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The following online journal entries are from May 1999. They are taken from older version of my website. |
Thursday. 7:51 AM. Good morning. I suppose. I was woking up this morning about quarter to seven by workmen pounding on sheet metal on the building next door. It's been a bumpy night anyway. I didn't sleep very well at all. I tossed and turned all night. It was strange. I usually don't have trouble sleeping. You would think that with having a few pints of Strongbow last night and a late night stop at Zante's pizza, I would've just dropped into a deep sleep. But, I kept waking up. I kept feeling anxious about something. And the topper was that I had a dream that featured my mother. And whenever I remember my mother being in my dreams I know that something is not quite right with my life. Her presence for me reminds me to be gentle with myself and to look at what has come out of focus. A lot is going on in my world. A lot is changing still in my life. And, today is my 29th birthday. Chin up, right? Accentuate the positive, right? Start the day with affirmations, right? Deep down -- deep, deep, deep down -- I feel like I'm not doing something right. I'm not doing right by me. I feel like I'm ignoring something that needs to come out, come through. I think what I want to be in my life isn't something the "real world" is ready or able to give to me. I don't think there is a space for me. And the struggle to create that space may be too difficult. But if it's vitally important, isn't any struggle worth the risk and the pain and the sweat? I look at people like George Lucas and the dozens of other famous, powerful people that I respect in my life and I want to be part of their world. I see all the young twenty-somethings making their way and I wonder when I'll get lucky. It's all about success. And I think I've always wanted success -- in the style of Hollywood and Pulitzer renown -- all of my life. And I don't think it's a naive dream. And I don't think it's your average, garden variety dream. I want to be known for creating something, for doing something, for moving mountains. I want to know that I affected my world, affected the world. I want to leave a legacy and a mark. And I'd like to think that these feelings are not all about self-centeredness. There is some quality, some magic that those with renown and specifically those who use their renown to better their culture, their lives, their art have that I want to discover. I want to write. I want to teach. I want to teach. I want to write. Two very simple statements. And somehow I need to translate their simplicity into simplifying my life in order to realize them. I do. I really do. And I know I have to. I get pangs of sadness and envy and anger when I hear about a friend who has just finished three chapters of their novel. I get anxious and jealous when I see a twenty-something on the Rosie O'Donnell's show who has just directed a film. I get terrified and shameful when I meet people who are taking their lives exactly in the direction they want to go and are completely happy at the trials and the triumphs they encounter along the way. What is this all about? It's about my sense of failure and my sense of self-fulfillment. I know, I know -- it's about needing to go back to therapy. So much of my life has been turned inside out in the last five or six years. So much is still so damaged that I haven't quite figured out where to put the first nail or lay the first stone to repair it. Some of this is so hard to say. It really is. And an online journal is probably not the best place to voice it. It may cross too many boundaries. It may make me too vulnerable. But, I need to say it and since my fingers aren't stopping, I'll say it. When my mother died, I think I must have failed her. I think she gave up, she left because I did not do enough to keep her with us. I think I left her long before she went into her seizures on the morning of July 22, 1993. Sometimes I think to myself why I didn't spend more time with her? Why didn't I stay in the hospital with her every single day? Why I didn't do more to encourage her, to love her, to make her well? Why did it take twenty-three years and cancer for all's sake for me to tell her to her face that I loved her? Of all the people in the world that I want the approval of, she was the most important. And she isn't here any more. When my mother died, I also think that she failed me. She failed my father and my sister. I have so much anger. I have so much pain. Why didn't she try harder? And I wonder who is that talking? She was the strength in my life. She embodied what a person can do by will alone. And when she passed away, I knew that will alone was not enough. Why didn't she ask for more help? Why didn't she tell me what she needed? Why didn't she say that she was going to leave? She left. She gave up. So I gave up. It wasn't time for her to go. I didn't want her to go. Too soon. It was way too soon. She hadn't done what she wanted to do. She had dreams, too. And they would spring up out of her day to day life, like crocuses in the spring. And I would see that she was really happy when she knew she was doing something she always wanted to do. She always wanted a big garden. She always loved her roses. I can remember helping her pick the Japanese Beetles off of the flowers. She always wanted to be a doctor, a surgeon. She had good hands, beautiful hands. And a strange part of me really thinks that she wanted more children. Perhaps not of her own but she definitely wanted grandchildren. She loved her house. She loved her family. She loved her ways. And she can't do them now. She can't. And I hate her for not living her dreams. Why did she work so much? Why did she save so much money? Why did she prepare for everything? And then die. What kind of example does that set? |
But, I know. I know. I know. I know that these are just feelings. They just need time to be expressed. They just need time to settle and mellow. And I know. I know that she loves me still. And I don't hate her. And I don't really blame her. I'm just sad. I'm just angry. I'm just grieving as deeply and as clearly some six years later. We used to call her Mami (from the Chinese ma-ma for mother). And I've written in my journals past that she was my best friend. I miss her. And I really wanted her to see the things I did, the things I made, the things I changed. So much hasn't really mattered to me since she died. So much seems so empty. And that scares me. It fucking tears me up because I'm not doing what I do for myself. I've been trying to please a ghost. And living for the dead is not living.
