Mindspace

Worrying Aloud

Checking in with you God. And I remember a time where I would always start here, in my blog with you first before 
A harried morning, and I feel like I have been yelling every morning. Today, the kids did not want to sit in the front seat which is a bad sign. I worry about every member of my family.

Aidan:

• that he isn't eating
• that he isn't growing
• that we are not developing his sports talent more
• or his music lessons
• that we are neglecting him because we are so busy
• that he stays in his room
• that he can't connect with us
  
  

Nally

• that she is overwhelmed with school
• that she is stressed
• that she has no friends or safe person at school
• that we made the wrong decision with Kehillah and PYT
• that is susceptible to peer influence
  
  

Enoch 

• that he is on auto-pilot
• that he is not exploring job options 
  
• that he is drinking more again
  
  

There. It's all out there. And of course with it is the ever present guilt of having a life, a passion, a career and a book I want to launch. I hear the stress of having a mother who is a writer. Yet God I know that that is what I am called to do.

So yesterday, I got a tiny little glimpse of your Providence. Tucked away, in that Hiding Place that I felt so clearly before the world got to me. You pre-paid my peace and this sense of surety that you got me. 

Today you remind me through scripture that there is a season for everything. I feel like perhaps Rachel and Jake might be a Godsend. That they might be Sunday School, tutors, babysitters and family all rolled into one. 
God help me surrender it all like I did yesterday. So beautifully. Help me not feel bad for being a "bad mommy" today. Help us to relax as a family tonight, to the movies, to breakfast tomorrow morning before rehearsal. 

Help me to trust you, that:

Kehillah is the right choice because:

• of the block system
• the teachers are awesome
• because it helps with writing
  
  PYT is perfect because:
• we get to see Sam and Katie
• this is the perfect quarter to do it with the high holidays
• it is exercise and dance gives her confidence

It's a time of transition for all of us. And I am learning to let go and trust that you will show and guide the way. I am so grateful, and even as I watch Buzz, lying there God. Help me to just rest in you.

Thank you for meeting me on this post. I remember why I write, it's because you show up in my writing.

Gratitude List

• Children that are intelligent, conversant and loving. 
• New understanding and respect for husband. Peace about the marriage. Understanding of his love language and praying more intelligently for him.
• Peace about the book and trusting the timing and the ebb and flow of writing.
• Openness to friendship and connection.
• Gorgeous, robust practice
• The loving referral of friends
• The quiet of a beautiful house
• Resources to pay off the vacation
• Peace about where my husband's job is going
• Lovely routines of self care - massage, bar method, nails, hair
• Upcoming structures in place that I will show up and be there for -- conference.
• Inspiration to have an open-ended day on Saturday.

Egg Fast Diet

Day 3 of the Egg Fast Diet. It's been a great routine to come home to. Something about me loves the rules, the structure, the restriction. I swear I would have been anorexic in my past life.
But something about using what is fresh and provided daily thrills me. Knowing that those chickens are finally earning their keep. Figuring out how to make fail-proof hard boiled eggs.
Figuring out different recipes and paring down my groceries. It's been amazing. I haven't eaten beef or meat all week, and I haven't missed it. Egg has been just as satiating. I just need to know if I am allergic to it because I am itchy and I have not eaten any gluten.
It's been fun to feel like I have kept between the lines. Something about knowing that I have followed the rules make me feel accomplished. I am such a sucker for school and structure. 
But thank you. It was such a miracle that I was able to keep to my weight and health while on the cruise. It tells me that I have finally integrated Ketos into my lifestyle.
I am picking up where I left off on the cruise and knocking out those last 10 lbs and I think I can do it. Something about feeling in control of your body is so exhilarating. I want to go jogging with Buzz around the track and feel like I can do it. Walk 5 rounds everyday. 
Help me know if I should continue with Bar method. I figured if I went 3 times I would pay for the visit and I want to go at least for the rest of the week: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
I can feel my body work out and train a lot more with Bar than with Pure Barre. I will miss the cute little studio and California Avenue though.
Who knows what my routine will be like once Nally goes to Kehillah.
Counting the days till school starts.

