Family... and I'm sure it will get to Love again:

My mom left China when I was 2, she left me to be shared on a month-to-month basis between my dad and my maternal grandparents.

I don't remember my time at my dad's, I've been told I cried before going there but I don't know if my memories are my imagination of a story or actual memories of an experience.

So the story goes, he either came to pick me up or to drop me off, I'm assuming pick me up because I was told I didn't want to go, and he raised his hand to hit me as my grandma stopped him and she smelled alcohol on his breath.

The following day he dropped all my stuff off, minus a vest he bought me. This is my grandma's version.

I then spent my time with my grandma and grandpa. They were like light and day. My grandma always talked trash about her family, while my grandpa would do anything for his. Both of them had really shitty siblings, so it was an interesting thing to observe.

My grandpa, taught me how to love. His ways were his own. He would put jasmine flowers by my pillow so I could wake up to the smell of those flowers.

He would hoard my favorite food for me, and sometimes he bought me inexpensive trinkets that reminded him of me. It was never about the gift, it was his way of showing he was thinking of me.

The way he looked at me, it never changed, even after I did something bad.

He was so frugal with himself. He cared about the planet by recycling water. He had a bucket in the sink he would wash his hands with and use the water to pour into the toilet instead of flushing. He would use napkins as toilet paper. But he was endlessly generous with his family. The one time I ask him for money to buy my mom a purse she wanted, his response, "how much?". He didn't even ask what I wanted to buy.

He way he would always make my favorite foods, he loved me with every meal he made me. He did the same for my grandma too.

But they fought like crazy. My grandma played herself to be the victim, but as I got older I realized it was all her. It's so sad the crap my grandma fed him the years prior to his death. She was so controlling she wouldn't let him have anything. I will never forgive her for how she treated him when he couldn't take care of himself. She failed. He spent his whole life taking care of her and she ended up treating him like crap, like a burden. I hope she dies alone for that.

My grandma was was abusive, verbally, emotionally, and physically.

My grandma told me I looked like a whore when I was 9yrs old over a fucking pair of clip on earrings.

I few years ago, I was filming a video under a waterfall and all of the sudden it brought back memories of my grandma and I. We didn't have hot running water growing up. Showers had to be taken cold, with boiled water or at a public bath house.

At the public bathhouse is where I remember looking at a teenage girl and thinking to myself, "I love her boobs." I can't wait to get older and grow boobs.

I also remember my grandma washing my hair, she would pull me so close to her stomach I couldn't breathe and I just hated going to the shower house with her because I didn't want her to wash my hair. Till this day, I have a very unstable relationship with water. Rain, showers, baths, pools, beaches. I like dancing in the rain, singing in the shower, soaking in the bath, swimming in the pool, laying at the beach. But other times I cry when it rains. I'm afraid to take showers/bathe, and I refuse to go in the pool/beach.

I still wonder if it was intentional because it was the only place she could hurt me without my grandpa trying to protect me.

She had this broom stick in her closet that she used to beat me with, and it got to the point where just her walking to the closet, I would run to the bathroom and hide.

The day I went home after my grandpa passed, that's the first place I ran to so I could break down and cry. I guess that was were I felt safe.

My grandma once told me she had a miscarriage before my mom, and my mom had an abortion before me. She constantly wonders what would happen if she never had the miscarriage, or my mom never had an abortion.

My mom: My mom is a scientist and does not understand my creative side. She too was abusive.

There were times she would say, "I'm too tired to hit you, hit yourself." and I would.

My mom made me hit myself. It's difficult to admit that.

I didn't do it very hard because that's stupid but that's a low thing to do to a kid who is 9 or 10 years old. I try to block this out but I sometimes wonder if that's why I tolerate maybe even like abuse from non-family because I was told that it was love.

"Hitting is affection, scolding is love." That is the translation of a very well known Chinese saying used by my grandma and mom.

Other times she would just ignore my presence for days, weeks or months at a time. She would feed me and take me to school but she wouldn't speak or even look at me. She made me feel like a burden.