Thursday. 9:44 PM. I think I've scared my readership away. And I think I've scared myself from writing anymore entries in my journal. But I've regained a little bit of courage. The last couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful -- the grand scheme of things. I am still unemployed. And I am still looking, though the prospects have been just as scarce. Fortunately, I have been keeping myself pretty preoccupied with working on Tellings (my fantasy role-playing game for those of you joining the program late). It's like a full-time job for me. I work eight hours or more a day on the final revision and layout of my book. It's a good exercise and it's a good diversion. Last Friday, Sarah and I took the CalTrain, the commuter train, down to Mountain View to see Alenda and Ben. The four of us went to dinner and then to the opening of the new movie A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was an okay telling of Shakespeare's play. The next night, Saturday, we went to a dinner party thrown by Michael Niemeyer, one of the "happy hour" folks. I made bruschetta (sp?) with roasted garlic, fresh tomatoes and basil, feta cheese, olive oil, topped with deep-fried spinach. The dinner party was fun and it was neat to see some of the Wednesday night people in a completely different setting. This past Tuesday night, I went to see Election with Patrick, one of the guys from the "happy hour" group. I'm not sure what to call the evening. The movie was pretty good -- a dark comedy, twisted, raunchy in parts. I'm not sure I was on a date. I guess it was just a friendly thing. I don't know. Tara, Sarah's significant other, came in on Tuesday night. When I got home from the movies, her cat Sidney met me at the door. Tara will be here for about a month and a half. Last night, I took the CalTrain down to Mountain View myself and Alenda picked me up from the Atherton stop. Ben, Alenda, and I went to dinner and then to see the new Star Wars movie -- Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I can't believe it's finally done, here, now. I remember a couple years back thinking that it was great that a new movie was being made. And now it's bigger than life. The hype is phenomenal. A definite cultural moment. And I'm glad I was part of opening night. I won't get into the movie for fear of spoiling it. Later, when the movie has been out a while, I'll get into what I think. But, for now, I think the best attitude to have when going into the experience is to keep in mind that the movie is the start of a new trilogy. Visually, the movie is stunning. (And I really like Ewan McGregor -- a very cute Jedi knight scruffy hair and all.) So, now that I've caught up on the last week, what now? What am I really sitting at the computer for? What am I really trying to get out? What's on my mind? I am desperately insecure. Maybe desperate is too strong of a word. But, there are moments that it seems pretty strong. I think I'm doing well. I think I'm making the great transition. I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of it -- like when I was riding the #49 bus home from going out with Patrick and it pulled up to my block and I got out and walked up to my apartment ... I felt like I was finally becoming part of the city. But, then, something seems to sabotage that feeling. I feel impotent a lot of the time. I pour so much of creativity into the channels that I know. The ruts of my life. But when I try to go down a new path, I stall. Completely. And it scares me. I don't have the discipline. I haven't trained myself. And I feel like it's too late for me to recapture that new artist, new bohemian, new alternative, new groovy life. I just got the program for the SF Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It looks great. It makes me think about Washington's festival. But as I was flipping through the magazine, I was just overcome by this sense of frustration and envy -- on so many levels. First, I wish I could get a pass for the festival but it's $100 and I just don't have it. Second, people who have the fortune to make movies are just gods to me and I aspire so much but feel so powerless. Third, why would I want to go see movies about the queer community, especially gay men, when I'm already so saturated by the issues I have with mainstream queer America. And plainly I don't want to see men happy or unhappy together because at least they are together. Singledom does not bode well for my filmgoing appetite. So much of this is so out of nowhere, so irrational, so self-inflicted. And even writing about it isn't bringing much distillation. But I think I need to just write as much as I can, as fast as I can and not think about it till later. I can reread it all and find the tiny threads through all the confusion. More later. |
journal
© 2001 Edmond Y. Chang. All original material. All rights reserved.
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