made it

1.7.25.

I wrote my sister, my friends, my daily update:

"I made it home, made dinner, made myself shower. How did your day go?!"

I made myself do a lot of things today. 

But the most important thing I ought to do tomorrow is... I am buying myself a shovel. A freaking shovel. 

I can't attempt that idiotic, ill-prepared plan, which was, I'll dig my car out of the snow with my house broom.

What a freaking idiot.

The only reason I made it to work today was because a neighbor of mine was taking an early morning walk in 20 degree weather? 

I asked if I could borrow his shovel... and he said yes, after glancing at my Texas license plate. I felt instant relief.

I was more grateful than relieved when he started shoveling the snow around my car himself. And I almost wanted to cry.

God, I'm such an idiot. And gosh, I'm so alone.

I'm so silly that I shouldn't be worth saving.

I've never felt more fragile than being snowed in, unable to drive the 5 minutes to work, and using a house broom to brush off 1.5 feet of snow all around.

I just want to not have to look after myself every second hahaha, but isn't that the point? Of being 24?

I'm in danger all the time. Breathing alone all the time. Cold, all the time.

I just want to rest my head somewhere soft and warm. I just want to forget this winter ever existed.

I hate the way the constant gray, the sunless sky, reflects my heart.

How empty I feel as I'm locked in. The snow locks me in with myself, my ideas, my books, my games and phone.

I just want a hug so bad. I'm just like my new puppy haha. The kind that bites when people start to leave, because I don't want to be alone right now. I just want to rest somewhere warm with a hand on my head, as I sleep this winter off. 

I want to wake up and it's never snowing again. That it's just cherry blossoms. That I see a bunch of tiny white flowers in a grass field. A bunch. And for someone across the parking lot to yell at me, "WE ARE GOING TO COLUMBUS THIS WEEKEND!" because I so badly want to dance, when this is over.

I so badly want to take long drives without fearing a possible skid.

I want spring love songs to be relevant.

My Mom no longer reminding me to wear my scarf, but to paint my toes and parade them in my Vietnamese sandals.

I want that moment, hard.

My Sugar Poem

9.21.24.

My sugar poem

For the day you read this

That your tea, your cheeks, the long day ahead

Had a little streak of purple and pink

That anyone who glanced your way

Could see the moment your face flushed as you took in the sun

That other people’s dogs favored you, the stranger, above other passersby sharing the sidewalk

That this note I left you made the next sip of your drink

A little sweeter; my sugar poem to you

Vietnamese Coffee

2.13.23.

The underside of my fingers smell like the Vietnamese coffee I was brewing for the first time in years as I write this. 

It's comforting to know a little bit of this morning's magic is coming along with me. I bet my fingers will still smell like coffee until the evening, when I might kiss my own hand again.

One scent could bring you back to everything, all at once. I read Master Thich Nhat Hanh's "How to Relax" mini-book last night before bed. There's a deep lesson on every single 4 by 4 inch page of the small little book. I had to stop reading at page 15. 15 life lessons all before bed felt like a bunch. 

But the two lessons I managed to remember were, "Remember you do breathe. Focus on your breath and isn't that a miracle?" to loosely quote from him. And secondly, "The present contains all moments." 

Me sniffing this coffee scent on my hands is me breathing in being everything all at once. And the same act is happening in the present, smelling a scent that is bringing me back to my history, to mornings when I was rushing to get into the car, while my Dad all too-slowly added 30 seconds to the microwave to reheat that tiny cup of coffee.

I waited then for coffee I wasn't even drinking. And I wait now, for the little coffee here, to drip enough for a gulp. 

And I'll wait later, maybe alone somewhere in some city, some town, for my coffee to run the filter and be reminded all over again, of all the things that make me wait. All the things that I want to wait for in life.

I must be patient.

I must have peace in the waiting. I'll have my own microwave one day maybe. It'll be crazy then, haha, to have my own microwave. 

For Vietnamese coffee, I wait patiently.

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4.15.23. 

lol yes I'm trying to publish all my unfinished and unpublished blog episodes.

I can't have 50% in process. ;(

Even if it's unfinished. Or a half-thought.

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. :)

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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.

Episode 99: To DC, to see you

It's in the downhill. It's the way my Subaru, my little beannnn, could speed down too well, passing all the Nissans and Hondas that think they're fast beans. I take the left lane like a religion, chasing em all out.

I'm afraid to tell you that I've become that kind of driver. Yikes. But only on downhills. I'm a grandma on the uphills, driving 60 or under, as I gauge how my pedaling might affect my mileage.

