The Rationale of Emotions

I miss the ignorance of our youth when we could actually feel and ride the highs and lows of emotions, both happiness and sadness thrown in opposite throngs towards joy or despair. As an adult, everything we experience has to be rationalized. Everything has to be logically worked through so much that we are never fully able to be in the moment with the sensations that make us feel human.

Literary Conquests: In The Shadow of the Banyan

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a bit slow during the first half and the prose at times painfully grandiloquent to the point where it felt forced. I really had to will myself through the first half of the book, knowing it would take a turn at some point given the novel’s subject matter. Having just finished, I think the contrast between Raami’s flowery recount of life in the first half of the book was written intentionally to show the effects of war and genocide. The closer you get to the end of the story, the more grisly the depiction of life through her eyes. Despite the fact that the narration was that of a seven year old girl, I read the book as more of the author’s memoir and her retrospection. As a Cambodian with parents who also survived the Khmer Rouge Regime, I initially started this book with some reservations and prejudgment, but overall I actually really enjoyed it and felt it was authentic to the country and its people. I saw a lot of my mother in Aana, Raami’s mother. In the Shadow of the Banyan is a story that focuses more on the human spirit rather than a deep dive into the hellish nightmare that Cambodia endured. In this sense, it remains true to the experience because ultimately the human spirit and our tenacity to live is the only story that matters in the thick of devastation and persecution.

Heartbreak Then, Heartbreak Now

When we were younger, and our heart breaks, it felt like the end of the world–as if the ground would open up and swallow us whole in chaos.

When we are older, we know that the world will not end and that indeed, life goes on. But with age, so does our pain mature in that the feeling of hurt is rooted in reality. The reality is that as days pass, we are psychologically compelled to forget and mend ourselves.

In this sense, our heart heals but instead we are introduced to a new type of pain. This pain does not grab you in one fell swoop, but rather gnaws at you with numbing persistence. The sorrow in understanding that what once was beautiful no longer exists, and continues to fade. The disappointment in knowing with every morning, it will continue to become a distant memory, in knowing that it will be replaced. There is pain in wondering how something and someone who made us so happy could become nothing more than a faint imprint on our lives. The pain in not wanting to let it go, but having no other choice.

When My Words Run Out

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another. – Thomas Merton, Love and Living

Muted Extremes

I spent the later part of my twenties watching my mother succumb to Alzheimer’s. If you’ve ever personally known (not just met) anyone who endured this disease, you will know that it is not just about memory loss. Alzheimer’s disease is like watching the process of the soul leaving the physical body, gradually, slowly and permanently.

During those years, I think something inside me broke. I used to approach life with so much optimism, and hope. I used to be able to experience the highs of happiness and the crashes of despair. I believed that everything had purpose and ultimately some divine construction. But now, I feel that all my feelings and emotions have been muted.

Both joy and sadness lack extremes, and my heart and head are often conflicted except I’m unsure which one, if either, is right. Whenever I experience good things or bad things, I often feel like my heart constricts, cutting it off before I am able to actually process. Though I am going through the experience, I am never able to truly feel it as it was meant to be felt.

When My Words Run Out

If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return. – Paul Coelho, The Alchemist 

Freedom on a Friday Morning

I took the bus into work yesterday and seeing how it was Friday, decided to skip filling my tumbler with coffee from home in lieu of a quick stop at a downtown Starbucks. The thrill of Friday was definitely in the air, paired with the uncharacteristic upbeat music playing in the coffee shop. Walking through the streets of Seattle with my iced latte in hand, I realized that since purposely avoiding the downtown scene for the past few years, the people of this city have become increasingly fashionable and trendy.

Watching the people bustling to work that morning made me also realize that for the first time in a while, I felt a small sense of joy. I’m not sure if it was because I was living vicariously through the strangers passing me on the street–each dressed to the nines, and undoubtedly ready to power through the work day in time for cocktails–but I felt and embraced the liveliness.

Being in a relationship made me a suburban homebody, and perhaps a part of me missed the exhilaration of that carefree, city life. I’m not sure if it was the joy that brought on the sadness, or whether it was standing in the shadows all along, but I suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of emotion as I got closer to work. I did not think it was possible to feel both joy and sadness at the same time.

For some reason, catching myself in a state of happiness after being miserable for the past few months brought on a catharsis. I found myself sad that I was happy. I was sad that I was able to finally see the good in a world without him. I was sad that in that moment, I did not care about where he was, or what he was doing. I was sad to realize that I could go on.

