The Gift of Time

My memory is not as good as it used to be. I still probably remember more than the average person, and more in the specific areas I choose to remember, but I'm definitely forgetting more these days. Facebook reminded me of a memory from nine years ago during the first year we owned our house. I had actually completely forgotten our house came with a deck, a really ugly deck. 

 

Our house has a roof overhang running along the edge so the raised decking board made the entrance to the deck very low - I believe it was less than 8 ft from wood to wood. This was undesirable and we weren't going to keep it. Mentally, a bit part of my thinking was also I didn't want to keep anything left from the previous owners. We weren't going to keep it, so in the fall when the weather cooled down, we took it apart with our own two hands.

This was what it looked like once we'd gotten rid of all the above-ground parts. My husband and our neighbor eventually pulled each one of those concrete posts up one by one with a farm jack we'd borrowed. 

For a while, sitting on our patio meant this was our view. I used to close my eyes and imagine what I wanted our backyard to look like. I wanted to see a fence that wasn't oxidized. I wanted to see a cozy place to get together. I wanted to see love flourishing. I wanted to see a freeze-frame of life being lived to the fullest. And for a long time, when I opened my eyes, all I saw was an aged fence and some stretch of grass. 

A lot of love has been put into this house. I've blogged about it over the years. You can revisit them at this link if you wish. For the longest time, we put off the outside because it was "less important" than the inside. This was mostly true for a long time until our kids came along. They needed a space to play, a place to be free to run around, and a place to explore. After we had a patio paved in about 1/4 of our yard space, everything else snowballed - the playhouse, the plants, the toys, etc.

I snapped this picture of my children playing outside together one afternoon. Our backyard is not magazine worthy. It's not designed by Joanna Gaines or Shea McGee. And it almost always looks a bit disheveled and awry. But this picture completes my vision from years ago I used to merely imagine with my eyes closed. I love getting to watch my children play together and keep each other company. I love that I can grow herbs, vegetables, and flowers right on my patio. It's so satisfying to be able to walk outside with a pair of kitchen scissors and a bowl and return shortly with freshly cut green onions, basil, or peppers.

As I get older, I'm reminded of the passing time by my greying hair, added wrinkles, and joint aches. It's easy to forget how time can change things for the better, especially when it comes to inanimate or intangible things such as feelings and spaces. Over time, this backyard will continue to evolve, and one day, the playhouse will be gone. One day, the sandbox will be a relic of the past. One day, there will be four adults from our family sitting on this patio enjoying this space together.

That's the hope.

Adult Experiments

One of our wedding gifts from our registry was a rice cooker. Some of my friends from college pooled money together and purchased it for us. We used it for the last ten years and it has been a wonderful part of our household cooking preparation. 

In the last month or so, we realized we were cooking rice every single day. Yes, we naturally consume a lot of rice as part of our weekly meals, but having to cook rice everyday was a bit overkill and excessive. Alas, our little 5-cup rice cooker was no longer making do for our growing family. 

We already own an 8 qt Instant Pot and I've blogged about how we love it. This was the concluding post to  tracking my small appliance usage in 2022. One of the features of the Instant Pot is its rice cooker function. We've actually never tried it, but in the past few weeks, we did, because we were wondering if we needed to purchase a new rice cooker. 

We looked up some recipes online about how to cook rice in an instant pot. This recipe was the starting point of our testing. The recipe itself is fine. If followed correctly, it makes great rice. But there was one main issue with this recipe - you have to stop the cooking at a precise time in order to yield the best rice texture. This means the IP will pressurize, cook for 3 minutes, and then naturally release for 10 minutes. In minutes, this means after approximately 33-35 minutes, you will need to return to the IP and release the rest of the pressure. For our household, it's not always possible for me to be at home and available to stop the cooking after 35 minutes. I love the feature about designated rice cookers where you can keep warm in the appliance for days!

My husband and I experimented with this a few times to see if we could play with the proportions. We tried a shorter cooking time (1 minute) and letting it naturally release longer (we tested up to about 2 hours) and with less water in the recipe. All our tests yielded very mushy, soft rice. Although edible and arguably the same taste, the texture just wasn't right. 

So we came to the conclusion that we need an actual specialized rice cooker to cook our rice because it will cook, finish, and keep warm for days if we needed it to, and the texture of the rice is unaffected. 

So much more counter space...but I will sacrifice 
the space for well-cooked non-babysat rice. 😅

 

Luckily, we found this new 10-cup rice cooker for less than $150 at the time we purchased. The current list price has gone up significantly.  Originally we were looking into the Zojirushi brand which always costs around $200. We ended up deciding on the Cuckoo because it seemed comparable in quality at a lower price point. We'll let time tell us if we made the right decision or not. 

Who knew 20 years after high school we'd still be using constants, variables, and reading results in our own way. 😏

Bubbles

When my mother died, one of my friends asked me if it was weird to visit because I had to "walk over dead people." I told her it wasn't weird because my mother was there. I never thought about going to a cemetery in any other way. 

In the two decades since I said goodbye to her, the plots around have filled up with new stones. I used to walk and read the stones around. I've seen ones for young children. I've seen ones for the elderly, and I've seen ones for all ages between. There's a stone about two grassy plots over for two pianists who died in an accident. I've probably "walked over them" at some point, but I've never thought of it as such.

This summer, I had a sudden urge to want to go visit. I'd picked up flowers a few days before. When my husband saw them, he looked at me quizzically and asked, "Did I forget something? " No, he didn't. But he's right, I've never purchased flowers before. I told him why I bought them and we decided to all go and visit that weekend. 

I had to think of what my kids were going to do. I honestly can't remember if I'd ever brought both my kids to visit. And they were older now and needed some perception of "fun" in order to stave off whiny complaints. So I decided to bring our bubble machine. 

When we got there, we set up the bubble machine for the kids, and I prepped the flowers for the vase. I sat for a while just watching the bubbles float around us in the light breeze. The kids had fun. I sat and felt like my mother was there with us watching the bubbles. Watching my kids twirl around and chase them. It was both so calming and sad. 

My daughter understood why we went. She knows my mother is dead. She understands everything at a factual level. I don't think the emotions have seeped in and they probably won't for a number of years.

Bubbles made a world of difference.

 

At the same time I wish she could physically be next to me watching my life unfold, I remember there's a good chance if my mother were still here, this wouldn't be the life I have. When I'm truly honest with myself, I don't think I'd choose things to be any other way.

Another Cabinet

We have a running joke of tackling one house project a year. In the beginning of the year, we finished our bathroom cabinet. The year trucked on and we didn't think much about doing anything else around the house.

