What is it that I’m waiting for? What is it that I’m trying to do?

Ultimately, the question is what do I want? Why am I afraid to figure that out, to realize the thing that I want is just in front of me and all I have to do is to ask for it? Why am I this way?

So, I sit here, waiting, trying to figure out this…this and no answers come to me.

I would like to be my usual definitive self and make up my mind and act with such conviction that there is no doubt that what I want is her, but I can’t. Something is holding me back. As much as I try to reason with myself, to explain to myself what the reasons for these fears are, they just seem hollow and false.

So, all in all, what exactly is it that I want? What indeed?

Fear.

Is it fear that is holding me back or just my general affinity of shyness?

Could it be that? I just never have gotten over it since I was a young kid?

No, it can’t be that. It’s my general fear of rejection? Really? Or is it something more? Something about not being able to give her everything that she needs? Maybe it’s just the fear of not being able to provide everything that it is that I’m supposed to provide for her.

Maybe it’s just my fear of my inadequacies to entertain her, to make her feel loved and needed. I’m afraid that I’ll be my typical self around her, with her. That I’ll be the selfish fucker that doesn’t want to do anything because I’m the Debbie Downer that is not the life of the party.

Maybe I just feel that I’ll be holding her back and that is not a right that I have to do. It’s not a right for anyone to do, not just me.

I don’t think I was ever a good boyfriend ever. I just don’t know how to be one.

All I know is how to be myself, and that is me, in my head, doing my own thing, and being boring. That’s just me.

But is that really it? That’s part; part of a whole.

What’s the rest?

Fear. Fear of what?

Losing her if I actually am able to make it work. Fear of it one day, she wakes up and realize that she was swindled into believing that what we had was great and that she actually deserves something better. Fear that I’m not good enough for her. Fear of me, being attached, fully committed, in LOVE, and then having that all ripped away.

I’ve had many great losses in my life and I don’t know if my heart can take another. I just know it can’t.

But, would that single explosive heartache be worth the nagging dull pain that you are currently feeling right now? Maybe? But that’ll be new, and this is something that I have grown accustomed too. I can deal with this. That, I don’t know if I’ll be able to.

Imagine the joy and bliss that you’ll experience, having that relationship. Having found and having the one that you love, holding her, embracing her, loving her. Imagine that feeling of bliss.

Fear.

Nothing lasts forever. All things will come tumbling down. I don’t’ know how to make things work. I’m lazy. Lazy. I don’t want to put in the work. I live the lazy man’s life of just letting things happening to me. I never seek out the experiences that I should have, but let chance present it to me.

Lazy man.

Maybe this is a part of the growing up that you need to do. You need to make these sacrifices, make these decisions. Play hard. Gamble. Not everything in the world is safe. You have to take risks.

Maybe this risk is something that I’m not willing to take. There’s no coming back from this. None at all.

I like what we have. I would like more, but I just don’t know what it is that you think. I can’t read you. I can’t figure you out.

I preach and preach about being clear, forward, upfront, but what is it that is holding me back? Why am I the way that I am?

You need to do this. You have to do this.

In a way, you already know the answer. You can feel it. You KNOW it. So, why not verify it.

Verify it.

Do it.

Ask.

What do you have to lose? Where will you end up? The same place as you are now. Just because she isn’t interested, doesn’t mean you can’t still maintain what it is that you have with her now? Can it? Does it?

I know you. Eventually you’ll be able to distance yourself away and detach from the situation. You’re good at it. Hopefully.

I think you’ll be able to do it. Maybe.

Just visit her less. See her less. You can still be the friendly friend of hers, but just visit her less. Deal with her less.

Sigh.

Decisions.

Blah.

Maybe I just need to focus on something else. What is wrong with me?

Blah!

Blah. Everything is just blah!

Blah indeed.

Is it me? Is it you?

What is it?

What is it that you want?

Can you even figure it out? Do you even have a clue? I never known you to act on something that you want. You’ll do your little research. You’ll make up reasons why it would be something that might benefit you. You’ll make up reasons why it would be a detriment. Based on that list, but ultimately, based on your gut, you act. You make that decision and say YES! This is what I need.