Blogging

Trying to get back into the feel of blogging God. I feel like typing makes each word so much more committed. I am realizing how scattered I am, and how even from paragraph to paragraph, I am jumpy.
I remember the feeling of being completely focussed when I was blogging everyday and every afternoon. Blogging was like checking into ground zero and putting you first. Now there is meditation and walking and so many other things.
Thank you for my life. I feel so grateful. I feel like I've come such a long way. Yesterday, sitting across from Diana, I felt her energy so different. Or maybe I am different, I am so much more boundaried and guarded. So much less open.
It's hard to connect with people after working all day. To not have to assess or pick up the details and how critical she is, how pacified Ashley feels, how much her eye is surveying. She reminds me of mommy that way.

The Practice

These days, the practice feels like it's own entity. 
It used to be some kind of reflection of me. Whether or not I can do the work, if I can't, if I can take vacation. When it's booming I feel accomplished. When it's not, I feel scarce.
These days, I feel like it's its own company, and I just work for it. I have had so many cancellations this week; and I used to take each one personally. Like I did something wrong. But this week, I just schedule, reschedule appropriately and still I had 18 clients. I feel your hand providing. Even as Stacey steps out and Shabaz terminates therapy. I see you providing new clients to step in. 
I am privileged to work with them all.
It's been lovely to feel like I can finally let go and trust that clients will just show up. To know that I can just be faithful to the calls that are right in front of me. To follow up and be faithful. 

 

Revelations about my book

• The life of a writer sucks.
• It works if you live your life fully.
• It makes you so vulnerable to critique.
• I am so glad I am so many other things first.
• I am going to keep writing and reading.
• I am going to get published and not wait for others to publish me.
• I am going to figure out why God had me sign up for the conference day before my offer to be signed.
• I am going to continue to believe that the book is a symbol of God telling me He is not done with me yet.
• I will model waiting on Him and dreaming with him.

Things I learnt from the Trip

• My husband is so incapacitated when he is so worried about making everyone happy. He worries, is paralyzed with decisions and sets the whole energy off.
• I can choose to find ways to take care of my own needs while on vacation.
• Meditation is an efficient space for me -- to detach from my story. 5 minutes regroup.
• There is a part of me that is locked away from him -- this time it isn't because of resentment or anger anymore. Can't figure out why.
• I got to tell him how disappointed I am with his career process.
• He got to tell me how much he longs for connection but does not know how to make it.
• We connect best somatically. I am done trying to wait for the right words from him.
• I can't do anything when I am hot.
• My body is used to metabolizing fat so much so that I did not put on any weight on the cruise and in Italy.
• I enjoy this peace and quiet as much as Rome.
• My husband needs more scaffolding than I realize, he still cannot ask for what he wants, or figure out what he needs.

Remembering Papa

Today is Papa's anniversary of his passing, and I suddenly thought of what would it be like if he went to Rome with me. To explain all the pictures and paintings, to understand the architecture.
I felt like I had mourned and grieve his passing the entire year before he passed. Today it seems rude to go back there. Watching the Affair, I watch someone completely immersed in grief and unable to pull herself out from under. And I have more compassion for my clients, for their sorrow.
But this morning, it seems hard to look back and say - "What could have been" but I know that I miss him in the moments when I see a good piece of Art or when I need his enthusiasm to fuel my son.
Yet maybe God he exited while it was still good. While my son cannot survey him with the critical eye assessing for integrity and coolness he does his own father. How often Enoch fails his test. I barely do sometimes.
But this morning, I thought of this time last year and how unreal it was. And in retrospect, how much this book was a gift. Morning after morning, I sat in his presence, re-living the memories. The book is a tribute to him. And you can do what you want with it.
 

