Life, Death, Beginnings, Ends and Something in The Middle

Surprise ThursdayBlogDay! As my last post said, I am driving back down to California today. Although today is Thursday, I started writing this post on Tuesday when life got a little crazier than it already was. I started writing with the intent of mulling through my thoughts daily as I process the sudden death of my dad’s 42-year-old sister this morning. Not only am I witnessing the worst heartbreak I have ever seen, watching three generations mourn together, but also rolling with the punches, as this was the week I planned to head back down to California.

(Tuesday May 29) The Weirdest Day Ever

“I should have never bugged her about tattoos, I told her they would wrinkle when she got old. She never got old now. She should have gotten all the tattoos she wanted,” said my mom on the topic of Auntie Dawn’s death. My family has found we share a strange comfort in raw humor on the topic of death. She also said while cleaning, “You know, this is why you want to keep your house clean. You never know when you might die and the whole world comes over. If I die, please vacuum, maybe it will help you process things. You would know your next move in life, vacuum”. I’m expecting these may offend some and humor others. My apologies for the offense and thank my mother if you share a guilty, cynical laugh.

Today was supposed to be my last day of work, and my second to last full day in Washington for the summer. I had a dentist appointment at 8am in which I tried to figure out what the Asian hygienist was saying to me in my half-asleep state and also a chiropractor appointment. From the dentist I headed to the chiropractor for one of my last alignments before Thursday, leaving day. I called my dad as I drove by the school he teaches at, offering to swing by because I was early for my chiropractor appointment. Since he was in a meeting I headed to the chiropractor and happened to get in 15 minutes early for my 9:30 appointment.

“Chels, I’m at Auntie Dawn’s house. She’s not breathing”. The surge of panic with those words is an emotion I have yet to feel at an age that I could understand that it meant dead. My instant thought was along the lines of, no breath=dead. I asked my dad if anyone had called 911, praying that my dad’s panicked voice was not because he found her not breathing, but instead was called by the paramedics about her not breathing. He said the paramedics were in the process of CPR, in fact that was all he said. Contemplating my next words more than ever, especially with his lack of words, I asked if that meant he wanted me to come there. He said no more than a simple yes and the line went dead.

I called into work on my way, bursting into tears sputtering, “I can’t come in today, I think my aunt just died. Actually, I’m not sure. She might be dead, she might not be. But I’m going there, and I can’t come in”. I know my poor coworker understood why I was in such a panic, and told me not to worry and to deal with my family emergency. My next phone call was to my boyfriend, leaving him a panicked message that I’m sure was not fun to get out of class to, and I’m also sure made no sense what so ever. When I parked a block from my aunt’s, there were aid cars, paramedics, fire trucks, fire fighters, and policemen. The air smelled like chaos and the front lawn looked like fear.

I found my dad on the front porch talking with the head of the paramedic team, and watched my strong father burst into tears for only the second time in my life. “She’s not responding to the medication, nothing is working, we have to stop the CPR. I’m sorry for your loss sir, I understand this is hard”. They gave it their all and she’s gone. The phrase time stood still is more than appropriate. All I wished for was a way to somehow ease the pain my sobbing father felt in the seconds that his sister passed. 

I watched my grandma try to grasp the death of her child, her only daughter, I watched my dad try to grasp the death of his sister, and I watched her kids try to grasp the death of their mother.  All of these are the most emotional pain I have ever seen unfold on faces, especially on faces of loved ones. Physical pain is easier to deal with, especially as a woman. To watch this pain in the midst of a crisis tore my heart into pieces. If the pain were physical I could help, however no amount of hugs, back rubs, or tear wiping could even aid this pain in any form. English should have a different word for this kind of pain because it is nothing like physical pain.

Death does bring fresh perspective, and I won’t bore you with life is short and fragile cliché sayings. For now my house is a spinning mess of tears, hypothetical causes of sudden death, and rollercoasters of emotions. I am so thankful I have the chance to be home for this, for my brother and sister, for my dad, and for my mom. If I had to hear this from California, to hear the ache over the phone instead of at the very least being present to hug, this would be so much worse.  

The idea that life ends is so difficult to grasp, so unreal. When I looked at her body, empty, soul-less, it looked like her face, but not her. There is so much more to life than a physical being, so much more to a person than his or her heart beat. I am so thankful for every day of breathing, so thankful for the support I get to witness surround and overwhelm my extended and immediate family.

