continued…

red light therapy

microscopic healing. it was a powerful discovering. while i was on the bed lifted up, i felt strangely not in a flash anymore. like an island. and lots of lots of trees and stones and animals and molecures inside my body were interacting with earth’s inner core. it’s my first time feeling it. not as water, not as a tree, but as a stone. that might be exactly why the earth is the way it is on the surface. because then where did all that energy and continued renewing coming from? almost unlimitedly? yes there are sun and water and other climate. but maybe the very hot dense center, the core is doing something i am now experiencing. and red light therapy is mirroring that of earth to my body.

and what a serendipity that your sanctuary is a garden. red light therapy now carries symbolic truth. and that’s very artistic to me.

my australian friends’ cheating

i had a childhood friend, a beijing guy who moved to australia right after we met, during my high school time.

we are similar, and family-like to each others during our 20s, but we were never on the same physical page. he is a more grounded fun-spirit, and spiritually i am freer.

one day, about 8 years ago, he voiced to me that the only girlfriend he dated, for about 4 years, he felt actually not contained with. so he cheated on her, for a better-looking, smarter, better-skilled, better-everything-on-paper woman.

but right after the cheating, he came back to his girlfriend, all of a sudden not questioning anymore.

i asked why. he said, his girlfriend knew everything about him to make a good sex and she put a lot of effort into learning and getting better at him. but the better-everything-on-paper woman is not capable of it because she got so much sexual interest without paying any effort.

he also realized, all the little effort that her girlfriend was trying, to make their lives better, little by little. and he appreciated it now more than ever.

that was a period of life i was in a relationship that i was not happy with. a guy who shared similar traits with this girlfriend, he was great-looking, humble, grounded, trustworthy, took-care-of-my-mess little by little, but we weren’t connected. i felt so lonely.

after that talk with him, i wasn’t convinced his version of relationship was the relationship i wanted.

but his realization was powerful, and it stayed with me over the years.

sex

i am so happy i finally brought it up in a explicit way. after all these years of slow-awakening from that conversation. and i am so happy that you were happy i brought it up explicitly. i never had a chance. earlier years in my life i was too shy or too unaware to have this conversation and last few years none of my relationships made it to the stage that i could even brought it up. it’s a dream come true.

the lesson, my version

i ask the verse why you are here, almost daily. there is a lesson behind your arrival, for me, and it has unfolded quite a bit.

there is an ancient pain that i trapped myself in. i was convinced that i needed to earn my love, and only when i performed i am loved. i was either disregarded and or coping with non-compatible ones till i burnt out. and in between, were solitude that i convinced myself this is where i end up. in the end, i am not a better-looking, smarter, better-skilled, better-everything-on-paper woman at all. i am a different kind of human. there is only one of me. what can i do about me. and nothing wrong.

suddenly you arrived. despite that i soon fell into life’s hardest chapter, weirdly, life feels easier with you in it. most of me were taught, implicitly, that partner choices were about matching resumes, achievements or public success as much as the intrinsic qualities. and the beginning of a relationship should be ignition: momentum, desire, creative overflow, clarity. instead i am, fragmenting, quiet, inward, hibernating, i feel like something is fundamentally wrong — like i’m ‘wasting’ a rare chance. but you are here, and you are not avoidant. and my curiosity, vulnerability, humor, subtle depth, originality and the particular way my unarmored mind and heart work are resonating with another human-being. i am deeply alive, complex and real. and by the way, these are all too big for me to comprehend still.

i realized i met someone whose core, are infinitely open and flexible, as i am. and always reaching out to the light. the way we approached boundaries and frictions on surface level stuff was such an elegant dance. and filled with compassion towards ourselves and each others. i had very little to negotiate with you and life.

and so much so much joy. you make me smile. even when you were complaining. even if we end up trapped on an island for life. even if we end up trapped on mars for life.

because our inner life are so resonant and real. and nothing on earth would take away all of our wonderful external qualities and skills too. we could have remarkable connection through performance, or we could just have intimacy by doing nothing. and both poles are relationally intoxicating.

my last relationship was meant to cause me pain. i signed up myself on relationships that were bonded by trauma. i needed it too. i had so much growth.

we are different. we are here for the present moment. and now i realize this is probably all i ever want in a relationship. not that pain and boundary and friction can’t exist. but I DON’T WANT TO SUFFER ANYMORE! AND WHY THE HELL DID I ALWAYS CHOOSE SUFFERING??!

