Kind love did not clean up after me when I made a mess.
Kind love did not comfort me when I fell apart.
Kind love did not stop me when I walked away.
Kind love did not wonder if I would return.
Kind love did not care if I did not.
The kindest love that I ever met was the kind of love that let me go.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
February Project Day 5: No Boundaries Love
I remember one of the few times my mother ever talked to me about love was this kind of love. I was 13 years old. She heard that I had met a boy that I liked.
My mother was sitting in our small kitchen with another Hmong woman from our church. She said, “Kaab, I don’t want you to talk to him any longer.”
“Why?” I asked half-heartedly because like all teenage girls I already knew everything I needed to know about love at 13 years old.
“He comes from a high-ranking family in the Hmong community, and his family has money. You’re from a poor family and you have nothing to give.”
“We’re just talking, mom,” I stated. “It’s not like we’re going to get married.”
The other Hmong woman chimed in, “Listen to your mother. This boy and you are not a good fit.”
“No matter what happens his family will never look at you as an equal.”
I did go on to date that boy, but his family’s money never did make it into our relationship. There were so many other boundaries that our love couldn’t overcome.
It’s not that I don’t believe love has no boundaries. It’s that I believe love is not that naive.
My mother was sitting in our small kitchen with another Hmong woman from our church. She said, “Kaab, I don’t want you to talk to him any longer.”
“Why?” I asked half-heartedly because like all teenage girls I already knew everything I needed to know about love at 13 years old.
“He comes from a high-ranking family in the Hmong community, and his family has money. You’re from a poor family and you have nothing to give.”
“We’re just talking, mom,” I stated. “It’s not like we’re going to get married.”
The other Hmong woman chimed in, “Listen to your mother. This boy and you are not a good fit.”
“No matter what happens his family will never look at you as an equal.”
I did go on to date that boy, but his family’s money never did make it into our relationship. There were so many other boundaries that our love couldn’t overcome.
It’s not that I don’t believe love has no boundaries. It’s that I believe love is not that naive.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
February Project on Love: Day 4 - Early Love
I must have been 10 years old. My mother and father had gotten in an argument. It was a pretty bad one, one of the few arguments I ever saw them having, but I could tell my mother was very upset. It was in the desparate air around her. She gathered all of her children, all five of us, and we left the house. We walked down to a neighborhood park and we stayed there for hours.
I remembered her crying quietly as we walked through the neighborhood, and I remembered thinking that we must look like a mother duck with her five ducklings in tow. It seemed odd to me and I wondered what everyone who was driving by thought. It was the first time I remember thinking about the moments of love in practice. I saw it in the way my mother walked away from the argument. I saw it in the way she gathered her children. I saw it in the we walked through the neighborhood. I saw it in my mother’s tears.
When we returned home hours later the house was quiet. My father and mother went about their way around each other in their familiar way. The air was free and the emotions were even.
I remembered her crying quietly as we walked through the neighborhood, and I remembered thinking that we must look like a mother duck with her five ducklings in tow. It seemed odd to me and I wondered what everyone who was driving by thought. It was the first time I remember thinking about the moments of love in practice. I saw it in the way my mother walked away from the argument. I saw it in the way she gathered her children. I saw it in the we walked through the neighborhood. I saw it in my mother’s tears.
When we returned home hours later the house was quiet. My father and mother went about their way around each other in their familiar way. The air was free and the emotions were even.
On This Day Two Years Ago
One, take a deep breath. Two, another deep breath. Three. Breathe. These days sometimes it only takes three breaths to pull myself back, and sometimes a little bit longer. There used to be days, though, days where I couldn’t catch my breath no matter how much I breathed, no matter how slow, no matter how deep, no matter how fast. I don’t think it was even about breathing. There was a knot that just sat there in the middle of my chest and it tightened up and then it flexed just enough to tighten up again, over and over. It was painful, but it wasn’t a sharp pain. It was heavy like someone was sitting on my chest. The very first time it happened I was not just scared but I couldn't even think straight. I tried so very hard to remain calm, but remaining calm while having an anxiety attack is a lot like telling someone who is choking to spit out the object that they are choking on.
I haven't had an anxiety attack in a while, but today I remembered the date, and there it was. February 1, 2, 3, 4. It was the day my sister was admitted to the ICU two years ago. The ICU where the air was always cold and the light was dim, where the doctors said without emotion, "when someone is admitted to the ICU, they usually do not leave". No matter what time of day it was, no matter how bright it was outside, in the ICU it always felt like nighttime. I could see the ceiling. For some reason, I always saw the ceiling. And I then I would hear it, my sister pleading: Help me, Kang. Help me. Which meant I knew what would come next, the panic attacks, the memory of her having them.