In my darkest hours, I needed my mom to tell me everything will be ok and she said, "I can't because I don't know." I realized she's not capable of comfort, nor unconditional love.

Last March, she expressed a desire to kill herself, which considering her response to other people's threat, is "just do it". It was really sickening to hear her voice in my head saying "just do it" as a response to her own threat. How vile.

I'm still sick every time I hear her threat, then her own voice in my head say "just do it" because that's what she said in regards to suicide threats prior when they were not coming out of her mouth.

(My mom's friend's daughter, who is younger than me died from suicide. I promised my mom I would never do that to her.)

It put me in this funk like "Fuck, she doesn't respect me enough to stay alive, what's the point of me living now." The promise I made my mom, kept me from exploring those dark corners of my mind.

But hearing her not care about me. I said fuck it.

Based on a hand written journal entry in July, I lost my motivation.

I lost my drive. I started to ask myself, "What is the point to living". "What drives people to get up and want to keep living?", "Why are there not death clinics where people can just say, "Ok, peace. *deuces*". "We did not choose to live, so why can't we choose to die?".

This didn't mean that I too was contemplating the action of killing myself. Though, I admit there were times, I had to actively fight my thoughts to keep myself from going there.

I was trying to question the meaning of our existence. "What makes us fundamentally want to survive?" I mean there's so many people on this Earth, "Why are we all trying to keep living?".

My mom reached out and asked me to visit in October. This time she told me she wished I was never born, how we no longer have to see each other, and make sure I get everything. Again calling me a selfish little bitch but I couldn't help but point out to her, that's how I was raised I was an only child She said I was just like my grandma and again I was like, "uh my grandma raised me". She compared me to my cousins, and I had to point out, "they had different parents, and they had each other." I was done.

My uncle didn't feel the need to read any of my text messages regarding his sister because he empathizes with my mom and not me.

Without the fear of my family's judgement. I was starting to feel a sense of freedom, like a huge burden off of me. The pressure of living up to their standards as an only child. My fear of shaming my family is what kept me from embracing my choice of job/living. Not having that family to worry about made me feel fearless. Like I had nothing to lose.

I started to consider what I want out of my own life now that they are not in it. Like, "What do you want for yourself.". Knowing I don't have my family to fall back on financially, I started to consider all the different ways to make money. It was from dancing that I realized I never learned to say, "no".

I decided to chase furiously after my dreams because my family were the ones that kept me grounded/realistic/pessimistic. In reality, life is a mix of everything. We need them to keep grounded, to be optimistic, while realistic. It is the impossible: what we ask of our parents, seriously. 

I know I'm an adult when I see my parent's flaws, and I no longer idolize her as my Wonder Woman. I just see her as weak for not being able to pick herself up. I see her as cold for not being able to love the way I want her to love. I see her as fragile and unstable, and because of that, she terrifies me.

I started having this desire to love, I wanted to love unconditionally the way my mom was not capable of. For the first time in my life, I truly wanted to have kids of my own. Not just adopt or give my eggs to others, or hire a surrogate but actually birth them myself.

I keep thinking what if I have a kid and she repeats the words my grandma said to me. My grandma has threatened suicide and told me she wished my mom and I were never born. My mom is saying the same thing. My fear of becoming like them, I simultaneously pushed away those that I already care about because I was afraid they would leave me too. Oh the irony right?

In this last year, I didn't just lose my mom, I lost my idol and pushed away my friends.

• I want to actively live in the moment, be in the present, focus, aware of my surroundings, thoughts, and actions. 
• I want to keep my goals in sight so that I am always striving towards them. 
• I want to open myself to love by trying to consider another person's perspective, and when in doubt, to ask instead of assume that I know how they feel because I probably don't. 
• I want to strengthen the relationships I have in my life, and share my victories with people who support them.  

I looked at this post, and I'm saddened by how evident it is that my brain remembers the bad more than the good. But I am trying desperately to retrain my brain, as well as keep the memories of my grandpa alive, to reach out and love like he did.

