When I was 14 my mom got thyroid cancer. I only found out when I came back home from Singapore after her chemotherapy. I walked into my room and saw her with a bald head. When I started crying my mom said, You should be very happy, thyroid cancer is so easy to treat. I wish you had someone who imbued in you this belief, that the world is so much less dependent on what happened, but how you see it, and no matter how dark, no matter how much hardship, there is light, there is optimism, there is hope.
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I went to a college that moved across the world every 4 months. During those years I learnt coolness is so culture-dependent - in Berlin it means you should be goth & polyamorous, in Taipei you should be smart but chill. In London you should work in finance, in SF at a startup. But the people who ended up adding the most richness, the most beauty, they all share the same traits: compassion, openness, curiosity. In our small tight-knitted community we got to define our own values, and we did it like so: Kindness is cool. Conviction is sexy. Caring is underrated. Now I’m in a city that is too big, where people rush to millions of places all the time. But I come home to a home-cooked meal peppered with questions like “How was your day?”, “How can I support you?” and my heart feels full. I wish you know that there’s more to happiness than money, that maybe all we really need is a small house & an abundant community, and our hearts fill quickly, if we give it space.
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I wish you know that love is infinite. I love my friends from high school and my community in college but also my exes and my family and I think I might still have space to love more. That when I give out love all I’ve got back is beyond my wildest dream, and I wish we all have the courage to love the world in the same way, to be bound not by status and power but by wonder and kindness and sparkles of curiosity. It’s such a beautiful way to live, as my mom has taught me. I wish there’s space for you too.
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My friend decided to move back from the US to Vietnam two months ago to work on her startup full-time. Vietnamese people would find it a step backward; she was scared of those voices. She moved back anyways. In my mind regardless of how her startup would go, she had succeeded. I wish we all have the courage to take the plunge, not knowing where it would take us, to have the conviction to keep going even when you’re scared, to hear your inner demons whispering you’re not enough, and say “Fuck it”, it takes hard, arduous work. But we stumble, we fall, and we do it anyways.
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I wish you know it’s infinitely harder to do good than to be bad, and yet, try again we must. For it is not a matter of strategies, but a matter of principles. That the world is rigged and unkind and hateful, and yet we try anyways, because what else could we do, what else could we think about in our death beds, except whether we leave a good trace behind.
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I wish you know I have faith in you. I wish you know how little I knew, how little I will always know, and yet I always want to know more, I always want to get to the Truth, to get bits and pieces of you in hope that one day the cracks will mount to something, the crumbles will morph itself into a painting, the lines will be redrawn again and again, but the core is good.
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I wish you know no matter how poetic the words, it’s so much harder to live than to write. But today I am surrounded in beauties that I didn’t know could exist, & I wish one day I can share a flower with you.
I’m bawling reading this
This is so beautiful!