writingsblog

[writingsblog]

On Every Little Thing I Couldn’t Tell You Otherwise (and then some...)

I want to open this by being completely 100% up front and honest and say that I’m writing this sober with the 100% complete intent of sending this to you drunk. I mean that’s the plan at least but like who can never be sure!!! I mean yeah, it would probably look a look better both on me and overall if I wasn’t like, completely SHITFACED plastered by the time this finally gets sent to you, but for the sake of honesty and openness, I don’t think I would be able to even send this without the help of somewhere near 14-15 shots at a minimum. It kinda really honestly sucks that I feel this way; feeling like I need to be so monumentally fucked up to even just click send on this. Obviously I have every power to send this to you sober like a fucking adult and in some way face reality or whatever but I just don’t think that’s realistic for me… at least right now it isn’t. I just also realized that as true as the whole “drunk thoughts = sober feelings” thing is, I would also really like to uhhhh… remember the things I tell people; people being you of course. Just know that this letter is the closest thing to “final” as can be, with respect to like, writerly shit, and that whatever the fuck you call this (as long as you do NOT call it a love letter because that is NOT the case… even IF I'm the triple Scorpio of even sAtan’S oWN nightmARES), just know that this has been written and rewritten with care so many fucking times and has seen itself through SOOOOO many iterations but has just been condensed here and there for the sake of brevity and cogency. The meaning’s still there and all like don’t get me wrong or anything, but I just wanted this all to be as succinct as possible… I apologize for the length though I just… I got lots to say lmfao… I hope you can understand, as a writer and all.

So with regards to crafting some sort of statement of purpose or intent, I wanna say that I feel like I’m writing this for a lot of fucking reasons. Is that a cop-out? Lmfaoooooo omfgggg… Anyways I know what happened at FASA haus happened, and everything, at least on my end, is very much out there in the open and free for literal interpretation but I still feel like there’s still so much left to say??? Or at least there’s still this sense of incompleteness, you know? I mean I’m like infinitely to blame for that since our entire “conversation” was essentially 97% me projecting, 1% you actually speaking, and 2% me interrupting you while you were speaking, but I really don’t know like… It just doesn’t feel done yet??? Like not in the sense that I’m looking for a fight and coming at you with “AND ANOTHER THING-“ or like I’m seeking some sort of “closure” or anything but it just feels like, despite airing so much of what I had to tell you, there’s your entire side of everything that never got the chance to manifest and let itself out??? Or maybe it did and that’s just me who feels that way like who can never be sure. Like honestly I don’t remember all that much on account of being belligerently drunk as all fuck so apologies for that. I mean if that’s the case and you feel like all is said and done then by all means just disregard this entire letter and pretend it never happened, but let’s be honest I feel like we both know you enough to know that you love tea, especially if and when it involves you (sorry lmfaoooo omfg… the Scorpio came out… and that’s tea actually…) But anyways, I don’t know like… I’ve been meaning to ask you this for awhile now but like you know… the whole… everything and like… yeah… but like… are you alright? Are things alright? Like I said, this could just 100% be me making things up and if that’s the case just revisit the last sentence but like I don’t know. Whenever I see you in class, it’s not like you seem down, but I feel like there’s something off? Nothing major by any means obviously; it’s a very like “below the surface” kind of a thing. It just feels like the brightness I have always associated with you and your presence seems very dim. And I just want to know if things are okay or not. Not because I’m nosy and here to talk shit trying to be all intrusive or anything!!! Like literally the last thing I want to do is to come off as overbearing and intrusive but I mean, I still care and all, you know? For you and your wellbeing, whatever that may mean and look like.