Deep down, however, I know that I have outgrown the fast-paced, mile-a-minute lifestyle filled with grande americanos in the morning and vodka sodas in the evening. I know that these had been replaced by something deeper and more meaningful. But on that Friday morning, I remembered what it was like to be happy, if only for a moment.

The Race to the Bottom

Who can move on the fastest? Who is more miserable? Who is better at pretending they are okay and well-adjusted? Which one of us can still look at the world with the same refreshing optimism?

Off the heels of a break-up, I feel like this is the unspoken competition that couples embark on. Which one of us can sweep our relationship under the rug best? It is a sad commentary on the way people view emotions and the depth of our time with someone. A series of beautiful memories are reduced to a thing we should quickly get rid of, because who wants to be the last one wallowing?

When I was younger, I felt no shame in being transparent with my feelings–elation, sadness, joy. When I was sad, I spoke brazenly about how much my heart hurt on whatever form of social media was available at the time (ie: Xanga, facebook before it was widely used). I posted lyrics or quotes that un-subtly hinted at my pain, or shared songs that outlined my heartbreak. I was unafraid of how I would be perceived and relieved to let out my emotions. I was young and naive.

Then I grew up, as did the avenues of social media, and I realized how pouring out your hurt is perceived as weakness and pitiful. I realized that in today’s swipe-left, swipe-right, attention deficit society, dwelling on our emotional injuries is seen as abnormal and irrational. Moving on is seen as a positive, self-affirming action. It means you know your worth, and recognize your value.

So I did what most people did: hid all remnants of me and you and never once hinted at the pain I was going through. No sad lyrics, or provocative quotes, no mention of you, or us. Everything calculated to ensure that no one could construe that anything was wrong, that I gave you a second thought, or that you still lingered in my dreams.  And it sucks.

But here is the thing that no body knows…Our relationship is something I never wanted to pretend didn’t happen, to be swept under the rug, to be forgotten. It happened, it was the happiest I’d ever been in my life and it makes me sick to my stomach to act otherwise. My love for you was never some flippant decision, and my heart was never something freely distributed.

What I Wish I Knew

I grew up with a very naive view of life and relationships. My parents had the best intentions and they were both upstanding people with good values. However, I will also admit that they over-imparted their philosophies on their children, to a fault. Morality was so deeply embedded in our upbringing that it often gave little room for anything else; there was seldom a gray area. While most of their convictions were well-intentioned and steered me in a positive direction, they lacked empathy when it came to humanistic relationships, most specifically love.

I was often taught to see the world in black and white. Perhaps the most damaging of these however, was the belief that we were all destined to meet our soulmate. Though I neither refute nor accept the idea, the way this belief was delivered to me had me convinced for the majority of my life that love was clear-cut and predetermined.

I grew up fully believing that the love of my life would one day materialize in front of me and I would just know. It would be straight forward, easy and guaranteed. This ideology distorted my perception since I was a child, and ultimately set me up for failure when it came to relationships and men in general.

For the better part of my teenage years into adulthood, I often found myself infatuated with different men and each time, I was convinced that the butterflies meant that we were destined to be together, that it was love, that if he could only just see… This manifested itself over and over again until my late twenties, despite each failed unrequited attempt. The heartbreaks were unbearable, because why didn’t things work out if I felt so much “love” for someone? I truly believed that just because I felt these intense feelings, it must have been mutual, they must have been the one meant for me.

These past heartbreaks gradually showed me what I wished my parents would have told me: love is not just a thing. Love is an action that exists between two people, not just one. It is not love if it is one-sided, and love is not butterflies and daydreams. Love is not forced or guaranteed, but a privilege. It is not handed to us on a silver platter, it requires work and attention; it ebbs and flows. It is living and breathing, and it feeds off of how we treat our partner. The little things we do and say to each other, the respect we hold for one another, the choices that we make daily to continue investing in the relationship–these are the sustenance love needs to survive and thrive.

Meaning in the Arbitrary

The key to everything in life, I’ve realized, is to accept that it is arbitrary. No matter how we wish to romanticize it with talks of fate, destiny and meant-to-be’s, the only truth is that for every reason, there are even more unexplainable’s. There is no invisible guiding hand that pushes us down one path or the other. We just retrospectively justify that we are supposed to be where we are.

It gives us an ignorant solace, because it is too difficult to accept that every string of events is nothing more than orderly chaos or chance. I believe in the opposite. It is easier to accept the most destitute situations by realizing that there is no “greater plan.” Things happen just because, so stop weaving together a fantasy to pacify our fears and insecurities.

There is no point in obsessing over what could have been or what was. There are no signs from the universe, clairvoyant premonitions or foretelling dreams–just random incidences that we piece together in hopes of giving life meaning.