TBD

The feeling of being ‘in the middle’ is something I’m very familiar with. And sometimes it’s a really difficult place to be. I’m half Chinese, half white. My dad moved to the U.S. at age 9 from Taiwan. I don’t speak Chinese and I’ve only been to Taiwan once, when I was 3, and I’ve never been to China. I’m honestly not even sure if my dad ever has; he’s never mentioned it. There are a lot of things my dad doesn’t talk about, it’s always been a little hard for me to talk to him, but my mom has given me some insight into his experiences. He was raised by his grandparents, his father was abusive in the past, he didn’t meet his biological mother until his late teens. He told me once he felt like Cinderella when he was growing up; his half sisters got everything, but he had to work for anything he wanted (though my aunts’ stories tell me they didn’t have it easy either…). He’s struggled with being proud of being Chinese and wanting his kids to be proud too, but also the difficulties of learning English and not wanting to stand out. So I grew up in a mostly white, affluent, suburban neighborhood, frequently hanging out in Chinese restaurants and celebrating Chinese New Year, and as I got older, frequently clashing with my dad and his overprotective rules and high expectations that are so linked with Asian parents. On the other hand, my mom was raised very differently. I have spent many hours thinking about how much it baffles me that they crossed paths and fell in love and I’ve given up trying to make sense of it. She was raised by my grandpa, a bass fisherman who I never had the chance to meet but have heard so many stories about, and my grandma, who passed away when I was eight but I still miss so much. They moved all around CA and AZ when she was growing up, without much money. My mom has a story of a time when she thought they were car camping for a while, only to find out when she was older that they just didn’t have a place to stay. But my mom grew up very happy and very loved. Her extended family wasn’t too accepting when she married a Chinese man, but my mom is not at all the type of person to give two shits about what other people say.

I grew up split between these worlds and it shaped much of who I am today. It’s funny to me how I used to think it didn’t matter where you came from because you didn’t have a choice, but now I see how it actually makes all the difference, whether you want it to or not. I never used to be interested in family trees (I never had much extended family around to make it seem important), but now I’m slowly trying to find out more. I used to feel very jealous of my friends with big families who got to go to reunions and weddings. Sometimes I still feel a little bit of that. But I’m learning how valuable my own experience growing up was. It’s difficult to be in the middle. I never feel ‘white’; I especially never felt that way growing up. I used to think about whether someone would be ‘into’ Asians before pursuing them. Which is weird because I also never feel ‘Asian’ enough to hang out with people who speak Chinese, who are from China or who have visited several times, who know what the dishes in restaurants are called when I can only describe them. On top of that, I grew up in a place where many (if not most) of my friends and teachers were white.

This leads into another area I feel very ‘in the middle’ about. I grew up in an affluent neighborhood. The second high school I attended was one of the best public schools in the state. But I definitely did not grow up with a lot of money. My parents did not have a lot growing up. They both left college early and didn’t return until my dad got a job doing IT at a state university and they could afford to finish their degrees. My mom changed jobs a lot, eventually becoming a teacher. When I was younger, they had a restaurant that went under and they had to file for bankruptcy. As far as I know though, we were never ‘poor’. I always figured we were at the lower end of middle class. It’s hard to tell though because my dad doesn’t really talk about that stuff and probably wouldn’t have tried to qualify for reduced lunches or anything even if we could have. All I know is that money was a huge topic in our household and sometimes my parents really struggled. I remember on one Christmas, our stockings were filled with oranges from our backyard because “Santa must have thought they looked really good”. But I had all my basic needs met still. I was never hungry, never without clothes. As I got older, I developed a big sense of guilt around asking for money, probably due to all the stress that was around it and the knowledge that they still had my two younger brothers to provide for. I really learned how to stretch a dollar and when I wanted to move away for college, I got scholarships and paid for it all pretty much myself. I am fortunate that they always could provide me with a bed if I ran out of money for rent and that if I lost my scholarship for some reason, I could still rely on my dad’s tuition benefit as a backup. Out-of-state and private colleges weren’t really ever on my radar. I have worked and paid for my own housing and food since I was a teenager. But I had the privilege of ending up at a good high school and growing up in a wealthy community with a lot of resources and support. And for that reason, I really do feel in the middle when it comes to my financial background. I do not identify with my peers who had meal plans and brought their textbooks new and had the opportunity to accept unpaid internships. However, I know I did not encounter the same hardships as someone who grew up on food stamps and had to work in high school to help support their family. I feel extremely lucky and privileged in so many ways, but still often feel I grew up so differently than a lot of people I am around now who went to private colleges and never took out student loans and their parents still pay for their flight home for the holidays.