I will act upon it. I will make this mine. I will try to get it. But, what is the hold up on this one?

You haven’t done enough research?

Or are you just generally confused about the exact nature of your desires.

Do you really want this? Honestly? Seriously?

I know for you, fear is involved. Fear is always involved in most things that you do, but you always overcome whatever fear that is haunting you and face it head on with courage and braveness.

Now, seriously, why is this one so difficult?

Are you afraid of the rejection and that heartache that comes with it? Or is it that you are afraid to get into it and then lose it and that heartache that comes with it.

Why is it so easy for you to act on the others? The youngins. Do you know that they are not important to you? They are more trials than actuals?

Why?

So many questions bounce around in this head of mine. So many things that I need to figure out. I just don’t know where to start.

The only good thing about this is that I’m writing more, blogging more.

* * *

Straight forwardness. Blunt. Honesty. No games.

Why can’t you just do that? Those are the things that you want right? Those are the things that you live by, your qualities, but why can’t you do it here.

Your intuition isn’t always spot on. You have doubts because for some reason, you have an inkling feeling that you just don’t know. The best way to be clear is to ask, to be straight forward.

I should just do it.

I should just do it.

Sigh.

Maybe. One day. Eventually.

Maybe I just want this to last a little longer without any awkwardness. Maybe I just want this to continue on. Maybe.

One day.

Just maybe One Day things will change. One day I won’t put up with this. One day, whatever it is that I’m feeling I will feel no more.

Maybe. Just, One Day.

* * *

Ru Guo Ni Hai Ai Wo, if you ever did, why do I feel this emptiness in me.

* * *

Emotion wreck. I have been an emotional wreck lately. I have been a sad sensitive sap. The littlest things will just set me off. I know I am emo, but for the most part I’m able to keep it in check, I’m able to contain it.

But recently, I don’t know, the sadness and the injustice of the world are getting to me. The nobility of others are just wearing on my heart, my soul. I feel like I’m nothing, not being able to help. Whatever help that I do, just isn’t enough.

That story of the Iraqi Interpreter from This American Life started it all that day. Then the Japanese Student that found out that her family is OK from the catastrophe from a youtube video.

Things are just setting me off.

The pictures of the devastation is pulling and tugging. What are we to do? What can we do?

The 50 men who are fighting to contain the nuclear problem. The citizens that are trapped in that city, that are marked for death if there is a meltdown. They have accepted their faith.

No fear. Strong. Courageous.

It gives me hope. Humanity actually exists. With people like this, I’m not as worried about the human condition. As long as there are people like this in the world, with each growing generation, there’s hope for our future.

Sometimes, I don’t know.

* * *

It’s known.

I’ve told the friend during a discussion. It was between the two, but you edged out. You were the easier one to talk to.

* * *

With all the feelings that I’m feeling, with being in an extra sensitive and emotional state, I wonder how I am going to be when May rolls around. Will I be in a funk worse than I’ve been or will I be able to handle it?

Last year was actually a really tough time for me for some odd reason. I’m not sure why last year was more so than many other years, but it was.

I just hope that I’m able to pull myself together and just manage. Hopefully.

I know, honestly, that I won’t be fixed. I know, honestly, that there’s no healing from his death. There’s just coping and knowing that I miss him and that he’ll always be on my mind.

That’s just all I have and that’s all I can do. Not much else.

I certainly hope that that is enough. Please be enough.

Not even 32, as it creeps up on me slowly day by day. The count is less than a month away, and here I am, facing my midlife crisis. Maybe it is my midlife crisis. Maybe it’s just another crisis of the heart that I’m prone to do from time to time.

The long lingering thought of thoughts on that one that could is constantly on my mind. I don’t know what to do.

I have no idea what to do. It’s been said and said and the gesture is made, but I have no idea how to move forward. I should just be straightforward. Enough of the games. Sure there will be disappointment, sure there will be pain, but isn’t there that already?

Just counting the days I guess. Counting the numbers down slowly, one by one.

As the sunrises, the countdown clock ticks another day off in the calendar.

Sure, there have been many changes in me in this short year already and changes from the last age jump, but how am I acting on it?

* * *

Tired.