(Wednesday May 30) Love is All You Need

I thought today I would have the most to write, the most to process. Being the day after the biggest family crisis since the car accident that caused the death of my now late aunt’s husband 7 years ago, I assumed today would be more mellow, and I would be doing the most thinking. Doing the most thinking usually means doing the most writing.

Instead, all of my thinking is on love. The things people do for love are crazy and incredible; love carries such a power over decisions and life, and I wonder about why humanity is so driven by love. The biologist in me thinks there must be some evolutionary benefit for this scramble of hormones that carries the power to lift up, and the power to destroy.  

In the middle of heartbreak beyond belief, so many people have stood up to aid my family members. Meals are being brought to my grandma, who is going to take over care for my cousins, and flowers are being delivered every few hours. It warms my heart to see the emotional support that my dad is receiving from coworkers, friends, and even distant relatives. These people love my dad, and are here for his every need as he grieves for his sister.

Love is all over the place. My home is dripping with the evidences of love as family members come in to begin the difficult process of grieving over a relative, a loved one no one expected to lose any time soon. Neighbors, members of the church my aunt went to, and members of the church my parents attend, have offered to do everything from cooking for the funeral to cleaning my aunt’s house so that my grandma and cousins can start a life there without my aunt present physically. These are such blessings, such expressions of love.

I am leaving for California on Monday now, staying through the weekend to attend the funeral, see my mom off to Haiti for a work trip with the non-profit organization she writes for, and hopefully help ease the confusion I know my dad is feeling. With tomorrow being the day I was supposed to leave, I am still so grateful that I was not already gone for this crisis. I am so excited to get back to the sunshine and my boyfriend, but these are the moments that define a family.  

(Thursday May 31) Thankful Resolve

If I could have left earlier, and not been around for all of this to unfold, my heart would be even more broken than it already is for my family members. To see a glimmer of joy in my grandpa’s eyes when he gets to sit with at least some of his grandkids after so much death around him is beyond worth delaying my trip back to California. As much as I am dying to get back to the sun, dying to see my boyfriend, and dying to see my friends, I couldn’t imagine being gone for this weekend. The goodbye that will be said at the memorial service this weekend I am hopeful will help with the closure everyone in the family needs from a sudden death.

I thought I would have tons to process by today, and that by now I would be full of words of wisdom from all the thinking I’ve done. Instead, I’m baffled by how fast life is over. One can work so hard, providing for a family, striving to be the best in a profession, making money, and within seconds one organ stops working and the rest shut down. Just like that, “life” is done. All that you worked for is useless in one perspective. They say live life to the fullest because you never know when it’s done, and that is so true, but what could make a life full of worth if you disappear unexpectedly? Is it the amount of people you blessed with love? Is it the amount of money you made? Did you sacrifice enough? Did you heal enough? How does one measure the worth of a life?

I thought I would have more to say, that I would have processed more by today but in reality my sadness for my family members has just increased. My heart breaks more every day for my grandpa and the loss he has suffered in the past few months. The heartbreak of a parent losing a child is an occurrence I will never have words to describe. Eventually I’m sure I will have wisdom from all of this mess of pain, but for now, I am solely thankful for the presence of family members—maybe that’s my wisdom.

Gutsy

Thought I'd share a picture of rainy Washington! Beautiful hike outside of Granite Falls. There is something about getting into the wilderness that calms my soul. 

As you all should know by now if you have been reading my summer posts, I am blogging every Thursday. I should say I’m trying to blog every Thursday, excluding this coming Thursday because I will be driving the 12 hours from Seattle to California by myself. I thought about trying to video blog but I think my writing is more entertaining that my speaking. My words will be anything but funny and I’m sure crude while I’m alone in the car and facing the terrible drivers of Washington and Oregon. Thankfully I will have a companion on the home stretch five hours from the Bay Area to Santa Barbara the following day. Good thing Nicole needed a ride to Santa Barbara for the weekend!

Yellow lights will not leave me alone in this never-ending Seattle rain. I’m late everywhere I go, forgetting rain slows down freeways. I swear there is a small man with a camera on my car changing all the lights I head towards yellow right as I come up to them. They turn yellow at the split second I could either go or stop, generally I go. Usually I should stop. Story of my life.  

When I sat down with the intention of writing today absolutely nothing came to mind. Was I really not learning anything in my last full week in Seattle for possibly months? I reflected on the last week or so and tried to process some conversations and adventures I’d had. What have I done all week other than slave away at the restaurant that might have taught me something worth writing about? Yesterday morning I went on a hike with my best friend Amanda and we discussed some parts of her life that are in the process of changing. Without disclosing the private details of trail talk, my mind eventually halted on the very thing I am in the process of doing as well as what I discussed with her; follow your gut.

