A Letter to My Future Self

Dear Future Self (Hopefully a year from now),
You and I both know how hard it is for me to write this letter–because we don’t communicate with each other often enough, but I want you to know I love you and I truly am wishing the best for you..

I hope you found your peace. I hope that the turmoil inside subsided and that you are happy and content with the things around you and realize how beautiful the world is and just how luck you are to be where you are. Peace with everyone around you and most importantly peace within yourself. I know we’re hard on ourselves the most and I know you know how strong you are but I hope you found the help you needed because I know how tired you are of supporting yourself. I hope you are able to rise in awe of your life and go to bed thankful– no longer fearful of your demons. I hope you finally feel good in the skin that you are in and are proud of what you’ve accomplished.

I hope you found your passion. I hope you wake up inspired and eager and excited to take on new challenges that will propel you into a future that we both couldn’t even imagine. I hope the directions on our map become clearer–I’m still trying to brush the dust off from dropping it in the dirt road and right now it kind of feels like I’ve stopped dreaming but I hope you are filled with so much fire that everything you choose to embark brings you new light.

I hope you were able to forgive those that hurt us for all the things they did or did not say and the support they couldn’t give. I hope the resentment subsided and I hope your voice & backbone are stronger now. I hope you are able to greet those that I feel have wronged us with compassion & kindness instead of the bitterness that have lined my current lips.

I hope that you are finally in place to open up to love. I hope that the pieces of you that he broke have been mended back together and that you are putting yourself out there. I hope that you restore your confidence and wit. I hope to hear about great first dates and laugh at the bad ones. I hope for you to find new experiences and open your window for possibility since I have it shut so tightly right now.

Finally, I hope you learned to put yourself first. I hope you’ve taken the steps to finally accomplish things that YOU want to do not just what everyone expects you to do. I hope that you either have a home of your own or at least a private space of your own and I hope you have hopped on a plane to explore a new destination. You deserve a life of your own and you deserve experiences. We crave culture, new faces and adventure and I hope you are in place that you can give in to the craving.

I hope the future is treating us kindly and I’m looking forward to meeting you soon.

Love,

You

 

 

 

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Ghost

My ribs act as an empty cage
My vocal chords unstrung
The only thing that encircles these hips is the air that move between them.
I’m empty.

Whatever was here lies as dust.
The air is stagnant.
She’s not here anymore.

 

You’re not you.

There are moments where I forget that I’m human. With this whirlwind of events that happened, I’ve forgotten that I have feelings, that I have needs, that I am entitled to my own life. I feel robotic. Lackluster. Boring even. Bitterness lining my every word.

I’ve been like this for so long. I’ve denied myself for so long that I don’t even know where to start anymore.

I miss the girl who was carefree. The one who had a coy smile and a challenging glint in her eyes. The girl who always found time for sand between her toes and music for her heart. The girl that was a joy to be around–positive and energetic.

I keep trying to pretend that I’m still her–but I’m not anymore.

I miss her–terribly.

03.04.18

I’m alway leery when things are too quiet. Monday was the beginning of the long storm..

Monday started like any other morning. I woke up, I brushed my teeth and I started hammering out emails and getting started on my weekly to-do list. It’s about 12pm when both my parents awake, mom’s complaining of some acid reflux, shortness of breath & fatigue for the past week since she was planning on flying out to meet my brother in Vietnam this past Saturday so we figured we should get her checked out before she flew out. We stopped and had pho down the street, while we ate our lunch I texted a few of my friends who worked in hospitals or were nurses with a run down of her symptoms all who told me that I should just got to urgent care. As we drove off from lunch something steered me towards the ER–next thing I know mom was hooked up to the EKG machine and suddenly I was speaking to a cardiologist who insisted she do an angiogram that very minute. No one told me what was happening, but everyone around me began working in a whirlwind to get her ready for the procedure and I knew something was wrong as the nurse handed me her consent paperwork and her hands were shaking. They told me that they would get her checked out and asked that I wait for the procedure which would take about 2 hours. Feeling nervous I dialed my sister, she was working from home so I decided to pick her up.

By the time I returned, I was informed that she had been placed in the ICU, frantically me and my sister ran through the hospital to find her laying still in the hospital bed. We had learned that my mother had checked in with a heart attack, the angiogram showed multiple blockages in her vessels and a stent was placed in the vessel that was the root of her heart attack. My heart was in my chest and I crossed my arms to stop my hands from shaking. This was the most vulnerable I have ever seen my mother. Throughout my entire life she was the epitome of strength, ferocity and confidence. To see her in the bed so small, so scared, with tears in her eyes had me shaking–in the 27 years that I’ve been alive I’ve never seen her shed one tear and she had always taught me to always save my tears. So that’s what I’m doing or at least trying to do in her presence or the presence of others.

