9/20/20

“Fear is faith in the wrong thing. Fear is faith in lack, or that man’s good is being withheld from him.”

 -Joseph Murphy, “believe in yourself”

9/21/20

a lot of times, since he said it a few months ago, I think of this and it makes me happy.  The macrame entryway drapery thing that I hung at the beginning of our hallway, I noticed that every time R goes under it, he has to duck his head a little or else it hits the rope fabric that’s hanging down. One day a few months ago after he just passed underneath it I offered, “I can take that down—it looks like you have to bend your head every time” and he looked at it for a second and said, “No, but it’s pretty.” So it’s still up.  I would have taken it down, but I’m glad he said that cause I think it looks really pretty there too : ) Now every time I look at it (which is a lot, since I’m working from home every day still), it reminds me that my husband can appreciate beauty/decorations. Idk why but I…didn’t expect …a husband to really be able to have those opinions/make those kind of decisions. It sounds very stereotyping/old-fashioned to say it. But it did surprise me.

*

will I become who they say I am? or will I become who I see I am?

9/22/20

something that gave me a rush of happiness last night: R just suddenly, when I sat down for nightly cuddle in his bed, wrapped his arms around me (he was lying down, I was still sitting up) and said, “I love you so much! [and other stuff that I forgot]” and I was just laughing cause it was so out of the blue/random, and I said I love him too and we laughed. lol. but it was nice cause we don’t say it all the time, so when we say it, I feel like the impact is harder, and I like it this way.

9/23/20

realized something tonight: there is a point, a moment, in between something – anything, that happens to you – to your body/to your life- and then your decision<— this is the most important moment —and then fate/whatever may be. I just think that a lot of people don’t realize that that moment exists, that they “have to” react a certain way. But “involuntary response” is not true, i think. there’s this fleeting, beautiful, floating moment, this gift that everyone gets in which the entire world is hushed and waiting for the decree of your total lucid free will. It’s this chance, with everything that “happens”  – to exercise it. With everything. It’s hard for me to see sometimes, a lot of times i think because of clouded mind/strong emotions maybe. But i just realized that like, even if you don’t see it…it’s always there. The Chance. the open space.

9/26/20

thought that came:

just because you’re in pain, doesn’t mean it’s getting worse.

think about it—how much pain you were in w/ex like 4 yrs ago, and how that wasn’t “worse.” It was an absolute turning point in your life towards enlightenment. Don’t think pain is bad, or that all pain is bad. It’s not true.

…is every bout of pain a turning point?

9/14/20

I feel really lucky every time me and R go grocery shopping together (which is weekly or maybe every 2 weeks). it’s really nice to have a companion during this and discuss what you want and squeeze each other while shopping and stuff. I shopped alone for a little bit when I was living in Philly and Boo was gone to the cruise ship I think, and it was lonely for me. I know I’m all for being independent and being able to do anything alone—which I CAN do anything alone—but grocery shopping might be like #1 on my list of things I’d rather not do alone, bc it’s just so much better with someone.

9/15/20

realized something tonight while going into sex with R: that this time- sex- is not for thinking, not for judging if he’s deserving of it or techniques or even words or anything like that. It’s the time for totally letting go and not thinking, because all the other hours outside of this has been used for that (judging, critical thinking, decision making, logical thinking, etc). Now is the time to let consciousness & worries go and just be in wordless, thoughtless love with your husband- this guy that it took you two/three years to judge and finally choose. You have to be able to let go during sex, to stop thinking just for a while. It won’t be forever—you can go back to your default overthinking afterwards if you want—but what this time is for is sacred-it’s something that should be SEPARATE from what you usually do—separate from the mundane or usual. And I tried out this theory as soon as I realized it (as we were starting), and it worked. It made me more relaxed. And I came really hard. But i think this frame of mind during sex is like a skill or a habit for me, in that I don’t default naturally to this; I have to train myself to, consciously.

“we must beware of compulsively imitating our ancestors’ and our cultures’ shortcomings” – 9/14/20 Anima Mundi email

• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth
• Practice welcoming obstacles as opportunities for growth

 – 9/14/20 Anima Mundi email (repetition done by me, they only had this bullet point once)

9/16/20

O God, wherever I am weak, make him strong.

And make me strong – wherever he is weak. Let us be the perfect team. Amen.

9/18/20

“problems are life‘s way of asking you for an answer. The greatest joy and satisfaction is in overcoming.”

