serendipitykim

Tomorrow morning I have a bone marrow examination. Before I get too ahead of myself, I need to provide additional information. I have aplastic anemia; iron deficiency within my blood which is necessary to carry oxygen, however, in addition to my bone marrow being attacked by my white blood cells. This examination may be the topping my life, depending on the results of course.

So this examination is necessary in order to sort through and find the actual state of my aplastic anemia. What it may develop in the future, I am unsure, but my doctor seems worried and critical about my well being. I however on the other hand don’t know how or what to do.

I’ve been diagnosed with anemia when I was younger; being that it sort of runs in my family. However, with much care and investment into my own health by doing sports and staying active, I was able to maintain my health and fight this minimal yet common anemia. I was doing well, until recently.

The story of how I found out is quite sad yet quite interesting. Ionic, really. I went to my doctors a few weeks ago to request prescriptions to anti-depressants and mood stabilizers because I am bipolar and was in a state of depression. However, after a long and informative discussion over my health, I retracted my request. After 6 years, it was important to me to realize the importance of the strength that I have within myself. I couldn’t give in to being depressed so I refused to be put back on. But, the importance of this visit was far off. He then diagnosed my physical health and realized the low iron level within my blood and how slow it was going through my veins and throughout my body. In addition, he realized the chemical imbalance. At the end of this diagnosis, he explained to me the importance of my health and the consequences for my current state. He lectured me. I was of course in shock and couldn’t understand or feel competent enough to understand what he was saying. In the end, he told me I could collapse and die because of internal suffocation through the ill-passageway for oxygen to go through my body. As a result, I can die anytime. That was when I decided to take positive steps in my life, knowing that death awaits me at any time. I decided to replenish the friendships that I have and the importance of each one. I was able to wake myself from my own depression to realize that life goes on, even though life becomes confined to a matter of fate.

What I didn’t know, was how weak I could be or how weak I am. I collapsed 2 weeks ago and had pneumonia because of that. In addition, I collapsed last week, but I didn’t make it public to people. What happened was that I was walking on campus and I fainted. No one was there with me. With luck, I awoke and realized where I was and what had happened. I realized that my life every day is limited due to my current state.

I’m not sure how and why I am like this. I don’t understand why my body has to go through this state. I am and have suffered so much because of the life that I live; being a bipolar queer Cambodian American that lives basically in poverty. I can lift myself up and the spirits of people around me, but when it comes to my own self, my own life, I can’t.

One of my weaknesses is the inability to watch people around me suffer. I can’t stand to watch the people around me suffer. It’s too difficult and too harsh to. But when it comes to my own life, I can endure anything. I can allow myself to suffer because it doesn’t matter to me. It truly doesn’t matter to me because there’s nothing worth protecting when it comes to myself.

What happened today, made a huge impact on how I see things and how I won’t be able to maintain myself.
Today, I found out that I am too much; too complicated; to drama-infested; too much to handle. My best friend made it clear that I am too much.

Today, I realized the high risk that I have on my life. I wanted to collapse everywhere I went. For awhile now, I have been having chronic migraines and pain existing within my chest and the rest of my body, and also the never ending coughs that has since began a few weeks ago.

Anyways, the big day is tomorrow. The examination, I mean. Tomorrow will dictate my future and the path of which I will walk on.

The question is though, would I allow myself to be medicated?

Answer: No.

I won’t allow myself to be treated. I would rather have myself suffer and die then find some way to pay for this.

I have no financial aid for the summer and I am having difficulties finding a job. I have applied to 16 jobs and one rejected me because of a time conflict in which I have class. I turned to my family and realized how impossible it is for them to help.

No one in my family besides my older sister knows the details of my health. They however cannot help me financially because everyone within my family is going through something. Just a few weeks ago, my mother collapsed and ended up in the emergency room. As of now, we’re facing a medical bill for that one night.

I am writing this blog not for pity or understanding but to relieve myself of all of this. You can feel sorry for me or feel pity for me, but I will not listen to any of it. I am not searching for pity or some sort of sorrow for me.
I have enough of that already bottled up in myself.

I knew that my life has more than the average life… but I didn’t realize that the person I trusted with everything; my best friend; would say that my health and well being is too much to handle.

Right now, I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want to be anywhere. I don’t want to be seen. I don’t want to be heard. I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to be here.

I’m not saying this because I’m depressed or feeling like this because I am sick, but because I am just too much to handle.

I can’t deal with myself as it is, now I can’t handle that people who I love and trust entirely, can’t manage to be supportive at a crucial time like this.

I hate this and this feeling.

Don’t bother feeling any sympathy or trying to make me feel better through any comments. Don’t make up shit in order to try and make me feel better. Don’t try and be understanding of the situation unless you’re going through the same thing. Don’t try and act like you’ll be there, when in actuality, you won’t be. Don’t do things that don’t mean shit.

I’m done.