In exactly a week I am heading back to California for the rest of the summer without doing anywhere near as much planning as my parents would have liked. Within a matter of about two weeks, a place to live and a nanny job popped up in Santa Barbara when I had been telling my parents I would be in Seattle for the summer. I sprung it on them while driving my beloved car that is older than me up to Seattle for what should have been the summer.

As the sun set behind the ocean, and slightly obnoxiously in my eyes, on the first Saturday of May, I left Santa Barbara for what could have been months. Within miles of driving away, my heart began to ache with how much I wanted to be back there. Most of the people I have talked with have mentioned the obvious, that this is true of any transition time, but from that moment I have not once wavered on where I wanted to be for the summer. By the time I was a few hours into the part of the drive I was doing alone, I knew whole-heartedly I was going to return for the rest of the summer, situation providing.

My parents are right. I would make more money in Seattle, and have a fine summer. Maybe a little more rain, little less time with friends, but I would walk out more financially prepared for the school year. I will have spent quality time with my family, and would no doubt eventually adjust again to the surf-less, ocean-less, sunless Seattle. Despite this logic, which I generally would make a decision solely based off of, I am heading back to California anyways. I am taking a gamble on an inconsistent nanny job, searching for a restaurant job, and a possibly sketchy house in Ventura.

This is not a smart gamble by any logic. With that being said, I am taking this gamble with my whole heart to be able to jump in the ocean right when I feel the urge, share a small space with the lovely Kylie who will be my roommate for the summer, and spend time with my handsome boyfriend.

I keep dreaming about the ocean. I dream about the waves lifting underneath me while I surf, I dream about swimming around in it, and I dream about how mysterious it is. The ocean has captured my heart not only because of how much I will never know about it, but also because of its overwhelming beauty. A sunset over the waves melts me. I have been given the chance to live in the city I love, with a small portion of the people I care about so much. This could not come without a price to pay, especially for someone as unfortunate as me.

I am sacrificing familiarity, more family time, a relatively “high paying” job, and abandoning all plans to skip off to the ocean. For a reason I cannot put logic too, which is rare for me, I am so happy making this decision. My soul is at rest as I follow where my instincts lead. I am so sure that if I did not take this opportunity, I would look back wondering why I passed it up at my age. If my escape to California doesn’t go as planned, I have promised my mom I will return, been guaranteed my job back at the restaurant, and can risk at ease knowing I have a back up plan.

In the mean time, I am running away from the rain to the beach with my boyfriend. I plan on surfing, pinching pennies, working my ass off for much less money than I would have in Seattle, and casting my cares onto the sand, barefoot.

If there’s one thing I learned since last ThursdayBlogDay it is that I continually wish I had not sprung leaving on my family. I wish I had been honest from the time I began realizing I didn’t want to be in Seattle for the summer. Why I struggle so much to be up front for the blunt person I claim to be I do not know. Despite that, I am learning even more that following your heart is so important in being content with looking at the past, present, and future.

Follow those nudges in your soul, no matter how subtle.  

Learning to Be "Broke"

thursdayblogdayyay. Don’t ask me why that’s all one word, and a full sentence, because I don’t know. If you enjoy reading my blog, I bet your friends will too! Share it with them! Ideas: the most meaningful Facebook status you will make in months, my blog. That hilarious, witty tweet you’ve been holding out for, #myblog. The screenshot on your iPhone that everyone is just dying to see on Instagram… My blog. Anyways,

I’m in love…

With my car. In two weeks I will have officially owned my little $650 Toyota Celica for two whole years. I just gave her a bath for the first time in 10 months and unfortunately the dirt is baked on. She’ll never be pearly white again; her age lines are starting to show. As the name of my blog gives away, I am a slightly unfortunate person. In almost any situation where the outcome could go either great or quite poorly, I am that person that the worst almost always happens to. I see yellow lights a hundred times more than my boyfriend right now (he’s in California, I’m in Seattle, that’s about a hundred yellow lights a day, that’s not normal). However every once in a while, extremely once in a while, lady luck is on my side.

