Story of a Lily

[storyofalily]

Aspirations of a Pineapple

Once upon a time, there was a pineapple plant. For the longest time, it didn’t bear fruit. But one day, a lone pineapple started to grow. The plant was ecstatic at this chance to see the world, to live to its full potential. It can do anything and be anything.

When it was ripe, the pineapple fell off the tree and rolled into the ocean. The ocean carried it, along with a ton of plastic garbage, to the shores of a metropolitan city. In this city, the pineapple saw so many things it never knew existed. It didn’t know how to choose. But before the pineapple could decide, someone picked it up.

At first, the pineapple was angry and frustrated that the choice was taken away from it. But a few days later, as it sat on its perch, looking down at the world, the pineapple realized it had become the greatest thing a pineapple can be: 

The final touch on an al pastor taco.

[storyofalily]

An Ode to Pico de Gallo

As I’m sitting here scarfing down half a pound of pico de gallo (with tortilla chips, of course), I can’t help but be in awe of it. I’m amazed at how much I love pico de gallo.

Because I hate all of its ingredients.

Separately, I dislike tomatoes, jalapenos, lemon/lime juice, whatever about onions, and cannot stand cilantro. But you dice them up and put them together, and I can shovel that stuff into my mouth with a spoon (though tortilla chip is my preferred vessel for the shoveling).

This is beyond greater than the sum of its parts. All the variables are negative and yet somehow, the result is beyond positive. Isn’t that amazing? My mind is blown.

And my stomach is full of pico de gallo.

[storyofalily]

Day 9 - Invisible

A librarian recognized me today.

It’s not that big a deal, to anyone else, I guess. But it’s remarkable to me in that I’ve always considered myself more or less invisible, and sometime along my development I began to embrace that identity and try to fade even further into nothingness.

Growing up, I had a lot of confidence issues, and those issues eventually manifested themselves in my adult years as social anxiety and impostor syndrome. It’s only in the past six months that I’ve realized and acknowledged my social anxiety and have taken steps to rectify it.

This means, my view of the world has been skewed for many, many years. This calls into question how invisible I truly was. But first, back to the library.

This librarian has been around since I was in elementary school. I want to say she’s been a librarian at my local library for at least a quarter century. So she’s been exposed to the evolution of my reading tastes for a good 20 years. But, I had stopped going to this library about five years ago, in favor of a different library. In my mind, I’m so forgettable that no one should recognize me after a five-year absence - that’s impossible!

Apparently, I’m not as invisible as I thought. At the same time, this is a woman who’s seen me grow up, from barely able to read to graduating college and beyond. Granted, she might remember my name more than my face, but either way, it’s very surprising to someone such as myself. Someone with low self-confidence, who doesn’t know her own worth, who doesn’t think she deserves the world’s attention.

I’ve been working on that. Slowly but surely. I’m recognizing my behaviors and beliefs for what they are, and actively working to correct what needs correcting. I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted to this a year ago, or even a few months ago. But then, a few months ago I might not have gone to the library at all. 

The reason I started using a different library was because it was much more convenient and there was minimal human interaction. I can request any item in the library catalog, and the holds are set out on a shelf for me to pick up myself, without having to go through a librarian. And then, I can check them out at a self-checkout machine. I got to control how much human interaction I wanted.

I’m starting to initiate human interaction now. That’s the meaning of life, isn’t it? Making connections. I’m working on reversing the habits I’ve built up over decades, as I got more and more withdrawn into myself. It’s kinda painful; it truly feels like I’ve been invisible and now I’m trying to defy physics and regain a physical body.

But it’s not altogether unwelcome. Despite the awkwardness and the mistakes and embarrassments, it’s a very nice feeling to know people can see me. I’ve had wonderful conversations with people I’ve allowed to see me. I’m starting to open up and make friends, and that’s worth all the discomfort of being visible.

Being recognized by my childhood librarian is noteworthy in that she is a direct link between the person I was then and the person I am today.

[storyofalily]

(E x t e n d e d) Family

I don’t consider myself an optimistic person, but I always surprise myself with how optimistic I end up being. We had our annual grave visits today (the Chinese equivalent of Dia de Los Muertos), of which I’ve been avoiding for the last five years. 

