Thoughts, unfiltered.

I woke up this morning with a thought in my head, a strangely blissful in-between of sleep and awake and awareness. And so instead of really trying to grasp at the details of that thought, which I think would have ruined the moment, I just grabbed a pen, my journal, and wrote. And these are the thoughts coursing through my head:

I'm in New York City. I live, breathe, smell this town in a way that I never thought I'd get a chance to. Every November, as the holidays draw closer and the prospect of returning "home" begins to fade back into my consciousness, I stop. And think. About how a whole year has gone by, and what I did last year at this point in the semester (because back then, my life was measured in semesters) and what I was most concerned with at that point in time, what made me happiest and what I had envisioned for the future. Because I think what you worry about at a given stage of your life tells a lot about what's the most important thing on your mind at the moment.

And this thinking makes me grateful. Because at this time last year I think I was starting to unravel a little bit. There was the stress of trying to stay on top of classwork while interning in Beverly Hills at a job where I could tell the other employees were miserable; the impending panic of being able to find a job or have a more defined direction before graduation; the creeping feeling that I was running on empty because my mind was just veering in too many directions at once. I remember the break-in in San Francisco, the break-down in my apartment, the unabashed tumble of emotions as I tried to figure out why I was so internally stressed and still so adamantly in denial.

To say that a lot has happened in the past year is perhaps a moot point - of course it has. So perhaps a better thing to say is that a lot has simultaneously shifted and solidified within the last few months. As of the end of October, I've been in NYC for just over five months, and there are so many emotions associated with that anniversary of sorts.

Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.

I was so focused on other people's lives and helping them out so as to avoid taking a good hard glimpse at my own life and figuring out how to fix any outstanding problems. Spend time catching up with friends over dinner or a drink? It was preferential to actually studying for exams or finishing up projects, or heaven forbid, reflecting. I've always grown up as a nostalgic child, looking to the past and trying to figure out how to recreate it in my head so that it fits the mold of the steps that have taken me to where I am now, if that makes any sense. In other words, seeing my current position for what it was - at the time, on the brink of meltdown - meant that I wanted look back on my upbringing and my personality and see what it was that caused me to be so discontent at that point.

And everything pointed to two things. First, I was raised to be a perfectionist - follow-through and initiative were drilled into me from a young age. If I didn't know the answer to something, I just had to ask. And there was never any question about whether or not I would be able to accomplish something I put my mind to. I was fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by positive influences and strong role models. Failure was not something I knew, though potential was. Too many teachers, too many people always saying that I had "potential" - untapped potential - to do something. It took all the way until high school to fully understand what that meant. Potential. The only thing stopping me? Myself.

I was shy beyond words. I would hide behind a book, prefer silence and awkwardness to trying to get to know other people. But while I might not have gotten to know other people very well, I knew my own personality inside and out. My likes, my dislikes. My fears, my talents, my weaknesses. All this plays into the here and the now, the fact that I'm striving to become a journalist, a profession that thrives on, honestly, learning about yourself through other people. The focus, on the outside, is off me. I'm a reporter: I absorb, I learn, I teach. Who would have thought that a profession that's so notoriously people-friendly would in the end begin to turn me introspected again?

The point is this. At this time last year, I was doing a lot of reflecting, about how I had become the type of person that I was, just mulling over my shortcomings, questioning my own motives to stay busy and stop thinking, but today...today, so much has changed. This year I reflect on being in New York and about how my experiences have shaped me. How being independent and stubborn in my beliefs, naive at times to the ways of the world, has gotten me this far. I know people say it's a combination of luck and skill that guarantees success (and what does that word mean, even?), but I also know that I can only control one half of that equation. Sometimes I do genuinely wonder how I got to where I am, able to talk to celebrities and big-shot editors without so much as a flinch. How did that even happen?