When I bought my sassy little Celica, now named Celicia, (see previous posts, as you should anyways if you’ve never read them), I had just totaled my car that was eleven years newer than the Celica, tried and failed to end a really long relationship, and was about to graduate high school. The car I totaled was a 2001, with hardly 70,000 miles on it, and destined to run for many more years. I had spent all my money from my 16^th birthday on it and treated it like my baby. Apparently I didn’t baby it enough because I totaled it in a preventable accident. What I realized about a year after my accident, when I went truly broke for the first time in years, was that I had just enough money at that time saved up to cover my tow bill, pay the ticket from “Failure to Yield with Causal of Accident”, buy a new car, and license the new car, all out of pocket.

When I turned 16 I started working at a little Italian restaurant as a hostess. Becoming a hostess at 16 is like a gateway drug into the high of restaurant cash flow. After about 8 months of working at this little Italian restaurant, I showed up to work one day to see them emptying out the place and the doors locked for good. The last time I spoke to the manager there was the shift I worked two days before that. In a frantic mess, I landed myself a new hostess job at a Greek restaurant down the street three days later. Once again, so strangely lucky but so strangely unlucky. I started waiting tables for brunch shifts at the Greek restaurant at 17, and watched eight general managers and 40+ employees come and go under a terrible Spanish head chef who should not be named. In the midst of employee turnover hell, I started supervising before I even turned the legal age of 18. Every penny the restaurant had in cash including bank deposits, tills, and tips came through my hands. I clocked 40 or more hours while going to high school, and was making much more money than any 17 year old should. Because I had so much free flowing money with hardly anything to pay for other than a cell phone bill, car insurance, and gas, I fell in love with Nordstrom and designer jeans, and learned nothing about self control in handling personal finances.

After the madness at the poorly managed Greek restaurant finally drove me out the door, I started working at the restaurant I still work at during the summers here in Seattle. When the sun shines on Lake Washington, people drop dough. I walked out of the first summer at the new restaurant with $12,000 in four months. At 18, I could buy anything I wanted. I headed off to college in the fall to have no income for 9 months, at blew through $4,000 without blinking. My dad picked me up after freshman year and I had $3.54 to my name. This was so new to me, and I couldn’t wait to get "back on my feet" financially as I returned to the restaurant in Seattle.

The weather had another plan for me. We had no sun for almost an entire summer. I saw clouds for 6 weeks straight from May-mid June and walked out of my second summer at the restaurant with $5,000. Do the math, that’s $7,000 less than I expected to make. That’s a good chunk of money, but I had yet to learn how to be broke. I spent almost everything I made that summer, hoping the weather would get better, saving almost nothing. I started off the school year still broke, and in November of my sophomore year, in a financial heartbreak of a moment that I know I blogged about in November, dropped $600 on my car and $300 days later to be able to register for classes dropping me down to $30 and no expected income. I couldn’t work because finals weeks was right around the corner, and somehow could not get ahead financially for the rest of the year. Running very close to nothing for the following 6 months taught me something I needed to learn, fast. Hold onto what you make because there’s no telling what’s around the corner. I couldn’t shop, I could only buy what I needed at the store (meaning coffee and bottled water, the bare necessities obviously), and that did not change for those last 6 months of the school year.

Now that I am back at the restaurant for at least this month, and the sun is shining, I am definitely making enough money to spend a little. I could even shop if I wanted to, but I can’t seem to force myself to do it. The habit of spending money has been broken for me and I appreciate so much more every penny I have, and every penny I can make. Being relatively broke, and I say relatively because most of the world would love to have all I have being as broke as I am, is strangely okay. I might not know when I’ll make enough again to feel like I can relax about income, but that no longer stresses me out.

There are so many things I would not sacrifice now to work that I would have years ago. A balance is brought from being penniless. Life is peculiarly more fulfilling when stripped of the chance to pursue things like money, clothes, and high-end objects. My car has character, and is a piece of my hard work. Celicia may be embarrassing at times, but she gets me where I need to go, and wouldn’t trade the experiences I have had working hard for my money to have a nicer car bought for me. Talk to me in 6 months and that might be different, just kidding. 

Life tastes sweeter when there’s no overload of sweets. Load yourself with sweets, and it suddenly tastes gross.

Growing Pains

Thursday=summer blog day! A life lesson a week keeps the doctor away, or something like that. (11:41pm is still Thursday, step 1 to completing blog once a week on Thursdays goal-complete). 

