mr.P: “So what’s this whole deal with you?”
Me: “I think I just missed the version of us that we used to be. Not this post-pandemic couple. Not this couple who has nothing common to watch on TV – or have nothing common to do aside from watching TV. Not this couple who argue over phone usage. I miss the version of him that says smooth crazy things like Being smart looks very sexy on you. I miss this person who sneaks in 2 hours before my friend arrives at the airport so we can spend some time together. I miss this big bold person who takes risk and not ground himself to a place, to a house, to a city”
Mr.P: “You know you hang on to pain as if it means something; as if it is worth something. Let it go. Endless possibilities and all he does is whine.”
Me: “Seriously fuck right off with the Six Feet Under quote already”
Mr.P: “Seriously, remind yourself of the promise you said on your wedding day. You promised not to fuck up. You’re fucking this up”
Me: “Tell me how to unfuck it then. Oh, wise one?”
Mr.P: “Don’t you see, you hate this studio apartment. You don’t want to move to another city and not have furniture. Where are you growing your garden? Where are you putting your studio equipment? You don’t hate your life. What you have is a temper tantrum nervous breakdown because you are aging and you are terrified of losing your edge in your career, that your partner finds someone else more attractive than you, that you are abandoned and isolated because people don’t care about you. You know, like how you always fucked up your relationships and friendships in the past. You know how to fix this. You’re the wise one in this. You are me.”
Me: “And then what”
Mr.P “Be happy. Because you know deep down you are. You just need to allow yourself to be. You deserved this. Happiness is a choice. So choose. Remember, you choose this.”
Me: “Enough with the quotes already”
Mr.P: “Well, if you think I am obnoxious with the quotes, you are not ready to learn how your friends feel about your quotes.”
Whenever I am at peak escapism, the song I listen to is Boston – Augustana. Which is funny, because I never really love Boston that much or thought about moving to Boston. I guess it is just the fantastical romance of it all
“You don’t know me. You don’t even care. You don’t know me. You don’t wear my chains” Boston – Augustana
I guess 16 years is a good time to revisit a place you thought you’d never move to. I was here in 2006, a student, (a broke, foreign student), a nomad, a twenty-one-year-old who is just as clueless about life as he is driven to strive for a better one, and a deeply deeply closeted man. 16 years could be a lifetime. Kids come out at 16 now. It feels like a lifetime ago. And it felt like yesterday. It felt like another person’s life. Yet, all the little bits of the year in Philadelphia, traveling to NYC, to Canada, to Boston, had become milestones and bookmarks and monuments in the life I have today.
The last time I travel internationally is March 2020, 2 days before the pandemic was declared and the world shuts down. Plans were postponed and canceled. Life as we knew it was altered. We all wanted to be safe. We all prayed to be safe. We hope that others will be safe (well, maybe the majority of us). And we stayed in place. To be safe. 2 years. 2 jobs. 2 false starts. I am now in the air, to Boston. I had a financial year-end review with my boss yesterday and the feedback was 95% positive. At the lowest of my lows, people reminded me that I am still a high-functioning, beautiful mess.
And I know I was supposed to be grateful to be safe. I know I was supposed to feel privileged and blessed (because I am). I know I am incredibly lucky to be here today. I know all that. I know.
Yet when I look outside the window of my home office, look at the little loops I do walk in, look at the beautiful and affordable city (that keeps voting racist anti-trans conservatives O&G beholden zealots into power), look at the booming tech community (that is struggling to define itself), my life feels small, trapped, insignificant, and isolated. It’s an island of quietness. It’s an island of barely enough attention and safety to survive, but never enough support and love to thrive. It’s an island of social networks and never enough real-life connections. It’s an endless Instagram scroll – beautiful and fun, attractive and engaging, but never really truly means anything.
“Was I safe, or was I suffocating?
