April 23, 2013

There is a nature that exists in us. After all, like planet earth, most of our body is made up of water. When the moon rises, the tides rise. When the seasons shift, so does the current.  If our external world can dictate the waves of the ocean, imagine how it affects the waves within us…

I’m feeling a lot of seasonal changes within me. For the last few weeks people have been telling me to rest more. I’ve been getting sick more frequently, injuries more easily and irritated more quickly. I think too much. I don’t sleep well.  I feel exhausted: mentally and physically.

I feel like I’ve been working, sowing and running hard for these past few months. It seems nothing is going as planned, nothing is on schedule and while I can work hard – nothing can be expected in return. While it’s tough seemingly running on empty, I know instinctively through reflection, determination, discipline, patience and faith, I will eventually start to see a seed grow.

Not so long I felt this way when I trained 5-6 times a week, sometimes twice and ate a perfect diet of six small meals a day before my first pregnancy. From 2007-2009, after my bout with Bulimia, I was uncomfortably over 20lbs heavier than I am today. It seemed that regardless of what I did to try and create weight loss, I felt like I failed every week. The scale didn’t move, the inches didn’t budge and my old clothes didn’t fit.

Regardless of the frustration, stress, disappointment and exhaustion, I continued to have faith that my body would one day manifest the healthy transformation occurring from the inside out. While every day I trained, focused and worked like it was ‘new’ day – in the back my mind and in the pit of my heart, it felt like groundhog day, every day, for years.

Right now I feel like I’m spinning. Days melt into nights and weekends are no different from any workday. I was due for a tiny 24-hr vacation and anticipated to see my two closest friends, Borina and Brian (who was in town from Seattle) in the Bay area. It was around 9pm Friday night, approximately 3 hours after I arrived when I received a call that my husband forgot he had committed to attending a Christian retreat with my father on Saturday. I was already fatigued from work, drowsy from insomnia and stressed from endless hours of caretaking, cooking and cleaning. I was irritated by my husband’s oversight, angered by my predicament and annoyed by all the solutions that required me to either not see my out-of-town friend and drive home that night or wake up around 5am to meet at a destination an hour away to pick up the kids and bring them to the city with me. I knew I would fall asleep on the road if I left that evening and that by choosing the latter, my husband would improperly pack and cause additional undue stress on me trying to tame 3 little boys in a big city. Despite my hope to finally sleep a full 8 hours, I went to sleep at midnight and awoke promptly at 5:45am to make the trek to pick up the boys the following morning.

When we arrived to the city we were happily greeted by “Uncle Brian”, who took us to Bakers Beach where I watched the boys joyfully play in the sand. I loved watching them run from waves, hug each dog that passed and collect sticks, rocks and shells. Brian and I fondly reminisced ten years of friendship that began when I competed in Miss Chinatown USA after college. We laughed about racing our bikes, reading at Borders and receiving late-night calls to pick me up from bad dates. It was a beautiful day in the city, a time spent with some of my favorite people…my best guy friend and my best little boys.

It was timeless.

Sometimes I focus on time so acutely that if I waste ten minutes, I think of the mile I could’ve ran, the email I could’ve sent or the room I could’ve cleaned. In my time spent with Brian and my impromptu trip with the boys, I realized more fully that time cannot be measured by duration, but by value. While each day feels like a painstaking push to make things happen, I know simultaneously that the moments I can engage in a genuine conversation, a funny observation or a deep revelation …. Then, it makes my whole day of mindlessly operating, complete.

There’s a whole world outside of my being controlling the events that happen in my life. I can’t control them, but instead ‘roll’ with each season. While time passes slowly, if you don’t grasp the priceless moments that can never retrieved again, then you will live an unexamined and unfulfilled life. Happiness is truly in the travel, not just the destination. While frustrating as it seems to work, pray and reflect daily, I have faith and hope that eventually my works will bear fruit.

My dear friend, Brian Woo

As suspected, my husband did NOT pack well, despite me giving him a list of things to bring. My middle son looked like the 4th member of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” wearing my gym jacket to keep warm! LOL