A few days ago, I unknowingly witnessed what seemed to be a betrayal in an acquaintance’s relationship.

This year, I have learned that there are boundaries that I can compromise on and some boundaries that I cannot. The latter of which are deeply rooted to my sense of morality and values.

So as much as I tried to put the incident out of my mind (since it’s none of my business), I could not. And it festered in my mind as I saw the acquaintance. Out of etiquette, I behaved like nothing happened.

Maybe I hate lies. I would rather know about the painful truth than the easily cloaked lies. And perhaps I misinterpreted.

But this is me.

When an intrepid friend proposed a 26.5 mile hike through San Francisco, I was excited for the adventure of the stops, but not for the idea of walking throughout the city. He always had brillant ideas, but this one with walking for more than 12 hours (sunrise to sundown) was unappealing.

Fortunately, he provided an alternative. To be a roadie. Or as he termed it the “Best People Ever” committee who would provide support at all the stops, provide the morale boost for people, and serve as emergency backup.

I signed up immediately. A friend later joined me, but wasn’t as ambitious as I was. For me, the motivation was startling. I enjoyed playing in the background—cheering for people as they reached the checkpoints, providing the food and water for each individual’s boost…and especially being able to rest between checkpoints. Because unlike the general participant, I could drive or ride my bike. Because I knew the city well, I knew where to park (for free!) and how to get around generally effortlessly.

During one of the most busy weekends in San Francisco…I avoided traffic and parking crunch. I swerved here and there by bike, shouting cheers and providing rides for the suddenly disabled.

Sure there were a few moments where I suddenly was alone and lonely, knowing that the rest of the crew (numbering over 20) was out participating in an activity that I did not participate in because I wasn’t walking. But the idea that I could help them, support them…was motivating. That I could use something that I was good at—navigating the city by other means—to plan the day.

taken by Chloe

I love saying this:

Feet were not made to walk. They were made to push the pedal.

I don’t remember the first time that I started writing. I remember loving music, wanting to be a singer and a dancer (both which I realized that I was neither good at). I have my old writing books from school—the ones that teachers made all the students write daily to practice sentence structure. I remember the books that I carefully selected from the library each week, piling up to a stack in the twenties.

But what I remember the most: the explosions of creativity I had when I was 8 or 9. The images, dreams and nightmares that crossed my mind to create landscapes of stories. Every moment I experienced then inspired a fictional story. There was the quirky girl captured in mystery of a death on the subway. Then there was the story of the kidnapper and the sisters that tricked him.

In my early teens, I lost the desire to write fiction. I was drawn to memoirs…and what we call creative nonfiction. The honesty and truth of reality was mesmerizing and magnetizing. By my early twenties, I was swept into the world of blogging and journaling. More than a decade has passed and I am still writing. Every day.

This morning, I wanted an answer for my deep need to write and I found it:
I’m trying to capture in language the things that I see and feel, as a way of recording their beauty and power and terror, so that I can return to those things and relive them. In that way, I try to have some sense of control in a chaotic world.

I write, because it’s my way of self-expression. Sometimes I say that it helps makes things unreal…and to make more sense. Each piece is art. It’s this is how I view the world.

I wish that I wrote more.

Unlike many, I don’t have this writer’s guilt. Although not as ritualized as it used to be, I attempt to write once a day in this blog. Recently, a friend asked, “It’s still going?”

But I can’t help but write. Every single memory, I worry, will slip away if it’s not captured in words, sentences, pages. Weeks, months, years later, I look back and appreciate those moments. Because if it was not for the writing, I would be deep in the mud, stuck calling for help.

It is stress-relieving.

But my guilt right now is that I find it impossible to write about what I had planned to write. I keep coming back here. In my personal essay class, my instructor told the class to choose the subject that shone the most. Like walking into a Tiffanys and getting to drawn to that single sparkly diamond ring. Sadly, it isn’t the project that I set to do. I want to write out the emotions, the feelings, the motivations for my own tears here. I want to write about the laundry that binds us, the people I have discarded and accepted, and the successes that I swallowed only to forget one day later.

