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My sister had accused me of being a serial monogamist before this breakup, and it really hit a nerve but I needed to hear it. One of my most intense anxieties around relationships is a loss of self and independence, but once I did not have a romantic relationship to occupy myself, I had to actually wrangle with the issues that made me a codependent serial monogamist in the first place.
Sometimes a friendship doesn’t serve one person or the other, or you have grown in different ways. Maybe there is a hurt that is difficult to forgive or needs time to heal. It can be easy to take friendship for granted, we have friends that we have had since before we were able to talk or came out of circumstances for which we had little control. Friendships are relationships, and relationships take work.
Even though my grandmother told me about the discrimination my father experienced from his teachers being a brown kid…
Even though I have heard the stories from my Asian and Pacific Islander girlfriends about being fetishized and demeaned by men…
Even though I saw the sinophobia, anti-Asian racism, and xenophobia at the beginning of 2020…
Dialectical behavior therapy is particularly good for people with suicidal thoughts and those who want to learn how to regulate their emotions. The therapy takes place in several skills-building modules, aided by a series of exercises. I got myself a cute pink and gold binder to hold all of my homework and to get myself excited about doing the work.
I knew about Corn Nuts, but I never knew Corn Nuts. My friend Danielle was snacking on Corn Nuts during our tour around the Olympic Peninsula, and I must thank her deeply for awakening me to this incredible snack.
I have been thinking a lot about trauma and how we can repress or relive it during periods of stress. I wanted to write something to encourage non-black people who are feeling intimidated by anti-racism work, especially people with cognitive disabilities or neurodivergence that can make stressful or violent topics really overwhelming. I am not writing this to promote myself as an exemplary anti-racist or advocate. I am rather trying to honestly convey the things I have learned in my personal anti-racism, privilege, and trauma work.
This type of heartbreak is one of the most lonely I have ever experienced. I made the choice not to see my family, so why should I even be sad? Nine years ago, it seemed like I was the only person in the world making the decision to be apart from my family, and there were so few people that knew about my situation to its fullest extent.
I commend anyone that has moved through their fear and anxiety to try something new, and to continue living their lives in spite of all the things that may be designed to hold you back. I hope you find that thing that makes you scared in that very particularly exciting way.
A friend I had known for some time asked me if I would be interested in riding in Oregon over Memorial Day Weekend with a bunch of rad women. One of the leaders at The Bikery was put together a group ride for femme, trans, and women-identified folks. I did not know anybody except my friend, but was so excited to meet more femmes that are into cycling.
I moved to Seattle the summer of 2015 to start an internship at a landscape architecture firm and start my graduate career at the University of Washington. I was lucky in that I had two friends in the program, and several friends in town, that I could lean into when I felt out of place. I was also lucky that so many of my classmates are wonderful people that have gone on to do incredible things across the world.
I got a call from the scheduler on a Thursday, was scheduled for my pre-op appointment the following Monday, and had my surgery that Friday. My doctor, partner, family, and friends asked me if I was nervous and I only felt euphoria and disbelief. I literally could not process what happened until after the surgery.