I’m tired of this. I’m tired of who I am when it comes to this. Why can’t I change?

Is it true?

Destined.

Alone.

It feels that I am. The lonely INFJ, the rarest of all personality profiles.

No wonder, for the most part why I can’t really find a connection to the population at whole. I’m an odd trip that can’t connect with most people.

Lost, wandering alone. Me and my baggage with my trusty dog by my side.

That’s all I see for now. That’s how I see my life.

I just need to focus on work. I just need to focus on work to get my mind off of things. I need to write out this loneliness, this isolation and hopefully, once out of my system, I can see something other than this.

Maybe the novella will help me. It deals with what I need to figure out…….

* * *

Sigh.

During this time, when the world at large is in need of something good, here I am, dwelling on the personal. Here I am, being the selfish being that I know I am.

But all in all, I don’t know what I am anymore. I don’t know what I want anymore. I don’t think I ever really knew what I want.

So, why am I doing this? Why am I stressing?

I want to be alone. Yes. I want to have that love. Yes. But I can’t have both. It’s just an impossibility for that to happen.

I just don’t know much of anything anymore.

I think I will just go through that cycle again of letting life be and not pursue anything at all. I should just play it safe and just play it slow and just play it away from everything and everyone that I know.

Tired eyes with a tired smile.

As in a way I drank my sorrows away, focusing my attention on something and someone else yesterday.

Drinking my sorrows away as I didn’t think about her at all.

Drinking my sorrows away as I was just in the moment, focusing on someone other than her.

If it is truly meant to be, if it is truly who I should be with, shouldn’t she be constantly on my mind even though I’m with someone else?

Shouldn’t the Pak friend not be barging her way into my mindscape either?

So cute. So adorable.

Sigh.

Pathetic.

Backing off, backing back.

Nothing else to do, nothing much more to say. Nothing nothing.

Hopefully I’ll get to a point this year where it really isn’t necessary.

* * *

Time.

Time flies yet stands so still today.

It ticks by and ticks by at a altered pace that I haven’t felt in a long time. Maybe it is a matter of being in this semi-recovering-inebriation of my mind and soul, slowly putting things back as best it can to the proper place where things should be.

My heart.

Pieces.

My brain.

Mush.

My soul.

Lost.

Strong and confident.

Bold and nonchalant.

These are things that I kind of see in myself and there are times where it just comes out, but it just doesn’t seem that way now.

Where these qualities are, it certainly isn’t here with me now. It has crawled back into the shell, hiding until I am ready to present it again.

Whenever that is.

* * *

Sigh.

Signs.

Let’s be honest. Let’s be true.

All false pretenses aside.

What is it that I want? What is it that I need? What works for me? What doesn’t?

Answers: Pending. I really don’t know.

It’s done and done.  Done and done.

Whatever it is that I thought was going to happen, happened.  Whatever that was my imagination of the fruitfulness of my gesture never came close to what it is that was in reality. 

Reality directed it to a totally different aspect that I was dreading.  It was the reality of 500 Days of Summer. 

It was that indeed.

Sweet.

Thoughtful.

That’s what I am.  That’s my nature.  There’s no fighting it.  Why don’t I embrace it?  Why don’t I?

In a way I do.  I am nice, thoughtful, and sweet. 

Perfect qualities that women do claim to have a desire, a burning for.  Something that they seek for in that one special someone.

Then why is it that this little grain of truth is never actually reflected in reality?

I guess in some ways.  Things just don’t happen that way.

My sweetness maybe is too sweet for this one girl’s taste and just totally perfect for another’s, but unfortunately it’s perfection for the wrong girl. 

I don’t know what it is.  I don’t know what to do.

I just know that a disappointment and a ennui is settling in me.  What am I to do?

What can I do?

Can I just tell my heart to just stop beating?  To stop pining?  To just stop yearning for that special desires of finding that top top one?  I don’t that is possible at all.  It’s just a stupid pipe dream.

Sigh.

What is a man to do?

What can he do?

You give it everything.  You gave it your all. 

I’m not the most subtle person.  I do really believe that my intentions were clear, albeit on the quiet side, but there is no reason, none, to interpret it in a totally different way than what was intended.