I think one thing I really want you to know and I guess to take away from all of this (whatever this is) is like… I don’t like… hate you or hold any specific negative feelings toward you or anything like that despite how it may all seem and how I may act (or I guess, not act) in your presence; in class, around the school, etc. and whatever. I’m just trying to figure out a lot of things right now and that sounds like a shitty excuse and I’m really sorry. I still want to do my best to explain though, if you can bless me with the time for that: for what seems like the first time in my entire life, I’m able to exist without some overbearing weight of the emptiness and anguish of depression. This isn’t to say that my depression is “cured” or that it somehow disappeared; I don’t think that’s the case here nor with mental illness for anyone for that matter. Like all of those feelings still exist somewhere within me, like I still very much DO feel their presence but it’s just like… For once, those feelings aren’t preventing me from existing and moving through life. I don’t feel that familiar sense of inhibitive emptiness on a day to day basis anymore, and it’s a lot to take in all at once, especially right now with everything happening around me and the whole rush of senior year and whatever the fuck else is going on. I’m just trying to do my best right now, riding atop this miraculous wave of positive mental health whilst (whom’st’ve???) trying to simultaneously unlearn these fucking acts and habits of depression I’ve come to accept as facets of my own humanity and just a part of who I am as a person. The realization that you’re not supposed to feel like… “this”, and that people are like… allowed to feel this kind of “okay”-ness is so profoundly new yet simultaneously frightening to me… It’s all so much to take in all at once and I’m still trying to come to terms with it, but in like a positive way you know? I’m sure there’s a word for that sentiment but like English is my second language and it’s like fucking 4AM right now and honestly I just really cannot be bothered LOL…  That being said, it’s not that I’m afraid of losing or like drifting away from this state of being like I am very much aware of the fact that something is going to come up and bring me down, but that’s just how mental health functions; like some sort of trig function that’s always moving either up or down but never stagnates anywhere. I don’t mean that to sound so pessimistic or anything, but it’s just that like, I don’t really have any aspirations to “be happy”, you know? Like happiness isn’t something I’m actively out here trying to achieve at any given moment (well okay except when I’m on molly LOOOOOOL….) but like it’s not just something I really care for mostly just being trying to live your life with the express intent to be happy all the fucking time is just not realistic??? Like happiness is nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more of like a pitstop versus a destination. Just because if you’re somehow able to achieve some sort of perpetual happiness, it all loses meaning in and of itself. My honest goal is just simply just be okay. Some sort of perfect neutral floating along some arbitrary X-axis of temperament, mood, and emotion. That was always something I associated with you and our friendship, and while that was nice and all, I think it was really important to learn how to feel that way without having to depend on somebody else, you know? And like… I think I’m there now… I think I made it there… Things are good here… Things are okay here… I’m okay here… I don’t know if I already told you this already because to be honest I was probably as drunk at FASA that night as I most likely will be whenever this gets sent to you but like I don’t remember a lot of what I told you in specifics, I just know I told you a LOT. I also feel like… very guilty for feeling okay. I know I shouldn’t, and that I should cherish this feeling and everything it’s bringing to me like the ephemeral glimmer of hope it really is, but I just can’t help but to feel guilty. I don’t know if I’m making this up or not but I think I remember you telling me at FASA that things were pretty rough for you right now. I’m sorry that I don’t remember. I know it takes a lot to open up to others, like trust me if there’s anything a Scorpio knows with all of their heart… got damn��� I could also be making this up as well I really don’t know but I do remember that at least; I feel guilt over being okay while people in my life; you and everyone else; are really just fucking going through it you know?

I also don’t know if I’ve already told you either this but like… I really am not afraid of a LOT of things, which more or less goes to explain my character and my actions that both just ferment within this dumb bitch energy so help me GOD… Like I wouldn’t say that I’m fearless but I think that I’m not afraid of a lot of things that would honestly petrify any other given person, physically and emotionally. It literally feels like that one drill tweet where he’s all “I WILL FACE GOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL”, but the one thing that I believe I’m genuinely 100% like… fear isn’t even the word�� mortified? The thing that really just fucking scares the fuck out of me and even thinking about it and writing it out right now is horrific is falling back into and relapsing into that familiar dread of severe and seemingly unending depression. I think back to how I felt when everything happened at the end of last school year, and I think back to other times where depression has literally just consumed my soul and taken over my entire life and it’s just… it’s all so dark and lonely… It’s all so scary and I don’t like to even think about it but I know that it’s a necessary thing to reflect upon, but only enough to know that I would do absolutely anything to ensure that I don’t fall back there. Like above the magnitude of moving heaven and earth, and that’s why I feel like I’m frozen in time with regards to action; that monumentally dichotomous rift between passion and passivity. And I don’t know if this is me making excuses or if this is a genuine sentiment but I don’t know how introducing you back into my life again, whatever that may look like and however that may occur, is going to affect me or affect some potential spiral back to such a dark place and as much as I would like for things to be okay again I’m just so unbelievably fucking scared… Like I usually have no problem with action that’s driven by emotion like hello buy E•MO•TION on iTunes yaasss Miss. Carly Rae Jesus Christ!!! Invented sentimentality ugh her MIND… But anyways like there’s just so much fear behind this that for once in my fucking like I really do have to think things through and evaluate everything before I act just because there’s just… so much to lose right now… And I don’t mean this in the sense that like I’m afraid of losing this sense of okay-ness because like I told you, I’m very well aware that it’s fleeting (I really cannot use that word without thinking of CVS Fleet enemas like… the gays… smh…) and it’s going to all be gone some day. And I also don’t want you to think I’m not trying to overcome all of this and do as much as I can to make things better because.. Idunno… I miss our friendship a whole lot. It’s just that shit’s really hard right now. It’s so headass to complain about being okay and things looking brighter for me but I just… I’ve been so deeply unhappy for as early as I can remember having any memories or thoughts of consciousness and this honestly does feel like some big ass fucked up sick and twist joke that the universe is playing on me. Fuck that sounds so fucking “CONSPIRACY THEORY OMFG NOT CLICKBAIT!!!” side of youtube but holy fuck is it real… I hope you can understand. I’m so deeply sorry Christian.

