I’ve been noticing a pattern among people I know. It occurs most commonly between couples who’ve been together for a long time. But it also happens to longtime friends. Sisters. Brothers. Anyone who claims to be close.
People lie.
Okay, two qualifiers. One, I do understand that people lie all the time and that whomever says otherwise is lying. Two, when I say lie, I mean more that they don’t tell the truth. Somewhere along the line in a relationship, we learn what the other person wants to hear and spend a large amount of energy providing those answers instead of the truth.
We make up many excuses not to say what we really mean. We don’t want to hurt her feelings. We don’t want to annoy him. We don’t want to frustrate her. The list goes on and on. In our minds, we are doing a service to the other person. We are preventing an argument. We are preventing a possible altercation. We are sacrificing a future or even an imminent problem by evading the truth. We are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the other person and they don’t even get to find out. Aren’t we such angels?
The fact is: we are not. The whole time while we’re sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the other person, on behalf of the relationship, we’re secretly building up resentment. We’re angry at the other person for not letting us be ourselves. For not letting us tell them how we really feel. We may not even notice it at the time because it’s only a tiny trickle of it. It’s as small as a seed. But it grows. Each time we say something we don’t want to, each time we agree when we don’t mean it, each time we don’t say what we mean, the seed grows.
Eventually, it gets so big that we don’t even give much thought to the truth. We automatically say the answer. We convince ourselves that the other person wouldn’t respond to the actual truth. Wouldn’t even want to hear it. So we never share it. We don’t even give the other person the benefit of the doubt. We just resent them. For who they are. For who they were years ago. For the choices we made.
I don’t know why it took me so long to notice this pattern but it’s all around me. I see it everywhere. All the time. Each time I’ve faced the other person and asked them why they won’t just say it? Why not face their loved one and tell him to truth? In the name of getting rid of years of resentment. Years of not giving the other person a chance to know the full truth. Every time I asked, I consistently got an enthusiastic no. I couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t listen. He doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t care. It would start a fight.
How do we grow to give so little benefit of the doubt to the people we love the most?
Somewhere in the last eight months, I appear to have changed, or maybe strengthened is the more correct word, some of my beliefs. Between the quitting. the moving, the traveling, and the starting over, it seems I decided to put a lot of value on a frequently-overlooked trait: integrity.
In the last few months, I have worked hard to be honest and do the right thing. I’m not saying I’ve succeeded in every instance. I still have over 60 unanswered emails sitting in my inbox from the last few weeks alone. I don’t always call friends back when I say I will. I am frequently too lazy to finish a task that I deem important. But I try harder than I ever did. I am adamant about doing my job right and being honest with those around it even if it’s not always so convenient. I find myself fervently urging others around me to do the same.
Several people have warned me that this is naive behavior and that I must be not mature enough yet to believe that integrity and success can go hand in hand. The thought that you can’t succeed without cheating someone or something is so depressing that I refuse to believe it. How is it possible that working hard to do the right thing and being honest with those around you is considered an immature thought?
Is it really true that you can’t reach the top without doing something unethical or illegal along the way? Have we all come to accept that as a way of life? If so, what does that say about humanity and our future?
I want to believe that there are enough people out there who feel as strongly as I do about the power of integrity that they would choose to do business with an honest organization/company over one that cheats its way to the top. But maybe I am just fooling myself. Maybe the world is as bitter and cynical as the people who say I am naive. My belief is that you get what you give. If you give wholeheartedly and honestly, you receive with the same pure force. And I am not so young that I don’t realize there are times when people take advantage of you and you kindness, but I still feel strongly that those who are good win bigger and better in the long run.
At least, they can look themselves in the mirror and be proud of who they are.
And if that’s childish, well… I hope I never grow up.
When we decided to move to Southern California, I had never been to this part of the country. Six months before our move, we made a list of all the cities we thought we’d like to live in and then eliminated them one by one. We couldn’t live in Chicago because it was too cold and too expensive. Jake wanted to live somewhere warm; I wanted to live by the water. We both wanted something that was a decent-sized city but neither one of us wanted the expensive rents and tiny apartments of New York City anymore.
