Nearly an hour had passed, but I was deeply engaged in a conversation with friends about the plights of the world and particularly my strong opinions as we waited in line for a super popular ramen restaurant that had seats for just over 25 people. Who knows what I was being cynical about—whether it was the state of the world (not great) or about whether we should fight back in mugging (consensus: yes, of course while evaluating personal safety, and if the girl with you is deeply appalled, she probably wasn’t the right one anyway). It was chilly so I had the hood of my wool jacket on, hovering near the restaurant windows like a skulking pedestrian. Then we heard the sound of glass shattering. I felt something hit my head—hard, but not that hard because it felt like someone’s hand just smacking my head for attention. But like all my moments of unexpected events, I froze like a deer in headlights.

We looked up to see a shattered window. Being that we were in the tenderloin and in an urban city, the first thing that crossed mind was a fight. A fight that as a voyeur, I wanted to see. But it wasn’t. It was a woman who was trying to open her second-story window of her apartment. It was stuck, so she put some elbow grease and leaned her elbow against the glass. The window frame didn’t budge, but the glass did and it cut her hand.

I felt quite conscious and very alive—although it was later that I fell into an anxiety of whether I could have died as a silly foodie waiting over an hour just to eat ramen customized for San Francisco with kale.

“Everyone okay?” someone said.

I touched my face to make sure that I was okay.

Stunned, we all stepped aside from the glass. Someone pointed to a guy’s face where he was bleeding. “Get some antiseptic!” someone yelled into the crowded restaurant.

A server came outside to sweep the glass. The couple came downstairs to explain the situation. The woman said that they needed to go the hospital. And the guy insisted that if we wanted to sue anyone, we better get the information of his landlord. “I told him for months that our window wouldn’t open,” he said. “It must be the weather that made the glass swell.”

“Your eyelid,” a friend said. “It’s bleeding.”

“Is it?” I said and touched it.

“Go to the bathroom and check,” Chris said.

So I reluctantly dragged myself inside the restaurant. “Sorry,” I said opening the bathroom to find the other bleeding guy staring at the mirror and dabbing his face with a towel. “I am just checking whether I am bleeding.”

I stared at the mirror and just saw a small speck, barely noticeable. Later, after I took a shower, the blood swept away and I couldn’t even find the source of the cut at all.

We carefully brushed the glass shards off ourselves, shaking our jackets and sweatshirts. “Are you okay?” a friend asked again.

The guy told everyone below to move away from the window as he cleaned out all the remaining glass. The woman said, “Wear gloves!”

And we watched as more glass shards fell, crashing onto the pavement below.

I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel. Grateful? Numb? Apathetic? Angry? Sad? But surprisingly as we sat down, I was overcome with a feeling of coincidence. I am one of those people who can’t help but click on click-baity headlines. I will read “Ten ways people died from a freak accident including one you never expect”. I have read all of them. The fallen tree during the storm that crushed a woman on a golf course. Then there are the miracles. The time the large screws or metal objects fell from the temporary Bay Bridge, but miraculously didn’t hit any cars. I thought about an irrational fear lately which is being T-boned as a passenger or driver of a car. I echoed all of this suddenly to a friend whose father experienced a debilitating disease and his dog likely diagnosed with brain cancer. “I have been thinking of that too,” he said.

What if a large glass shard had fallen and hit my head with its sharp point? What if? I worried that I could be on tip of losing my mind as I had watched a friend lose his grip on reality after a traumatic bike accident? I didn’t want to be the person who was consumed with anxiety of living a regular life. “That’s dangerous,” that friend said, his voice rising in desperate anxiety.

There are moments that I have felt in the past year where I think that I could stare at home all day. I’ll be fine right here in my bed. I’ll be fine just eating the same thing from my refrigerator. And yet, I would miss the thrill of life right outside. I live in the city not because I am an extroverted person, requiring people all the time. But I deeply enjoy the convenience. The fact that people are outside within reach. I hear the roar of cars whizzing on the street. I hear the click-clakety of heels as people walk down the street. And yes, I still love my bike as I fly down Valencia, weaving, pumping my legs. I love the walk and the discovery of new things.

