The Trying Skin I'm In

I'm finding it difficult to concentrate. In a good way. A great way.

First I said good-bye. Now I'm saying hello. And thank you for helping me try on a different skin. I'm even going to keep some of these new traits.

The togetherness helped me figure out who I am not. The togetherness also blinded me from what I thought I hated about myself; I buried away these things because it seemed like the right thing to do for you.

The separation is helping me figure out who I always was; it also made me see that I love these things about myself. I'm sorry that you didn't.

I was deep. I was emotional. I was poetic. I believed in romantic, corny, overwhelming, earth-shattering, heaven-sent love. I knew what love was. I trusted in love even though I knew it hurt me sometimes. I wrote about my feelings. I prayed to and trusted in God. I believed in deep connections and meaningful relationships. I fought angrily and forgave whole-heartedly.

And then I put that all away because I thought I was being childish. I thought it was time to grow up.

Now that I'm grown up, I realize that it's OK to be me. It's OK to be that side of me. Before the togetherness, I didn't recognize those traits in me. Now, I see it and I like it. I love it. Me. Someone will take me for who I am. And even if no one does, that's OK, too.

And something else: they call it 'serial long-term relationships'. They say it like it's a bad thing. Well, if this is bad, then I don't want to be good. It's what I do. I try and try again. It comes with the package of being emotional, hopeful, self-indulgent, and poetic. Some find themselves in solitude while others do so hand-in-hand with the right person.

Sometimes the trouble is in finding the right person.

Sometimes the special thing about finding the right person is you find them when you weren't searching for them because you were only searching for yourself. Sometimes you find them when you were searching for yourself because they've known the real you that you've been looking for all along.

Just sometimes, though. Not all the time. I'm just dreaming up fantasies here.

Easter

Sunshine

Spring

Celebration

Faith in God

Joy

Blessings

Love

Bittersweet endings

New beginnings

This is a Love Note

Running in Oakland under the blue-black sky

Pounding pavement, running harder than ever

Venting into the wind about those which affect us most:

Teaching and issues of injustice

Talking politics while huffing and puffing

I pause only to look up into the rain, to feel it on my face

I vaguely consider removing more layers altogether to welcome the falling droplets

But I'm distracted by our intense conversation

And, of course, by the running.

After 30 minutes, you suggest that we call it a night, but I beg,

"Please... just 3 more miles?" And you say yes.

Thanks, Ms. Kwon, for tonight, for being my life coach, for feeding me, for teaching me how to cook, and, finally, for the fact that the day after I shared my blog URL with you, my numbers jumped to 30 hits in a day.

Photo Credit: oopsilon via Panoramio.

Love My Life

So many things to blog about.

For now, I shall blog about this:

Today, a friend was sharing his philosophy about men and relationships. He asserted that generally, it is the guys' responsibility to make sure that his girlfriend is OK and to make sure that her needs are met. I didn't agree, thinking that that makes women sound very needy with insatiable desires. Later, after an hour of struggling to find a way to talk to the boyfriend at 12 in the morning, I told him that I wanted to give up and that I was very sad. So he told me that he's coming over, even though it takes him an hour to get here. I didn't even ask. Maybe my friend was right. At any rate: LML.