I do know this, though: I learned early on that if you don't ask, you'll never know. So these days, I'm just asking myself more questions than usual.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Things haven’t been the same ever since my car was broken into nearly three weeks ago. It took someone breaking in for me to break down and slowly build myself back up. In the last few weeks, I’ve gone from desperation to reflection to hope to pure bliss. It’s been a roller-coaster of events and emotions, but I’m so grateful for having circumstances be what they have been – in a weird way, losing so much really made me open my eyes to see not only what I already had, but also what I had already been lacking even before my material things were stolen.

And there was so much I hadn’t even noticed.

So much of this semester has been a test – of my patience, of my time-management abilities, of my own solid sense of self in the midst of so many moving, shifting pieces. If the Nike 10K was any indication, I jumped into this semester with all the hope and ambition in the world – I thought myself prepared for the long road ahead of me; stretched, prepped and charged. I had trained vigorously over the summer for what I saw as a warm-up for the main event: the LA Marathon in March (now moved to May!), and approached the night run as just another practice, an extended version of a familiar route.

“Don’t keel over, please,” I remember saying to my friend as we jumped up and down in the crowd prior to the official start of the race. He gave me a look, a silent “Child, please” before continuing to jump to keep warm. We joked about who would finish first, and how, if one of us did end up collapsing, it would selfishly cost the other his or her final time on account of having to step over the fallen runner.

Ominous words.

I was going into the race with hardly any sleep in the last week, having been on deadline for both my newsmagazine publication and my internship, moving out of my brother’s apartment and into my own, and acting as host to a friend from out of state. Looking back, a marathon – even a 6-mile marathon – was probably the last thing I should’ve been doing given my situation.

But still, I fought on.

Even when, during the middle of the race, I felt myself growing tired and my vision beginning to blur, I pushed on because I was convinced my fatigue was just a momentary phase for me to power through. My only real goal for the race was to never stop running – it became clear, though, that if I continued on at the rate I was going, I wouldn’t even get to the finish line.

So I walked.

But the power and the surge of the people around me motivated me to keep on – so after several steps of power walking, I would increase my pace to a trot and then a jog. There was conviction in my gait, or so I’d like to think. Then, as I rounded the corner for the final stretch down Figueroa toward the entrance of the Coliseum, I felt something click within me. I sprinted. The finish line was so close I could see the ribbon stretched taut across the street, the crowds of volunteers leaning from the sidewalk to congratulate runners, the lights from beyond the gate glaring into the faces of exhausted participants. I could feel the beat of the music from the Coliseum, moving in and out of sync with the rapid thumping in my chest. I felt a burst of energy.

And then everything went black.

Waking up sprawled on the ground with paramedics surrounding you is a pretty dang horrifying feeling. I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation for the longest time, and the words that kept spewing from my mouth weren’t mine. I couldn’t control the way my hands kept gesturing, or how I would wince and twist away from human touch. I didn’t know how to get the paramedics to understand that, and I didn’t have any feeling in my legs. Those moments – and I had no real idea how long I had been drifting in and out of consciousness – were some of the most terrifying of my life.

I was convinced I was going to die.

My logic was shot to pieces and I felt what can most closely be described as an out-of-body experience. It was as though I were already drifting away from the physical world and I was helpless to do anything to stop my mind from escaping from the situation completely. I just remember wishing I could wake up from the horrendous dream, and I squeezed my eyes tightly to make sure my wish came true. My mind began to drift.

But then something grounded me.

One of the paramedics began to ask me questions. Who are you? What’s your name? Where are you from? What did you eat today? What are you studying? Anything and everything to keep me awake, to keep my mind functioning as they lifted me onto a gurney and then into the ambulance. I caught blips of his questions and began to respond in half-hearted jest, trying to make light of the situation.

The sirens only registered half the time.

After spending the night at the hospital and seeing my parents wander timidly through the curtains into the room (separately, only one visitor at a time), I felt myself grow impatient. Not with the situation, the fact that I had to be bed-ridden for another 24 hours and constantly drink fluids (they claimed I had collapsed from extreme dehydration and exhaustion), but with myself, at having let myself get into such a situation as to make my parents worry after my health and well-being. In the dark, I lay awake and chided myself for putting myself in a position of helplessness and causing others worry. This isn’t how I had expected to start off my senior year.

