Category Archives: On My Mind

New York, On My Mind

Just a Note

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I went to college in Syracuse, NY and I’m back now for my roommate’s wedding. I couldn’t be happier to be here or to celebrate such a genuinely kind person and her equally kind tomorrow-to-be husband. In revisiting some old haunts, I headed to Strong Hearts Café, which I was delighted to see had not changed a bit in five year. It’s vegan, provides free coffee refills, and has a list of milkshakes named after radical, influential, and often forgotten people (my personal favorite names include Tiananmen Square Guy, The Haudenosaunee, The White Rose, Sacco & Vanzetti, Howard Zinn, and Paul Rusesabagina). What’s not to love? Actually I can answer that: the lack of cheese.

A girl in her late teens or early twenties came in with a woman I assume was her mother and sat at the table next to me. The girl remained at their table while the mother went to the counter to order. Alone, the girl started to cry. She regained composure and then broke into new tears several times while they waited for a strawberry waffle.

My heart went out to her while I sat at my table and tried to concentrate on my book. I wanted to reach over and tell her that it would all be okay. I wanted to ask if she needed a hug. I wanted to help her stop hurting.

So I wrote her a note on a napkin.

The girl and her mother asked for a takeaway box and left while I was writing, so I never dropped it on their table. Maybe had I started writing earlier, instead of waiting to see if the waffle would help her feel better, I could have been of comfort in some way. Instead, I’ll leave the note here in case she reads this blog. Stranger things have happened, right?

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I know life can sometimes be very hard. I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through. I’m sorry you’re hurting.

But I also know that this, too, shall pass. Every day will be easier than the last.

You are not alone. The people in your life are here for you. Everyone hurts sometimes – we are all here for you.

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

You can do it.

As I’ve been typing this, Jakob Dylan’s “Everybody’s Hurting” is playing in my head. (Let the record show that there are often songs playing in my head.) It’s a little church-y but I really love this line: My sweetheart we’ve got to learn to live with these ghosts/They can’t leave and we can’t go.

This is the message I want to send to everyone who is hurting, for whatever reason. This is for anyone who needs a friendly face or a shoulder to cry on. I am here for you. If we have yet to meet or if I’ve known you for a long time, I am here for you. Whatever your ghosts, I am here for you. We are all humans, and therefore I am here for you. No questions asked.

On My Mind

Let’s Talk About Sex: Part Two

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I recently spotted this month’s issue of Glamour in the waiting room of my doctor’s office:

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There are a number of really invigorating, inspiring aspects to Glamour, including the Woman of the Year Award and a feature about college women around the US who are extraordinary in their community service, academics, and career achievements. Glamour supports and cultivates strong women, which is empowering to girls and women of all ages and walks of life.

However, I had a real problem with one of the headlines from this particular issue. Any guesses? Bottom right corner. This one:

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My problem with this headline is not that it uses the phrase “woman card” (what does that even mean?) but that good sex is labeled a “right” at all.

Yes, everyone should have good sex all the time. Yes, women (and men) should feel cherished, loved, adored, cared for, protected, and desired by their partners.

But that’s not a right. As I’ve come to understand it, any form of real intimacy is a product of open, honest human connection. In my experience, good sex doesn’t just happen. It develops through trust, reciprocity, mutual admiration, and the desire to make a partner feel everything you want to feel. Intimacy, then, is about acknowledging and accepting your own humanity.

When I first mentioned my frustration with the headline to my mum, she pointed out that Glamour writes for a wide range of women, and many older women have grown up with very different attitudes towards sex. When sex is viewed as a marital duty and obligation to which women submit because that’s what men want, it’s a very different conversation.

Thinking about girls and women today, however, makes me wonder whether that narrative has changed. Do we still think of intimacy as male-dominated and male-oriented? Are women viewed as a second thought? We tell girls and women to be careful how they dress so they don’t attract too much attention; do we tell boys and men to treat girls and women with the respect that they, as human beings, unequivocally deserve? There’s a lot in the media and even in the news that indicates that sex, as told by pop culture, is very much the domain of men.