why am i am writing

I’m writing a book that might get banned in my country. Given the current elections, it might be not be a good thing, since I still hold citizenship and my mother reminds me daily about how valuable a Singapore citizenship is, and how our elections albeit rigged and less entertaining — has resulted in a well run country that just celebrated transitioning from a 3rd world to 1st world country in 50 years.
But I feel pressed to do it.  Especially after 25 years of me immigrating here, after seeking educational asylum in an Ivy League healed two decades of testing, streaming and pressure  — imagine my horror to see what I fled replay itself before my eyes. It’s not the killing fields but it is close. There are no flying bullets, but the weapons are more deadly and subtle,  it happens in the space where it is supposed to be safest and the outcomes show up on the train-tracks.
No one will talk about it. Suicidality sure, educational reform sure, there is research, funding and new alternative schools. But the one issue everyone is skirting around is culture. That it’s happening in the Asian American community. That sure pressure hits 100% of the kids in the high school, but its a completely different brand that hits Asian teens and young adults; and it’s resulting in anxiety, depression but oh they have had that for years, It is resulting in death.
We don’t talk about it for the same reason I feel my book will get banned. That we don’t talk poorly about our parents, we don’t question our elders, we don’t talk back, we don’t question what has worked for centuries — relentless perfectionism, ruthless practice, overwhelming expectations, in a culture that believes praise breeds laziness.
I know because I have these parents in my office as a psychotherapist. They are the only demographic that perceives poor grades are a mental health issue. “Fix my kid” they say “Their grades are falling” It is the only symptom that brings them in my office, and despite harrowing family dynamics, brutal acculturation, heartbreaking marriages — the only outcomes they want from me is “get them into Harvard”
For a while, I could not see Asians as clients. Still raw from the trauma at home, I got PTSD with the slightest whiff of fresh of the boat pressure and aspirations. In their faces, I saw teachers, tutors, parents of classmates. I saw the System I fled.
Then I felt bad, because Asian clients like Asian therapists, and by golly gee there aren’t many of us out there. I figured since I spoke fluent Mandarin, I straddled both cultures, since I had an Education background, since I have “right resume’, since I am technically too fresh off the boat —  i should speak for them. Most importantly I should speak for the kids.
So everyday, for a small portion of the practice, I embark on the daunting task of explaining concepts like attainment, ego strength, self-esteem and resilience to culture not unlike my own. Over and over, I am asked why “This generation of child are so weak!” and why “Trying harder” is not exactly an intervention. I explain learning differences, I coaxed diagnosis. I attempt to de-stigmatize dyslexia, anxiety and depression. I confront the bewilderment and overwhelming grief of why a child with perfect grades would want to kill themselves. I explain the precious commodity of choice that is every Asian American’s birthright given from birth, not after they have fulfilled all their parents’ dreams. 
They are resistant, angry and dismissive. Some of them fire me for tutors. I look in the eyes of the teen and I want to hug them a million times. I pray for the resilience of spirit, that they would get a whiff of what is good, and possible here in America. The air that I got a whiff of all the way in Singapore.
If we don’t recreate Singapore here.

New Space in my Body!