“you meet with night and day, cold and heat, ebb and flow, summer and winter, hope and despair, and success and failure. You find yourself moving through opposites. through your power to imagine what you wish to feel, is to reconcile the opposites and bring peace to the mind.”

– joseph murphy

9/19/20

started a new rule for my thoughts today (which hopefully becomes a habit and I can stop having to strain to do):

do not let anything cross your mind that does not bless, strengthen, delight, and inspire you. anything—not one thing.

– paraphrased from joseph murphy’s book, Believe in Yourself

9/9/20

12. protect the alone time you need. protect yourself.

13. deal with your superficial/skin insecurities. No one can deal with them, only you can.

9/11/20

I was thinking: maybe what keeps you young is constantly passing  through different worlds (and this usually involves some form of pain or shock). What made me think this: last night, Googling “beautiful old asian women” to send to my mom for inspiration bc she mentioned to me yesterday (and it seemed a little sadly) that ‘one can’t be beautiful when they get old and she accepts that’, while googling examples/role models, came across a story of this 50+ year old asian lady who gets mistaken for like twenties/her son’s girlfriend, and she does look hot from the pics, and was reading how she believed it was due to her many years (I think 30+ years?) of swimming in cold water (she works out in winter and plunges into ocean and lake for swims regularly when it’s cold out). Then this morning when I was running, was thinking about how even just running around this field is kind of another world compared to the inside of the house, and was glad I got outside, then thought of the lady I read about last night, and then thought of babies—how they are plunged from the dark warmth of womb into earth/light/here, and how big a transition that is—how passing through different worlds that is, and how cute and obviously haha young they look (as a result of that major transition?). I was thinking maybe it’s the like…it’s the transitions of life that…keep body/mind/spirit young. That it’s good to go through physical (like polar bear swims) and mental (like overhaul of personal philosophies) transitions. To face pain and shock and transitions with bravery, love, and faith – if you’re able to – IS life force, I think. And maybe this also includes the small transitions, from stepping off the train and up the stairs into the city, to getting out of bed in the morning.

9/13/20

“someone to love and relish and liberate”  – Jose Padua

what does liberating someone entail? what are the elements? what are the steps?

8/29/20

 “Anger was designed to be a visitor, not a resident, in the human heart.”

– Gary Chapman

8/31/20

Yesterday, we went to look at a house we both liked after seeing it because of appearance (cute, neat, not too many problems), size (not too big), and location (near pennsauken transit ctr for me so I can get to Philly, closer to Riverside for him so that the time it takes him to drive to work would be cut in half). We put in an offer last night (the first offer we’ve ever made on a house). But in the backyard of this house, I saw the most magical-looking stone and crouched down to take a closer look – it was rough grey with tons of flecks of mica that sparkled, and it was in a triangle shape that looked to be completely natural (like shaped by weather/time and not by a human) and I picked it up and saw its shape’s indentation in the dirt, so I guessed it’d been there for a while. I liked it so much that I was going to take it, but then put it back. It seemed like I shouldn’t.  I told myself I would only take it if the house became ours; if that didn’t happen, I was okay with leaving it there and never seeing it again – I felt that the stone belonged to that property. Then for some reason my mind jumped, in that backyard right then as I put the stone back, right to like…sexuality. and of guys “taking” this magic stone from girls without committing to everything the stone belongs to. I was thinking how it’s nice to…idk. To leave something as magical as a woman’s sexuality/sexual faithfulness (or for her to protect it) until…until you belong to the same place she belongs to. I’m not talking about marriage, necessarily. But just…getting to that place where there is no question. For both of you.

9/1/20

white supremacy isn’t the shark; it’s the water.

– heard on https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=NJwYn9e3Eoc&feature=emb_logo

………….

that love is never something you find at last, and can then settle back on the couch forever.

that love does not exist without being lived out. daily. for the rest of your life.

love as an adventure, as a moving picture, as a dream, a dance, a song or any other moment-to-moment changing thing.

9/3/20

for some reason, when I was thinking about just now, the memory of when I was crying when I was little and mom kept slapping and slapping my hand and telling me to stop crying – that unless I stopped crying, she would keep slapping it, and the more she slapped it, the more I couldn’t stop crying – it reminded me of how they keep sending in military/getting militant to shut up the protestors. (finally my dad who was off to the side said, “Rose, if you keep hitting her, she’s gonna keep crying.” and that seemed to jog her senses, and she stopped)

9/4/20

“To demand more of your choices than the reward dangled in front of you.”  – Beau Sia

8/24/20

dream last night: I was with RHA at work, and Austin came up to us to ask us something. And both RHA and Austin asked me something at the same time—I think RHA asked her question a little before Austin though, and she was the closer one to me, and it was the right thing to do, so I answered her first, and this happened like two times. And in the dream I was acutely aware by taking that time to answer her, there was a bunch of things I couldn’t say to Austin that I wanted to say to him. and felt a little frustrated about that, but…I feel like I still did the right thing- the best thing – the not-rude thing.

