Back from My Hiatus

I can’t believe it has been over a year since I last wrote on the blog. Sometimes you need to take some time off screens and social media for your mental health (and existential or midlife crisis) even if it costs you some social media engagement. What a modern-day conundrum.

It’s September! Can you believe it? The heatwave in LA has been brutal. I can’t deal with 95-100 degree heat. I’m ready for fall. Give me some cozy sweaters, jackets, soup, and a little romance already.

It rained really hard for one day last week, and all of Los Angeles went nuts. It’s like we’ve never seen rain before. You’re not a true Angeleno unless you posted about it on social media (which I did). I loved it! It was magical. While many people stayed inside that day, I put on my big girl rain boots and rain jacket and headed out to take my car for a nature wash, as one does when it rains in LA. And naturally, I picked up some matcha and a breakfast sandwich, which is always a treat.

Summer is now officially over and mine was quite eventful. I got to see my family in Boston. Both of my sisters were in town, plus my stepbrother and his family from Paris. We spent a few days in Rockport at the beach, and I got to spend a lot of time with my nephews and niece. I love them so, so much. They are such funny little humans. Being an auntie is truly the best.

Then I got sick with laryngitis, a sore throat, and a cold, and returned home sick for a second month in a row. I hadn’t gotten sick in a year and then all of a sudden, I was sick twice this summer, back to back. It was exhausting.

On a much more exciting note, I finished the manuscript for my memoir cookbook. And I have to say, I’m really proud of myself. This has been a years-long project, a very emotional one, and it took a lot of work and perseverance to get here. I experienced many setbacks this summer, and while I’m close to the finish line, there is still more to go. There are always new challenges. Now I’m into the design stage, but I keep finding more things I want to edit or fix. It’s never-ending. You could edit something forever, but that doesn’t necessarily make it better. Sometimes you can actually make it worse. It’s a fine line.

At some point, you just have to walk away and let it out into the world. That has been the hardest for me to do. Getting to this stage was hard enough, and there are still so many decisions left to make. I’m in the early stages of design approval, and you would think this part would be easier. But there are countless micro-decisions to be made (like font, color, text size), and I’m honestly just over making every decision on my own. That’s the thing with creating something on your own. You are ultimately responsible for everything.

I think I’m just exhausted from this marathon of a project, so every little decision can feel overwhelming. I’m trying not to let it consume me. Maybe it will get easier as I move further along the design phase and develop a better sense of my aesthetic vision. Even if I’m not done done, I can still celebrate each milestone. It’s easy to get caught up in the to-do lists, insecurity, and doubt. Of course I worry that what I created isn’t “good enough.” But I was brave enough to start this journey and see it through. I created something meaningful that I can share with my family. Hopefully, the stories and recipes also resonate with other first-generation Cambodian Americans. And if more people enjoy it, then that’s a bonus. I need to hold onto that feeling and celebrate it more.

I’ll have to write some more catch-up posts about some of the travel adventures I had over the last year that brought me some joy. Because if I don’t document it (and share my travel tips), did it really even happen? 😊

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Contrary to what most people outside of southern California believe, Los Angeles does get cold in the winter. I can already feel the temperature begin to drop in the evening. It’s even a bit chilly during the day in the shade. The breeze is cooler. The morning air smells different. I can feel myself beginning to sink into hibernation mode. Putting on my baggy sweatpants and hoodies and curling up on the couch underneath a blanket. So comfy and cozy.

It’s cuffing season and I’m alone again this year. I’m ready to binge watch those holiday Hallmark movies that all seem to involve a woman meeting her soulmate before Christmas. Waiting for that to happen to me. Ha-ha. I mean, sometimes those things do happen in real life too right? More often the exception than the rule but can it be my turn for an exception please? Universe, are you listening? I’m still here. Thank you in advance.

One more week and I will be in Panama on a yoga retreat. Looking forward to a change of scenery and switching up my surrounding energy. I could use some time for inner reflection and redirection. Not sure what to expect, but I’m open to all the possibilities. And oh my goodness, I’m turning a year older. Eeeeek. But it could possibly be my best year yet. So there’s that.

The Parents are in Town!

Since I moved back to Los Angeles after my two-year stint living in Hong Kong, my parents have not visited me and it has been almost a decade! This past Labor Day weekend, my mother and stepfather finally came to town, and everything that could go wrong went wrong. No running water, racist attack, and my car died in the middle of Hollywood—all within the first two days of their visit.

A water pipe on my street burst the night before my parents’ arrival and I had no running water for 20 hours! The workers from the LA Department of Water and Power were up all night attempting to fix the issue with no idea when the problem would be fixed. When my parents arrived the next day, I couldn’t bring them home after their long flight because we couldn’t use the toilet, wash our hands, or cook. It’s so easy to take for granted the luxury of running water! I took them to lunch at Din Tai Fung for Taiwanese food and then walked around Century City Mall. After a couple hours, we decided to come home with the game plan of walking to a nearby cafe to hang out when any of us needed to use the bathroom. When we got home, the water still was not fixed. My parents wanted to relax after their plane ride and did not want to have to go out again so we were all hesitant to hydrate. Fortunately after a couple more hours, the water came back on before we had to venture out to find a toilet! Hallelujah! Thank goodness I showered and washed my hair the night before.

