Ms. Karen: "hugs coming your way"

2.1.25.

Song for this episode :) Sechkies - Couple

My phone buzzed lightly in my pocket, just as I made to drive away.

A message from Ms. Karen: 

"Lots of love to you

My adopted granddaughter-just thinking

about you and the cold when we are so

spoiled in Houston (at least most of the 

time) hugs coming your way <3"

My quick glance made me want to cry all over again. As I do often now. As often as I'd like lately.

I cry like a baby, all the time, my dear readers, my dear friends.

Just half an hour earlier, I'd come home from a long day of work.

A long day of departmental interviews for my project management team. 4 to 5 a day. Just me and my words and my understandings and misunderstandings and "thank you for your time today. It's been a pleasure speaking to your team." The Zoom call, so quick to end. 

I'm leading a meaningful project, to map out understanding of an organizational issue that we're facing. It's been thrilling. It's been trial and success. I ride the highs when I've left an interview feeling wonderful, feeling the other team's excitement that we're bringing something worthwhile to their team.

I ride the lows when I feel like I wasn't sharp enough, the hour dedicated to the topic simmering as I stumble through. 

But the highs exist and exist more often. 

And I do well in communicating to the team. I do well showing my continuous understanding or attempt at understanding.

I do well in collecting the data we need, in analyzing what I have in front of me, in communicating to the next person who I might need to talk to. And why I must speak to you. And no one else. And it's going to be worth it, dear person. 

And I never really hear myself. 

All the language I'm using, even as I stumble at times, even as I feel my mind going blank and perhaps my face looking silly, the words come too easily, like an automatic Nerf gun shooting foam balls.

All words come too easily. 

Perhaps it's finally me seeing myself for the first time, the powerhouse that I am, at the 3rd interview, back to back. The third hour after the snack. 

The words pouring out, and if I ever did get to stop and listen to myself, I'd hear how crazy professional, patient, and productive I am at leading each meeting. 

And yet I didn't. I didn't really hear myself.

I'm good at that haha. I'm good at not hearing myself sometimes.

But Erin, a leader of my team, who happened to listen in on one of my interviews, who I never knew was ever really listening, brought up to me in the middle of our conversation about Taylor Swift ("and of course... which album is your favorite?!") that I speak very well. That I'm very encouraging. And that I say such beautiful words even if it is a meeting about something quite technical, a topic we wouldn't be poetic about. But I manage to do it. 

"You manage to bring excitement to the topic. That's wonderful. I've got to borrow what you say." 

I am such a lil' sucker for words of affirmation. Haha, I was there, smiling in front of my notes. The next call scheduled shortly.

For where I am right now, I am happy. I am excited. I am making a name for myself.

But when the day is over, and I stumble home in my heels on the cobblestone road, up to my apartment, I just want a hug.

Ms. Karen is a customer of ours at Angel's Nails. "Ms. Karen" is the name that I call her so respectfully for all the times I've ever asked and adjusted the heat of the water in the pedicure bowl, or the times I'd help close her car door after she dropped off art supplies for my mom, simply because we mentioned one time that in another life, my Mom might be artist. Or for all the times she's asked me if I'm ready for Ohio?

"How are preparations for Ohio, Ngoc?"

Perhaps I'll remember most the sacred ways her eyes lingered on me as I took care of her, beyond the pedicure bowl, while I struggled to admit that I didn't buy a car yet for Ohio haha. The way her eyes watered more when she knew it was the last time she'd see me, before I left for Ohio for real. The way she hugged me so tightly, a little pat on my back in the end.

I felt like a baby bird in her arms. Wings wrapped around me. A sweet grandma birdie wahhhhhh and I knew it so deeply that I was loved bean. <3

She made me feel like a baby, when I saw her bouquet of flowers on my doorstep last October. And like a baby again, when she sent me a big box of scarves, socks, art supplies, and gloves. "For the winter, sweet lady."

Agh. Ms. Karen.

I am so humbled by her love. My body bowed. I am a little asian lady with a little white grandma. <3

WAHHHHHH~!~ sweet beans and buddhas ~ sigh beans ~ 

ALL MY BEANSSASASASA

I am not just Ngoc today.

I'm also an adopted grand-daughter to someone. :)

And a poet. And a writer. And a thick little miss who bought like, 3 new skirts today. 

And a lover. 

I'm a lover :D of love. :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.13.25.

Friends, do you realize that I have 90~ drafts and just 175 published pieces? That means that over 50% of my pieces are still in process.

That's crazy. 

Well, I will always find a way to bring the almost-finished ones to light. :)

There are so many unspoken things, aren't there? So many forgotten rhymes of that time of our life, even if it was just two months ago. That rhyme has passed right through me.

But I challenge time. I challenge memory, by always revisiting my past, making sense of it, so that future me can remember something fondly. I hope future-me can remember what she comes from and the people she comes from.

I've been alone out here in Ohio for only so long and even though it's just been 8 months, I've needed my own advice many times. I've needed to revisit an old blog episode about something I've already learned, and ask, "How did past me deal with that?" and Ngoc from the past, even if she was 17 or even if she was 20 and crude in her own advice, she had some real life experience. That was ALL real life. 

So yes, I'm basically admitting that I don't go to therapy.

But hey, that's my secret of how I make it through hard times haha.

It seems that some lessons, I keep re-learning like a silly girl. Maybe it's because I never learned it hard enough the first time LOL. But in my own words and poetry and episodes, I can revisit the history that made me possible today. And technically, I am currently future-Ngoc whenever I visit old episodes. 

And you should see me smile, as I remember fondly how younger me dealt and felt about things. How younger and less experienced me made bad decisions and did okay in the end. How younger me would prioritize a big problem or have her own take on silly situations.

I smile because I am so proud of little me. So proud that she did her best to bring present-day Ngoc to today.

I've grown so much of course, but I hope I never change too much. 

There are some really good things already here within me. I just need to keep growing them. And if there's bad stuff, I can just pull em' out, but for the most part, I think I'm managing. 

I think... I'm managing haha. :)

Future Ngoc, oh, miss ma'am, I hope you'll smile when you read this little short prose thing, and feel that you are loved no matter where you are, because you are so lovable. Because you're authentic and you're kind. And yes, you're naive. Yes, you trust people too much too easily. And yes, you believe that everyone is just like Ms. Karen, but it's okay. 

I think it's better that you believe that everyone is like Ms. Karen. I hope you always will. That no one breaks that image for you. Hope and goodness, I hope you'll see the world through those lens, even if others might call you naive or a crazy optimist in a time like today.

That's what makes you you, Ngoc. When you believe in good. And you become the good in the day-to-day. And you make all the necessary decisions and tackle all the challenges to be where your heart desires. 

You can never mess up if you follow your heart. Follow your instincts.