It's in the fact that I was as high up as the birds. At the height of the clouds weaving in and out of the mountains and hills, just as my Subaru descends from the tallest height. The formidable stretch of green plains and the scattered houses built into the hills below me that looked like ants. How blue that sky was. I breathed then. I smiled so big. Like a kid at first bite into the crunchy, chocolate shell of ice cream cone.

My 15 hour playlist played on. I kept my left knee folded close to my chest, my only other foot pedaling steadily. I drove like an Asian, for real. Y'all. Haha. My own fucking gas money.

All gas. 6 hours on my ass, only to merge into the Houston-like traffic that is DC. 

Fuck DC traffic, oh my god. The instant merges without signaling. The rushing. The killing. There's no killing, but it felt like I'm going to die all the time.

And every mistake would cost me an extra 10 minutes. And I made several. By that point, I'm already stressed, and would unfold my left leg to press my left foot to the ground, a stressy spaghetti.

Despite the stress, I did smile again, when I saw the tip of the Washington Monument. That long vertical thing that is always the first to tell you on the I-395, that you've arrived to lawmaking America. Where just a week ago, Cory Booker stood 25 hours and 5 minutes for his filibuster. To which, I watched the last 2 hours of on YouTube live and cried like a baby in my hotel room, while my fingers greased with chicken wing sauce.

I cried.

To DC, I was where my heart was crying for.

And to Cory Booker, dang it, you're attractive. DANG.

Lawmaking daddy?!

Sigh. Agh. I had my Obama-crush stage. And now it's Booker time. ;(

Anyways. 

Friends. Family. Whoever reading this, I need you to know, the most attractive man to me is the man who loves his country so damn much that he fasts and dehydrates for a cohesive 25-hour speech, and doesn't fucking sit down, because he's a strong daddy. <3

Anyways. ANYWAYS.

My reason for going to DC?

1. Grace. The country of Myanmar is having military rule and had a deadly earthquake recently. Faced with such peril, the parallel government and the rebels are still fighting against the unjust military government today. The military government even ended rescue efforts after the earthquake. Corpses rot beneath cement crush. Grace has been suffering on her own. I needed to see her. And it was... <3

2. Cherry Blossoms season!!! TIDAL BASIN, MAYBE RUN INTO OBAMA?! 

So with these very different reasons, I ended up parking beneath a hospital to spend two nights with Grace.

My plan was?!

Well, to sit my ass down again and listen.

Grace has that love of a lifetime. She cries, almost as if she must suffer along, with her people. She shared me with me words that I will never forget and only highlight how much she loves her country.

"I can be tortured. I am willing to do anything. They can cut my ears off. Anything to me. I just want my country to get out of this nightmare," she said, her eyes powerful with love. Determined. Sad. Exhausted by love and worry.

She keeps an earthquake tracker on her phone. She calls her family every night and morning. Never knowing when it might be the last. So I sit there, and listen. And do my best to see her for all she is. See the story that she comes from, the determined people still in Myanmar, fighting and dying and forgotten by mass media. 

A footprint in the backyard, to the world.

So, she microwaves her meals lately. So, she keeps to herself. So, her hands fly quickly to her phone whenever the earthquake alarm screams, the most high pitched, loud noise.

So, it made sense that the first place we went to was an Asian supermarket, to get her groceries. It would take her 3 hours by public transport round trip, whilst carrying the groceries. No brainer that we went. <3

And it made sense when I told her I can drive us anywhere she wanted. And she wanted the Myanmar mini mart, the only one in DC. Perhaps the only one this side of the country. No brainer that we went.

And it's neatly tucked away. Folks, this mini-mart is a MINI-MART and it's tucked away almost, half basement level, behind a medium-sized plaza, yards away from trash and recycling. It's so tucked away that there's no direct entrance. You have to go through a door that someone who must have been super angry, kicked so hard, that glass has bent. And through there, you step a few stairs, open another door and there you are.

A full ass store, packed with ready-made meals. Dried fish, beef, chicken. So many spices and canned goods, and frozen upon frozen foods. Grace easily conversed with the store owners there. And was so excited to speak in her language, I could tell. Her language like music in the background while I stared keenly at the different seed packs and canned fruits I've never heard of.

Southeast Asia really has it all. DAMN.

Just seeing Grace intently take in the ready-made meals, excitedly grab a multitude of things. Put it into her little bag. A lighting up. A coming home.

I just wanted Grace to feel the coming home, that I've taken for granted. That I didn't know was such a privilege. Miss ma'am. Little miss bean, whom loves her country and people so much that she absorbs their suffering because it is her own. 

Gosh. 

A love so great that it is pain when it is pain.

And maybe this episode was going to go somewhere happier about DC. And maybe it would but just for now, I just wanted to hug Grace. As I drove us home from my Uncle's, the thin road ahead became thinner. Thoughts became clearer.