We eliminated all the way down to Santa Fe or San Diego. For weeks we pondered which but didn’t really do much research. I had never visited either and Jake had only been to Santa Fe. We’d both been to San Francisco but nowhere in Southern California. Jake kept asking me which I preferred and I couldn’t make a decision between two places I knew nothing about, but after two weeks I suddenly said, “We’ve moving to San Diego.” When he asked me why, all I could say was that I had picked San Diego and that was that.
We made up the reasons afterwards. Santa Fe got too cold in the winter. San Diego was closer to a major city with an international airport which made it easier to fly home. San Diego was in California, had the benefits of the West Coast but wasn’t New-York expensive. We would have moved to San Francisco but we were really tired of living in small apartments. I wanted a house, badly. And San Diego had perfect weather. So it was settled. By the time we actually arrived here, there was no doubt we were meant to live here.
We’ve now been in San Diego for four months. We don’t have a house but we do have an apartment more than twice the size of the one we had in New York and the rent is almost half. We have a porch which we use quite often. The weather is somewhat chilly up in La Jolla but the sun shines every day and I have yet to wear a coat. San Diego delivered on all it promised.
Yet I had no idea there would be so many things I didn’t like. So many people I can’t relate to. I didn’t realize what a struggle it would be to learn to drive at thirty and to lack the independence driving provides here. I didn’t think much of how my life in New York was surrounded by people I cared about and places that were so familiar to me until it all disappeared. I know that we’ve just gotten here and I know that it will take time to settle in and to make friends. I know that I will eventually be able to drive myself around and I will grow to love this beautiful city. But I don’t know if I will ever truly belong here. When I see the streets of New York on TV, they are familiar like home. Yet, the ones here feel different. Distant. Like a vacation that’s bound to end eventually.
In the meantime, I plan to enjoy one of the main jewels of my new city: nature. I cherish the breathtaking beaches with sand pipers chasing after crabs, running away from waves. I am amazed by the inexplicable beauty of the Joshua Trees. I love that we can drive two hours out of the city and be in the middle of a desert and sit on the side of a cliff, staring into expansive flat land filled with jack rabbits.
That is quite magical.
The first call came Friday night around 2a.m, I think. All I remember is the phone ringing and my not being able to tell if it was real or my dream. When I answered it, I was so tired that it took me several minutes to recognize my mom. “Don’t be scared,” she said, which is the way we always start a conversation if bad news is about to follow. She continued to explain that two major synagogues in Istanbul were bombed, but that I shouldn’t worry because they were all accounted for and alive. Jake’s brother, who moved to Istanbul a week ago, was also safe and sound.
I got up and read about the events in all the papers I could find. I read the Times and CNN and several Turkish papers and then I went back to sleep. The next morning I talked to my mom again. She said both synagogues had Bar mitzvahs scheduled and my parents were invited and had decided not to attend. Otherwise, they would have been in the synagogue at the time of the bombings. I asked if they knew anyone who was affected. A friend of mine’s fiancee’s brother, she said, was a guard at the synagogue and only 19. He is no longer alive. Another friend’s mother was taking her granddaughter to school, Both dead.
Last night, my cell phone rang around 3a.m. I had told my friend Tara, who lives in Ireland and was working on a college application which was due today, that she could call me if she needed a last look before she sent her paper in. So when the call came and I saw a long number on my caller-id, I assumed it was she. But it was my mom again and she started with, “Don’t be scared,” again. She said “Bad things are happening here and I don’t want you to be worried. We’re all fine and at home, I am still looking for Jake’s brother, call his parents.” I told her that I didn’t want to call them unless we knew he was okay so could she please call me back. I went back to bed with my cell phone. She called back in fifteen minutes and said she had found him and he was okay. I called my father in law, read some of the web sites and went back to bed. I was to wake up in two hours and report to a twelve-hour workday. I had an 8A.M. meeting that I still hadn’t fully prepared for. Sleep must have eventually come because I remember looking at my clock around 4:50 and then again at 6:15. Right after I arrived at work, my mom called again and said that they were all at my sister’s and very shaken but alive.
