This post was an unpublished draft from August 2017, titled "Six Months In."

The following (indented text) is what I wrote on August 3, 2017. I never published it, but I think I'll publish it today, a year and ten months after the main event that this post is about.

Today makes it half a year already since my dad died, after just over a year of me being his "caretaker." I don't know who I expect to read this, but I just had to purge it somewhere, and forgive me, this is a SUPER LONG post with MANY thoughts--about death, alcoholism/addiction, abuse, my dad, being a caretaker, grief, and loneliness.

I've never felt more alone and confused than I have in these six months. Six months since I asked him if he was afraid to die, and, to my surprise, he shook his head. Six months since I last really sang and played piano for anybody other than a gig. Six months since I last said, "아빠? Dad?" and he was able to respond by looking over at me one last time with sleepy eyes. Six months of talking out loud to him when I'm alone, hoping my dad can hear me somehow. Seven months since I last heard him speak or saw him walk, as he had gotten intubated and paralyzed from the waist down after he fell into a coma. Seven months since our last big fight over him drinking too much.

This might be morbid, but it's amazing how much we can attach someone's "personhood" to their physical and mental being. With his ashes in my closet now, I wonder if that's still really "my dad" in the box, and I'm met with a sense of existential crisis. When he woke up from his coma at 60-80% of his brainpower, was I to understand that he was only 60-80% my dad? When he died, I was...confused. How can someone just stop existing? It's in despairing thoughts like this that I feel a compulsion to believe--in an afterlife, in a higher being, in souls and spirits, in "meeting again."

I'm gonna get really personal. My dad was a broken man. For most of my life, I had only known him as my abuser, as someone who terrorized my home and used fists where words failed him and broke my heart so many times. He was an angry man, and he was an alcoholic (but as I like to say, aren't most Korean men these days?). His father before him was the same. I see the same kind of anger in myself and my brother as well. My therapist tells me this is something called "repetition compulsion"--we have a compulsion to repeat trauma, either by inflicting it on others or trying to re-live it. I don't want to end up like my dad, pushing people away, being vindictive and holding grudges, depriving myself of intimacy, exploding in my temper to the people closest to me. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm already headed down that path. I felt bitter towards people I invited to my dad's funeral who ended up flaking with no excuse. I felt jilted by friends who never asked how I was doing in the aftermath. I've been mean to those closest to me. But I'm trying very hard not to end up like my dad, with therapy and the support of loved ones, and with an attitude of gratitude. Positive and proactive thinking is truly changing me for the better.

I understand why my dad was that way (and, subsequently, why I am this way as well). He "learned" it, by way of observation, from his father (who most likely just become a very angry person after the Korean War. What is it good for?--Absolutely nothing). I learned from my own father. I know plenty of people who simply aren't capable of the anger that I am, and I envy them. I guess I'm imploring parents to really understand how your behavior can affect your children. I'm not blaming it entirely on my dad, of course. I can and will do better; I control my own actions. It's been since last November that I started seeing a therapist again for my temper issues. My dad's legacy will not be the anger that I learned from him.

Understand that my dad wasn't completely a terrible man. No one is 100% evil nor good. My dad was the one who really got me into music and my interest in crabbing and marine biology. He's the one that taught me to love rainfall. He was my first Valentine, and he tried to raise me the best he could. He used to play stupid little games with me, like letting me step on his shadow and pretending he got hurt. He quit smoking after I asked him to do so for my birthday. He loved playing his guitar and harmonica, and he always encouraged me to sing, and always complimented my artwork. I didn't really get to know him until the last couple months of his life. It takes two to maintain a relationship, and he didn't hold up his end of the bargain for most of my life, so there's nothing for me personally to regret; it is simply a regretful situation.

My dad died, ultimately, from alcohol poisoning. Prior to, his kidneys and liver were failing steadily in his coma, and he had hepatic encephalopathy. He weighed 87 pounds, skin and bones. He was severely undernourished to where he developed pressure sores within a day of being in the hospital bed (google them if you dare). He lost about two quarts of blood. He had esophageal varices--enlarged blood vessels from too much drinking that made it dangerous for him to even cough too hard or yell too loud. I watched him pretty much deteriorate in front of my eyes in the last year of his life. If you have a serious problem now with alcohol, please seek help. You are not invincible, even if you may feel like it in the arrogance of youth. To people on the flipside: you cannot help somebody who is not receptive to it. You can't help somebody who doesn't want it.

I feel like I failed him as a daughter and as a caretaker. He never knew that I sing and play piano as a side gig. He never knew I graduated from Virginia Tech with 3 bachelor's degrees. He never knew any of my boyfriends (until the current one, actually). I feel like I didn't do enough for him. Should I have lived with him longer and just put up with his abuse? In the moment, I felt that I couldn't. And I don't necessarily regret my decision to stop living with him after a short 3 months. I needed to look out for me, too. My friendships were falling by the wayside, as was my happiness. I was gaining a lot of weight, and I became short and impatient with people. I stopped seeing my mom as much, and I had to temporarily give up Hambone (my dog) as well. As Reddit likes to say, I couldn't keep setting myself on fire to keep somebody else warm. It was a tough lesson to learn, because I thought I was being so self-centered and so selfish, especially when my dad asked me to move in again a few months later and I said no. Self-care is not a bad thing. Self-preservation is not a bad thing. It's very good, actually. I need to better care for myself so I can better care for others in my life.

I now burst into tears whenever I hear his ringtone; it reminds me I won't be able to contact him anymore. I panic every time I see or hear an ambulance, because it reminds me of when I intercepted his ambulance at Fair Oaks and saw him carted out, not breathing on his own. I cry at the weddings I perform at where fathers walk their daughters down the aisle, knowing I'll never have my dad do that for me. Every time I go crabbing, I think of him. Every time I am even in Centreville or Annandale, I think of him. Every time I order my favorite Korean dishes--which also happen to be his favorites--I think of him. Whenever I see a bottle of 참이슬 or 처음처럼 (chamisul or chum churum soju), I get sad as I think about the last big fight where we threw fists at each other as I tried to grab his bottle away from him. I now realize that his drinking was really a slow way of killing himself, as he had deprived himself from having anything to live for.

I think, above all, loneliness is one of the most despairing things to experience. I felt so alone in being someone who took care of my own former abuser; I experienced so many conflicting emotions I didn't know how to articulate. He's my parent, yet I was the one wiping his bum and literally helping him use the bathroom, and I changed his sheets and gown for him. I felt so alone almost every day for the past six months when the urge to cry would hit me so randomly--while driving, while teaching a Paint Nite, while showering, while eating dinner with friends, while sitting at my desk. I felt alone as my own sibling didn't come to the funeral (for reasons I disagree with but respect). I felt so alone in my experience of being a caretaker to someone who ended up dying before my eyes, with nobody else beside me when it happened. I beat myself up over it. My job was to make sure he didn't die, and he did. But it was Jessica who reminded me that it's because of me he actually lived as long as he did. It was David who helped me get through the logistics of the insult to injury afterwards of executing my dad's will/estate and doing administrative/legal matters, having lost his own dad a few months before. It was Jasmine who gave me meaningful words of comfort, having lost her own mother two years ago. It was Justin, Ann, Alex, and Stephanie who came to sign off as witnesses on my dad's will and Power of Attorney. It was Jacob who reached out to me about the very real struggles of alcoholism and achieving sobriety. It was Laura who reached out to me to specifically make sure I knew I was, indeed, not alone. It was Tracey who treated me to a spa day. It was Irene who came over that day and gave me flowers, having lost her own dad in high school. It was Jen that had the sense to buy and send me two books on how to deal with the grief and logistics of the passing of a loved one. It was Skyler who took care of Hambone for me while I was at the hospital, who's seen me randomly cry in our living room and comforted me. It was Huy, Jan, Michelle, Daniel, Liz, Razel, Min, Drew, Jessica, Connor, Luc, James, Michael, Chau, Christopher, Gigi, Alex, Stephanie, and Sarah that visited me and dad in the hospital. It was Nikki who linked me to her dad to give me some legal insight on cleaning up dad's estate. It was Scott who took me out to dinner to share his experiences with me of losing his mother. It was Monica that I called during my first panic attack, after sudden flashbacks to my dad's death. It was my mom who came to see her former abuser and ex-husband just to support me, even though she was terrified after 20+ years. It was James who found a pastor to officiate my dad's ceremony. It was Mason who brought me my keyboard from my apartment so I could sing for the first--and last--time for my dad, Mason who has loved me through everything I've been through.

I am not alone, and I'll never have to be, as long as I keep the right people in my life. I will do everything you guys have done for me for pretty much anyone in my life. I will return the compassion you have shown me.

[If you weren't mentioned, don't take that to mean I don't appreciate having you in my life. These are just the people directly involved in the events and days surrounding my dad's passing. I'm also adding names as I remember them lol. I remember absolutely everyone who reached out to me and/or came to the funeral. I am blessed to have the people I have.]

"Plans for the rest of 2014" - revisited in 2017.

I came across this old blog post I did three years ago that listed the plans I had for 2014, and I am rather...bemused. The blue text is the original post from May 2014; anything in black was written today, August 10, 2017.

I plan on...

