Stop saying sorry + more regrets

Every time someone says, "I'm sorry for your loss" I want to get so mad. All the sorries in the world will never bring her back. 

I'm emotionally exhausted. 

I want to skip to the "getting better" phase. But the getting better phase is only after I've been hurt so badly.

I can't imagine what you went through, Nat. 

You'll always be Nat the Cat to me. Nat who loved tea and cats. Who loved board games and strategy games. Who loved building worlds and playing City Skylines. Who was as gay as can be and proud of her gayness. Who loved memes and games and visual graphic novels (especially if there were lesbian things happening). 

...

I don't know anymore. Every day I message you. I know I'll never get  response back, and I know one day I'll stop messaging you. I wish I had Skyped or Google+'d you more, or played more games with you. 

I love you. I'll always give you validation, because to me, you are valid.

Dear Natalie,

I know you'll never read this. Maybe one day, I'll print it out and burn it, and maybe you'll be able to read it. But for now, I guess this will suffice.

I'm sad.
I'm angry.
I love you.
I miss you.

I wish I could tell you that I love you, and I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me, one last time. But I'll never be able to tell you that. I'll never see your reaction to anything, and the only thing I have left of you is all the physical memories you gave me. The shirt you got me when you went to the UK, the journal we used to pass back and forth in class, the note you left me on Christmas.

I have all these things, but these still aren't enough to hold the memory of you.

I knew you were truly gone when I saw you in my dream. I knew you were there to say goodbye to me. I wish I could've told you then that I love you and that I didn't want you to go. I wish I had said something to you then. I was too late. When I saw you in my dreams, it was already too late.

All of the what ifs, and all of the things I'll never get to tell you will haunt me. When I found out you passed, I cried. I cried the hardest I have ever cried in my life. A large part of me doesn't want to believe you're truly gone, and for a solid day I was hoping that everything was huge misunderstanding, and that you'll be back. I read the news reports and everything, but I still didn't want to believe. I'm trying to accept that you're gone now, but it's too hard for me to accept it.

I wish I told you more about me. When you would ask us in group chats how we were, I wish I actually told you. I wish I didn't hide things from you. We'll never go dress shopping in Seattle, and I'll never get to visit you or your cats in Sammamish.

I'll never get to see you alive again.

I hope you're okay wherever you are.

I'm fucking sad that you're gone. I have so many regrets, and so many things I wish I told you. I'll never get your reaction to these things, since you're gone now.

I love you, Natalie. I hope you're in a better place now.

Sleep

I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I have not slept peacefully through a night since last week Monday. So much going on, and nothing I can do about it.

Let’s see here. 

Monday: surgery

Tuesday: restless sleep/stayed over but couldn’t sleep due to sleep screaming/unfamiliar environment

Wednesday: finally went home to sleep in my own bed, but stayed up late. Also I was running on a total of maybe 9 hrs of sleep the past few days

Thursday: exhausted. Took a nap + stayed up hella late playing games

Friday: stayed out. Had a dream about either someone dying or an active shooter (common dreams tbh)

Saturday: woke up early. Went out. Was exhausted

Sunday: was out all day, didn’t really eat. Came home, slept at 8:30pm woke up at 9:30 to brush my teeth, back to sleep and woke back up at 11:59pm. I’ve been awake since, and it’s almost 4am.

Also I just feel sad. Especially late at night, a ton of repressed things tend to come back up. It’s the BEST thing EVER.

What is sleeping through the night anyways?

Well.
Another rambling post about things that I feel are a problem.

This has been an emotionally tedious week, and it's only Tuesday. You know it's bad when I don't think I have the strength to get up and out of bed. There was a mass shooting in Vegas. About 60 people (maybe more) have already died. Some of the people that passed, my friends/family knew. Lots of death.

It's such a senseless thing to happen. And the worst part is, no one can make any sense of it at all.

I know I'm not handling things well, or at my peak right now. I know I have so much to change and do. I still have plenty of self doubts about everything. I question  my apperance, about the way I act, about how people percieve me. What do they see physically? No one would ever tell me that I was a pretty girl. They'd tell me as an after thought or after getting to know me. It's happened many times before.