Because the bird is in the cage and the cage is in the town and the town is made of blinding white flowers and beautiful lies
Maybe we can’t help the things we dream of any more than we can’t help the things that we are made of
Or maybe we can
If we can finally the lies and the town and the cage we are inside of, we can see so many other things too
We can see the door – a way out – and we can fly away”
– Little fire everywhere
So, I have a bare minimum itinerary of what I am going to do in Boston. The friend I’m visiting is a homebody who doesn’t drink, doesn’t eat out, and doesn’t love going out. So it’ll be interesting. I love traveling solo, btw. I don’t mind it. It reminds me of that 21-year-old who is clueless and fearless, who is lost and intuitive, who is depressed and hopeful. It reminds me that I can still do it, fly away, to the world that is out there, figuratively and literally.
And maybe, maybe, one day, I can inspire someone to fly away with me, too. Maybe, just maybe. One day, we can find a place where we can both truly belong, together, where we can grow up and grow old together.
Without the cage, and the anchor, and the beautiful lies and the deafening comfort.
Maybe one day we can put the phones down, unplug, and sleep peacefully in an island that is embraced by the endless blue sky, and the family and friends and the people in our lives who love us, as flawed, as sad, as isolated we are at times.
Before the fear in me turned into the unrelenting demon wanting to forever run away from it all and never come back.
“You’re not here. When you’re here, you’re not here.”
I don’t know how often, how loving, or how loud I have to say certain things for them to be heard. I don’t know if we should pay someone $190 an hour so that they can be a proxy to say it. I don’t know if the silence in my meditation and my learning to let go of these thoughts would also let go of the part that made us who we were.
“At some point, you just need to learn to be happy.” It sounds like a poster on a wall of a beautiful glass house in a beautful wonderland of no one. It sounds like gaslighting to the ears of the abused. It sounds like privilege to the ears of the oppressed.
I am lucky, and I am priviledged. The world is on fire. People are going through the pandemic, and uncertainty. And so in my privilege of being safe, and healthy, and financially safe, I need to learn to be happy and let go of this nagging feeling of numbness and isolation.
What do I really want?
Maybe I want to be alive. I want to walk out in the sun, feeling the ocean wind, feeling the blisters in my feet. I want to raise garden beds. I want to talk on the streets and look at people.
Maybe I want to be connected. I want to have conversations. I want to laugh. I want to compete.
Maybe I want to be heard. I want someone being present when they are with me. I want to be a priority, not an afterthought. I want to be invited, not rejected.
Maybe I want to be acknowledged, for my existence, my struggles, my contradictions, my talents, my flaws.
Maybe I want to rest. I want to not be stuck in this limbo of barely enough attention to keep my grounded, but not enough to make me happy. Maybe I want to be thriving, not surviving. Maybe I want to be loved, not just be told that I am loved.
Can you be surrounded by people, and still be alone?
Can you have friends without the burden of their problems?
Can you have love without being desired?
Can you carry the weight of the lights, with the vast emptiness of the shadow?
I asked myself in the shadow.
“What is wrong, love?” – they ask and they walk away before the answer before the shadow reaches them before the sun arrives and the shadow becomes too looming large
“What is to blame, love?” – they ask and they walk away because the answer wasn’t simple and the answer requires them to work
You see, it’s not an exorcism without the work It’s not help, if it’s all rainbow and positive vibe only and “Can we talk about me now?”
In the shadow of the vast blue sky and the breathtaking prairie sunset, there’s this loneliness looming larger than than you, and me, and us but only I do see it
I sit in the shadow with my breath quietly resigning
Back at my last job when I started having troubles sleeping, my last boss has shared with me a military tactic for soldiers: Imagine you are on a boat, in a calm pond, surrounded by mountains, in a dark sky with stars, bright enough to see the mountain and the boat but not too bright you can’t sleep. Then relax your body, part by part, focus on your breath. A simple enough meditation, it seems. The problem with that is every time I do it, the boat slowly disappears, and I can feel myself sinking slower and slower into the pond. Not the “holy fuck I’m gonna drown and die” kind of sinking. It’s this slow, despair kind of sinking, like the “sunken place”
I wonder if this feeling ever goes away. I, like many people, used to think “if only”. If only I get out of Vietnam. If only I get a great university degree. If only I am out. If only I become Canadian. If only have a person who loves me for who I am. If only I get married. If only I get to this stage in my career. As a Buddhist, I know it never will. “Wherever you go, there you are”. This looming shadow of a calming pond and an endless depth.