• getting my credit card balance down to almost $0 by the end of this year. I have completely max'ed out my limit as of now, at the end of April, after spending moneys upon moneys on graduation gifts, birthday shenanigans, and just treating people to food in general. 
• This ended up not even happening until 2017. I kept a steady credit card balance of a few thousand dollars (!!!) due to my fiscal irresponsibility. Who let me have a credit card with such high limits when I was in my early 20's?! ugh. 
• foregoing my MBA this Fall, due to the sad fact that I still have about $30,000 in student loans as well as a barely-livable salary and an apartment in Fairfax County. 
• I did end up foregoing my MBA, and I wasn't able to enroll in my deferred semester (Fall 2015) either. My student loans are down to only about $20,000, but my salary is almost double what it was! Not that that's saying much, of course. My 2014 salary was pretttttty low.
• leaving my position as an Intern for DHS and getting into a permanent and higher-paying position, whether it be in public or private sector. 
• I left DHS, but I ended up having to work retail/service for a bit. Noodles & Company and The Limited (women's fashion store) were my life for a few months. I ended up getting a job at U.S. Dept of the Interior as a contractor in December of 2014, though, and I stayed with them until June of 2017! I left for yet another higher paying job that I'm at now with the Defense Health Agency.
• getting my body fat down to 11% (I have no idea what it is right now but I'm fairly sure it's not below 15%); I don't really want to gain muscle either, so that might just end up becoming 10-15 pounds to lose.
• lmao this ended up completely failing. I gained a lot of weight in 2016 from caretaker depression (being my late father's caretaker for over a year really took a toll on me), and I have yet to lose that weight. I will now have to lose about 30-35 pounds.
• going crabbing at least three times a month May through September.
• I did go crabbing about 3x a month between May and August, and only because I wanted to bring home some crabs for my cousin to eat--his favorite food. He ended up passing away in August, though, and I think I found it difficult to go crabbing after his death. The season was already kind of winding down, anyway.
• buying an actual box/frame for my mattress.
• This finally happened in like December of 2014. I got a big-ass box for my mattress, this clunky black piece from Ikea with four drawers.
• finishing at least two pieces of artwork.
• nope. How hard is it?!
• cutting certain people out of my life--and not pussyfooting around it, either.
• I did actually cut a certain person out of my life--but only temporarily, because I missed her too much, and I loved her very much. It took her being somewhat inconsiderate of my cousin's passing in August for me to cut her out, and then my uncle passed away in November and I really needed someone there for me, so for selfish reasons, I wanted and needed her back in my life.
• working harder to keep certain people in my life--and not pussyfooting around it, either.
• I don't know how well I did this in 2014, but I definitely didn't do it well enough in 2015 and the beginning of 2016. Got into petty arguments, didn't care what people thought ("if they're mad, let them be mad").
• watching all of Orange Is the New Black. I haven't started it yet, but I hear it's a good show.
• I did at the time. But now, I have yet to finish even Season 2. :(
• finishing the rest of Community and Weeds. Bonus: get through at least the second and third season of Glee.
• I believe I didn't finish either Community nor Weeds. I did get through season 2 and a part of season 3 of Glee, though.
• getting a tattoo of an octopus or starfish on my shoulder or hip.
• Still hasn't happened. I have a tattoo of Gyarados on my hip right now, though.
• writing the lyrics to and recording my voice for at least three original tracks--one of which I'm going to be rapping on. I know, I've only ever presented myself as a pianist or singer, but I really admire spoken word and rap and want to learn more about it.
• Nope. Too shy. :/
• taking a walk by myself during a big thunderstorm around my neighborhood.
• This seems like a really reckless goal? 2014 me, what were you gonna do if you got struck by lightning??
• making a spontaneous trip to a beach by myself--probably Virginia Beach or Outer Banks or even Ocean City. Who knows? It'll be spontaneous, after all.
• It was never spontaneous, but I have done several beach trips between 2014 and now, and with close friends :)
• getting something (less controversial) published on ThoughtCatalog again.
• I did! But it wasn't until 2016 that it happened.

Lessons Learned (practical and emotional) while taking care of my dad. RIP 2.3.2017

After being my dad's caretaker for over a year--living with him for a couple of months, going to his house every day thereafter, medicating him, scheduling his appointments and taking him to them, cooking food to fit his dietary needs, trying to diminish his alcohol intake--there are many lessons, as I'm sure you could imagine, that I learned that I am eager to share with the people I love, and people in general.

• To get the most cliche'ed one out of the way, it really is true--the grief comes in waves. I was pretty numb for the first week. The first morning that I woke up after dad's passing felt a little empty, and I could feel a hole in the world (no other way to put it), but otherwise it was a regular Saturday for the most part. But after the funeral, it really hit me. I wanted to cry yesterday night at my a cappella practice because I realized I didn't have to be in a rush to leave anymore to go to my dad's house. I cried at Giant on Monday when a coupon printed out for Ensure, which I always bought for my dad to try and get his protein and weight in check (he liked the chocolate High Protein variety). I cried today at work when I realized it's only (and already) been nineteen days since I lost my dad, and there's the rest of my life to go knowing that I'll never make new memories with or speak to him again. I'm sure I'll still be crying about random things years from now. The grief and loss never really go away; you just learn to grow around it.

• Note: I am not, in any way, an estate lawyer, and this is not intended to be taken as legal advice. This is just my personal experience. Have a "Last Will & Testament" in place, all signed and notarized. Having a "Self-Proving Affidavit" is also useful; this would mean that the witnesses to the signing of the will do not have to be present when you file the will to be probated (i.e. to be validated and recognized by law/court at probate court, which is usually a division of a jurisdictional circuit court). Unless you're under 18, you're never too young to have a will in place, especially if you have kids. In the will, you should note that the executor(s) has the power to sell real estate, if you own any property and if you don't plan on specifying in the deed who the house should go to (i.e. in my dad's will, it was a generic "divide my assets among my two children in equal parts" statement, but you can't exactly divide a house in half). Also make sure that if you appoint more than one executor that the co-executors can act independently of each other; explicitly state this fact in the will. The independence is never assumed or implied. Due to this, my brother and I must act in unison--that is, both of us must be present at every interaction regarding our dad's estate. Kind of inconvenient! If you intentionally do or do not let co-executors act independently of each other (i.e. the convenience of being able to get things done twice as fast vs. them being able to check each other), make sure that they trust each other; fortunately, my brother and I do, and I can see there being an issue of people trying to go behind each other's backs otherwise. Also make sure you have passwords, PINs, safe combinations, and other such things accessible by someone you trust upon your passing. You may also want to consider putting someone's name on your assets and certain liabilities--bank accounts, insurance, mortgages, titles--to avoid the administrative tasks of transferring things.

• Your attitude makes a world of a difference in the way you experience life, and for me, gratitude is the best attitude. I honestly think I'm doing as well as I am because of this. When my dad went into a coma, I had so many things to be angry and whiny about (in my opinion). Instead, I did something that I remember seeing another friend do on Facebook, with the hopes that my friends, too, would feel inspired: I decided to start listing three things I was thankful for every day, rather than griping about the misfortunes I was facing. So, even though my dad was in a coma, at least we had access to health care that was helping to rehabilitate him, and palliative care to ease his pain. I also live in a time where there are apps to help me communicate with people across the world; I used WeChat to tell my brother to come back, and he did, and he was the one who was able to wake our dad up just by calling for him. While I stayed overnight at the hospital for two weeks, I had blankets to keep me warm in the chilly room. Seeing my dad in his condition made me realize how much I take for granted the fact that I can walk and move freely on my own, that I can breathe with no impediments, that I can scratch that itchy spot on my back on my own, that I can eat and drink on my own with no restrictions apart from allergies. I also realize how fortunate I am to have a job that is so understanding of my circumstances and lets me telework or take off as many days as I need. As I did this type of daily exercise, I realized just how much more stuff there is to be thankful for. From access to clean water (I have enough water that I can let my shower "warm up" before I step in) to being able to watch my dad die a peaceful death (rather than a painful or sudden one), from shoes that protect my feet (no tetanus or abrasions on my feet) to decent weather on the day of my dad's funeral (it could have been raining or snowing or freezing or even windier), it really is a "glass half full" mentality that is getting me through this. Let's get this straight, though: just because someone has it worse does not mean you are not allowed to grieve. That's like saying that because someone has it better than you, you are not allowed to be happy. By all means, grieve; Lord knows I have been.

• Good or bad, rich or poor, royalty or peasantry, smart or stupid, healthy or not, we will all meet the same end. I suppose, then, that it's really about who would want to come to your funeral to say goodbye. What community did you create in your life? Did you forge lasting bonds, or did you push people away? Were you kind and empathetic, or were you egoistic and bellicose? How did you participate in this shared experience of life?

• Along with that, funerals are for the living. I understand that, as a pile of ashes, my dad may not be able to hear me. I understand that if a god does not exist, then nobody will hear or answer my prayers. I understand that my dad's spirit isn't literally clinging to my arm as I walk through the rest of my life without him. But I was there to see the people who came out to support me, to grieve my grieving of him, and I take comfort in the fact that I am, indeed, not alone.