On slightly brighter tones, I feel like I'm getting a little more accepted with the boys, Alan, Francisco, and Doug. I don't feel like they dislike me anymore. Maybe it's because I've been talking to them one on one lately. They're very sweet.

But again, on another hand, AS does not recognize me as president. Imagine doing/putting in work and not being recognized for it. Sucks man. Really does. Luckily though, the nice dude told us that they were revamping the system, so maybe I'll be a recognized president. Maybe. I'm not sure.

I stopped working at St. James. I honestly think working there was a tedious experience all around. It was...there are no words to describe it, really.

I feel bad. I'm probably being a super down/negative person, and I need to stop. I need to remind myself that things aren't bad. We can always adjust and change things if necessary. I should really just stop saying anything. Maybe if I'm more positive dudes will like me!/s.

It's almost 1am. I am exhausted and I'm going to bed.

(Late) brief happenings of my month abroad

So, I read this article. The article will become relevant towards the end.

It actually brought back memories of what happened to me. It's insane that I forgot about it temporarily.

This past summer (2016), I traveled from the SFO airport to HKG to SGN. I spent two weeks in Vietnam doing a medical mission. After the medical mission, I met up with my family in Hong Kong. We stayed there for a few days, before flying to Japan. We spent 3 days in Japan, and another 2 days in Hong Kong. We all flew back to SFO together.

Backtracking a little, but flying into HKG was a little stressful. It's my first time flying by myself, and I had to navigate around a foreign airport to go to another foreign country that I've never been to. At least I remembered HKG (went in 2009) a little bit, so it wasn't too terrible. I don't need to go through customs or anything since I'm not staying in HK. Get to my terminal for my transfer to SGN. Met up with one of the members from the medical mission, and we find out that we've both been on the same flight.

We arrive at SGN, so I'm a little nervous because, again, foreign country and we had gotten an email earlier stating that if we do not get to the meeting point on time, our group will leave us. I obviously did not want to be stuck by myself at the airport, so I wanted to quickly rush through customs and meet everyone else. My newfound friend goes before me in customs. The dude is just looking at her and just starts to drill the hell out of her. Questions like, "why are you here? What are you here to do? What are you carrying? Who gave you authorization to be here?" Scary stuff like that. She told me about it after the fact, because I got lucky. The dude just looks at my visa and at my passport, sees everything is in order, stamps it, and I'm on my way. My poor friend also got screwed over while we were leaving baggage claim. Apparently she didn't arrange the gift boxes well enough. We were told to put x amount of things in one area, and put y amount of things in another area, and put z amount of things with x. Pretty much mix your things, so it looks like you're just bringing gifts over for family or something. My friend accidentally put too many pairs of reading glasses in one box, so while going through the x-ray, she was stopped. Luckily, another volunteer saw what happened and rushed over to negotiate. We ended up losing 10 pairs of reading glasses to the agent. It probably ended up being sold off somewhere on a black market.

I did the medical mission; I witnessed a lot of things. Like the poor child that came in through the ER that was missing his right arm. I really hope he's okay. Then there was the child covered in jellyfish stings when we went on our little "field trip". I learned a lot about the government, I learned a lot about how things were run, and how corrupt everything was still. There was the story about the monastery getting shut down because the monks gave away some of their orphaned children to foreigners. It wasn't all bad either. I am really impressed with the work I did. It was very minimal work, but I really learned a lot. I did vitals (checked HR, BP, RR, pulse, kid's temperature). I learned how to get hemoglobin and blood glucose levels. I mostly enjoyed working as crowd control. I enjoyed working in Pediatrics as well. I also enjoyed shadowing various doctors as well. I learned so much through shadowing them, like what it sounds like to have really bad asthma/smoker (like a sail flapping in the wind). I also volunteered with passing out reading glasses, and working visual acuity as well. Dental cleaning was a little boring in my opinion. I really enjoyed working with them all.

Fast forwarding towards the end of everything, I'm finally going to HKG to see my family I haven't seen in two weeks. I'm so excited to go to HK and to Japan. Customs gave me no trouble on my way out (I was worried, because there was an incident to one of the other campers that left early). Got to HK, met up with my family, then jetted off to Japan. No problems there, minus the fact that dad was sick so he was a little grumpy. I had a great time. I would most definitely go again. Then back to HK before heading home.

