Coronaversary

It’s March. We’ve hit our one year anniversary of when it all began. One year since the pandemic officially started and forever changed our lives. An ENTIRE year! Can you believe it? It began with a 2 week lockdown and one year later, we’re still here. How do I feel about it? I have so many thoughts and feelings. Not much happened and yet everything changed all at the same time.

On a superficial level, I’ve expanded my athleisure section of my wardrobe. Now, it takes up a greater percentage of my closet. I have always loved sweatpants before but now I really love them. Sweatpants and hoodies—just give me more. One can never have enough.

In March of last year, like everyone else, I was dealing with the initial shock of a pandemic and what that meant for the world. I had my first of two anxiety attacks. I was trying to mend a broken heart and I retreated from the world. Trauma was triggered. Mental health became more important to me than ever in my adult years. I joined mental wellness support groups. It was the first time since my early twenties that I participated in talk therapy consistently for a year. And when I didn’t expect it, I learned so much about myself.

My project with a fashion client ended and I’ve been able to resume my passion project—the Cambodian cookbook. This time, I’m working on my writing, which I think is the most fun part. I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy writing. I wrote a novella in college and then continued to take a creative writing course after college but never really pursued it and I wish I had all these years, even just as a hobby. After two weeks of testing out different writing groups and getting frustrated, I finally found one that provides a supportive community for critique, workshopping, and encouragement. I guess, you can join a group for just about anything nowadays. It was something I never thought to do before and is definitely something I want to continue even after I finish my cookbook.

Most excitingly, I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine shot! It felt so sweet to get it on the anniversary of the start of the pandemic! It only took 5 hours of waiting in the cold without food or bathroom breaks to get the extra leftover vaccine, but it was completely worth it! Even though things won’t change overnight, I felt like I made it to the finish line. I was so happy and relieved. I celebrated with tacos and cake to honor the occasion! My stepfather has gotten his within the month as well. I’m just waiting for my mother to get hers so that I can see them again after TWO long years! I’m looking forward to the world resuming some sort of normalcy soon even if we have to proceed with caution.

Getting vaccinated gives me all kinds of feels and has given me so much to reflect on. What a long year it has been! We’ve all come such a long way and I’m grateful for making it through. I’m feeling good today.

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!

Life Right Now

The last couple of weeks have been very emotional for me, as I’m sure it has been for everyone. I’m angry, upset, and sad that we live in a world that is filled with so much racism, violence, and hate. News and social media are flooded with updates on more violence and police brutality. I can’t help but read up on everything—every death, every act of violence reported, every story, and people’s opinions of events, and then getting emotional and angry. I think we all have a lot of learning and unlearning to do. I want to help in any way that I can by sharing the news, signing petitions, donating to the Black Lives Matter movement, and also protesting (this was my first time). Change is needed and these protests have already made a difference over the last 3 weeks. Amongst all this chaos, it’s beautiful to see people come together to fight for change.

However, a part of me also feels helpless. The first weekend of the protests were a little scary because I live in the middle of where a lot of the violence and looting erupted. This caused curfews to be placed on the city for 5 days, storefronts on every street to be boarded up, and the National Guard to be called in. With a global pandemic, civil unrest (rightfully so), and 3 months of lockdown, my anxiety was soaring. It was hard to focus on work yet work was busier than ever. I wished there was more conversation at the digital “office”. A part of me was addicted to keeping up with all the news updates, but at the expense of my own mental health. I thought it was my duty to keep up with everything and share it on my social media channels even though it made me feel enraged and emotional all the time. I thought that if I didn’t do those things, if I didn’t immerse myself in all of the negative things happening in the world, then it would mean that I didn’t care. So I was not allowing myself a “break” from the news. I was not allowing myself to feel any type of joy. But what good was that doing to anyone, including myself? Can I still learn, listen, and share without drowning in all of the negative news?

I had my 2nd anxiety attack last week (my first one was at the start of the lockdown). With the world around me feeling like it’s falling apart and living mostly in self-isolation for months, I have felt really alone and sometimes, scared in my own apartment. I’ve been very emotional in the last 2 weeks and I’ve cried a lot. Like the rest of the world, I’m probably just feeling more vulnerable and sensitive to everything because I’m worn down by all of the problems we are facing right now—the pandemic, the lockdown, social distancing, the downfall of our economy, and also the recent protests that have shed more light on the injustice and racism that still exists in the U.S. today. I’m worried about my future. I’m worried about the world. I feel disconnected from people. Everyone is struggling mentally right now and dealing with their own problems so it’s hard to seek consolation from anyone.

