finally gonna be a US citizen on May 2 🥲 the perks I’m v excited about are getting a US passport because it’s easier to travel and I can be with my husband all the time at the airport (no more being separated at foreign/US queues) AND I can petition my parents to live here (if they want)
i wish i could contribute more to society! i’m not talking about a 9-5 job, or a brilliant invention, or sending rockets to the moon. i’m talking about neighborhood bake sales and fundraisers and picking up trash at the local park and doing little good things to help make the world around me a better place. no sir i cannot solve world hunger but i sure can feed my neighbors a casserole if they need it.
we don’t have to bleed ourselves to contribute to society. for the average man, little good things are a great starting point, or even enough.
just sitting here holding my baby and staring at all the details in his face because one day he’ll be grown up and his features will change and he’ll be too heavy to carry in my arms. I wonder if my mom still remembers how my voice sounded like as a baby. does she hear faint echoes of it in her mind from time to time? does she see glimpses of me from every stage of my life when she looks at me? how can time fly so fast?
when was the last time my baby did tummy time and I didn’t even know it? it feels like it was just yesterday when he’d sleep swaddled up in the bassinet, or when I’d lay him on our bed and he’d stare out the window, and all he could do was move his arms and legs. now he walks and climbs and picks up rocks and yells for mama. I don’t like it when people say time is a thief, but it sure feels that way sometimes. I don’t like it when people insistently remind me that I should be “present”, because I am. I’m here, 24/7. I see it. I live it. and still, it feels like it all slips by too fast.
sometimes when we’re walking, he’d hold onto my finger, because his hand is still that tiny. I try my best to soak in the moment, because I know this won’t last. one day, his hand will be bigger than mine. one day, he won’t tug on my shirt begging to be carried. one day, he won’t cling to me when a stranger comes too close. one day, all the toys in the living room will be put away, never taken out again. one day, he’ll be grown, and all these little moments—these tiny, fleeting memories—will be just that: memories. and nothing is quite as bittersweet.
I showed a photo of my husband’s dad to my toddler for the first time and he kept repeating “babba!”
he’s never seen a photo of him ever. freaked me out a little ngl
what if we develop a VR game that’s set in a grocery store, EXCEPT it’s not just a grocery store simulation but an actual real online grocery store where you can walk through different aisles and pick up items, put them in your cart, pay at the “cashier” using your card, then 2-5 business days later it gets delivered to your home?????
it’s getting lonely again. i keep trying to reassure myself it’s all in my head, but i keep revisiting the past and yearning, yearning, yearning. what do i do with all this desire?
on one hand, i love the life i have now and the people in it. on the other, i miss everything that once was. the everything before all this. i miss the rawness of my friendships, how i took a cab ride to see my friend one evening because she was having dark thoughts. how i saw another have a meltdown and our pastor let us have some quiet in his car after sunday service, making jokes to make light of the heavy things.
i mean, i don’t wish suffering on my friends, i just miss the feeling of vulnerability, i guess. to go past the niceties. past the “what did you guys do last weekend?” now it’s a little harder to sit down and bare our souls when our eyes distractedly dart all across the room watching our toddlers and our schedules are dictated by nap times.
sometimes i just sit in the bathroom floor and let it consume me. then i stand up, wash my face, and put a happy smile on for my baby. it’s not all that bad, really. i’m not calling my friendships now vapid or anything, we just don’t have time, i guess. and i have too much going on in my head.
i have to rebuke myself when i have thoughts that go: this isn’t fair. how can most people i love be thousands of miles away? i’m raising my family without my family. or when i get pangs of jealousy at (my husband’s side of the) family’s parties, like wow, how nice it must be to not have to leave your country and just have everyone you’ve ever known and loved conveniently in one place.
i have to remind myself God put me here. He orchestrated this situation specifically, down to the minute detail. i’m not going to shake my finger in His face and say, no, this is wrong. You messed up. thinking about that sends shivers down my spine, but isn’t that technically what we do when we’re discontent?
but the ache! the longing! the yearning! all of it. all at once. over and over and over again.
if you’re a mom or a dad reading this,
isn’t it so crazy? the amount of love you have for your child(ren)?
can’t quite explain the disconnect I feel, having my own little family and yet being so far away from everyone I’ve ever known. I love the friends I have made here now and the church is so so great but sometimes the longing still stings like it was just yesterday. wish I could grab coffee with my mom and go to the grocery store with her. listen to my dad talk about something interesting over breakfast. spontaneous hangouts with my cousins who all have their own families now too. I keep thinking about how I’m missing so much, only seeing snippets of their lives from a screen, conversations reduced to short video calls or text messaging.
maybe we weren’t meant to be so far away from home.
very sad and homesick tonight. I miss how things used to be but also love the life I have now. how bittersweet that the two can exist at once. maybe there’s some things in between that I need to repent of, some wrong way of thinking (am I romanticizing the past? is my nostalgia just discontenmentt?). sometimes I just want to revisit home, but the version when when everyone was there. but even the thought stings - visit. that’s all I can do now, I can never truly come back home (and do I even want to?). it’s like leaving your country and then building a new life in a new land, and suddenly you find yourself in the in-between, yearning. neither can feel fully “home”, anymore.
my (other) brother tried applying for a tourist visa but got denied 😑 I was so excited for him to see Guam and my baby 😭
my paint still has not arrived so I picked some up at Ross 💀
I’m obsessing over seascapes, specifically the waves and foam. I can’t stop watching videos about it 💀 but I finally got paint so I can’t wait to start trying!!!!!
it’s always so funny how people react when they find out I’m a stay at home mom. very rarely is it wow that’s very good! you’re always going to have the front row seat for all their milestones! you’re going to enjoy it so much!
it’s usually, wow don’t you get bored?
girl idk how you gonna get bored? 😭 when the laundry and dishes are always piling up, meals need to be cooked, and a toddler needs to be entertained and supervised and taken care of, etc etc
my only free time is when he’s napping and that hour and a half after he goes to bed. I had more opportunities to be bored at my previous work than I do now 💀