Eventually, we called up Manal, asked for her exact location and I struggled y'all, but I picked that girl up from the busy ass corridor known as U St. That place is a crazy pick up spot. Do not. My fool ass should have remembered the last time I was on U St.

And that was the summer of 2022, when Manal walked me back to the subway station so I could get home. We ran into two random ass white people. A cute lesbian and her bald bi friend. Yo, we're still kinda keeping in touch even today, honestly.

But when we asked them to help us take a picture of us, I think the four of us vibed too hard. 

We vibed so hard that they pulled us to the nearest Spongebob-looking-ass bar. I got a soda pop. Everyone else got drinks. I was still a non-drinker then haha. And later, I'd meet the girl again. She's the coolest. I'd later reunion with her while she sold gay merch at Smith College on a fateful afternoon, my senior year.

But that should have been telling. U St. My fool ass should have remembered. >-<

With Manal, I feel like she sees right through me. It's been 2 years since last. She knew me as the ultra chaotic girl. No wonder she was surprised. I was the unsmashed bug in college hahahaha. Deserving of all the smacks.

I remember I said most things without thinking. I had great reactions, great wit. And I was never diplomatic. Well, not as diplomatic and people-seasoned as I am today?? People-seasoned....?!

As seasoned with dealing with people. Two years ago, she saw her chaotic friend say the most off-the-wall things unafraid, safe in their traditionally all-women's institution. Protected by being in a bubble of other secure off-the-wall people, who could overhear at any time and laugh along. 

I could make anyone laugh back then.

So this past weekend when she saw me, it was an absolute reunion. But a total newness too. Ivanna, my best friend, has seen me change gradually. Jacob tells me that I've mellowed out. I used to be crazy. I'm softer now.

But for friends who haven't seen me in a while, the change must be drastic for them.

But then also, I want to know that the Ngoc that is growing inside of Ngoc is actually Ngoc and not a hollowed-out, corporate-seasoned, people-seasoned, mellowed people pleaser.

I'm scared folks. I'm scared, ngl.

Manal and I assessed each other, like the queens we are, still laughing at all the silliness in each other still, but new.

That's why reunions are both so exciting and scary. It's a chance to see your own new reflection, of yourself.

I love Manal's bluntness. And for that, Manal. She's a mature and wonderful little woman. <3

We parted ways at the bus stop. I couldn't stop waving at her, even as the bus pulled away. Tears bubbled behind my eyes. A friend. Gosh, from horse riding, from sitting in the same van that stank of horse and shit, from international politics classes upon international relations classes, from dinners that went on too fucking long.

Manal was there. Grace and I took the long way back home, avoiding clear the sus-looking stairs, where a bag of popcorn chips still laid gutted out and splayed. Like a crime scene. 

So... naw.

I packed neatly into my blue suitcase. We woke up early, Grace and I, to visit the National Mall at least once, to see if the cherry blossoms really did all blow off. Before we got there, I paid homage to the Vietnam War Memorial, as I always do, that long and silent walk. From one name to many names, to one name again. A period at the end of a sentence. 

I felt that deep thankfulness in my heart for every American soldier whom died fighting for Vietnamese democracy alongside the South Vietnamese, even if Americans stood to gain maybe a military base or whatever if they won the war with the South Vietnamese, Americans were there. They were there. Brave and young and gone now. And I can never stop being grateful for that.

We then paid homage to Abraham Lincoln's monument. Because, it's Abe. It's honest Abe. I fucking love Abraham LINCOLNNNNNN. Fuck my ex for not letting us stop at any of the Kentucky Abe stops. >-< Sigh. It's okay.

Abe was still enormous before me. Rereading his "4 score and 7 years ago" always gave me chills. <3 America. AMERICA. If she were honest. Like Abe.

My bad ankle grew sore but we pushed on, deeper into the next part of the mall. To cross over to the Tidal Basin where Obama was just spotted a few days ago. CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW DEPRESSED I WAS WHEN I REALIZED I MISSED OBAMA BY A FEW DAYS?!?! MY GOD. MY GOSH. I AM SOOOOO UNLUCKY. To say the least.

What made things harder was the 10-mile Cherry Bloom marathon. It was the only thing separating me from my cherry blossoms. So we fucked it, and joined the marathon, for a total of maybe 7 seconds to cross. And when we did, it was more than obvious that the blossoms had all blown off from days of rain.

I didn't sob.

I didn't cry.

I was empty inside.

Like the time my silly ex left me. What a silly man.

Like the time I realized that I missed Obama by a few days.

Well surely, Obama would be no where near the National Mall right now if the blossom trees looked so damn naked like that. We found some baby trees that still had some. And stared at those for a while, before turning back, defeated. Worn out. Fresh from a marathon. Me chugging along a bad ankle. 