Flash forward to three weeks ago, when I first opened my drivers’ side door to discover what I first assumed to be hail strewn across my seat, and it makes more sense why that break-in led to a mental breakdown later on that week. My first reaction when I glanced up to see my entire passenger-side window smashed in wasn’t panic, but a slowly creeping feeling of déjà vu. It was around 5 p.m., just after the awards ceremony for the dragon boat tournament at Lake Merced up in San Francisco. I had put the speeding ticket I got on the drive up out of my mind, and this just minimized the incident that much more.

In the moment, I felt helpless. It was as though a string of rather unpleasant (to put it lightly) events were following me. Throughout the course of the semester, I felt as though I had been working hard but had lost sight of the reasons why.

I had been focusing so much on establishing something with Bamboo Offshoot, but felt as though I were the only one putting in any effort. Apathy was eating away at my staff, and production had been going poorly despite my efforts to save it.

I hadn’t been able to maintain relationships and keep up with those near and dear to me because I’d been so busy with extracurriculars and school.

I was stuck in the middle of family drama that involved a close cousin being disowned from the family.

I hadn’t been starting up the blogs or freelancing I had aimed to do at the beginning of the semester.

I didn’t have a job secured.

I was behind in all of my class work, and was literally failing a course.

I’d let my parents down by getting myself into this situation and would have to find a way to pay them back for these damages. They would worry.

I had been lacking the purpose I initially began the semester with, and as much as I wanted to trivialize the fact that my window had been smashed and my things stolen, I just couldn’t. It was the last straw in a string of unfortunate events, and I wanted to just curl up in a ball and give up. All I saw were the negatives and the lack-ofs. It was hard to see the situation any other way.

But then I saw how everyone else was responding to the situation, and I knew I could only let myself be down and out for those few brief minutes. A friend’s wallet, phone, purse, ID, credit cards – had all been stolen from my backseat. I felt guilty, whether or not I had reason to feel that way, and I shifted my attention to that rather than focus on my own issues. What I had stolen was replaceable. Take a step back. No one was hurt, no reason to stress. Everything would work itself out. It might not seem like it in the moment, but the situation really wasn’t as bad as it seemed, in the grand scheme of things. I decided not to let myself get to emotionally invested. Everything would be okay.

Everything will be okay.

And everything was fine for those first few days after driving back from San Francisco. I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of concern from my teammates, friends and family, and I truly felt like I had needed something like this to happen to help ground me and put me back on the right track. I had been looking too much at the negatives to see their counterpart positives. The only problem was, I hadn’t let myself get all those emotions out of my head. There hadn’t been any catharsis, and my frustrations had simply been compartmentalized.

The Tuesday night following the Sunday break-in marked my first real emotional breakdown in a long time. In talking to a friend about the incident, I began to tear up, and my emotions and fears began to pour forth. I don’t think I ever expelled all those pent-up feelings, a whole semester’s worth, and it felt like such a huge relief to say everything that had been on my mind for far too long. I’ve always credited myself as being capable of taking on situations and being the comforter in times of distress – I shy away from being vulnerable, and that has translated into a lack of outward emotional reaction to anything big that had happened in the past semester, good or bad. It took a lot for me to admit that I wasn’t okay.

Everything’s a big deal, he said. Everything is a huge freaking deal.

Someone breaking into your car? Huge deal. React to it.

Getting accepted into Teach For America? Huge deal. React to it.

People not meeting deadlines and not respecting the publication? Huge deal. React to it.

Worried about how you’re failing one of your classes? Huge deal. React to it.

Having your parents tell you that your actions are selfish? Huge deal. React to it.