I remember the Tuesday morning of September 11th clearly and how thankful I felt that my dad was able to reach us before the phone lines went dead. In the twelve years I have lived in the United States, I have never had to wake up to the phone calls I have received in the last week. I am not sure how many more of them I can take. I am even more scared of the possibility that after another such horrible incident, they might not come. Moving back home has crossed my mind more often this week than ever before. I know that I can’t protect them if I am there but at least I can live each day with them and be there. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense but I genuinely don’t know how to deal with this situation.
It also made me think a lot more about the insignificant worries that get in the way of my living my life with joy and how perspective only comes with tragedy. I am not naive enough to think such events never occurred before but I do know that they have suddenly become a lot more prominent in my life than ever before and I haven’t fully figured out how to cope. Not that I want to learn to cope with this.
There are times I wish that wishing was enough.
This is the eleventh year that I’ve made this wish and still I know it won’t come true. A wish that involves another person. A wish that is beyond my control.
When I was little, one of my teachers told me that my wish would come true if I wanted it badly enough. I interpreted that to mean hard work and strong will. I always worked hard to achieve my goals. Things didn’t always turn out exactly as I wanted them but when I look back on my life, I can’t think of one unfulfilled wish that I still think about.
Except this one.
There have been times in my life where I was too scared or worried to take a path. I’ve regretted some and not others but I’ve always recognized that whether it be due to weakness or insecurity, the choices were mine and so is the responsibility. In cases where my actions, or lack thereof, have affected others, I’ve tried hard to apologize. Many have responded to my apologies with kindness and understanding.
Some have not.
In cases where another person doesn’t feel the way I do about resolving an issue that might have come up between us, I feel completely powerless. There are many emotions I don’t prefer to experience but feeling powerless in relation to something I care deeply about must be in the top five.
I’ve talked to many people about this situation in the last ten years and the consensus seems to be that I should let go of it. “You’ve done all that you could. Just relax and forget about it.”
Easy for you to say.
I can’t forget about it. I choose not to forget about it. I don’t want to forget the fact that there’s a part of me that is capable of hurting someone so deeply that they won’t forgive me, even a decade later. One might say, that should make me powerful; the fact that I can have such a strong influence on another human being. But it doesn’t. I just makes me scared. It makes me sad. I care about this person. I want this person to be in my life again. I want to not have caused this much pain to another person. I want us to share moments of life again. To cherish the good memories.
Yet none of that can happen without forgiveness.
This is a shot taken outside the building where I work at 3:30pm today.
The fires have been burning for three days now. When they started, up north, on Saturday night, we had no idea. We were entertaining twelve people down by the pool, having bbq and enjoying the hot tub. Sunday morning, Jake woke up to find some ashes on my bikini, on the balcony, and we could smell quite a bit of smoke. We figured it must be a small fire down the street. Jake went to get some bagels and the New York Times and told me to turn on the TV. By this point, hell had broken loose.
I don’t know many people in San Diego, yet. I called and emailed the one person I knew in Scripps Ranch. She had taken her cats, a few belongings and evacuated her house just in case. I told her she could come here anytime and asked her to keep in touch. Everyone else I knew seemed safe and sound in their home. We had out of town guests who ended up spending most of the day holed up with us. The restaurants shut down, the air smelled too bad to take a walk. People called with rumors that they were evacuating our neighborhood. I kept wondering if I should pack up. I couldn’t even figure out what I would take with me if the situation arose. The experience of being glued and horrified by TV brought back unpleasent memories of September 2001. The more I watched, the more depressed and scared I became.
The fires are still raging on. The quality of air declines every day. Cars are covered with ash and it’s pointless to try to clean them. Today, I watched the sun set behind a wall of dark smoke. The sky was black and the sun firey red. The word eerie comes to mind.
I know that I am incredibly lucky to still have my house and my job and my loved ones. I know that the fires are moving the other way and the chances of anything hitting my home are reduced. Yet, I still feel uneasy.
The sky isn’t supposed to be red or black in the middle of the day.
My question of the day is: Do you help a friend who’s walking down the wrong path?
A few years ago, I would have said, “Absolutely.” Assuming this was a friend whom I feel close to and can be honest with, I would do anything necessary to ‘save’ my friend.
I’m not so sure anymore.
