Be Whole

Normally, I fly.
In flying there are separate sections, there is sadness at leaving, peace in the midst of an airport, and joy at arrival. While all these things mix interchangeably, flying over the land there is a separation from the leaving and the coming, from the sadness and the joy.

This time, I drove.
In driving there was loss each second as I watched the landscape fade away into unfamiliar, re-familiar, darkness, and light. Every minute was filled with a goodbye: goodbye Riverside, goodbye California, goodbye heat, goodbye western mountains, goodbye, goodbye. And every minute was filled with hellos: hello snow, hello family, hello old friends, hello flat flat Midwest fields, hello, hello.

Everything was felt more deeply as we drove. Anticipation mounting over the 33 driving hours, sadness declining over each new state. And while the pain was greater, the joy was greater too. As if the two had made a bargain to replace each other with the same amount the other had left. Like the sun rise after a night with only a sliver of the moon, like the sudden downpour of rain after months of drought, like the height of a mountain after the depths of the valley. This is beauty, this is tranquility, this is the juxtaposition of life's ups and downs knocking all at once.

And as we drove I heard my tires say, "be whole, be whole, be whole" with each rotation. "Be whole" in the sadness, "be whole" in the joy. "Be whole" in the loss and in the gain. "Be whole" in the memories of the past and the hopes for the future.

"Be whole, be whole, be whole."

Five Pounds

“I want to lose five pounds” I tell my husband and he shakes his head.

He shakes it because he knows that I really mean I want to be skinny. And five pounds this month, does nothing to change the five pounds more that I will want to lose after, and the five after that.

There is no contentment to this cycle. There is always more to be fixed.

He knows this because he knew me when my cheeks sunk in, and I could buy small sizes even in Taiwan, and I had size zero jeans. He knows that even then, I wanted to lose those five more pounds. Always five more pounds.

What he doesn't know is that I still have those size zero jeans, hidden in the back of our closet for the day that I will be able to wear them again.

“You know I think you’re beautiful just the way you are?” he whispers to me and I look away.

I look away because he has to say these things to me. Because we are married and what else could he say, he knows better than to tell me he wishes I looked like someone else.

My soul has always swum with discontentment, and the more I think, the bigger it gets. This perfection is impossible to attain.

He knows better than to say that he wishes there was a gap in between my thighs, and that I never had rolls when I sat down, and that my neck was longer. If he said these things that I’m sure he is thinking, he knows my heart would break. He wants me to lose those five more pounds.

What I don’t know is that he threw the jeans out, because he doesn't want to see me try to be that small ever again.

Why I Must Leave You

Leaving is the better choice.

A plane ride, a car trip
A new adventure

Staying is silence.
Empty places, empty moments
Empty memories

When I go, I'll shed some tears.
I'll miss the adventures,
I'll miss your laugh.
But I'll be gone.

I won't have to see the places
Where we ate together
And talked together
And lived together.

I won't have to remember everyday
What it feels like
With this space filled
By your presence.

Instead,
I will go forward.
To a new place,
Building a new life.

And I will fill the empty
This is why you can't leave me.
This is why I must leave you.

Scared Sixth-Grader

Inside me lives a scared sixth grader.Once upon a time in sixth grade a girl named Sabrina had to leave in the middle of the year. This was not uncommon, in first grade our teacher unexpectedly left in the middle of the year and in every year someone left and someone new came. Our classes were small and I knew Sabrina pretty well; she was amazingly nice and soft spoken and seemed more mature than the rest of us. Even though I knew her, we weren't best friends, and we never saw each other outside of school.
But when she announced she was leaving, I unraveled.
Not just normal tears, but a continual aching sob. It was the middle of a school day and I was back in the bathroom at the end of our class sobbing. I couldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. I was hyperventilating, over heating, having a full meltdown. I was crying so much that my teacher, who was sweet and calm and put up with a lot of crazy things from a bunch of multicultural sixth graders, came back and told me I had to shut up and get it together.

The closest I had come to being that sad was when I left America to go back home to Taiwan after a year of fourth grade in the states. A classmate showed up at my house, once again a girl who was nice, but I wasn't that close with, with a little glass dog to give me as a parting gift. I still have the dog. And we cried on the front lawn while our mothers waited. But even that time, it wasn't that bad, I eventually stopped crying.

In sixth grade I couldn't stop. All the grief of years past, filled with the knowledge that it wasn't going end just overwhelmed me.

I had never cried that hard before, and I never have again, but every time someone leaves that scared sixth grader begins to creep up. When I stand in an airport with all that I own in suitcases, that little girl lurches inside. Because inside is all that grief, all that loss, that I thought was normal, that I thought all people constantly dealt with, piled up inside me. And when the loss of a best friend in third grade fades away, the loss of a best friend in seventh grade happens, and when that begins to fade, the loss of my school, my home, my culture, my security happens. And once again, the grief remains inside of a shaking sixth grader hiding in the bathroom.

"You know it starts here, outside waiting in the cold

Kiss me once in the snow, I swear it never gets old

But I will promise you I can make it warmer next year

You know I came here when I needed your soft voice

I needed to hear something that sounded like an answer

Now I stay here, and everyday I get one

It's nothing I'll forget when the moon gets tired

You are stuck to me everyday

Believe in what I am because it's all I have today

And tomorrow who knows where we'll be

From here I can hardly see a thing 

But I will follow anyone who brings me to you

For now, forever, for on and on and on"

When I was young I had the simple naivety of not knowing that I was a  bad writer. I knew some parts were bad, and that all of it could use improvement. But now I am so very aware. Everything has weight, every word has too much value. And so writing has become a burden, no longer a freedom.

Homesickness

“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I'm always missing someone or someplace or something, I'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.”-Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

As I drove over the mountains I became filled with a deep, overwhelming desire for a place I know does not exist. It hit me so hard that I struggled to breathe and tears began to fill my eyes. I down shifted into third to get enough power to make it up this hideously long hill and I told myself to calm down. Inhale, Exhale, Inhale again. My heart was growing even more heavy, drenched in salt water like a dripping sponge. As I reached the top of the hill the sun broke through the sea of clouds and my heart wrung itself out just enough. The sun burned through my window and began to dry my drowning heart. I was not home. I may never be home. But I had gained the smallest piece of home back again and that was enough. The smallest piece of home is hope, and that's really the only piece I need.