My mother was released on Thursday and I’ve been caring for her here at home. Since then, we’ve learned that there are 3 other blockages still to be addressed. Open heart bypass surgery seemed to be the unanimous recommendation by all 3 doctors. It makes the best sense as her only other option would be to do multiple stents in the vessels which sounded like temporary fixes. Once the cardiac nurses sat down with us to explain what to expect during and after the surgery that when things got real with me. The images of my mother’s chest cracked open, her  being incubated, and her literal heart being out on the table had my head spinning. I stared calmly at the nurse while I suppressed the urge to walk out of the room and fall to the ground in fetal position in a panic attack.

Honestly, I am more than willing to be my mother’s care taker and I’m so grateful to have a job where I work from home and a boss who completely understands that family will always come first. I’ve been constantly going through motions of handling doctor appointments, insurance calls, pharmacy runs, grocery runs, cooking and cleaning and balancing my workflow. If I haven’t been adulting enough–here’s my true test. The week wore heavy on me, by Friday I found myself falling asleep in the late afternoon and I awoke to my “aunt” Vanessa knocking on the door with bags of groceries. I have never in my life been so grateful to hear a kitchen full of Vietnamese women chatting and cooking up a storm. I couldn’t thank God and the universe enough to have her over to lift my mom’s spirits and to help around the house even if it was just for a brief few days. Her love was felt & it uplifted this entire household.

I’ve been steady, I’ve been strong, and I’ve been organized & efficient because I have to be. But there are moments where the bitterness builds and the tension is heavy.

Pretending to be calm & collected is tiresome. My world has been flipped upside down before but this time it’s cutting me a lot deeper. I cry during my drives alone, I call my best friend– the only person that knows how badly I suppress emotions– and I rant–and by the time I get home I find myself wiping everything away the moment I open the door. I have to beat the bitter edges down in my ribs, the ugly side of me who has never felt so completely & utterly alone, the side of me who just wants to be fucking held, the side of me who resents my sister for being able to leave and go home to her normal life with a supportive husband, the side of me that gets angry at my father for constantly going back to work or leaving the house for hours without a word, the side of me who hates my brother who remains in Vietnam offering no notion of coming home or even a text to check in with how I’m doing because in the end I know I’m a bigger person and I know I can get through it–that I don’t have a choice but to get through it.

Our lives here will never be the same again and all I ask is for strength, patience and guidance to help me through this for my family.

I miss you

the most on the days when the sun shine the brightest. I miss you the most when I find myself laughing. I miss you the most when I’m at my best..

I miss sharing beautiful days with you–walking hand in hand, exploring the town or turning our errands into adventures. I miss our inside jokes, the pet names, your smile–the fact that I was the reason for that smile. I miss waking up on the weekends with my guard down in your tshirt in the nook of your arm–safe. I miss you the most when I succeed at my goals, because there’s no one else I want to tell more, because you’re the only person that mattered. I miss how you used to caress my cheek in the most endearing manner. I miss the kisses that you would plant on my forehead to smooth away my frowns. I miss your reassurance, I miss you telling me to smile to be confident. I was invincible with you on my team.

I miss you on the days that are good–it doesn’t feel the same–not one bit. Most of my days have been good–lets be honest, I’m at the most ideal stage of my life, I’m building a budding career, I’ve gained time to balance my work & life–I’m good– I’m just not happy. I haven’t been happy since the day we parted.

To be honest everything in between then and now has been strategically placed distractions. Burying myself in work & social events, over-committing myself to other people’s engagements to ignore the fact that I don’t really have any of my own. Trying to compensate for the fact that a huge piece of me is missing.

You knew everything about me. My quirks, my flaws, my insecurities. The thought of opening that can of worms to anyone else scares me. Nothing was ever too heavy for you until I asked you to move forward.

I’m empty. I’ve been running on empty for a while.

I don’t talk about the loneliness–I’ve been alone this whole time. The quiet is deafening and sometimes I feel like I haven’t heard my own voice for days. I can’t formulate my thoughts anymore.

I do have friends–beautiful souls. They are the spirits that lift me during the day.  I can’t expect them to stay through the night. I can’t ask them to carry me on their shoulders when they all have their own burdens of their own.

I need someone in my corner. I need you.

Lists

Of what I need to do…and with me being a full time remote worker, this should be manageable–and if anything –focusing on these goals will keep me sane.

  • Become a financially responsible adult
    • Pay off my car–come next month
    • Begin investing–again–after my whole quit my job on the whim last year that side of planning has been put on halt
    • Probably should pay off my credit cards before that though..lol
  • Fall in love with fitness & my body again
    • Workout at least 4-5 days a week
    • Yoga weekly
    • Boxing weekly
    • Try a new workout once a month
    • Fuel my body with cleaner food
  • Find myself through words again
    • write daily–here or in my journal–hell even my planner
    • read daily–20 pages minimum
  • Begin making bigger moves with my career
    • I don’t need to tell myself to be more focused on my work–it’s all I know as of late, but I know I need to be asking growth worthy questions
    • Begin taking convos with the recruiters that are flooding my inbox
    • Start rethinking my position
  • Find more compassion & tolerance for my family
    • Be patient with my parents
    • Be more present & involved with their retirement planning
    • Hold my gripes when helping my family
  • Clear my headspace
    • Redecorate my room–one corner/space at a time