Recapping my 20 year reunion

We started this morning with a tour at OLP, my alma mater on Oregon Street. As I stood at the entry gate door, the feeling of being lost hit me, ever slightly. Then I realized that I was no longer that shy quiet girl; today I am a confident woman who has accomplished a lot in her own right. I have traveled the world, I have worked for many biotech companies and I have met the pope. I introduced myself, excused myself for not remembering their names, and we begin to become re-acquainted. The assembly of some 40 girls, who looked the same as when they were in their teens, seems wiser to the world. Lots of them married, with husbands and kids. There was a sense of camaraderie and shared Christian values as we traveled down the halls of villa montemar. The front office was still occupied by the formidable Sr. Dolores and Sr. Joy, the Sisters of Corondolet and across is where the secretary, Ms Prantil still sits. The doors to the drama dept is closed off and replaced with a mural. A new door took us to a room, so modern unrecognizable by me. I remember sitting in the front row for acting class a long time ago. Moving along, we felt nostalgic at the grey metal lockers and the wooden staircases leading to our small and safe classrooms. We went into our old dance studio, our modern chemistry/biology rooms and our newly built gymnasium. We asked about our teachers: Ms. Fegley (my AP English teacher) Ms Wiedower (my chemistry teacher) Ms Carbou (my dance teacher) Ms Herb (my drama teacher). We descended the outside steps to our rally courtyard next to the vending machines and microwave, where we ate many lunches and spent countless afternoons rallying in spirit assemblies overlooking mission valley below. We moved to the new courtyard, where the swimming pool used to be, now adorned with beautiful saintly statue of Mother Mary flanked by well maintained gardens and water fountains. The guide took us to the graduation lawn where we had stood for the final time on that solemn day many many summers ago. She reminded us that at our 50th year reunion we could participate in the at the time current graduating class (we all started counting how old we would be). The path lead us to the chapel, and then our aerial observatory. In this room, we had astronomy and advance math classes. I also had "Justice for Humanity" taught by Sr. Nora; she told us to be leaders, and protect those who could not and follow in the steps of M.Ghandi, N. Mandela, and Mother Teresa. Finally, the tour ended and we had come full circle; it was like reading a novel of Daniel Steel.

what have i done this year 2007?

New job, new boss, new dept, new expectations, new chance.
justin timberlake/pink and keane concerts, True Colors Tour w/ Cyndi Lauper
ski trip with GLS and yosemite bug with Rachael
Kings Canyon Camping with GLS and Sequioa B&B with Y, A, and R.
Horseback riding in Sequoia Park
Baseball game with S, then Colleen and S for 756th hr,
LGBT and Octoberfest baseball games
July 4th @ jude & amphitheater with G and EJ
Napa Valley picnic w J and M
Russian River with S and D
New Dining room, next is Kitchen, with new roof and new fence
Workout Trainer, Yoga, and Swimming lessons
Late nite swim lessons w EJ and Thuy
Ethans birthday pool party and Crystals Monterey Music Camp
20th year High School Reunion at OLP
working on my career, my sensitivity and gentleness towards others

Intimacy

What is intimacy?
Intimacy is linked with feelings of closeness, safety, trust and transparency among partners in a collaborative relationship. Intimacy requires empathy - the ability to stand in the other's shoes and - reading the signs for mood changes. Intimacy is both the ability and the choice to be close, loving, and vulnerable. Intimacy requires identity development.
Emotional intimacy is a dimension of interpersonal intimacy that varies in degree and over time, much like physical intimacy. Emotional intimacy can be observed in terms of verbal and non-verbal communication. The degree of comfort, effectiveness and mutual experience of closeness might indicate emotional intimacy between individuals. Intimate communication is both expressed (e.g. talking) and implied (e.g. friends sitting close on a park bench in silence).

Why do people need intimacy?
To feel loved and connected to another human being. Not to feel lonely.

How do you create intimacy?
Creating Intimacy takes maturity and trust. It is a process of quiet expression: building trust, listening w/o judgment, and sharing life moments and acknowledging it. To look beyond oneself and anticipate the needs of the other person. This kind of love is "other-person" focused. It is giving, rather than self-seeking

Betrayal of intimacy can be a traumatic experience. The person can feel cheated as well as humiliated.

Mother Teresa Words of Wisdom

"How much love did you put into what you did? Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. "

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

"I do not ask for success, I ask for faithfulness, not giving away to coldness, unkindness, or impatience."