Now, keep in mind that I've been going in and out of multiple airports within the month I was gone. I went from SFO, to HKG, to SGN, to HKG (again), to NRT, back to HKG, and finally back home to SFO. That's a lot of airports in a month, and I was just so relieved to finally be home after a month of being abroad.

We finally land in SFO. I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HOME. I couldn't wait to eat a burger, or to eat Chipotle. I just wanted to sleep forever. I wanted to see my friends, I wanted to be able to drive my car, I wanted to do so much. I just had to get past customs, grab my bag, then freaking get home. So I'm standing in line behind my dad at customs. I'm practically itching to get back outside. My brother and mom are in a different line. Dad goes to get checked out by customs, everything was fine, then he walks on towards freedom, aka, baggage claim. I walk up to the agent, and he asks to see my papers and everything. Of course he can see my passport and stuff. He starts asking me questions in a slightly rude way.
"Where are you coming from?" "I just came back from a two week medical mission in Vietnam, went to Hong Kong, went to Japan, then back to Hong Kong." (I either said that, or I just said HK. Can't remember)
"Where did you stay?" In Hong Kong? Which time? I stayed at the xxxxxxxxxxx on the Kowloon side the first time then xxxxxxxxxx the next time"
"Why were you there?" "In Japan or HK or Vietnam? Uhh...medical mission in Vietnam, and for pleasure in Japan and HK?" (Also can't really remember what I said. Might've just said for pleasure)
"What were you doing?" "Uhh...exploring? Meeting up with family. There to travel/for pleasure?"
"What is your occupation?" "I'm a student"

While he's drilling me with questions, I watch as mom goes through on her side, then my brother goes through as well. I start to freak out like oh my God, am I going to be detained? What if something went wrong? What if they really keep me here for some unknown reason?

"If you're a student, who paid for your trip?" [I seriously thought these questions were getting a little invasive] "My parents did, and they're walking away right now, and don't want to lose them."

He finally gave me my stuff back, and I literally ran to catch up with them.

Going back to the original article, I can see how and why this would worry passengers. This happened to me before the election, and before everything else. I was so freaking worried when the TSA agent started asking me these questions. I really thought I did something wrong. The fact that there were ICE agents at the airport and checking domestic flights is pretty frightening. If you are anything like me, this brief little "brush with the law" was understandably terrifying. Can you imagine if you were an immigrant and people did this same thing to you? I was born and raised here in California. My parents are first generation and like, fourth generation here in America. If this frightens me, an actual citizen, can you imagine what immigrants feel? I'm talking about illegal immigrants, and legal immigrants who have a green card or a valid visa. When they start inspecting and judging based off of race/ethnicity/COLOR, you know there's a problem. I fear and I worry for everyone. If you are traveling, be safe.

The Final Speech

If I were you, I would give this song a good listen.

With all that's going on in the world right now, this is very relevant. I keep listening to it over and over again. It's strong, poignant. There's something that's also a little heart breaking about it, but really. It's a great song.

Hope

Here's the 5-page hand written entry I discussed in the last blog post. I've used pseudo names to hide the identity of people, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly easy to figure out who is who. I've also made some snarky comments/edits to myself while typing this up. Those snarky comments/edits are in brackets [ ].