Probably not a good thing two months after starting a new job. But I’m not sure if it’s the job. Maybe it’s the holiday. The pandemic. The relationships and friendships. The isolation. The rejection. The being ignored. Who knows. I can’t remember the last time I was at peace with myself. Maybe when I was a child, sitting in front of the ocean. A lot of the peace in my life comes from water, staring at the water, being in the water, submerging in the water. Maybe when I was at the Buddhist retreat years back making patterns out of old Catholic building’s carpets (and secretly broken down and wanting to run away)
Depression is not a trigger, is not a “why are you suddenly like that?”, it’s slow creeping water, encroaching, built up from one thing after another, and it overflow at a moment. And when you are in the water, slowly sinking into that sunken place, having people on shore asking “Why are you this way?” or “Why don’t you just pull yourself up and out, it’s shallow water?” is maybe not helpful. Maybe a boat, and a hand, and a healthy dose of compassion, might help.
I often joke about “if only” I meet and fall in love and be with a “cute Buddhist boy who reads”. I know that guy. It is me. I just need to learn to love myself and be ok to be alone with me and be at peace with that. Maybe, when that day comes, I can start to sleep by envisioning being on a boat, and actually floating, not sinking, on the body of water reflecting the sky full of stars.
P.S: My first counseling session with a therapist is next Monday. So yes, I’m trying to take care of my mental health, all by myself, as usual. Don’t worry about it.
I think I might have figured out the source of my troubles – depression lately. And in the most Buddhist sense of why I have been depressed my whole life, it’s with the sense of self. This time, it manifested with Rejection.
I was catching up with a friend that I have not seen in a while. We actually knew each other in university. Well, knew of. I was sort of dating his friend when he was just kind of hovering. And so it is kinda funny when I said I was kinda alone and rejected by my community when I was doing my masters, he said “What do you think a chubby gay man feel, just hovering in the background?”. The world is not kind to gay men who look like us.
A lot of my life was with rejection. Rejection for being a geek. Rejection because others are not ready. Rejection – repeatedly – from someone who said they loved me but he didn’t think I was attractive or desirable. There was once in my life that I was desperate, and pathetic, so much so that I resonated with Grey’s Anatomy. Yes, that. “Okay, here it is. Your choice. It’s simple. She or me. And I’m sure she’s really great. But Derek, I love you, in a really, really big – pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window – unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me. Choose me. Love me.”
I could be really lazy and said it was all deep-rooted in the way I was brought up. My mom doesn’t tolerate failures in the house. Second place in school? Not the best at the city level? Failed an Olympiad? I faced disappointment and the silent treatment for those, and hence this deep-rooted fear of failures because it’s just rejection. People who don’t succeed get rejected.
I could be a bit less lazy and said it was because I was in the closet for a long time. And being a geeky Asian without access to good hair products, high school wasn’t kind, the undergraduate school wasn’t kind, California was exceptionally wasn’t kind. Internalized racism mixed with internalized homophobia creates this intoxicating mix of self-deprecation and overdrive to perform to not be rejected.
And maybe the reason why staying back in Calgary has stressed me so much in the past months. It’s the rejection. I was rejected, repeatedly, for 6 months when I was trying to look for work here. So any early signs of my work that I’m not getting up to speed fast enough, or that I’m not performing at my self-imposed optimal result, I get really really stressed out about it.
It’s our life here. Let’s watch a movie? No. Let’s go out? No. Let’s spend some time together? No. I drove myself into spiral insanity when my partner would say yes to someone else for the same thing he had said no to me. Insecure. Unreasonable. Needy. All that. And I know it. And rationally I know it’s not fair or healthy or productive, but here it is. And the fact is that (maybe valid) fear and feeling are so often dismissed, it manifests itself as a form of rejection. I was truly hoping a new city, a different place, a more open community will give us a chance to reconnect and do the things we used to love doing together.
