Young and Foolish

How do I make it up to you, now that you've shut me out for good?

What else can I say, after so many of my messages have been laid to dry?

Oh what I would give to take back those words and halt those assertions!

But how far too young and too foolish was I.

So punish me with your silence and leave me alone with my thoughts

Perhaps I will get what I ought to get, or so you you have prescribed.

If I had known how regret might taste, I might have held back and refrained

But how far too young and too foolish was I.

If I can allow myself to daydream a meeting with an imaginary you

I'll retell it as it was, and how I recall it now. Wait, I have it. I've practiced so many times.

You hold up your hand, though, toward my mouth and gently remind me

But how far too young and too foolish was I.

That is all the absolution I can get or will get in my lifetime

Because you have decided that one shot is all and I need not try

To convince you that you meant more, and that your time was prized

But how far too young and too foolish was I.

Intergenerational Responsibilities

Recently, as I observe my aunts' and uncles' efforts to split the responsibility of caring for their mom (my Grandma) amongst themselves, it occured to me that this could very well be the picture of me and my sister 20-30 years from now. The oddity, though, is that I'm finding myself in the eye-of-the-storm, one generation early.

A bit of background: My deceased Grandpa (Ye-Ye) spent his retired years as a literal nanny to me and my little sister (the gorgeous girl to my left in my xanga profile picture) because my mom and dad were super busy at work. What perhaps started off as a "favor" for the first few years, became a routine. Even long after my parents were fully capable of caring for us, my Grandpa stuck around. (What can I say, it must have been our charm!) Before we knew it, I was in my twenties and my little sister was in her teens when he separated from us to go to the East Coast. Actually, it may be more accurate to say that we separated from him long before he separated from us, but after being waited on, hand and foot, by Grandpa, it's a little hard not to take his presence for granted. When he left for the East Coast, that could very well have been the first time that he did something for himself, since taking on the role as full-time nanny. Within a few years after his departure, he passed away. Although, I was lucky enough to spend the last 4-5 precious months with him.

My Grandpa was survived by my Grandma (Nai-Nai) and a full extended family, which spans 5 children, 10 or more grandchildren, and 1 or 2 (now 3 or 4) great grandchildren. Grandma has got quite another story of her own... She was a military wife, who set off on her own from China to Taiwan, in search of her husband (who fled with the rest of the Nationalist party) in the 1950s. She raised 6 children mostly on her own, as Grandpa was mostly absent (as military men are prone to be). She taught art to middle-school students, and enjoyed some time of liesurely travel after retirement. These days, however, she rarely likes to leave the house and spends most of her time laying in bed. Her memory is failing, although she manages to harness all of her tenacity when tracking down the whereabouts of various children and grandchildren by phone. It is apparent that she craves companionship and affection, things that many of us are often too busy to spare. I have my studies, my dad has his work, my aunt takes care of this house and her own educational/ministry pursuits. Everyone else makes a noteworthy effort to spare one to many weeks at a time to fly to California and stay with Grandma. Ultimately, though, the "nucleus" consists of my aunt, my dad, and myself. My dad's business keeps him far from home on business trips, and my aunt has actually been the one to take care of my grandma most of this time. So it is perhaps most accurate to say that I'm the "newcomer" to the bunch of caretakers. Recently, it's become apparent that it is unreasonable for my aunt to carry the sole responsibility as primary caretaker, and the other aunt/uncle's trips are infrequent enough to require a secondary caretaker.

Thus, I am faced with this dilemma: How can I NOT drop everything to be near my Grandma. Even so, how much is too much to give? Some can say that I should be the least responsible in caring for my Grandmother. But then again, the same could have been true for my Grandfather when he dropped everything to take care of me and my sister...