Too much of the semester had been spent convincing myself that things were fine, when really they probably could have been better. I had been running on empty for so long but had had too much pride or had been too buried under layers of denial to see it. I don’t cry enough. Or get angry enough. I downplay successes and gloss over disappointments. It’s not a healthy way to live.

But now, post-reflection and post-breakdown, things have started looking up in a very big way. I’ve taken on the editor-in-chief position for the Daily Trojan next semester, and I’m at once terrified and excited about the opportunity. It took a lot of thinking and reassessing to finally conclude that this was and is the right choice, but now that I’ve committed, there’s no turning back.

I heard back from Teach For America. My final interview is in just two weeks’ time and I’m anxiously preparing for the day-long process.

I met and spoke with Jeannie Kim, the executive editor over at Time Inc. just last Friday. I think I may have an internship for the summer.

So many things, so many circumstances. It’s been quite a trip and this is just the tip of the iceberg, really. I’ve never felt so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life – were it not for them, I doubt these past three weeks would have turned out quite the way they have.

Sometimes, you need to see the pieces of your life for what they are before you can fit a new window in their place. Break in, break down. Fill out, fill up.

It’s looking a lot clearer today.

The Perfect Time of Day

I write best when I really shouldn't be. At present, I'm mulling over what to write about for the light feature I have due in my journalism feature writing class tomorrow afternoon. With all the things that have been going on in life, you'd think that I'd be able to pull something together to write a semi-decent piece, but I can't focus because of the nagging deadlines inching toward the forefront of my thoughts.

There's the Bamboo Offshoot issue that needs to go to print within the next few hours, but which likely won't be put to bed until later on this week. Procrastination is a bizzle and I find myself really frustrated at my own inability to finish the task at hand. The problem was a breakdown in communication, the failure on my part to keep my writers, photographers and editors in check. I have a problem with delegating work, this much I admit, but this is ridiculous - our first issue of the school year, late to print. The quality of the product might be better, but at the cost of timeliness - eeps.

It's frustrating because I know that the publication has so much potential - the momentum of getting the ball rolling just keeps getting stopped with one road block after another and it worries me that the same issues keep coming up for each...issue. I told myself at the beginning of the year that this would be one of my priorities for the upcoming school year, but as it stands, I think I've put so much effort into this venture that it's affected everything else.

We're in a transitioning phase wherein we're moving out from under the protection of the Asian Pacific American Student Services and into becoming our own student organization. As a result, we need to fund ourselves through ad sales and grants and USG funding. Our funding proposal was rejected about a month ago on the grounds that the board didn't see how Bamboo would "contribute to the betterment of the USC campus."

They didn't see how USC's ONLY Asian Pacific American publication would benefit the campus.

They didn't understand that, with 25% of the campus being APA, it might be necessary to have a sounding board and resource for students who have no voice otherwise.

They didn't feel that issues unique to APAs are worth funding, but parties and concerts that have little real benefit to the campus are.

Seriously?

One of my friends told me to write about passion. What it means to be truly passionate about something and sacrifice sleep, time and money for something that might not initially seem worth it. This just might be it, because - not gonna lie - at this time of day, with deadline encroaching upon my other schoolwork and job applications, it's hard to be focused on that end goal of spreading APA awareness.

Right now, all I want to do is sleep. Is that so much to ask?

...sooooo emo. haha.

The Sum of All Fears

Confession: I have never before felt so lonely in my life.

I am antsy, discontent, tired. I can’t focus on the projects set before me, and I feel as though I am filling my time with useless things in anticipation for something that’ll never come.

I am caught in the middle of too many things, and yet feel as though I’m teetering on the brink of everything, of a very vast something.

I know what my goals are, but can’t bring myself to take steps toward them. Call it self-doubt, call it hesitation, call it self-fulfilled prophecy. Something in me just doesn’t want to reach that end goal, doesn’t want me to feel the thrill of accomplishment.

I’m keeping myself down.