During the summer, I brought up the topic of painting our built-in cabinet located in our breakfast nook to my husband. We had put this off when we originally painted the kitchen cabinets...because the kitchen cabinets were already a monster to tackle and took a lot of time to DIY. This built-in was also located away from the rest of the cabinets so it could stand alone as a piece of furniture. The second reason we put it off was because the top cabinets have glass so you can see into it. This meant a more time-consuming prep and painting process.

We revisited this conversation of painting the cabinet this summer. We talked about painting it white to match the rest of our kitchen. This idea was halted when we realized we'd need to purchase a new gallon of white paint because we didn't have enough leftover in our existing gallon to complete this project. We also discovered the lip which secures the glass will not be able to be painted. So if the cabinet surface was going to be white, the lip underneath the glass would still be wood-colored. That nixed the white paint idea.

We discussed scrapping this project completely due to this hiccup, but then I brought up painting the cabinet in a dark blue paint. This paint was a random $9.00 purchase from the "oops" paint shelf at Home Depot our first year of living in this house. It's an exterior-grade oil paint, I liked the color, and we originally purchased it to repaint the trim around the windows on our back porch. As we remodeled and replaced exterior patio doors, I continued to use this paint for the doors as well. I even used the same paint to paint over some beige tiles on our window ledge. 

We made the decision to go for it and paint the cabinet blue. Walking into this project, I knew I was going to be the one painting 100%. I actually enjoy painting, and now since getting AirPods, I can knock out a number of audiobooks while painting which makes the entire process a lot of fun for me. I will forever remember Me Before You by Jojo Moyes as the book which grounded this entire project. 

Cutting in for this cabinet took hours.

The cabinet box and shelves took two days to complete - one for primer and one for paint. Painting in between all the shelves was the hardest part because none of the shelves in this cabinet are removable. Because of the glass doors on top, I had to make sure to cover every nook and cranny including the undersides of every shelf. 

Originally, the project was supposed to start after we returned from our trip. Due to having some extra time, I actually finished the inside paint and primer before we left. This ended up being a much-needed change because the fumes from the oil-based paint were heavy. This was the second time we had used this paint indoors and the fumes this time were probably 2-3x stronger than previously because there was so much more surface area to cover and much more paint used. Coming back from our trip to a non-fume-filled house was a breath of fresh air, literally. 

After our trip, I had to finish painting the doors. This took one day and I was able to paint everything outside.

I spy some creative drop cloth weights. 😅

We finished this project in three days (of actual painting) with a total cost of $0. All the materials we used were purchased from previous projects or reused multiple times. The one expense we did purchase for/because of this project was a gallon of paint thinner. I did that in order to save my $10 Zibra Triangle paint brush from being ruined by oil paint. But the actual cost of this project is still $0.

I absolutely love the finished results.

I'm really happy with the way this project turned out. It's not perfect by any means and there are visible flaws, but for the amount of time spent and the cost of the project, the results far surpassed what I thought could be done. 

My favorite part of completion was actually purchasing risers to display our little trinkets on. My mini snow globe souvenirs can proudly be displayed in the cabinet now.

A sample of my snow globes and global trinkets.

Time-Saving Changes

We recently made a change in the house which has had a huge impact on my day. Years ago, we turned our dining room into a playroom for the kids. They've happily maximized this space and played to their hearts content. However, as time passed, their toys would gradually leave the playmate and infiltrate the rooms around. Any fellow parents out there understand how this works. 

Dealing with this tornado every day I taught was really annoying.

Last weekend, we moved all the toys into a bedroom. The dining room still isn't back to being a regular dining room, but I'm okay with it. We still have a table for the kids to do homework. There's a lamp in the corner with an armchair. And the rest is empty space. You know what? I want to leave it empty.

The styrofoam wanted the spotlight.

We moved all the toys into a bedroom, and I no longer have to corral toys before my afternoon teaching. I really love it. Cleaning up after my kids really stressed me out and made me unhappy. The irony is, the mess looks the same. It's just moved into a different location in the house, one which can be closed off and hidden from view.

This is so much more bearable for me to look at.

See, I'm not kidding. It looks the same, just in a different location. But looking at their toys in my dining room made me resent them. I didn't enjoy the creations my children made. It stressed me out to see everything not put away neatly in the storage containers and clear boxes I purchased specifically to house them. 

But now, when I see their toys in the bedroom, I get excited to see what toys they pull off the shelves to play with. It's fun for my eyes to dart from one area of fun to another. I don't need to destroy their Hot wheels garages constructed out of Magnatiles because they can simply just stay put.

So I'm excited for this year because it means I don't have to do a mad dash of cleaning around my house in the half hour before my students begin arriving for the day. It means I don't have to force my children to disassemble their precious creations. It means I don't have to resent their mess of creativity and entertainment. 

That's Valuable. 

Two Decades of Grey: Here and Now

I took my kids to a dairy camp hosted by Tillamook at a local venue near us recently. The first time I saw it, the free tickets had sold out. Then, I saw the ad again and was able to book my kids and I free tickets. I didn't know what to expect going into the dairy camp because it was only slotted for 30 minutes. Not sure what was going to happen that was so spectacular in a half hour, but I figured it was worth a shot.

We arrived and we walked all the way around the building to locate the entrance. It was a bit deceiving because there were doors on the parking lot side, but they were not the entrance doors. Finally, we entered, checked in, and waited for our adventure.

The dairy camp was fun. My kids were old enough to enjoy it and not too old to be bored by it. The decor was my favorite part. Cheddar snack size portions made up the low walls to designate where to go. Tables were designed as ice cream pints. They had cream cheese blocks and tubs to stack and play with for one activity. The budget spent on design was spot on.

The kids even received cute little Tillamook bags at the end of their adventure. They clung onto them as we browsed the gift shop and in the car on the way home. But as soon as we made it home and got our shoes off, the bags were left in the back hallway. I retrieved them and took them for myself, so it's my cute little tote bag now. 

All in all, it was a fun adventure. Thank you, Tillamook, for hosting such a fun indoor children's activity during the summer. 

An unexpected side to bringing my kids to this dairy camp was discovering more about myself and how I wanted to proceed with my grey hair journey. Originally, I had planned this entire series and written out every story I wanted to share in a specific order. I've shared many of them with you throughout this year on my blog. Then, it came to the final few stories to end my series. That's where I got stuck. I wrote my first draft of this in April. I tried again about a month later. And I tried again this summer. All of those drafts got scrapped because I wasn't happy with the message they conveyed. Part of it was I didn't know what the clear message I wanted to convey was.