I’m not strong enough.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been too afraid to sleep. This is insomniac behavior is because of this reoccurring nightmare that is not only a dream, but a relic of a terrible past that I once suppressed.

As I write this prelude to the final chapter, I am trying to amend my feelings. Today, I sat alone on my bed, frightened and crying. Frightened because I dreamt of the nightmare. Crying, because there was no one to listen to me. I’ve tried several times this week to voice my voice; my feelings; my regrets; my sorrows, but no one was there willing enough to hear. I’ve tried to force my voice, but it didn’t pan out the way I wanted it to. As a result, I cried and had another mental breakdown this morning because I felt so alone and I knew it was selfish to want people to just sit and listen, so I cried because I was selfish. I know it’s commonly seen as one of the several emotional breakdowns caused by my bipolar disorder, but bipolarism would only be an easy escape and excuse from what is really occurring in the present.

I tried to reach out to my friend while emotionally occupied, revealing how lonesome and how deeply miserable I am, to the extent of irrationalizing everything and thinking of suicide. Her response that forced me to realize reality for what it is,

“Seriously dude, shut up. I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. You have issues with your dad. Go deal with them. Quit moping about it and do something. You know that you have control. You can choose to be in this hole. Make the choice to be happy. It’s so easy to be sad because that’s what you’re familiar with. Challenge yourself. Want more.”


After receiving that response, I decided to pack my things and leave Berkeley for the time being in order to sort out my emotions because I have my reasons, I have my faults, and my fear is that I can never fully believe in myself.

The path I will choose is unknown. The location and the time I will be back are unknown. Communication through email, calling, and other various messaging ways will temporarily be cut.

I lied to my roommate back in Berkeley that I was going home, but realistically, I’ll be acting as a vagabond.
As I continue to write this prelude, I am faced with an emotional change and truth that I can’t avoid, my mother’s disappearance. I found out today…

My response to it is to write rather than cry and worry. At least when she returns home, I will be there by her side, the way she has always been for me.

Now, the reason behind my insomniac behavior.

It wasn’t until the end of my high school career and the beginning of my college career where I began dreaming of a dark figure hovering over me in a pitched dark room, taunting me with it’s white eyes glaring at me, then looking directly to its hand. Then, I would wake in my bed, frightened.

This dream reoccurred spontaneously through out the first year of college and I couldn’t make out the meaning behind such a dream. The more I thought about it, the more I began imagining the dark figure but my mind couldn’t recreate it. Instead, the objects surrounding the figure began to materialize into familiar objects. The room began to be lit, and soon, I knew where I was. However the figure remained dark and petrifying. There was something familiar about the figure’s outline.

There was something hidden in the back of my mind and I couldn’t reach for it. There was something that I knew I had to uncover, but knew that once I had, there was no turning back.

After a couple of months within the 2nd semester of college, the dreams began to cease and I began forgetting.

I became relieved.

Then September came about and it was the 2nd month of my 2nd year in college. My family decided to move to a new house. Within the same week, my mother confronts my dad, questioning his whereabouts and whether or not he had a mistress. All of my siblings and I have known about the mistress. I have actually witnessed the two being intimate because they did not care to be cautious. My dad left us 3 in the morning and since that moment, we were left financially strained, bringing my mother back to her initial steps on American soil; struggling to live and survive while trying to uphold her family.

Later within that week, the stress began to strain my mother and she began aging even more. I couldn’t just stand there and watch any longer. My siblings were oblivious to what reality was. I am the youngest, but never felt that way. I began to use my financial aid to help my mother pay for a few things and I began to take charge of the PG&E bill and the AT&T landline and cellular bill. I am the one to act as the man of the house without even the option of opting out. I am a role model but I don’t understand why. Yet, I was happy and relieved to see my mother more at ease, at least for the time being. I was happy because my mother was happy, although the pressure began to strain me, all that matter was that she was happy.

A few weeks later, I began having the nightmare again. The nightmare reappeared, but this time the figure emerged from the dark. It was my dad. He hovered over me, glaring with no longer as piercing white eyes, but filled entirely with red. I awoke with panic in my eyes and my body shivered with fear. I lost control that night, but I hid it from my family. I stayed up for the rest of the night just thinking until I knocked out.

The next morning I woke up, remembering fragments of the nightmare. Within those fragments I knew something would reveal the reasons behind the nightmare.

I realized something. Within the dream, I recognized the room which comprised of an antique table which held a 1990’s television and the kitchen that almost merged with the room I was in. But I still couldn’t grasp it all. What was the reoccurring dream all about? Why was it that I felt something in the back of my mind that just wanted to reveal itself, but just couldn’t?