"December 9th, 2014

     I'm going through some really tough times. It's finals season. They start this Friday. I'm pretty worried about these finals, especially the Humanities one. I go to all (or, well, most) of my Humanities lectures and seminars, but I feel like I've learned absolutely nothing.
     There's been a lot going on in my life. The whole Travis and Ally stuff is still going on. I don't like coming home to that. They don't do PDA or anything, but it's just that she shows Travis no affection, and in turn, that makes Travis more needy and clingy. And when I come home, all he does is insist affection from me when I come home [whoops, that's redundant]. It's driving me nuts. It's also driving my parents nuts as well because she doesn't leave. And Travis doesn't go out either. So my poor parents are stuck with them. My dad said it's like having another daughter, but the only difference is that she doesn't talk. Travis mostly just pesters me and always asks me to play Borderlands with him. When I don't want to play with him, he gets super butthurt. All he does is complain about Caroline and Brad. I think he's jealous to be honest. It's just frustrating being home.
     And then there's the apartment problem. Samantha and Chris PDA and spoon everywhere. Honestly, I'm okay with it, although it's a little awkward when I walk in and they're spooning everywhere. That and Beatrice [is] like perpetually angry because of Chris and Samantha. There's a story behind that, but I shall omit it in case this falls into the wrong hands [like who, Voldemort?]. There's too much drama going on, and I honestly don't know what to do about any of it. I really want to dissolve the tension in the house (tension towards Samantha/Chris and towards Sally as well when she does something dumb). I don't know what to do at all, [I am ridiculously repetitive] and it's incredibly stressful. Like what one of my friends told me, "wow you have no 'safe' place to go to in times of stress because both of your 'homes' give you stress." It's true. I don't have a safe place. [Safe places totally mean something else now.]
     Another thing, I'm mediator between a while bunch of people. Normally I don't mind, but I'm not about to talk to Kiki for Fred. What are we, 3 years old? Fred's going to be twenty-fucking-one in a month, and he still wants me to mediate between him and his girlfriend? No, I'm not about to do that. I'm sick of his cycles, his depressions when he and Kiki get into fights. I'm sick of always having to be the "good friend" and pick up Fred's pieces when Kiki even told me when they first started dating, "if we break up, I think I'll be okay. I'll be sad for a little bit, but I'll be okay." [Good God, run on sentence to the max. It doesn't even make sense.] What about Fred though? You know how he is when he gets his heart broken. You're just going to leave me to pick up the pieces? "Oh, well, it's not my problem." Do you see how selfish that is? Leaving another person [me, essentially] to make sure that Fred doesn't do something stupid like kill himself? You've just left me a huge responsibility. I can barely make it through my day with my head straight. And the fact I have to literally baby Fred while he's depressed and you're being selfish [what I meant was that I had to make sure Fred didn't kill himself while Kiki went and enjoyed herself doing whatever]. I am not part of your relationship. I've said this before, but Kiki knew what she was getting herself into when she decided to get with Fred. I'm tired of it all. Please mature.
     I'm in a place right now when I have little or no self confidence. I'm honestly very frustrated with a lot of things and people. I'm frustrated that people, (this is very illogical of me because no one can read my mind) aren't asking me how I'm doing or feeling. It's just really illogical of me. I know. My self esteem has been shot because I feel absolutely nothing but dislike towards myself. And the stuff I dislike about myself is something I can't change in a day. My physical features. See, I know I have a fantastic personality [wow, way to be conceited]. Ever wondered why I have an awesome, generous personality? It's to compensate for my face and lack of confidence [to be honest, this is not true, now that I think about it. I think it's more of the fact I don't want people to feel the same way I do/did]. Yeah, I do have a ton of self confidence issues as well. I have this record. Every guy I've ever liked has liked one of my friends, and not me. I've broken my heart so many times just to make other people happy. I'm selfless because I don't see what else I'm good at. My grades are probably all just flukes, they weren't supposed to happen. They were all just accidents. I don't have a best friend who's my age, I'm pretty much alone and unhappy. I give so selflessly that it's actually wearing on me. What else can I give away so there['s] nothing left? I have given everything to everyone, and all I have is just a body of my own. Maybe I can't get a guy because of my inability to just be friendzoned all the time. The closest thing I had to a boyfriend was YWHJ, but we all know how that turned out based off of where I am now. I'm no longer tired. I feel no exhaustion. I'm just going to stay outside in the cold tonight because, outside, is my way out. The clean, cold fresh air is my escape. I don't care if it's going to be raining and pouring. I honestly don't care anymore. I don't care if I'm sick, I don't care if I quit my job, I can't deal with any of this, with any of my stresses. I guess I am an escapist. I want to run, to go away, to leave, [to] escape from my problems.
     I'm fighting this losing, emotionally draining psychological battle. It's getting harder to continue in this way. I need a change in my life. I don't really want people to know that this is happening to me. I don't want people to know that I'm falling apart on the inside, so I hide everything away. It's easier for me to do, to push aside how I feel or what's troubling me and focus on the issue at hand. I refuse to look up. I don't have the strength to.
     I'm falling apart physically as well. You could tell that I'm feeling some aggression based off of how hard I'm pressing down on my paper. I have a ton of feelings and emotions, but I can't let them all spill out. I don't want people to see me in this way. I feel grief and loss, maybe because I'm directionless. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing with my life. I feel as if everyone is progressing and I am stagnant. There are times where I wish I weren't alive because I can't deal with the pressures and expectations I put on myself.
     The pain I feel in my right wrist is starting to feel a little unbearable. I will power through this though. It's not the pain is making me want to stop, but I'm running out of things to say. I'm so lost, I'm not sure if anyone can relate to this. Then again, it is impossible for anyone to know how I feel if I plan to burn this.
     No one needs to know any of this. No one needs to know how weak I am, how badly I want to fit in. No one needs to see how much pain I feel as of now. I don't want people to see me like this.
     I'm in class, Advanced Humanities Honors Seminar. Next semester will be difficult. I'm not sure if I can go through with this, but I have to. I'm doing it for myself, but I'm thinking this isn't worth it anymore. This class I mean. I'm not sure if it is worth it.
     I'm feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, a little like the Phantom of the Opera. So unbearably ugly I would have to hide away from society, from everyone. My entire self. I honestly thought I had gotten rid of this feeling, this jealousy I feel. It's like a little worm that's coming back to me after months and years of being away. I get flashes of it. It comes back.
     I believe overall, although this was rather a negative post, I think, no, I know I'll be okay. I'll make it through winter break. That's all I can look forward to. I'll try to take one step at a time, and ask for help when I need it. I don't know what else I can do, though. I will need to try to keep face. This won't be easy, but I have to try."