• You can only lead a horse to water. My dad was, for a vast majority of his life, an alcoholic (aren't most Koreans, on some level?). I could keep replacing the soju in his bottles with water, do a sniff test of every liquid in the house, take away his driver's license, take away his car keys, beg and plead with him to stop drinking...but he had a hidden stash somewhere I couldn't ever seem to find. He would call a taxi to get to the ABC store. He would send for an errand runner to buy it for him. He would scream at me until I cried and let go of the bottle I was about to throw away. I could do as much as I could in my own power, over my own agency, to stop him from abusing alcohol--but it was ultimately up to him whether he let the bottle touch his lips or not.
• This is something that took me a while to learn, only because I felt so guilty about learning it. It’s important to take care of yourself, too. As much as my dad needed my help, there were times when I needed to just take time for myself. Just one night here and there not having to go to his house so I can go straight to sleep at night instead of driving 25 miles to his house, one night here and there where I hung out with my friends or boyfriend, one night here and there where I was just at home by myself watching TV with my dog. It was for my own sense of sanity. I truly burnt myself out in the whole “set myself on fire to keep someone else warm” sense, and I was destroying and neglecting myself while I was trying to put his needs before mine. But I am human. I am a person too, and I need care, too. Self-care is important.

• Anger accomplishes nothing. At best, it will coerce or intimidate people into doing what you want them to. But at worst (and as is most common), it will break off once-meaningful relationships, deter people away from you, and really only hurt you in the end. I read in Anger Management for Dummies that anger fuels the "fight" in the "fight-or-flight" instinct we get when we are confronted with a threat. We are not animals of instinct anymore. We are beings of higher sentience. Let's act like it. Sure, use the fervor to fuel you into sharpened decision making or light a fire for some passionate belief. But do not inflict your anger upon other people. This past year has been a rehabilitative effort for me as I work to get my abrasive attitude and anger problems under my own control, and life is so much better (and things get done more easily) when I am not angry.

• It is better to err on the side of compassion and care than neglect. That is, it's better to care too much than not care enough--especially if it ends up making a big difference in a life-or-death situation, or other drastic circumstance. I personally believe that the whole "you will regret what you don't say more than what you do say" thing is really true. That's why--especially as it seemed like dad's death was getting more and more imminent--I started speaking my mind more, despite my fear of retribution (our family has never been affectionate, and me speaking my mind has almost always been met with some sort of punishment). He needed to hear this. He needed to know I forgave him along time ago for his wrongdoings. He needed to know I love him. He needed to know that actions speak louder than words, and words can hit harder than fists. He needed to know that it is never too late, that even if he lives one more day, he can live that day right.

• My dad led an unnecessarily painful life, and I attribute that to him being a broken person; he didn't know how to function as anything more than a shell or a reflection of a "normal" person. But people are not born broken. Something or someone breaks them along the way of life. I mentioned this in my eulogy, and I'm glad I did, because I was able to tell the people in attendance at my father's memorial that if they are to do just one favor for me, it is that they live a life of healing in a world full of broken people. Let's get this straight: being broken does not reflect that something is intrinsically wrong with you. If anything, it is an opportunity to rebuild yourself stronger, like torn muscle. I'm not ashamed to say that I, too, have been broken in many ways throughout my short 26 years of life so far. But so far, I have also survived 100% of the worst days of my life. I have conquered, I have learned, and, most importantly, I have deepened my empathy for people. 

• I was a very, very devout Christian in my teenage years. Then, to be very honest, I took some epistemology and philosophy courses, and I became less Christian and moreso agnostic/theist. I don't believe there is absolutely nothing out there, but I also don't believe as wholeheartedly in the Christian rhetoric anymore, especially with the picture of God that the Bible paints; how is a Perfect God so angry, jealous, temperamental, and steadfastly ignoring of our pain? And I know to the still-devout Christian, I sound like a typical believer-led-astray-by-Satan case, or maybe just someone who isn't "listening when God speaks." But I digress. Before my dad's passing, I was ambivalent at best. Now, I almost feel like I have no choice but to believe. Maybe it's because I so strongly want to believe I'll see my dad again someday. Maybe it's because I want to know that we aren't trying to live righteous lives all for nothing but secular consequences. Maybe it's because I want to feel like I have a "purpose." Maybe I because I refuse to believe that human beings are the end-all, be-all to intelligence and knowledge and the whole universe's order. But my bottom line is this: losing a parent (or anyone close to you, really) shakes up your schema of the world. With such a loss, I think your mind actively works to try and make sense of the tragedy.

---

I would like to thank David T, who lost his own father back in November, for holding my hand through the rocky terrain of logistics and grieving that come with losing a parent. Who knew there was so much crap to take care of once someone passes away?! I would like to thank my brother, who made it back in time from Hong Kong to see our dad one last time so that dad wouldn't have to pass away never having seen his son again. I would like to thank my boyfriend Mason N, who, despite coming from a much more different background than mine, has been a wonderful source of understanding and emotional support. He was able to even bring my keyboard to the hospital so I could play and sing for my dad as he passed (which was, incidentally, both his first and last time that he's ever heard me play piano and sing), and that is a priceless memory I will never forget. I would like to thank Mr. Gam, my dad's friend, who has been an irreplaceable and invaluable source of friendship and reliability for my dad. I would like to thank everyone who has donated to my dad's YouCaring page (and special shout out to Jen Roh for suggesting I create one in the first place). I would like to thank my mother, who was able to transcend her own feelings about my father and come to the funeral to support me. I would like to thank everybody who came to visit me and my dad in the hospital; I have your names written down in my diary so I will never forget. I would like to thank everybody that was there in person and in spirit at my dad's funeral to help me say goodbye.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to e-mail me at alicejpark90@gmail.com.

I will win.

Depression wins. Too often.

When I was struggling with depression, I didn't imagine a future for myself. I couldn't. It was impossible, in that mindset, to believe that there would ever be a future where things would stop being so shitty. It wasn't pessimism per se; it was just all I knew, this misery, this cloud that never lifted. A Plato's Cave of indifference. I could almost physically feel it--around my neck, on my shoulders, in my lungs, around my rib cage, on my eyelids. If things wouldn't stop being shitty, why continue into a shitty future? What if the future is even shittier than the shitty present? Even if I get over this shitty phase, another one will surely be upon me soon..?

Babies cry when they're even slightly uncomfortable because it's literally the worst thing they've ever felt in their short little lives. Crying doesn't seem to bring you the same catharsis as it did before, as you transition into maturity and learn about all the other glorious pains life has to offer.

Logic almost ruined me when I was depressed. My misery would beseech probability: if I've only been alive for 18 years and life is already this shitty, how much more shittiness is waiting for me in the next 18 years? Why extend pain--life--if I can just cut it short? I have no control over my emotions--why not take control over my life and what happens to it? I'm not good for anything anymore--what's the point of me staying around? Sure, in the short run, people might be sad, but in the long run, people will be okay, and they will be stronger for it, right?

Depression lied to me. It knew exactly which lies to tell me because it lived in my head, knowing what I would or wouldn't believe. It knew me. It was me. It knew everything I dreaded, everything I hate, everything I feared. It knew what happiness was, and it didn't allow happiness in. It didn't allow anything in, really. In a weird way, it actually comforted me and relieved me of a lot of my fears. Fear, after all, is a natural response you have to some stimulus that you think will threaten your life. Fear then rests of the assumption that you don't want to lose your life and that you value it. I didn't. I didn't flinch at loud noises. I didn't panic in emergencies. I stopped being afraid--and not at all in a courageous or willfully-determined sense. It was fearlessness in a most hopeless, void resignation.

Depression used my own thoughts and logic against me. I couldn't rely on instinct and emotions anymore; I had none left. It nested in my mind, and it fed on itself. I felt guilty for being depressed, and that guilt fed the depression further. I wanted to be able to magically obey my closest friends and start enjoying things and going out and liking myself again, but when I couldn't or didn't want to, I felt like a failure, and that shame fed the depression further. I know certain people got exasperated and annoyed with me, and even downright cut me out of their lives because they couldn't handle the burden of me being the way I was. That's what I was--a burden. This only strengthens the argument that I might be doing some good by committing suicide. I can't be mad at the people who left. They have their own problems, after all. They don't follow the same logic that I do. They don't know. And that made me feel even more alone.

Suicide in the face of depression is not cowardly nor selfish. Suicide is the logical answer that I arrived at when I was depressed. I was not afraid of anything, and I was only thinking of the good it may have ended up doing to others. I couldn't even think enough of myself to be selfish. Perhaps people would band together in camaraderie and mourning, and I would create something beautiful in the wake of my death. Perhaps people will be relieved that I am gone. But suicide is not to be romanticized in any way.

Depression is not just sadness. Please don't look at it as attention-seeking or determined pessimism. Please don't dismiss it as a phase or inferiority. If you would rather sneer and turn away and be absorbed in your own certainty that you know what's right for a depressed individual without even wanting to understand them, then it is you who are cowardly and selfish.

Stop the negative stigma of antidepressants and therapy and psychiatry and psychology to treat depression. Depression has symptoms; it has treatments that may not always work; it has fatalities; and it deeply affects and even debilitates people. It is like any other serious illness. We should treat it like one. And just like any other serious illness, depression requires medical attention. Suicide is, as Robin Williams says, a permanent answer to temporary questions and problems. It's so unfortunate that he could not let himself take his own advice.

I am winning. There are days when I feel I am losing, fading. But I will win, so long as I fight.

I'm okay. It's okay.