It’s a strange state of mind, I’ll admit. I haven’t felt this uncertain about my own abilities and emotions in a long time, and sometimes I really question just why that is. The only conclusion I’ve been able to come up with is that I am, in very plain terms, growing up.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Loneliness is a curious thing. By definition, it should be a solitary state of mind, something that makes a person feel alone in a crowded street, in the pulse and flow of the world’s heartbeat. But this is far from the case. Lately I feel as though my feeling lonely actually connects me to strangers in a way that feeling content never could – maybe this is the reason why I am drawn to the emotion.

I just started my internship this past week, and am experiencing 40-hour workweeks for the first time in my life. Talk about dynamic workplaces. The office that I sit in every day is filled with staffers and editors constantly scrambling to meet deadlines, rushing to make meetings, tossing memos and comments back and forth about incoming news stories. But the weird thing is that I have never before looked into so many faces and seen loneliness reflected back at me.

Is this a part of growing up that people neglected to tell me about?

In an industry that, on the surface, relies so heavily on human interaction and communication, I find it mind-boggling that so many journalists appear to have built barriers around themselves over the years. They seem jaded, tired, cynical. It worries me that these veteran reporters and writers seem downright miserable doing their job, and look for any excuse not to work. Loneliness seems like a journalistic requirement, on the checklist somewhere between “interviewing skills” and “writing ability.” Maybe I’m being naïve, but at what point did learning and writing and educating become a chore? I know that being a journalist isn’t all fun and games, but should I expect to have my spirit weighed down like theirs sometime in the near future?

Society tells us that with maturity comes independence, but independence isn’t really about freedom; it’s really about the newfound freedom to pick and choose who and what we rely on. It’s strange, because even though people say they want to be free from restrictions, being completely alone is in itself a form of vulnerability, and most of the time, people end up running back toward the safety net of dependency. Independence and dependence are more interwoven than it would initially seem, but at the same time, there’s no real way to consolidate the two – by definition, you can’t be a little bit of each.

The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because settling into a new phase of life always leaves me feeling somewhat unsettled (the irony of it all), and I’m finally starting to pinpoint two of the main causes for my uneasy state of mind: fear and need.

Whenever I hop into a new part of my life, I always have to reassess myself before I can fully adjust. A lot of the reflecting I’ve been doing lately ties itself back to fears and needs – my fears in starting this new chapter of my life, my fear of being on my own, my need to feel needed, my fear of failure. What I’ve discovered, though, is that when you get right down to it, fear is nothing more than the result of not living in the now. By this I mean that fears are founded on a person’s inability to take his or her mind off either the past or the future (or both).

And when I look at the situation that way, it seems obvious to me what the remedy is: live for the now. It’s just that simple, and it’s just that difficult.

Living a life governed by fear is confining, and perhaps this is where the barriers and the loneliness come in. I think too many people, myself included, live life tiptoe-ing around their fears. People live their lives day-to-day distracting themselves from the negatives in life – some by drinking themselves into oblivion, others by chasing fleeting, materialistic things, still others by putting off problems. Generally speaking, people don’t like to feel anger, loneliness, depression, fear…the “lows” of life.

It’s easier to find distractions than to take our fears head-on.

Consequently, we become so careful with life that we really just stop living – and because we’ve blocked ourselves from feeling the lows, we can’t really feel the highs either.

We become numb.

And then the true loneliness sets in – better to feel alone and feel something, to find empathy and compassion that way than to feel nothing at all. Being alone is something everyone sympathizes with, because we’ve all been there. It’s a part of growing up, and it’s a state of mind that connects us all, ironically enough.

So when I say that I’ve been feeling lonely lately, I don’t mean that I want to work myself out of this state of mind. What I really mean to say is that I’m glad I’m experiencing a low now, at this point in my life, so that when something great happens, I’ll be able to appreciate that high.

What goes up must come down, but what falls down doesn’t necessary spring back up. It all depends on the foundation you’ve made for yourself and the durability of your character.

I’m hoping I’ll bounce back.