Love this new space in my body God. I love it. The discipline. The cleanness of my diet. It’s amazing how quickly my body falls into it. I am such a disciplined person. I crave routine, uniforms, rituals. Rigid and small plans so that I don’t have to think. How i love that i don’t crave sugar anymore. That yesterday, the thought of just sweetness in my mouth made me sick at desert. How I am so much more aware of how clean and alert my mind is in the morning. How i want to be that way with my words and my writing. 
Thank you God. I feel so lucky to be able to have the resources to spend on these supplements. To feel the energy and discipline. I feel like I would have been a really good eating disorder kind of person. I love the control and the knowledge that I am doing something good for my body. That I am eating cleanly and healthily. 
I want to lose the 15 lbs I went on the ship with 15 years ago. Last night I woke up and I weighed myself in my sleep. Every glance on the scale is so rewarding. I am just thrilled to be losing weight at all. People are noticing. Between my waist trainer, the supplements, the fasting, the break from sugar — i am finally moving the scales and I am so grateful to have a part of my life back that I hadn’t had in a while. It’s got to be the best part of turning 44. I will have this done by 45.
Woke up this morning God plagued by my book again. I am so sad about it, it’s hard to talk about and I refuse to write to Sean. But this morning, you told me write an article instead. Get an article published in the local newspaper instead. Try the local news, because it is LOCAL. That felt hopeful for the first time, i felt like i was able to put something into the world that is worth writing about.
In the meantime, you tell me you are wildly proud of me. I have been a good stewart. My job was to write the book not market it or sell it. That is your job. Help me to rest in the feeling that I am doing exactly what you want.

Keto Diet

Day 15 on the Keto diet, it's not for everyone. It's not the cure-all but I am so grateful for it as a means to help out my intermittent fasting. Yesterday, I looked at our stash and I said, if I had bought it all for us, it would be worth it. It has helped me lose weight for the first time in 15 years. I am so grateful. My gas is down, yesterday I ate for the first time 2x a day and sugar for the first time and I got all snippity and snappity. I crashed in the afternoon for the first time in 2 weeks, I felt gassy and started farting. It is amazing how much I eliminate just by eating less.
It was good to be able to resist the desert table, and notice that I didn't crave the food. I felt good to simply eat fruit and chips. 
Love the discipline, the structure, the clean-ness. 
Decided God that I wasn't going to hard sell this product. That whoever wants to buy it, buys it. And it is a discount for us. The kids don't like it and it's just Enoch and I. I think we have enough for a couple of months. 
We feel blessed to have the means to try it out.

Proud of Tweens

Such a beautiful night God. I feel us falling into the rhythms of parenting that I imagined when we first go married. Us taking turns with the kids, us doing whatever it takes, our devotion, our care unquestioned. The kids are realizing that they can count on both of us for help. They are leveraging his gifts. It's lovely to see, and I have to remember that at the end of the day, their relationship is the most important. I finally a part of me relax and acknowledge that every minute they are making memories, whether or not they are the kind of memories I think they should have. I feel my mother's perfectionism show up in THE WAY of parenting I think they should have.
I tell my mother about the "training" I have, how i am learning, that I get so fixated on how things SHOULD BE, i cannot solve any problems in the present. For that, I am so grateful for my husband.
The kids are doing so well. It's one of those moments at the end of the year when I am so grateful for all you have seen us through. 
Aidan had a tough year with his first year out of Yew Chung, and those early months were heart breaking. But it's heart warming to see him come through, to make connections with all the right people and to see them think well of him.
Yesterday, Enoch and I marveled at how we managed to raise such grounded kids. How they do us so proud in the things that matter, that they are kind, considerate, loving kids who have hearts of compassion and can connect and include. 
Aidan is not one THOSE kids. Natalie has survived being an outsider. 
Watching Natalie at the spring concert and noticing how poised she is. How much she's grown. She is the "LeeAnn" of 6th grade. I am floored, utterly grateful for her progress. I am so grateful God for you holding me during the first 2 years of middle school. Those were hard years and there were many people holding me. Keys was the perfect space.
Aidan handled the change beautifully. Next year it will be his turn to carve out a space for himself. Just as Natalie in high school. And suddenly, I am grateful she has made this transition all on her own. That she survive, and know the other side. She is finding herself at PYT, that she is learning confidence, that she is realizing that she just needs to find her own tribe. She is owning what she loves and that is what is going to get her through. 
So yes, this morning, although i am strangely out of touch with my body. Though the Ketos is running through with the caffeine, I want to be grateful. I want to realize just how far I've come. 
I want to accept myself for not being able to write for the last month. For not being focussed and centered. I am going to get on my blog and pound out something everyday as I did those years with the kids. That is going to be my spiritual discipline.

