Letters to a Robot

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/amanda-gorman-inaugural-poem-transcript/index.html

Very powerful performance – she expresses and speaks beyond her years.  

There is a sense of positivity that is rooted in realism, which is refreshing.  As often optimism is seen through rose-colored glasses. When optimism is strong, so is a strong sense of denial – or at least personally that is the case.  

I connect to the lines in which she speaks of “purpose” rather than “perfect.” 

I’ve always been taught to strive for perfection. And that is what I’ve done. Sometimes without purpose. We lose sight of others as people and become much less aware of what is really happening. On a larger social scale, it’s also really easy to lose sight of the purpose of things, which should be about the people, but then it becomes more about the principles and we forget what, why, and who we are doing it for. We forget that deep down, we all really want the same thing for ourselves and one another. This poem is a great reminder of that. Bringing back awareness to the true point of politics.

i’ve never been open to my parents.  i have very vague memories of happier times when we all lived in milpitas together.  my dad was working and thriving, my mom took care of us and sewed us clothes, we were young enough to still be and feel oblivious to my parents’ marital problems – or they were still happier then, still in the phase of trying to work out their issues before everything fell apart.  i don’t remember telling my mom things back then, but i remember having happy times with her other than when it came to disciplining us about school work.  i learned how to ride my bike in the backyard at that house.

then we moved to sunnyvale where things started to go downhill.  i’m not sure for what reason although i largely suspect it was financial.  the reason i think this is that we used to own the milpitas home and we moved to a rental in sunnyvale.  so that’s where things started to slowly unravel.

i feel like my parents have a lot to hide, not that i don’t.  but the foundation that we grew up on was one where adults treated children like innocent little bunnies that needed to be protected from everything in order to control and mold us.  in particular when it came to themselves and their weaknesses and even their love. vietnamese guilt and saving face culture do not play well into all this.

although putting all this aside, other than from photographs where my dad is holding me and looks happy and looks like he loves me when i was a toddler, i don’t actually remember a time that i was my dad’s daughter and i felt close to him.  i get moments here and there when i say bye to him after a visit of which we largely don’t speak and are not even in the same room.  he cares, but at some point started disconnecting from us.  at first i thought it was due to vietnamese culture, where male and females roles are very defined.  but i see vietnamese dads with their kids and this isn’t the  case.  there are many vietnamese fathers who adore their daughters and have close, loving relationships with them.

then i thought, it’s me.  i’m not that proper vietnamese, christian daughter he wants  –   he can’t relate to me because he is consumed with religion and i am indifferent to it.  but i think what’s wrong with my dad’s approach to christianity is that he is too concerned about how you should live it that he misses the point of it.  he misses the point that jesus loved people, he tells you to love others as yourself, but my dad’s pursuit of religion actually makes him resent us and perhaps even my mom.  it makes him distance himself indirectly.  but then it turns me off from that religion because to me, it doesn’t seem to work – especially in the case of my dad.  someone who spent all his life studying and believing in it, but he actually doesn’t understand the action of how to love someone. he just knows he should in his heart, hiding behind the veil of a concept that isn’t executed.

but today, i am starting to realize, it’s not me – it’s him.  and that’s scary, because there are things i can do to change the environment, there are things i can do to change me even, but there is nothing i can do to change him.

i’m running out of time and this covid thing has not helped.  i’m particularly worried about my mom.  my dad at least has some sort of motivation in his life – god.  he also has the ability to abuse alcohol.  my mom has him and us and no substance to abuse.  he’s not around mentally and we’re not around physically. with my mom, i’m barely there mentally.  i know there was a time when it was just me and her and it must have been the most wonderful of times – a strong young mother with her toddler.  trying to make it in america with each other.  she always tells the story about how when she was walking home from the bus with me and dropped all her money, $100 that was supposed to be all our food money.  she ended up eating instant noodles that month.  maybe that’s why i like them so much.  i think it’s a wonderful story, i really wished i remembered those times with my mom. i truly admire my mom for what she’s gone through.

but instead what i practically remember is an angry, middle-aged woman.  sad and bitter, scared of everything. illogical. taking things out on her kids because she didn’t know how else to cope.  never expressing feelings to us or helping us understand why she was like that.  she probably also just didn’t know.  but is it okay to expect more from your mom?  or is she just somebody’s daughter?  i don’t want to feel mad at her anymore.  i want to be able to casually and hysterically laugh in front of her.  i want to be able to tell her when i’m sad.  so i guess unlike my dad though, part of the problem with my mom IS me.  which is something i can try to fix.  maybe she’ll meet me half way if we can help her get there because i still think the problem is largely her. maybe not.  will digest the rest of this later.  all i know is i don’t want to remember my mom as a sad and lonely old lady who could not get past her past.

last night, I

• took a bath
• watched michelle obama’s doc, becoming – kind of a nice positive spin on America
• and then lay in bed for 5+ hours listening to billie eillish songs (had to look up how to use the word “lay” properly here)
• then listened to the same 3 songs for another good 1 or so trying to go to sleep, wallowing in faux emo-ness
• then I read woody allen’s memoir, which made me feel better, it was like watching one of his movies

some things i thought about while laying in bed:

• i forget a lot of things but there are two memories that always seem to come back to me:
  • the day I told P in the car that R was coming back and that I am going to be friends with him.  that I had my own derived values around friendship and that I wasn’t going to give up on it.  What an a-hole thing to do.  Can’t imagine how it made P feel to hear this from someone who had cheated on him, that he still had to be around because of his child and business, and someone he was clearly not over and confused about.  The reason I remember it is in that moment, I felt so “right,” and in a way so “righteous” because I was standing up for my convoluted morals – a set of false algorithms that I created so I could do what I personally wanted to.  sh*tty.
  • 2nd is when I was in the hospital after having C and P was laying on the bed next to me, singing “Goodnight Angel” and then later when I came out and he was the one standing in the “waiting room” to greet me, I’m sure we hugged for a long time.  Our lives kind of played out like a coming-of-age romcom at the time, complete with sweet, acoustic sound track and all.  But I was too stupid to realize how valuable he was, why’d I have to be that character?  Usually it’s the guy, isn’t it?!   Anyway, our story still has a happy ending, but I wish I didn’t have to so bad about parts of it for the rest of my life.  Albeit, we all deserve what we get.  #juno

C recently told me she is crazy, little does she know how cray her mother was.

She came upon a white, matte, oval object one day and didn’t know what it was.  She picked it up and immediately felt a sick.  But still she carried this object.