I see you in class and I just get that sense that you’re not okay and I just want to ask you how you are but I just can’t bring myself to do so in any way so I resort to doing dumb ass shit like this and necessitating the presence of SO much alcohol rushing through my circulatory system and destroying my last two brain cells to form enough courage to act or even do anything. Well I mean I’m writing this now, sober and all, but it’s just that I fucking hate how I feel like I have to get so fucking drunk to speak to you. Like somehow me being drunk is going to erase the fact that I did it or hide the feelings of sadness whenever I think of you or see you. I know that’s on me so you don’t have to feel bad about it. I mean, I feel like that’s always been the case though. I used to get so excited to go to parties that I knew you’d also be at as well. I just felt a lot more at ease being around you then. Not in the sense that you’re intimidating or anything but like I was a lot less nervous you know? I don’t think that’s ever really changed, but that was when we were okay and spoke nearly every day and everything was okay. It seems like nearly every day I see something somewhere and my first thought is to show it to you. A meme or a video or a tweet or honestly whatever. I just always am running into things that I want to show you but then I’m subsequently hit with this freight train realization that like… shit bruv… nah… can’t do that right now… things are really messy… fuck… fuck fuck fuck fuckkkkk… fuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkk…. It’s like this sense of both loss and longing I guess. Loss of a friendship that I held on to so dearly and longing for its return in some form.

Do you think things are that much different now though? Everything’s out in the open now. Well at least mostly everything. I don’t think anything’s ever too different or too fucked up to try and fix. Well okay maybe there are some things that are like that but I don’t think that’s the case here. Or at least that’s what I hope is the case here. Our friendship was a good thing for one another. I’ve come to associate it with this deep sense of understanding. There was never a moment where I felt like I had to explain why I am the way I am or why I was doing something I was doing to you. That, on top of you understanding every small, seemingly insignificant reference I would make like… I just felt so completely and fully understood, and learned that it was a beautiful sentiment to hold on to. That sense of unspoken connection. It made me feel as close to a sense of genuine happiness as I can think of. I think it also has to do a lot with the fact that the interests we share like drag race and tumblr, despite them being broad and commonly liked things, bring me back to times where I was a lot… well I guess I’ll just say it: “happier”. They bring me back to happy times in my youth (fuck I’m getting O L D…) that I reflect upon and make me feel warm. It makes me wish I knew you when I was a kid. Or like a high schooler. It makes me wish that I had known you a lot earlier is what I’m trying to say. I spent a lot of my Summer feeling so deeply connected to everything that the 8bitfiction twitter page posted and made. I don’t know if that’s just a general understanding behind the sentiments of that oh-so-familiar loss and longing, but I felt that their posts read me for filth… Like beyond the point of the library being open sis I’m talking like burning of the library of Alexandria like shit we are under ATTACK… But anyways I remember this one particular post that seemed to just… Envelop the exact sentiments and feelings and emotions of everything I’ve always wanted to tell you beautifully written upon a nostalgic and grainy 8-bit graphic. I know this letter is already a fucking novel by now, but I just feel this need to include it. If anything, read what’s written on there if this is too fucking long (which it is hoooooooollllyyyyy fucckkkkkkkk I am sO sorry). It says everything I wish I could say so much so that I wish they were my own words. Like I nearly considered plagiarism like that’s how exact it is… The author wrote this for an ex-significant other, but I hope you read it from the perspective I read it from: deep sentimental connection manifesting itself through another person. Totally platonic okay no homo I swear to god: (https://twitter.com/8bitfiction/status/1018894229370621952)

I’m sorry I can’t say all of these things to you without needing to drink enough beforehand. I’m so very closed off to others by nature. I’ve come to learn that a lot of myself is a defense mechanism. Traits that I’ve come to learn to identify myself by are all slowly unraveling to reveal that, almost by some definition or ingrained function, they serve to protect and shield the soft core of this fragile soul from anything and everything that can do it harm, regardless of intent. I’m sorry things aren’t the way either of us would like them to be. I’m trying to take things one day at a time. One hour at a time. One second at a time. I’m trying my best not to fixate on anything outside of the very immediate future. Not because I’m scared of it or anything. You know that I told you I’m afraid of very little. But I’m trying to be present in my everyday life. Like literally everything Vic taught us in 300. It really does make a difference and it really does help to be mindful of presence. Like I feel very different now, but in a good way. I’m doing a lot better now. I’m a lot better now than how I was before. So much fucking better that it almost feels like some fucking dream or some shit. Maybe, when (and I say when with intent), WHEN I’m okay enough, I can maybe be able to share some of that with you. Nothing can ever be too broken to be fixed and patched up again, right? At least I hope that’s how you see things too. I hope things get better. Not only for me but for you too, if not especially for you. I hope you can get better and shine as brightly as I remember. Until then i hope you can see that I’m doing better now, even if I can’t bring myself to tell you that face to face. I’m okay now. And I’ll be even better tomorrow. (Well okay no never mind I’ll probably be hungover as all fuck tomorrow and shitting my guts out for fucking twelve ass muthafucken hours holy FUCK…) I’m trying to grow and I’m trying to learn. So much is happening all around me right now. I want to be there to experience and live through it all with this newfound sense of clarity. In the moment and entirely lucid. Fully present and completely uninhibited.