Translating pain culturally

Early on in my career, I received a call from a local Chinese church to come in and give a talk on depression. One of their congregants had ended her life and the church thought that a workshop/talk would be a solution.
I had given countless workshops before on trauma, parenting and relationships. But this particular task of translating depression to a culture which puts a huge stigma on mental health felt daunting. Yet crucially important.
After weeks of toying with the idea. I came up with the metaphor for depression in Asian Culture.
Leprosy.
The congregants sat up. The tension in the room eased. Leprosy. They could deal with leprosy. It was a medical condition. Palpable and physical. It was even in the Bible.
Leprosy is a nerve disease. 
It is the body's inability to feel bad. A malfunction that may bring temporary relief is actually deadly. Without pain, our hands cannot jerk back from a fire, or tend to a foot when we stub in or blink when something gets in our eye. Without these signals, our bodies get infected, we don't get medical help, parts of the body develops gangrene and die. Many lepers go blind and have to amputate parts of their body.
Our culture makes it so that it's hard for us to feel pain.
It's not our fault I tell them. It's what helped us survive. And we have. But unbeknownst to us we are bleeding. Infected. On the brink of losing body parts. On the brink of death. But we can't tell because our culture, our upbringing, how we raise our children, are committed to not feeling pain.
Leprosy is treatable.
It starts with recognizing cuts. Abrasions. Stuff in your eyes. It requires listening to pain and attending to it. It starts with admitting we need help.
As with depression.

I typically leave time in my session for Q and A. "So do you have any questions?"  I asked. Not a single hand went up. I sighed. " Do you have friends with questions ?" I fielded questions for an hour. So the cultural translation continues.

Blue-orange Pill

Baby girl and I had a fight. It was about her meds again and I know it was because I was sitting on my laurels, I was feeling smug because one by one her friends who all have ADD are conceding to meds as they enter High School.
I hear my own voice, the one I use with my clients saying "That is not age appropriate. That is not her stuff to hear." and I wonder if a huge part of today's reaction is to my smugness.
It's so hard. I am not all for taking her meds either. I don't think it is the be-all, end-all of this ADD journey but I do believe that it was a touchpoint, our first glimpse of who she could be, her potential and what we are fighting so hard for her to reclaim.
I'll never forget my father's words regarding this. He too felt the difference when she first went on meds. She was chattier, more engaged, and he said "Is this the grand-daughter, I never knew I had?" It was the first glimpse into a psyche that had always been opaque and cryptic and mysterious.
These days I know opacity takes different forms. The teen years are opaque. And I am holding onto the meds as one sure-fire way of clinging to her. Yet I know in times like these, when she takes the pills, and disappears into a veneer of silence, of disapproval, I have lost her in a way no ADD meds can find her again.
I know this is her journey to take. I sit in front of countless clients struggling with the edges of their own limitations -- depression, bipolar, neurological seizures. And I know the underlying issue underneath their fighting their meds is the desire to be "normal" to be like everyone else. I know how personal this journey is, the interaction of your body and meds. I know the journey is both humbling and humiliating. And I remind myself that this is her journey to own.
And yet, I remember the isolation and hopelessness of being in a similar space -- of realizing in varying and growing degrees of horror that my brain was not the same as everyone else's. The shame, the hopelessness, the discouragement that no matter how hard I work -- I would be left with the same grades, the same shame. 
Today, my daughter is different. She has 8 shades of ADD to pick from 20 different meds, support groups, magazines, special therapists that work with this, schools that can tell she is not showing mastery. Everyone is poised to see her, the way they could not see me.
She won't take her meds.
And I don't want to tell her that I saw how much her father struggled through med school, scoring mean on every exam, when we both knew he was brilliant. How at the end of the day, he had to be a Primary Care doctor when actually he had the hands of a surgeon. All because he couldn't learn the same way.
I want to tell her that I will make sure that it will never happen to her. That I will give my life so that the world will see her potential and that she would never have to fit into a System that doesn't see her.
But she won't take her meds.
And yet You tell me. You who said the brain she has is "fearfully and wonderfully made." You who said that you had a plan for my husband and I anyway, in spite of our learning differences. That they never stood in the way of Your plan for our lives. That instead it gave us compassion, it kept us humble and despite of it, in spite of it and maybe one day I can imagine BECAUSE of it, we are who are today for it.
So today I am left with a little girl who refuses to take an orange and blue pill. And I go back to Step One in every 12-step group I've ever been in -- I admit I am powerless. I turn her over. Her future, her dreams, my dreams and believe that you hold the instruction book to her brain and only you can give it to her.

