A Decade in Reflection

While people are digging up photos of them from the beginning of the decade to post next to photos of them ending the decade, I find myself combing through my writing. (Mostly because I didn’t find any “good” pictures of me from 2010, but also I realized some major shit went down in my life at the beginning of the decade:)

2010 was the year I’d fully come out to myself and started to accept who I am. It was also that summer I went to my first pride parade and celebration – by myself – because I wasn’t really out to any of the friends I could go with. I remember it so clearly like it was yesterday, strangely enough. I had lied to my mom about having a “overnight weekend rehearsal so everyone is sleeping over at the rehearsal studio”, and arranged to stay with friends (both of them queer) who lived in the West End then. I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what I was discovering within myself, and how attracted I was to people who are of the same-sex. I remember feeling free, and I remember feeling like I was myself for the first time.

That summer was also the first time I (half-jokingly) asked someone of the same sex out. She was the director of a show I had stage managed just before the summer, and rumour has it everyone who’s worked with her had a crush on her (I was no exception, evidently). I remember waking up after dancing the night away at Oasis (who remembers when that club existed on top of the Denny’s on Davie?), I was steaming buns for breakfast in her kitchen. She remarked on my ingenious method of steaming the bun, and made small talk. I, feeling courageous and silly, asked her if she’d like to go out with me. Even though she didn’t give me a direct “no”, my crush didn’t last long enough for me to ask her out again at the end of the year, when my studies have finished and she wasn’t a teacher of the school I attended any more.

At the beginning of the decade, I struggled to reconcile my faith and religion with who I was. I couldn’t fathom how I could be a Christian and lesbian at the same time. (Actually, according to an old blog post, I identified as “bi” then). I didn’t know where to go for help. I didn’t know if I’m even allowed to feel what I was feeling, let alone talk to someone about it. The more I thought about it the more trapped I felt. I couldn’t deny who I was and follow my religion blindly, when my church clearly rejects the “types of people” I was becoming.

So more events of note that started my decade:

-I worked at my first real theatre job in 2010, at the newly finished SFU Woodward’s, before any of the students were allowed in.

-I made a short film with three of my really good friends called Straight Forward that I bill as my “coming-out film” (embarrassingly, because I wasn’t good at story-telling with moving pictures yet).

-I was super productive in terms of my writing/ blogging, producing an average of almost 6 blog posts per month in 2010!

-I wrote about having a girl crush for the first time (and then many more posts about my feelings for her in the following months, including one where I wrote “I’m sorry” like 10,000 times)

Here’s a brief summary of my decade by the numbers:

-graduated from SFU with a BFA

-worked on 12 short films, maybe more?

-stage managed 19 shows

-designed lighting for 12 shows

-dated 6 people, slept with 11, and married 1

-travelled to 23 countries (and counting!)

-attended 3 high school best friends’ weddings

-gotten 4 tattoos

2010 launched me into a decade of self-discovery, love, and growing up. I wouldn’t have traded the last 10 years for anything, and I’m excited to step into the new year to see what the next decade will bring.

Exulansis

n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

Source: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

I came across this word on a list of vocabulary that we feel but can’t usually explain to people in my facebook feed today, and it seems to describe what and how I’ve been feeling in the last couple of days.

After my mom flew back to Vancouver last Saturday, I’ve been left to my own devices. Sure, there are still relatives and friends around, but it’s the first time in my ripe age of 28 that I’ve been able to spend as an adult in my hometown as opposed to being a visiting tourist. Making important decisions and spending money. By myself. Freedom! It was as if I’ve had a second coming-of-age and had to suddenly grow up in a place where I’ve always had a parent around. The feeling was strange and hard to place emotionally.

Last time I was here was four years ago, fresh off the cruise ship with my then girlfriend in tow. I was just beginning to discover who I am and everything seemed to be new. It was refreshing discovering your hometown with someone who’s never been here before. I felt like an insider taking a tourist around; not realizing that I was a tourist myself. Even though I have roots on this land and in this environment, my language and my thoughts have long been westernized. But when someone else who’s more “foreign” than you by comparison is around, you immediately feel like you’re home in a sea of Taiwanese people.

And obviously I AM home. Sort of. Taipei was where I was born and raised; I’ve lived here for almost half of my life and most of my childhood memories has a basis in Taiwan. But I know that even though I might have similar physical features and speak the same language as the people that are around me, I am vastly different from the average young Taiwanese adult. We do not share the same schooling experiences, way of thinking, or style of life. I felt out of place. I am home but not. It’s home but it’s foreign. I am foreign.

I have been in Taiwan for 2 weeks now. Even though I made the decision to come back rashly, I am really hoping this trip would be more than just pleasure and will help me feel reintegrated.

adulthood is lonely

What are the benefits of being in a relationship? Why do people partner up and get themselves tangled in that messy messy web of relationships? Why put themselves through the trouble of negotiating compromise and the risk of getting hurt?

For me, it’s the fact that I get to share my life and my journey with someone else in this bizarre, cruel, and unfair world. I am saddest when I have no one with whom I can share many of life’s awesome moments. The greatest joy known to me is to be able to share my happiness so that others can be happy, too. Perhaps coming home to someone, snuggling at night in bed, and waking up in the morning to the face of your loved one sleeping is enough. Or the fact that knowing someone cares about what you’re doing in your life is sufficient to justify having a partner. But ultimately, it’s all about the sharing. (Also why our lives have been taken over by a storm called social media: being able to share digitally to a bigger audience and getting praised for that ‘shareability’.)

When a relationship ends, you are faced with the stark loneliness of spending nights by yourself. There’s no one to hear your woes or struggles at the end of the day; there’s no one to whom you could tell that funny thing that happened at work, and there’s definitely no one with whom you could unwind slowly. You are you. Alone with your thoughts and by yourself in your apartment. No one to help you sort out that work-life balance, no one to tell you what to do; no one to dictate how best to spend your time, and certainly no one to help you cook dinner or wash the dishes at home… but at the same time no one will draw your attention away from that TV show you’re desperate to finish.

I’ve always been a kid who didn’t want to grow up. I never had big aspirations or realizations of “when I grow up, I’m going to be…” when I was little. However, now that I’ve aged past a quarter-century, I proudly tell people that I am secretly 5 at heart. And it’s not far from the truth. My bestie says she always feels like a kid when she’s around me (I also think that’s the best kind of superpower to have). I am the silliest and always come up with the most intriguing (read: bizarre) ideas in a group of friends. But I love it. I embrace every single minute and every single moment that I get to be a kid without consequence.

It’s just the times when you have to be a grown-up that suck. When you have to do your taxes, pay the bills, deal with your emotions that are all too real, or simply navigate through the dark trenches of the world filled with traps, you have to put on a brave face, pretend everything’s under control, and pray to God (or whatever spirituality you believe in) that you don’t make mistakes. All but fun and games. THAT’s when being in a relationship can be the most beneficial – because if you fall, the hope is your partner will help you get back up. Or, if they don’t know how to help, they’ll at least tread the waters and keep you company in your pool of deep shit.