A few weeks later, I came home from Berkeley to visit. Since I didn’t have an actual room, I slept next to my mother because she would only sleep in her room if I or if my sister would sleep next to her. The next day, I decided to go through the box that was never opened since we’ve moved. Within one of the boxes lie our photo albums. I decided to skimmed through one of them and to my surprise, I see an exact image that links the image in my nightmare with the photo from the album. Next to that photo lies an unhappy picture of my dad and I. Seeing both photos gave me an intense recollection of the past. The unhappy photo was of the day I was released from the hospital. I realized that the nightmare wasn’t just a dream, but a suppressed truth. I remembered fragments of both the dream and the fragmented memories that were hidden in the back of my mind but soon revealing itself to me.

I remembered everything.

The entire scene began reconstructing itself. The fragmented memories and fragmented nightmare began to merge, recreating my first experience of “tough-love” at the age of 4.

It was a Friday, sometime around noon after I was released from preschool. While all of my siblings were still in school and my mother had gone to visit her friends who lived on the same block, I was left in my father’s care. I sat at the edge of the hallway, between the livingroom and the kitchen. What lies in front of me were a few crayon and a book. While I colored and made childish sounds, my father was in the kitchen cooking something. I’m still unsure whether or not my father was inebriated, but he began shouting at me to stop making sounds. And of course, I cried. He began shouting even louder and I cried even louder and soon, he approached me. He stood over me with such anger within his eyes and his voice began to be of someone whom I did not recognize. The object in his hand was a steak knife, which frightened me even more than his glare. He was a stranger to me. I cried even more. He came closer to me and soon, I stopped.

BLACKOUT

I woke up Sunday evening in the hospital, a bit lost and confused and my mother by my side. She looked at me with tears and she kept saying sorry in Khmer.

The doctor came in once I awoke and asked me what had happened. I didn’t know English so I didn’t know how to respond. But again, I chose to protect my dad for my sibling’s sake. I murmured a few English words and said, “I did it”.

As soon as I did, the doctor tried to talk to my mom, but she as well could not speak English. After much difficulty, he decided to give up and I was released the same day. My dad was downstairs waiting in the waiting room. I looked at him and saw that he was my dad and that I did the right thing by protecting him.

When I got home, my siblings looked oblivious to my whereabouts. I’m not sure what my parents had told them, but they knew nothing of my whereabouts.

Since I returned home, my mother wanted to take a few family pictures to capture more “family” oriented moments. The moment I stood next to my dad, I knew I had to forget. I was unhappy, because I had nothing to be happy about.

I stood there unhappy because I gave up the truth, when I know now, I should have revealed the truth.

This nightmare continues to haunt me, taunt me, and forces me to relive the past and the regrets surrounding it.

Oh, and I think I know why these past few weeks I’ve been having this nightmare. This “incident” occurred around the same time as my birthday. A few days before my birthday, I remember now why I had the coloring book and crayons, because my teacher had given them to me as a gift. Now as my birthday approaches, the nightmare becomes intensified and I relive the past.

Now I remember why I hate my birthday so much.

I know my father never loved me. He has in several ways stated it. I’m neither worth his love nor worth his time. It wasn’t until he used me several times when I finally decided to give up on trying to be accepted and trying to earn his love.

Oddly enough, I continue to despise him but I continue to love him. Although he left us for his mistress and her ten children, I still care for him. I don’t know. I don’t have it in me to hate anyone, but a repercussion would be the unwillingness to allow any man into my heart.

Right now, I’m typing this prelude to the final chapter, facing reality for what it is. I need to realize that the past remains in the past and the future needs my full attention because that is where I am needed. I hope from writing this prelude, I will be able to feel restful and to minimize the impact of the past rather than suppressing it.

It is 5:30AM and I am entirely numb as I am sitting under a gazebo near a library. Yes, I am not home, rather wandering. I am unsure where I will be and when I will be there. I am temporarily a vagabond… waiting for the moment my mother returns home and I return back to Berkeley. For now, I will end this prelude. I hope soon, I am able to continue writing my memoir and will be able to share it with the people whom I have grown accustomed too. Thank you for taking the time to read this note.

It’s been awhile since I've last written something rhetorical about my life. I don’t know where and how to start so I will probably write about several random subjects.

I haven’t been home in two months and a few weeks. If this was last year and I was attentive of my actions, I would’ve been home every weekend because I would’ve felt obliged to see my friends and my family. Now, there’s nothing.

Nothing? I can’t go back to San Jose because a cloud of dark memories has hovered, poured, and intoxicated the city. This once beautiful city now has no light shining. I can’t go back. Not even to see my best friends.

Past memories of several incidents with my father plays in my mind and replays continuously as if it’s jammed into my pupils. I can’t even remember the happier times of living. I’ve done so many cheerful and beautiful things and yet I can’t recall what they are. It is as if those memories were completely replaced by these horrid memories.

I’ve been avoiding San Jose. But, I need to go home this Saturday and get fitted for a tux for my adopted parents’ re-wedding.

Sigh. I’m so selfish. I should be going home and see my mom and my friends who are also going through a lot.