It's like a silent panic. Like I'm underwater, and any struggle on my part is only going to hurt me. I feel very alone.

I do have both parents, living (for now). They got divorced when I was 6, and communicated solely out of necessity through written letters. I do have a sibling. He is a half-brother, on my dad's side, 20 years my senior. He is turning 46 in two months, and our dad may not be alive to wish him a happy birthday. I do have aunts and uncles and cousins on my dad's side of the family. My dad removed himself from them 22 years ago, when Uncle June--his older brother--pulled the plug on my comatose grandmother. "You killed our mother," Dad said. "For that, I will never forgive you." 

In those 22 years, his older sister (Aunt Jannie), his older brother (Uncle June), and one of his nephews (cousin Tom--uncle June's youngest son) passed away. All from cancer. Jannie's was brain tumors. June's was esophageal, and later, lung. Tom's was pancreatic. 

Dad's is liver.

I do have friends around to help me, too. Friends who will link arms with me as I walk through our family's go-to funeral home to plan out my dad's cremation. Friends who will refer me to family lawyers upon me realizing that dad doesn't have a living will. Friends who will walk me through the legalese of death and the dying: durable power of attorney, Medicare coverage of in-home hospice care, acquiring death certificates to close accounts. Friends who will come by my dad's house to fix our internet so I can work from his house as I stay with him for the remainder of his days. 

Yet I have never felt so alone. My brother is somewhere not in this country, and I can only communicate with him via email and sporadic texting. My remaining aunt and uncle--dad's younger sister and brother--are too wary of coming to see my dad, given their vicious separation 22 years ago. My mom doesn't know any more than I do about the logistics of death; she can't help me any more than I can help myself. Dad has no friends; he has managed to push away every single person in his life, except for me. Because, ironically, I am like him. I am stubborn. I will not be pushed away. 

I feel so much more alone each time a phone call to a friend goes unanswered. I feel so much more alone when I ask someone a question about lawyers and wills and hospice care and they simply say, "I don't know." I feel so much more alone now that it's the holidays and lawyers need breaks, too, so they're not picking up my calls, even if I somehow got a direct line to their personal number. I feel so much more alone when my brother responds twelve hours later to a question I ended up figuring out the answer to ten hours beforehand.

But I can't imagine how lonely my dad must feel. 

I have many amazing friends. I am very fortunate. I am, in fact, not alone. This is just something I have to do on my own, I guess. I just wish there was a mom or sibling or close friend of his to also share this emotional (and legal) burden with. But I'm okay. 

It's unsettling to see your own dad cry. Your dad, who used to frighten you with his loud voice and drunken slurs and hurtful hands. "There's nothing to be scared of anymore," Mom said. I stopped being scared of him years ago, I assured her. He is but a frail shell of the man he used to be. At 90 pounds, with hair falling out, missing a toe, sporting a bloated belly from gastrointestinal problems, barely able to sit and stand on his own, there's nothing to be scared of--except his mortality. It all became apparent when he started crying in front of me today. And in that moment, he was just a little boy to me. Not the intimidating, cold person I had resigned to accepting as my father, but a scared little boy. He apologized to me. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I was a bad person. I'm sorry you missed out on a father's love. I'm sorry I was such a bad father. I'm sorry," he sniffled. I kept my tears in, by some miraculous effort on my part. 

My dad shouldn't die believing he was a bad person and that nobody loves him. He was good to me in his own way. Or at least, he tried his hardest. For that, I love him. He just never could get ahold of his temper and anger. Broken people are like that, I suppose. And if it wasn't for the way he raised me, I wouldn't be the independent, self-motivated person that I am today. I have my flaws, but I like who I am for the most part, and it's because of him. Yes, my dad was temperamental and easily-infuriated and emotionally stunted and was an alcoholic, but I know he loves me and wishes he could have done more, or so I'd like to believe He was highly misunderstood and very, very particular about how things should go and how people should behave. Listening to his apology made my heart ache for him. I don't want him to die like this. Not like this. "That's not true," I said. "You were good to me. Look! I'm happy and I'm healthy. I grew up well. Don't be sorry to me. I'm okay," I smiled. "It's okay."

He looked at me and wiped away his tears. "Really?" He asked, like a child looking for reassurance that things will be okay. "I've still wronged your brother. Your mother. Your brother's mother. Everyone..." I think he notices as much as I do that nobody is by his side as he dies, other than myself.

We have never been an affectionate family. At least, not past my early childhood. I remember him doing very loving things. Always taking me crabbing and to the aquarium and to kings dominion. Singing "Oh My Darling Clementine" and "사랑은..." to me. Letting me play a game with him where I would step on his shadow and he would yell "ouch!" and pretend to be hurt. But at some point, every "merry Christmas," "happy birthday," and "I love you" to him started to be answered with a stiff and slightly embarrassed "okay." But I know that's his way of saying, "You too." It's okay. 

Close friends, as I leak the news, are asking how I'm doing, that they are sorry. 

I'm okay. It's okay. 

How adulthood is slowly steeping into my life

When I check a guy out, I look at his left ring finger. I didn't have to worry about this before.

The thing I most look forward to at the beginning of each day is the end of that same day when I can be back in bed to fall asleep. I wearily groan at the number of hours left in the day before this can happen.

I've started noticing age thresholds and requirements. 24 years old max for Miss America pageant? 25 years minimum to rent a car without all the excessive fees? 26 years old max to be under my parent's health insurance? 25 years old minimum to be a House Representative? 30 years old minimum to be a Senator? 35 years old minimum to be a president? That's ridiculously young. Wasn't there a time when I thought 35 was incomprehensibly old? Also, the demographic surveys that ask for your age in range intervals... You're either 17-24 or 25-33 or 34-45 or 46-55 or just plain old "55+". What the fuck.

I find myself actually laughing at 'jokes' that 'older people' tell in speeches and meetings and at the office. Is my sense of humor fading with my youth?

I have an Excel spreadsheet with a budget plan, delegating my money down to the dollar for car insurance, renters insurance, rent, phone bill, cable, electricity, groceries, savings (yeah right), lunches, and "other expenses" for the next six months, denoting when I get paid, when I can expect extra income, and when I can expect to maybe get caught speeding and have to pay off a ticket.

I monitor my credit score.

Anybody 16 and younger disgusts me with their rude manners and tactlessness and stunted social skills and dependency on technology.

I don't know any of the new pokemon. Not even the starters. Not even the region. Is Ash Ketchum still the protagonist on the show? Or is it a new guy?

There are 'listicles' coming out about the decade I grew up in.

I am suddenly very aware of my fertility and the fact that I am, indeed, not getting any younger. I start half-considering freezing my eggs, or maybe even selling them. I then start considering whether I want kids at all.

I get excited about savings, discounts, coupons, and deals.

I have more business/formal clothing and dresses than casual clothing. And I like it.

I play around with facial expressions in the mirror to see if I have any new wrinkles.

I pay attention to commercials and infomercials.

I say "when I was your age" to my friends' younger siblings and to my cousins' kids.

I'm actually not completely terrified to network and socialize with people in a professional setting. I don't know when it happened, but I suddenly have the confidence and self-assurance to talk to people without panicking or feeling awkward.

Where are you?

Growing up, I had a dysfunctional family. Who doesn't, right? Still, I feel I was deprived of the sense of "family" during my childhood more than my friends were. My parents divorced when I was just entering the first grade. My older half-brother, who was 20+ years my senior, moved out of my house after an altercation with our dad when I was just four or five years old, and I wouldn't see him for at least another decade. I only met my mom's side of the family once, as they all live in Korea; to this day, I don't know who all of my uncles, aunts, and cousins are in Korea. My dad forbade me from ever seeing his side of the family, and I never dared question why he hated them so much. I just obeyed.

Still, mama knew me better than I knew myself, and knew that I would one day crave for a sense of family, if I wasn't already. She went behind my dad's back to get me to start seeing his side of the family. The matriarch of the family, aunt Jannie, who I rarely ever saw. The eldest male in the family, uncle June, who potty-trained me and sympathized with me about my dad and "his ways." The youngest male in the family, my "little dad," who owned a popular restaurant in one of the biggest Asian marts in northern Virginia. The youngest female in the family, Kathy, who sadly gets dubbed as "the crazy one" and the drama queen of the family.

Aunt Jannie passed away from brain tumors in 2004. It was at her funeral that I was re-united with my own brother, and the first time I hung out with all of my cousins as a "grown-up" and not just as a child. We played poker, they let me have some beers, and my brother won me some seed money for college in poker. I would start seeing the family more regularly--and not just during the 4th of July and New Years--for the next few years. Then, I went off to college and spoke to nobody but my mom. I never heard from my brother, I heard from my dad maybe once or twice a year, and I was once again only reunited with my cousins during the 4th of July and New Years.

I graduated college after four years of learning just how selfish/selfless I am, how much I want to belong somewhere, how much I crave love & affection from friends and family, and how I can drive myself into madness with thoughts of loneliness and remorse. Shit happened during those four years. I lost quite a few friends, I gained many more, I learned secrets about still others that had been my friends this entire time that I was oblivious to. I was ostracized, I was celebrated, I was hated, my character was questioned (by both others and myself), and I was still loyal (to others, but not to myself). I lost myself, but found myself in the way I care for the people in my life. I lost myself again when I realized I care too much for the other people in my life and not enough for myself. I pushed myself. I took things for granted, and appreciated them when I lost them and promised myself I would learn more about gratitude as I entered the real world.