The nurses told me not to help her because once she started to have a panic attack there’s nothing anyone can do to help her. Still I couldn’t sit idly by doing nothing, so I tried to help her. Every one of us who saw her tried to help her. Nothing, though, could alleviate the pain she was in and eventually her body convulsed and she went into seizures. I remember the first time I witnessed that I felt so incredibly helpless that it would have been better if I could have just crawled out of my own skin.
I try not to go there anymore. I try to tuck it away, but some days are harder than others. Some days the memories go hand in hand where I remember her beautiful smile, her face, her voice and then it goes dark. I've never had a panic attack. I pray that I never do. I pray that none of you ever do. I have had anxiety attacks, though, and today, well, there it was.
I haven't had an anxiety attack in a while, but today I remembered the date, and there it was. February 1, 2, 3, 4. It was the day my sister was admitted to the ICU two years ago. The ICU where the air was always cold and the light was dim, where the doctors said without emotion, "when someone is admitted to the ICU, they usually do not leave". No matter what time of day it was, no matter how bright it was outside, in the ICU it always felt like nighttime. I could see the ceiling. For some reason, I always saw the ceiling. And I then I would hear it, my sister pleading: Help me, Kang. Help me. Which meant I knew what would come next, the panic attacks, the memory of her having them.
The nurses told me not to help her because once she started to have a panic attack there’s nothing anyone can do to help her. Still I couldn’t sit idly by doing nothing, so I tried to help her. Every one of us who saw her tried to help her. Nothing, though, could alleviate the pain she was in and eventually her body convulsed and she went into seizures. I remember the first time I witnessed that I felt so incredibly helpless that it would have been better if I could have just crawled out of my own skin.
I try not to go there anymore. I try to tuck it away, but some days are harder than others. Some days the memories go hand in hand where I remember her beautiful smile, her face, her voice and then it goes dark. I've never had a panic attack. I pray that I never do. I pray that none of you ever do. I have had anxiety attacks, though, and today, well, there it was.
Monday, February 3, 2020
February Project on Love: Day 3 - Thankful Love
I am thankful for the kind of love that lets me breathe, the kind of love that doesn’t demand so much from me.
I find that kind of love early in the mornings, before the sun comes up, before my children are awake, before the day starts to get away from me.
I find that kind of love when I’m exhausted and frustrated, when I make mistakes and say unkind things, when my children see me like that and love me anyway.
I find that kind of love at places where people talk and listen and interact, where difficult conversations are had and are met with commitment and understanding.
I find that kind of love requires people to be exactly who they are without judgement and without exultation from God or from any other higher power from above.
I find that kind of love in people who show up for each other when life is easy as well as when life is challenging, when love is more about compassion than it is about joy.
I find that kind of love exists somewhere between being surrounded by everyone I love and being left completely alone, where love nourishes me and gives me space to move.
I find that kind of love early in the mornings, before the sun comes up, before my children are awake, before the day starts to get away from me.
I find that kind of love when I’m exhausted and frustrated, when I make mistakes and say unkind things, when my children see me like that and love me anyway.
I find that kind of love at places where people talk and listen and interact, where difficult conversations are had and are met with commitment and understanding.
I find that kind of love requires people to be exactly who they are without judgement and without exultation from God or from any other higher power from above.
I find that kind of love in people who show up for each other when life is easy as well as when life is challenging, when love is more about compassion than it is about joy.
I find that kind of love exists somewhere between being surrounded by everyone I love and being left completely alone, where love nourishes me and gives me space to move.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
February Project on Love: Day 2 - Self Love
(Noun) Self love is the belief you hold that you are a valuable and worthy person.
At the beginning of December 2018, I did something that I never in a million years thought I would ever do. Broken, defeated, exhausted, and in a complete state of utter despair, I wrote:
I am loved.
I am loving.
I am capable of love.
I am worthy.
I am worthy of love.
I am deserving.
The list of affirmations went on and on and on. As I wrote those words, the tears flowed out of me like never before. I had been crying for almost all of 2018, but this time it was different. It was not out of sadness or out of anger or madness or even out of fear. It was out of compassion. These tears came with understanding. These tears were full of love, the kind of love that only I could give myself.