I do want to say something before I finish for tonight, but wow. Some of this stuff still resonates with me, and I do have my bad days. I just need to keep pushing through those bad days and realize that it's only temporary. Keep hoping for a brighter day (shoutout to Terry. I love you).

Tessellate/Ramblings

It's been a while. Hello friends.

Again, I just need a place to vent. I feel too burdensome unloading all these feelings onto my friends, so this is a decent outlet.

There's a line from this song that I really like. "Triangles are my favorite shapes/Three points where two lines meet". It makes me think that maybe we will cross paths again. Two lines, one point in time. Thinking about it, triangles are fascinating. There's so many potential meanings to them, such as, love triangles, play buttons, arrows. I'm not wholly sure what I'm on about, but whatever. I did have a point, but I'm not in the mood to elaborate on it.

I guess what's really bothering me tonight is just the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, figure myself out. I don't even know what I want out of life anymore. I was reading an old journal/diary page out loud to my roommate the other night. I forgot I wrote it, and found it while I was cleaning up. It really gave me a lot of insight about myself and how I was two or three years ago. I hand wrote five pages of frustration in my Humanities class. I remember being frustrated and writing it, too. I have a bit of time, so I'll probably type all of it up and post it in the next post. One thing that really struck me about my rant was probably the fact that I was hopeful. I knew that whatever I was feeling wouldn't last, and that's really characteristic of me, in some way. As I was reading it out loud to my roommate, I paused and realized that that was what set me apart in a way. I've always been hopeful, and I have always known that feelings are temporal. I knew I wasn't going to live my life in a perpetual state of frustration and angst.

In some strange way, re-reading what I wrote really just stuck with me. I have never remembered being optimistic when I was having one of those moody days. The fact that I actually included being hopeful was just, ugh. Different. I plan on ending everything on a positive note now, like make a conscious effort to do so.

When I started writing this blog post, I had no direction. Just realizing some small thing about me gave me new direction. It's actually made me feel better. I started off this as a meandering rant because I felt bad about myself (physically, emotionally, you get the picture). I was feeling pretty down, pretty low, until I remembered the entry I wrote. This is something I like about myself, and now I can pick myself back up. I can do this, I can find my purpose. Just need to get through these times, and I'll be fine.