Yes, my sense of self-worth and well-being should not be based on the validation of others. And I know this, rationally. Yet, when something so minute and seemingly so irrelevant come up, I could feel a pang in my chest and internally desperately grasp for air.
I wondered to myself what would have happened if I have noticed Zac in the background and if I have tried to be his friend back then. A lot of the best friends I had in life are my rag-tag crew of rejects. Black queer women. Nerdy Asians that failed their parents. Chubby queer men under-represented in the community. Older people make an impact in the increasingly ageist world.
I wondered what would have happened to me if someone had noticed me, picked me, chose me.
I was in a one-on-one with a team member and his wife walks in to deliver his lunch, so I told him Dan usually doesn’t cook. “Who’s Dan? Your roommate?” “My husband.” I met up with an old friend – colleague for dinner. The last time we met was pre-pandemic/pre-wedding. And we talked about married life. He’s a straight man and an immigrant from Mexico.
The thing about coming out is you do it over and over and over again. And if you are lucky, like me, you don’t think much about it every time you have to do it.
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I left Singapore. It was a big chapter in my life, not only because it was a large part of my early adulthood, but it also marks the first, and darkest part, of my mental health, my identity, and my work. I can almost remember vividly the stress, the shame, and the fear that one has to live in a country when a normal act of being with another human being is both socially and criminally judged. I can remember the feeling that people like me are told we are good contributing members of society, as long as you keep working hard, keeping your head low, and don’t discuss who you are if you are not part of the norm. It opens up the people for a lot of abuse, internalized homophobia, and even open the community up to scammers and abuse.
I’m sure things have gotten better since. I have gotten a lot older, a little bit wiser, and more confident, since. I wonder how much of it is because I didn’t have to hide anymore. I wonder how much of my life growth and career growth is because I am free, a bit from the judgement of others, but mostly from the judgement of myself.
People do 10-year-challenge on social media as a form of showing off how well they’ve aged. To be honest, at 37, my joy looks very different now. My stress and anxiety look very different too (and I would argue I’m a bit better equipped at dealing with them).
People know me in my 20s would probably remember me as a loud, joyful person. And I was. People who know me now would probably think of me as a loud, joyful person. And I am. So it’s incredibly poignant to me that someone that many people know as joyful can have so much fear, anxiety, depression, just simply because of who they are.
For that I am forever grateful. I am one of those lucky very few people who have the opportunity and the privilege to be authentic in a world that so often rejects us. I know calling it “lucky” diminishes the resiliency, the energy, and the injustice that have been brought upon to people like me. But I didn’t want to not acknowledge that it wasn’t just strength alone that got me here. I am forever grateful to my friends, my mentors, my co workers, and the kindness of strangers and pioneers in this space that have fought for us to be here.
I am just grateful to be here. Yet, I am grateful for Singapore, forever ago, no matter how tough that was, for equipping me with what was needed to be here today.
Another year of the pandemic. Another year of global uncertainty. Another year of challenges both professionally and personally. It has been a dark dark year.
Another year that I am grateful for.
We continue to progress in our careers. Dan has a new job. I have (2) new jobs. We worked with new teams and new people (while maintaining some close relationships with old ones). We achieved some good results for organizations (and for our mid-career resume)
We gained some perspectives, about children, about family, about places to live, and about how to be a team in marriage.
I made about 200 cocktails (If you look at my Instagram top 9 they are probably all alcohol). We played a lot of board games. We hiked a lot more in the summer and fall. We bought outdoor heating.
In a year of darkness, we are incredibly lucky and privileged, to live a somewhat normal, arguably mundane, life together.
And that’s all that I would ever want. A life that is mundane and next to normal.
I look at my life goals and I look at the plans to get there, and aside from travels (which impacts everyone in the pandemic), things are progressing pretty well. You win some, you lose some, but you keep learning and you keep moving forward. Regardless of the outcome, you always grow in the end.
Growth and comfort do not co-exist, after all.
Here to 2022. Happy New Year and have an incredible new year of growth, everyone!
Pace Fine Arts 