8/27/20

Called Kenosha police non-emergency line: Someone real answered. I told them I’m requesting that the officer who shot Jacob Blake be fired. He said ok, basically. His tone was cool and nonchalant. I asked if it would be recorded that I called. He answered, “All calls are recorded.” I said ok thank you and we said bye and hung up. It felt like a 10-second exchange. But I was nervous to call because I never did anything like that before. While the line was ringing at first, I kept trying to multi-task with little side projects, to distract myself.

Last night I was saying the prayer that I say every night when I’m cuddling R (may every good thing in heaven and earth come to live in his life so that he’s the most blessed man in the world. and no matter what happens, no matter what he ever does, let me never fail him) but then it occurred to me while I was saying it that I’m always there anyway, so might as well include myself. So the prayer changed to this: May every good thing in heaven and earth come to live in our lives, so that we’re the most blessed couple in the world. And no matter what happens to us- no matter what he ever does to me, let me never fail him. (The latter half stayed the same because I know I can’t control his actions, only mine.) It felt good to include myself in the prayer (it’s been a few months straight I was praying the other thing), and I think R would want me to pray for us, maybe more than praying for just him alone.

8/20/20

Last night R gave me push-up kisses, like how we give Baby sometimes. Like I was lying down on my back (on the couch I think) and R hovered over me and every time he came down from the push-up, he kissed my forehead. it made me feel so cute. I felt like maybe how Baby feels when we do it to him. He did a lot maybe like 7 push-up kisses. LOL

8/21/20

a really weird realization I just had today after hearing the word “sluts” on tv. I was watching the last episode of Little Fires Everywhere and the character Moody said it. I realized…there’s an element about marriage, or the idea of marriage, that’s helping me feel more safe&secure/immune/maybe protected from something that I think totally does not have the same effect on my husband. It’s that…now that I’m married, so supposedly am only having sex with one man…that now, I can’t be a “slut.” Like, I can’t really be called that name in society anymore because of my marital status, I think, I feel. Like I wasn’t being called it before or anything, but there always existed, I truly feel, the THREAT of being called it, if you stepped out of line as a single woman. And now, with marriage, I feel a little better about it- just me in relation to this word- because its literal meaning can’t really be used on me anymore. But also I’m thinking: how horrible that I even instinctively feel this way. Like- that a threat, a word, a culture, how a woman is perceived—how it weighs so heavily on her, even me- a girl who at my core, tries to ignore it/fight it (“even in my own femme head, patriarchy oppresses me.” – Enola from No Gods No Mattress -14 the travel issue zine). It’s hard to ignore things steeped and integrated into our culture, I guess. And the other bad/weird thing about it: I think there is no equivalent feeling for my husband. Like as a straight guy in our culture, I feel it’s totally okay and permissible and even “macho” for him in our society if he was perceived as sleeping with people left and right. I even remember a  guy around the time of our wedding telling him jokingly something like “congratulations, now you’re in chains” or something like that. Like wedding/marriage—for a guy—because of our strict gender roles/expectations—this experience is…seems…lived totally differently for a cis man and a cis woman, in a way. In these ways. Like I know what *I’m* going through. But it makes me wonder what he’s going through – how different it is for him. For men. Does marriage even change them at all? Like it changes me? How?

“Imagine your ancestors’ wildest dreams being fulfilled by you taking control of your power and not bowing down to oppressors.” –Protest Safety Training video – http://www.rosehipmedics.org/ around 1 hour 3 minutes, something said during a guided meditation.

8/23/20

something else I’m noticing about representing myself as married – if I forget to put my rings on b4 leaving house, I feel this huge compulsion to go get them to make sure I wear them, and I do. I feel like it protects me – as a woman- the sight of my wedding rings. Like maybe guys who see it will stop messing with me, take me seriously and not say/do stupid catcall shit. Because…it kind of is a symbol that says, “Look I’m connected to a man. Who might be a powerful man who might kick your ass if you mess with me, so leave me alone.” idk. I just know I feel this way, and now I’m thinking for a man…it must be like…totally opposite? Like…men don’t feel they need “protection” from catcalling/being hit on in close quarters when they go out, I think. What do they feel the ring says to others?