Anyways I really don’t know how to close this. I don’t even think there’s any real way to close this honestly. So I guess I’ll just say that I’m sorry for all of the trouble. For right now, in the past, and going onward toward the future. I uhh… I miss you a fuck ton alright god damn. If you are still going through it by the time this letter gets to you… and if it’s something that you need to talk through with somebody given that you’re comfortable enough to do so… or even if you don’t need that and just prefer to just fuck around and stream drag race or that iconic Scottish girl “HARREH STAYLS” rant or some shit to forget about it all just… Just let me know alright? I know that shit’s tough right now; you for, for me, for anyone and everyone honestly, but the thing is that shit’s always been tough but I do my best to spite the world along with everyone and everything in it by being even tougher. Ultimately I just want to know that you’re okay. And if that’s not the case now, then I just wanna know that if there’s anything I can do to help, independent of everything that happened. I think the most important thing I learned throughout this whole ordeal is that people won’t know unless you tell them. If you need a friend, and I know it might be tough and almost hypocritical (well okay entirely hypocritical) for me to say this, but just let me know, alright?

xxx

Sister Khang

P.S Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors like I’m literally so sorry it’s 5am now as I’m finishing this and I have to be awake in two hours to get ready for this fucking PA5 tailgate and I’m fucking screaming internally I’ve slept maybe four hours total this academic week oh my fucking G O D

P.S.S I’m posting this on my writing blog from like literally muthafucken 10th grade because it was the only place that could fit all of this fucking text short of writing it in a fucking Google doc or sending this via passenger pigeon or some shit. Anyways this is like BASICALLY a diary but don’t call it that bUT THE POINT IS THAT THIS IS LIKE MY ULTIMATE ~*SAFE SPACE*~……. so if you fucking snoop, P L E A S E don’t bring up ANYTHING on here LOL LIKE PLEASE LOOOOL OMFGGG LIKE  LITERALLY THE LAST POST I MADE ON HERE WAS A COMPILATION OF FINSTA POSTS FROM WHEN I WAS GOING T H R O U G H IT OVER CHRISTOPHER SDJFKHSLKDJFHALJDHSFLKJHSDFLKJAHDSFKJLHASDFLAKSDF… I know I never told you who Christopher was/is but like… Story for another time okay? I’m going to try and be more open, honest, and trusting. And I trust that you won’t use anything on this blog to ruin my life in the future. Or ever. Like oh my fucking gOD literally P L EA S E some of this shit would end any sort of opportunity for me to enter ANY sort of fucking career E V E R  like omfG… FUCK. ADKLJHASDKJAHSDLKJAHSD… TL;DR I TRUST YOU ALRIGHT??? GOOD LUCK... AND DON’T FUCK ME UP... OMFG…. FUCK

[writingsblog]

the lover

he was this figurehead. this statue. a stock protagonist i held with the assumption to be the only soul i can, could, and would ever be able to relate to and pour my raw sentiments out to. he was a sentiment in his very being, one more dynamic than the physics of movement. for me, he was a home. the walls erected and paid for by my parents’ hard work, which housed me for so much of my youth, did not and could not compare to the warmth and safety he had imparted onto me. he called what we had a “dependency”; he depended on my presence and in return i depended on his. from the moment i groggily awoke to the quiet hours of the night in which i would attempt to lull myself to sleep he was always a presence. what we lacked in physicality we made up for with the rawness of emotion. to call it tender would be a fallacy, as it was anything but. i ravaged him with my numerous qualms: about life, about my family, about myself, and in return he did as such to me. we were never bothered by these negatives in life because for us it seemed like the other was the only bright light in a deep, dark see of overwhelming anguish. to say i was depressed wouldn’t be a stretch of the truth. he allowed me this semblance of sanity and safety. i felt warm in the imagined landscape of a shoulder to lie my heavy head upon and a hand i could hold at my most vulnerable.

but if anything more he was a figment of my imagination at best and a pariah who preyed on the naiveté of my adolescence at worst. i’m better now than i was then, both mentally and figuratively. i wasn’t whole while i depended on him and i think that was the greatest drawback if anything. i won’t say that i am a complete person now but at the very least i am whole. they tell you that you can’t depend on another person’s presence to complete you and i’m happy to announce that i understand the belief in its entirety.

i still think about him when i am lonely. i found the closure i was desperately in need of for so long. what remains are just many questions. “what could have been?” remains at the very top, annexed to the grand, “are you doing alright?” if anything i want him to know that i still care. i care a whole lot. i don’t think there will ever be a day that i can wholeheartedly say that i do not care about him. how can i cease the care of someone who has allowed me to grow so much in spite of the circumstances? i care about him so much; he fades and returns with every passing emotional presence i cast onto a boy, but i feel at the very core of things, he will be the figure i compare everyone i care about to, platonic or not.

i still have his playlists made on my phone. maybe one day we can listen to it and talk about things again. even if that day doesn’t come, i refuse to let the memory of him ruin our favorite songs.

to christopher; wherever and whoever he may be.