At this dairy camp, I found my answer.

***

When we first gathered to go in, the lady rounding us up had grey hair. Her color was completely natural and you could see the greys spread throughout her hair. But her face looked young. Her skin looked young. She had an energy about her which contrasted to the color of her hair. And she was doing her job appealing to this group of young children, working magic to open the secret door to our awaiting adventure. 

That's the person I want to be. As my hair goes ever more grey, I hope I can still exude youth in my face, my words, my personality. It takes an insane amount of self-acceptance to be able to face the world with so many greys at such an early age, but as time passes, I've learned to rest in the confidence. That's not to say I don't have bad days. I have plenty of bad days when I look in the mirror and the reflection staring back at me makes me feel like I'm an old lady. Those are the hard days. There are also good days when I look into the mirror and I feel they're not as pronounced as I thought they were. 

The reality is, both reflections are the same. It's true - different lighting and different hairstyles might look varied, but the hairs on my head are still the same. So the truth of the matter is perspective. 

As I get older each year, my need to "stay young" decreases little by little. After all, we all have to remember, aging is a privilege. It's not something everyone gets to experience either. So this concludes my series on two decades of grey. Writing it was cathartic for me and allowed me to love myself on a whole other spectrum. 

Two Missed Calls

Missed phone calls have given me a soft spot depending on the person and the circumstance. I've written about missed calls before from my past. But this one was different. 

I hadn't looked at my phone in about an hour. It was sitting in my purse while I did other things. As we wrapped up and got ready to go home, my husband started the car and I buckled myself in. I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. The process was instinct now. When I pressed the button and saw the Home Screen light up, chills went down my body.

I had two missed calls from "Donna."

The only "Donna" who has ever meant anything to me was my mother. And on this Sunday afternoon, the first thought that entered my mind was I had missed two calls from my mother. 

It sounds absurd. My mother has been dead for over 20 years. She never had her own cell phone number. I've never even inputted her name or number into my cell phone because I received my first cell phone a year and a half after she died. Why in the world did my mind automatically think that? 

Because at the very core of my being, my mother is still very much a part of my life. No, I don't think about her 24/7. No, my family and I will never see her with our eyes. But a part of her is always with me and I can't change that even if I wanted to. 

***

Yes, I put Donna's number in my phone. She's a government employee I was introduced to and she and I will be getting in touch periodically. When we first met, my mind did register her name being the same as my mother's. That was my conscious thought. But she's not more than someone I need to interact with once a month for a short phone call. I added her name and number to my phone so I wouldn't ignore it thinking it was a spam call. 

When I received these calls from her, it was only the second time we were in touch. And instead of my brain registering her as the government employee whose number I had saved in my phone, my mind took me directly to my mother's name. 

This is what grief looks like 20 years later. The most outlandish thought of having a missed call from my deceased mother supersedes reasonable thought of missing a call from a stranger. 

Iron Chef

About a month and a half ago, I randomly came across a Facebook ad and saw one of the TV chefs I watched as a child was going to be at a nearby Costco. Mentally, I made a note of this time and date and told myself I was going to go. When the day arrived, it was cloudy with impending rain. I debated if I actually wanted to drive across town to catch this chef in person. My kids ended up being slightly antsy but cooperative so we were able to get loaded up and drive over. 

The kids enjoyed their samples and I enjoyed meeting an Iron Chef in person. I've watched so many cooking shows over the years, his included, and this felt too special to pass up. The irony was nobody else there seemed to have any idea who he was. 

Who knew I'd meet an Iron Chef at a Costco. 😆 

A while after this Costco adventure, we turned on the TV, and guess who's cooking show was airing? Yup, Chef Ming Tsai. The kids were excitedly saying they had seen him before and watched his entire show even though that was not the intent of originally turning on the TV. It also just happened he was making salmon on his show and we were thawing salmon for dinner that evening. We decided to spontaneously try his salmon recipe which wasn't bad at all. If I made it again, I think I'd marinate the salmon or add more salt and pepper. Perhaps this was me not following the recipe because I didn't know how salty the sauce would be since it has a lot of strong flavors already. Regardless, it's a recipe I'd try again with or without some amendments. 

This isn't the first recipe from him we've tried. I've altered his 炸酱面 recipe over the years, but his is the one I originally started with many years ago. Cooking is so personal because it's a way of sharing your life, your memories, your flavors, with someone else. It's a way to pass down memories. 

This week, I received my signed copy of my cookbook. I can't wait to rifle through and check out all the recipes and mark some I want to try. 

I loved watching TV as a child growing up. My mother always said, if you're going to watch so much TV, you better have something to show for the programs you watch. I'm proud to say I knew his name before he became an Iron Chef, and hopefully, my cooking skills can justify all the hours I spent watching cooking shows on Saturday afternoon PBS. 😀

Running Power

Nearly 13 years ago, I was probably at the lowest point in my life due to choices I had personally made. So this doesn't include my mother dying because that wasn't in my control. This was in my control, and I was facing it head-on.

The irony of this situation is that less than a month later, I met my future husband. I didn't know he was my future husband at the time. I was a clueless 20-year-old going into my last year at college wondering what in the world I was going to do with the rest of my life after I graduated. He was just a guy sitting across the table from me at a restaurant as we celebrated a mutual friend's birthday. Oh, and I did think he was cute.

But this isn't about him. This isn't about what brought me to the lowest point in my life either. This is about what I did after to bring myself out of the lowest point in my life. This is about a pair of shoes.

My 13-year-old shoes. 

I bought these pair of shoes brand new that fall as I started my third and final year of college. I was highly stressed, very lost, and I had trouble sleeping at night. I found myself lying awake with my thoughts, unable to shut off my brain. So I found a way to use my restless energy. I started running. The loop I ran around campus was approx 1.7 miles. This is the number I calculated based off a rough estimation from reading a campus map and using my AirPods case as a measuring tool. It's probably pretty accurate because I remember it was about a 2 mile run if I didn't take the shortcut.

On top of running, a friend and I would do Insanity workouts at her apartment in the afternoons after class twice a week. I think once, I was crazy enough to do both: an Insanity workout in the afternoon and a run in the evening. Thinking about doing that much exercise now makes my knees want to buckle. I'm 100% sure my body would not be able to handle that today. But at the time, it's exactly what I needed. 

After graduation, these shoes came with me overseas as I moved away for a year. They walked on icy ground. They rode trains with me as I traveled across a foreign country. They bicycled with me over the old city walls of Xi'An. And they came with me when I moved back. 

