live in love.

“i have found the paradox that when we love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
-mother teresa. 

it’s incredibly hard to believe, but my first semester of college is almost over.  the feeling is very bittersweet- i’m happy to be going home, to not have to study or do any work for the next month, but i’m also sad- buffalo has become a home to me and i will miss the place and the people sorely.  the life that i have made for myself here is truly beautiful and it will be hard to leave for an entire month (although i think that life is gradually teaching me that a month, while it seems long, will fly by startlingly quickly).

i feel that in this short period of time, i have grown immensely as a person.  the things that i have experienced and witnessed over this past semester have changed me irrevocably and forever.  my first emotion is graditude- i wake up every morning and feel unbelievably blessed that i have the friends and the situations i have.  i can’t believe that i’m this lucky.  buffalo has been a hugely humbling experience for me, and i am so thankful for the lessons i have learned.

i also feel a sense of sadness, because, to be frank, i’ve been through a whole lot of shit this semester, and i know that a part of my childhood innocence is gone, never to return.  although i have found growing up to be an enjoyable process overall, there are definite growing pains, and i have felt them this semester.  it’s stunning to me how differently i think from when i started college and how much my beliefs have changed.

the most defining event of my first semester was a very personal family tragedy.  before this happened, i was ready to scorn my family and leave them behind in the pursuit of my dreams and happiness.  after being away from them, and feeling the pain of not being able to share in their burdens of grief, my priorities and perspectives have been permanently changed.  just last post, i said that i wasn’t ready to choose my family over my dreams.  now, the choice couldn’t be more clear.

the idea of finding a career i absolutely love, of getting to make my own decisions, of following my heart and mind instead of my family’s, of doing things because they make me happy- that’s a huge and very real dream of mine.  but getting to care for my parents as they age, holding my future niece or nephew in my arms minutes after he or she is born, walking down the aisle on my father’s arm, having my mother teach my child basic korean- that’s another dream, and that’s the dream i need to chase full force.  if i choose my personal goals over my family, i may end up having to burn bridges that i won’t be able to repair later.

i’ve been reading the bible a bit lately for a little comfort, and i stumbled upon a verse that i’ve read hundreds of times, but it was almost like i rediscovered it at that moment.  it’s a verse that most christians, and many non-christians, know, and it brought me great comfort.  

“love never gives up.  love cares more for others than for self.  love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.  love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,”, doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”
-1 corinthians 13:4-7, the message bible. 

reading this verse made me realize that my parents and i do not love each other- we care for each other, we are appreciative of one another, and we have each other’s interests in mind, but the essence of our relationship is not based on any of the qualities listed above.  i feel that most of the blame is mine- i am so quick to fly off the handle, to assume the worst, to give up, to rejoice in their mistakes, to bring up past arguments and wrongdoings, to manipulate.  but i feel that in love, we sacrifice.  i want to be willing to sacrifice and rejoice in my losses for the sake of my parents, who i truly believe that i can one day love.  i want to take the hits with joy and hope that the happiness i will receive from attempting to repair my broken relationship with my parents will exceed the happiness i would have felt from going after my dreams and pursuing a career that fulfills me.  therefore, i’ve decided to put my dreams of pursuing other degrees aside for a couple of years and pursue my nursing degree at my parent’s request.

i regret this decision everyday.  i talk to my parents, and realize how utterly unaware they are of how hard it is for me to work for a degree that i dread getting, how oblivious they are to the fact that this sacrifice has taken almost all of me, and i want to give up and pursue my own dreams.  but love is not self seeking- it doesn’t look for approval or appreciation for choices made in love.  i’m trying to remember that love has its rewards, even if they’re nowhere in sight right now.  i sit through nursing classes and walk out wanting to cry about how completely unfulfilling and dull i find the career and sit through hour after hour of studying and working towards a degree that i dread earning, but i’m trying to keep my eye on the prize.  the bible says that love hopes and perseveres- always, regardless of the sacrifices and circumstances involved.  i want so badly to believe that love will be enough to get me through these next few years.

love is really hurting right now- the bible says absolutely nothing about love being painless.  mother teresa, i hope you got this one right.  i hope there’s only more love at the other side of this.

i am not ready to give up on my dreams.

i am not ready to give up on my family.

at a memorial service for a friend of mine that i attended last year, his sister stepped up to the mic and said “everyday, i wonder why * died, why a life that had so much promise is gone.  but maybe that’s irrelevant.  death is always the same; death makes us all equals.  we cannot hope to remember someone if we only recall their death.  it’s our lives, our destinies and choices, that differentiate us from everyone else.  perhaps it’s not our lack of answers that troubles us, that renders us unable to let go of those who are gone- perhaps we are simply asking the wrong question.   what if instead of “why did he die?”, we were to ask, “how did he live?”.  we already have the answer to that one.  we know how he lived.  and that’s what matters.”

i found so much comfort in that statement when i heard it, as did the rest of the mourners.  we cried, we thought, we even dared to smile.  but what about when you’re away from the memorials, away from the families, away from the hopeful words and shared darkness, from the happy memories and fond nicknames?  what about when you’re left with the fact that you loved someone who died so shortly after existing that you have no name, no memories, no face, no smile to remember them by, just one ecstatic phone call from a soon-to-be mom, and then one more call, in a completely different tone, saying your worst fear out loud so it rings in your ears over and over, the saddest alarm you’ve ever heard?