[writingsblog]

the only good thing going for me right now is the fact that i am getting thinner. i will come back this fall snatched and hot i’ll tell you that

[writingsblog]

i don’t know to what extent he cares, if he even still does. i miss him but i know i can’t bear to witness the sight of him happy with someone else

[writingsblog]

i’ve been meaning to write this for awhile now, a year in reflection. i’ve found time and i’m at another very strange point in my life so i just want to sit down and reflect and i guess just air out my qualms.

this year has been marked by waiting. i found myself waiting a lot for things to come to me. “in one semester frank will be gone and we will have more space in the apartment!” “one semester at teddy’s then i can come back to bradford!” this year was just a lot of waiting for things to come to me and i have come to the realization that i failed to be present for much of my life this past year. how burdensome it feels to know that you yourself are unable to exist in the moment to experience happy events. it was as if i knew in the moment of experiencing these things that i would someday long for them nostalgically. 

at the end of this year i found myself spiralling back into depression because the boy i had genuine feelings and affection for chose to share his love with someone else. it hurt so much. it still hurts very much. i have yet to become a whole person again. i’ve welcomed my eating disorder back into my life now.

i see hope, though. i see hope that i can overcome this and grow and be a kinder and more loving person to spite this world for all of the hurt it has brought on to me. this coming year i want to grow even more. i want to choose to be present. like a phoenix from the ashes. i want to rise.

[writingsblog]

everything i’ve been so afraid to tell you; an act in three parts

un

i want so deeply for you to feel the pain that you’ve caused me

moreso than that, i just want you to understand 

you tell me you aren’t okay; that you hurt so much

and i don’t want to be selfish but what about me?

am i not allowed to feel this deep-set unhappiness in your absence?

i feel like there was just so much wasted, and maybe that’s why i’m so unwilling to let this go.

i’ve never felt this way for another living being.

deux

i wish you responded to me... or at least more often.

it almost sounds like i’m some sort of stalker.

and maybe i am? 

i just want you to know that i care

and that people care

even when you don’t care enough for yourself there are those around you who still do

i don’t hear from you for months at a time and i get worried

sometimes i think about what would happen if you died. 

would i know? would your friends know about me enough to let me know?

i’m so very bitter. but at the heart of it all i’m just so very tired.

trois

i’ve run out of beautiful words to mask how deeply unhappy i am

i wish we could go back to when everything was okay

i have so many beautiful things to tell you

despite the pain you’ve caused me i’ll always remember you with a halo around your heart

you tell me not to wait for you but i think deep down that waiting has just become a reality for us.

i was always either waiting for you to wake up or message me back.

i miss you so much. i hope one day we can rebuild. i will hold your hand through all troubles.

[writingsblog]

I’m within the final hours of learning if this thing can all work out or not.

I have much to write about but I will get to that hopefully when I am in the mental state to do so.

I’ve been looking more toward religion lately. I made a white lie to the boy I’m transferring my lease to because I was afraid he would find a new place.

I’m still a little scared and stressed but hopefully I can report back in 24 hours with good news.

Until then, we wait...

[writingsblog]

I am currently in a very tricky predicament. Very emotionally taxing, physically exhausting, and mentally strenuous. 

I’ve spent these past 3 weeks in a very dark place. I’ve been revisiting things that bring me peace and make me happy.

I hope to make it out of this stronger than I was at the beginning.

[writingsblog]

i want to be soft again but i have so much anger in me 

[writingsblog]

Trên đồi xanh chiều đã xuống dần Mặt trời lấp ló sau đồi chiều vàng Riêng mình ta ngồi ngắm quanh trời lạnh lùng nghe tiếng chim chiều gọi đàn buồn xa vắng buồn lòng thầm nhớ tới người Chiều xưa cũng trên đồi cùng ta Người đã ước nguyền rằng đời riêng có ta Lời đó còn đâu ?

[writingsblog]

On Hot Russian Composers and A Questionable Self Identity

I’m not proud to make this declaration by any means; I’m actually quite devastated that this has become a facet of my being, but holy fuck do I detest reading. I’m not talking about the day-to-day casual Reddit browsing, Facebook lurking stuff, or the kind that is fundamental. I’m talking like the big-ass textbooks, fucking “War and Peace” type of reading expected of me from a bunch of classes I’ve taken. Every Facebook meme ever created that pokes fun at not doing the reading can have my name found tagged somewhere in the comments section. And before you say anything, yes, I see the irony in me writing this for people to read while simultaneously dispelling my unfavorable feelings toward the practice. The title says it all, but bear with me.

I have this inclination to test the patience of authority; I love erring on the side of mischief. I’m honestly a little shit, and this display of little shittiness can best be shown through my inability to tell you about the plot of a single novel the average high schooler should have read in any of their English classes. I mean, I didn’t even check out the last book I was required to read for my AP Lit class senior year, like I was that done with reading by then. Jay Gatsby? I don’t know her. Hamlet? Couldn’t say that I am familiar with that queen. Mrs. Dalloway? Which school did she teach at? Because I can’t say I’ve ever met her. I’m not even telling you all of this to, like, brag, either — like, it’s actually something real embarrassing and shameful to admit, but this primer on my propensity toward not reading becomes relevant soon, I swear.

Reading is hard. Reading is really fucking hard and I relished in the glory of my simple acts of disobedience by just … not doing it. My attention span is essentially the Planck-length equivalent of time, which could perhaps explain my habit of becoming engrossed in the lives and times of the authors of books I should’ve been reading instead of reading the actual books themselves. I mean, I told you it’s not that I hate literature or anything. It most likely was because I couldn’t be bothered to read anything expected of me out of both laziness and adolescent mischief. This habit would manifest itself throughout various classes, in different forms, but nonetheless with the same result. Physics lessons on Einstein’s theories of relativity led me to instead learn about his hobbies as an amateur violinist while calculus lectures on Newton’s creation of an entirely new branch of mathematics led me to follow this tangent about his religious fervor and penchant for being weird as hell.