Graduation day, mom told me about you. And I realized just how mortal we all are.

Certain things stopped being important. I don't care if that boy loves me or not anymore. I don't care what that girl is saying about me to her sorority. I don't care if plans are cancelled, because I have somewhere more important to be anyway. I don't care if I have to spend a ton of money on gas to drive 90 miles to Maryland and back just to catch a feeble dozen crabs. I don't care if I got three useless degrees from university, because your degree was useless, too, and you still did very well in life. I don't care if much of our time together was spent in silence, watching television and drinking beer. I don't care that you never asked for anything in return, because I still wish I could have done more.

Where are you? Why are you gone? How did this happen to you? You were the best one out of all of us. Can you come back, somehow?

You were the protective, funny, street smart, cool-but-dumb, don't-fuck-with-my-family older brother that I had always wanted. Of all of us, why did you have to go? Why wasn't it me? It could have been any of us. The illness clearly runs in our family. Why was it you? Where are you? Can you hear me?

After you left us, I started working in food service. I know you would have given me so much shit for that: "Why is your life going ass backwards? You're going from working in government to serving food? Can you at least hook me up? What's good there?" And then upon learning that we had no seafood or barbecue dishes, you would have scoffed and walked out. Your dad passed away two months later, following you to the afterlife, a father going after his son. Is there an afterlife? Where are you? Can you hear me?

I then picked up a job in retail. You would have still given me shit for delving further into the service industry, but then begrudgingly would have told me you respect my work ethic and that "you gotta do what you gotta do to get by." I was working 60-70 hours a week dealing with other people so I wouldn't have to deal with myself and my grief. My dad didn't show up to either your nor your dad's funerals, by the way.

I got a job with the government around a month ago. Sub-contractor, actually. You would have given me shit for that, too. "You suck so much that you can't even work for a contractor for the government, but you work for a contractor for a contractor for the government? What's wrong with you?" You were such an asshole. You had a way of making fun of me for absolutely everything, and I loved you for it. Any time I fucked up in life in the past few years, I would tell you, and you would just laugh. You would help me realize that mistakes are just funny stories you can tell to people in the future (and to your cousin with cancer that will make you sheepishly realize that things could be worse). You helped me see the humor in life. You would sometimes tell me about your own similar fuck-ups--which actually ended up being worse than mine--which made me feel better. There was one fuck-up of mine where you didn't even want to know details, because you knew I was so ashamed, and it was no poking-fun matter. But you helped me out anyway, shoving a wad of cash in my hand and telling me not to worry about it. And I knew you knew what it was. But neither of us spoke about it out loud, and that's when I really started to get who you were as a person.

You were the one that really helped me feel like I finally had a family. You brought us together. You always talked shit at poker nights while smoking your cigars, wearing those stupid sunglasses, bragging about how you've got a huge dong. I knocked you down a peg, when you referred to your manhood as a "Jimmy Dean bratwurst," by replying: "I think you mean Vienna Sausage." Weirdly enough, I think this is when you started to respect me--when 15-year old me made an unexpected dick diss.

I have more time to myself now. I've quit my retail job. I only work about 60 hours a week now, but 40 of those hours are a desk job where I honestly have nothing to do, and so I am left alone with my thoughts--the thoughts I refused to acknowledge about your absence, about uncle's absence, about dad's self-alienation from the family, about the evanescence of life. And I've been fucking up a lot lately with friends and my mom and finances and job stuff and friends and ambition.

I need you to laugh at me again. Where the fuck are you?

Rest In Peace, 'Donger.'

You wouldn't think that when you hold your baby as he takes his first breath, you would one day be holding him as he takes his last breath. It's not something I've ever considered, at least.

It was my college graduation day--May 11, 2012--when my mom told me that cousin Tom has cancer. What kind? I asked, as if there were any good kind of cancer I could hope for. She didn't know how to translate it from Korean into English. 췌장암, she said.

Pancreatic cancer.

When I returned back home from school, I started visiting Tom every weekend I could. Sometimes just to watch Nats and Redskins games with him, sometimes just to play with his dog, and sometimes to eat some good old seafood with him. Why did it have to take cancer to bring us closer together? Nonetheless, I'm glad he got to taste some Hot N Juicy and Chasin' Tails cajun seafood before he went, and that I also got to bring him some live catch of my own.

"He's in a better place now," people tell me. Where is he? And how is it better? As someone who doesn't believe in a heaven nor hell nor nirvana nor any other sort of life after life, this consolation means almost nothing to me, but I wish it did. It's times like this that I wish I believed.

"You were so good to him," Aunt Kathy tells me--the youngest aunt in the Park family. "I know you were." I felt like I didn't do enough, though. And I know there were others who did more for him. I could have taken him to a Nationals or Redskins game. I could have taken him with me to my crabbing and fishing trips. I could have done a Marvel movie marathon with him and watched some stand-up comedy with him. But I didn't. When his mom and Aunt Kathy and others tell me that I was "good to him," I feel like I am being commended in a way a helpless child could be commended for chipping in loose change to help pay a mortgage.

He is 19 years my senior; most of the Park cousins are considerably older than me and had grown up together, and I was the baby. My very first memory of Tom is when I went over to his house to visit my aunt and uncle with my mom, just a little after my parents had divorced. He walked over to me and stuck his foot in my face and then laughed when I got scared; I thought that he was going to smother me with it. Always the jokester. He continued making us laugh even after he was gone. As we were going through his things, one of the very first things we found were two very--let's say, explicit--DVDs in his top drawer. James handed them to me before I knew what they were and said, "Do you want these?" Also, I myself have been known to steal stupid things--giant stuffed toys from Kings Dominion, dinnerware from my campus dining halls, souvenirs from vacation spots. Imagine my amusement when we were going through his things, and I saw two green fold-up chairs in his closet and room that very clearly said "Patriot Center" on them--from his alma mater, George Mason University. I also found a sketchbook with drawings by his 14-year old self. They were actually pretty decent. He and I are more similar than I thought. On the paddle he got from his fraternity, which was placed on his casket, I learned that his nickname was 'Donger.' I'm not sure why, but it somehow seems appropriate.

While he was battling his illness, there were a good amount of times when we thought he was reaching his end. Whether he was particularly beat up from chemotherapy, or when his stent had a blockage and he vomited everything he tried to keep down, or occasions when he got delusional and unaware of his surroundings. But each time, he somehow pulled through, and the next time I would see him, he would be his usual snarky self, laying on the couch watching TV with his dog while his brother James cooked some spicy pork outside on the grill. He was invincible. I got used to thinking that no matter how horrible his condition got, he would recover. I foolishly thought there would always be more time. Only, last week, he decided he couldn't fight anymore. He was done. He got to play one last round of poker with our cousins and his friends. He got to have a proper farewell with a lot of people. He requested that "Amazing Grace" be sung at his viewing, and I hope I did it justice--although I'm sure if he were alive to witness it, he would have told me that I sucked and booed me off the stage.

I was afraid of asking him out of the fear of offending him, but I finally did, because others have wondered the same thing when I tell them about him: "Why have you been fighting for so long? What makes you want to keep living?" He had no wife, no kids, and I guess for some people, if you don't have those things, then you don't really have anything to live for. Of course, they would be wrong. He had his cousins, his brother, his adorable niece Alexis. He had his mother, who was holding his hand in her sleep when she awoke to his grip loosening as he passed away; she wailed "my baby, my baby" over his body through the morning. He had his father, who collapsed on the front porch as he watched the coroners cart the body away. He had his friends, his Alpha Chi Rho fraternity brothers, his job. He had all the people that showed up to his viewing, funeral, and burial ceremonies. Indeed, when I asked him why he was holding on, he responded by saying, "Alexis. I was fighting for her. But I can't do it anymore." It's damn near miraculous that he made it over two years with pancreatic cancer, and I am in awe of his resilience.

I think of all the could-have-been's. Having been a bachelor all his life, would he have found love and settled down if it wasn't for the cancer? Would he have liked Kevin Hart and Louis C.K.? If he ever did meet any boyfriend of mine, would he really have given them a "beat down," as he always threatened to do whenever he thought I was dating somebody? "He better treat you right, or we'll give him a beat down."

They simplified his life so much in the funeral program. August 27, 1971: born in Korea. 1977: immigrated to the United States. Elementary/Middle/High school. George Mason University (English Major). Work at a bank. Work at a mortgage company. August 28, 2014: deceased at 5:20am. There was so much more to him than that (as there is to anybody, of course). The district, regional, and state wrestling championships he participated in and won. The countless people he helped out that were in trouble by giving them all sorts of money and resources without expecting anything in return--myself included. The Treasurer and Vice President positions he held with Alpha Chi Rho. The crass dick jokes. The amazing shrimp barbie recipes. The surprising secret artistic abilities. So many other things that I myself will never get to know about him firsthand.

At his viewing, his mother wept at his casket while his father repeated, "It should have been me, I should have gone first." It will take an eternity for me to forget my aunt's cries of "my baby, my poor son" over his body.

The day I found out from James that Tom's condition was rapidly deteriorating, it had been almost two months since I had last seen him. You always think there would be more time. How did I let almost two months go by? I am a fool. I am a coward.