That’s a problem. And that’s why I propose changing the conversation. Here are some questions that I’m considering. I’d love any and all thoughts and feedback!

  • How can we talk about sex as a product of human connection?
  • Does the nature of intimacy change if we see it as the natural result of deep feelings of care, respect, openness, reciprocity, and mutuality?
  • Can we have a conversation about intimacy that centers on the feelings and actions that lead up to it?
  • If anyone has a “woman card” at all, it’s a product of being human. How should we make human-ness, rather than divided roles as men and women, part of a better conversation?
  • What messages should we be sending young people about intimacy that are not currently transmitted?

If intimacy provides opportunities for us to be our most vulnerable around one another, we need dialogue about what makes us human and how we seek connection with those around us. That’s what I see as missing from that headline.

PS You can take a look at my first post about sex here.

On My Mind, Singapore

How to Feel

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Are you all packed?
Nope.

When do you leave?
Too soon.

More and more of my recent conversations have started like this.

Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has expressed excitement for me, which I truly do appreciate. I have a handful of friends also leaving Singapore, all of whom have been here longer than I have; everyone is full of similarly mixed emotions. There’s nostalgia, uncertainty, anticipation, relief, excitement, a spirit of adventure. Some have concrete plans about what’s coming while others are still figuring that out. Everyone has made the choice to leave, but the reactions to leaving differ. This has me reflecting on how I make and respond to my own choices.

For as long as I’ve been consciously aware of decision-making, I’ve made choices that take others into consideration before thinking of myself. I believe this started when I was about 11 years old and my parents separated. While I wasn’t technically supposed to have a choice about spending every Tuesday night and every other weekend at my dad’s apartment, sometimes I did have the option to stay with my mum. That was on particularly bad days with a lot of tears, for some reason or another. I remember flicking through a collection of colorful hair elastics that I kept together on a ring chanting, “I go, I don’t go” in a perverse version of daisy petals and “he loves me, he loves me not”.

The last elastic rarely made the decision for me, but it did tell me how I felt about the choice I’d made.

I knew that a sense of relief on the last flick meant that there was congruence between the elastic’s answer and the real decision, while a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach told me I was secretly hoping for the opposite outcome. Sometimes I felt nothing, which was even worse.

The difficulty arose when my feelings were discordant with what I imagined my dad was feeling when I raged and stormed over whether or not to spend time with him. It was a battle between choosing to make him happy (though I usually let my fury make itself very obvious, which likely had exactly the opposite result) or to make myself happy (though I often dissolved in tears anyway because I knew that I was hurting my dad, so I really wasn’t helping myself at all).

I knew that I had a lot of emotions, but I didn’t know how to balance them. I didn’t know how to handle so many conflicting emotions at once.

My discomfort with cognitive dissonance led me to avoid acknowledging my feelings. For much of middle and high school, I stopped making decisions based on my own whims so as to avoid rejection, disappointment, or fear if my choices didn’t align with others’ wishes. It was easier to consider “What will make them happy?” than “What do I want?”. I felt safer avoiding desires and expectations than admitting what I was really feeling, often because I didn’t know what that was.

Though my strongest desire is still for others to be happy, the biggest (and healthiest!) change has been considering myself at all. I am allowed to want, hope, and seek out. I am allowed to say no, change course, and propose alternatives. Considering myself has also meant embracing the conflicting emotions that I’ve recently been experiencing on a very regular basis.

I have given myself permission to admit that I am very sad to leave Singapore and both excited and nervous about returning to the US. I am excited for the next chapter, adventure, and experience. I look forward to the unknowns that lie ahead. At the same time, I have misgivings and feel apprehension and frustration. I dream about teaching internationally again.

At 11, I didn’t know that there isn’t one “right” emotion for everyone involved. There isn’t one way to feel. At 26, I have come to accept that it’s about finding a balance. The scale might tip depending on the day or even the hour, but that’s okay.

Of everything I’ve learned during my year in Singapore, how to be open and honest with myself, and by extension with those around me, might just be the most important.