 

 

 

 

 

10 Lies that will kill the ADD marriage

1. You are not important
2. You are not worth paying attention to.
3. He/She cannot be counted on to keep their word.
4. He/She will not be there for you.
5. He/She does not notice.
6. He/She is holding a grudge
7. He/She knows why you are mad
8. He/She is choosing not to initiate a discussion/reconciliation with you
9. It’s not ok to nag them
10. They are messy because they are inconsiderate
11. They refuse to make decisions because they are immature
12. Everything is always more important than you.
13. If they loved you, they will not be distracted from you.
14. They don’t call you because they are hiding something
15. They don’t tell you because they are hiding something
16. They don’t remember because you are not important

——

The Impact of ADD on Relationship and Marriage

Priority - importance, attention, focus, priority
Object Permanence — reminding
Memory - birthdays, details, secrets, cumulative learning
Decision Making — leadership,
Follow through — responsibility, promise keeping, taken care of 
Awareness — impact on personal growth, evolution, 

Jeffrey's response

Dear Lord,

Cheap thrills, I can hear Tania in the background telling me that I need to be able to do this without the constant encouragement. But Lord, you know it thrills my heart.

Tania:

Thanks for the elaboration. I concur with Sean that not only is it a potentially unique immigrant memoir but that - in my view more important from a marketing/publishing standpoint - rides the current cultural wave/conversation related to American education. Your unique perspective/story on that topic could help you expend much of your current energy and leverage my expertise wisely by focusing more on the proposal and less on a polished manuscript at this stage. Agreed. Of course, I might have a different view once I actually see the proposal. Bring pages from your book, too!

 

I feel like this is really happening. I am so close to the end. I can really see this proposal getting done and sent out this year. All I want to happen is for me to get a contract by the end of the year. Just like the Dr sitting next to me, the next half of the year to be spent writing the book to the tunes of the editors.

Joel Osteen is right. I am set apart. I am not just another writer in the meetup groups trying to get her pages edited, I am almost there. And I see myself writing my thank you page: for every one of my meetup groups, for Mary and Sean, for Katherine and Natalie.

I see myself making a screenplay with Jean Tay.

I see myself possibly collaborating with LKY's daughter.

I see myself getting made a textbook for school. 

I am so excited God.

Suddenly I miss my father. I see myself curling up next to him and brainstorming the way we used to all my A level projects. I miss him, God, I know he would be so proud. Yet I know he is not missing out And for some reason, I don't think he needs to see me like this. Mommy does. 

Yet I know, the day I get an award is the day I am putting his ashes in that necklace and wearing it up there, so he is with me.

So God, cleanse me of all arrogance. Humble me. I am inhaling this beautiful bouquet -- Jeffrey's words, as a gift from you, not Jeffrey. That you are affirming in my heart, that I am on the right track. With Sean, with Jeffrey. I hold it up to my nose and I take a deep breath.

And I imagine who I'd be like a year from now.
If Natalie would be proud of me. 
If Papa would. I know he will be. God please let me feel his pride.

Thank you Lord.