First of all, who makes me the judge of whether a path is right or wrong? How do I know what path is better for my friend? I feel like it’s conceded of me to assume I know what’s best for someone else. I can’t even be entirely sure what’s best for my own self.
‘Fixing’ my friend, besides implying that she’s broken also implies that I am qualified to fix her. Am I willing to take the responsibility that my way may not work out for her? Am I sure my solution will actually work?
While I am now willing to admit that telling my friend he is fucking up his life is a very cocky assumption, I still don’t know the best course of action. What if my friend has a habit that might cause her to permanently harm herself physically? What if my friend is putting her life at risk? What if he’s putting other people’s lives at risk? Where is the line? When should I move from ‘supporting-mode’ to ‘meddling-mode’? Is it ever really okay to meddle?
I understand the how presumptuous it sounds to say that I can ‘fix’ someone’s life. I understand that people have different past. Different personalities. Different priorities. Different paths. I understand that something that looks one way from the outside may be completely different from the inside. I get all that.
At the same time, I wonder if there’s a point where, as a friend, it is my place to take action. To give more than support. To stop waiting.
Is there such a point? Or is it always best to wholeheartedly and non-judgmentally support your friends regardless of the paths they take or the decisions they make?
And do these rules change if it’s a family member as opposed to a friend? What about a sibling?
I simply don’t know the answers anymore.
I save all my email.
I’m not exactly sure why but I have emails going back to my Freshman year in college, my first email account ever. The first email I can find is dated September 16, 1992. Every now and then, I decide to go back and read some of the thousands of messages I’ve exchanged during four years of college. Today was one of those days.
Each time I read them, I’m amazed at how many friends I’ve completely lost touch with over the years. Some, I fell out of touch with before graduation, others soon after. A few of the emails are from people I can’t even remember. Some of the people I remember, I have no idea why the emails stop so abruptly. Did something happen? Did one of us piss the other off somehow? I imagine I’d remember if someone had hurt my feelings and caused me to discontinue our conversation so I am assuming that one of us got lazy and didn’t keep up with the correspondence and the other didn’t follow up. The emails and then the friendship just tapered off.
The funny thing is, many of those emails bring me fond memories today and I am always tempted to track down and contact those individuals. This, of course, opens a can of worms: Would they remember me? Would they respond back or think I am a weirdo for contacting them after ten years? Would they get freaked out by the fact that I tracked them down?
If I think about it for long enough, I figure I have nothing to lose (besides the precious time it will take to track them down). If people are weirded out by my contacting them, they simply won’t write back and that’s that. If, on the other hand, one of them does remember me and wants to get back in touch, I get the chance to reunite with an old friend. Doesn’t sound like too much of a risk to take.
I go through this thought-process each time I read my archive of mails. I am always amazed at how many people were an important part of my life at one time and today I can’t even tell you where they live. How many people’s emails still make me smile today. How many memories are fresh on my mind. How much fun college really was. And, of course, how much I’ve changed since I came to the United States. These people are a tie to my past; they had a part in my becoming who I am. No wonder a part of me craves to find them again.
Jake and I started dating over nine years ago.
At the time, we were both in college and had a lot of free time. We started dating during final exams. Instead of studying, we pulled all-nighters getting to know each other. Sharing stories from our childhood. Laughing. Those days we spent together are some of my fondest memories.
Over the next nine years, we’ve had many ups and downs. Periods of great communication and periods of frustration with work, life, and other obstacles getting in the way. In the last four months, Jake and I quit our lives and started over. We spent morning, noon and night together for three months, in a car, tent or hotel room. We saw some of the most beautiful sites of the United States and we made amazing memories.
All of that was nothing compared to this weekend.
After two weeks of working, I asked Jake if he’d be okay driving to Joshua Tree National Park for the day, on Saturday. The park is approximately a three hour drive from San Diego. We got up, ran some errands, and got on the road at 10:30. We had conveniently forgotten our California map at home so we took what looked like a quicker road on the U.S. map. The fast route turned out to be windy and very scenic.
By the time we got to the park, it was well past 1pm and we were both famished. It turns out the park has no food so we had to drive back out to get some snacks and finally got to drive into the park close to 2. We took a walk through the cacti garden and climbed the huge boulder-like rocks. When we got to Key Point, we got out of the car and took in the hazy, but nonetheless jaw-dropping view. I had wanted to sit and read at the park so we grabbed our books and sat on the bench overlooking Los Angeles.