They got a lot of rest for the nine or so years after. In the last year, I brought them back out and they went biking with me. They took walks with me when I needed to heal my knee. And I finally noticed their wear and tear.

The mesh is tearing at the front corners
and the front of the sole is detaching. 

Earlier this year, I was in the restroom at a Walmart. There was an older lady walking out of one of the stalls. By chance, I happened to be looking toward the floor as I made my way into the restroom. And I noticed her shoes matched mine. The very same pair of shoes from 13 years ago which I'd purchased for myself. Could hers have been 13 years old, too? It's unlikely they were too new because the design and model has long been replaced with newer versions. But I couldn't mistake the color or the design - they were the same. 

It's nearing the time when I will replace this pair of shoes. Part of me is elated to not match the fashion choices of someone twice my age. But part of me is sad because getting rid of these shoes will mean getting rid of the physical history attached to them - the places they've been, the things they've done, the ground they've walked. Yes, my memories will be there, but that will be all. 

This pair of shoes saved me during a very difficult time. And I never knew they had the power to do so.

Clearance Gas

 One morning as we were driving to school, my daughter was looking out the window and told me, "Mommy, gas is on clearance! I see a 166." Now I've been alive long enough to know gas does not go on clearance. Only if there is a signage error is anyone able to get gas for anything close to "clearance" prices. Gas does not go on clearance, ever. But there was a reason she was telling me this, and I knew she could read. So while I was at the stoplight, I looked over toward the gas station and looked everywhere for a clearance sign. I looked at the gas pumps. I looked at the window to the little store. I did not see a clearance sign anywhere. 

The light turned green and I had to move on and keep driving. I told my daughter gas does not go on clearance and the conversation ended. We went to school and that was the last I heard about clearance gas for a few weeks.

After a few weeks, we were stopped at the same light, and again, my daughter told me, "Mommy, look, there's the clearance sign!" I turned to look again. This time, I saw it. Because of where the car was stopped and the angle at which I was now looking at the gas station. I saw the clearance sign. 

Finally, I understood what she was showing me. And then I explained to her what the word clearance means in this context. She's been very familiar with the word clearance in regards to shopping. Mommy looks at the clearance at Lowe's. She looks at the clearance at Kroger. She looks at the clearance at Walmart. She scans aisles for clearance at Sam's Club and Costco. We look at clearance at Michael's. We loved the clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond before they shuttered all physical store locations. Clearance has been a part of her life since she was a newborn. 

But this was the first time she's seen it in regards to height. So I explained to her that certain trucks or vehicles are very tall so they need to know if they can fit underneath. The sign lets the driver know how tall the top is. If the driver's vehicle is taller than that, he/she cannot drive underneath. And that is the second definition of clearance she's now acquainted with. 

I was glad to solve this mystery. 

An Alternate Universe

One of the books I read last year was The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom. It was one of the more unsettling books I'd read by him since I discovered Mitch as an author in my late teens. In it, the characters explore a life between time and experience what's most easily called an alternate universe. 

I think we all catch ourselves thinking about our alternate universes sometimes. What if I married this person instead? What if I had moved to a different state? What if I had made a different decision?

For me, I have many of these in my life. I think about how my life would have been different had I chosen a different major in college. What if I'd gone to a completely different college? My friends would have changed. My career path may have changed or been affected at the very least. My husband may be different because the circumstances which we met would have changed. And we always say had we gone to the same college, we wouldn't have dated or gotten married. I believe it.

We recently visited one of our alma maters with the littles.

I think about how my life would have been different if I had switched piano teachers or even had a different teacher altogether. How would my ability have been affected? Would I play better? Worse? Would I have enjoyed it more? Would I have taken lessons longer? All these possible outcomes are valid, but it's also valid that because of the path I was on, I started accepting accompanying work at the age of 19 beyond doing favors for friends. And although untraditional, it set me up for the career I have now. And I really wouldn't change that. 

The biggest alternate universe I used to toss around was by far the hardest to come to terms with. What if my mother didn't die? It's true that one complexity of my current life now would not be there, and in that aspect, I will always feel a little defeated. However, having my mother in my life would not have simplified everything.

I was able to be my own person in high school because she wasn't around. I proved I had maturity, discipline, responsibility. I was also able to live my life, enjoy parts of childhood and the "fun" of it which I did not before being a primary caregiver, as primary as a minor could be. 

I was able to make decisions and not have to think about someone else. I still remember starting 8th grade and overhearing someone say they thought I had moved because I was not on the yearbook committee as the editor. Everyone thought I was going to be the editor after 7th grade. Everyone on yearbook wanted me to be the editor. But I wasn't even on the committee. I've never told anyone this, but I did not re-apply to be on the yearbook committee after 7th grade. At the time when applications were due, my mother was alive. I had made the decision to stop joining yearbook so I didn't have to stay after school once a week. I was going to go home everyday after school and be with her. And help her. During 8th grade. 

I didn't know she'd be gone before the end of my 7th grade school year. And that's why I was not on the yearbook committee, much less the editor, in 8th grade. After that, I could freely choose which school clubs I wanted to join, what jobs I wanted to take after school, and where I wanted to go. It came at a high cost, indeed, but I had gained certain freedoms which a normal teenager should have been able to experience to some degree. 

When I started dating, I didn't have to get my mother's approval. She would have been a tough cookie to impress. Nobody would have been good enough. She would have said something negative about everyone. Yes, I'm assuming, but I knew my mother. She could have protected me from a lot of hurt. She could have lectured some of the guys I'd dated in the past when they deserved to be lectured. But she may have also held me back from taking risks, taking chances, and ultimately, allowing me to learn and discover for myself. Not having her there put me on the frontline. I felt every punch and jab. But it also meant I could grow stronger. 

I've said before she would have hated the house we bought. I practically hated it myself when we bought it. But you know what? It's turned out to be the best choice we ever made when it came to housing. We love our neighbors. I've blogged multiple times about our neighbors. Just search "neighbor" in the search bar and you'll find a plethora of posts. This one is still my favorite. Our house really is my dream home in many ways. Not all, but many. Because when I come home, I feel comforted. I feel at peace. I feel satisfied. If I didn't like a wall color, I'd notice occasionally. If my shower bothered me, I'd notice it periodically. That's not to say everything is exactly the way I want, but a lot of it is. And the things that aren't are not worth my headspace to fret over. I'm not sure my mother would have been able to see the end result the way we did when we closed on this house. We saw the potential. We saw the future. And we made it a reality. And I'm thankful I didn't have to hear my mother gripe about any of it. 