I’m trying my best to overcome those memories by staying in Berkeley and joining several organizations. I am active in ten on-campus organizations and staff member in one of them. And I’m coordinating a mentorship with a center in Oakland for troubled youths. I thought I wouldn’t be so lost and confused at this point if I joined all these organizations. At this point, I don’t feel as complete as I thought I would’ve felt. I don’t know why I’m doing this anymore. Is it because of support? Friendship? Love?

Well, I guess I’m really doing it because I want to.

I’ll just leave it here. I’m too tired to think of anything else to say.

It has been proven several times that my life is not meant to be a happy one. My life, no matter where in time and space, has always based itself on the concept of ultimate sorrow and pain. It is as though I am not meant to be caressed by happiness nor by the gentle breeze of love and pleasure.

My life is only meant for pain and suffering.

Tonight, my sister text me saying that my aunt in Cambodia died and that my mother suffers in tears over her older sister. I called my mom right away because I am this “hope” of hers and yet I am still not able to take care of her.

Since World War II, the aftermath turmoil affected the atmosphere of Indo-China. Especially in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge implanted mines to allow civilians an easier escape with death. Even in our present, those mines still exist. Because of those mines, my aunt and her newborn child are scattered throughout the trees and walking path. My aunt whom my mother adored, is dead.

My mom doesn’t deserve this. Wasn’t it enough that my father cheated on her for four months and finally choosing that stupid whore over his five children and wife, whom he was married to for 27 years. He left us for this ugly fat whore and her TEN children. These children belonged not to one man, but to four supposedly.

My mom suffered so much in this marriage and now she finally gets the chance out of it with my help. Yet, I’m not pacing myself enough to deriving the divorce papers and restraining order or the protection of my mother’s assets.

My mother doesn’t deserve this. She’s been a beautiful mother to us all and always embraced us with her warmth and love. I learned to be compassionate and to empathize with several because of my mother. I am her child and no one else’s. My father abandoned me when I was 7 years old. My mother never did. I am at UC Berkeley because of her.

I can’t bear this right now.

This is probably the only night in several years where I’ve cried. Not only was it because of my aunt’s death but of the accumulation of my own suffering.

No one can compare to how much I’ve undergone. I’m not being shallow or even close to it. Honestly, I’ve suffered since I was 5 when my best friend’s dog tore up my nose after school. Then my depression that arose due to my father and his insensitive comments and shameful affair with whom I've met. I’ve finally escaped the clutches of my father but yet he still haunts me and my family. His bankruptcy status taunts me the most because it will hurt my mother significantly and the rest of my family.

I can’t stand everything right now. I know I’m strong. I know I’ve undergone so much in my life that I can move pass everything, walk straight on this path and the light will show me the way. But, this path curves too much under the darkness and no matter where I go, the darkness hovers over me and suppresses my heart and hides my vision. I don’t know what to do.

I’m so alone. I’m so alone in my problems that hearing people say “you are not alone” just pisses me off because they can’t understand all that I’ve gone through.
I’m hurt by so much that living hurts my heart.

Is this how it is meant to be? My heart to shatter into pieces?

I didn’t cry after the night I lost my virginity to someone who didn’t care for me nor did I cry when my father left me and my family 3 in the morning. I cried tonight because of my mother. She doesn’t deserve to suffer. She’s a wonderful mother and doesn’t need to suffer, at least not at her age. In the past two weeks, she has suffered enough because of my father’s abandonment.

My mother doesn’t deserve to feel this pain. I want to take it from her, but I know that I can’t. She won’t let me, and that is why I cried.

All that I want right now is to protect my mother and my family from suffering because I don’t want them to suffer like how I have suffered.

I don’t know what to do right now… I can’t sleep knowing what I know. All that I want to do right now is cry. Cry away all the pain I’ve been keeping in since I was young.

Yeah, I know that I can’t be happy. Its been proven.

At the moment, I am beyond my own capacity of how calm I can maintain myself. This morning, my mom discovered I was heading back to Berkeley in the morning and she began acting unusual and then a bit crazy. Supposedly, every time since the unraveling of my father’s affair, she can’t be sane without me being there. It scares me to think of what my mother would do if I weren’t there.

My mother wants to end the separation with my father. She claims that he still loves her and that the reason why he is acting like a bastard is because of us, his children. She believes we are at fault and that he never wanted to leave. She is living in this world of denial that won’t do anything except cause her to go insane. My mother thinks this way because of this granny who lives with us. She constantly intrudes into our family, acting as though she has a say in what goes on. She has repetitively stated that my father has never cheated on my mother and that she was just imagining things, even when that freaken bastard has told that granny himself that he is. She continues to tell us to forgive our father, and that our father will forgive us. WHAT THE HELL. STUPID.

Anyways, forgetting her, my mother went insane today. She blames us for the separation and wants to beg him back. The oldest sister argued against it; the one who has experienced most of the abuse because she was the first born and first born female. My mother kicked her out of the house because of the argument. Later on, my second older sister was kicked out of the house. I too, am not welcomed because she thinks I will kill that bastard by taking all of what he has.