Now even remembering farther back, to around a year ago when I first got married and went back to work after honeymoon and BG asked me as we walked to the elevator at the end of the day how I liked married life, and I was genuinely happy, genuinely beaming as I told him that “now I don’t have to worry about dealing with guys”. Like, I remember feeling genuinely relieved that now I had a Really Good Reason that abruptly and legitimately excused me from guys trying for my attention (I’ve found in the past that saying “sorry I have a boyfriend” still does not deter them). And I still feel this relief. But…does my husband feel this kind of relief? I feel like it’s different for him. How does this difference affect us? Affect our marriage? Affect how we relate to each other and just the idea of the institution we’ve entered? Good? Bad?

So…from marriage, as an unexpected side effect of it (and not the reason I got married), I am feeling all this protection from societal and sexual harassment, and feeling sexually validated in a way. AND I think this is all like gender-specific to me, like…I don’t think that…men feel this way, feel all this relief that I am feeling from it. So…Why do men get married?

*

Today walking around the lake early morning I thought I saw a swan flapping its wings on the water. But I looked more and realized it was a dude who was walking far ahead of me on the same path, crossing the bridge, whose light grey sweatpants as he strode were reflected in the dark water.

        

These past weeks I was going back in my journals as far back as around the time I met R (in 2017) kind of in prep for our first wedding anniversary this week (on 8/18), and found this entry that I wrote about 4 months after I met him. It just struck me as…a nice one about…facing what you say you want and not getting in your own way if it’s presented to you– not being scared of what you really want. I think i’ve had that problem. Like…wanting something great, but when i sense it coming near me, drawing back and hiding. Like if you want something, if you really want something…then you have to commit to wanting it.

12/26/17

Do you really have room in your life or know how to make room in your life for a man? Do you really want a man and all the work that entails, to be in a relationship? Do you believe that there is someone meant for you? I think you have to believe it. I think believing is a big part of it. Because, if you don’t believe and you’re in something as scary as a real relationship, then you will perhaps retreat where you should have gone forward. I don’t mean blind, oblivious belief. Like, vet him all you can, probe and weigh and question his character, and after you’ve done all that is humanly and womanly possible to know if he is quality..and you still love him…then—then you can’t make up excuses for why it won’t work. Then you have to believe that someone could love you. Not mainstream American love. Not just city love or suburban love. But…the kind of love that you have no words for because when you try to imagine it, the feeling chokes you. One that is not only worldly, but includes the spiritual, intuitive, heavenly, unseen. Do you believe it? Do you believe? Don’t be afraid. I hear him saying it to me, over and over. Don’t be afraid.

8/2/20

I really like when I can make R laugh—like when I say or do something that elicits the “high” harsh “real” laugh from him, I feel really…good, accomplished, happy. I feel like I did it to him two times today at least : )

8/3/20

we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others. – John Lewis

8/4/20

As she changes her mind, so she will change her body.

She purified her bloodstream with her thoughts.

-dr. joseph murphy, from his book, “all the world believes a lie”

*

another dream I had, I was traveling by foot somewhere. By myself. Maybe going to meet R. At a nice place I think, I can’t remember. Wilderness/hiking kind of place. I packed really light and was proud of it, but then worried that I forgot some essential things, like enough (or any) underwear for a week. I think I did forget a bunch of things I needed like sunscreen and underwear and was trying to figure out, while on the road to him, where to get them.

8/6/20

“grief in whatever form it takes.”

– https://letsreimagine.org/3780/grieving-out-loud

(how many forms can grief take? innumerable?)

*

(coming up on our 1-year anniversary. found this journal entry from about a year ago- written about a month after we got married)

