in the interim

in the interim: what happens here? 

"It's the in-between..(where) you can become invisible."- K.W

That's Chicago, from several thousand feet in the air, on a United Airlines flight from the mainland to Hawaii.

I love to travel but hate traveling. Planes are a hassle, you know? All this notwithstanding, I got on a six hour flight from Upolu to O'ahu a few weeks after my mum's funeral. Zero time was spent processing anything - I just went for it. 

Back in January, I was selected for the Resilient Pacific Islands Leaders Fellowship. It's an initiative of the East-West Center, implemented by the Pacific Islands Development Program and hosted at the University of Hawaii. It was a lot of luck, I think, but also good timing. My mum was so excited when I told her, and I'm very glad she at least knew I was about to embark on my first fellowship, before she passed on. She knew I was going to be okay. Mostly. Hah. 

I haven't written anything in here for about five months. What can I say? I've been living and doing and being. It's kind of ridiculous that half a year has already flown by. I've been feeling as though l've been living in some sort of transitional, interim period. I've developed a whole new routine. My house has transformed into a new space altogether - one absent of my mother's mince pasta on Sundays and her sun-dried laundry on Tuesdays. My cousin Samkeyes has come to live with me. According to our Samoan culture, it would be negligent of my extended family to let me live alone (a.k.a independently 😂). I've always had a very great sense of self-sufficiency. I've had to- I took care of both my parents and have paid all the bills since I turned twenty-one. BUT, and I never thought I'd say this, it's been the BEST thing ever having my cousin over. He's got my dad's amazing cooking skills, my mum's love of clean clothes, and our grandmother's storytelling (☕ tea-spilling?) propensity. Having family members is actually wonderful. It's one of those things we don't often take time to truly marvel at. In this chapter of my story I AM (finally) GRATEFUL to be part of a big extended family. Of course, as with all extended families, there'll always be specific people I gel better with than others. And yes- there are some that I still don't see eye -to-eye with. But that's life. A family is essentially a basic social unit. Probably the most basic one there is. Social units are comprised of humans and humans have flaws. Right now, I'm just trying to live the happiest way I know how: simply, honestly, and kindly. What have I learned in this interim? That first and foremost, it's important to be kind to myself. I can show up better for my loved ones, and love them better too, if I love myself. 

I've started reading again- this month's task is to complete Kevin Kwan's sugar-sweet Sex and Vanity. It's my first time reading a contemporary rom-com. I'm both proud and ashamed of that. My reading list is so vast and I've only just found the...COURAGE to venture into this gem of a genre. I'm very pragmatic. And cynical. BUT THIS- wow! It's turning out to be just what I need right now. 

I'll write more about Manoa Valley, all the cute guys I saw, and all the amazing food I had in Hawaii, in my next post. Did that sentence sound vapid? I'm glad. I'm learning, also, to stop taking myself so seriously these days. 

What Do We Say to These Things?

When All Is Said and Done

"Oh Lord, You Know, I'm tired."

This is a blog post full of recycled sentiments. Studded memories. Sentences that don't start. Or end. 

Last week I lost my mum. 

It feels so weird typing that out. She was just here a few days ago, listening to me read some of my old entries out loud. Telling me even the lackluster ones were great. Just being a mum. 

I'm not a caregiver anymore. Caregiving has been a definitive part of my life for so many years. Hospital pharmacy. ER. Ward. Operating Theater. Outpatient clinic. Back and forth, over and over. One of my favorite poets once wrote that repeated things become welts. It's the friction on your knees from too much praying. Or your back hurts from sitting on a cold floor for too many days. 

I'm using for this entry the same quote I used for the previous one. I am tired but I don't know what of. I was tired when there was so much to do and now I am tired when there is nothing to do. No one to wake up every two hours and check on. What am I going to do with all this freedom?

Here's a list of stuff I've been considering:

1. Turn into a mermaid

2. Finish my MA Thesis

3. Go on a blind date. Or any date at all, really. I couldn't date much when I was in the hospital half the time and in my office the other half of that time. 

4. Become a TikToker. Someone told me I should do makeup tutorials or something. In this heat? I have NO tips for ya'll. Just use Matte, please. Only thing that doesn't start running like water off your face after three seconds in the sun. 

5. Enter a beauty pageant...lol. Fat chance. Those are fricken scary if you have anxiety!

6. Get married. Again, another difficult proposition. My finances aren't consenting to THAT right now. Probably won't for the next ten or fifteen years. 

The funeral is in two days and I am trying to tie myself together. Like shoe laces, I think I'll finally master the art of BEING amidst this loss, when all is said and done, and everything has folded back into some kind of normality. Did I tell you guys I only learned to tie my own laces at seventeen? And quite by accident, whilst recalling a Spongebob song called, "Loop-dee-loop and pull"? Yeah. But you never forget those kinds of life skills. Walk in your new shoes a few days, months, years, and you'll get to where you're supposed to be next. It just may hurt a little in the adjustment phase.