Unreal. I will never do that. I won’t do it. Even if he has ruined my life and my family’s life, I don’t have it in me to destroy him. All I want from my father is what the law allows in California; the equal distribution of property. My mom assumes I will take him down completely. My objective is to give my mom financial support by any means necessary. I want my mom to live the rest of her life without fear of surviving. I’ve tried to explain this to her in the morning, but she wouldn’t understand. Our argument resulted in bickering and yelling. In the end, I left the house and headed for Berkeley, sad.

I don’t know why, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what’s to come because I don’t know if I can handle everything. I feel like I’m the only one who bears this. I know my siblings bear this also, but I feel more pressured because of their expectations of me.

I’m not doing so good at the moment. I haven’t slept well enough for the past few weeks and haven’t been eating as a result of this catastrophe. Honestly, I’ve lost three pounds in the past two weeks. In the past two days, I had a fever and yet I force myself to work. I’m at the point where I feel unenergetic but persistent in trying to achieve my objective. I know I said that I must sacrifice in order to achieve my goal, but I don’t want to sacrifice what is important to me. Right now, I still want a life. I still want to hang with friends and be able to live. I want to live. But, I just feel like I’m obliged to my family. I want to be happy. I just want to be happy.

Here’s an update
1. My mom and my “father” are divorcing because he cheated on my mom. He has cheated since April with a whore who was married 4 times and has 10 children. Supposedly, she is 5 months pregnant and my father is the father, but in reality, she’s totally lying because her stomach is round but appears as though she has 2 ugly stomachs that can’t stand to be next to each other.
2. My mom had her revenge when she found them at a restaurant, slow dancing and hugging intimately. My mom gathered all her strength and slapped the both of them many times while her friends encouraged her to since he had no dignity as he appeared in public with another woman.
3. Three weeks ago, I, the youngest of the family, stepped up to protect and care for my family. I am in charge of filing the dissolution of marriage forms while preparing the restraining order and alimony and at the same time, looking for a lawyer that will represent my family with caution.
4. Since the “man” of the house has abandoned my family, I have to step up and ensure the safety of all my siblings and to ensure that my mother is taking care of.
5. I haven’t been sleeping these past few weeks or at least, not so well. Each night, I am haunted by fear. I’m afraid of what will happen if I am not there to watch or ensure the safety of everyone. My mom is frightened of living a life that she was never fully exposed to because of that “man” who has shielded her from truly living. I am left to ensure that my mother has the opportunity to live a happy life, even if that man she married for 27 years has finally abandoned her.
6. Why am I the grownup? Because honestly, I am the only one in my family who has his act together. I am a UC Berkeley Undergrad while my brother and older sister weren’t able to graduate from high school. I have a job as an assistant while the oldest sister is unemployed and the other works almost at minimum wage. How does this make a difference?

My siblings have said that I was the hope for my mother. They said I give my mother hope of living and that she would definitely be fine because she believes in me. They have said this repetitively since I’ve gone home to organize part of our sustainability of finance. Because of their words, I have taken this as part of my job. I need to still be that hope for my mother. I need to ensure the safety of my mother because I don’t want her to break down because of fear. I want to make this divorce simple as possible for her, while taking care of all the complications.

Honestly, I am stressed. I am only 19 years old and I am already forced into this. I am so stressed, I barely make time to sleep, eat, and relax. I’m spending most of my time pacing myself and sorting out the divorce.

I need to rush this divorce.
My “dad” is about to file for bankruptcy and if he does, he takes my mother with him and the rest of the family. I can’t allow him to do that. He is in a humongous debt right now that will never be paid off even with the salary he makes. I need to protect whatever assets we still hold.

I plan to take my father down, but ensure that everything is sorted fairly. I want him to suffer for the pain and agony he has put me and my family through, but I don’t want him to die. I want him to live knowing that we can live without him. This is my retribution. I will play dirty, if I must. My father has already shamed and torn our family apart, there’s nothing else he could do to harm us. I want to make sure he lives to see my mother stronger and fearless because she can be. I want to help my mother be that way.

I bear this on my shoulder at the moment. I’m scared at the moment. I don’t know whether I can sustain everything and keep the peace. I’m afraid that if I can’t be the man of the family, then my family will tumble down into a deep dark pit.

I will protect my family. Even if it means, I have to sacrifice a lot in order to do it.

Before reading, here’s a few things to keep in mind.
The italic statements is my other voice. (To make it easier, I'll color code)
The rest of the essay is the part that hates me; my real self.
This is a conversation with myself and I.

Keep this in mind.
***

There’s this pain that has existed longer than it should have; my heart can’t take this dark monstrous shadow that hovers, knowing that I won’t win this battle. This pain is worst than the pain that existed beyond our present. I feel like every day living is torture and living tortures my very heart.