how do we mourn the unborn, the ones called “baby girl”?

how long does it take to get over an ex?  four years (dear god, i hope not), four months, four weeks, four days, four minutes?  i know it takes more than four months (talking from personal experience), and if it takes four years i’ll probably develop a mental disorder.  but more than anything, i wish there was a timeline where i just had to stick it out for a certain period of time, and then, as if by magic, i could be the person i used to be.

sometimes i get dark and i wish that i had never fallen in love.  i can’t imagine how different my life would be, how different i would be.  it’s astounding to me that one person can change you so impermeably and forever.  scary, almost.  why do people give away their hearts if it’s pretty well known that you’re lucky if even one time, your heart isn’t returned to you broken, if it’s returned to you at all?  why fall in love at all?  i have to admit, the whole not-dying-alone, someone-finding-your-body-before-the-smell-seeps-out-of-the-apartment thing has a reasonable amount of merit- it would be nice to have two walkers parked at my nursing home door.  and i get the whole companionship thing, i really do.  but the risk of falling flat on your face is ridiculously higher than the chance that magically, you find the person of your dreams.

the worst is that, so often, we think we’ve found exactly what we’ve been looking for.  it’s most likely not true; no one is perfect, and that’s part of the charm in a relationship.  but sometimes we miss fatally in our assumptions that people are a certain way.  and we are always, always so painfully sure that we’re right that we’re often willing to lose ourselves to prove it.

even though i hate to admit it, i love love.  i don’t love romance, or pda, or any of that other stuff, and i’ll free admit that i’m one of the hardest people to love.  but i love love, the idea that you’re someone’s first and last thought of the day, their morning coffee and bedtime tea, their lullabye, their most earnest prayer, their goodness.  and i do want it.  but i’ve learned that everything has a cost, and love will cost you one half of yourself, payment owed to fate.  it’s pretty clearly stated, really- for you to have a “better half”, you have to make room by losing one-half of who you used to be.  problem is, sometimes your give up things it turns out you really needed, and when your “better half” turns out to be your “former half”, you often don’t get that old part of you back.

i feel like i only have one half of myself.  my other half is about 400 miles and 5,000,000 goodbyes away.  everyday is a conscious choice to be apart, to live missing a vital part of me, because being together is so harmful.  it’s hard to try to hate the one you love, and quite frankly, i think it’s impossible.  still, pretending to make strides is easier than acting as though i’ll never be okay.  because i will be, but i still think it’s only when he’s in the rocker next to mine.  when did i become so dependent?  i swear the old me actually had a little self-worth.

could i get my old half back?

the other day, i met with my advisor to make a rough plan for the next four years, since nursing requires really specific pre-requisites and basically, if i don’t complete them, i’ll be swimming in a deep pool of shit.  and because of the rigidness of this LOVELY major that i’m just THRILLED to be in, i most likely can’t study abroad OR minor in anything because both of those things need to be done BEFORE i enter the second part of the nursing major, my clinicals, which begins, for most nursing students, the beginning of their junior year.  basically, if i want to do either of thsose things, i have to either add a third year before i start doing clinicals, or i have to take classes over every possible break like some kind of crazy person and dramatically increase my number of credits per semester.

in other words, i’m either fucked, or i’m fucked.

anyone who knows me (and if you don’t, my name is christina, i’m asian, i’m from lawng island, and i want to study abroad) knows how much i want to study in the uk- pretty much more than i want to graduate.  so now i have no idea what to do.  i know that the nursing curriculum is tough- even nursing students who do nothing but go to classes have a hard time keeping up- but studying abroad, getting to travel and live in a different culture, is my dream, and it seems ridiculous to give that up to take the beaten path towards a degree that i don’t honestly want that much.  however, it seems equally ridiculous to risk getting a decent gpa and (let’s face it) blow TONS of money just to study in a foreign country when i could get a decent education here.

let’s play rock-paper-scissors.  if i win, i get to keep my dreams, eh?

it seems like the more i do nursing (my parents’ chosen career for me [like i said, i'm asian.]), the more i have to give up my dreams, but if i give up on nursing, i will crush my parents, which is almost worse in my eyes.

damn, they raised me well.

i feel like i’m in satan’s candy store, and i have to choose a flavor- should i get shit, vomit, worms, or piss?  lovely choices, all lovely outcomes.  great.

i think i’m just going to major in bum.  with any luck, i’ll be shaking a paper cup sitting on a street corner of london rather than a street corner of buffalo.  i’m dreaming big!

meet my dream christmas present.

this is jesus.

i can’t even handle how amazing this is.  the nerd in me (aka all of me) is DYING.

today, during my world civ recitation, my friend had to tell my TA how to spell “daoism”.

i knew from the moment i set foot on campus that i most likely wouldn’t be homesick.  it made me feel slightly proud of myself, as if i were more self-sufficient than everyone else here, as though missing your family made you weak or incompetent.  i never thought i would envy the people who are so homesick.  it makes me wish that my family was so important to me that i would sit on a bus for 8 hours to see them for a day and a half.  my friends are all gone, in all parts of the country, and i miss them more than i could possibly explain,  i miss the beach, my friends back home, my town, my bed, my room, that comfortable feeling that can only come from a tried-and-true routine.  but i don’t miss my family.  it makes me wonder what kind of life everyone else had, that they have such strong ties to their parents.  it makes me wonder what kind of parents my parents were, but more than anything, it makes me wonder what kind of daughter i was.