Morning coffee

 I'm moving soon! This time it feels like I'm going somewhere with intention and arriving as a completely different person. Is this what it means to start fresh?

I've been a bit frustrated lately of the small things, I respond quicker and more striking than I want to, and I have been having pangs of anxious thoughts of the worst to happen as I do whenever there is change or something unknown to me, even a new store!

For the next few days during my move, I am committed to being kind to myself and my partner. I am committed to communicating from a good place rather than a stressed place. I will let go of control as that is the source of my insecurities. I will try my best to not self-doubt or to read too much into the way people react to me.

I'm going to pack, it's not going to be perfect, and I've done everything I can in the moment to organize well. I will try to let go of trivial things, to spend my time binging the internet on things I don't need to. 

I'm grateful for the opportunity to move to Cambridge, MA. To explore a new city which has always been my hearts content. 

Randomosity at 32

Oh yes! Wow.

Time flies and suddenly I am 32.

I was just reading my posts from when I was 27. Right before work really changed me and messed me up. 5 years later I’m not sure if I’m better but maybe I’m more hidden. How inhibited I used to be in my writing. It was my one avenue out.

In my stream of consciousness writing I asked a lot of interesting questions about life and reflected on who I am.

I am more complacent now, going through the motions of life. Sort of washed out in my emotions. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism I built around my sensitive heart. I’m such a kind trusting person, people exploited that and I am not sure if I can trust so foolishly as I had before. The world is a weird place. Full of wonderful ups and horrible people.

Focus on the good, cos that’s what’s going to uplift you.

I wonder if work can ever truly be 100% enjoyable. It’s hard to have it all, it’s built overtime. Create and push for what you want. No one else really knows that. My journey is my own.

Yo, I'm back.

Having recently discovered that I have not blogged in OVER A YEAR. I (along with the help of my therapist) thought I'd change that.

I know exactly what happened. I can pretend and say "I have no idea what happened!" to let an entire year go by without ever writing a single thought down in my bloggy blog (except lots of contrasting anxiety-filled scratch scratch, career to-do's and positive affirmations in my journal). I back tracked though, like a tired and weary detective having to do a job that they don't want to do. Dec 2017 was when I transitioned to a new job at the same place that I was working at because I was feeling unhappy where I was at.

I took the risk, I went for it, and if I wasn't happy then I would find my way. I trusted myself. Or maybe I was just looking for an out.

Fast forward to end of February, I figured out within 2 months that the job I was in wasn't the right one. I was feeling lonely and felt that I wasn't growing or developing. I felt that I took a few steps back (literally took a lower level position) and was no longer progressing past my peak.

I expressed my sadness to my friend Sally, and I kept making up excuses on why I shouldn't be looking for another job. "Why don't you just start now?" "Oh..yeah, you're right."

And then out of the three jobs I applied for, they were jobs I wanted and I felt would provide me a huge growth opportunity. By the end of March, I was staring at a job offer of my imagination. I took the leap, got the one that I really wanted and moved to Falls Church, VA to be closer to work. I said goodbye to my lovely furniture, to being close to Bilal, and moved in with my Auntie. I reached new personal career milestones that I could of never imagined had I stayed where I was. I reached, I jumped far, I fell, I hurt myself, others threw rocks at me but I climbed.

I gave my 4 weeks notice at the end of March, went home to California for a week and then started my new job in May. Half a year gone so quickly. All reaching, moving, change, shift, discomfort, and happiness.

May, June, and July was strange for reasons I won't say here except for very negative energy entering my life. But come July, that was gone and began a much awaited healing process but it was painful, full of crying, but I came out alright in the end. I still am healing and am just beginning. Writing is a path to that. Talking about it is a path to that. Strengthening my relationship with Bilal is a path to that. Seeing and connecting to my friends is another.

Aug-Dec was a whirlwind of adjustments - and a healing process that was not clear, full of ups and down. Full of PTSD, falling back, and then moving forward.

Then came January 2019 - things got much better, the negative energy PTSD crap dissipated and I am starting to come back.

2018 was about a lot of change and me not handling it so gracefully, but at the same time HANDLING IT FUCKING GRACEFULLY

Thank you Universe.

***

Things to remember:
Examine the small things, the details, the stillness.

I will not feel disappointment from anyone, ever.

