|
Friday 6/21/02 ~
Learning
I ran across someone’s website today and I’m almost hesitant to even talk about it for fear of trivializing its impact on me. This girl, Stephanie Yan, emailed me her website a few days ago. The email address seemed familiar but I don’t think I’ve ever met her before. It made me curious to find out who she was but I had things going on for the last few days so I left it for when I had nothing to do. Well that day came rather quickly and this evening I ventured over to her site where I found a journal that has inspired me beyond words. She has events and stories in there that just amazed me how close they are to mine. Not the actual fact themselves but the emotions behind them, the way the events were interpreted and how they fit into her life and her world. It is just amazing. She has the courage to put my thoughts into words (and to eloquently), to accept the flaws that we share and to do something about them. I just can’t explain it. There was one part about her and her boyfriend that shook me because it’s something that I was unable…unwilling to admit to myself as of late. And reading it on the screen and reading the way she dealt with it made me freeze. I had to take a minute and remind myself that I was reading about someone else’s decision not mine. Reading her journal is like reading a novel where the author has created a character that you feel you can trade places with and nothing in the plot would change. I emailed her after looking through her site and asked if we could possibly get to know each other. Unfortunately she just graduated but I’m not sure if she’s planning on returning to Berkeley for a few semesters, for work or anything. She did give me the courage to realize that I need to have a voice. Lately in my relationship with Amit I’ve been feeling like it’s wrong of me to care about people, to be nice to them, to help them and to think about them. I know it comes from the many vehement, feverish lectures that Amit has given me time and again about how I’m “too nice”. I also know that he means well by them. He’s just tired of seeing his loved ones get hurt. But being nice to people and being taken advantage of are two different things. And as long as I understand the boundary, I see nothing wrong with being nice to people that I share the air with. Because if I’m not, and I am on the defensive most of the time always questioning others’ motives for saying one thing or doing something else, what makes me any different than the people I have no respect for? Someone has to take the first step and trust. And if you get burned, you learn and then you move on. It took me several times of burning to learn but I am learning. And I’m not saying I’m done. But I have to find that balance because I know that my personality is to care and to empathize and by not doing that, I’m taking away the essence of me. And I cannot do that anymore. It’s not fair to me. But it’s not to say that because of these differences I’m going to break up with Amit. I think these are the exact reasons to stay together: so we can teach each other. We both started out on two extremes. We need each other to pull ourselves onto some middle ground. Another thing Stephanie wrote so beautifully had to do with feeling. I’ve noticed that as of late – maybe the past few months – I’ve been relying on my feelings a lot. I’ve been more aware of how I feel and when. I don’t know whether it’s a result of me having to be so aware of my back pain that I became aware overall or what but I’ve noticed that it really helps. And I think I’ll just paste a little bit of what she said because paraphrasing will just butcher it. I also think that people always give other people bad advice about getting over something. They also tell them to just move on and to distract yourself with work or entertainment, but i don't think that really works because what happens when you are by yourself, you'll have to deal with what you put off. I say, wallow in it. Let yourself feel everything your feeling. Don't stop yourself because you think you shouldn't. Thinking isn't feeling. Feel yourself through life. Then sooner or later you're gonna grow tired of being a repeating record to yourself and you'll be ready to let it go. It’s just amazing how she said so much of what I’ve been so afraid to say myself. I really hope she writes back. I’m very interested in hearing more of her stories. 11:08 pm ~
indescribable
|