Toward the end of middle school, I had to learn this Tchaikovsky piece for a symphony audition. It was his “Serenade for Strings,” the 48th opus, which was this orchestral masterpiece written in the absolute most horrific time signature ever. The technical demands of the piece alongside the massive Romantic-era middle finger that was the time signature drove me to, of course, not read through the piece at all. I want to make a brief mention that my habit of disregarding readings did not simply end at the written text; rather, it indiscriminately dismantled any drive I would have to begin reading anything that was required of me, and that included this daunting six-page shitstorm of a serenade. During the free periods I should have spent rehearsing the serenade’s dreaded triple piano “pianississimo” measures, I instead, surprisingly, read this book about the composer himself. It was in “The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky” that I read this quote from him that would resonate with me well into the current day. Tchaikovsky described himself as “Russian in the fullest sense of the word,” to which I thought: “How incredible. Not just a veritable sense, but the fullest sense. How affirming it must be to be able to fully identify with a culture.” I think the reason as to why his words connected with me to such an extent is because they made me aware of this hollow cavity inside me that housed my cultural identity. It led to the realization that I couldn’t truly say that I fully identify as anything.

I was born on the first of November in Cần Thơ, a large port village that skims the Mekong Delta along the southern fringes of Vietnam. I couldn’t really tell you anything about what life was like there besides the fact that it’s just really fucking hot. I was really young when I left Vietnam with my parents to pursue the prospect of a better life here in the States. The first four years of my life I recall entirely in Vietnamese. My clearest memory from this time in my life was a very specific moment where my mother was sitting at the kitchen table eating. I asked her why she made so much noise while she ate, to which she laughed and asked me if I would like to eat with her. I sat there with her and we just had this casual and carefree conversation in the kitchen. I don’t know why this one specific memory is so clearly branded frame for frame in my mind, but it, like other memories of my early childhood, was narrated back to me entirely in my mother tongue. I think the closest I’ve ever felt to Tchaikovsky’s cultural “fullness” was at this point in my life.

I started school at 4 years old. I never realized that the children in my class had the privilege of growing up in homes where English was regularly spoken. I remember crying so hard on the first day of preschool that I fucking puked a storm on my teacher. It was such a mess; there were all of these people around me mouthing these weird sounds and reacting with confusion when I couldn’t understand them and then the puke being everywhere — like it really was just not cute. I didn’t pick up English as quickly as my teachers would have liked during early elementary school. I swear to God I was about a hair away from repeating the first grade because of my inability to properly speak the language or make any progress in those little English workbooks where you fill in a letter to make words and phrases. In the end, I couldn’t tell you what made it all click, but I would eventually pick up English incredibly fast. Like, scary fast; scary like the reading teachers had to constantly tell me to slow down with my reading, essentially putting a harness on my reading skills so that the other kids could “catch up.” This was pretty much how the rest of my schooling went with regard to English. I honestly did pretty well in my English classes. Like I’m not even trying to gas myself up here or anything, but my essays were usually pretty fucking lit despite my never doing the required readings for any of those classes. I don’t even know, like I went from this scared and confused child who couldn’t understand what anyone around him was saying to someone who would be asked to proofread college and scholarship essays for friends. English was no longer a burden on me. I learned to use it well enough that I began to identify as somebody who had a pretty lit command of the language, but this achievement came at a cost. What I hadn’t noticed was that during the years I spent developing my English, my ability to speak Vietnamese suffered. I began to realize that I couldn’t speak Vietnamese like I used to. I would stutter, mumble and replace various words with their English equivalent. As much as I tried to communicate with my parents, the words just couldn’t come out with the clarity and eloquence I was so familiar with when speaking English. I knew that I knew these words. Spoken to me, I’d understand almost every Vietnamese word my parents would speak, but as I sorted through the linguistic rolodex in my brain to try to hunt for the right string of words or phrases to respond back to them, nothing came out. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s like getting into a really fucked up accident and having to learn how to walk again. Like you knew that at some point in the past you could do it, and that you did it pretty well, but here you are, trying to pick up these pieces of your past so that you can put together at least a semblance of who you once were. With language having had such a profound impact on me, I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I more or less lost my ability to proudly communicate in my mother tongue. I was even having trouble calling it that. Like aren’t you supposed to know your mother tongue better than anything else? By technicality English is my second language, so I just felt so distraught realizing that my ability to speak it had so greatly surpassed the language I was basically born speaking. In a way it felt like language, something I had learned to confide in for so long and something that helped me form my identity, betrayed me in some type of way? I can’t really think of another word for it. Honestly, I was just about 50 shades of shook over the whole situation if you really want to know the truth.