Today marks 20 years. Just seeing it written out makes my heart sink. The wave of heaviness and emotion still overcome me. And a part of me will forever be sad my mother died so soon. But when I look at the life I'm living today, my job, my husband, my children, my home, myself. 

I wouldn't change any of it. 

Nostalgia

The last time I had a passport photo taken, I was 19 years old. After my husband took some photos, he showed them to me. My first reaction was, man, I look old. Honestly, when I look in the mirror, I don't see myself as old. In fact, I see places in my image which are more beautiful than they were to me a decade or two ago. Are they actually younger? Of course not. But the perception of myself has changed, and that's a good thing. I also have to remind myself. The 19-year-old in my last passport photo did not live abroad for a year away from close friends and family. She didn't get married. She didn't experience two pregnancies and two beautiful babies. And she didn't find her dream job yet. I prefer the woman in the photo who looks "old" because she has experienced so much more out of life.

I put off renewing my passport for years and years. I had even filled out the paperwork once only to put it aside, forget about it, and not do it. I not only needed to renew my passport but I needed a name change. It expired during Covid and there was no pressing need to renew because nobody was traveling internationally with two young children anytime soon. For the longest time, I also did not want to send them my marriage certificate. Would they treat it delicately like I do? Of course not. To them, it's a piece of documentation - a piece of paper with the right information on it. To me? It was the beginning of a new life.

Renewals must be done within five years of the expiration. Otherwise, it will count as a new passport application. I was just under the limit so this was the year to get it done. I filled out the forms, took a photo, sent them my old book as well as my marriage certificate and taped up the envelope.

Believe it or not, there was no line at the post office when I went to send off my renewal. I smirked when I pulled up to the parking lot. 13 years ago, I bet a friend there was a post office at this intersection. He didn't believe me because he knew there was one at the next major intersection - which is true, there is. But, I was also right. There was one at this intersection and when he saw it, he was in disbelief the city would build two post offices one major street away from each other. I don't remember what I won, but the same location is still there after all these years.

It's the same post office my grandparents would go to when they lived here. That's how I knew it existed. I'd been many times with my grandfather running errands, back in the day when bills needed to be paid with a check and mailed off with postage. And here I was, driving with my son, to the very same post office my grandparents used when they lived here. 

As a teenager, the thought of returning to where we grew up felt boring. We wanted to go somewhere else, explore, be adventurous. And if we were lucky, we didn't come back. On the other hand, returning to where we grew up was the easy choice. We knew everything here. We knew people. We knew the streets. We knew the stores. 

Being an actual adult and in the same city where I grew up and went to school, it's a different feeling. It's actually nostalgic and nice. Are there times when it's boring? Yeah. But I can drive familiar places and be reminded of memories - mostly good - and share them with my children. 

There's a donut shop across the street from the post office I went to. In high school, I skipped class exactly one period one time in 12th grade. It was 2nd period, my statistics class. Three of us (from all different classes) went to this donut shop and ate donuts and chatted in the middle of the morning. I would have forgotten about this memory had I not been at the post office across the street. Nothing special happened that morning. We all ended up back at school for 3rd period. But being at this post office was able to bring back that memory for a little bit. 

The elusive post office I've known about for longer than most apparently.

The donut shop is no longer there. It's occupied by some other business now. But this post office still stands in the same spot. And my son got to come with me. 

Two Decades of Grey: Overseas

I kind of got stuck after writing the previous part of this series. Do I know how the story continues? Of course I do. I lived it. But I got stuck because I wasn't sure how to share it in a way which was productive. Honestly, it was symbolic of this period of my life. I didn't love my grey hair, but it was becoming more and more a reality. I was now an adult, learning to live with it, but also still dyeing my hair consistently. 

My husband is not the first person to tell me he doesn't mind my grey hair. But he is the first person  I've believed. He's also the only person who has seen it in its full extent and still looks at me the exact same way. And even then, it took nearly a decade for me to get here. I dyed my hair for the better part of eight years of marriage. 

I wasn't ready to believe it before then. I didn't even  like it myself. How could I believe someone else?

**

When I lived overseas, I'd wake up in the morning and go to my bathroom to get ready in the morning. Because of the lighting of my bathroom - not great - it would appear like my grey hairs were gone. Even when I fussed around my roots, the greys would appear to be colored. I'd have a moment of shock, amazement, hope, and then I'd run to the mirror in a different light, and there they were again. It's like they literally reappeared after disappearing for a moment and tricking me. I still remember that elated, bubbly excited feeling as if something miraculous was happening. And of course the deflating feeling after when I saw them again. 

Even during these moments of false hope, I'd wonder to myself. What was I expecting, a miracle? Sure, it’s possible. I believe God is capable of taking away my grey hairs with the snap of a finger. But will He? I think He has bigger fish to fry. I don't think eliminating my grey hair is high up on His agenda. 

At the same time, if I wanted to give God the chance to perform this miracle, I had to stop hiding. I had to let it be for what it was, and if He ever wants to show Himself in this way, then He has the chance. 

When I lived overseas, it was the first time I saw younger girls with premature grey hair. And then I thought, it must be an Asian thing. So I felt less alone, but I still fit the category of a young Asian with premature grey.  I'd shared about my grey hair with my teammates early on. I even packed myself two boxes of hair dye to bring overseas. Later in the year when my hair was growing and the roots were showing again, one of my teammates even mentioned, "Oh, I thought you were exaggerating when you said you had grey hair. It's actually more than just a few."

Nope, I was not exaggerating. 

**

Having not colored my hair for over a year, I've learned that hair can re-pigment itself over time. Most of the hairs which are grey stay grey at the root. But every now and then, I see a hair that is grey in the middle and dark at the root. If I kept dyeing my hair every month whenever I started to see grey roots, I would have never have seen this for myself with my own hair. 

This is how I know God is capable of changing my hair color if He wanted to. Will He? I don't think so, and it's not because I doubt His power. It's because I understand the choices made as an Almighty Being must be made carefully. Every wish cannot be granted. Every prayer cannot be answered. When you know the ultimate outcome, you know every sequence it will take to get there.

Joy

The first year I tried planting things was more experimental. I wasn't sure what would and wouldn't work. So whatever I got was bonus. Last year I had more confidence being my second year. I had high expectations, and unfortunately, most of them weren't met because the weather didn't cooperate with me. 

This year, I'm growing for the joy of it. Lots of things are growing. I've harvested some sage to grind down to use in my cooking. Everything else is slowly getting into the groove. There's been a lot of covering and uncovering because of multiple cold snaps we've had since our 90 degree February days. But so far, everything is still alive.