Goals, Ambition(s)... but Fuck it it's about Love again:

Being self-employed is liberating because of the flexibility but it can also be challenging to find motivation, drive, or even a mere will to keep working. 

My will has becomes especially faint for a myriad of reasons but one being because my personal relationships with people who are important to me are not good. It started with my family issues, my mom saying horrific things I don't even want to try to remember. Followed by Dec-Jan being the month of so many deaths in my life. The rest, I can’t even deny that it’s not of my own doing because I’m pretty sure I am responsible for the rest of the chaos.

There are days I’m so consumed with my thoughts, everything is cloudy, my judgement and it’s like I am trapped in my own head, paralyzed by my confusion while I am trying to make sense of all the voices. I don't mean voices like I hear dead people. Just conflicting desires. 

I find it helps to write my thoughts down, talk to friends on the phone, and when words fail, I've been blacked out and doodling a chicken scratch idea of a dark comic strip. Which was a complete delight to find a few hours after waking in the midst of a very painful yet familiar hangover. 

Once I write out everything, I start to find clarity, and it's like I'm walking through the haze. Then other issues I've been ignoring start to come forward. I can almost feel my brain's neuron's change because my current mentality is familiar. I've been here before. I was born a hopeless romantic. But then I imprinted on my college sweetheart who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic asshole. I vowed to not let myself do that again. 

Each time people hurt me, I built up another wall. 

From the writing and help of my friends, I've accepted my feelings, I've identified the delusions, but it doesn't change my belief that I'm never going to get over this one because he's the one who brought me back. 

All I can do is focus on my other loves so that I have a way to channel my feelings elsewhere. 

I decided to make a list of short term goals: 

This month, trying to focus on my 1st arts&crafts booth & coming up on top. Another booth in March. April, I will return to camming for my bday month, but I no longer care about rank. I already feel different but I'm still not well. Looking forward to catching up.

This doesn't mean I wont be on prior because I still have bills & rent while I try to pursue my creative endeavors. 

If April goes well, May, I want finish my children's book. I have the rough story layout done but visualizing the details is different. I need to stew on it.  Maybe a booth in June or July. But I really want to finish this book by the end of the year. #gameplan 

Bucket list (originally written to someone else, he's never seen it, so I'm sharing it publicly instead): 

I want to have my own booth at arts& crafts festivals all over the country. maybe do so in a big RV. I want to paint&draw my way through Europe while visiting all the different art museums. Travel the foot steps of the great masters before me. Learn to ride a motorcycle, to drive stick and to get my pilots license so that I can chase the sun with a big airplane. (I've never seen a plane until I was 7 because my grandparents worked for the gov't in a no fly zone). 

I’ve always wanted to understand 5 languages, currently at 3 but I will settle for 4. 

I don’t want to color in the lines, I want to form lines with colors and just once, I want to be able to wake up to the sun rising over the east river. 

*deleted an idea because I wont share an unexecuted idea with the internet* in hopes of creating a huge social media notoriety for a day to bring attention to me and my artwork. 

I want a house with a secret room, not a dungeon per se something softer, but a safe place where I can let my beast out. 

I want to dance with the northern lights. 

I want to know what it’s like to have an “open relationship” where I am able to talk and explore about sexual desires freely. But from my past experience I’m possessive but I don’t want to be that way. I admire relationships where people can talk sex and think of it as separate from feelings. With you, it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to feeling sexually liberated. (I'm a little embarrassed about admitting this one publicly but whatevs no shame). 

I want to write a children’s book, the premises has been in my head for way too long but it lacks a conflict. 

I want to not only write the lyrics of a song, because it’s like writing a poem, but I want to compose a song. 

I want to get to the point where I have a creative team executing my ideas for me like michelangelo or aiweiwei because my visions are so clear but I just don’t have the time. I really want to make clothes, costumes and to design my own scent. 