Earlier that day, a friend and I was feasting on chocolate at a parklet. Somehow instantly, a glass was thrown and shattered. We turned to find the source of the noise. There was the glass, yes. But who threw it? Was it the guy who deliberately dropped it? Or did someone throw it at him? Where did it come from? Nobody was around, but it was all to strange.

This morning, I googled, “Do people die from a shower of falling glass?” hoping that the Internet would answer my question. Instead, I only found stories of people falling to their death out the windows. A lawyer fell to his death as he was showing fellow law students that the glass windows of his high office building was unbreakable. But with his extra run and force, the glass window popped out and he fell to his death. I told myself that I would never be that stupid. But then again, it’s all luck isn’t it? To have been standing under the apartment window right at that moment?

I rarely win anything drawn by the lottery. But yesterday, I was in the right place at the right time. Isn’t that the summary of life anyway?

“What is that?” the boy sneers at the foreign-looking food during lunchtime.

Among American-born children of immigrants, there’s a common story about bringing a non-American lunch to school. The child at first would be proud of the food, but over time, as they realize that other kids, especially the popular ones, don’t approve, they may go home and beg for a replacement. The Lunchables, please! The PB&J sandwiches. Anything except the stinky tofu. Anything except the fish with its eyeballs and scaly skin. Anything but…

Tonight at my regular book club, the conversations had drifted into that territory. The majority of us were American-born children of immigrants. Stories of sneering boys. Stories of how a friend stood up for someone else. Laughter ensued. Despite being the American-born child of my Hong Kong raised parents and bringing regular Chinese food to school, my lips were thin. Yes, I did remember eating fried rice or other strange foods. And yet I hated sandwiches, because they often surfaced memories of gagging on the soggy dough. Instead, as I heard stories of being ostracized for having foreign food, all I felt was this overwhelming feeling of loneliness.

Because I remember sitting alone during lunchtime, because I lacked friends.

Yes, eventually, there were people that I surrounded myself with, but they weren’t friends at all, but rather people that proved that I wasn’t a loner, the outsider, the outcast. They were proof that I fit in, even thought I didn’t really fit in.

And because of that, nobody saw my lunch. Because nobody was there to see. Sometimes I must have just eaten quickly so that nobody would see that I was eating alone. Just enough to satisfy my hunger. Then I would watch all the other kids.

How did they fit in? How did they figure out how to eat lunch? How did they get so popular? How did they make friends?

All of these thoughts, those anxious moments tumbled through my mind as I watched my friends talk about their struggles. During a pause, I blurted, “I ate alone, so nobody ever saw what I ate.”

One person who had just joined the book club turned and said, “Oh I did too. Well I had one friend.”

To which I mumbled as everyone turned back to their laughter, letting the loneliness yank me to a place of sorrow, which sedated me for the rest of the hour, “I didn’t have any.”

During college, a friend observed (quite bluntly), “You have everything. Yet, it’s not enough.”

Beyond the fact that during that period I moped about everything—state of friendships, my natural non-exuberant personality, challenges of my major, etc., I never really quite appreciated the level of privilege I had.

Not only did I end up traditionally straight and cisgender, I grew up in a household with at least one college-educated parent in an upper middle class suburb with high-ranking public schools. I always had a bed and a roof with three meals and quiet environment. My parents had either shifted their work schedules and workload so that there was always a parent around (often to my displeasure as a teenager). Never did I ever had to seek shelter or suffer from hunger or feel unsafe. I had the privilege of declaring hunger strikes. To imagine, to read, and to write. Drugs and alcohol were wholly absent from my childhood. Friendships, despite the few that I had, were relatively of similar type. And in all that, I developed behaviors and motivations for resourcefulness, intellect, and diligence.