That's not to say I haven't failed this year. I've actually "failed" twice already. I got a grow light at the end of last year for my indoor plants. As 2024 started, I was reading about people starting seeds indoors already with their grow lights to get a head start on the season before the temperatures became too hot. What a great idea! I wanted to try it.

My first failed tray of seeds.

Honestly, my set up was okay. My mentality was good. But the execution was not good. I learned grow lights need to be placed mere inches above the top of the seedlings in order to get them to sprout. I learned more about bottom watering and figured out what I did wrong - not only was my grow light not close enough but I kept them covered too long. Mold claimed this tray of seedlings. But it's okay because my pepper seeds are plentiful.

As a result, my pepper plants are behind this year, I think. I finally was able to germinate some sprouts around March 20th but that's pretty late for growing from seed. Oh well, we'll see what happens. 

This year, I don't have expectations. What grows will grow and what dies will die. Am I working hard to protect them and care for them as best I know how? Absolutely. I might be checking the weather more than I'm checking social media. And my husband jokes I pay more attention to my plants than I do him. He's not entirely wrong...but he lives in a climate controlled building with ready-made food for him. My plants live outside and are at the mercy of the weather. 

But there's one key difference in growing things this year. I find it so joyful and I'm recognizing the joy I get from growing my plants. Would it be nice to get a great harvest? Of course. Is it sad and disheartening when things don't produce or grow like I wish? Definitely. But the process of it all excites me and motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. Also because sooner or later we'll reach that point in the year where if you want it to be less than 90 degrees out, you need to beat the sunrise. 

Here's to year three of growing! 🪴

Those Five Words

April 3rd is my daughter's birthday. But before it was my daughter's birthday, it was the day my grandfather died. Last year, I blogged about one of my dad's finer moments. I honestly do appreciate him for the way he responded in that situation, and I will forever remember it as a positive part of my upbringing. However, there were many lows, and potentially, they triumphed the highs.

The days around my grandfather's death may have been one of his lowest parenting moments that still haunts me to this day. 

I found out my grandfather died via email. I checked my email in the mornings before school everyday. It was my routine, something I liked to do before going to school. I also woke up early enough to be able to have luxury time to check my email. Rare for a teenager. And the day my grandfather died, I checked my email in the morning around 7 o'clock and saw it. I went to school in a daze that day, feeling like I didn't belong anywhere I was, even though it was what I was "supposed" to do. 

That evening, my dad received the phone call at dinner. It was brief. After he hung up, he passed on the news to us and told us he'd send flowers.

Send flowers. 

That was the moment I knew we weren't going to the funeral. There would be no buying plane tickets, no flying up, no going to be there with the rest of my family. This was my grandfather, my mother's father, who brought us back presents after every trip he took. This was my grandfather, who picked us up from school and let us stay at his house when my parents were gone getting treatment for my mother  because we had to keep going to school (🙄 I have other thoughts on this. For another time.) This was my grandfather who created a special signal when calling so we knew to pick up before caller ID was invented. This was my grandfather who is the earliest person in my memory who told me I was smart and wise. And I wasn't going to be at his funeral.

The funeral was that Saturday. My dad had other plans for us. He told us about them in the morning. I didn't get ready. When he came upstairs to tell us to get ready and leave, I didn't move. I just sat there fuming. Why aren't we there? It was all I had to ask him. He knew what I was talking about. He knew why I was mad. 

You didn't ask to go. 

These five words haunted me and continue to haunt me 19 years after the fact. Because in these five words, he shifted the responsibility, the burden, the blame onto my 14-year-old shoulders. I didn't ask to go. I didn't say anything. I didn't communicate my wishes. 

This. This was his lowest parenting moment of my life. 

***

As an adult, I understand there was another perspective where had I spoken up and said something, the events which unfolded may have played out very differently. However, there are reasons why I did not speak up when I potentially should have. I wasn't raised that way. 

I grew up learning I needed to follow instructions, do as I was told, and not to ask for unnecessary things or I'd get shot down. Ask for a toy? Rejected. Express my opinion on something? I was wrong. Not agree with an adult? Disowned. This mentality over the course of the years sank in, and I got good at being "good." So when my dad received the phone call and responded to us with simply sending flowers, I didn't verbalize anything I was feeling inside. I was being the "good" child I was taught to be - accepting the decisions of the grown-up. 

And then he blamed me for it. 

My grandfather died on a Wednesday. In the four days to his funeral, I must've grown up about a decade's worth because I rebelled and stood up to my dad for the first time in my life on Saturday. Had it happened four days earlier, the situation would have played out differently. But there's no time for what ifs.

My grandfather died less than a year after my mother died. It was unexpected and sudden. When my mother died, it was like the half of my family related to her began to drift away, too. After all, this wasn't his dad. So it wouldn't have surprised me if he didn't go. But he didn't even ask if we wanted to go. 

I've speculated over the years if my dad selfishly didn't want to go himself, so that meant he wouldn't be taking us. At the same time, maybe he didn't want us flying alone or didn't think we'd want to fly alone so he didn't offer. Perhaps if we mentioned it ourselves, he'd feel less guilty letting us fly alone knowing we were okay with it. 

I'll never know.

***

My relationship with my dad is still hindered and I have no doubt instances like this in my childhood still have an affect today. There's a lot of baggage which needs to be sorted through and hasn't. I don't know if it ever will. My dad isn't the same kind of grandfather to my children as my maternal grandfather was to me. I know he has his own reasons and thoughts. But I can't help but be sad for my children in this regard. 

I know I parent differently and this experience is a big influential factor. I'm trying to spare my children from having memories like these. I know I can't prevent all of them and I will still make mistakes as a parent. But this hindsight helps to hopefully direct their upbringing on a better path, one filled with less resentment and pain. 

I thought about waiting until April 3rd to write this, but that is my daughter's birthday, and honestly, I'd rather remember it as my daughter's birthday. I don't want to forget my grandfather, and I know I won't. But being reminded of this date as the day he died brings back this memory with my dad. I want this memory to lose the heaviness it bears. I cannot control what grief looks like after 19 years. This is a small glimpse of it. Grieving doesn't stop with the number of years which pass. It simply changes. Sometimes, it looks like a random bout of emotion during a wonderful week with my family during spring break. 

And that's okay. 

The Green Life

When I was a child, I composted for the first time. I scooped up dry, dead leaves off the ground with some dirt and put it in a bucket. I left the bucket on our back patio for years. Yes, years. The rain got to it. The elements got to it. It sat out there in an orange bucket for years. One day, my dad needed his bucket for something so he emptied out the contents on the patio and took his bucket away. 