I want to try “panhandling” for a day, not begging but with an instrument (this is the reason I was learning harmonica and uke) or sit with my art, and see what happens. 

My drive to create tells me that eventually, I’m probably going to want to raise my own kids, adopt or go the old-fashioned way, but kid(s) is not what I want now, nor even in the next 5 years because of all the things I want from my own life. But I want them because I want to know what it’s like to love children. I want to tell them about my grandpa. Love them the way he loved me. (This is not something I wanted even 1-2 years ago, but people change).

I want to feel and experience what the world has to offer, I want to visit as many places as possible and I want to love with every ounce of my being because once again, I believe that the meaning of Life, is Love and the connections we form. 

My tattoo is now, a reminder that when love finds you, not to be too afraid to let it in. Don't create pain because pain is inevitable. Nothing beats the beauty and bliss of falling in love. 

"Paris is something you feel". I understood it because it's how I feel about NYC, and it's how I feel about Love. It's just something you feel. You can fight it, but fighting it is .... I don't know... not fun? 

I've accepted that I don't understand it, and I surrender. 

I've shut lovers and friends out for way too long. 

Thank you for saving me from the shadows of my demons. You will always be my Superman. 

~Acceptance

Love, originally Empath but clearly a post about Love:

For as long as I can remember, I felt other people feelings seemingly stronger than they themselves would feel them. Perhaps I should say than they would express.

As a kid, I would listen to my grandma's bedtime sob stories and go to sleep feeling so so so bad for her and the sad life she lived where she repeatedly painted herself as the victim.

In high school, I had a friend who would call me and tell me about how her dad was verbally abusive and I would cry for her pain thinking about how sad she must be feeling.

After college, when my former stepdad cheated on my mom. I couch hopped for nearly 2 weeks trying to give them space to work out their marital problems but I would be at a friend's house and I would cry myself to sleep thinking about how much pain my mom was probably feeling at that same moment.

In my own life, people sometimes seemingly go out of their way to hurt me. I don't understand it. I hurt enough as it is over people's problems that aren't mine.

I'm actually not sure when I decided that it was better for me to be alone.

But I thought it was safer to keep people out. That way I wouldn't have to be so tortured by feelings that don't belong to me. 

Turning the feelings off was the only way I felt like I could survive.

For a while there I was actually afraid I had turned into a cold, uncaring sociopath because I mimicked the proper expressions and responses in social situations while being completely detached. It was almost like an out of body experience, where I am a spectator of my own life.

It got so bad, I was actually afraid to watch "The Princess Bride" because I was afraid that the scenes that would normally make me cry on cue wouldn't have the same effect. So I avoided watching that movie because I didn't want to find out just how heartless I had become.

In the last year or two, I'm not sure at what moment I decided to open my heart, but I did. It's ironic and so confounding my head hurts. This person's views were completely different than mine, which made me feel like I had nothing to lose. He told me he doesn't want a relationship, to get married nor have kids. Great, not what I'm looking for either, or so I thought the moment he told me.

Problem is, I can't do casual. Once I start fucking a guy. He is my world. My other problem is that I love women and I can't "keep it in my pants" when it comes to women. Half the time, I'm like a dude in a woman's body. I'm a complete hypocrite.

Our differences, I always knew I'd end up here. That I would get my heartbroken.

But I just let it happen because he was too perfect to pass up.

So let's go chronologically:

We met when he made my butt plug. Kind of bumped into each other a few times throughout the years. I got in touch initially because I was hoping their booth would hire me so I could get paid during the convention hours. We just started texting.

It started with how easy it was to talk to him, about anything, mainly work ideas. I love talking about work ideas. I appreciate someone who is on par with me when it comes to this topic because not everyone is creative enough to elevate my creative process. Some just absorb ideas without contributing. I like people who challenge my creative process by giving me input, especially when their thinking is outside my realm of thinking.

I really appreciate his rationally and reasoning. We spent a lot of time talking about sex, I held back. I always hold back sexually. I think of it like kids and candy. Who doesn't like candy? Give them too much or let them have all they want and they can get sick of it. I was with a guy for 4 years in college and I had to keep evolving sexually simply to keep myself entertained.