Last Tuesday, August 26, I went to his house as soon as I got the word from James. "Good to see you," Tom greeted me while he was drinking some soup. I tried to contain my shock at his 80-pound frame. He looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over his bones. I kept him company in his room while we watched the Nats game, and that's when he started to lose it.

"Hey, is the game on?" he asked, his eyes closed. I was confused, and didn't realize what was happening to his mental state..
"Yes...? We're watching it right now," I replied, worried. He stayed silent.
Then, a few moments later: "Oh, man, do you need anything? Are you okay?" he said, his eyes half-open.
"What?" I laughed. "Do you need anything? You're the one with cancer, man."
He paused and then chuckled. "Wait, sorry. I thought you were in labor just now. Must be hallucinating," he mumbled. More silence. Suddenly, he started rambling on in gibberish and groaning, and I cried openly in front of him, knowing he wasn't aware of it and thusly couldn't make fun of me like he had in the past when I cried for him. I caught the words "plastic Indian" and "sing sang sung steam," but didn't make sense of much else--not that those phrases in themselves make any sense.

I couldn't stay to watch him anymore, but he was slowly regaining his coherence. I walked over to him and told him I would be back the next day, and that we would watch some Louis C.K., as he had never heard of him before. He groaned in agreement--I think. Then, something I had never said to him before--something I rarely say to people in general, but especially anybody in the Park family, because they (we) all think lovey-dovey stuff is cringe-worthy: "I love you." Gratifyingly enough, I got an "I love you, too," in return.

The next day, Wednesday, August 27, I went to his house. It was his 43rd birthday. He was bedridden for most of the day. I went to his room, sat down next to him, and placed a hand on his sharp hip bone. His hand slowly reached over to meet mine, and though he couldn't speak, the gesture spoke volumes. Later, while I was in his living room with his parents and friends and brother, we heard him hop out of bed. He appeared in the hallway right outside of his room, saw us, and said, "What's going on?" We looked at each other in surprise.
"It's your birthday! This is your party!" we exclaimed. He grinned like a little kid, then went back into his room. Seeing him in the hallway was a harrowing view; with no shirt on, we could count each rib, each vertebrae.

Thursday, August 28. I woke up to a voicemail from James. "My brother has passed away. My mom says he went around 5:10, 5:20." I will never forget how cold Tom's skin felt on my lips as I kissed his forehead before his body was taken away.

I will live twice as hard for him. I don't have room for fear or apprehension or awkwardness or anxiety anymore. And there will always be room for tomfoolery (how apt of a word!).

If there is a heaven, I would like to think he's feeling "aw shucks"-abashed at how many people are mourning his death and how many people cried at his funeral. There's probably unlimited cajun seafood up there, with lots of steak and cigars and football and wrestling and fishing and poker.

science and Reddit trivia that changed my perspective on things

• Technically, you're not necessarily looking "up" at the stars--since directions can be arbitrary/relative, you could also be looking "down" at the stars, considering where you are on earth and where we could consider to be "up" (i.e. outwards of the perimeters of the earth? upwards in terms of the "plane" that the orbits of the planets are generally forming? north pole?).
• Everybody that was alive when the oldest living person was born is dead now. All of them. On the planet.
• In fact, 54 million people that are alive right now will be dead within the next 12 months.
• In 100-120 years, it will be a whole new crop of people inhabiting this earth. Rinse and repeat.
• Before wishing for invisibility as your superpower, think again--being invisible means you would be blind as well. If your eyes are invisible, then the light has nothing to bounce back to, rendering you incapable of seeing anything.
• There are many bug-parts in chocolate, as bugs can't really be kept out of the cocoa beans. The FDA allows a certain percentage of bug parts per ounce. When someone is allergic to chocolate, generally, they are allergic to the bugs and not the chocolate itself.
• The smell of fresh-cut grass is actually a distress signal from the grass being cut. It 'warns' other grass blades that destruction is near, and upon being warned, the grass redistributes most of its nutrients closer to its roots so that its losses are minimized. Basically, plants are more metal than I thought.
• Eating one single banana exposes you to more radiation than being within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant for one year. Note that this is a testament to the safety of nuclear power plants (so long as it is in compliance with regulations), not the radioactivity of bananas; the stigma around nuclear power plants is rather misleading.
• Arthur C. Clarke: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
• Mathematically, there have to be other lifeforms in the galaxy, and it's almost certain that some of them are intelligent--maybe as many as 10,000 different civilizations. The catch is, space is so big that as far as we can determine right now (some 15 billion light-years across), given an even random distribution (unless it's not so random... but that's to contemplate another time I suppose), none of us will ever likely meet each other or even detect each other. For all intents and purposes, then, we are alone in the universe. Any intelligent alien races likely suffer the same lack of significance as humans do. Not only is it improbable that alien life exists within reach, but it's even more improbable that we are co-existing at the same time.
• If the acceleration model of the expansion of the universe is correct, things will start disappearing from our visible sky. People of the future (provided that human civilization can last that long) will have no way of knowing these things ever existed through their own direct observation; they'll have to rely on our documentation.
• We don't use "10% of our brains." We use all 100%. There is no secretly-unexplored chasm of superpowers in our brain. We just happen to not use all 100% at the same time, since each part of the brain does something different. We aren't doing math and writing a symphony and playing soccer at the same time (although I'd like to see that).
• The stronger the smell of chlorine in a swimming pool, the more contaminated it is with sweat/fecal matter/urine. Sometimes I forget that the nostalgic smell of summer is really the smell of stank.
• Our monetary system has been set up so that there will always be more debt in existence than there is money to pay it all off. We will never be out of debt until the USD (and subsequently every other world currency) collapses.
• Eggs are basically a chicken's menstruation.
• When you eat figs, you are basically eating wasps; figs can't become the way they are without a female fig wasp flying into the center of the syconium to lay her eggs; one inside, there's no getting back out.
• Ladybugs have the highest STD-rate among animals.
• Green apple seeds contain cyanide.
• Red-colored candy and soda is made out of ground up beetles; see if you can find "carmine" as an ingredient in these items. Gelatin is also made out of horse/cow hooves and is an ingredient in most types of candy and gum.
• Flipper (the dolphin) committed suicide. The majority of dolphins held in captivity commit suicide.
• You have never actually been 'touched' the way you think you have. Our atoms all repel each other and don't actually 'touch' because of the electron cloud. The tactile sense you feel is really just the repulsive forces occuring on the molecular level.
• Statistically, American women have a better chance at becoming princesses than Supreme Court Justices. More American women have become (or always been) a part of some royal ancestry than they have become Supreme Court Justices.
• The idea that racism is bad is newer than the automobile.
• Bread is actually bad for ducks. You are slowly killing them when you feed them bread.
• Sometime in the future, you will be thought of for the last time.
• Bats have the highest percentage of homosexuality among all animals. (Keep this in mind when Batman vs. Superman comes out...)
• Every dog in that movie or TV show you like so much is dead now.
• Hugo Boss designed and produced the uniforms for the Nazis.

Four things to be thankful for today.

• Friends like Jan and Casey who will come help me at last minute's notice. My dad's BMW 750 has had battery issues in the past, but never when I was in possession of the car--until today. It was confusing enough just to open the hood and identify the positive and negative terminals (and I somehow cut my finger deeply in the process?). Jan came to the rescue with his A4 and cables and jump-started my car. :)
• My mom, who I know will help me if I'm in trouble without expecting anything in return.
• My room mate, Jasmine, who is patient with me and gives me all the constructive criticism I really need for problems I encounter, both personal and professional.
• My determination. Opportunities can be found in setbacks. To be honest, I'm glad that certain choices are made for me, even if they aren't what I expected them to be. If my biggest worry is that I have too many choices, then I am a fortunate individual.

Plans for the rest of 2014

I plan on...

• getting my credit card balance down to almost $0 by the end of this year. I have completely max'ed out my limit as of now, at the end of April, after spending moneys upon moneys on graduation gifts, birthday shenanigans, and just treating people to food in general.
• foregoing my MBA this Fall, due to the sad fact that I still have about $30,000 in student loans as well as a barely-livable salary and an apartment in Fairfax County.
• leaving my position as an Intern for DHS and getting into a permanent and higher-paying position, whether it be in public or private sector.
• getting my body fat down to 11% (I have no idea what it is right now but I'm fairly sure it's not below 15%); I don't really want to gain muscle either, so that might just end up becoming 10-15 pounds to lose.
• going crabbing at least three times a month May through September.
• buying an actual box/frame for my mattress.
• finishing at least two pieces of artwork.
• cutting certain people out of my life--and not pussyfooting around it, either.
• working harder to keep certain people in my life--and not pussyfooting around it, either.
• watching all of Orange Is the New Black. I haven't started it yet, but I hear it's a good show.
• finishing the rest of Community and Weeds. Bonus: get through at least the second and third season of Glee.
• getting a tattoo of an octopus or starfish on my shoulder or hip.
• writing the lyrics to and recording my voice for at least three original tracks--one of which I'm going to be rapping on. I know, I've only ever presented myself as a pianist or singer, but I really admire spoken word and rap and want to learn more about it.
• taking a walk by myself during a big thunderstorm around my neighborhood.
• making a spontaneous trip to a beach by myself--probably Virginia Beach or Outer Banks or even Ocean City. Who knows? It'll be spontaneous, after all.
• getting something (less controversial) published on ThoughtCatalog again.