There are a few other ways I’ve felt stretched across social boundaries. I came out as bisexual in college. I’ve dated the same person, a man, since I was 17, and although I’ve had some experiences with women, I still feel a little defensive about my sexuality. I recognize that I’ve been in a heterosexual relationship for most of my dating experience and have enjoyed the privileges that come with that. But I’m not straight. I haven’t figured out my place in the LGBTQ+ community and I often struggle to find my voice because of that. And I’ve also spent countless hours and days working in the bleeding disorder community, as an advocate and ally for those with chronic disabilities. My brother has a bleeding disorder and I feel very close to him and our community. But at the end of the day, I am never entirely sure at what point I might cross the line. As a sibling, I understand a lot of the challenges of growing up with a bleeding disorder, but because I do not have one, I have to balance knowing when to speak up for the community and when to sit and listen.

I’m not sure if it makes sense to anyone else how all these experiences intersect with one another, but I feel very strongly that being ‘in the middle’ has shaped, and continues to shape, who I am. I’m not trying to say that I was worse off than anyone else because of it, nor that I’m better. But for as much trouble and heartache these experiences have given me, I’m really proud of where I came from and who I’ve become. And it’s definitely taken a long time to feel that way. I’m sure everyone has experienced a time where they’ve felt unsure about their place in a community or group. It’s uncomfortable, but you figure it out. And along the way, you start to connect deeply with others who are familiar with that feeling.

Most days I feel really happy with how life is going. I’m proud of moving away from home like I always wanted, getting my MPH, finding a full time job that I enjoy, and living happily with Kael. I struggled a lot through high school and college and I finally have some financial and emotional stability. I have great friends and I try to stay really involved in volunteering and trying fun things that I always wanted to do like rock climbing and traveling. It’s been a great year in that respect.

But I dunno… sometimes I feel like I’m missing something. Like there’s something I want or need but I can’t figure out what it is. And I’m torn between longing for the freedom to move somewhere new, for change, for the flexibility to leave without counting my vacation days first, for a break… But then I am also craving going back to school, moving up in my career, taking on more projects. It feels like I can’t have both. And sometimes I put so much pressure on myself but I’m so confused about what I want next that I just end up feeling anxious. When you’re in school, there’s always a goal up ahead. And you already made the choice when you started school that you want to achieve that goal. It’s just a matter of getting there. I’m great at getting there, when I know what ‘there’ is. But right now, I’ve been out of grad school for a year and I’m feeling restless because I don’t know what my goal is, so I don’t know what I’m working towards. I’ve been telling people and thinking that I want to get my PhD in a couple years, but I honestly haven’t made up my mind.

I’ve always loved running. As a kid, I looked forward to the days in P.E. when we had to run a mile. I did track in seventh grade. I enjoyed running laps during softball and soccer practice in high school. I have never been very fast and have never run longer than the one half marathon I did in college, but I’ve always just loved it. I’m terrible at sports; I lack any competitive motivation, can’t aim for shit, and am generally clumsy. So there’s just something amazing to me about putting on a pair of sneakers and heading out the front door for a run. I love feeling free and strong. I love exploring new places and breathing in the outside air. I love training and beating my personal goals. I love to jog with friends, with my dogs, by myself… it doesn’t matter.