As I wrote I am loved, I am loving, I am capable of love, in my mind I saw the missing word of “not”. It was ever present and magnanimous. I resisted the urge to write it in because I knew that not only did I not feel loved, loving, capable of love, or deserving, but it was the reason why I rejected it every time I loved and was loved in return. The power of “not” was smothering me and I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to survive it.
I wrote those words of affirmation down on paper for 30 days straight. It seemed foolish in the beginning, but writing them down, facing them, forced me to step out onto that most uncomfortable ledge and deal with my self-loathing. At the end of that time, however little it was, I did feel loved, loving, capable of love, deserving, and much more.
The reason for my self-loathing is still locked away in all of the layers of me. It is not as important, though, to uncover them just yet. First, I needed to learn how to love myself. First, I needed to know that I can find value in that.
There are still days. There are still moments where I find myself back there wanting to return to old familiar ways. I haven’t written down any words of affirmation recently, but they still go through my mind, sometimes quietly and sometimes like a mantra. I am loved, where the “not” is diminished, where the self-loathing quietly lives, but where I am no longer unsure that I can survive it.
At the beginning of December 2018, I did something that I never in a million years thought I would ever do. Broken, defeated, exhausted, and in a complete state of utter despair, I wrote:
I am loved.
I am loving.
I am capable of love.
I am worthy.
I am worthy of love.
I am deserving.
The list of affirmations went on and on and on. As I wrote those words, the tears flowed out of me like never before. I had been crying for almost all of 2018, but this time it was different. It was not out of sadness or out of anger or madness or even out of fear. It was out of compassion. These tears came with understanding. These tears were full of love, the kind of love that only I could give myself.
As I wrote I am loved, I am loving, I am capable of love, in my mind I saw the missing word of “not”. It was ever present and magnanimous. I resisted the urge to write it in because I knew that not only did I not feel loved, loving, capable of love, or deserving, but it was the reason why I rejected it every time I loved and was loved in return. The power of “not” was smothering me and I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to survive it.
I wrote those words of affirmation down on paper for 30 days straight. It seemed foolish in the beginning, but writing them down, facing them, forced me to step out onto that most uncomfortable ledge and deal with my self-loathing. At the end of that time, however little it was, I did feel loved, loving, capable of love, deserving, and much more.
The reason for my self-loathing is still locked away in all of the layers of me. It is not as important, though, to uncover them just yet. First, I needed to learn how to love myself. First, I needed to know that I can find value in that.
There are still days. There are still moments where I find myself back there wanting to return to old familiar ways. I haven’t written down any words of affirmation recently, but they still go through my mind, sometimes quietly and sometimes like a mantra. I am loved, where the “not” is diminished, where the self-loathing quietly lives, but where I am no longer unsure that I can survive it.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
February Love Project: Day 1 - Remember Me
Today is February 1.
Today is my sister Nue’s birthday.
Today I remember her.
One of the last things Nue asked for at the end of her life is something I think we all want but are too afraid to ask for, and so we let it sit in the crevices of all of those things that go unsaid: Remember me.
When Nue said that, I thought, well of course I will remember you, what a silly thing to say. But still it stopped me cold. The act of saying that, the verbalizing of those words, that is not a simple thing to do. It implies ominous things that we are not ready for. But I knew if it was hard for me to hear it, it was even harder for her to say it. And so, with tears falling down my face and hoping that she would not see them even though I knew she did, I replied, “Yes, I will remember you.”
In Hmong when we say “I miss you” it translates to “I remember you”.
I remember you, Nue.
I remembered you yesterday.
I remember you today.
I will remember you tomorrow.
If you haven’t verbalized that to anyone yet today, please do.
Today is my sister Nue’s birthday.
Today I remember her.
One of the last things Nue asked for at the end of her life is something I think we all want but are too afraid to ask for, and so we let it sit in the crevices of all of those things that go unsaid: Remember me.
When Nue said that, I thought, well of course I will remember you, what a silly thing to say. But still it stopped me cold. The act of saying that, the verbalizing of those words, that is not a simple thing to do. It implies ominous things that we are not ready for. But I knew if it was hard for me to hear it, it was even harder for her to say it. And so, with tears falling down my face and hoping that she would not see them even though I knew she did, I replied, “Yes, I will remember you.”
In Hmong when we say “I miss you” it translates to “I remember you”.
I remember you, Nue.
I remembered you yesterday.
I remember you today.
I will remember you tomorrow.
If you haven’t verbalized that to anyone yet today, please do.
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