#my journey outside for 10 minutes yesterday was the most I’ve done since last Friday

[angeltannis]

My family doesn’t want me to come out of my room for the full 10 days (which I understand, it was my idea to quarantine in here in the first place) but Man 10 days shut in your bedroom is horrendous…I’m only on day 8 and I’m Losing it

[steamishot]

Thoughts

It’s been a little slow at work, now that I kinda know what I’m doing now and am putting off the work that I don’t like doing lol. I’m also feeling slow cause its Monday. Anyway, after having a little more than a month off to recharge from that work + class lifestyle, I’m kinda ready to get productive again. I’ll start working on my portfolio and continue learning more about coding and tech on my time off/weekends and create projects for myself instead of just going out and having fun. Because even that feels exhausting after a while and like I should be using my time for something more productive.

I’ve been thinking about life a lot and I feel like I’ve been living my life as if I’m invincible for the most part.  I procrastinate and say I’ll do something eventually, or when the time is right it’ll happen. I think about how all the organisms alive right now are just coexisting. And I try to see other people as my fellow humans instead of things to avoid or be scared of. I think of myself as a skeleton with active organs and how when I die, I won’t have the capabilities my organs offer me anymore. I think that in American culture, the topic of death is pretty taboo. Unlike other cultures that acknowledge the dead, Americans don’t have any traditions for that. Well, outside of religion. I still feel scared thinking about death, even though statistically speaking, I should have the most time left here as opposed to my immediate family. I want to get more into Buddhism teachings to feel more at peace with life and adopt a Buddhist mindset on the topic of death.

I used to not understand coupling up or the desire to be in a relationship, or when people jokingly say “I’ll just die alone” or “I’m scared to be alone”. But after some thought, life is a scary journey and having a “life partner” can be really comforting. So I am glad and thankful that I have a partner currently. Having him with me gives me another layer of support and strength.

To show appreciation for me, he spoils me with food. This past weekend we had hot pot and Japanese food. On Friday evening, I had spent 2 hours in traffic to meet him at a hot pot place in Arcadia. He arrived like 10 minutes before I did and it might have been the second time ever that he arrived before I did. During dinner, I told him that I’m planning on going to Hawaii with my friends over memorial day weekend. He was a little hurt by that it seemed because that was one of our trip ideas. I told him that we’ve been talking about taking a trip for some time now but that I feel he doesn’t follow through, so I’d rather just go with my friends. He said that he wasn’t sure how serious I was about it because I wouldn’t respond very enthusiastically. Which after some thought, is correct. I think my main reservation is that he’s still a secret from my family and vice versa. And even though it would be exciting and fun to travel with him, I dread bringing him up to my family. Another reasonable thing is that he is kinda out of it emotionally right now because of not matching. He is focused on what he needs to do next in his career and how to proceed, and it was a selfish request of me to want him to put more attention on our relationship. However, it was good that I said something. He is very reasonable and caring. I like that he accepts criticism and is constantly looking for ways to improve.

On Saturday, I brought my mom and grandma to in n out for lunch. I enjoy taking them out for activities and it has been a while since I’ve done so. Since next weekend is a 3 day weekend, I asked if they would be interested in going to the flower fields to see poppies. My mom clapped and responded really enthusiastically with a smile, and nudged at my grandma saying “hey! Act enthusiastically. If you don’t, then she’s not gonna know if you want to go or not/she’s not gonna want to take you.” LOL. My grandma is more cool and she matter-of-factly said “of course I want to go.” That was a little lesson for myself on the topic of enthusiasm, since I’m not really good at showing it when I have reservations, and I’m not that expressive in general.

Last night when we facetimed, he wanted to make sure that I was fine emotionally. He noted how I wasn’t happy with certain things that he did during the week, but that I seemed happy and didn’t have complaints over the weekend. Although it seems small, I felt secure and happy when he brought that up. Because it shows that he is able to work with me to make things work between us, and that he cares about my (emotional) well-being. Protected is the word that describes it.

Little things he did that made me feel fuzzy inside- when we had Japanese food, I had the sashimi combo and he had the cold soba with shrimp tempura. We also had a medium fatty tuna bowl. At this point, we share our food by default. Since we were sitting across from each other, it was hard for me to grab his food. The cold soba had to be dipped into this soy sauce mixture in a small cup. So he would put soba into the soy sauce container and then leave it on my side of the table a few times. I think I started the trend of like getting food for him (placing things in his hot pot to cook, or getting cooked things out of the pot for him) so he started to mirror me. Another thing was when we went to universal studios. I like to wear his northface jacket when its cold (that’s my default jacket of his). He brought a backpack that day with an extra sweater and was wearing the northface jacket. He said when it gets cold I can wear the northface jacket and he’ll wear the extra sweater he brought.

Yesterday was my sister in law’s birthday. She went on a trip to Vegas with my brother on Saturday but neither of them had mentioned it was for her birthday. They drove back from Vegas around 1pm yesterday. Facebook notified me that it was her birthday and I texted her asking if she had any plans that night. She said no, so my family and I arranged something for them. I ended up picking up a cake and gift for her, and we had family style hot pot for dinner. My brother was like, good thing you bought her a cake because she was getting mad at me lol. Apparently my brother didn’t buy her a present either, thinking that the vegas trip would be sufficient as a birthday gift. Anyway, it seems that she liked the dinner, cake, and present. And hope she had a good birthday overall.