Sure, in a way, I do wish that she does go about and pursue her dreams.  But in another way she sees this as a gesture that it was meant to be; a declaration of intention, a declaration of my heart.

Maybe I’m just coming on strong.  Maybe.  I just don’t know.

I think I’m just going to put my heart at rest for a while.  I think I just need to focus and these little pangs of the heart is just distracting me from doing what ever it is that I need to set my mind on.

Focus.  No more love.  No more life.  No more girls.

My cave is my life.  My home is my life.  My finger tappings to the rhythmic thumpings of melody should be the only thing that I should focus on.

I have many projects that I need to focus on.  Many declarations of my mind, of my heart that I need to get out of this poor unhealthy system of mine.

I don’t know what it is with me.   Maybe I am just cursed.  Maybe I’m just paying back whatever karmic debt that I’ve built up early in life or even in my previous lives.

*                 *                 *

Bolder.

Maybe it was just a false sense of confidence, a false sense of security that made me do the bold gesture that I did.  I did it with thought, but in the end, I don’t know.  I guess I just didn’t think things through enough.

I didn’t know.  I never know, and even know, when I think I’m 100% sure that it isn’t what it is, I still don’t know what to believe.

Where did I get it from?  When did it just made me click and say, "hey, I think I’m going to do this and I’m going to get something really special out of it?"  When?

I don’t know.

It’s this growing sense of optimism that is slowly growing in me.  It’s this foolish sense of boldness that needs to be slapped out of my system and bring me back to the insecure dope that I truly once was.

At least then I know I won’t set myself up for disappointment.

Maybe the Perfronian is right and that I should just go along with things and not think about what is right and wrong and just do things that might actually benefit me.  If it means hitting on or working someone that has someone, don’t worry about it and just do it.

I don’t know.

Damn my moral sense.  I really do wonder from time to time where it comes from.

Where is this dignified sense of righteousness come from?  From my family?  From Dad?

I don’t know, but it really does seem like it is really chapping my hide. 

I just don’t know anymore.  I don’t know anything anymore and it is becoming crystal clear that I will never know or get a clue.

*                 *                 *

Thanks.

A big THANK YOU SO MUCH.

It was thoughtful and sweet.  I am thoughtful and sweet.  I meant it to be very thoughtful and I guess it was sweet.  I didn’t have to do it.  Not at all.

Even a unintended stranger said it was a very sweet thing that I did.  A very sweet and thoughtful.

I guess those two words will forever define me as a person.  I am a utmost thoughtful and sweet person.

Fuck my life.

Sigh.

Bitter.

I’m just musing on and on about my bitterness about how things are just how they are and there really isn’t anything that I can help to change that?

My sweetness and thoughtfulness, my nice-ness is not a by product of actions but it is deeply ingrained in my character, my nature.  It is basically who I am.  There’s no changing these strips and dots that I have.

None at all. 

It is me. All me. 

Me.

What good is it if I can’t get what ever it is that I want out of it.  Sure I do get that overwhelming sense of yes, I am a good person.  I do do the right things.  I’m righteous. 

But those intrinsic rewards don’t carry much weight when I want something else, something that may eventually rock the very foundations of my soul.  Love.  Affection.  Warmth.

The cheesy love of a lifetime. 

Sign.

It is what it is and forever will be what it is.

I just need to stop and distance myself from everything.  I just need to cut my loses and leave my heart at home to drown in the sorrows and become the robot that I know that I can be.  Cold and steeled. 

Distant. 

I know I can do it and I must do it.

I need to stop feeling.

*                 *                 *

Watching.  Keeping my distance.  Staying out of your way as you just go about as you normally would, enjoying your night, your special night.

I silently wonder what it is that you truly think of me and my gesture.  What do you think were my intentions?

As I just listlessly pine away and chat along with the others to keep myself busy, to keep my mind off of the tremendous mistake that I have made.

I don’t know.  I can never know and that’s something that I will never learn.

I just need to finally accept that.  To own it.  My flaws.

Another flaw, the denseness of my ignorance when it comes to the Y chromosomes. 

It’s a mystery to me.  I’m no Sherlock.  I’m not Watson.  I’m not even a Magoo.