What was left of what it started out as was a cylindrical block of dirt. I can't say it was very nutrient rich or anything because it had both been overly wet and probably dried out due to summer heat, but all the matter that was in it broke down into a giant block of dirt. After that, I've always been fascinated with compost.

In the 7th grade, our science class planted basil in a pot to take home as an activity. My basil died. Last year was the first year I grew my own basil again, and from seed. I will always grow my own basil from now on.

In the 8th grade, I won a raffle. I was at the high school being introduced to their orchestra program, and my name was drawn for the raffle prize. My prize? A rosemary bush from that evening's decoration. I took it home from the event and it sat in my dad's garage. It dried up, died, and all the leaves fell off. Our garage sure smelled good for a while. Thinking about this rosemary bush makes me so sad because I didn't even cut the branches off to dry and use. Rosemary isn't used often in Asian cooking. At the time, I didn't know what to do with it. So this poor bush died without a chance in my dad's garage. The 30-year-old version of me mourns for this rosemary bush.

Gardening and growing plants in general has become a hobby of mine. I've done the outside gardening for a few years now, but in the past year, my attention has shifted to more indoor plants because they can provide joy year round. My husband gifted me with a grow light for Christmas. I now have over 10 indoor plants, 3 of which I have spent money on. The rest have been gifted to me or acquired through our local take a plant/leave a plant group. 

Last year, I bought myself an Aglaonema. The bursts of pink throughout the leaves really captivated me and I was hooked. It has done well in the last five months and I seem to have found an okay spot for it to thrive in our kitchen. 

I haven't named my Aglaonema...maybe I should. Agnes? Angel?

This year, I got ambitious and bought myself a Calathea. These plants are notorious for being difficult to care for and even experienced plantsman have a love-hate relationship with it.  

Meet Callie my Calathea. She was getting her first drink at home. 

I might be posting about my failed attempt at taking care of her....but for now, she's alive and I love checking her out everyday. She lives in our bathroom because after doing my research, I came to the conclusion the most optimal conditions were in there. 

I'll let y'all know if I was being overly ambitious. 🙈

Two Decades of Grey: CVS

I still remember the first time I dyed my hair. I had gotten a temporary one to start because the chemicals are less strong and I wanted to get my feet wet in the art of hair color. I remember getting out of the shower and wringing my hair out in my towel. Bits of color came off onto the towel as I dried my hair, but that was to be expected as it was temporary color. Also, who knows how well I actually rinsed off my hair. I tried. Later, I learned this happens after any kind of coloring. I learned to have designated black t-shirts to dry my hair that first wash. 

When I looked in the mirror, I saw a sea of black hair again, a uniform color with no imperfections. It felt normal. It looked normal. It looked good. And I knew from that moment, I wanted to see my hair colored for as long as I could help it. 

**

I need to insert a caveat here. Had I been 18 years old with the amount of grey hair I had, my opinions may have been different. Had I been 21 years old with the amount of grey hair I had, I may have felt differently. Had I been 25+ years old with the amount of grey hair I had, perhaps I would have done things differently. But I wasn't 25, 21, or even 18. I was 15, in the heart of high school, surrounded by a false impression of the way things "should" have been. And I had already endured at least two years of knowing the extent of what I had and how "abrnomal" it felt. After all, someone actually thought it was more likely for me to have bow hair in my hair at a grocery store...

**

So when I saw my hair colored dark and black, I felt like the teenager I wished I could be. I felt like a person I wanted to be but could not by nature. So I kept it up for the next 16 years. For the first 10 or so, I was dyeing my hair every five weeks to cover the roots, and I always did it myself. I can count the number of times I paid for hair color at the salon on one hand. 

In college, my roommates never knew I dyed my hair for the first two years. My freshman roommate was hardly ever in our room. She'd come back late after I had already fallen asleep most nights and left in the mornings before I awoke. It was easy to color my hair without her knowing and I never had a reason to tell her. During my sophomore year, I'd wake up early on Saturday mornings to dye my hair. My roommate would be asleep, and not many people were awake so I'd have the community bathroom to myself for the most part. It wasn't until my third and final year of college when I moved into an apartment and shared a bathroom with my roommate when I finally shared about my hair dye.  

During those college years, CVS was the place I bought my hair color. I was just using cheap drugstore ammonia-free hair color. Probably not the best thing in the world for my hair, but it was easily accessible and matched my frugal student budget. I could walk across campus, cross the street, and get to CVS. I even looked up the weekly sales online so I knew when the hair color was on sale. 2 boxes for $5. The same hair color is now $3.97 online and the days of 2 for $5 are long gone.

Good ol' CVS.

I have a memory at CVS during one of these shopping trips which I'll never forget. I ran into a boy I'd met through a friend from back home. We hadn't spoken to each other in at least a year. He was just an acquaintance, but he recognized me in the checkout line. As my items were being rang up, he asked me, "Wow, you dye your hair?" I was horrified. Not only had I run into someone I knew, but it was in one of my more vulnerable moments with a secret I had only verbalized to a select few people. 

It was in that moment when the cashier saved me. I was too stunned to speak and my face probably showed everything racing through my mind. But I'll never forget her response. 

You should never ask a girl if she dyes her hair.

At the time, I quickly paid for my things and left the CVS. I don't remember saying anything after hearing that boy ask me such a penetrating question. I don't remember what the cashier at CVS looks like. I only remember feeling like I had to get out of there as fast as I possibly could. 

The older I got, the more I realized how protective her statement was. I so wish I could have remembered the name on her tag or her face, or even the color of her hair. But I don't. I only remember her words, and they will stay with me forever.

This was the first of a few select moments in which I felt supported, protected, and affirmed. As unfortunate as the start of this was from my dad's response that very first conversation we had, there've been many moments which have helped to bring me to the place I am today. Perhaps this was all orchestrated from the beginning to play out in this very way. 

I just never knew it until I lived through it. 

Another Cabinet

We started the year with a project again. It's no surprise, we did the same thing last year. Although this year's project didn't involve any cleaning out, it was motivated by organization and storage.

Since we remodeled our bathroom in 2017, we've had a little niche in the bathroom. Originally, we had a massive storage cabinet and a tiny shower. When we remodeled, we enlarged the shower and stole some space from the original cabinet. We did not put a cabinet back, and instead, were left with this niche. 