What if I had born in a household of divorce and alcoholism? Or learning from the models of laziness and disengagement? What if then? Perhaps I would have turned out the same, better or worse.

1. Because you believe that you’re invincible
2. Obviously the belief of #1 is temporal as you realize that your body is susceptible to many things in life—disease, car crashes, bad food, and heartache. Mortality is truly possible as you read about people who can’t reach their doctor because of the immigration ban. You read the likely ways of death and you worry that you’ll slip and fall, because that’s more likely than someone bombing up your building. You worry yourself (metaphorically) to death. But then suddenly one day, you reach for a helping hand and that lifts you up. Believe in community.
3. Protest. Write. Express. Tell your story. Stand up for you believe in. Attend those events and those town halls. Make the phone calls even though you hate talking on the phone. Communicate.
4. Start to find the light in life. Remember what you loved doing. Maybe it was cooking. Exploring the plethora of wines. Maybe it’s traveling to discover new sights. Maybe it’s the thrill of climbing mountains of America.
5. Realize that you love this country. Awhile ago, you had declared to your trusted circle that you were going to move to Canada, New Zealand, Finland. But today, you know that it’s not possible. Not because the logistics and the immigration would be difficult. But rather you don’t want to leave. There’s more to do. And you want to be part of it. And you want to stay here to fight for it. The country gave you opportunities that you can’t get elsewhere and you’re not just going to let it go.

“Did you know that there was a handicapped section?” I asked my mom, curious about whether she really wanted to be part of the women’s march.

To my surprise, and contrary to what my sister said, she said simply, “Oh I wasn’t planning to go. You were there for me.”

I became incensed. “Every voice matters!” I said. “Why didn’t you really go?”

“Because it wouldn’t have mattered. It won’t mean anything.”

And that’s when it struck me. The greatest problem in any society is apathy. Which is generally the great consensus. Whether it’s apathy, because of a loss of hope. Or apathy that we must accept things as they are (and cannot change). Or apathy, because we are resigned, defeated, and depressed. The danger is that, because the energy dissipates and then soon, we forget the joy of living.

Yesterday night in an insomniac moment caused by coughing, I scrolled through Facebook. Yet there were many intense posts about the immigration ban and the fight for the rights. But then there it was. I would have scrolled right by in my dazed 3 am state if the word Asian hadn’t caught my eye. A post about anti-Asian activity in Southern California.

Despite my incredible desire to be an insider, to be popular, to be like everyone else, I have never rejected my Asian American identity. Yes, I may have rejected the side of me that is too Chinese, embracing the non-Chinese food and speaking only English fluently. But yet, to reject how I look, has never crossed my mind.

When I look in the mirror, I see only me. But I know quite consciously that everyone else doesn’t see me that way. They know that I a not white. Some might even assume that I am not American and wasn’t born here.

And so then. I had this fear several months ago once the election was determined. “What about me?” I said. “Can I do my job? Can I do what I need to do? Can I still be effective despite being the person that I am? Can I still be me?”

They came for them. Now they may came for me.

I started this blog.

Amazingly, I can’t remember a life without it. To have this place where it captures my memories, my thoughts, and my desires. Technically, it was hosted elsewhere at a url formerly know as positively.chargedparticle.com and in a moment of emotional retaliation about 14 years ago, I moved it to this url.

But the concept of this blog started first at scribble.nu way back in 2000. There, I captured everything that was going on. Interestingly, I didn’t believe in diaries for most of my childhood, especially as a teenager. It was for those lovelorn girls who carried around pens with dainty pink feathers of puffs who wrote glittery pink sparkle fluff. I certainly would not do that.

But as a suppressed writer, I was seduced by the words that came out of my fingers through the keyboard. I had barely written for years, sporadically in the purple diary that an aunt gifted to me as a teenager. But with the advent of the boom of online journaling that I could share with others, I found myself writing and writing.

Yes, there were the growing pains—I realized that I couldn’t write about people (negatively) nor could I write about emotional turmoil (people would get too fussy about it—nowadays you may even expect shaming).

