I was looking for a quote for spring to share on this week’s WQ and came across this one.
Continue reading “WQ#159: Inspired by Weather”
WQ#159: Inspired by Weather
Category: Wednesday Quotes
WQ#157: Inspired by Podcasts
As much as I would love to admit I read a lot of books, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been slacking on my reading.
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WQ#155: 2024 Word of Year
Looking back at the first WQ post of 2023, my Word of the Year for 2023 was HEAL.
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WQ#49: Reflections on 2023
Although this post won’t go live until the 31st, I’m writing this on the afternoon of the 30th – approximately 8 hours before I have to pick mom up from the airport.
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WQ#48: The Beginning of 2023 Christmas Road Trip
By the time this post goes live, I will probably be pretty close to Monument Valley.
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WQ#47: Endurance is what makes us stronger
It’s been…three days. Just three days but it feels like an eternity has gone by.
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WQ#46: Thoughts on the Admiration of a Simple Life
Before I officially stuck with the blog name – This is Another Story – this blog was called A Simple Life.
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WQ#43: Life’s Little Twists
A month ago, while waiting at the airport for the flight to return home from Japan, mom called her sister in China and learned her 80-some-year-old dad was comatose in the ICU. He had slipped and fallen in the middle of the night on his way to the bathroom, frightened by a mouse, at least that was what he told my aunt before entering a coma.
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WQ#42: Danger in Imagination
I’ve had a restless week thanks to my imagination and certain stresses. This restless has left me unable to focus at not only work but at life. It’s why my posts have been next to wordless this week. It’s hard to write when I’m feeling jittery and anxious like I’m waiting for the apocalypse.
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WQ#41: Surprise in the Garden
Continue reading “WQ#41: Surprise in the Garden”Life is full of surprises. Make the most out of it and always expect the unexpected.
Unknown
WQ#36: All About the Color Orange
I’ve never cared for the color – orange. I don’t know why.
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WQ#35: Be Bold?
This is one of the most memorable quotes I’ve ever posted on this blog. I don’t remember where I got it from. All I know is that I uploaded this quote onto this blog in 2016.
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WQ#34: Fun is What Comes After, Right?
I had the more fun last week than I have had in a long while when my co-workers and I spent the day riding roller coasters and sliding down the mountain in a luge fashion.
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WQ#33: Something New
WQ#32: A Chaotic and Overwhelming Week
I am feeling so out of it this week – mentally drained and tired – yet at the same time, my anxiety has taken the opportunity to rev up, making me feel irritable and overwhelmed, and making every moment of this week feel chaotic, like I’m messing up everything and can’t do anything right.
Continue reading “WQ#32: A Chaotic and Overwhelming Week”WQ#31: Alone
WQ#30: Writer’s Choice: Word of the Year Update
WQ#29: Tiny Miracles
When I think of the word “Tiny“, I think of all the small things that makes my day more bearable.
Mom has been delivering insults lately, not that she wasn’t before but I’m finding the ones she had delivered in the last week just downright…angering (if that’s a word). Usually, I can take it like my usual backache or joint-pain but this week, it felt extra painful.
She told me I’m a failed investment, that she’s better off buying stocks than invest in me. There was no precedent. I was working, reconciling payments and answering emails when she just came into my room and said that to me.
She basically told me that because I haven’t paid her back the money she lent me to pay off my car and student loans. Guess what, those were forced loans. I never asked for help to pay off any of that stuff. She made me take the money and now expects me to pay back the x-dollar amount, which I don’t even recall.
She said it’s the reason she wanted to adopt a child – she wanted to start over and train him/her to be a better version of me. Why not raise a robot, not a human? A thought came to my mind. One of my professors used to say, “How great is it to put a robot to work? They don’t complain. They don’t ask for raises. They don’t ask for day-offs. They just do what you tell them to do.”
I can never be the person she wants me to be because I’m human, not a robot. It’ll be a miracle if there’s a day when I don’t get criticism or insult from her but for now, I’ll settle for a few hours every Thursday when she’s at the office and I’m at home.
I agree, life is a series of tiny miracles and I love every one of them because, well, they bring joy.
It’s why I love gardening, I think. When I head out into the garden every morning, I notice the tiny little things that I didn’t notice the night before, like how the tiny watermelons are just a tad bigger, how the female cucumber flowers have opened at last to allow either me or the bees to pollinate, and seeing the tiny leaves poke out of the soil from newly germinated seeds.
Seeing these things energize me – like a shot of caffeine without the jitters. These teeny tiny overnight changes excite my optimistic self, it allows my imagination go wild imagining the harvest and the beauty of the plant.
WQ#28: Relaxation is not my jam
Relaxation is not my jam. Never was, although the need to be constantly keeping myself occupied became exacerbated when I was unemployed for 4 months back in 2018. Just imagine having someone who comes home every night and the first thing they do is scream at you, lecture you, or threaten you, and it’s not just on weeknights but 24/7.
I was not only anxious but I was also depressed. The words she said made me feel like completely worthless.
I was not fired from my previous job, by the way. I told the CEO I quit and he said no. I quit anyway because I’ve encountered some of the most emotionally abusive people on that job. I’ve already have one emotional abuser, I don’t need three other. There are not many people in this world that can make my cry, I’ve developed an outer shell as tough as Kevlar in the recent year, but, man oh man, and it wasn’t because I made a mistake.
It took me a long time to recover between being unemployed and being constantly threatened and lectured by mom. Even after I got my current job, I was living life at top speed but I liked it. It kept me busy, consistently working overtime. In fact, this year is the year I finally stop having consistent overtime. After 5 years, can you believe it?
Still, I can’t relax. As much as I want to just sit back and do nothing for even 5 minutes, I can’t. I either get antsy and anxious and angry or mom will give me a task to do.
I don’t even think I’ve been able to sit and read a book for a few minutes without mom calling me. So it’s not just me who won’t let me relax, it’s other people as well.
Lately, I feel like I’m not spending time on nature, doing walks, and taking pictures. I remember how much doing those things made me feel good. It was one of the few things that made my racing mind slow down.
I want to do those things again so much. I have been begging mom to let me go to Cascade Springs this summer – a lovely spot I discovered last year. “But I don’t want to go.” She said.
“I don’t need you to go.” I responded. The whole point was for me to venture on my own. Cascade Springs is a safe spot. I mean, school kids go there for field trips, how bad can it be?
Of all the places I’ve been, Cascade Springs was one of the rare places that made me slow down and listen to the water from a rushing torrent to a trickling stream. I love the sound of trickling stream, by the way, so peaceful and relaxing. When I’m restless and can’t sleep, I’d play this sound on an app on my phone and set a timer for 2 hours.
Alas, I can’t go out these days without the need to tow mom along, which it’s something I may never understand.
Here are some photos I took when I went to Cascade Springs last August.
WQ#27: Flags
WQ#26: Glowing
WQ#24: What can’t Flowers Do?
This is Another Story 