homeless time traveler

i was thinking about time traveling a lot lately. like i said, i never wanted to control time. always weather. but this time i wanted to. so i did.

i started reading years of journal i wrote. and if there was a point that i wish i would travel back to. with this present mind. and it wouldn’t be a perfect time traveling cuz it was my first attempt. so i picked a time while i was still in my previous career, previous relationship. a moment in covid. maybe early 2022. but i know you somehow. and your location. and i know that because i am teleported aka my present issue is gone but somehow we won’t meet anymore. that was the trade off.

and i am griefing us because i traded my biggest life issue with encountering you.

one day, i finally gathered my courage to knock on your loft door. you are there! you opened the door. i was shocked and shaking, and said, ‘hello! my name is Shiyoo. I am… your…’ you looked younger but slightly more disorienting. i paused, and i wanted to cry. and you welcomed me into the loft to have some rice like i was a homeless.

i said, ‘i asked to be teleported back to the past, which is now. because i messed up with life with a big big issue in the future time i was in. so i asked to be teleported back to now before the issue could have happened. but the consequence is that you and i won’t meet anymore in the future… cuz we met right after that big big issue happened to me. and i know you are in love with jennie right now… but we are in love when i was teleported here from the future, and i want to meet you…’

you were surprisingly not confused, laughed, and said, ‘nice to meet you.’ and you said you are happy with your life now. we went up, and i saw jennie, she was so lovely. and you two both looked like and felt like a couple. i told her what would happen to you and her. and i asked her to not leave you because now i won’t be there in the future for your life and you would be alone for a long long time if she leaves. i cried. she calmed me. i had some rice, and i left like a fruit fly.

now you and her would be happily ever after, right? i fixed it, right? and my family would have their million dollar back and i would be on track to be a singer song-writer and probably single forever, right?

all problems solved, right?

…but why did i feel so sad about this version of the story?

and what about us? what about trapped on an island or mars, having nothing, but us, and happy? what about crystal dragon jellyfish phoenix? what about sophie and howl’s moving castle and saving calcifer’s heart? what about our spells? what about our lessons?

i just… lost you. and i lost the journey with you. and now i want it back… WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

meaning of life

this whole teleport sounds like me justifying my tragedy against having you in my life right now, which helps me cope with my loss in the current existence in the non-teleported version of life.

i could have lost everything and also be in a deep tragic end of solitude and be consumed right now. and i could have saved everything and tell myself i won a lottery for saving myself and then having you in my life and continue my fantasy, and it might or might not pop in the long run. or i could have saved everything but not having you like the teleported version, life continues. or i could be in this exact version of life with you.

i didn’t want to, for the first time, be grateful for a deadly event. i hated what happened to me. and i would never ever choose it again. but i may be grateful someday for who i became. these are very different things.

i stared into palisades mountain a lot lately. it’s covered in baby green. for those whose homes were burnt, they might be grateful for the green. but it doesn’t mean they should be grateful for the fire and loss. the loss was real.

same with you and jennie. i am grateful (not happy) for myself, that she left, so we could meet. but it doesn’t mean you should be grateful that she left so we could meet. the loss was real, and hurtful. it left a hole in your heart, and i see it healing slowly but it’s still there. months or years later we might have our big moments and you might be grateful for who you become, in spite of her leaving, but not directly at her leaving. these are two separate things.

my brain seemed to not be ok without seeing everything happened for a reason and remix it as a continued poetry. we are, meaning making machines. wired to make meanings 24/7 at what happened to feel justified.

but the truth is, life is random, and meaningless to the verse. any version could happen by choices. they are meaningful to us because we make meaning after our choices to justify the choices. but they are meaningless to the verse. life goes on randomly. verse goes on meaninglessly.

but what about joy? and what remains? and what is my choice at the end? i am still a human, and i want meaning!

so, for many years since the teleport date till today, in both the teleported and non-teleported version of my duality of time, i’ve wondered all around the earth, realizing life’s meaning (to me) is really quite simple, like what you said at the door — ‘nice to meet you’. cuz at the end of our lives, it’s all the special humans we met, matter.

so, nice to meet you.

and so nice to meet you.

and nothing i want to fix about my life anymore. i made my choices, i am here, and you are here, too.

i am simply excited and looking forward to meeting all the ages and versions of you.