  

With ending my sophomore year of pre-med/Biochem classes, the hardest year of my undergraduate degree, I think I should feel much more accomplished than I do. Instead of feeling empowered, I feel like a run-down disgrace of a student. I’m sick and taking antibiotics, exhausted, confused, and headed back to work here in Seattle in five hours. I drove my car back from California yesterday. Celicia made it! Her second successful trip between California and Washington was just as smooth as the first. By smooth I do not mean floating in an Escalade smooth, I mean smooth as in no problems like a truly unfortunate member of my family would have had. Celicia is anything but smooth, she bumps with the road and buzzes along like a little race car, but not as cool. I love summer. Celicia must know that because it felt like summer the whole trip, with the heater stuck on. Who doesn’t love a constant stream of warm air right in their face?

Yesterday was my 20^th birthday and I had such an amazing day. Any day that includes accidental Asian jokes in places like nail salons and sushi restaurants, misunderstandings about how similar “I just ripped ass” and “Man that guy ate fast” sound, and quality friend time is a day I feel blessed to be a part of.

On a completely related note to ass and birthdays, I am coming to realize I don’t like to instigate conflict. However once in the midst of conflict, bring it on, I just don’t want to start it. Thank you Momma Annabelle for the very obvious comment of “Uh, Chelsea, who does?” Good point Annabelle, good point. Annabelle 1, Chelsea 0.

When I started writing this post, I was, and still am, in the process of deciding where to spend my summer. When my mom heard I was blogging she said, “Oh gosh is it a rant? Great”. No this is not a rant, its more of a discussion, or a disagreement, with myself. On one hand, I have Seattle with a great but gamble of a job and I have family. However Santa Barbara holds the key to my heart where I have been offered a job and a great (cheap) place to live. My hopes in writing about this, which happens often when I write, is that I will walk away from this knowing more of where my heart truly lies on one side of the decision. In making this decision, I have been consulting a lot of people. I love talking through things and listening to perspectives in decision-making and have done quite the amount of talking and listening. The other thing I would love is input from my readers, if you have a thought on this please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email on the email above!

In Santa Barbara I have a job offer that should make me enough money to live, and save about $3000 for living during the school year. I would also get to be in sunny California near most of my friends, a boyfriend, and a beach. A summer of surf and work would be in future. On the other side of the spectrum I have Seattle, with family, a few friends, a chance to put away more money but only a gamble. The first summer at the restaurant I usually return to I made around $10,000. The second summer I walked away with $5,000. This summer the weather is supposed to be good, meaning more money than last, however the restaurant business is risky and so is the weather in Seattle.

As the days to make a decision about draw to a close and I start the process of accepting my nanny position to lock in moving, my last prayer is that my parents begin to respect the decision I will end up making about this. Unfortunately for me, I am bull headed enough to stand firm on decisions even against my parents. As they said today in our discussion, “That trait alone will get you far in life, but it will also cause you to make a lot of mistakes”. I’m good at making mistakes. It’s a terrible thing to be good at.

It saddens me to think of what I will miss out on over the summer here in Seattle. I will miss my dad’s 40^th birthday (young, right?), time with my siblings, and soccer games. Despite all of that, my heart is in California. If I could pick up my family (figuratively) and take them with me to California my heart would be complete. But as I know I have discussed before, I have two lives, one here in Seattle and one in California. The gap is growing wider and after spending a total of 18 months in California, I don’t know that I could live here for 4 months. I wish the chance of more money and family was enough to keep me for that amount of time. Seattle is where I grew up, not where I currently reside, and not where I feel at home anymore.

One of the biggest ideas swaying me into leaving early is that money is no longer of the highest value in my life. At one point I was working an insane amount, supervising a restaurant at 17 years old, and in search of money to spend; also successfully making money to spend. These are growing pains because my priorities are changing, I’m changing, and I’m doing it from two states away from my family. I also call this time in my life a time of growing pains because it hurts. It is painful to leave where you grew up for good, and painful to hurt your family in the process. It breaks my heart to break my parents’ hearts, but yet another thing I am unfortunately good at.

If I could redo this whole process of living in California for the summer I would have told my family months ago I was thinking about not being in Seattle for the summer. I made the mistake of saying nothing until heading back up to Seattle. I have never regretted going to school two states away, and would not trade the two years I’ve had in California for anything, but I am so jealous of the people that have family within hours of driving. It takes me hundreds of dollars and a plane trip, or two days of a road trip, to get to my family. Because of that, I made a home away from home, which is now winning out over my home.

I am not only learning lessons in honesty but also on bringing up the difficult things in life. I want to keep the peace, as does anyone, but that is a downfall in most situations. Sometimes hard, lose-lose decisions must be made and uncomfortable topics must be talked about, but this is part of a life worth living.