You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful.
She asked me to write on a blank sheet, one reason why I find myself to be beautiful.
One reason. Any reason. White canvas, pen in hand, I began to write:
I am beautiful because… (wait, what am I supposed to write?)
I am beautiful because… (there is nothing that comes to mind.)
(Let’s try this again. It shouldn’t be this much of a chore to come up with something.)
I am beautiful because… (still drawing a blank.)
There was something strangely difficult and extremely uncomfortable about inking that piece of paper with the line, “I am beautiful.” But for some peculiar reason, those three little words were pushing my buttons. Like, they had somehow said something erroneous and inappropriate, and I found it offensive. And, the longer we made eye contact, the more awkward it became and the eye rolling, more frequent. It’s not like it was a foreign language. The word, “beautiful” has been used in description numerous times before that it was hardly a stranger. And then it hit me. It hit me hard like a train wreck.
We Lose Things All The Time.
I probably lose my keys at least twice a day. I’m consistently asking myself where I’ve placed my mobile device. Every time I do laundry, there’s always that one sock that magically vanishes into the mystery of that sock-eating machine. And the other day, I misplaced my recipe book filled with recipes I’ve modified and collected over the course of years. It still hasn’t come crawling out of hiding. Imagine the disappointment.
Loss doesn’t always look like what we expect it to, and it always comes at the most inconvenient of times.
The Art of Learning to Love, Un-Love, and Forget.
It’s an art—learning to love, learning to un-love, and learning to forget.
It would take me three days to finish that letter. Three days. Because I would write a sentence, throw myself under the covers while I let the one line resonate in my head, and proceed to allow my internal organs to twist and pull until I needed to actually fetch for air. And after I finished pouring all my vulnerability onto all the tear-stained pages, I would procrastinate another hour with three-dozen read-overs before I could bring myself to sign, seal, and deliver it—the letter, the key, and three years and nine months worth of friendship and memories.
Lights Are Meant To Shine.
One morning, I woke up with this awareness: For some time, I had legitimately swayed myself to believe that everything about it was right and that was where I was destined to be. Perhaps for a little while, it rang true and I was to be deliberately present there. But I had long overstayed my visit because my heart was too afraid of the unknowns that would come next.
I probably wanted out more than I was willing to admit.
Because in retrospect, I always felt somewhat limited. Like, I had put myself on the back burner and there was something in me I was holding back. But once I actually made the decision to be invested and dove into it, there was nothing else I wanted to change. I stuck around because I was comfortable and I felt safe. So I just let it happen, which is probably why it played out the way that it did. I must have known subconsciously though, from the very beginning, that this whole thing was flammable. But I ignored it because there were no real red flags. The honest truth was that, at any given moment with any wrong moves, it could all potentially catch on fire and everything would go up in flames—Bright orange raging flares that would require all the hard emotions, self-awareness, and rediscovery in order to contain it, served with a side bucket of tears to put the blazes out.
You Can Be Someone Different.
No one ever hears the silent tears collecting. That’s really been why I haven’t put much effort in writing lately. I’ve been too busy wringing out tears from my bed sheets and pillowcases instead of keeping updated with my two-month old website where I secretly vowed to write something at least once every two weeks. Forgive me, I’m human. In between normal life tasks and work festivities, my time has been divided between trying to fill up my calendar in order to distract myself from overthinking the events that have been happening in my life and all the emotions that come along with them, whilst attempting to get myself together. And by “get myself together” I mean that I’ve been on this journey of finding myself; because the honest truth is that I had completely lost myself. I’ve heard thousands of stories and have watched hundreds of film about people endeavoring to find who they are and their purposes in this world. Up until now, I never sought those questions to be my nemesis. I’ve always felt like I’ve known my purpose, where I fit in, who I was and where my identity was grounded.
We Can Bite Into Our Donuts, Together.
We are such unsatisfied beings.
We are so hard to please, and we are always wanting more. We’re always reaching, always craving, always feeling that we don’t have enough. More. More. More. And then in the blink of an eye and more quickly than you could swallow, you’re completely stripped of everything that meant something. And there you are, bare and naked—without anything.
Breathing was a little harder that morning.
I silently lay there numbly, my eyes vacant. I was immobile. Remaining horizontal all day sounded like the most brilliant of ideas. It was so still I could hear the “drip… drip…” resonances of the bathroom faucet down the hall making its regular wake up call.
And then I broke the quiet. I rolled to my side and I told her, “all I want is a donut.”
Here’s the thing about me: I don’t really do donuts. Especially not as my first meal of the day. If anything, donuts qualify as a dessert more than a breakfast item. I ingest donuts roughly about twice a year and even then, I wouldn’t intentionally go out of my way to put one in my body. That is just the love-hate relationship I have always had with the delicious sugary glutinous crack. But that particular morning, all I wanted was a donut.
Spring Cleaning Guide.
It never really goes the way you imagine it to go.
I intended on abstaining from sugary, desserty gloriousness and Facebook for lent. That never happened. I was going strong for about four days, when God decided that He wanted to withdraw from me, my comfort. He had plans for me to hand over much more than just a warm slice of winterberry pie à la mode from my favorite local pie shop, or a few status updates proclaiming my deep emotional connection to Thai food, sushi, and the impeccable raw curry cabbage and cauliflower recipe I had freshly discovered. I say, “God decided” because I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice. It was either, be obedient. Or, be obedient. You can take a wild guess at which one I elected.
I gave it all up.
I gave up listening to lies about myself that had been spoken over me all my life: lies about what it looked like to be successful, lies about how flawlessness is the minimal requirement in order to reach out to others or make a difference, and lies about needing to appear “put together” all the time (…whatever that even means). I gave up security. I gave up familiarity. I gave up opportunities. I walked away from relationships I had spent years building and investing in, and time I know I will never get back. I dropped projects I had devoted my heart to and still one hundred and ten percent, believe in. I abandoned hopes, and I surrendered dreams.
Number Two Pencils Only.
I parked myself on the living room couch, and out flowed tears. Streams of tears. Enough tears to replenish the water supply here in California. I could have drowned myself in them. That’s how I felt in that moment. Like I was sinking in an ocean of uncertainty, frustration, and the unknowns of this health excursion that began back during my junior year of college. I had all the questions, but no explanations. “If only I could identify the root cause of all this. How can I relieve myself from this pain without harming my body more? How could I be so frail and broken, and yet, no one can figure out what is wrong? Should I do this treatment? What about the side effects? If only I could pinpoint exactly what it is that is causing all this activity. Then, it would be a whole lot easier. If only…”
It’s a Confetti Party, and You’re Invited.
Life Advisory: Unavailable.
No one ever cautioned me about life’s whirlwind of adventures. I wish someone would have. I wish they had alerted me about how unfair life would seem sometimes. That, you could be responsible and try to do all the things right but still, your world could come crashing down all around you. I wish they had told me about how perfection is completely unattainable, that failures and mistakes are inevitable, and how your deepest dreams and desires could potentially burn up in flames and turn to ashes. True story, the world can be outrageous.
I’m Dusting Off Those Little Jars.
I once had someone tell me I couldn’t let my stories sit in little jars on a shelf left to collect dust. I ignored it for so long. I wasn’t brave enough. I didn’t think I had it in me. I felt too broken. All I wanted to do was sweep all that dust under the carpet and leave it there completely concealed. And then I read a line somewhere that God creates magnificently beautiful things out of dust.