And just when we thought spring sucked in DC, a field of tulips, hidden away by a grove of trees, appeared to our right. They're the kind of tulips we would have no way of knowing were there without walking back defeated.

In defeat, we found paradise.

A field of fucking tulips. According to one of my Har Mar trivia nights, tulips were a form of currency in the US of A, 1920s. AND I GET WHY. THEY'RE GORGEOUS. THEY'RE SO FAT. 

TULIPS HAVE A GYATT. THEY ARE SO FAT AT THE TOP AND THEIR STEMS ARE SO LONG AND FIRM AND THEIR COLORS ARE ANY YOU CAN THINK OF. THERE'S SO MUCH FULLNESS AND MY EYES WERE FEASTING. I WAS DROOLING INSIDE AND OUT. OH MY GOD, TULIPS?!?!?! TULIPSSSSSS.

So your biatch squatted low to the ground, and smiled at the them, for the pics. 

I'm still young. I'm still pretty. 

I'm still really cute.

I need the pictures. :)

So THENNN we took an Uber home. My blue suitcase stood alert and ready. Let it be known that it was a very long good-bye to Grace. A very long hug. She stood there sweetly, waiting for me to pay the parking garage, and waved me all the way until the barrier lifted. 

She's that kind of friend. Grace. Su Than Thar Nyi. :) Thank you, Grace.

The final stop was to see my homestay host. Ms. Jennifer whom hosted me in DC back in 2022, during my State Department internship. Whom invited me to go sailing with her. I wrote about that time in Episode 93. What an interesting time it was then. Wow. Life was really hard for me in 2022. T__T

Shit I can't believe I'm not at episode 100 yet. I'M TAKING TOO DAMN LONG WRITING TOO MANY POEMS AND EXPERIMENTAL PIECES. EW.

Anyways, to see her again. I brought along Taiwanese pineapple cake to share. We caught up on all things love. Like we usually do. I feel like such a girl with her hahaha.

Because I am a girl. Yes.

I didn't know I've missed her laugh so much. Or her disapprovals. Haha. She will have an honest opinion about you and you will see it on her face. I'm invited to her wedding y'all. :D WAHH!!!

And she called me honey. She called me daughter. She missed me.

And I missed her. What a gift it is to start as strangers and then love each other so hard, despite time and distance and a call or two once a year. What a miracle that love like that exists amongst ladies like me and Ms. Jennifer.

I'm smiling right now as I write this.

Ms. Jennifer thinks I've grown too. In all the ways. A charmer, though, I've always been. ;D

She is going to be one of few people in my life who can say my name so endearingly, even when it's said as "Knock". The most endearing "Knock" I've ever heard.

I took her for a spin in my Subaru. She was delighted. "You're a good driver, wow, Ngoc." She smiled.

She went off to get ready for church and I drove off to come back home, to somewhere in Marietta, Ohio. 6 hours away.

In the rain. Non-stop rain. It poured and poured and I almost fell asleep but I made it home. Barely. Exhausted. But undefeated.

Dear DC,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to see a couple old friends, not all of them, but gosh, next time. Next time, I will see all of them. New and old. But this time, just the few people who I love for a few hours. Thank you DC, for having me.

dear love, from small bean

rub my back in slow circles as the end of the party nears, the voices of friends and family in the past 3 hours, let them all trail off for a second, as I take it in that you must love me.

dear love,

I haven't met you yet. I'm still a figment of your imagination. The soft thunder in your heart, a deja vu on your night drive home, that someone someday soon will sit next to you, and chatter on about how warm and gentle and wide your hand is when you cover hers, tickling your knuckles softly until you laugh. I want to feel that stretch of night in between the appearance of each warm orange golden streetlight. I want to feel your full presence in the darkness, hear you breathe softly, hear you smile, and I want to wrap my whole shape around your arm. Here, I can be safe, and here, I can be small. The long, windy drive home isn't mine to think about, but ours to share.

I just want you to look at me, and just know, that I'm your small bean, and understand the full extent of what that means, when I look up at you and pause. And stare, anticipating all the small bean activities.

I am someone and I am something that you've promised yourself to, all too happily. All too easily.

dear love,

I don't want you to just love me. Because, maybe I'm older now, but I get it now. 

Love isn't enough.

But true love is.

And when true love isn't enough,

then I want you to choose me.

I want you to choose me the moment you wake and when you're asleep.

Maybe it's borderline crazy, but can you just, obsess over me? Be so obsessed that every time you walk past something I like, that you remember. Or if you see the back of someone that remotely looks like me, that your heart skips. 