Recently, a particular childhood memory had been reoccurring in my thoughts and making me feel very emotional. I was maybe about 5 years old, living in Stockton, CA as a child. My older sister was in school. My younger sister was next door, at the neighbor’s. My father was around, even though he was usually absent during my childhood. My mother urged me to go to my neighbor’s with my younger sister. But I didn’t want to. At 5 years old, I felt too proud to go to my neighbor’s. I didn’t want to feel like a burden. I didn’t want them to think I needed them. I felt embarrassed and maybe even ashamed. My parents needed to leave. I think they were going to work. They got into the car and backed out from the parking lot of the apartment complex. I cried. I cried while running after their car, yelling out for them and begging them not to leave me. And then, they were gone. I ran back into the apartment, sat on the couch with tears streaming down my face. Then I saw a rat run across the living room and I screamed and cried even harder. I don’t remember what happened after that. Maybe I watched cartoons and eventually stopped crying and fell asleep. I don’t know. I was always a scared child. I’m a scared adult too, actually. I’ve always remembered this moment from my childhood but for some reason, it had been replaying in my head a lot during the first week of the protests in LA.

Then I realized the parallel. I live in an apartment by myself. I’ve felt very alone and scared here during the pandemic and the initial violent protests. There is an annoying squirrel that I’m scared of also that runs back and forth across my balcony rail, and sometimes he even comes up to my balcony door. I’ve had this squirrel problem for some time but I have never been home as much as I have been now due to the pandemic. I’ve named him Stuart. Sometimes Stuart crawls up my screen door, sprawled out like spiderman. One time, he climbed up my balcony chair, stared at me, and then jumped towards me but hit the window and fell back. I don’t like Stuart. He’s aggressive. He startles me sometimes when I’m out there and I run back into my apartment. I just realized that the squirrel is symbolic of the rat from my childhood memory!

Also, I had spoken to my ex-boyfriend the weekend of the first violent protests in my neighborhood, and I broke down and cried to him. I broke down a lot that first week. I was so upset and scared. He offered to come over to be with me, and he even said I could stay at his place if I was too scared at my apartment by myself. It was a nice gesture but I said no, even though it would have been nice to not be alone and to be comforted by someone who I knew cared about me. Instead, I cried all week on my own. Then I realized HE was playing the role of my neighbor from my childhood memory! Granted, there are other complications with seeing an ex-boyfriend, but I was also too proud. I didn’t want to appear needy and weak, and maybe I was even a little embarrassed that I was falling apart emotionally.

The current circumstances of the world seem to have brought me back to how I felt when I was 5 years old—abandoned, neglected, isolated, scared, and alone. I don’t blame my mother. She survived a genocide in Cambodia and an abusive marriage with my father. She was learning a new language, adapting to living in a new country as an immigrant and refugee, going to community college, and working 3 different jobs to support us. She had very little resources then and we were poor. But I was a little girl, scared at home and scared of the world and scared of my father.

It was very powerful for me to realize all of these parallels. I don’t have to relive my past though. I can change my present. I can change the trajectory of my future. I don’t have to be completely alone and isolated all the time. Even though it is challenging to connect with people right now during a time of social distancing, I can still make more of an effort. It might take a little work to find the right people to connect with, since everyone is going through their own issues right now and may not have the capacity to be as supportive as I might need.

But it’s not impossible, I hope. I had this problem a few weeks ago and sought out the company of a couple of friends (honoring social distancing guidelines), thinking it would make me feel better to see people, but then I actually felt worse after seeing them. I didn’t feel like I could share with them all of my feelings. I felt judged. I didn’t feel understood. It didn’t seem like they wanted to engage in the type of conversation that I was craving with another human being. Seeing them just reinforced my feeling of being alone and made me feel even more depressed. However, I can’t let that one attempt, and a couple others, deter me. I just have to keep trying (and brush off the disappointment and maybe even rejection) and be open to reaching out more, asking for help, and accepting help. I am so grateful that I have my Zoom appointments with my therapist every other week.