Is it repetitive to say I am unhappy? Why? Is it because I announce my agonizing life to the world?

They aren’t all the same.

I don’t even feel like I can face you right now but it’s the only thing that is distracting me from screaming and yelling constantly about how much I hate myself.

“I just hate myself! GODDAMN IT! I HATE MYSELF!”

You know what’s funny? I ridicule those that are fake, when in fact, I should just smack myself in the face because I’m the one who is truly fake. I walk every minute of my life with a fake smile, pretending that there’s no real problem with my life. Except for a few that have read my previous blog about the relationship with my father. But again, who doesn’t have problems with a parent or parents?

Every second a smile is forged, a part of who I want to be fades away. How? I become embedded with an identity that I don’t want to recognize; my body is basically a capsule or a doll that lives only to make people happy. Bullshit! Yeah, that’s the truth. I can’t deal with this forged smile. This smile scares me away. You scare me from really living. Why do you torture me so?

I am only you. The one that tortures you, isn’t me but yourself. What? You believe that I am the one that inflict such misery on my own life? Yes.

This pain that hovers around your heart isn’t anything but the guilt that you feel for yourself and the jealousy that exists because you let it exist. Jealousy? Ha! No. No. It’s the truth and you know it. Look through your memories. What is it that you try to be?

I tried becoming someone who isn’t me. I wanted to be smart. I wanted to have friends who were popular because I wanted to fit in. I wanted a life that was easy to live. I wanted to live with a non-existing shadow that hovers around my heart. I wanted to be happy because I know I could be… when I knew I would never be.

Why?

Because no matter what, I can’t change anything in my life. I am who I am because of all the pain I’ve endured. I know for a fact that no one else can live my life because it is meant only for me to live.

Then you can’t blame me for living such a miserable life, can’t you? You know that if you weren’t here, then so many around you wouldn’t be friends with one another, or live such a care-free life, or at most worry less, and they wouldn’t be who they are if you didn’t live the life you live.

I don’t know. I’m insane. Why am I talking to myself?

Because you know. No one else can truly understand you. The only way is to ask yourself these questions or just talk with yourself. No one else can make you understand that the things you do in life, are up to you. The choices you make are by you. Those choices can be influenced by others, but no one else can act on them except for yourself. Yes, you can hate yourself. But know that you can also love yourself.

...this is starting to become weird.

Then understand me. Understand yourself. No one else can make you walk one path; one dimension in time and place. You are but a person who lives like everyone else.

I have to remember this, huh? I have to remember that you and I are the same person; same in every way. The pain that I feel, is the pain that you see and feel. You can understand at most why I hate myself and why it’s so hard for me to have trust in myself.

Just believe. Believe in those around you at least. They are your friends because you made them your friends. Your heart couldn’t have lied to them. They all know that you have a heart filled with hope that embraces other.

I don’t know. Questioning myself and the role I play in this life makes me weary about the life I live and the life I have. What scares me the most, is if I can really live?

You’ve made it this far. Keep going. Just believe, like always.

Okay then. I will have to make my smile worth appearing. I’ll just have to continue living and making the most with my life. I guess only time will tell if I can truly be happy.

(It’s kind of weird. When I first started this blog, I was extremely angry. Angry at myself, angry with my life, angry with everything. When I started including my other voice into this blog, I felt even angrier because I knew I was going to have an argument with myself. But as the argument kept going, the anger began fading away. It felt nice, in a way, having this argument about myself, with myself. I felt that the only person who could have a say in how I should feel and act was the only person that I felt was torturing my life who ironically was myself. If you did your own analysis, you could see that the two voices started uneven. I had my angry self talk more at the beginning and then less when I got to my climax. My other voice initially started slow because I needed time to release my anger. My emotions became gradually clearer as the blog goes on. At first, I wanted my blog to start out the way a normal blog would start, but it changed as I realized how I want my emotions to be portrayed and conveyed.

P.s. I wrote this on the Amtrak while heading home because of an emergency.)

Here’s an overdue update of my life.

My 4th of July weekend happens to be the worst of all times. Besides it being my mother’s birthday and my appearance being unknown to her, this weekend happened to unveil so many hidden truths.

Connie has been going through a lot recently and so is Cam. Our lives seem to be overwhelmed with so many problems that it makes it very difficult for each other to really focus and help at least one of us. But here’s the thing; when a person’s problem seems to be too overwhelming, we are able to forget our own problem for that moment and work on that person’s problem.

I don’t want to mention specifically what problems Connie and Cam are going through, but just note that their problems are somewhat on the same level as my present issues.

Here’s where I make my present known and my future weary. What I say about my life becomes public and I will not be able to take back what I say. This is what I like about writing. Once the words are written down, the statement you make is made and there’s no turning back. Only the words can be re-written or restated differently.

