I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. Last year, I promised I would exercise, I promised to stop eating fast food, I promised to finish my coursework, I promised to do about a million things that have long left my head. On New Year’s Eve, I thought about all the resolutions I abandoned and I felt guilty.  I sipped champagne with my friends, a good 15 lbs heavier than I was the year before, ready to say goodbye to 2009.  I realized then that New Year’s resolutions (while they may work for some), do not work for me. The ones I’ve made in the past just weighed me down, filling me with guilt and regret.

2009 was a rough year, particularly for my health (this is not related to my broken resolution to avoid fast food, I promise).  At the beginning of the year, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. I spent the rest of the year trying to get my condition under control and resigning to the fact that this would consume my life.

This is not a *boo hoo* rant, trust me. I’m grateful to finally have a name for my condition. In college, I’d have major stomach issues for months at a time.  TheEx would always lose patience about a month into a flare-up and tell me to just suck it up and deal with it. But now, now my condition has a name. It’s not made-up-imaginary-stomach-problem, it’s Ulcerative Colitis and it’s real. My condition affects everything. It has become an imaginary third person in the relationships that I’ve had, controlling my plans on many occasions. It’s been a big adjustment, but I’m finally adjusting to my new routine, my new life, my new companion.

2009 was about loss. Losing routine, losing love, losing focus,  and losing my way.  A lot of my friends seemed to be dealt the same cards and we spent 2009 laying low,  just waiting for the year to end. Celebrities that I grew up watching on television died left and right, leaving me feeling uncomfortable and uneasy about death in general.

2010 will be about putting out positivity in the world when I can. 2010 will be about generosity and good deeds.  I won’t set a minimum or maximum, I won’t get caught up in the specifics. I’m just going to make a mental note to myself about what I want this year to be about.

That’s good enough for me.

3 Comments » Posted: January 5th 2010
Filed under: Random Thoughts
Tagged In: happy new year's, new year's resolutions

TheEx’s family had a New Year’s tradition of popping fireworks until midnight and then eating fresh saimin together at the dining room table. It’s a tradition established long before me and will continue with the next person theEx decides to share New Year’s Eve with. This year while I lit sparklers and drank champagne with my friends, I remembered those years I spent with theEx on New Year’s Eve with her family.

Long before theEx was, well, theEx, she was just known as Linda. I went with her to family functions and helped her mom wash dishes after her relatives left. On New Year’s Eve, I’d sit with her family at the dining room table and slurp through a bowl of fresh saimin.

Her brothers filled a stack of hollow bricks with fireworks in front of the house while Linda and her teenage sister, Jamie, wrote their names in the air with extra long sparklers. Linda’s mom sat in a broken lawn chair, poking their lopsided grill with a stick to keep the fire going.

“Let’s play a game,” Jamie mused, dropping her sparkler into a bucket of water and watching it fizzle out.

“Okay,” Linda answered, practicing a cursive “L” in the air.

“This is a ‘this or that’ game.  I’ll say to things and you have to choose one,” she explained.

I sat off to the side and crushed pop-pops under my shoe. Linda pulled up a chair next to me, tossing her sparkler into the bucket. “Okay, go,” she said.

“Okay, if you had to choose one person to save, who would you choose?” Jamie asked. She paused for dramatic effect and then continued, “Mom or Hitler?”

Linda laughed, open mouthed and wide, as if caught by surprise. “Mom, of course!”

“Okay, that was too easy,” Jamie replied, playing with the lighter. She lit another sparkler and shook it near Linda’s leg, white sparks bouncing on the pavement.

She pulled away, shooting Jamie a dirty look. “Okay, next.”

“Mom or Dad?” Jamie asked without hesitation. I knew the answer; Linda’s father was barely in the picture. He was merely a stack of giftcards scribbled with “from Dad”, sometimes “from Mark” when he wasn’t paying attention when signing.

“Mom,” Linda answered. She turned to me. “Do you want something to drink?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m good.”

She kissed my cheek and leaned into me. “It’s almost midnight,” she whispered. “I love you.”

I crunched a pop-pop under my shoe. “I love you, too.”

“Hey! We’re not done playing!” Jamie pouted, pointing the fiery sparkler in Linda’s face. She hid in my shirt collar.

“Kristel or Mom.” It wasn’t really a question.

“Both!” Linda called out with a laugh, but Jamie wasn’t smiling.

“No, you can’t do that. That’s not how the game goes.”

Linda stood up, walking to where her brothers were still blowing up fireworks and just about anything they could fit into their stack of blocks. “I’m making my own rules,” she answered in that baby voice she used to talk to her family.

She grabbed Linda’s arm. “No, Linda. You have to choose one. You can’t save both. One will die and the other will live. You have to pick one.”

I tried not to look at either of them, but I could see them out of the corner of my eye. Linda’s mom had gone in the house to start boiling the saimin noodles and Linda’s brothers were busy filling the cement blocks with newspaper and smoke bombs.

“Mom,” I heard Linda say. I turned to see if she had called out to her, but I quickly realized it was answer.

“Good choice,” Jamie gloated, slapping Linda on the back. “You have to choose your family.”