Our first date he picked me up in a motorcycle, I wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle since before I was 14. I didn't actually understand it was a date until I saw the goofy smile on his face when I showed up. I know it sounds stupid but I'm kind of naive when it comes to boy/girl stuff. I was under the impression he was out with friends barhopping and I was tagging along with a group. I misunderstood. That was sometime in June or July of 2016.

The second date was a lot like the first and I kind of was over it. But then he got me with Suicide Squad. What can I say, I am an absolute sucker for (well a handful of things), comic movies, and watching them with particular people.

So, if I had to guess, it had to be our 3rd date. Suicide Squad, making out in the park, we drove back to his place in a Prius and I just about died. In a good way because in college, I took a class on human's impact on the environment. I gush over environmentally friendly cars, but at the same time I drove a car with a V8 engine. Muscle cars, and big trucks hold a special place in my heart too. I know, I seriously don't understand myself. I am a walking hypocrite.

We went back to his place and I realized his place was exactly like mine. It was like stepping through "the looking glass". I don't know if he sees my place the way I see his. But his walls are filled with things he loves.

Habitat for humanity, when I was in high school I really wanted to join because I believe deeply in it's cause but it either conflicted with French Club, Ambassador Club, or National Honor Society. I can't remember which one.

Fencing swords, which is something I've always wanted to do. I periodically flip through community books and take classes that intrigue me. Fencing was on the list. It also reminded me that scene in "The Princess Bride", "I too am not left handed".

The comics and drawings. I was once told by a psychic that I would move to NYC to study fashion design, meet a man through my work and he was going to be an artist just like me.

He whipped out his dick and I was done... sold. That's it. Most beautiful dick I've ever seen. Probably why I'm so convinced I'll never get over this one. I would be perfectly content with that dick forever. It's so good I keep trying to get one of my friends to fuck him with me just because I want to share it with someone I like. But the thought of anyone else getting it without me drives me insane. My heart starts pounding and I just ugh. My face gets all hot and I can feel it in my ears.

Anyway, in the meantime, I fell for girl, Babe, in October, still love her. November, I shot a video with Jenny. Prior, I asked him. His response made me adore him even more because I thought to myself, "Wow, what an impressive reaction, so mature."

By December of 2016, I was sitting in my bed and I got this flash of him in a tux at the end of the aisle. You know, that image that most girls have probably had. Not me, never. I never saw myself in a wedding dress, not with any guy I dated. I never even had the desire to envision them in a tux and even when I tried I couldn't. I donated my eggs in college so that I didn't have to feel pressured to have my own kids. I remember being in the 7th grade and thinking about how I would never want to give birth to my own kids, at best adopt because there were too many abandoned girls in China.

I freaked out. Like I flipped balls. I tried to stop seeing him but he talked me out of it. I don't know how he did but I think around January (2017) I remember telling my mom, "I figured I had survived a good handful of heartbreaks and douchebags, what's one more?"

I literally thought it would be an honor to have my heart broken by a man of his caliber because by then, I already knew how special he was.

Around that same time, I had a threesome, it was fun because I always had a crush on this girl's bf so I felt honored she let us fuck. But I hate to say it, the sight of his dick was an instant disappointment because I knew it wasn't going to satisfy me the way "mine" does and I was right. A week later I went to an upscale sex party in Hollywood and I had zero desire for dick because the one I wanted was not there. It was another one of those moments where I knew.

So little by little, I just let myself fall, and falling, the process of falling... it's kind of beautiful. To be completely swept off your feet, sure to the gut that this is the one, and so so thankful for everything, down to each breath that was drawn. I remember stepping out for a cigarette and I would look up at the sky and just thank the universe that this man was in my life because I could talk to him. I let myself talk to him. I thought it was perfect that he sees the world in lines and I see the world in color because a great painting needs both. I was under the impression that our differences complemented each other.