Be so obsessed, that you sleep holding onto me all night. Well, lol, accounting for body heat, at least 3 hours back to back, so that even your unconsciousness is holding me. And I still feel your hand wrapped around my tummy in the morning. Protect small bean's tummy. Haha. Sigh. God, this is so silly writing out loud. Me wanting a small piece of the man I haven't even met yet?

I may meet you with a my guard up. I may meet you fully ready, or when I don't even want you.

But today?

I'm still writing my story, because I want to write that story so bad.

I want to write the story that I could tell our kids and our many, many grandkids about who I was on my own. I want to write the purest story about myself, the this-is-who-i-am story. :D

I just know that right now, I really like me. Not the me that I am for others all the time, but the me I am for myself. 

Your wife, your mom, your grandma, your mentor, really liked herself for a night in Marietta, Ohio. She sat on the floor of her bedroom, on the beautiful flower mat next to her medium-hard bed, replaying the same ballroom Cinderella waltz to write love prose to.

Your daughter, your sister, your wife, your mom just got back from a work friend's small and lovely birthday gathering. Nearing the end of the party, she proudly shared her dad's amazing journey from the fall of South Viet Nam to the States as a boat person. How he started out wiping car windows at gas stations to becoming a businessman. How her mother was a slave in the city when she met the man who drove all over Saigon at night, handing out food and clothes to homeless folks. How after seeing that, did she say yes to meeting him. 

And I felt very proud in those moments, that I can pull from so much, and that I come from so much. And I can make so much with everything I've got already. 

How the very same day, I spent 2 hours in my favorite restaurant with my work friend, diving into every conversation topic imaginable. How I rushed to my favorite retailer after to buy a collection of gifts for Kelly, the birthday bean. How I've been in the middle of painting a waterfall. How I've been walking all the way to the river and back from my apartment, stopping at the exact point where I called Ivanna when I learned that Saundra as much as Tyler our CEO, wanted me to be a part of Peoples Bank, that fateful March, exactly a year ago. That in this very same week, I haven't really eaten lunch alone. Every day for the past week, I was lunching with someone new. I'm working on my charm, is what I want to say haha. That or, people just keep accepting my lunch invites. And they keep coming, you know? These invites. Like, it's such a pleasure to share a peaceful lunch with someone new every day, and learn what's on their mind and what's important to them and why. I'm soaking the awe of just getting to know so many ways of life here, at Peoples Bank. I know it's merely a sample of Ohio and then, of the USA, but it's the best feeling, I tell you, the emptiness of an hour that I get to spend, walking all over our bank and saying hello to folks new and old. 

It's almost impossible for me now, to imagine a day where I didn't get to spend a full hour greeting everyone I care about in an establishment. 

Wouldn't it be a crazy thing to be in a position where I can really peek into everyone's lives and how they do their work but then also can advocate for changes to their job processes so that they can do better work? So that they can feel like they were heard and important to the bank? Wouldn't that be so crazy? Like, the person you go to if you want to make your clients happier, or your processes more practical and less manual?

And engage with all requests in the most respectful and insightful ways. Heh. Maybe. I think at the core of it, I just so much love talking to people. I really do, but not without letting myself think strategically, which I love just as much, if not more.

And every third day, I'd stop by our retail brunch at headquarters and just bellow my hellos. From retail to insurance to commercial, I'm a face that comes by and makes you laugh. Michael and I, gosh, we joke too much when I'm there. When I taught him "gg no re", he fucking flipped out, hahaha. "TTYL IYKYK," he responded, half bewildered that all the younger folks are going crazy.

"Good game, no replay!" I echoed across our bank building. "The heck?!" he laughed.

So it's little moments like these, little side quests I give myself like initiating lunch invites or Saturday alunches (afternoon lunches) or needing to finish a waterfall painting that make me feel like Ngoc again. Like the moments where I get to share with someone and make them laugh as hard as I can, or make them smile during an otherwise mundane work day, gosh, they make me feel like the world is a better place already. With another smile and laugh to add to the hour.

It thrills me, to earn someone else's joy.

And it concerns me too, silly readers, that I can be such a people pleaser haha, but you know, I'm not an absolute people pleaser. I make sure to tell everyone, at all levels in the business, that "it sounds like a you problem" when it sounds like a you problem, and feel myself laugh at my own joke, as they laugh along, amused and bewildered.

Well, THAT was a tangent.

Thank god that I have at least another 45 years to perfect my jokes.

 I can't believe the Earth has spun a complete circle since I first started this blog episode.

My, god.

There's so much to be in this life. I want to be a good person. I want to be healthy and ridiculously funny and always keep people on their toes and well, and I want everyone I love to know that I love them. 

I want to advocate. I want to be a tough little bean. I want to be braver, perhaps even more brave than leaving my family to do what I want. 

