Happy 2023!

Happy New Year! I know I’m over a month late but so much has happened since the holidays. Once November hit, the rest of the year became a blur. December was very busy with lots of holiday parties, dates, and family time. Unlike the previous two lonely pandemic years, I had a fun holiday season. Things were going really well and I had a very active social calendar, which I think contributed to me getting mildly sick at the beginning of December. Not Covid though, thankfully.

Then during the last week of the year, things took a turn. I had a few minor health issues. Discovered some new food allergies that have been affecting my skin. My eczema was acting up and I felt ugly. My chronic nose bleeds were back. I got locked out of my apartment. I had to call a locksmith, who literally left shit on my door unintentionally (I don’t know what to make of that symbolically?). Water leaked out of my ceiling. My job assignment ended. And that was all in one week! Most of it within the same day! The year ended with me feeling emotional, frantic, and anxious. Life was teasing me. Showed me some fun and then decided to tear me down with a thousand little papercuts. Year end is always emotional for obvious reasons, and I didn’t need any additional emotions involved. But you know, life. It loves to send you lessons and challenges all at once.

At the beginning of January, I went through a mini break-up. As you get older, you don’t really let yourself invest in big relationships anymore unless there is future potential. So they all tend to be mini, and nonetheless, still disappointing. I am once again at a cross-roads in my life and unemployed, which is generally fine. I’ve been here before but not in awhile, and it feels strange to be here again. I had some minor issues with a couple toxic people who needed to be extricated from my life. A little annoying to have to deal with that right after a mini break-up. But that’s life. I also lost my mom’s gold charm bracelet. I think it fell off my wrist at some point, and I’m so sad about that. My mother loves jewelry and I love wearing her jewelry. I hope it turns up soon.

Mid-January, I flew to Boston to celebrate my mother’s birthday and the Lunar New Year, which coincided on the same weekend. I hadn’t traveled back for Lunar New year in YEARS, probably at least a decade. It was really nice to get to do that again with my family, especially since it also falls close to the anniversary of my mother’s brain injury. Then when I returned, I got sick. Maybe a cold? Maybe RSV? But it was the third time I’ve been sick for the third month in a row! I’m so tired of being sick and worn down and isolated. But it did give me time to binge watch Yellowstone and Succession. Those shows kept me company while I allowed myself to really lean into resting. I gave myself time to heal, not just my physical body but also to explore all the noise in my head. If I had a job, I would not have been able to take this much time to rest. Most jobs only give you six sick days total for an entire year. I get sick often and when I do, I’m sick for like a week straight each time. If I had a job, I would have been pressured to only take a day or two off, if at all, and then work through my illness. I’m only just now on the mend and finding time to write a blog post and start checking some things off my to-do list.

And here I am. At a café on the corner of my street, trying to get myself motivated again and dig myself out of the dark hole that I’ve been in for the last few weeks. Another existential crisis. Trying to figure out my next step. I’m so overwhelmed by life lately. I’ve needed more space from people than usual, which can be good for an introvert but can be isolating as well. Last year was a hard year. I think I had been running on adrenaline for so long and now my body is finally collapsing. It’s exhausted. Maybe that’s why I’ve been sick three times for three months in a row. Maybe this is me, in recovery from 2022. Maybe I need some inspirational foreplay. Maybe I need to just love on myself a little and get a massage or treat myself to something special. Actually, I don’t know what I need but I will figure it out. Next time you hear from me, I will be in better spirits. I promise.

Happy 2021!

Happy NEW Year! I had been meaning to check in on the blog but then chaos ensued after only a few days into the new year. The riots at the Capitol were so upsetting. I had a lot of feelings and needed some time to process. I’m deeply saddened by the acts of ignorance, hate, racism, and white supremacy in our country. I can’t help but feel a little scared and nervous about the future with everything happening right now. While I think that having new leadership will help, as a country, we still have a long way to go and so much to learn.

Here in Los Angeles, we are still in a lockdown. I survived the holidays. It was a little lonely and isolating but I bounced back quicker than I thought I would. People all around me are still traveling and seeing their friends and carrying on as normal (or close to normal) and I’m wondering if I should be doing the same? I haven’t seen my family in a year and a half. I haven’t been on a plane in a year. I do see people occasionally for social distant hangs, walks, and hikes but probably not as regularly as I should to maintain my mental health.

I was starting to feel the isolation creeping in on me again as we entered the new year. So then last weekend, I made plans for 2 back to back hangs, 2 days in a row. One was a challenging 4 mile uphill hike to Sandstone Peak in Malibu and the other was a 5 mile walk along Zuma Beach in Malibu. I had also hiked 3 times that week leading up to the weekend and had a few back to back FaceTime calls the Friday night prior. That following Monday, I was completely exhausted and as a result, was not as productive as I had wanted to be. Plus, my body was completely sore from all the hiking and exercise. By Tuesday morning, I still had not recovered. I woke up with an allergy attack and was basically incapacitated on the couch for the whole day. My body did not like all of that action! As an introvert, too much social activity can be draining but now, in a pandemic, after becoming accustomed to quarantine and isolation, I must have hit a whole new level of social exhaustion combined with too much physical ventures. Anyway, because of that setback, I worked all of this weekend on my cookbook to catch up with the time that I lost during the week.

With my consulting at a halt at the moment due to my project ending last November, I finally have the time to refocus on my cookbook. It was hard to transition back to a creative and entrepreneurial mindset and schedule though. It took a couple of weeks of resistance in December before I found the momentum to get going again. In the last year, it was not possible for me to work on the cookbook while also juggling full-time consulting work, brand partnerships, content creation, and my blog. I believe this break from consulting is a blessing in disguise because now I can commit my time to the cookbook again. My passion project requires more energy. Creativity for me requires more energy. I notice that when there is too much space and time between each piece of the cookbook that I work on, it then reflects in my work. The quality, depth, connection, and flow suffer. I’ll forget why I wrote something or how I made a dish.

Since mid-December, I’ve been FaceTiming with my mom several days a week to discuss my recipes, photos, Khmer translations, ideas, and facts about our history. I’m going back through all my recipes and editing the writing, reorganizing the flow, and deciding which ones I need to reshoot. Even though I devoted the entire 2019 to cooking most of the recipes in the book (and thought I was almost done), I’ve just added more new recipes to my list and I still have desserts that I need to make. And I’d like to add more stories. I still have a lot to do and it has been so exhausting. One evening, I spoke with my mom for 2 hours just about herbs! HERBS! Each of our calls last 2 hours. There’s so much detail to go through and understand. But I know I can do it!

Last week, on a call with a new therapist, she asked me what I do for fun after I had updated her on all the things I’ve been working on and all the emotions I had been feeling. Her question made me pause and think. I had been spending all my time working on the cookbook, FaceTiming with my mom or sister to brainstorm about contents of the cookbook, going to virtual therapy, and attending virtual support groups. Basically, all my time had been devoted to either my cookbook or my mental health. It has been awhile since I’ve dedicated a day or even a few hours to doing something that brings me joy. I was diligent about allocating one day a week to joy last summer and I did do a couple road trips in November that brought me some joy. But I hadn’t really incorporated joy into part of my everyday life recently. I’ve kind of lost my balance again. And that’s okay. It happens. It’s hard to maintain balance all the time.

So this coming week, I’m going to be thinking about some new ways to spark joy for me and try to incorporate it more regularly into my life. I also think that we all need to show ourselves a little compassion and grace for just surviving everything that is happening in the world right now. It’s a lot. In the meantime, I hope you find some way to bring a little bit of joy into your life as well. And if you have ideas, please comment on this post and share! I’d love to hear!