Life Update: 31024
Trigger warning: death/grief. Please read until the end but honestly no pressure. Regardless, thank you for even just clicking onto this page! Topics featured in this blog: post birthday event, uncle’s recent passing, and some insecurities I’ve been having lately.
I’ve been postponing writing this because Virgo season came in like a storm that was bigger than the anticipated forecast. In my last blog I mentioned how much finally creating my birthday event “Memories” meant to me. If you haven’t read it yet, I definitely recommend it. The anticipation and anxiety leading up to it was a lot. I didn’t know who was going to show up or how it was going to turn out. In my head it was like I was throwing my own surprise party. The event itself was intimate, having about 16 people attend. If you did attend, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for showing up. If you didn’t attend, but you wished me a happy birthday, thank you for your kindness. I wasn’t able to reply to a lot of you because honestly the rejection got to my head + the shock of my uncle passing away two days after my birthday has had me OVERWHELMED. My phone also doesn’t have storage so my messages automatically delete…I’m not sure exactly what many of you said but regardless just know it means something to me. If you couldn’t show up (or maybe you didn’t know it was an open event then that’s on me lol) or had the chance to greet me on my birthday but still are reading this, thank you. I’m grateful for knowing the possibility that people would read my writing no matter what form it is.
I’m happy I went through with the event no matter the turn out because it was years in the making and it was a first time experience for me. Special thank you to my workplace, On One Studios and the owners for allowing me to use the space. More special shout outs! First to my sister, Aja for taking me to Santa Cruz for our lil Virgo trip the day before my birthday. Then to my partner Andrea Jayne, for taking me on a birthday picnic date the day after my event. Then X2 those shout outs because they helped me so much the day of my birthday event. I was trying so hard to not be in my head so much but inevitably it would happen yet those two important people in my life kept me grounded. I love them with all my heart and soul!
My sister is actually moving to Los Angeles soon (like within the next week). If any of my SoCal friends or your connections need a freelance videographer, filmmaker, director, cinematographer, PA, or whatever, hit her up @ajapopfilms on Instagram! I’m honestly going through my own sentiments about this but for the sake of finally pushing out this blog post, I’ll probably save it for the next one. So stay tuned!
Okay so for the past few years, I’ve been becoming more vocal and vulnerable on social media. In retrospect, it scares me to do so but I challenge myself because I believe in documenting and sharing personal experiences. Being vulnerable is also one of my values as an artist, activist, student, future educator, and overall human. This is one of the reasons I finally started this blog. So here’s to sharing more of me with you all.
As I mentioned, my uncle passed away two days after my birthday. It was a surprise because he just celebrated his birthday two days after my Kuya AJ’s 1 year death anniversary. The saddest part is that I’ve been trying harder to connect to my family so before my Uncle Kitoy passed away, I asked him to take me fishing on his boat with some of my other uncles. I’ll never have the chance now but I hope to still go fishing one day in honor of him. I still remember the first time I went fishing with my uncles when I was young because originally they didn’t invite me since I was a girl. I persisted because I grew up with my uncles owning a bait & tackle shop in Pinole. It wasn’t fair to me that only my male cousins would experience fishing. I had my own dreams as a child that I would have the best custom fishing rod that was made by them. Anyways I went and proved to them I was capable because I caught a manta ray. I took a photo and we threw it back into the water. I hope that photo still exists and maybe one day I’ll see it. There's a lot of family trauma I’m left to unpack but I’m trying, so more of that in future writings.
To wrap up this blog, I wanted to share some insecurities I’ve been feeling. If you haven’t caught on by now, I have major abandonment issues. With death surrounding me, being left behind, and the fear of being forgotten…it’s hard. About 3 days after attending my uncle’s funeral, I was in my head so much that I had to reach out to a crisis hotline through text. This is the first time I’ve done it. The results were that after about two hours of waiting, I got nothing. In the middle of my patience being tested, I even posted a screenshot of their automated “thank you for waiting” messages. Another day, I was breaking down in public so I started messaging an AI software. The instant replies actually helped a lot but I still lacked the feeling of support. To supplement that, I was blessed by seeing my late friend’s angel numbers - 738. I see them often and it reassures me a lot. Sometimes it’s harder for me to talk about how his death affected me (thus the reason why I can’t say/write his name). For context we went to the same middle school & high school. We share a lot of commonalities that include having last names that start with an “A” and our passions. We were never the closest but I admired him for the things we shared. Maybe one day it’ll be easier to talk about but for now I’ll leave it at that.
I’ll be honest right now when I say I’ve been having doubts that I don’t have that many friends. It goes in hand with my abandonment issues and the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic stripped me from my confidence. I’m someone who deeply cares about my relationships with people to the point where I would still give and knowing the relationship lacked reciprocation. Yea, I got fucked over a lot lol. A common reoccurrence that also happens is that I’m in a friend group then they all hangout without inviting me. I miss hanging out with my friends from elementary school, middle school, high school, and early college. That’s also a big reason why I wanted to host my birthday event (shoutout Nat for attending/vending because she's the first friend I made when I moved to South San Francisco). Sometimes I also still think about the first friends I made in my life from before I moved. I wonder how my life would’ve been if I stayed in my small town called Pinole. They probably won’t ever see this but shout outs to people who went to Collins Elementary. I hope they are doing well.
Lately, I’ve been more hesitant about making new friends. Maybe a part of that is that I feel like I’ll die soon so I don’t want them to be burdened by me. I’ve been trying to reach out more to old ones though but like I said my confidence at the moment is low. I’m also still recovering from the rejections/ghostings from my birthday event (honestly don’t feel bad if this was you, I get it) but yea that was me trying. I get so shy because of my anxiety it’s like I’m back to being 4, 9, 11, 14, and 18 again…but like I said I’m still trying. Sometimes I wonder though why it’s uncommon that I don’t cross anyone’s mind to the point where they want to randomly reach out to me. A thought I had recently was what if I started a podcast and I interviewed old friends and maybe even acquaintances/long term mutuals lol. That would be cool…but I digress…just know I appreciate you if you are reading this.
Last tidbit before my next blog: I also hate how I dress, I feel like my art sucks, big imposter syndrome in my classes, and just overall insecure about the way I look atm. Hoping it gets better. Thank you for reading, till next time!