Though I've moved my life out here to Marietta in this time, I'm not truly brave yet.

I want to be so brave that I can live in the silence of my own head. No music, no podcast, no beautiful view in front of me. Eyes closed, and the darkness so vast that it's empty but so empty that I can see everything that's happened in the past, everything that brought me here today, and everything that I will become in the future.

I want that darkness to not overwhelm me, but feel even like home.

The way out is in. As my Buddhist master says it.

And for the next chapter of my life as I take on the uphill battle to be who I want to be, I want to be fully present for every step of my growth. I want the Ngoc that knows she is Ngoc every moment that she is Ngoc. And I meet her briefly every day. Like today, I met that Ngoc, when she received calls from all sorts of work friends on a fundraising telethon for a local nonprofit, live on air. And for a second after I collected information from Jana, and then from Elizabeth, and even from Saundra, my boss haha, I felt a full complete second. Taking in the gigantic room, the heat of the phone in peoples hands ringing, the cameras trained on us. I felt the full second. 

Like, wow. Ngoc is doing something you didn't know she could do.

Like, wow. Ngoc is crazy. All the yeses in life and one of them brought her here. Heck, here lies my own awe. Here lies no lies at all when I say that I smiled at myself non-stop, at my own determination to become brave. All roads lead me to the same place as long as I am me. Isn't that incredible? 

And that's the Ngoc that I want to be for the next good 45 years of my life. A Ngoc that smiles at herself kindly.

And that's the Ngoc that is in me already, ready to greet me, soon and someday. Yes, I'm dissociating a little bit, even if this started out as a love poem.

so dear love, and yes, love, I'm still speaking to you, dearest. Will you call me honey? Haha, too cheesy? 

Will you call me your little bean?

When you choose me, you will feel the fullness of everything that I've been all my lifetimes ago and all the lifetimes I have ahead. 

You will be another witness to my life, like a friend, like family. That's a big responsibility, Mr. Witness.

When you choose me, I need you to figure out how to handle me, like the way Selena's boyfriend handles her. We'll talk about that later sometime.

I need you to figure out how to celebrate me for who I am, every changing second and for every evolving me.

It has only been 7 months but gosh I have changed, like an island in the South Americas that was there but then the ocean swallowed again, because of climate change, and a new island appearing a mile from Denmark in the same second. Like the way Trump wants access to Greenland or access to Ukraine and Gaza. 

Maybe nothing is really new in my life.

Everything that I'm sad about, wishful or angry about, happy about, all those things were already meant to be. Because they're not me. I can't be mad at Trump for being Trump if he really does absorb Canada or Greenland just because he wants to or continues supplying Israel with all the weapons or erases day-by-day any trust people once had in our own democracy. I can't be mad about that.

Because he is he.

And it was always meant to be, because he is himself.

And I am myself, and because I am me, there are some things that only I can do. A miracle that I'm here and a bigger miracle when I truly live out my dreams and do what I do best.

For now, my eyes are feeling heavy and the waltz is still on.

Dear love, just, dance with me. You see how I think and lead my own tangents? So just, lead but don't control me, so that I can be small bean, as much as I can be with you, because for so much of my life, I was big bean.

I want to feel you smile when I press my face to your chest. I want to feel you recognize the enormity of your responsibility. And though you may not be everything to me, you are a piece of my everything.

I want to feel the full stretch of darkness again. Maybe we've parked by the beach and we can see nothing out there except for the white foam tips of the rolling waves. I want us to feel like we can breathe so clearly next to each other. 

I once wrote an episode on this blog about easy, peaceful love. I was just 20. 

But even then, I understood the assignment. And I still do.

I just want to rest the fullness of myself in your safety for the minutes we do share. And yes, I will find all that safety within myself, absolutely. But should you choose me, I need you to know, there is a lot to hold. There is a lot for you to understand. There is a lot of me to be gentle with and I promise when I trust you, I'll do my best to feel at home. And when I feel at home, I have a good habit of making all the moments after, feel just like that. Like home.

And your cheat sheet?  Acts of service. And, words of affirmation, haha.

I can't wait to meet you one day, for the first time.

Maybe you're good at reading rooms like I am. Maybe you'd know better than me what we'll be to each other. Maybe you're heart stoppingly handsome >-< and heart stoppingly kind. And your voice might be so healing that my tummy oozes over wahhhhhhh~

okie, no more romancey feelings. I was inspired tonight by the sweetest couple at the birthday gathering tonight, because dang it, I love love <3

So for when we meet, feel free to stare. Ask for the next dance? Give me time to consider you and trust you and nod, "Yes," and yes, you may take my hand gently, guide it to your lips briefly, before leading me to the dance floor. May the lights dim and the orchestra live on. 