Six months ago, I was riding my bike home from work when I was hit by a car. An SUV. It ran over my legs and drove away, with my bike still stuck underneath it. I’d been training for what was supposed to be my second half marathon and had just reached 9 miles a couple days before. I was planning to go for a run once I got home. I can’t begin to explain the shock, the fear, the pain… Maybe I’m lucky because I’ve never experienced anything that physically traumatizing before. I’ve been in accidents (this was actually my second ambulance ride and second time getting my favorite jeans cut off by a paramedic), but something about the unexpectedness of the situation, the warm feeling of the tires going over my legs, the sight of the car driving away was too much. I just panicked. I just laid in the street and yelled and screamed. People got out of their cars and a woman called my boyfriend from my phone. I can’t really remember many details except the complete, utter fear that my legs were broken and weren’t ever going to heal right. There wasn’t a lot of rationality behind this fear (miraculously, I didn’t actually break any bones), but I was fixated on it. I’ve never felt so out of control before honestly. I’ve re-lived the scene over and over since then and the feeling of panic still comes back fresh. One of the more vivid memories I have is laying in the ambulance with Kael beside me, a brace around my neck so I can’t look around at the police officer who is asking me questions, resisting the morphine because I know it makes me nauseous… And I give in when they tell me they’ll also give me something to counter the nausea and that the ride will be bumpy, and I remember the feeling of the pain killers rushing through my veins and the tears finally coming quietly, streaming down the sides of my face, not from the pain but from feeling more terrified and helpless than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I do feel really lucky in many ways. It could have gone so much worse. My bones weren’t broken, though I sometimes feel like my spirit and my heart have a long way to go. I was wearing a thick jacket so the only really bad road rash was on my knee. The ER experience was generally awful, with technical failures and repeat x-rays and some incompetent advice upon discharge. But Kael stayed with me the whole time. He made jokes and helped me pee next to my bed and arranged for friends to pick us up. I was worried about our upcoming trip to Costa Rica, but he reassured me that it would still happen, that he would be more than happy just to sit on the beach with me all day if I couldn’t walk much. I was actually able to walk very quickly. I graduated from crutches to a boot and went through a couple months of PT. I am running again now and mostly healed, just some weird bruising in my ankle and occasional stiffness in my knee. The police were horrible to deal with. They never returned any of my calls about my case and never picked up any of the footage of the accident. But I worked with a crime victim advocacy organization that offers free counseling and they helped me fill out a compensation application. I ended up randomly meeting the woman who called Kael at the accident when we were out at a bar and we’re friends now.

I need a place to practice writing down my thoughts, so I figure I may as well start here. I originally started this tumblr because I was in an internship last summer and they asked us to blog about our experiences. The thing is, I’m not very good at writing just to write like that and I always feel very self-conscious about my grammar and double-checking to see if what I’m writing makes sense. In the end, it makes for boring and awkwardly worded posts. So my thought now is to just write when I’m thinking a lot about something. I spend a lot of time in my own head. I honestly spend months thinking about the same topic until I get a little clarity about it. I will read a lot about whatever is on my mind and mull it over while running or cooking or just while I’m bored at work. I’m hoping that keeping a journal will help me keep track of my ideas and realizations. I’ve tried to keep journals that I write by hand because I love to write by hand, but it always takes too long and I don’t finish my thoughts. I suppose I could also just type up word documents and keep them to myself, but there’s something nice about putting something up on a blog. Even if no one reads it still, it’s just there. Plus I can access it pretty much anywhere and I’m already pretty familiar with tumblr.

I don’t really know for sure why I want to work on improving my writing, but I do know that probably the best way to get better and feel more confident is just to do it as much as possible. I used to write all the time when I was younger. I used to write a lot of poetry, which I’d really like to feel more inspired to do again. And I also used to write stories. I really liked the idea of being a writer but I could never finish anything I started and always felt like my ideas were unoriginal so I wouldn’t want to share them with anyone. I did share a few chapters here and there to friends or teachers, but I don’t know what happened after that. I think when I started high school, I really became a lot more self-conscious and shy, which I’ve battled since then. I got caught up in dating and drama with friends and parents and just a lot of general unhappiness that I felt in high school. I didn’t want to be a “nerd” anymore, I guess. In college, I definitely got past that, but then I was really involved in science stuff and working and didn’t have a lot of opportunity or time to write again.

The past four weeks have been challenging, but I’m starting to see my project come together and that is so exciting. I’ve cleaned up the data in SPSS, run chi-square tests, and begun putting together tables with the results. I still need to add a bit more to the analysis and learn how to make basic maps in GIS, but it’s going so well overall. I’m also reviewing literature on medicine-assisted treatment for addictions that I hope to finish reading by next week. It’s keeping me busy, but I enjoy this work. Tomorrow we are meeting with all the PHASE/SPRINGH interns for an informal discussion about our projects and I am looking forward to hearing updates about their experiences so far.

Thoughts about the Pride Parade that turned into rambling.