9/28/19

Another new thing I feel: when I’m tired, when I’m annoyed, and I happen to be with R (bc I’m with R all the time…) I realize something different now. Before, with boyfriends, I sense it was different. Before, in my mind, with boyfriends, it could be on or off. You could go backwards, with a boyfriend. Meaning: you can back out of anything, with a boyfriend. Back out of problems, tension, the entire relationship, if you felt like it. But with husband, it’s different. There’s no going backwards now, I sense (and I don’t want to). I mean- if I want to stay in the heart of marriage— if I want to stay inside the purpose of it- there’s no flippantly backing out, saying, “nevermind- changed my mind- I don’t want this anymore.” It’s just scary, it’s just a new feeling: there’s only forward for us. There’s only going forward. It’s…kind of thrilling, actually, not being able to so easily just drop him/discard important things like that. To focus and care about something with your whole being— until marriage, I realize I was kind of half-hearted before, with people, with relationships. Like, marriage is all in. You’re all in. And I always had the option to back out before, so I wasn’t all in. Now…now I’m not- I don’t have this option if I’m going to keep the promise I made to him and all our families, and I don’t WANT to back out of it. It’s just lovely, this situation, I feel. I like it—the challenge, the pressure, the tension, the dynamic this situation creates, of holding two people together face to face, eye to eye, with a promise. And how strength of character and beliefs and faith, gentleness, forgiveness, softness, openness, patience and stuff also play into this situation- to balance this tension. It’s kind of exciting, new, in this way. I’ve never had a relationship like this before.

Like- now, I have to find a way to move forward with BOTH of us. (like the yoke and oxen.) Before, maybe easier- I thought of just myself.

Maybe, when you get married, you have to become even MORE adventurous—MORE creative, because you have to come up with solutions that satisfy the needs of two people instead of just one. I love this challenge. I love being married.

7/26/20

Something I looked up and said to R tonight: “Talvez tenha sido o melão que está nos fazendo peidar.” (Maybe it was the cantaloupe that’s making us fart.)

and he laughed lol

*

Interesting idea I heard, part of a long post:

“NV [non-violence] can only work for privileged people, who have a status protected by violence as the perps and beneficiaries of a violent hierarchy” – fatsextherapist on Insta

7/31/20

“How can we be angry or hostile towards others when they are merely the instruments of our own mind?”

– Dr. Joseph Murphy

A thought I woke up with this morning, before getting out of bed:

even tho it’s on the books and we’ve officially renounced “separate but equal,” I feel like it still exists in the heart and mind of America.

Because…if the idea of “separate but equal” REALLY didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have blacks disproportionately in jails, blacks disproportionately living in the worst poorest areas. We wouldn’t NEED Black Entertainment Television, because everyone would be integrated and Black not separated from everyone else. But in this country, the understanding, support, and good will towards POC, especially Black…is so lacking/nonexistent, that the Asians HAVE to band together to not be washed away—the Blacks HAVE to band together to not be washed away by the thoughtlessness/indifference/even spite of their own country.

Like until support for POC in this country is so high that we naturally stop separating ourselves (in physical proximity, in how we think, in how we feel) from Black, and naturally stop separating Black from ourselves– until we don’t need the support from same-race ppl anymore because POC support from everyone in America is so deep-rooted and steady and high and in no danger of crumbling—it’s like we STILL believe in separate but equal. Like nothing has changed since separate but equal, until we can collectively make this leap.

7/17/20

How can you really in your heart only be true and faithful and love one person the most, and not just profess or perform this monogamy of heart? Is it simply just that they must be the best that you’ve ever known? Or is something else a factor, like it’s a practice or discipline? or is the biggest factor out of your control?

I want to have this singleness of spirit, this oneness of mind that doesn’t stray.

7/19/20

I was thinking something I really like about R that started ever since I met him: he’s like, taking me on a tour of my own country. With him, I see places that I never would have visited alone, I think. Just because he is interested and curious about everything, and also just cause I go out more with him on dates than I would if single, and also just like taking different ways home/to get places and getting lost/meandering on the way there/back, we accidentally discover new places/towns/roads, too. I really like it. It reminds me of I think one of the movies in the Before Sunrise trilogy, how she mentioned she never saw some nice place in France because she had lived there all her life and considered it touristy, but realized when she went with him (an American), that her home city was really beautiful.

7/20/20

Every night I rub R’s back as he’s falling asleep and I usually say the same prayer i started saying since right before we got married (may my husband be the most blessed man in all the world). But tonight as I was rubbing his back I felt different words rise up in me. They went:  

please give me the strength to never fail him. the strength and the wisdom. and no matter what he ever does, no matter what happens to us, let me never fail him.

so I prayed it as it came, and I meant it.

7/21/20

“…values only exist if they are lived. You may think you value your health. But until you live healthily, you don’t. You may think you value honest communication and open discourse. But until you’ve weathered the unpleasant and difficult conversations that you hate hearing, you don’t. You may think you value being selfless and charitable. But until you’ve pulled out that checkbook and volunteered your time to others, you kinda don’t.” –Mark Manson

7/24/20

“I was inspired to get in trouble—good trouble. Necessary trouble.” – Congressman John Lewis