The music is here and the story we'll write when we do, I want you to whisper it into my hair. I want you to want me to whisper it back too, nervous but hopeful. And even as I twirl away from you unsure, tug me back firmly. Let me see if I can be bigger than my fears, show me that you know how to handle me and that you have every reason to keep holding on.

Because I'm what?

Because

I'm small bean.

Episode 98: trivia at the Har Mar

Skip to 15:30, the song I wrote this episode to. :)

"What is there to do? In Marietta? On a Sunday night?" you might ask.

And I shall reply quickly, "Why, of course, trivia at the Har Mar Tavern. $2 bucks a person. One heck of an hour."

You need to sit in the main room, so the other teams can maybe see the four fingers you raise up to signal and mouth loudly across your own table, "Four!" as if four fingers wasn't enough a giveaway.

And of course 7 is the sum of any two opposite sides on a die. Right?

"What has a heart that doesn't beat?"

Do you wanna guess that one? Really?

Well, Austin knew it. "Artichoke."

I banged my head against my palm, "Argh! Why, of course!"

She laughed sweetly, and Kelly was always the final lady for things no one else knew. Her encyclopedia has probably touched it, and for all the marketing knowledge she may have, she's sooo good with numbers. Austin shined with the movies section, knowing who was who at the Oscars in what year and what boot Oprah may have helped popularize in 2003. Uggs?!?!!?

I was no help on, not even the romance portion. "What color was the house in The Notebook?"

I guessed blue but that wasn't right, rather it was white with blue shutters. :(

And of course, you've got to order a drink at the Har Mar. Take in all the sounds of different trivia teams already knowing each other, fighting each other for weeks, even years in the same alliances. Discover with joy that there's an actual team named "Grandma and Grandpa" and are actually a grandma and grandpa. DANG IT, MARIETTA IS SO CUTE. FREAKIN---

And you've gotta, maybe, sound out the big ass sign at the very back of the bar after you've sipped 75% of your raspberry beer. The sign spells "HOPEULIKIT".

I rolled my guesses out loud, the beer in my belly was warm and made all the lights dance and my mind that is too often reading, now slow. I leaned my cheek on my palm, as I blurted out, "Hm... hopefully you like it? Hopeful? Hoping. Hopeful you like it. Hopeyoulickit. Omg, oh!"

The poor couple next to me laughed into their hands, "Now she gets it! Don't worry, I blushed hard too when I realized," the kind gentleman remarked. 

And so I blushed hard as well, as Kelly and Austin laughed on. Haha.

We made a good trivia team.

After it was over, we talked about possible future plans. What local Floyd or Beatles cover band is coming through the Peoples Bank Theatre for $40 bucks a person, maybe? 

Yes folks. I'm in the town where we're lucky if we get the cover bands. And how does that make me feel? Well, I feel really cute. Like, I'm in one of the cutest, slowest places on Earth. Laugh at me all you want, but dang it, it's little endearing things like this that make me feel like I'm in a movie town. 

Marietta has really changed me. It's really shown me how a different and small community can feel, even to an outsider like me. The exchanges at the bar amongst different folks, folks smiling at Austin, Kelly, and I as we took a little selfie at the bar. It's the kind of softness that I feel safe in.

So yeah, I actually feel safe in a bar in Marietta, and boy does that say a lot. It says a lot. 

I know I benefit on some level as a lighter-skinned woman in this town. I don't know what others' experiences have been, but so far, the people of Marietta have treated me kindly.

And have constantly surprised me with all the possibilities of ambition and hopes and dreams and definitions of happiness that I never knew about. Such sweetness.

For all this softness and welcoming, I am still very far from home. Because of the recent unbecoming of my dad's health, I will very soon be back in Houston long-term to take care of my Dad. I've thought deeply about my decision and it is my love for my family and the needs of my family right now that is my compass, and well, it's a decision that my heart is leading. So I can't be wrong.

I've always said I wanted to love my loved ones better, every day. And for the next chapter of my family, I can't imagine leaving my mother on her own. We're a team. And we'll always be a team.

Yen, Mom, and I. Yes.

I just know that I really love Peoples Bank.

It's grown on me so sweetly and softly and in all the ways the word, "Sweet" can be used, it's done just that. I am so glad I jumped on board when I did, even when it didn't make a lot of sense. Even when I knew how far and hard it would be, I still swung on, thinking myself an adventure character.

But so far, Marietta hasn't been much of an adventure. It's been a conduit for something else, within.

Like my Buddhist master always says, "The way out is in."

The way out is in. The way for me to take on my fears, be bolder, be braver, be more sure than ever before, be more at peace, find absolute happiness. All of those answers were never out there. They were always in here. 