Even though some stores, restaurants, and businesses have started to reopen and more people are out, the pandemic still exists. Masks are required to be worn everywhere. It’s such a strange time we live in. A part of me is confused as to how to proceed with my life. I feel anxious about the transition back to some sort of normalcy. Maybe what I’m feeling is social anxiety because I’ve gotten so accustomed to quarantining. I’ve seen people gathering together in groups and expanding their social loop. And this makes me feel like I should be doing the same versus continuing to practice social distancing and being alone. I think a part of me is envious because I don’t know if I’m ready to start socializing again or even where to begin.

I’ve lost touch with people during the lockdown. Or maybe I was never really in touch with them in the first place? I just don’t feel like many people are available to me anymore for a few different reasons. Everyone has different comfort levels with seeing people during the pandemic. A lot of people my age have partners and families and don’t really feel a need to expand their loop beyond that or they are just dealing with their own challenges at the moment. In the past, my outlets for socializing, when my partnered friends weren’t available, would be to join activity groups or attend different networking events. Right now, it’s not really an option though because of the pandemic. I guess my fear is that if I try to find my way back to “normal,” I will realize that the pandemic wasn’t the reason I was alone. I may have been alone even before. I think I’ve felt alone for most of my life. And I need to change that. I don’t have to live my life like that little 5 year old girl, crying on the couch by herself.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I found different ways of entertaining myself—practicing ukelele, taking long walks, trying lots of new recipes, organizing, yoga. Over time though, I have felt less and less motivated to do any of those things. But I think, along with making more of an effort to reach out and connect with people, I also need to get creative again and explore newer ways of sparking joy for myself. It’s okay to seek joy. It’s okay to take breaks from the news and social media. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the injustice that is happening around the world.

I made doctor appointments this week now that offices are accepting patients again. I have an annual physical scheduled, a physical therapy session, and an upcoming appointment with an Ear, Nose, Throat specialist that I had been putting off for over a year. I also have a massage scheduled for this Friday. My body has been so tense and tight, and a massage will definitely help with all of the stress that I’ve been feeling and holding onto.

I’m healing old broken wounds. I’m falling apart so that I can put myself back together. I’m learning how to take care of me. And that is a journey in itself.

Hi.

It is now month 3 of quarantine and social distancing. I cannot even believe it. When the lockdown first started, they said it was only going to be 2 weeks of quarantine. Even then, I thought, 2 weeks?! I can’t do 2 weeks! And now we are in month 3! It’s almost June already! This is all so crazy. They have opened up hiking trails, beaches, and parks finally, which makes things a little bit better I guess. But still, now what?

During this whole process, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs… mostly downs. It started out rough, then I adjusted to (or got used to) this new life and felt better. But then after the lockdown end-date kept getting pushed back, I fell back into a slump. On the first official day of lockdown, I had my first anxiety attacked. About a week ago after 2 months of lockdown, I had a breakdown that lasted for about a week. I couldn’t stop crying. Everything set me off. It was hard to pull myself out of it. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t trying. I definitely put an effort into trying to change my mindset. I resorted to my usual comforts—taking walks, cooking, baking, working, listening to spiritual podcasts, hiking, talking to people, drinking, meditating—but nothing made me feel better. Plus, everyone is struggling right now and preoccupied with their own challenges, so I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone helped.

When I feel this way, I get annoyed with people’s attempts to be uplifting with their excessive positivity and gratitude messages. Like you can’t just get rid of depression by thinking positively. I practice positivity and gratitude when I can, and I do appreciate positive, grateful, and kind people, but I also think it’s important to acknowledge the shit that sometimes happens in life. It’s okay to have a shit day or a shit week. Let me have that moment versus burying it. Let me explore what’s triggering those feelings and where those feelings are coming from. I’m not encouraging negativity or marinating in your unhappy thoughts. I just don’t think that because you practice positivity and gratitude, your problems are going to magically go away. It’s okay to not feel okay all the time, as long as you at least try to practice positive habits. Hopefully, things will get better with time. And if not, thank goodness for Zoom calls with therapists!

Fortunately for me, the fog lifted and I’m feeling much better this week. I can’t tell you exactly what was bothering me so much last week that changed this week. Nothing changed and I didn’t do anything differently. I continued practicing my positive habits everyday knowing that it wasn’t going to disappear overnight. Eventually those negative feelings didn’t feel so sharp anymore, even though they still linger. I am grateful that this time, the clouds didn’t hover for as long as it has in the past for me.

HOW ARE YOU ALL FEELING? Would love to hear your thoughts!