Session with Sean

Such a great coaching session with Sean God.
I always come out of our sessions feeling like yes we can do this! Today, I sense his appreciation and endorsement for my writing in the two pieces I read him.
It was a different kind of compliment, it was the kind you gave to another writer when both of you already know you're good. The kind we gave each other at RISD. " You'll know if you have written something good." " I could not come up with an exercise that made you write this, this is so uniquely you"He loved my LKY piece God, he felt the tenderness and the respect, God he listened so deeply. 
It felt lovely for him to hear me that way.
He thinks I can do it God! And I love how he brings me back to center. He and Natalie, to ground zero, to the writing life, to the process. I hear in him the caution for the business part of it to tear me away from writing. Can I write in the face of marketing?
Thank you for a great session God, just last week on my walk, I had felt despondent. I know you held me in my fears so that I could feel the success I do today. 
Thank you Lord for this process and again, I turn this book over to you!

Natalie 13 years

Dear sweet baby girl,

You amaze me so much these days. Today I handed you your vitamins and among them there was no pill. Yesterday you handed me a report card that showed effort and improvement, way after grades mattered. You showed me that you could do it without the pill. It's been a three-year battle of your learning how your brain worked, of you negotiating your relationship with medicine. Today you proved it and, I agreed, I respected your decision to go without medication.
There was something about the HSPT that kicked in your motivation. You learnt to study, you got used to studying for something. You learnt the value of studying something a little everyday. 
These days I see you with your phone, learning a new word daily and my heart could not be more prouder. It was so worth you studying on your own. It was so worth letting go of tutoring and banging it out on your own. To think for a second, that I would not let you own your own process. 
The littlest thing thrills my heart. The fact that you agreed to try Edamame noodles today. The fact that you loved it, that you are growing up to be such a beautiful, elegant, heart breaker.
The other day you said "It would be good to go to a new school" and I prayed, just like I had prayed everyday before middle school that high school will be the place you find your tribe. Keys was the right place for you, and God confirms that for me daily. But I still wish for you, that best friend, that special group that would love you for who you are.
But just know, these days, I couldn't be more proud of you. I couldn't glow any bigger and wider. I couldn't feel more accomplished when you say "Mom you are so hip." "My friends think you are so hip" " My friends wished their moms were like you" 
I love that you appreciated my text that asked "Are you cold?"
You are my most precious accomplishment. Your attachment is so clear and so strong. I feel so blessed to be your mother.

Rich Learning Experience

Aidan said "F-you" yesterday.
I was trying to get him to clean up the mess he made in our room doing his homework. It was bedtime, he was tired and so quietly and non reactively, he said "F-you."
It was one of those momentous instances where as a mother you know a huge egregious crime has been committed, and you have been waiting for it for so long that it seems unreal that it happened; and I get to practice what I have been "preaching" with my clients. So with an equally quiet tone of voice I said "What you just said was not ok. You need to figure out the consequences for what you said"
We were poised to go skiing this weekend with one of his friends, he was going to kick it off with a Friday night sleepover; and as I measured out all the different ways I can communicate to him the magnitude of his "crime" I told him "One of the consequences is that we may have to forfeit the sleepover" It's a surprise he slept at all.
But the next morning, as we both woke up early and tip-toed each other gingerly. Him knowing that any incremental tone of voice or whiff of entitlement might make stack the odds against him. I took a breath and tried to remember the things I tell my clients. What is at stake here. What is most important? That he used the f-word, that he used it with me? That he broke one of our family values of no swearing?
So i quietly knocked on the door and sat next to him. I told him the real concern and the real issue at hand, isn't coming up with a consequence, but that he addresses the issue of him swearing. 
It was a lovely conversation and I am so grateful I had all of my left brain intact to be present. Because I didn't rage, because I wasn't OFFENDED that he used the word with me, because I wasn't obsessed with retaliating with a consequence that punished him sufficiently -- we were able to talk about what really mattered: What happens when we hang out with people who do things we don't agree with.
" My friends swear mom, but I don't. I just swear in my head" 
"Well, that is kind of dangerous isn't it? We just realized, what you do in your head, you might just do out loud"
"Well what am I suppose to do then?"
"Well, you might want to figure out what you're listening to, or being around, or being exposed to. Because even though I'm proud of you that you're not joining in. It does affect you doesn't it?"
I told him that if he had said it to a teacher, a principal or the police for all that mattered,  that would be really problematic. 
I told him, that today it's foul language, tomorrow, it could be drugs or porn.
"What are you going to do Aidan?"
And with that I walked away thrilled to the bone, that I didn't let anger and retaliation rob my son from such a rich learning experience.