Rationally speaking, I don't believe in "Love". Which is ironic because I also consider myself a hopeless romantic. (See hypocrite). I say that I don't believe in love because it's unquantifiable and immeasurable. I think it's a state of mind, and I tell myself it's a concept that has survived due to natural selection. Basically, you think you are "in love", family stays together, equal highest chance for survival.

But Love, the way old people look at each other and make eye contact with each other. That shared moment where you can see that in that moment, nothing else exists for them. That is so pure, so beautiful, it hurts to look at because envy pokes at you and you want it. Or maybe I shouldn't use the pronoun "you" and say "I", I want it.

That look. Fuck. I could get lost in his eyes. But I couldn't help but think to myself, "if you let me, I could love you forever."

He was a complete dick to me on my birthday. Which FYI, I prefer to spend birthdays alone, because it's the only way I am in complete control. All I wanted was for him to acknowledge that it was my birthday because I was thankful he was part of my life.

For a while I thought I was going insane because what I observed didn't match what he was saying. My gut, my ears, his words, his actions, the conscious and subconscious body language just didn't match. I was so confused, pulling my hair out almost wondering why I felt so conflicted. It took me probably a year to figure out, or for me to pinpoint why I was so bothered. It was the discrepancy between our moments, his active actions and involuntary signals. I couldn't understand why I felt like an angry kid trying to swing at someone who was keeping me at arms length. It's not an emotional analogy it's a visual analogy.

He finally gave me the insight I needed. A vow. It was a vow to keep people out and emotions out so that one can survive, I know it all too well. I can't argue with that because I've been there.

So now I feel stuck because I don't know... I can't shake the notion that I'm never going to get over this one.

Which brings me back to the idea that Love is a state of mind. It took me nearly a decade to get over the last man I was convinced was "the one" and he was an abusive, alcoholic jerk.

This one, this time, I keep going back to using the same analogy: the debate about the existence of life on other planets. Both sides use Earth as an example. Pro life on other planets debate life is not rare because it happened here on Earth. Life is rare side argue it's unique because it took billions of years for it to happen.

I wonder if I should be more patient with him because I was where he is and I know exactly how long it took for me to believe in the possibility love again. I just don't think this happens every day. I am convinced I'm never going to meet another man like him and I don't know how to not think this way. I feel extremely pathetic because I don't believe in chasing people.

If I've learned one thing, it's not that I can't make a person love me because I already know that.

For a while I thought it was, "you can't love someone who doesn't want to be loved" because then I realized that I do. I have feelings for someone who doesn't want them. So that can't be true.

Now, I think it's that, "I can't make him realize he's already let me in despite actively trying to keep out." Although, I really want to slap him silly with the hope that he would snap out of it.

Maybe after getting all this out of my head I can focus on my work. I'm sorry if this post upsets anyone. I prefer transparency. I'm not a man hater, I'm not a lesbian. My heart has just never been available. I imprinted on a jerk in college. Then, each time I got hurt, I decided to put up another wall until I was completely alone.

Currently, I feel lost, I'm trying my best to focus on my creations. But deep down, what I really need to do, is truly take care of myself. I don't know where to start, so I will probably end up neglecting myself even more by occupying my mind with things I need to work on.

I would like advice, but I don't think "get over it" or "he's not worth it" will help at this moment. Maybe I don't need advice. Sometimes, I just close my eyes, take a deep breath and tell myself it will be ok. But that's when I break into tears because it's followed by the thought that, "I'm never going to get over this one". Changing a belief, a way of thinking, from experience, can take over a decade.

Side note: I turned down 10k for his ass. I went home crying the night I received that offer and I recall saying to my driver, "I wish I was type of woman who could do it because that's a lot of money and it would really help me". Back then, I wasn't sure if it was a testament of my character or my feelings for him. A couple of days ago, when he said that we were "probably doomed to not work", I instantly regretted saying no to the 10k, but then I realized it was him and I got my answer.

I don't like where I am right now. I need to change something.