Not in my head.

They are all in my heart. I know it's a cliche, but it's true. 

My heart knows what it wants to do in its free time, on the slowest of Saturday afternoons in a town that is as quiet as it is green. And for all the quiet time that Marietta has provided me, I've gotten to actually hear myself think. I could hear myself want what I want out here and why. I could hear myself reflect, not escape whenever I wanted to, because there's literally no where to escape to in Marietta, so the only way out of all my issues was... truly, in. 

So after months of getting better at listening to myself, my heart knew what it needed to do when I saw my father slurring through a promise that he will be okay, over videochat, just before 911 came. 

My heart knows a lot, and some of that knowledge is pure instinct, from my ancestors, all those before me. They are surely people and spirits who know much more than I do, what I need at times, and I feel such deep, deep joy the moment when I know that I'm aligning so fucking much.

And that feeling came to me so deeply this past Friday, over lunch with my supervisor, and I said it.

I told her what my heart needed to be okay. "What would really be so helpful right now is an expedite of the PDA program. I know it's a year but I really would benefit from being home sooner to take care of my family and then finding that long-term placement that would be remote or hybrid. I'm open to either and well, I do need to be in Houston for that foreseeable future, but Saundra, I also need you to know that I will always want to honor my family, but I also want to honor Pebo. Pebo has given me so much and I truly want to do so and give back how ever much I can."

And I was ready for any answer, but I certainly wasn't ready for all the love I'd receive from her. Instant understanding and love.

And again, all the more reasons for my deep freaking attachment to Pebo. Haha, gosh. Little Pebo.

It's truly such a warm, cozy little place nestled in the sweetest town. I'll smile often should I ever be in my 60s, and reflect to my grandchildren where I was, when I least expected it. That it didn't start out fully sweet and happy, but it grew that way. A slow burn, safe love.

Your little Viet grammie was in the smallest town she's ever been. In one of the most healthiest, stable relationships of her life -- the relationship she had with her work and workplace.

I kner. 

Such a career-oriented woman. But that's because I have to be. There's no more space in my heart right now, with my family as it is, and my hunger, gosh, even as I discover the sweetest, simplest of things to bring the biggest of smiles to my new friends and co-workers, but gosh, is there a sizeable hunger in me.

That's probably what Chuck saw too. And I hear it in my own voice, greater by the day.

This fire to do good. To do well. To do well enough to take care of my family, no matter the hardship. Emotionally and financially. And to one day impact, meaningfully, the communities I get to touch.

This is my time. To do my part.

"I want to honor my family," I said to Tyler, the new CEO of our bank, as the bulge of a tear edged on my eye. I gripped my knees slightly, leaning forward. 

"And I want to honor Pebo," I finished. Embarrassed but honest. Dang it, Ngoc. Honest as ever at the wrong time, I almost chided myself until I looked up to face Tyler. Surprised.

His reddening eyes, and the bulge of tears in his own eyes surprised me, until one tear fell off and he had to wipe it quickly. After listening to my story. My father's first and last first class flight to Viet Nam. How it felt to see my Dad in that nursing home. I was speechless.

"You would honor Pebo, and you would honor me, if you would honor your family," he responded just as surely. "Please honor your family first. Thank you for being here but it would break my heart if you did otherwise. So please, do what you need right now. We will figure out a plan together. Anything you need."

I didn't know how to respond except cry harder.

And laugh cry for the fact that Tyler and I cried together.

"Tell no one else, that this happened," he joked. And I laughed cried again. 

Gosh, I didn't even keep my promise on that but that is to say, this is another reason why no matter where I am in the world, I will do my best to honor Pebo, at all costs.

This is another reason my heart is for another. This is another reason why I can't fully prepare for any second or third case scenarios right now without feeling like I've lost something I won't find anywhere else in the world again.

And this is why, I will do what others might not be able to do, if they were in my place.

Which is to stay loyal and bring honor to an organization, best I can, for all the goodness that they've shown me and been to me. For all the goodness that Marietta and its people have surprised me with, like the bundle of flowers on homecoming, that Austin brought to my door the day I got back from Houston after knowing my situation or the bundle of chocolates that Lisa from the mail room mailed to me just because she liked my energy or the fact that Gina Houser of all people chose me to lead the document generation project or the fact that my landlord loves me, I think, to give me a new recliner the moment I dreamed of needing a recliner for my place -- for all these reasons some places start ending up feeling like safety. Like sweetness.

Gosh.

And I'm thick in it. 

Thank you for everything.

I've even gotten used to capturing the stinkbugs all around my place. Crazy, the things you can do when you're in love. Like staying loyal and aligned and happy. :)

Your girl, no longer as teary, just soft in her new recliner,

Ngoc