Four things to be thankful for today.

Jan, who I know will help me out no matter what kind of trouble I'm in. Thanks for the Big Mac and the shisha.

Same with Ann, who also bought me Thai iced tea tonight.

Training sessions and courses I get to attend as an employee for the U.S. government, which have given me a lot of opportunities to meet highly-ranked military officials, presitigious federal SES's, and just some pretty cool people in general.

My mattress warmer, which keeps me cozy and snug when my room mate blasts the air conditioning. Very thankful to have a warm bed to sleep in, especially during the cruel winters.

RE: "18 Things Females Seem to Not Understand (Because, Female Privilege)"

I recently read this article about "female privilege" on thoughtcatalog by a guy named Mark Saunders and decided that I can't let it can't go unaddressed. So, to counter the 18 advantages that the author believes females apparently have over males:

1. Male privilege is being comfortable with walking down the street at night without fear of sexual assault (Saunders, you realize that your first point of men not being able to walk down the street without being feared as an assaulter is something to blame men for, not women, right?).
2. Male privilege is being able to ask out girls because it's the norm; when a girl asks a guy out, she is interpreted to be too ballsy or aggressive and depriving the guy of the role. Male privilege is also not having to deal with overeager, oversexed, unsolicited "creepiness."
3. Male privilege is being able to get drunk and have sex with a girl and then getting away with it on the grounds that it was a "grey area" and that "these things regularly happen anyway."
4. It is male privilege to turn on the TV and see yourself represented in a positive way and be encouraged. Male characters, no matter how unappealing or unambitious or otherwise unattractive (ugly and lazy, in Saunders' words) they are, can still score quality women. Male privilege is not having to deal with the intense body image pressure and "thinspo" bullshit as unrelentingly as females do. Male privilege is being a bodybuilder and getting praise; females become bodybuilders and they are met with misogynistic "that's disgusting, that's not how a girl should look" comments. Male privilege is being able to work out without a shirt on at a gym and not being kicked out, whereas if a woman were to work out with a sports bra and yoga pants, she gets kicked out.
5. Male privilege is being recognized for heroic actions, whereas female heroines are rarely heard of in media and history.
6. Male privilege is being able to decide whether or not you want to be a father, whereas for a mother, it is apparently not supposed to be a choice (if the law prevents a woman from being able to choose to be a mother or not, then the law should also prevent men from being able to abandon fatherhood. It took two to make the baby).
7. Male privilege is being able to get away with writing a check every month for child support while the mother actually raises and supports the child. You want to talk about responsibility for supporting a child "you didn't want to have in the first place"? It's not just about money.
8. Male privilege is not having your gender used against you and everybody else; it is not having your gender associated with inferiority and weakness. It's never being told that the way you are born is, by default, wrong: "You throw like a girl," "Stop being such a girl," "You run like a girl." I fight like a girl, and you can test me on this.
9. Male privilege is being able to joke about rape.
10. Male privilege is being able to leave your wife and not have anything to do with her or the kids anymore because you found a younger booty to chase.
11. Male privilege is being able to frighten your spouse into not calling the police and simultaneously cultivating her Stockholm Syndrome.
12. Male privilege is being commended for being empathetic and sympathetic; dare females be as cold and indifferent (read: calculating and objective) as men tend to be, we are admonished for not being sensitive enough.
13. Male privilege is being taken seriously at your job and not having to deal with sexual harassment--which, even when reported, may not actually be taken seriously as an issue. Male privilege is not having a glass ceiling. Male privilege is being able to make your way to the top without anyone assuming you fucked your way up there. Male privilege is being able to be a stay-at-home dad and get reactions of commendation, not people sneering at you for being "unproductive." 
14. Male privilege is being found guilty of crimes and still serving less harsh sentences than women.
15. Male privilege is not being discriminated against in qualifying tests and winning the majority of athletic scholarships.
16. Male privilege is being able to have an opinion without being told you are a picky or high-maintenance or self-righteous bitch.
17. Male privilege is being able to discuss sexism without being written off as "just another crazy feminist."
18. Male privilege is arrogantly believing that sexism is no longer an issue.
    
    Those match Saunders' 18 items. But continuing on--
19. Male privilege is not having to deal with the backwards-ass patriarchy that still pervades in today's societies (first world societies aren't the only societies to exist, you know) such as having to read articles like the one Saunders published on Thought Catalog. 
20. Male privilege is being able to sleep with numerous partners and be revered, whereas females are called whores, sluts, tramps, and the like for doing the same thing. Even if men are called "manwhores," notice that the root word is "whore"--which roots in being female. 
21. Male privilege is not having to put on cosmetics and make-up and shave your body hair to appear more presentable and pleasing to the eye. Male privilege is not being told the natural functions of your body that come with your gender (and being a human in general) are inappropriate or disgusting, such as menstruation, menopause, body hair, facial hair, hot flashes, and cramps.
22. Male privilege is being able to walk on the streets without being honked at, whistled at, or having lewd comments shouted at you. (see this article on objectification)
23. Male privilege is having so many superheroes and protagonists to relate to, where as females, for the most part, are just eye candy (see Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory).
24. Male privilege is not having your worth automatically discounted upon reaching the age of 30 (I love the show, but in HIMYM, Barney often discredits women over the age of 30 and deems them unworthy, or "expired").
25. Male privilege is not automatically being deemed a bad driver and suffering higher insurance premiums.
26. Male privilege is not being deemed loose/brazen for partying and drinking.
27. Male privilege is not being expected to pay for birth control pills, plan B, or other medical contraceptives.
28. Male privilege is not having your innards bleed out of you once a month as mother nature's way of morbidly congratulating you on not being pregnant.
29. Male privilege is not having to check out in a lane with a female cashier for some purchases.
30. Male privilege is not having to go through the judgment of buying a pregnancy test or the morning-after pill.
31. Male privilege is being able to keep your last name and not depleting your parents of funds for the wedding.
32. Male privilege is being able to cry about something and being told that "it takes a real man to cry," whereas when a female cries, she's just being a drama queen.
33. Male privilege is having your emotions and thoughts validated as being genuinely from the autonomic self, whereas female emotions are just hormones.
34. Male privilege is not having to throw away your jeans, shorts, skirts, dresses, blankets, panties, and other such textiles and linen that are in the firing range of your vagina when it's at its angriest time of the month.
35. Male privilege is being able to eat sushi and medium-well/medium/rare meat and ride roller coasters and smoke and drink and sleep on your stomach and not vomit and keep the same clothes and not have to take supplements because you won't ever be cultivating something that is technically a parasite inside of your womb, let alone be pushing it out of your genital area.

This list is clearly biased against males by using falsely universal statements--just like Saunders' list was clearly biased against females by grouping them all together. Also note that many of his grievances actually can be traced back to men fucking up and ruining the livelihood of women to the point where we HAD to create those "privileges" for ourselves.

Obviously, none of the points on my list are universal or descriptive of every male ever. They are generalizations, many (if not most) of which can easily be challenged and disproved. There are exceptions to every rule, and you know what? Everybody has their own opportunities and privileges, and likewise, they all have their own crosses to bear. We need to quit bitching about how unfairly we are treated by others and look to how we treat each other, and then collectively learn to treat each other with empathy and respect. 

Also, f*** you, Mark Saunders.

Running

Throat closing tight
Eyes straining tight
Fists clenching tight

Mind running loose,
Lips running looser--

Wait
Did I say that out loud?
Did anybody hear me?

Can anybody hear me?

This must be what it feels like
If my mind were a prison
My thoughts convicted of crimes they did not commit

Where is the warden?
He must have dozed off into a drunken stupor again
Just like yesterday,
Just like the day before.
Still, the prisoners do not escape
Out of fear that freedom is not
What they hoped it would be

They have learned to sing in their cages.

The sun has set;
Yet another day
The prisoners' schemes have gone unnoticed
As they pass cigarettes to each other,
The warm red glow providing their only light.

