My trip home was very very short lived. Very short lived. Only a week, but in a way it was long enough. I didn’t get to hang out with that many family, but the family that I did hang out with were the family that I enjoy hanging out with. Well, except for one, he’s the black sheep of the family and I don’t think that we’ve ever connected before.

We just don’t share similar interests, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Maybe if I hung out with him more? I doubt it. Out personality just don’t mix. But, meh.

It just struck me today as I was rereading my yearly reflection that I still call Seattle home. I guess maybe it was a conscious effort that I wrote that, or maybe it wasn’t. It just slipped into my unconscious as I rambled along, but I don’t know. Home is home you know?

I still believe that I can never go “home”. I can never go back to the thing that I once called “home”. I just can’t. Things just changed so much during my absence; it just isn’t the same anymore. Everyone has grown up, I have grown up. There are so many changes. We all have our own lives, busy doing whatever it is that makes us us, that it’s hard to go back to that time anymore.

Again, as I’ve gotten older, there are family members that I don’t care for, or that I don’t care about hanging out with anymore just because I’ve changed so much. I see things differently now, and that’s not going to change or revert back to how I was. Why go backwards? Why?

Just going back for Christmas, I can feel that. I have a greater connection now with my mom’s family then the extended family that I grew up with. Maybe they are just younger, or maybe I just miss hanging out with them. They are fun, well fun in my eyes. I can give them shit and they can’t do anything about it. I’m their older cousin. HA!

But, it is all good. It is all fun. I loved spending time with them. I’m able to talk with their parents like I would talk with anyone else. Honest and my smart ass self and they respect that. They won’t get offended if I say something different or something they don’t want to hear because they know that they can’t tell me how to live my life. Because I don’t even take that from my mom, why would I take it from them. That’s how it should be.

We all have different opinions. If you don’t agree with an opinion, voice it and then we’ll talk it out. Don’t take it personally. I’m just sharing an observation. They understand that people out there have different opinions, diverging viewpoints, and they are okay with it. They understand that other people think differently and see life in a different way.

But going home, visiting, it just changed things for me again. Again, I think I’ll be able to move home without any problems. I think I’ll be able to fit in comfortably with the new group of family that I have connected with. I don’t care if I hang out with the ol’ gang, because I have my own. I’ll show up just to be nice and catch up, but that is the extent of it. I have other people I want to spend my time with.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just in the family state of mind. Looking back, I’ve always been in that family state of mind. I love family, but I did move here for a reason and that was to start a new life and change and grow. I finally have.

But, out of the three family members from the usual group that I hung out with, two of them were older and have families of their own. And again, I’m old. I think like an old man, and that’s probably the reason why I’m able to chill with them because we think the same way. We are able to wax poetic about life and how it should be lived because we all share the same philosophies.

It seems funny how a lot of us are so different but not all that different. Take Hien and I for instance. Out of the two of use, I’m the most Chinese between the two of us. I speak more Chinese than he does. He practically almost has forgotten his Chinese. I’m more into Chinese music and Chinese Movies then he is. He has some interest in them, but not as much as I do. I’m Chinese. But again, I’m trying to reconnect with my roots.

He is comfortable with being who he is. And if it works for him, it works for him.

The same thing goes with Menty and Kiety. Kiety is me and Menty is Hien. That’s how family is. Yet, we are all the same. We all see things the same way. Life is life.

Kiety finds it fascinating that I’m reconnecting with my roots. I’m trying to learn more about our family and our family history. He’s shocked that I listen to Chinese music. He claims that he remembers the Vietnam days like it was yesterday. I think I may have found another history outlet in our family. He’ll be someone I can ask about family stuff.

Again, I don’t know when I started to get into the family history stuff. Maybe it was just all my talks and all the stories that great uncle and great auntie told me, but I’m hooked. I want to know more. I just do.

Maybe it is this reconnecting with my roots thing that made me feel so grounded and so calm. I’m no longer battling to find my identity. I am Chinese and that is that. I’m not a FOB or a ABC. I’m just a regular guy who happens to be Chinese. I accepted my roots and my culture and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all.

But again, overall my visit home was excellent. It was really really good, and I actually had a white christmas. It has been fucking seven years that I’ve seen snow. It was nice. Really really nice. I was outside in a t-shirt and jeans and some busted slippers, but it was great.

My time up there was pretty chill and relaxed. I just stayed with family and didn’t venture far. I had a car, but I just had nowhere to go. My mom was pretty much home the whole time I was there so I just spent it with her. The only day that I had any free time to myself, I visited my mom’s younger brother’s family and just chilled there. It was really really good.

Ha. I didn’t expect to be drinking that much when I was up there. I really didn’t at all. I didn’t really expect my brother to drink also, but he did. It’s really really good to see him bust out of his shell. It’s fucking great to see that he’s slowly becoming his own person, unafraid to do the things that he was afraid of doing before.

It’s also funny that we came from the same parents but he has the Asian allergic reaction thing going on when he drinks. He turns bright red and nothing happens to me. I guess he just needs to drink a little bit more and build up his tolerance. Ha, during Christmas day he took a sip of wine and he’s getting hot already. Just need to build it up and he’ll be fine.

Buy yeah, I’m an alcoholic and a horrible social drinker.

Christmas Eve, I spent it with Menty and his family. His kids are so cute even though Ella was being shy and didn’t want to play with me. Boo. But I had a little too much to drink. 10 drinks and the last two were pretty strong because I made them myself. Rum and coke. Can’t fuck that up. I woke up with a hangover and I drank even more the next day.

Hien had a few drinks too. Menty couldn’t believe it, but he did. Maybe I bring out the socialness in him. I just hope he continues with it.

Christmas Day was the worst of my drinking. It’s a big social family gathering for my family and I was cooking. Apparently no one liked my cooking much, but dammit, it wasn’t that bad. It was decent dammit.

Anywho, I started drinking about 1 pm, since dinner was about 3. I started with a bottle of wine which I practically drank myself, then another bottle. Let’s just say I had about 2+ bottles of wine myself. The last few hours of the dinner I don’t even remember. I don’t even remember some of the text message convos that I had. But apparently it reads coherent. Oh, I kind of drunk text a friend on Christmas Eve. I kind of passed out for a few hours near the end.

But yeah, I was feeling really really fucking good that day. That was the first time that I got drunk in front of family and my mom. And I’m not a bad drunk. I’m a happy drunk. I’m the “I love you man” drunk. It’s all fun. There were a few accidents but it was all good.

I’m just a social drinker and thankfully I don’t do that at home by myself. That would suck.

But all in all, it was good to be home. Christmas was fun and it pretty much seals the deal that I know that I would want to move back there someday. It is a nice place to settle down and start a family. Maybe I’m just at the point in my life where I feel that I can do that.

I might be able to afford a house up there myself. If I do start a family, my kids will have cousins around their age that they can grow up with like how I grew up with my cousins. We’ll all be one happy family.

But all in all, I have to reiterate, life is fucking good right now. And most of it is because I learned to live in the present, taking it one day at a time and just letting go. Whatever happens, happens. There are no expectations, nothing to live up to. Life is complicated enough, might has well make it simpler.

Life is good.