"There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough. "

"In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls."

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."

"God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try."

"Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world."

"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. "

"I think I'm more difficult than critical. "

"I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? "

"Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness."

To S

I think its over, whatever started out May 05, 2007, has finally ended on Sept 11, 2007.

In some ways, I am deeply saddened; in other way, relieved the funkyness is over. My heart hurts bec I cared about her. I am alone, but not lonely.
Funk#1: Exploding over dotsie and comparing to other dog
Funk#2: Picking me up late at the airport and acting like its no big deal
Funk#3: Riding in the dyke on bike, not really wanting me
Funk#4: Ego about flirting with Rachael and Robin, before q film
Funk#5: Sab and holding me to tell me my faults
Funk#6: Distancing aug 19
Funk#7: Sillimans swimming
Funk#8: Breaking up by me, following week breakup by S with waiting outside white horse
Funk#9: Breaking up after second counseling session, before and after WDC trip


In the beginning, we were both lonely, craved to be understood and loved. At first, the sexual intimacy, the closeness, the holding of hands, holding of bodies. To wake in the middle of the nite and see her sleeping. To lay next to her, and hear her breathe. We needed companionship and renewal on life. We went to Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay. We went to Women's Weekend, and kayaked down the river. We went to several baseball games, Giants vs Mariners, Giants vs Washington, just to chill and feel alive. We saw each other constantly, missing each other, wanting to be near each other. At some pt, she said i looked like her buddha, and she was God/Jesus.

In her own twisted way: She warned me not to fall in love with her from the very beginning (i.e. not to be intimate with her). She never acknowledge what we had, a brief 4 month relationship. She called us, "single and in couple's counseling". She called me her "pseudo GF". She tells Julia, "You should meet the one i am trying to break up with." And of course, her infamous, "you and I would never be in any "real" relationship." It hurt me so much to hear such words, at times to the point of tears from inside of me. Am I not worth loving? I am merely a possession to her.

Yet, she was willing to let me meet Sylvia and her colleagues. She told me "she loved me," and how important I was to her and how close she felt to me.

Did we connect on any emotional level? Did we really"get" each other? She felt pain and suffereing was her salvation. She thought in order to grow, you need to keep bumping into walls ie conflict. At other times, she felt trapped, scared to commit to another relationship, not wanting to hurt and be hurt again.

She told me how I was a repressed Asian woman. What I told her in confidentiality, she would lash out when she went into one of her rages. She felt i was critical of her, giving her older sister advice. eg with Sab, i told her to leave it alone, and time would heal her. S felt betrayed and not nurtured for her own sad feeling; that i was not empathetic towards her hurt. (From my past experience when one falls in love and it is unrequited love, the in love person is deeply wounded more than the other person. She feels betrayed by this pseudo "I love you", which was thought to be built on friendship and emotional connect. If the other person really was in love with her, she would not have left the relationship. Of course, there has to be something more, physical attraction and mutual respect; S felt like the older sister, not a lover towards sab).

For me, I felt that, like anything in life, we just go for it, and see if it works out. Since we spent so much time together. I wanted to be there for her, to take care of her spiritually and physically. I washed her car, changed her toilet seat, cleaned her house, cooked her dinner, changed the battery on her bike and invested her money. I prayed for her, to see the light, to see how unhealthy her relationships are. Asked her to go to couples counseling, godsake, I would have preferred one-on-one therapy for her only, and resolve some of her problems of childhood resentment and trust issues, feeling of abandonment and desperate need to be loved unconditionally. At times, listening to her, I felt she was lost (maybe i was too quick to judge) with her modular homes, her life plan, her work towards Nobel Peace Prize, and her need to get recognition by title.

As friends, we would need to have the same values -not to steal, lie, or cheat (not there). To feel wanted, loved, and accepted (not there, see above). I needed to know that I could depend on her, day or nite (With the stalker incident and cyst, I felt hurt. She was there but then disappeared. She came down with the note but i had to plead with her). To hear her advice was for my best interest; she would blah blah and I felt her b.s. And what I told her in confidence, I couldnot trust her; she would repeat it to Sylvia or Julia, or use it against me while we were fighting. She judged me as repressed (she says that word a lot). I guess I could NOT trust her, as a friend. In her defense, she did help me with my presentation, organizing it.

When we did talk, we didnt connect. Life, visions, Being, Intimacy, Miracles.

All she wanted was to hear eloquent words, blah blah, without meaning.