On Sunday, July 6th, 2008. 10AM.
I was in the living room watching something on my laptop with my noise-cancelling headphone inserted into my ears. When all of a sudden, my sister pulls the blanket I was wrapped in and tells me something is wrong. I hear the banging on the walls and the crying of a woman. I rushed to my parents’ room and pushed the door opened without hesitating. I find my mother on the floor, crying her heart out. I ran to my mother and I looked at my father with building anger, anger once suppressed and once forgotten. I asked my mother what was wrong. All that she would tell me was that it was nothing and she began folding some clothes that were right next to her. I couldn’t believe it. I asked her again and all she did was handed me money and told me to go back to Berkeley and study. I made the assumption that the fight was about money. No, it was not only that.

I pulled my mother and rushed her outside into the living room and questioned her again. Before she exited the room, the last thing she said to my father was that she was going to crash into a building when she heads to work. Once outside, she told me again to go back to Berkeley and not to worry and continued on crying. I grabbed ahold of her again and I hugged her and asked her in a stern and yet terrified tone, “What happened? What did he do?” She wouldn’t answer. I knew, there was something my mother had questioned my father about, that we, the children of this wailing mother, knew.

After hugging and holding on to her, she left for work, speeding. My siblings and I stood outside watching her speed, while turning, afraid of what was to happen. My siblings and I knew that my mother questioned my father about the mistress. My siblings and I always suspected that there was a mistress in my father’s life, but we ignored it, knowing that my mother would be the one getting hurt.

There have been many mistresses, but only two that I have encountered. Once when I was around the age of eleven, my father took me across town to a beauty salon in order to get my hair trimmed specifically by some woman. I remember vividly of that moment, her long thin black hair that hung straight, matching the long legs that she walked on. Her face conveyed some innocence, while complimenting her Vietnamese features. She was a woman that was a part of his culture; his Vietnamese side. Her features allowed her to flirt so easily with my father and my father, so weak that made him seem too much like a whore. I may have been young, but I knew that this was wrong.

After his “happy hour” moment, we headed home. The first thing that I did was questioned my father of his flirtatious attitude with a woman that was not my mother. He avoided the subject and said I was too young to understand and that I was imaging things. He even came to the conclusion that I may be retarded. How do I remember this so vividly? That same day, I became so indulged in grief that I began to cut my own wrist with a kitchen knife. Three slits and I was done. Cutting my wrist did nothing but help hide the pain that I was feeling in my heart. I was in so much agony but I knew that this pain would only hurt my family.

The next day, it was my teacher’s birthday. I formed a committee with a group of my other friends and planned a surprise party, with the help of one of the teachers. Everything went as planned for the surprise party and my teacher thought it was wonderful. When she approached me to thank me with a hug, she caught a glimpse of the cut on my wrist. She pulled my sleeve all the way and saw that there were three slits. Calmly, she told the entire class to go out and have free PE, while she had another teacher supervise.

She and I were now alone. She walks over to the phone and makes a phone call that I knew was the office. After, she calmly questions me and asks me whether or not I accidently cut myself with scissors, although I knew otherwise how she felt. They were perfectly aligned, one after the other, parallel. I lied, giving her the answer that went with the question. Then, she asks me to walk with her to the backroom of the library, connected to the main office. I am approached by a psychiatrist. He was a funny looking man that wore rounded eyeglasses, in a nice brown striped suit. Again, I am questioned. He asks whether I’ve been experiencing any type of issues at home. I lie, saying that everything was okay with my parents and with my family. I reply again by saying that I was sad and lonely because I’m not smart like the other children.

After four hours of therapy, my parents are called in to pick me up and to be questioned. My mother, so pathetic, thought it was her fault, while my dad supported that idea. After that incident, I was left with the option of therapy while my mother blamed herself and my father kept his affair hidden. What was I to do? Tell my mother that my father was having an affair and that was why I cut myself? I just couldn’t. If she were to know of my father’s affair, she would be left in a shock. My depression, my attempt to commit suicide, his affair, and the various other issues that were present would have made my mother attempt suicide also.

How do I know that my mother would? It was foreseen that later on my mother would attempt to. With my own problems with depression, my mother was left worried and scared for my sake.

A few days after my incident, my mother received a phone call from someone she did not know. It was my father’s mistress. She called to ask for him. It wasn’t the first time we’ve received a phone call from this woman, but it was the first time my mother suspected something.

One day, my mother had the courage to question my father. My father told her the truth that he was cheating on her with this Vietnamese woman who was more attractive. My mother, so pathetic, cried, asking him to forgive her for not being the perfect wife. My father became very angry because of her wailing and he left.

That night, my mother went out to the backyard and sat on the swing, rocking back and forth, mesmerized in solitude. My siblings and I were in the kitchen, watching the knives and tools that she may necessitate. We waited for my mother. Then, we knew something was wrong after awhile. My mother snuck outside Tylenol and aspirin. She began overdosing on both.

She tried to escape. She wanted to run, leaving her children with this man who cared only for himself.