History and experience has shown that these people suck. I put up with them for decades of my younger life because it was required of me. In the last few years, I decided, “fuck this shit,” that I’m not going to waste my time and life on people like my family. (I know the title says extended family, but it applies to almost all my family, I just have stronger obligations towards my nuclear one.) So I stopped going to the grave visits.

In the beginning, I had a little bit of guilt, but since I didn’t believe my grandparents were in those concrete boxes in the ground, I soon got over that. If there is an afterlife, their spirits already know I care about and remember them. I don’t need to spend 3 hours a year with people I dislike to prove that to my dead grandparents.

This year, having started the MBA program, which emphasizes the power of your network above all, and mostly because my brother couldn’t make it so I had to drive my mom, I decided to go. I’ve changed a lot these past five years; maybe they’ve changed to.

Nope.

Nobody changed. I should qualify that: nobody changed for the better.

Doesn’t that just suck? This is why I try not to have expectations (unfortunately, it ends up being reverse psychology and I have even higher expectations than if I hadn’t tried to not have any) - I don’t get disappointed as much.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve known for decades that my extended family don’t care about soul-searching or self-improvement. They are neither woke nor want to be woken. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they are now, and they don’t think there’s anything they can improve on. High on the material ambitions but no bar on the spiritual and internal.

One of the younger generation, I think he’s a second cousin or something, seventeen years old, needed a ride to my neighborhood. This piece of shit just gets into the backseat of my car. No “Hey, can you give me a ride?” before we leave. No “Hey, can you drop me off at ______?” as we’re driving. No “Thank you!” when he gets off. HE DIDN’T EVEN FUCKING TALK TO ME AT THE CEMETERY. Which means I haven’t talked to him in five years. (In reality, probably more like ten.)

Why the FUCK should I waste time with people who raised this bastard??

I came home and blocked all my family on social media.

I had unfollowed them on Facebook a while ago, and I changed my privacy settings so they couldn’t see my activity (not that I’ve been all that active on social media this past year). My sister mentioned that she recently unfriended all our relatives, and I figured I was ok with my current set-up. But I’m done. I don’t want to be associated with these people. 

Our extended family was held together by my grandparents’ sheer force of will. Now that they’ve been dead for 5 and 16 years, I have no obligation to the rest of these unfortunate people.

Hey, I’m just listening to Oprah - shedding the weight.

[storyofalily]

I've never written a letter to my younger self. What point is there, when it's too late to change anything? All that would accomplish is for me to rehash all my mistakes and regrets and wish I could do it all over again. But If I had to say one thing, it would be... START.

Jumping back into my 30-day writing challenge after a month-long hiatus :(

[storyofalily]

Earth Month Challenge - April 2018 Earth Month Challenge Ideas

April in Earth Month across the globe. Celebrate our beautiful planet by participating in the 2018 Earth Month Challenge. How will you work to support our climate and emissions on the planet? Here are 30 ideas for your own Earth Month Challenge to get you out and involved.

For someone who values the environment, I don’t take enough action to make a difference.

I was on a trip with school and two of my classmates on the trip really inspired me. One was my friend, who became vegan for the environment rather than for animals, which resonated so much more with me, because growing up the child of a Chinese immigrant from a poor rural village did not instill any animal rights passions in me. The other was someone I hadn’t met prior to the trip; we were trailing our group on the beach headed for a day of snorkeling when he started picking up trash littering the sand. He explained that he liked to pick up trash he sees on the beach, and it made me realize that I’m all talk and no action. Strange to say that five minutes of picking up trash on a beach in Cuba was more memorable than most of the rest of the trip.

But I’m resolved to taking more action this year! I found this challenge, so hopefully it’ll be what I need to build those habits.

[kmmcmdraws]

Modern Disney Princesses 

Instagram | kmmcmdraws

[storyofalily]

[I]n most of the constellations, the stars don't actually belong together. They only appear to. They look to us as if they're close to each other, but some of them exist in another part of the galaxy altogether. That's how my family was. We seemed to belong to the same group, but we were all very far apart.

Pandora, Devil in Spring

[kmmcmdraws]

Snow White

I’m wishing, I’m wishing, for the one I love

[storyofalily]

Reading Challenge 2018!