I could feel Linda’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t stand to look at her.  She didn’t have to answer. She didn’t have to give in to her sister, who played the game just to watch my reaction.

“Kids! Saimin!” Linda’s mom called out from the kitchen. The boys dropped the lighters on the sidewalk and raced each other into the house.

“Ready to go?” Linda asked, reaching for my hand. She smiled at me, in exactly the same way she had when she said, ‘I love you’ earlier. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just tired.”

“Come on, let’s go eat.” We went inside and her mom handed me a steaming bowl of fresh saimin. Linda saved me a seat next to her and I spent the meal trying not to cry in my soup.

No Comments » Posted: January 3rd 2010
Filed under: The Bad
Tagged In: i never picked you, I'm through with the past, it stings, new year's eve long ago, theEx, these memories sting, you never picked me

It’s the last day of 2009 in ohso voggy (volcanic fog) Hawaii.  I have a few hours to kill before I go out to celebrate the New Year with my friends. I’m writing this entry while looking out the balcony of my apartment and I feel content with my life.  It’s something I’ve never felt before.

New Year’s in Hawaii is crazy. The illegal fireworks start right after Thanksgiving, with random aerials lighting the sky in the early morning hours, and continues well after New Year’s Eve. As a kid, I’d stick a whole row of sparklers in the grass and light them one by one. When I got brave, I’d play with Morning Glories and write my name in the air, letting the sparks dance to the asphalt.

The big finale came at midnight, when my parents would string up the big red Chinese firecrackers to a ladder and light it. It’d take a good 10 minutes to finish and then another 45 minutes to clean up, but after it was done, we’d all feel luckier and happier somehow.  If we celebrated at my Grandma’s house, the whole family would come over, we’d potluck, and light sparklers in the front yard together. My Grandma would get her yearly glass of white wine and fall asleep well before midnight and we’d all kiss her goodnight before going home.

I’m 26 years old now. My parents moved to Seattle and  we rarely do extended family functions now.  I’m going over to a friend’s house with a bottle of champagne, bought a small box of sparklers, and plan on eating junk food with the people I adore. We won’t light the “Big Red” at midnight or light rows of sparklers in the front yard, but we’ll celebrate together and that’s enough for me.

Here’s to a fantastic 2010 for all of us.

7 Comments » Posted: December 31st 2009
Filed under: Random Thoughts
Tagged In: happy new year, new year's in hawaii, what resolutions?

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas from me and Chompers!
Check out our Charlie Brown Christmas tree!

3 Comments » Posted: December 25th 2009
Filed under: My Life is Strange

Although I technically made up with the Hot Mess, things just aren’t the same.  How can someone like the Hot Mess keep out the sadness? Girls like her can’t. By their very nature, a Hot Mess is kind of like a hurricane: unpredictable and ultimately destructive. I’m attracted to girls like the Hot Mess for the thrill, for the adventure, and for those brief moments of bliss that can only be compared to an eye of a storm.

I’m not even sure why I took the Hot Mess back. Perhaps because I know now I’m not her first choice (despite what she says) and I don’t feel guilty that she’s not mine either. I know that sounds terrible, like we’re using each other (and maybe we are on some level), but it’s more than that and I can’t quite explain it.

Last night Autumn was on my mind so I texted her before bed, “thank you for everything. Time with you felt like a wild rumpus.” I had just seen Where the Wild Things Are and my mind was still reeling with images of  Max dancing in the forest with the monsters.

She called me about 20 minutes later. “Hey stranger,” she yawned. “A wild rumpus, huh?”

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no. Just doing some homework, but I’m over it. So time with me felt like a wild rumpus?”

I felt self-conscious. Perhaps she thought I was being pervy? “Uhh–uhhh,” I choked. “I didn’t mean for it to sound perverted!”

“Hahaha,” she laughed warmly. “I know–it’s from Where the Wild Things Are. It’s one of my favorite children’s books. I just wanted to know why you thought so.”

I sat up in bed, as if it would help me think clearer. “Spending time with you…was just what I needed to get out of my head.  I spend a lot of time in my head, you know, like weighed down by everything…”

“I can tell,” she added, almost empathetically. “Sometimes I’d look over at you and you looked like you were thinking about a hundred things at once.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be.  People that I’ve been with in the past, they usually think one thing at a time, if anything.  They’re only worried about the moment, but I can tell you think further ahead. It makes you quite thoughtful and cute.”  I tried so hard to imagine Autumn’s face, illuminated by a cheap desk lamp I associate with college students.  I imagined her leaning in her chair, staring at the screensaver on her computer. I wanted her much closer. I wanted this conversation to take place in my messy apartment, in my tiny bed.

We talked until nearly 2am when I remembered the time difference. “Call me tomorrow,” she said between yawns. “If you get bored or whatever. No pressure.”

“I will,” I promised. “Good night.”

“G’night.”

No Comments » Posted: December 23rd 2009
Filed under: The Good
Tagged In: autumn, decisions, mistakes we knew we were making, post-la thoughts, the hot mess, the wild rumpus, where the wild things are