This whole story brings me back to what I was talking about earlier, the whole discussion on “fullness.” I guess a kind of end goal for me in terms of culture and identity would be to connect to something remotely similar to Tchaikovsky’s cultural “fullness,” and I don’t mean end goal like it’s something I want to do before I die or anything. I just mean it in the sense like, “Damn, wouldn’t it be really fucking incredible to feel the way Tchaikovsky felt about his own identity?” I think why this whole ordeal hit me so hard is because I feel like language is one of the most important facets of a culture. Like, beyond anything else, language connects you with others in such a personal way, so I kept asking myself, like, if I can’t speak the language of a particular culture, can I even fully identify with it? I’m just very preoccupied with the word “fully,” but how, like, many things can I even fully identify as? It just brings up a shit ton of questions, like, “Can I fully identify as a given ethnicity if I wasn’t born in a certain place?” or “Can I fully be an ethnicity if I don’t necessarily look like a person who belongs to it?” Perhaps such an inability to fully identify as anything nowadays is something symptomatic of the modern age. Like, it could just be something that accompanies the common practice of compartmentalizing every aspect of our being into these new and labeled divisions. Maybe in some ways this Tchaikovskic fullness isn’t realistic. Like, I could just one day come to the realization that I will never be able to, in any manner, replicate even the modicum of the fullness Tchaikovsky wrote about, but even if that were the case, I don’t think there are any real detriments toward the pursuit of such a feeling. Some might call it myopic, like somehow having this focus on a singular aspect of culture in the hopes of attaining some abstract fulfillment isn’t sensible. I mean, I can definitely see how people would believe that, seeing it as being vapid and shallow, but I think we have to keep in mind that we all currently live in this era where we ourselves have the ability, now more than ever, to form our own identities. We can choose to append or remove certain facets and aspects of ourselves to grow closer to our ideal self, and I think that’s a very freeing aspect of it all, despite claims that it can be seen as being inauthentic or full of shit. I guess the hyper-idealized millennial sense of self is the result of a fluid amalgamation of various different things. Maybe this fluidity is a completely different sense of self than Tchaikovsky’s original interpretation of fullness, or perhaps the result of this amalgamation is exactly how he may have felt. I mean, as much as I’d like to, I can’t really slide into his DMs to ask him how he personally defines fullness, so I guess a lot of it is up in the air. The fact of the matter is, I’m still trying to figure out my own sense of self and how it relates in the context of the world around me. And maybe I won’t ever be able to say that I am Vietnamese in the fullest sense of the word and feel the satisfaction Tchaikovsky felt. I guess I can be fine with that and just do my best to work toward a sense of fullness and fulfillment that reflects what it means to be fully myself, whatever the hell that may even mean.

[writingsblog]

I’ve recently been asked by a friend to write for a POC-centered column of my school’s newspaper! I’m very excited to see where this opportunity takes me. I’ll post all that I write there on here as well!

[writingsblog]

So This is Life

There are so many things that I want to say right now with regards to the condition of this blog and I feel that if I were to strive for the eloquence I've perpetually held myself to in the past then there would be small bits and pieces of these feelings left unaccounted for so, to the reader of this blog in its current state, I issue you an apology but also a promise. That sounded so fucking headass but like I said, we’re throwing eloquence out the window for this one.

So it seems pretty irresponsible to revisit this blog after abandoning it for months at a time, specifically on the advent of the New Year. I mean this period of time is like the valley of broken promises titled “New Year’s resolutions”. You know, going to the gym, spending less, having better habits. Even I have fallen into such a valley, but instead of partaking in such a grandiose task as exercising regularly (I mean really. I can barely sleep regularly. I would love to be one of those people who have enough structure in their lives to work toward physical fitness but at this point in time it is just not realistic) I've begun actively using an agenda. What has failed me in the past is that I would buy some cheap agenda and just never use it, so this year I stepped it up and bought myself a Moleskin agenda: 22$. Twenty-two fucking dollars like do you KNOW how much chipotle I could have bought with that money??? I’m talking MULTIPLE double meat bowls... WITH GUAC!!! Anyways my philosophy was that the most successful people in my life use agendas to keep up with their lives, and not just like google calendars but like physical agendas, and I wanted to emulate that in hopes of attaining their same levels of success. Given that agendas have failed to become a recurring facet of my life, I chose to buy an expensive agenda I guess to justify its use? Or I guess I just bought it so I would feel bad about not using it. Two weeks into the new year and though I forget to write things down here and there, I am using it, which is more to say about any agenda habit I have had in years.

Secondly, the state of this blog. Holy fuck. To put it simply, I have had a tumultuous past year. Like it was fucked up. For multiple different reasons. Like it was just like the pillars of adulthood were crumbling onto me all at once, month after month, week after week and I was tired. Physically and emotionally exhausted and drained. The summer was better but to say it was a saving grace from the academic year of torture would be to try and sugar coat a landfill. But in the past few months, I feel that I am better. I want to write about it; like I definitely do and I definitely will. Maybe I'll go full detail and maybe I won’t. tl;dr Coming out to my mother and also being the victim of an HIV scare literally killed my emotions, and OF COURSE on top of that I was fucking caught up in my sad gay feelings over a boy and I let them consume me body and soul until I was able to overcome it. And overcome it I have. It’s like, when you’re in this well of sadness and stress and turmoil and then one day you aren’t anymore. And it’s weird. And it’s just like... great as well too? I can describe it, just not now. The best I can do for the current moment is talk about it as how I felt about the absence of such strain in my life: But now what?...