Thoughts on "Lions & Lambs"

 Last year, 20th Century Fox and Robert Redford introduced "Lions & Lambs" to America. It was provocative, incredibly so. And it makes me wonder how my worldview might have been different had I watched this in 1999 (when I proudly raised a banner into the inner cities of LA as a self-knighted "future inner-city teacher") or in 2003 (when I dipped more than my toes into full-time ministry because I could not dive into overseas missions). Indeed, I emerged from my wilderness of idealism, scarred, embittered, and very much won over to self-centered living. And so today, in 2008, I keep my head down and bury it in my books, because I've learned that it is only in this 3 feet of space (to every side of me) that I have some control over good and evil. After all, as I had learned in my brief "stints" in the inner city and the ministries: The evil that I ought to battle is the one that tries to overcome me.

In the film, the characters portray college students, soliders, college students-turned-soliders, a politician, an educator, and a journalist in their own battles against personal ideals of good and evil. The older characters have lived long enough to experience regret over  having done too much or too little. The younger characters refuse to waste a single moment on account of not having ever experienced similar regret. It is not for lack of knowledge or conviction, because one of the college students asks the question, "Don't tell me you don't want to go to law school after you graduate from here! So it's completely hypocritical that you stand here (and say that everyone ought to join the military)." It boils down to human frailty, I think. It doesn't take too many years for a person to see enough weakness within him/herself to silence any idealistic desires to wage war against the weaknesses that plague society (or the world). So I give credit to those who see their own limitations, and those limitations of government and society, yet still try to stretch both toward what is right and good. In the movie, it appears that heroism is awarded to the convicted and the resolute.   But by the end of the movie, it becomes apparent that those who, despite mortal wounds, can still hobble toward the enemy are indeed heroes. In the end, it's probably not about the acts of heroism, but the fact that these heroes chose to act (when they could have stayed put).

I'm still feeling pretty mortally wounded... but I hope I will be ready to hobble when the time comes.

Delayed Gratification

 Back in high school, I often neglected my studies in order to invest time in family relationships (i.e., I delayed my evening homework in order to watch "just one more" episode of a soap opera with my Mom). I picked my college based on its vicinity to home, because I couldn't imagine being too far removed from my little sister (who is by no means plagued by such an obligation and far more independent that I was just a few years ago). Now in grad school, I find it hard to selfishly enjoy this next year of full-time study without rearranging my lifestyle to make room for a kid who can likely benefit from my contribution in filling his summer with structure.

However, now that I'm facing my "last shot" at this sprint of achievement, I see that I have two paths ahead of me: Follow the same, old familiar path. Or, try this foreign path, from which others have proven to derive more long-term goods. It's tough to turn down real and pressing people matters in order to attend to a real and pressing personal goal. I might justify it by saying that I am making myself stronger so that I can be more capable of helping others in the future. But then again, I can also try being straight-forward enough to say that this is simply "my turn," and I refuse to let anyone get in the way. 

At the heart of this is my value system: Do I achieve success by setting my mind to something? Or do I achieve success by contributing to the lives of as many people around me as possible? If the second conflicts with the first, then this is either an exercise of social responsibility or personal irresponsibility. In the end, I think this just boils down to two words: Delayed Gratification. Eat one marshmallow now, or wait so I can get two later? Help this person now, or wait so I can help this person as well as myself later?

At 26, What Would I Say to My 22-yr-old Self?

At 22... well, that was about the age when I entered the teaching credential program. During that year-long program, I found my mind wandering to ideas about full-time ministry or missionary work. I felt very dissatisfied about settling for anything less than an ultra-meaningful profession and I was horribly disappointed to see just how ordinary things were turning out to be (missions/ministry, not withstanding). Worst of all, I was disillusioned by my own humanity: I turned out to be a horribly unmotivated and even ill-spirited teacher, and a bitterly resentful ministry worker (it's by sheer grace that God never opened the door for me to go into full-time missions work!) Right around the tail-end of that phase is when I plunged into a dose of harsh reality by taking whatever low-wage job I could find and working my tail off to pay rent and groceries.. only to eventually see that the secretarial work that I was doing could be much more stable and secure with an industry-specific technical skill set. My search ended with accounting, which turned out to be relatively nonmathematical and "principles-based" enough for me to grasp.