Come join my Reading Challenge 2018! I made it myself 😄

I’ve always wanted to do a reading challenge (like I don’t read enough already). I see so many challenges floating around, and I’ve saved them to look at later, but I’ve never actually gone back and tried to do one. A lot of them had too many items on the checklist; how can I finish 52 books in 52 weeks in addition to my reading list? Some of the items I knew I wouldn’t be interested in and…

View On WordPress

[storyofalily]

Struggling with the writing challenge I decided to join sigh (via Day 4 - Free)

[storyofalily]

Do all Chinese people go to Hell?

On the eve of Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year, if I want to be inclusive, but I’ve been Chinese my whole life so I’ll stick with it for now), I want to share this funny theory I had a year and a half back, based on a brief conversation with my mother. My super-devout (I’m not sure of what religion), extremely superstitious Chinese mother. 

I saw that she had removed all the teacups from the altars in the house. It was weird, and obvious, because there had been teacups on altars pretty much all my life, maybe even all of history. So of course I had to ask why she removed all the teacups; my mother is nothing if not a creature of habit (oh no, am I already becoming my mother??).

She said one of the spiritual people she consults with (I have no idea what to call these people) said “water is bad.” I was left to infer that “water is bad [in the afterlife].” Hmm... Why would water be bad? Where would water be bad? HOW can water be bad?

Combining this with the paper money burned during ritual ceremonies that has “BANK OF HELL” blazoned across the tops of $10,000-denomination bills, naturally I came to the conclusion that all Chinese people go to Hell.

Of course, my sister cuts my snickering short by pointing out, when I told her the joke later, that “Heaven is for the gods.” If Heaven is for the gods, and we mortals occupy the earthly plane (thus, the aptly named Middle Kingdom), where else is left for souls to go but Hell?

I suppose that explains why Chinese people are so devastated at funerals; you don’t get the peace of knowing your loved ones are in a better place.

At the same time, why am I assuming Chinese Hell is the same as Christian Hell? There may not be an abundance of fire and brimstone where I’m going; maybe it’s more of a sauna, or a Bikram yoga class. 

Another theory could be that the afterlife doesn’t follow the same natural laws that regular life follows. Perhaps it’s not because Chinese people go to Hell, but because it’s the Upside Down and instead of water giving everything life, it causes great harm. Though nothing in my entire life has ever led me to even suspect that Chinese religion/philosophy entertains ideas of an alternate universe.

The simplest solution would be to ask my mother. My super-devout, EXTREMELY SUPERSTITIOUS Chinese mother. Not only would she not answer the question, she would probably exorcise me out of her house.

I’ve probably just ruined my luck and fortune for the entire year with this, but I was reminded of it because we burn Hell dollars during the New Year rituals. I really do need to learn more about my culture. Even though my interest is purely academic and I won’t be continuing these traditions (please don’t tell my mother!), I should learn something about my culture and heritage.

[storyofalily]

Finding Treasure

I hadn’t used Tumblr in a couple of years; life got in the way, and I forgot how much I enjoyed blogging. Then, of course, I launched my self-hosted blog this year. But I was looking through my Tumblr today and found 13 drafts waiting to be published! I wonder what happened for me to forget all the content I created...

So I’ll be posting those drafts.  I haven’t read them yet, but if experience holds, I was a much better writer in the past than I am now. (I am constantly amazed when I find old journals or blogs. I always wonder what happened to that girl.) They’re definitely too personal to be put on my website (I was all about personal blogging back in the day - it’s all about me!), so hopefully, with a few edits, I can give them the exposure they’ve been patiently waiting for.

[storyofalily]

Why do smart people make common money mistakes? How can we overcome our subconscious biases and avoid these mistakes in the future? Dan Ariely explains in Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter.  (via Five Common Money Mistakes - Dollars and Sense, Part 1)

[storyofalily]

I’m a better writer than I am a speaker (which tells you how bad my speaking skills are!), but I’m hoping to improve this year :)

(via If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? Effective Speaking Skills)

[storyofalily]

I started a website! Excited and nervous! Check out my first post on Essentialism and let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see in future posts!

[storyofalily]

Conversations with Coworkers - on Safety

Coworker: Your sister's going to live in a van by herself?? Isn't that dangerous?

Me: My sister is a licensed chainsaw wielder, she'll be fine.