But eventually life goes on.  I will go on.  Things will practically be the same.  It has to be. 

Nothing has really changed.  Nothing at all.

We are still at the same place as we both were before everything started.

She knows me as the sweet and thoughtful guy.

I know her as the sweet and thoughtful girl.

How funny things are.

Will things ever be different? 

Will my life ever be different?

It just seems I’m finding myself tumbling along in this sick cycle of pining, acting, confusion, disappointment, overall sadness, and then back to pining again with someone else.

I honestly do need help.

Too funny.

Life.

It’s a funny thing.

Love. 

It’s a funny thing.

Here it goes, here it plays. The ding dongs of the bell is ringing in my ears and I’m not sure what to make of it. I’m not sure what will come of it.

As we go about out little “dates”, going about our usual convos things are building up.

I still can’t tell whether this Miss is actually interested or actually nice, but all things points to her being interested. I mean, c’mon, what else would prompt her to spend that much time talking with me, and just letting me hold her hand and such.

Sorry for the lil’ emo diatribe, but it’s been a while since I’ve blogged my blog. So, for my first one back, might as well make one worth it.

Bought and bought, as I hide my intentions of my little gift for the Miss.

I think it is as thoughtful as I’ve ever been when it comes to my gift giving. Hopefully she’ll like it and enjoy it for what it is, or will be, a thoughtful gift from me to her.

Little bouts and flourishes of flirtations that transpire between the two of us. The little smiles and glowing glows that she shines my way as I say something that she thinks is cute or something that just strikes her fancy. The little laughs that she does when I tease her like I usually do.

Ahhh…am I in it again? Am I there again with this situation of situations that I can never put my finger on?

I think I am in that uncharted uncomfortable frustrating territory of not knowing what it is that I’m doing but I’m just doing for the sake of doing hoping that what I’m doing is the best approach on how things should be doing.

Overall, when it comes to it, it just seems that the decision is easier and easier to make. The things that I want, or was unsure about is becoming clearer and clearer. Out of the two, it is the Miss that I want.

Sure, there are still little things here and there for the Lady with the Emoness. I’ll still have that friendship with her as she is becoming easier and easier to talk to as she trust me more and more. But I don’t know what it is that I have with her or anyone. I just don’t know much of anything but I do know that I’m acting and will act with my gut and the initial steps has been taken.

I guess it is the usual game of wait and see, wait and see and see where things go and how things will happen.

The waiting game. A game I really don’t want to play.

Urg. Urg indeed.

A week. A week and I’ll know what the what is with the what. A week. A long long time in a world where anticipation is evil.

But at least, afterwards, I will know what the what.

And isn’t that what this is all about? To know what her feelings are for me?

* * *

Working working. Focusing. Actually focusing and working, thinking.

So far, this year has been a little more different from the year before. It has been a little more ambitious in terms of writing. I’m actually thinking of writing, rewriting, and creating something new. Everything.

The year has only started, but I’m getting that bug again, that bug to just do it. The bug to just focus, sit down, and write. To create. To redo.

In my mind, I am already thinking about a rewrite for Sum of Love and also thinking about the logistics about a new script. This one will be based around my family’s escape from communist Vietnam and how we eventually got to America.

Throughout the years, listening to the stories of the past from family in the older generations, I’ve only gotten pieces and snippets of the whole ordeal. I never got the whole picture and I never really understood why I never asked how everything transpired. I finally got down to asking mom because I wasn’t sure of how certain things happened, and there seems to be a lot that I just didn’t know about.

Maybe it is all the SharePoint work that I’m doing but it is helping me put my brain to use like it hasn’t been done before in a long long time. Maybe that is the reason why I’m aching to do more of the writing, trying to be focus about it too.

I don’t know what it is but it is definitely in the right direction that I want my life, at this moment, to move towards. Actually creating, having another creative outlet other than my photography.

I think it is good to me as it helps me not think about other things, like girls, and relationships. It just helps me focus on my life and my work.

Good good.

* * *

I don’t know what has gotten into me. Maybe it is just the natural progression of who I am and my confidence and I just being comfortable in my skin, but it just seems I’m becoming more and more bold when it comes to girls.