It had strange dimensions. 96 inches tall. 24 inches deep. 20 inches wide. For the last six and a half years, we put a shelf in the space, but it didn't fit well, left a lot of unused space on top, and a lot of unused space on the sides. I would always go on random rabbit trails online looking for shelves or cabinets we could use to fill the space. Last winter, we finally committed.

We found a tall, narrow pantry cabinet which had the closest dimensions to our space: 96 x 24 x 18.

Moving this box into our bathroom took some skill.

The actual installation of the cabinet itself was rather quick. The problem was the details. We had a six inch gap at the top and a two inch gap on the sides. The goal was to make this cabinet look built-in, like it belonged perfectly in the space. 

Test-fitting the cabinet. 

As a result, we needed to fill the side, cover it in trim, and somehow figure out a way to fill the gap at the top of the cabinet. We brainstormed ideas to "crown" the top in trim, build an insert to fill the space, or somehow extending the top of the cabinet. In the end, we ended up using a genius trick to fill the space: raise the cabinet up from the bottom. 

We had some existing wood in our garage which hadn't been thrown out during last year's purge for the lift. My husband built a box for the cabinet to sit on and secured the entire cabinet on top of the box.

Much smaller gap, and I painted. We added three extra shelves because the unit
originally came with two. We can now maximize that space in storage.

My husband really detests painting. I've done all our DIY painting projects we've ever done. The only thing he painted was our master bathroom vanity cabinets. I was pregnant at the time so he primed and painted those. The rest? All me, now including this cabinet and three additional shelves we added. 

We added some hardware, reattached the doors, and voila! A built-in cabinet in an awkward space. You'd never know it wasn't planned to be there in the first place. The best (and most ironic) part was about a day after this cabinet was installed, I'd already "forgotten" about it. It blends in seamlessly into the rest of our bathroom and stores a ton of our extra towels and toiletries.

Two Decades of Grey - Middle School Part 2

When I was in 8th grade, I had a few friends already at the high school. One of them was part of the orchestra committee. The group was getting together to plan something, something which involved a trip to the grocery store. 

I don't remember how it was proposed to me to go meet a friend and hang out with them during their orchestra committee "planning meeting." I don't remember how I even got there or who drove. All I knew is I ended up at the local Kroger with a bunch of freshman and sophomore orchestra students.

I remember standing in an aisle, the group of us kind of in a circle formation, chatting. This one girl was looking my direction. Suddenly, she started approaching my right shoulder. My gaze instinctively followed her. She lifted up her arm and slowly reached for something. Then, she jolted her arm back and stepped backward, further away from me than she had been standing before. 

We looked at her, waiting for her explanation for the strange motions which had just occurred.

"I thought it was a bow hair."

I've never forgotten this line. How silly, right? None of us had an instrument with us. Why would there be a bow hair near my shoulder as I stood in the middle of a Kroger aisle with one friend and the rest mere acquaintances if not strangers. Of course, it wasn't a bow hair. She did not say what was implied when she realized what she had actually seen.

Bow hair or grey hair? I'll let you decide.

I wasn't dyeing my hair yet, but by 8th grade, I had learned which styles I could safely wear to school to hide all of the greys. It was limiting, but I was okay with it because it meant I could mind my business in peace and not have to field strange questions. Most of the time, I could almost forget they existed because nobody brought it up. The friends who knew didn't comment, and the rest of them didn't know. 

What I could not control were the moments when a strand would peek out unintentionally through the dark curtain of black and become visible. This is exactly what she saw that day in the aisle at Kroger. I remember feeling more alien and abnormal after this happened. A part of my memory remembers her shuddering as well as jolting back and stepping away. This may or may not be my mind making it up. But I didn't make up her words.

****

It's almost comical how illogical it was for her mind to have first thought I had a bow hair near me in the aisle of Kroger. But that only showed me how inconceivable it was for a 14-year-old girl to have grey hair in the minds of certain peers. And it made the truth sting that much more.

Two Decades of Grey: Middle School - Part 1

I was in middle school when I noticed my own grey hair and began to dislike it. Up until this age, I knew they existed, but they were few enough to lay low and not interfere. By 7th grade, I had to consciously do my hair for school in a way which concealed them. Certain hair styles for me were off the table. Anything with a half updo, I could not wear. 

One evening, I remember sitting at my desk in my room with the lamp on. It was supposed to be the desk used for homework. Very rarely did I ever complete my homework at my desk. I wrote my diary every evening at my desk. I crafted at my desk. I made a DIY sun catcher and used a blade to cut out shapes. For a while I practiced writing with my left hand at my desk. My ambidextrous talent never took off, but I'm decent on a dry erase board.

The DIY sun catcher I made in middle school. Two pieces of
cardboard sandwiching a sheet of iridescent film covered with decorative contact paper.
My first time using a blade to cut. This piece of art has survived decades.

I cut my hair at that desk. Once.

It wasn't your normal hair cut. I had somehow gotten the idea in my head that if I cut all of my grey hairs out, you wouldn't be able to find any and my hair would be restored to a uniform single color again. After all, they always tell you not to pull out grey hairs or else two would grow back, right? What a silly lie. So that's what I did one evening. I sat at my desk with my lamp turned on, grabbed a grey hair one by one, and snipped high up on my head.

After doing this, something inside of me felt more safe, comfortable. I was going to wear a half updo to school now that I'd found a "solution."

What my young teenage brain failed to process was that unless the scissors were placed adjacent to my scalp, (which I didn't do because I would risk cutting other hairs or my scalp itself - this I was able to process logically and correctly,) my greys weren't actually "gone." In fact, they were now even more obvious than if all the hairs on my head were a consistent length. 

I learned this the hard way when a friend saw and commented on my grey hairs being an uneven length compared to everything else. That's when something in my brain clicked and I came to the conclusion stated above. My "solution" wasn't actually a solution at all, and I became even more self-conscious.

***

In 8th grade, I remember being in the library with a few other girls. Our schedules were different so due to what they were doing at the middle school, we were hanging out in the library for an extended time that week. It was a book fair week. I remember us sitting between shelves of books for sale at the book fair. We were sprawled out on the floor just chatting and relaxing as teenagers do. 

Somehow the conversation went to talking about a movie. One of the girls remarked, "It would be really cool to have silver hair like the character." 

I replied, "Oh, I've got some. I'm almost there." 

I will never forget her response. "No, Cathy, yours are grey."

Shut down in five words I'll never be able to erase. She could have said a multitude of other things which wouldn't have had the same sting: 

You don't have enough yet. 

Maybe in 20 years. 

Haha, that's funny.

But instead, she said the worst thing you could have said to me as a response. And sadly, I'll never forget it.