☁️ December 2021: The grey doesn't bother me
The crisp autumn air has transitioned to Seattle’s signature grey and rainy winter. It’s my third PNW winter. It doesn’t bother me this time. I’ve been telling friends for years that the Seattle winter here is not as bad as people think, that it’s more grey than rainy, that sun comes out for a couple hours most days, that they can always travel to Hawaii in the non-COVID times. Those observations all true but they imply an adversarial relationship. I need to do more than just tolerate its physical reality to call this place home.
I’ve fallen in love with the PNW. It’s not where the stories of greatness I was raised take place. When I imagined the story of my life, it’s set in an old and famous city. In the lack of narrative here, I find the space to live my own life. It’s an easy place to be present. I like seeing all the different colors of moss on my morning stroll and catching glimpses of Rainer while driving to the airport. The early evenings make for a cozy backdrop for drinks and games by the fireplace. On rainy mornings when my husband makes me a nice coffee, I feel like we are alone together at the center of the universe.
Bellevue isn't the place I thought I'd call home. I spent my 20s exploring the entire world - home could have been the motion and energy of NYC, the ambitious heart of tech in CA, maybe a return to my heritage somewhere in Asia, or the romance of Europe. [0] I had this idea that a new start in a new place would transform me into a better person. I was very drawn to places with big energy, SF and NYC in particular. SF/NYC in particular allowed me to ambiently meet interesting people who represented "better". They read better books[1], had better ambitions, wore better clothing, lived better lives. I thought could borrow those attributes and become better myself. The energy and the momentum I found in SF and NYC allowed me to be a passenger in my own transformation and growth. I'm glad I went though this period of exploration. I have a lot of lovely or at least funny memories trying new things but it changed...nothing. Today it's almost as never happened, not even a faint stylistic imprint remains.
I'm living the exact life my childhood was designed to produce. My parents were my best friends and I hung out with them for hours every day of my life. When I left for college at 17, I was a reflection of their perspectives. I spent a decade making my own choices, undertaking an extensive exploration effort spanning big decisions like jobs, choices in friends, potential life partners and small - clothing, hobbies, food. I didn't try to stay close a correct path - I asked myself big questions like: Do I want to participate in the institution of marriage? Is gender a social construct and what would happen if I tried to live an un-gendered life? [2] My guess as to why none of these efforts changed anything is that I internalized my parent's values around what makes a good life. Values are subjective with many valid choices. I ended choosing the spirit of what my parents wanted for me even if the details differ. There was never going to be an alternative answer that could be so clearly superior to make me throw out the defaults I started given the type of relationship I had with them. I find that even friends with more conflicted relationships with their parents often see the conflict in the implementation and strive to fulfill the spirit of their parents' value.
There's an interesting question of where my parents default values came from given the changing times both they and my grandparents were raised in - Beijing 1930s (grandparents) to 1980s (parents) and what I'll pass onto to Froggy. Our values are created in a life lived together over the years but as much as I can capture it, the biggest themes were around:
Family comes first
Heroes show up when normal people don't do their duty.
The environments are designed for the median person who inhabits them so try to be normal on everything that doesn’t matter. I think belief is the primary reason my explorations never made a difference. Once I'd made the biggest choices, I let the little choices take the path of least resistance.
If family and duty are taken care of, some sort of contribution to society via science or engineering (preferably engineering) would be an appropriate side quest. I'd guess this one is very much the product of the cultural era my parents were raised.
My period of exploration ended abruptly a few years ago with a whimper. The narratively appropriate answer would be that I went a journey and either discovered another side of myself or learned to love myself. The honest answer is that I started dating JP. I wanted to be better so the world would tell me it would love me. This chip on my shoulder is should only a small one - I had trouble making friends for a few years in middle school. At one point I down to one friend who regretfully informed me that her friends thought I was boring and none of them would hang out with me anymore. I decided in a very deep way that I never wanted to be without people to eat with at lunch. JP is down to metaphorically and literally eat lunch with me for the rest of my life. Now that I bask in his affection, I don’t need the world to tell me it loves me. I am relieved of the desire to become “better”.
I once had this depressing idea that my youth would end at 30 and it would just be kids, a boring suburb, and some office job on a computer. Like ending of an old school Disney princess story - you marry the prince that's the end of the story. This prediction came true by the letter but not the spirit. I worked very hard in life to earn this blank container so that it can hold the life I want to live in it.
P.S. One more Froggy story:
Froggy gets livelier by the day. He can pull himself to stand and shuffle around with any knee height furniture. He is very keen to cruise and this is ~3 months early! I'm not sure if this entirely natural. We usually put out a selection of 3 toys for the day and keep the rest on our low fireplace mantel. As soon as he learned to cruise, he beelined for the toy shelf and his eyes shined with happiness at his new found power.
Special thanks to Abdul who helped me edit this into something that hopefully makes sense and Lingtong who gave me the confidence to post it.
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[0] A while back, my manager was quite concerned about my juggling a move and some changes on a my team. I informed him I’d moved every 6 months for the past 4 years. They were all pretty easy except for the DIY one we did during Burning Man. We procrastinated until night before move out day. We packed our stuff into hundreds used Amazon boxes held together with scotch tape. JP rummaged up the clean boxes from recycling rooms of our apartment complex. All the electronics and kitchenware were padded with a hodgepodge of free tech t-shirts and our neighbor’s junk mail. Crammed them into our tiny 500sq ft apartment day of BM departure -> BM hijinks for a week -> started the day back at 7AM on the burner express and unpacked nonstop until 2AM.
[1] I was bamboozled into reading Infinite Jest end to end. I went back to this “better” intellectual, only to find out he hadn’t actually finished it!!
[2] I was curious whether presenting as less obviously gendered would help me have conclusions. I cut my hair in a bowl cut and wore baggy grey sweaters for a year. It was not a successful experiment because I learned about people's assumption about women who cut their hair in bowl cuts and wear baggy clothing and nothing much about the nature of gender. There were a couple of good self-love learnings though. Overnight I went from "cheery and energetic" and to "intense". Intense was an adjective I'd long coveted for myself. It was great to learn that I'd had it inside me all along.