Or maybe it is just a matter of being comfortable with the different girls I’m talking to.

I’m talking and joking with girls that I usually wouldn’t be able to before, like the Month. Starting new flirtations with others like Clease with the ease. I don’t know what it is, but it feels good.

Things are just getting easier and easier in the social front for the most part and that is something that I really needed and wanted for so long now. It’s finally happening and finally here.

Maybe I’m doing what I’m preaching and that is love yourself. Get comfortable in your skin. Just let things be, grow.

I don’t know what it is, but I can obviously see a change in myself that I know wasn’t there a short whiles ago.

* * *

It’s hard to focus with the lingering feelings of the nyquil that is in me.

Trying to rest and sleep, feeling out of it as I can’t just adjust my mind to anything currently.

Whenever I think I am there, I am healthy, ready and willing to put in the work and the effort to just do work and focus, something comes and knocks me back to my place.

I don’t know what it is but it surely feels that I haven’t been any kind of healthy in a long time.

Maybe it is the lack of exercise and I am really out of shape. I’m not strong…physically. I’m not healthy…physically.

I should be a strong and refined specimen of health, but I am not. I am only what I am and that is a lazy being that should be exercising.

The weather overall is nice for my morning runs, but it is just too damn cold outside for me.

It’s kind of funny that it finally took about 9-10 years for my body to acclimatize to SoCal. I never had a problem with the weather before. I never had a problem with this “coolness” that we are having. But now, it just seems that things are just cold.

Maybe it is just cold. It is a cold time during our seasons here.

I don’t know.

It could always just be because I’ve always had a problem with the cold and the heat. Things just has to be perfect for me to be comfortable and things just aren’t right now.

I know I need to just get back into shape. Hoping that the weather gets warmer so I can go hiking…go running…and maybe get off my ass and do the exercises that I told myself that I was going to do.

We’ll see.

< *>

Life..it’s coming together. It’s working together with the cosmos and syncing up to how things should be.

It’s been a long long journey.

It’s been a long and bumpy road that smoothed out in the past couple of years.

It’s been good for a while now.

A lot of things has just melted away. A lot of things has just been working for me.

I see that things don’t upset me much anymore. Most things that do is my doing, my frustration of not being able to figure some things out. That’s not a really a bad thing. No, not at all.

It is a good thing to be frustrated by things that I can’t figure out. It keeps me motivated to be able to figure it out. If it comes to the matter of finding out that currently, the frustration can’t be fixed because of my limited abilities, then I’m okay with it.

If it is something that I can’t fix even though I have the means and the knowledge to fix it, then something is definitely wrong with me.

* * *

Is it possible that I just can’t write anything…or to say that I can’t write anything when I’m happy? Does it only happen when I’m damaged…severely damaged?

I mean, I’m damaged. I know I am.

I have a lot of deep rooted issues that will never sort itself out anytime soon.

There are missing pieces in my heart, irreparable damage to my heart, but is that not enough for me to write with the same fervor that I have before?

During those late night diatribes of yester year, before I got Pickles and started my rehabilitation into the man before you today? Writing came with ease. I had a steady schedule of what to write, when to write, and the words came easy. The finger tapping of music came with a steady cadence that never faltered.

But now, things are different. I would like to say it is just a matter of being out of practice, but is it really a matter of being out of practice?

I mean, I love the writing experience. I have grown to love it. The thinking through the problems, and even free writing, the flow of words and sentences that will eventually flow into something that is a lyrical nonsense of tongue twisters that makes my giddiness of creation feel awesomeness.

Things are different now. Things are difficult now.

Even as I type ahead, not looking back, but thinking back to the earlier sentence…I have no idea what I’m writing. Things just don’t make sense.

There’s a small part of me that hates myself, or find it frustrating that I can’t do this with ease anymore. There’s a huge part of me that is glad that I am fixed and better than when I was before, but I don’t know.

I miss being able to just rant and rant and rant and have things become good.

Focus.

Is that really it?

Is that the thing that is holding me back? I’m not focused. Things are just off the wall, anything goes? I don’t know what it is.

Last year was a year when I visited my family quite often. Some of it was unplanned of course with the death of 3rd uncle, but the rest was pretty much planned.