Anyways, the new year has arrived. I mean it’s been here for the past what, *hovers mouse to the top of my MacBook* 9 days? And I'm here too. This blog is one of the most sentimental pieces of work I have to my name. I don’t show it the appreciation it deserves, but it and I have the most appreciative relationship for each other, similar to low-commitment friendships. You know, the ones where you don’t need to be in contact with each other every single day but when you do reunite it’s nothing but love and support and you hit it off where things left off. This is exactly how I feel with this blog. It’s like an old friend of mine who doesn’t mind that I ignore them for months on end only to come back when I need something or when I’m sad.

But yeah, into the new year. I want to write more. I've been reading more and amassing a collection of literature I will want to work on reading in my spare time. I would joke about my lack of spare time but if I have time to lurk Reddit and Youtube for hours in a depressive angst, I have time to read. And I definitely will have time to write. I will find time to write even. I want to reunite with the joy it used to bring me. So many emotions I've left uncaptured only to record the climaxes of depression, anxiety, and stress. 

I want this to be anything but ephemeral. That’s my goal for this year with regards to this blog. The avoidance of ephemerality and the introduction of consistency through writing and reading. 

So, to the reader of this post. First of all, thank you if you actually got all the way through this. If this is your first time here I welcome you to the shit show that has been posted here in an emotional depressive angst I call the past year. I promise that within this year I will give this blog the attention it deserves.

I'm working on myself a lot. I think I may have written this here before but the distance between my present and future tense is this lifelong race I'm working on finishing. And maybe I won’t ever finish it, but I'm sure I will learn things along that track to make the escape of such a finish line something i can deal with.

I watched this video awhile ago and Hari Neff was in it. She said this really eloquent quote that sounded like something out of my upper-level gender studies course, but it really resonated with me, hold on lemme grab it from Youtube okay?

Okay so in that video, she said "[T]he next chapter is figuring out what that hyper-idealized self means in the context of the community,  because things won't change if people collapse in on themselves." If you want to watch the video, I'll link it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rJk7dsV_5M

Nnyways, my response to that quote is... well fuck. I'm still trying to figure out what that hyper-idealized self is with regards to me even, let alone the community. I want to write about gender too. I want to write about so much. And all of the things to come that can be spoken about here feel liberating and exciting to me and kind of give me some energy to persevere through day-to-day life.

So it’s 4:38 am on a Monday morning. This post is long enough. To the reader, thank you for being. And to myself, (when I read this over), thanks for being as well, because you (current you reading this) and me (past you writing this) both understand the weight of being from time to time, that Milan Kundera calls “the unbearable lightness of being”. (which I’ll be reading soon enough! Just ordered it! Ahh!!!!!)

So yeah. What’s up 2017? I’m Khang. This is the reinstating of my presence on this blog and the revision of myself through the artistic form of words. I'm glad to meet you and hope to grow fond and comfortable with you (despite the current state of world and personal affairs). 

[writingsblog]

so here i am. 18. eighteen. standing on the fringes of life looking in. along the boundary of inept and adept. "if i say that i am not depressed then i am denying a whole world inside me" for him i think i was everything i could be but i don't think that was enough. i don't think it'll ever be enough for him. i'm not sure if i will ever be enough but i don't think that matters. i want to try and grow into a better person each and every day. eighteen rotations around the heavenly glowing body has taught me so little and simultaneously so much. i still plan on staying here for a little bit so i still have awhile so that leaves more room to grow and learn and everything else. what i'm really drawn to now is the feeling of warmth and ambient lighting. i don't know why but it makes me feel warm and safe. i want to try really hard to get better. i want to try really hard to grow. there's this duality between the excess and limits to the time i have. it's all very overwhelming. i have so much to do. i have to write about. so many incredible things to talk about with people who i love and care about and who reciprocate those feelings to me. i'm as excited as i am afraid of growing up; coping with its inevitability and all that comes with it. i guess eighteen is a grand lesson on not worrying about things that are out of my control. i don't know why i'm doing all of this 3 weeks early but better out than in. i feel better now

[writingsblog]

and with his words that cut like stone knives, the lover told him "i love you more than anything else." and for the first time in his life the boy would understand reciprocity even if he didn't know that the word existed. he felt the words pressed against his skin, like the hands that held him in his sleep and led him across streets, but now they crept, up and up and up and wrapping around his neck. he felt warm but didn't understand that warmth does not constitute comfort; a burning house is warm but one does not wish to recline in its quarters. however for him the lover was such a house. one he would wish to live in for as long as he could make him a home. he went on doing that for as long as he could remember. the boy would make homes in other people. parasitic in nature, he would live in the empty cavities between their ribs looking for the familiarity of warmth with none to be found. he is bold in his actions but broken as a result of them.

[writingsblog]

浜松市営名残CBアパート（1950年） 静岡県浜松市 2016

[writingsblog]

3/100 Sometimes productivity comes best early in the day with sunshine to help you start it right!

I like reviewing my readings for English and taking a few detailed notes before discussion.

Studying before hand is even more effective than afterwards.