This is my own struggle of being a writer. I am driven by feelings and so my blog has always been my best friend like that. It has allowed me to write anything. Even though I have no profit, no true audience (well…hello out there!)…because that’s fine to me.

Because at the core, I am writing.

(For someone who doesn’t have self-awareness of their own skills and goals.)

You should start your own business.

Granted, there is the courage that many people need to harbor to take the next impulsive step. The business plan, the legwork to get to the goal. Everyone you meet, especially those who are not in the business (of whatever it may be), has an opinion. Most likely, they won’t laugh in front of you—society teaches us to restrain ourselves on the surface and to let optimism/love show.

We all make foolish decisions and pursue dreams wildly.

But there is no problem in making mistakes. I believe that I have the courage to do that. Every day.

1. I am missing some TV channels.
2. My car is so dirty.
3. Why isn’t there a parking spot in this parking lot?? Now I have to park a block away.
4. Someone moved my bike in my garage.
5. I have too many devices.
6. There aren’t enough power outlets.
7. I only want to pay for gas that is under 4 dollars per gallon.
8. There’s too much good tv to watch.
9. I am running out of pens.
10. I just..don’t feel like working today.

That’s what my dad said about his twin (fraternal) brother, who was born (supposedly) a few hours before him. The story was that my dad was just big and pushed out his older brother first. Then my dad came out…and essentially was the dominant one in everything.

Like brothers, they were competitive in everything. Being the only sons in a traditional Chinese family, it was expected that they would do everything to carry on the family. Their younger sisters were tormented by the two. There’s a story that one of the brothers tricked the youngest sister into believing a lie and she was only corrected by the other brother. I am pretty sure that my dad was the former.

As roommates in college after they moved out of the dorms (at Washington State University at Pullman), there’s a story that clearly distinguishes their personalities. Bills arrived in the mail. My uncle, the older brother, carefully opened each one with a letter opener, making sure not to rip the contents. My dad simply took the envelope and ran his finger along the edge, opening it. His older brother became furious because the inside contents could be crumpled and worse yet, ruined!

(Oddly enough, I am, by nature, the most messy in my family…and have always thought my dad was annoyingly too neat and organized…so the story surprises me.)

“I always was smarter and faster,” my dad said, describing his brother.

“And you have more hair and slightly taller,” I observe my dad who is in his mid-60s.

At a family wedding, I observed them both. It has been years since they lived together as teens..and in college. They each have a family. Two kids. All around my age. My uncle lives in Michigan, closer to the rest of the siblings. My dad lives in California, closer to his parents. My dad’s kids (my sister and me) are living super independent free-wheeling lifestyles on opposite coasts of the states. And my uncle kids…one is married and living in LA and the other lives in Ohio with well-settled careers. Who wins? Nobody, really. But while my mom, always very social with my dad’s sisters, I see barely communication between the brothers. They are watching my cousin get married in silence. Perhaps they think, “I can’t wait to show off again how great my kids are.”

‎A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back — it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.

said Anne Morrow Lindbergh

It’s rare to see my family together in one place. I see my dad’s side more—they are in the states, mostly in the midwest. I used to joke that there was a significant disparity between my cousins vs. my sister and me.

But what astounds me the most is how my cousins—usually a pair (brother and sister, brother and brother or sister and sister)—are so different from each other. There is the ones that married early and had kids in their twenties. Then there is the pair that exhibit filial pity and friendliness to everyone. Then the pair who were born in the “old country” and were the first ones to marry non-Asians. Then there is my sister and me—the free-wheeling females living big on the coasts in large metropolitan cities.

Did our parents have the biggest influences? Perhaps. I can’t help but to draw comparisons and similarities. Would we have been the same if we had different parental guidance?

I hesitated slightly before I told a colleague what I currently was doing, but then I let it out.

I started off with the story of my tempered creativity. I always wanted to create, I say. And design wasn’t enough. This year is my outlet to let out that energy. So we’ll see what happens.

Then I describe the gist: I am combining three passions. Writing. Travel.

Then I pause here for the dramatic flourish.

Ice cream, I say.

There’s always a laughter of glee. Because it’s an innocent indulgence recalling simpler times. I do have the luxury of working in a happiness business and finding a business that exudes more happiness.