From these visits I’ve collected a few more tid bits about my family’s history.

The first was about my family’s dog back in Vietnam, Phuc Ma.

I’m not sure what kind of dog it was, but it was a mutt and it was brindle.

The story of him came up because I brought Pickles up for 2nd auntie’s memorial back in August.

Again, family loved Pickles and can’t believe how well behaved he is. Big Auntie kept mentioning that he looks a lot like Phuc Ma and that’s when story time happened.

It was then cleared that there are similarities in looks between Pickles and Phuc Ma, but they didn’t exactly look like each other.

But Phuc Ma was a great dog. My grandpa’s dog. He’ll always accompany my grandpa to and back from the farm. He’ll stand guard outside the house and what not. He knows where 2nd Uncle lives too.

He’s just a great dog and it seems everyone loved him too.

The sad thing is that when they all picked up roots and left Vietnam, they had to leave Phuc Ma behind.

And that’s when there’s a sad turn in the story.

Because Vietnam was so poor during that time, there really wasn’t much to eat, so they do actually have to eat dogs.

I forgot who it was that went back to visit Vietnam, but he asked about the dogs that his family had.

It seems that the dogs that were on the farm were stolen and either were eaten or kept as pets. Let’s hope for the latter. But Phuc Ma wasn’t either.

It seemed that he was so loyal and loved the family so much, he’s gone mad. He was stricken with fear when he couldn’t find his beloved family. He’ll search my grandpa’s house and my uncle’s house. Always back and forth, forth and back, hoping that the family would show up. But they never did.

It seems no one stolen him to eat because he’s gone mad. I guess he died a sad and lonely death. I don’t know what happened.

It’s so sad and tragic at what happened. He sounds like he was a great fucking dog, a loyal dog. It’s just sad what had to happen.

The one thing that struck me as odd about family was that hearing them wax poetic about this beloved best friend, it seems that they all loved dogs. I just don’t understand why they didn’t want to get one as a pet.

I mean, watching and seeing how mom treats Pickles, it does genuinely seem like she likes him.

I still remember a cute thing that happened while I was up there, besides Pickles walking further away from family while they were talking about him. He doesn’t like to be talked about and he knows when he is. Too funny.

But no, the one thing that I’ll always remember is the night after the memorial, I came home late from dinner and mom and big auntie were already home already. The first thing that Pickles did when he got into the house was walk to the living room where mom and big auntie were sitting and said hi before he went upstairs.

That’s just too cute.

Another tidbit of information that I learned over winter break while speaking with Loretta was about what sister thought about the family portraits and Pickles. Apparently Loretta was showing sister the pictures I took and sister made a remark that the only thing missing from the family portrait was Pickles. When I heard this, I was surprised. I was surprised that she didn’t’ say Van.

I love my dog and I’m glad that my family loves my dog.

* * *

Out of all my uncles, it is only 7th uncle that doesn’t have any kids. I always found it weird that he didn’t and every time I ask my grandma why he doesn’t, she’ll always say it’s because 7th auntie was too old.

I believe she’s about 10 years older than my uncle, but still, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have any children.

It wasn’t until 3rd uncle’s funeral that I learned the truth.

Apparently, 7th uncle and auntie did have a child. He would have been as old as Kiety if he was still alive today.

He died during child birth, and it is a sad story.

At that time 7th uncle and auntie lived in the city away from the family. They lived in an apartment building and they were three floors up. This was her first pregnancy.

When her contractions came, she didn’t know that she was in labor. She thought she had a stomach ache. If she was around family, they would have known that she’s in labor and they would have her deliver.

Unfortunately, 7th auntie didn’t know. Again, she thought she had a stomach ache and had to go to the bathroom.

With this, I’m still not quite sure, but at that time, the bathrooms were these holes out pack in the patio or just a hole down to the outside of the building. She was crouching over the whole, pushing, and not knowing. She delivered, pushing the baby out and he fell three stories down.

By the time she realizes what happened, it was too late. I guess she managed to get him back, but he died later.

It’s so sad.

I don’t think she got pregnant ever again. To think, I would have another cousin today if things were different.

So sad indeed.