I miss the naivete of that era. Where we would embody ourselves with empathy and sympathy. We deeply tried to understand each other. Our comments were personalized. Truly self-centered of course. But we were figuring it all out. All we wanted to do was be heard. And crazy enough, it worked.

In college, a former boy interest said that he was too busy to call me.

“What do you mean by that?” I said, feeling anger cursing through my veins and tears squeezing through my eyes.

Thousands of thoughts went through my head, but the most prominent one was: He’s at a third-rate college. How can he possibly be more busy than I am? Yes, I had an elitist streak then—I was a top public university in the nation in my senior year. I was not only working part-time as a research assistant, I was also working as a residential computing consultant. I was taking the GRE for graduate school. I was an officer for a club. I had tons of projects then. Intense classwork. And he…I don’t even remember now what major he studied. But it was certainly not comparable to anything I was doing. How could he possibly be busy?

Obviously, he was finding an excuse for being unable to end things so explicitly.

And yet, in the midst of all of it, I still made time. Because I found it that important.

Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

In 2010, it was a person. In 2011, it was an idea. In 2012, it was a symbol represented by a person. In 2013, I let go fear. In 2014, I let go of humility (or the desire to appear humble). In 2015, I let go of perfection.

This year, I let go expectations. Much like my one word, I realized that disappointment came with expectations.

I could only appreciate things as they are. As they truly are. And most of all, to accept them.

What had always surprised me the most about my book was the fact that most people don’t think like me. They don’t enjoy food the way I do. They don’t savor the stories of people who make the food. Nor do the stories elevate the food for them as it does for me.

Sometimes I find myself looking through my own writing—the struggle of finding an interpreter during the protests in Istanbul or the uneasy overnight in a dairy farm, I think in a dazed moment, “How did this writer really know what I like and love?”

Then I remember, “Oh it’s me.”

I wrote for myself, of course. Whether or not I have this streak of self-centeredness and narcissism, it surprised me that others don’t have the same mindset. And it’s disappointing to pitch my book to people at book festivals, at bookstores, at ice cream shops, and to find that the interest wavers.

And what’s more is that so many people suggest do this or do that, but have they stood with me in those precarious moments? When I was at a festival, pushing, but not pushing too hard my book? When I look at a passerby who loves the concept, but the comments are only “Wow, that’s so amazing!”

There’s a hesitation in all of that. Good enough, but not good enough. That’s the trouble of writing sometimes. To write for yourself, but realizing that you can’t. Not always. Not until you find that others will truly feel like you.

Will you enjoy this as much as I did?

Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

In 2010, I said everything. In 2015, I said fear.

This year, it’s just sitting down and doing it. This year, I did nearly 3 rounds of forcing myself to complete writing. First, there was that ridiculous idea of #the100dayproject on the worst platform for my kind of self-expression: instagram, which I did 100 days of plotting. Then I did 30 days of Writing. Then for the third year in a row and the fourth year, I did nanowrimo, this time writing about multiple relationships to a dead woman. For the latter, I really thought that it was impossible to finish due all the significant events happening during November. But I always finish, so I finished.

I was pleased with the results by pushing myself through it. This year, I spent 160 days writing. And there probably was more when I was editing my work. Although much of the writing produced probably didn’t result in greatness I still felt that some really did.

If I hadn’t: I couldn’t have touched the nuances of a CEO in Silicon Valley. Nor would I have instantly explored the toughness of a woman on the brink of stepping off a cliff. Or encapsulating the fragile relationship of a divorced, bitter mother with a young curious son.

And so what can I do with the other 205 days? My hired developmental editor suggested setting an award for completion. But maybe it’s letting the inspiration come all the time. And most importantly, letting the horrible first draft arrive. Then I write the better draft.

Sit my butt down and write.

I recounted the most impactful entertainment pieces for me in 2014. Then I did it for all of 2015. Now 2016.

Movies I Saw

TV Shows I Watched

Books I Read

Ways to Pass the Time

Technology