We pulled my mother off the swing and rushed her to the toilet. We massaged and patted her back, while forcing her to drink water. She threw up most of what we assumed she swallowed. My mother cried all night. We cried too. We cried not because of our father or because my mother tried to commit suicide, but because we lost our family that night. Nothing was ever the same since.

In a week, my father came back. My mother accepted him easily. We were once a family, but never truly a family.

That was the past that remains vividly till today. My insensitive father sparked my depression and my family today still remains the same as it did in the past.

Going back to the 4th of July weekend, my friends and I needed to get back to Berkeley. I had already asked my father to drive us back the day before because we needed to bring a few supplies. I was still overwhelmed with anger with my father, but I needed transportation. Not only that, I wanted to test out my hypothesis.

Once before, my father drove me back to Berkeley because I wanted to bring a television set and other necessities. When I loaded everything in the car, I went and sat in the front seat, as usual. Then all of a sudden, my father tells me to move to the back seat because his friend is coming along. Naively, I assumed this friend of his was going to go visit my uncle and aunt in Oakland. She acted nice and spoke nice. She was very interested in my life and in what I was studying. She also wanted me to speak Khmer to her to make it easier for her to understand, but I told her that I don’t know how. I was too lazy to even bother trying to speak to her in Khmer.

When we arrived to Berkeley and to my place, my father and I and my roommate unloaded everything while this woman remains nosey of my life. She was of no help. Useless. When my roommate first took a glance at her, the first thing I said was, “She’s not my mother”.

After unloading and watching that dang woman being nosey, my father wanted to go eat at a Chinese restaurant. I was really hungry so I said sure. We went to the Mandarin House on Shattuck Avenue. After ordering and receiving our meals, I notice how close my father is sitting next to this woman. Then, I knew. Again. My father, a whore, once again. I couldn’t believe he would do this to me again. I couldn’t believe it. Wanting to remain naïve, I rushed through lunch and told them that I had a meeting to attend at 4 o’clock.

I never mentioned this to my siblings till the incident with my mother. I thought my assumption was wrong, but now I know that I was right.

What was my hypothesis? I knew that my father was going to pick up this woman once again and take her with us to Berkeley. This time, I had friends going back to Berkeley with me. My roommate and my other friends are fluent in Khmer and so they could understand the words that I don’t understand myself. During the car ride, my roommate was able to catch the woman say something on the lines of, “[my mother] doesn’t know how to keep her man happy”. My father agrees and goes along with whatever she says. My friends thought she was very annoying; a high maintenance woman.

My father decided to make an unsuspected stop to my uncle and aunt in Oakland. I couldn’t believe he brought my friends and I here with this woman.

When we entered the house, my aunt jokingly stated that my friends were this woman’s children. My friends were very offended because they looked nothing like this woman. My friends are technically Chinese, but were born and raised in Cambodia. This lady had no right to accept such compliments about her because they weren’t close to even being true.

When we were in the car, she acted proud and mighty and told my father how she received a compliment for having two beautiful daughters. My roommate was sick to her stomach.

When we began our trip back to Berkeley, my father decided to make a stop at a Cambodian store because this woman wanted to buy snacks. She was already short and beyond plump, but she wanted some snacks. In the store, I saw my dad and this woman flirt with one another and it felt like a dagger in my heart because all I could really think about was my mother and the pain she want through in the morning. I became enraged. I had the perfect shot to throw a can fruit at her and a jar at my father, but my friends stopped me. I even had a knife in my hand, but my friends told me to put it down. I almost lost it. I was overwhelmed with pain. Pain for my mother, my siblings, and for myself. I just began to hate my life once again.

When we arrived to my place finally, I left without saying a word of gratitude and I went inside. If I were to say something, I would tell my father once again how much I hated him.

Throughout my life, my father has been a non-supportive role model.

My father always thought he was right in any argument. Because he was the man of the family and the breadmaker, he has the right to say anything and what he says, goes.

When I was first applying to college, my father was against me going. He said he didn’t have the money to pay for college, even though he knew that I would be the one taking out the loans. When I wanted to go to Stanford because of their low-income program where they would pay for all four years, he refused to pay for my application fee. When I decided to apply to San Jose State because I wanted to attend there to save money, he told me again, no.

My father never supports me when it comes to me living my own life.
In my last year of high school, I directed two-one act plays in the fall and a full-length play in the spring, and yet he never showed up.
I was part of the We The People competition and helped make it to States Final and yet, nothing.
I was a part of our community, San Jose, and yet nothing to be proud of.

My father to me is just another person; a stranger that walks pass me, never taking a glance at who I am or who I could be.

I am nothing in his eyes. I feel like nothing because of him.

But in reality, I see nothing worth looking at when he walks pass me. I guess I inherited that part from him.

As of today, I disown my father's surname and accept my mother's mother's surname.

This is my mini story and my mini update.