What I learned from How I Met Your Mother

• You can have multiple best friends. Despite the struggles between Marshall, Ted, and Barney to claim sole bestfriendship with one another, they were all best friends. Also, as with Lily and Robin/Jillian (the teacher from her kindergarten), sometimes you just have different best friends for different reasons. But honestly, it's like picking a favorite child (I'm assuming): you can't do it. You love em for different reasons, but the same great amount. 
• Before settling down, people should be able to pursue their individuality. If they can't do this together, then it may just be necessary that they do have to be apart. Lily couldn't have married Marshall without having moved to San Francisco first to try and pursue her art dreams. Robin couldn't have ended up with Ted without having traveled the world first. Ted couldn't have ended up with his heart yearning for someone else to love (that is, Robin) upon losing Tracy if he hadn't lived out his dream of being a father and a husband. The title of this show was, after all, "How I Met Your Mother." It wasn't "How Your Mother and I Fell In Love" or "How Your Mother and I Spent Our Time Together." It was about the process of learning and growing and running away and confronting and making mistakes that ended up leading to that moment under the yellow umbrella. And, of course, it was a sly dig towards his kids about whether or not they would be okay with him being with Aunt Robin.
• Life is for the living. When someone you love dies, you feel aghast that the rest of the world doesn't stop and mourn with you. I'm sure Marshall felt the same way when his father passed away in the series, and Ted, too, must have felt stricken by Tracy's death. You end up tying your own fate to the deceased. We can't put our own lives on indefinite pause, though. Our loved ones who have had their lives stopped short would surely want for us to move on and do great things with ours.
• We don't always get answers to the things we ask. This will always bother me as a philosophy student, despite the whole Socratic method of admitting to ignorance and lack of knowledge. Where did the pineapple come from? When did Robin become a bullfighter? (Ted's older self mentioned that in the Christmas episode where he put up lights in the living room for Robin: "Your Aunt Robin was many things . . . she was even a bullfighter at one point, I'll get to that . . . but there was one thing your Aunt Robin never was. She was never alone.") How do you play Marshgammon? What is that game Barney always played with the Asians in AC?? Did Ted ever win that tricycle belt? Who was Barney's baby mama?
• The cheerleader effect is real. True for both girls and guys, as noted in the show itself, the cheerleader effect deludes onlookers into thinking that some group of people consists of attractive people when, observed individually, they are actually unsightly and awkward.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• If you've got chemistry (i.e. compatibility, attraction, passion, intimacy, what have you) with someone, it's still not enough, because you need one other thing: timing. And this isn't something you can help. Whether it's because one or both of the parties are in a relationship, are not emotionally available, have starkly different priorities, are living somewhere completely different, are focused on work/career, are not mature enough, or simply are not into the other person, timing is something that has to solve itself. And, as the show has taught us, if something is worth being called 'legendary,' then we must wait for it.
• Everything happens for a reason, but that reason is either subjective or not meant to be discovered until later on down the road. When adversity happens to you, you can either interpret it to be a sign that you're doing something wrong or a test to prove yourself and demonstrate how much you want whatever it is you're pursuing. Or when you simply don't know why something is happening to you, just put faith in the future. You will know the answer when you need to, and until then, you are still growing. If Stella never left Ted at the altar, if Ted never got the butterfly tattoo, if Barney hadn't proposed to the (then) love of Ted's life, he never would have met the mother.
• Not everything has a clean closure of catharsis. As with the ending of the series itself, I was left wanting a little more, feeling unsettled and even indignant and cheated. But as with falling-outs and break-ups, there can't always be a clean break-up. There will be sunken costs that can never be recovered, innumerable unanswered questions, unresolved conflicts, and other loose ends... but you have to come to terms with the idea that you are big enough to deal with it--you are bigger than the lack of answers and confrontations, and your life is more than your problems. And sometimes, you may just have to compose the closure yourself.
• You shouldn't have to wait for "signs" from the universe. The universe, I would hope, has better things to do than to hand you some stop/go signal for that job or that girl or that move. Just do it because you want to do it, not because of some foresight granted to you by "signs." If you're waiting on a sign from the universe, then maybe you are not ready to do it...
• Making every night legendary means that, paradoxically, no night is legendary. I took a very brief but very necessary social break earlier this year, and in that time, I was at my apartment alone (apart from my room mate), watching TV and smoking hookah and reading by myself. It was calming and helped me recalibrate myself. I don't want to become desensitized to the awesomeness that is my friends' company and the adventures we go on together.
• Making an ass of yourself for love is highly underrated. One of my best friends makes an absolute ass out of himself sometimes (though he doesn't show it to his friends) for the girls he falls for. He is just as much of a facebook/instagram stalker and text re-reader and conversation overanalyzing rehash-er as I'm sure Ted is. I know some other people who are like that, but they get called "thirsty" or "desperate" or "obsessed" or downright "creepy." Objectively speaking, I think it's pretty sweet and thoughtful, and I'm sad for them that they end up choosing the wrong people. Ted consistently made an ass of himself for Robin, and ultimately, that planted the idea of associating dependability and trustworthiness with Ted in Robin's mind.
• Things almost never go as planned. Marshall planned on being an environmental lawyer, Ted planned on meeting the one by the time he was 23, Lily wanted to be an artist... But in pursuit of our elusive goals, we end up sometimes finding something even better. We can't rush to where we want to be and skip the journey. With that said...
• Things have to fall apart to make way for better things. Can't build that skyscraper if the outdated hotel is still in its space. Can't meet the love of your life if you're with the wrong person. Can't get your dream job if you're working for a promotion at a job you hate.
• There will be moments when you will lose faith. It's your determination and strong will (and probably some stubbornness) that will end up pushing you through, though.
• People will find a way back into your life if they really want to. That is, they can recognize that having you in their life is more important than their pride. They can apologize to you for wrongdoings and own up to their debts. They can reconnect with you if they miss your company.
• You will get too old for some shit (see: Murtaugh list), but not for others (see: Barney's playbook being resurrected upon his divorce). You decide.
• Consolation prizes might actually be destroying the integrity of people's will and motivation. Yes, it's good to have fun, but participation trophies and the like go against the very purpose of trophies and prizes. To be honest, I myself find them insulting. I don't need your charity. I lost, don't rub salt in the wounds by giving me something you and I both know I don't deserve.
• More than anything, this show has taught me how to move on. When I was going through my own break-ups, I heavily relied on this show to distract me and provide me with some sense. I ended up being able to apply so much of what Ted learned to my own heartbreaks.
• In relationships, there has to be both conflict and support. While Ted and Zoe fought over almost every issue that divided them as a couple, Marshall and Lily constantly supported each other despite individual misgivings. Both parties went mad at some point. Bottom line is, stay honest with each other, but know to pick your battles; it's better to lose the argument than to lose the person.
  
  
  
  
• "The One" is more of a subjective concept than it is an actual objective, indefinite/discrete entity of a person that transcends your notion of love. There may be the "one" for your specific timing/situation. Robin was the one when Ted had first met her. Stella was the one after that. Tracy was the one after eight or so years of going through other trials that helped shape who he was (including thinking that Stella was the one). Robin was the one six years after Tracy had passed away and Ted was ready to love again.
• Tight-knit groups drift apart. It's happened already for me with my high school group. One of my best friends from high school went to Duke and then moved out to San Francisco. Another went to Berklee College of Music and is now living in Boston. Another stayed in-state for college, but then moved to Los Angeles and is planning on staying there for at least another year. Thankfully, I still have a lot of my best friends within driving distance of this area... but I bet that within 5-10 years, some (or even all) of us will move and go our separate ways. Some of us will get married and start raising kids and only be able to hang out with other parents. Some of us will end up traveling the world. But as we move on with our lives, we will end up developing different social circles. I do plan on ending up in the same nursing home as one or two of my best friends, though. We've talked about this. It's happening.
• People do get divorced. Being a millenial in my 20's, I see a lot of people on Facebook posting up engagement/wedding announcements, and I feel very happy for them. So many of them (if not all of them) seem perfect for each other, and I envy them for their happiness. But as one of my more cynical friends put it, "Who cares if they're already getting married? It just means they'll get divorced sooner than I do." Yes, divorce happens. I don't know if I'm just cynical because my own parents got divorced, but I think divorce will happen in my future too, only because I'm not a very static person in terms of priorities and preferences and even personality; I change every couple of years, and that's bound to create conflict with my significant other... I would hope it doesn't, but I need to be realistic and prepared.
• People do get terminally ill. Poor Ted and Tracy. I would be so fortunate as to simply die of old age, perhaps even peacefully in my sleep or in my deathbed after I say goodbye to my loved ones. But illnesses don't care how old/young you are or how much you're loved or how good of a person you are or how many people you have to stay alive for and care for. My cousin has been battling pancreatic cancer since April 2012, when he was only 39. My aunt on the same side of the family died of brain cancer in 2005 in her late 60's. My uncle (the aforementioned cousin's dad) had esophageal cancer and now has lung cancer going into his mid- to late-70's. My own dad has been having health issues for the past couple of months. I'm grateful that no other people in my life are sick. Illness can happen to absolutely anyone.
• What you want changes over time, mostly because your expectations change over time. This is perfectly epitomized in everyone's reaction to the finale: so many of us were outraged over Ted and Robin getting back together. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't all of us actually want Ted and Robin to be together at some point? And we agonized over the fact that future Ted would always refer to her as "Aunt Robin" because it meant that they really didn't end up together, no matter how much we wanted them to. I got painfully sympathetic for Ted every time Robin rejected him, and I was furious with Robin when she would realize what a great guy Ted was only when it was too late. Eventually, I accepted that they wouldn't be together, and I eventually wanted Ted to go ahead and meet the mother and fall obliteratingly in love with her. Funny thing is, after I accepted they wouldn't be together, they end up being together vis-a-vis the finale. Also note, in the Pilot episode, Ted is talking abstractly about his future wedding with the Lebanese girl that turned out to be dating Carl, and he said he wants a "band, no DJ." He was so anti-band for Robin & Barney's wedding! Although, of course, that might also have been more about a band being a metaphor for Barney in general.
• It's more about the investment itself than the return and outcome. Economically speaking, a sunken cost results from an investment from which you don't get sufficient return, and you cannot recover the losses. The biggest sunken cost for us, of course, is time. The time we put into relationships and pursuing dreams can never be recovered. We should spend our time wisely doing the things we love with the people we love.
• Every ending is a new beginning.
  
  
  
  

Farewell to a show that I bonded with people over, a show I learned a lot of lessons from, and a show that got me through some tough times.