This year at Christmas, I get to have what I never had since all the time I have been living here in the US: all of my family for Christmas. My father’s passing instigated a new preciousness around family time, so when my mother said that she would be spending Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years with us, my aunty and her kids with their kids came as well.
For the first time, I got to spend Christmas with three generations. I usually look at Christmas pictures brimming with family and shudder. Through the years, i had been minimalist, choosing to run away, be by myself through Christmas and New Years. In past years my husband had taken the kids to Cambodia, to Disneyland, away skiing, so I always had the space for the transition of the New Year.
But this year, hosting Christmas and having 15 people over at the house, I felt the bustle and joy of having full family. My husband and I have always loved having people over, but seeing the familiar faces of people that had sat around tables with me growing up — was strangely grounding and indelibly heart warming. It felt strangely rewarding watching them eat, and to see them eat heartily. Knowing this time, I had some part to do with the feeding.
I had been anxious about their visit. Worried that my house would not measure up to 3 generations of immaculate housekeeping. My sister’s house was recently remodeled, living up to the architect’s showcase we grew up with as children. But my house, with my new resolution, to keep a house that my children will not remember spending most of their childhood and their conversations with me about cleaning — it was sorely imperfect and messy.
Truly, anytime I am in a bad mood or when I am raging, it is because this conflictual tussle in me about how my new family’s standards are vs the standards I was raised, bubbles up every now and then. Then, I transform into a raging, nagging, dramatic mother threatening to throw and most oftentimes, I do throw away things that are egregiously “NOT PUT AWAY”
But this trip, as I stressed over the days up to dinner cleaning. Ironically, what I didn’t do was stress about dinner. My aunty’s face filled with anxiety when I told her we wanted to host dinner. “Ah Ee, i told her, if we didn’t cook for you, we cooked for the school” I told her “ This is what we do, we love to cook. Why would we not cook for you?”
So when the day came and when they arrived almost anxiously apologetic, when I told her that this Sunday morning, I had gone to church, had Dim Sum with a friend, went to tea, came home, napped and greeted them. She looked at me with a new look of respect in her eyes and said “You have been delivered….” I laughed.
But this trip, I felt God telling me to simply be proud of who I am. I am not neat, I am not a cleaner. But the people in my house inevitably always feel welcomed and loved. As I watched my cousins play on the floor and the little girls toddle around, as I listened to my uncle  croon on karaoke — I know that this was simply my gift. That I can be present, outside the food, the cleaning, the hosting and really enjoy my guests.
I felt like God was saying my sister inherited my mother’s gift of cleaning and I had inherited her gift of hospitality; and I had further succeeded in breaking three generations’ worth of cleaning anxiety. Sure I bear the rays of disapproval uncomfortably, but I am thrilled to break it for my kids.
So it was lovely. It was so lovely that when they left, I felt so lost. I felt like I needed a reason to congregate, a reason to eat together, a reason to drive down to SF for. Like my father’s wake, the rhythm was lovely. His funeral summoned all of us for 7 days straight, gave us a place to congregate meet and eat. It wasn’t a one off meal that usually happened when I came home from college, it was a rhythm of several days.
So this Christmas, I loved the bustle. I loved the noise and busyness of not just family but extended family. I realize the latter is the default company when you don’t want to plan who to hang out with.