On their first night in LA, I took them to one of my old favorite restaurants, Tar & Roses, in Santa Monica. I hadn’t been in 2 years and was excited to be able to share the experience with them. I don’t go out to eat that often anymore because I’m finding that the quality and service has changed a lot since the pandemic and I’m usually disappointed. Of course, it’s even more difficult to impress my parents. They are accustomed to delicious seafood in Boston. The restaurant scene in Boston is amazing, unpretentious, less expensive, and always reliable wherever you go. And the pandemic has not changed that. When I was there recently this past May, I found myself impressed by every single meal I ate out at a restaurant.

And then after dinner, we were victims of a verbal racist attack. As we walked back to my car on Santa Monica Blvd and 5th, a white man pulled at his eyes and yelled, “Hey, hey, you Ch*nk family!” Fortunately, my parents didn’t understand what happened. They didn’t understand what the man said or did. But I understood and my blood boiled. I yelled obscenities at him as he walked away. I explained what happened to my parents and they weren’t upset. Or maybe they were and just didn’t show it. They were probably used to internalizing it. But I don’t want this to be something anyone has to “get used to.” My parents survived a genocide and came to America as refugees searching for a better life and it seems like not much has changed since their early days in this country. My mother has already been through so much in this life and I was so upset that she had to experience racism in LA on her first night visiting me.

The incident was triggering. Made me think of the years of microaggressions and acts of racism that I have experienced my entire life. When someone makes you feel less than one day, sure, maybe you can shrug it off. But how about if someone makes you feel less than every day. Or maybe once a week, once a month. Then multiply that by every year you have lived. And now imagine it’s not just one person making you feel less than all those years. It’s someone at work. Someone at school. Someone at the grocery store. Someone off the street. It’s your neighbor. It’s someone in your friend group. It’s not one person you can avoid. Not one incident. It’s everywhere. Throughout different stages of your life. Happening again and again. What does that do to your mental health over time? What does that do to your sense of worth?

Going into the weekend, I was already feeling fragile with some other things going on in my life and also with everything happening in Afghanistan, which is a reminder of what happened to my parents in Cambodia with the genocide. It’s so sad and upsetting. During the early days of the pandemic, I went on walks often to get out of the house. Then I stopped when the violence against Asian Americans, and particularly the Asian elderly, increased. Only in the last couple months, I had been feeling comfortable enough to go on walks again and then this happened. It’s not something I could just easily shake off.

The next day, I took my parents for a Thai lunch at Hoy Ka in Hollywood. When we walked back to my car afterwards, my car wouldn’t start. I had to call for a tow truck and learned that my car battery was dead. Got a jump start and had to spend our afternoon at Pep Boys waiting to get my battery replaced. This was the 3rd thing that went wrong that weekend. I tried as hard as I could to put on a face so that I wouldn’t worry my parents, but the truth is, I felt so beaten down. I’m sure they noticed. I had no appetite. I couldn’t eat. When we came home, I saged the apartment. My mother superstitiously threw rice and salt over my balcony and did a short prayer with insence. Leading up to my parents’ visit, I had already been stressed for weeks with work and it had been on my mind all weekend. That next day, I collapsed onto my bed and napped for two hours. I never nap but I was so emotionally and mentally exhausted and my body couldn’t hold it in anymore. You can try to act like everything is okay, but your body doesn’t lie. Everything was not okay.

People say things happen in threes. That was it for us that weekend—the broken water pipe, the racist attack, and my dead car battery. We spent the rest of their time in LA cooking, eating, and visiting the Venice Canals and the beach. I’m glad my parents visited me but I’m sure it wasn’t the best trip for them. After I dropped them off at the airport, I felt a huge weight lifted from me. I no longer felt pressure to pretend that everything was okay. I felt like I could sort through all my complicated emotions and thoughts without having to fake it. I felt like I was finally allowed to be exhausted and not have to worry about how that was perceived or how it would affect anyone else.

That same week after much contemplation, I decided to part ways with a client. I realized it was not a good fit for me and it had been negatively affecting my mental health for weeks. Sometimes you have to walk away and let go of things that don’t serve you, as hard as it may be. When I made the decision, I came home and napped for two hours! The next day, I napped again. I’ve never napped so much in ONE week! My body was mentally and emotionally drained. And it took me about 5 days to recover. I am just starting to feel like myself again. I’m slowly coming back to life.

It’s ironic that my last post was about feeling good. As easily and quickly as things can go well, things can all come crashing down at once as well. You have to take the good with the bad. Things can change and turn around in a second. But all experiences are learning experiences and we can’t have one without the other.

I would love to add some new recipes to the blog soon. But for now, I need to take care of my mental health, listen to my body, and give myself a break. In the meantime, check out my Instagram for all the yummy food we ate during my parents’ visit!