I've made a few life changes in the past weeks and in the process have disappointed some and for some made them sad. With that said, change is never really easy, it's disruptive, and for some it disturbs their comfort. However, what they fail to realize is that the status quo is discomforting. This discomfort manifests into internal disappointment and sadness which is what I had been feeling physically and emotionally. When the status quo becomes not enough our hearts suffer. In the end, if we disappoint others, but make ourselves happy then it is worth it. Their disappointment doesn't matter. It's relative and you don't need that energy in your life. Never ever should you feel disappointment from others for something that you did not do wrong, for putting yourself first.

Taking control of one's life and ridding the source of negative energy is critical to sustainability.
Mistakes might be made but that is life!

That LA dream.

I recently watched La La Land after hearing so much about it. I wasn't sure what to expect, except I knew that people really loved it, there's some singing, a nod to old time movies, and something about LA.

On my way to Ethiopia, the movie came up on my movie selection list. Delighted, I clicked on it.  As I catapult myself at 500 miles per hour, moving farther and farther away from home, to a place that feels like you stepped back into time, the movie starts in a traffic jam.

Traffic jams and Los Angeles are as ubiquitous as crabs and Baltimore. Nice nod. I was fascinated that they closed an onramp to do this scene and wondered which freeway they were on (the 105 and the 110 - as a person familiar with the freeways, I was both fascinated and angry at the same time.) At first, the movie didn't really catch my attention aside from that scene, but my mind was distracted. Towards the middle, as the relationship between the characters began to build I started to pay attention. I ended up crying at several scenes (first off, I was emotional from some other life events) and leaving home for an extended period of time always makes me emotional regardless of how many times I do it. There's a scene where you really feel her pain when she discusses the defeat she feels during auditions and never having a yes. She then uses that defeat to give up and you can hear her as she says that. I resonated with it, having felt the same way. I can see why she got an Oscar for a role that seems so simple. She brought complexity to it in subtle ways and I appreciated her performance.

I also cried in the epilogue scene where the movie shows what could of been had the movie gone with happy scenes throughout the course of the entire journey with the characters. Then all of a sudden. they leave the happy colorful scenes to an abrupt stop into a white studio lot. It hits you that what you're watching isn't real and reality sets in. I watched the movie again after it was done.

Rusty as it might.

Having traversed several timezones in the past four weeks, Baltimore, needless to say feels strange and familiar. When I have anxiety I tend to fixate over one thing. Right now it's facial maintenance. I've recently realized that I have a bit of puffiness under my eyes and some little wrinkles creeping in. It's okay really, people still mistake me for early 20s.

It is suppose to be snowing but its just this wet winter mix. I don't like those very much, it's as if the weather cannot make a decision, and therefore we get lost in that indecision.

I would like to reflect on my three week trip with my brother and mom throughout Japan and Vietnam but I am not sure what to think of it. Having traveled so much it was nice to hear my brother's comments on Asia. He mentioned that it was weird blending in. Japan is such a nice country to travel through. I spent most of my time traveling sick. Which was strange since I rarely get sick while abroad, I suppose the stress got the best of me and made me ill.

Well I am excited to get back to biking and yoga. I feel more physically fit then I have ever been and it's a journey that's taken a while to get to. Sometimes I am in Baltimore and I feel like I am asking for more but I am not sure what I am asking for. I am here and have been since 2013 which is the longest time I've been anywhere. It is my home base.

How I feel.

My boyfriend makes fun of me because I do not absorb the world in details but rather I "feel" it. His imitation of me goes something like this: "I don't remember anything about it but I do know how it makes me feel."

And this is often how I recount past memories or stories. Aside from this, I am also a person who feels my way forward, and often trusting my gut or the journey to get there as part of the process. Right now, I do not feel my way forward. Perhaps this is a feeling of contentment at the moment, but I would like to have a feeling forward or some goal to attain.

These thoughts arise when I visit California and try to "explain" what I do succinctly to people, making me realize that I have no idea what I'm doing and feel that it is really no different than their life in California.

California is just so California to me and Maryland is just so different. I am constantly and consistently a fish out of water in Baltimore. As I ebb and flow in defining what and where home is I can officially state that I am confused. My heart is becoming more of my home and I am slowly but surely growing into a new sense of self that feels better than before.

At times I do not feel good. Baltimore makes me uncomfortable and I am without many of my previous pillars. At the same time it offers me a chance to grow and to become a different better person. I do not want to forget my youth and I also most importantly don't want to forget my cultural identity and how it shapes me. As my identity is being reshaped in a new environment, it would likely benefit from reflection and understanding combined with an openness of learning.

It also stands that perhaps being myself instead of hiding would be wise as well.