We started talking. For no specific reason. We talked about my new job. About Jake’s company. About being in California. About us. About the future. About nothing specific and about everything. We got back in the car so we could get on the way home before it got dark. We kept talking. We talked and talked. As if we met for the first time. With the same level of excitement. But a lot more honesty.
We put the windows down and sang at the top of our lungs along with the radio. We laughed.
One of the best days of my life.
I’ve been noticing how important it is for people to be right.
It doesn’t matter if the issue itself is unimportant or even a complete misunderstanding. I’ve talked to several people in the last few weeks who’d rather keep a fight going with their loved ones than to admit they may be wrong. Some won’t even give up until the other person explicitly says they’re right.
Any relationship between two people requires a lot of work. A strong friendship demands commitment to keep in touch, sharing the rough times and honest joy for the good times. A family needs attention and communication. A work relationship requires professionalism. A marriage craves all of the above and so much more. Relationships are built around kindness, honesty, patience, and a lot of respect. It’s hard to share your space and heart with other people.
In my opinion, the few people whom you’ve chosen to be your true friends and companions deserve better than your making a big deal over being right. Being right is important when it’s about standing up for your rights. When people are trying to be malicious.
Besides my family and, at times, my work structure, I have handpicked everyone in my life. I choose the people I get close to and I certainly chose my husband. There are specific reasons why the people I love are in my life. And malice definitely isn’t one of them.
In my experience, most fights start innocent. One person is frustrated for one reason or another and utters something remotely mean and the other jumps on the bandwagon. Next thing we know, here comes ten years of history. “But you did this and you said that and you never did this.” People say things they regret and both parties are too pissed off to remember how much they care for each other. They stop talking altogether.
If it didn’t start with a fight, it starts with quiet, internal observations. “Jim hasn’t called me in a month, he must hate me. Maybe he’s pissed at me for not calling him on his birthday.” The story starts small and snowballs before the other person is even remotely aware that there’s something fishy. Soon, the idea that Jim might be extremely busy or going through some tough times isn’t even considered an option. This is my favorite kind of fighting, because it literally comes out of nowhere.
No matter what the reason, most of the time, I think it’s a bad idea to stay mad at a loved one. The only exception I can think of is if the other person is malicious in nature and actually meant to hurt you, not out of momentary anger but planned, thought-out meanness. In that case, it’s fine to not talk to them ever again.
But in every other case, I feel like it’s a waste of precious time to wait until the other person admits his or her wrongdoing. Who cares who’s wrong? Aren’t you friends? Wouldn’t you rather spend time together than apart? In good relationships, as soon as one person has the guts to stop being right, the other person admits his or her wrongdoing too. So what if you’re the one who has to apologize first?
Who’s keeping tabs?
The pace of my life has changed drastically in the last week. Two weeks ago, Jake and I had several interviews and a busy week that ended with his birthday. I remember feeling a bit bummed on the weekend thinking we had no interviews scheduled for the week and worrying that I might not be able to get a job after all.
He started his part-time job on Monday and I started mine on Tuesday. I still looked all over monster, hotjobs and craigslist for more full time positions getting more depressed by the minute.
Then, within minutes, a friend of Jake’s decided to come for three days. His mom decided to come for a day. I got three calls and an interview. I went to the interview, which lasted much longer than expected and ended with my promising to learn part of a scripting language I had barely used previously. From the moment I left the interview on Wednesday to Friday’s interview I spent my minutes between my part-time job and studying for the interview. Jake ended up hanging out with his friend on his own.
Friday morning, the day of my 29th birthday, I woke up at 6 to go to my part-time job, worked till noon, came home to study some more for the closed-book exam and then went to a coffee shop by the company’s building to wait for the interview while Jake dropped off his friend at the airport.
The interview lasted from 2:30 to 9pm. It involved coding for a few hours and talking about details for another few. I came home to several days’ worth of TiVo and left the couch only to go to bed until Saturday night when my mother in law arrived and took us to dinner and a beach walk.
And this was supposed to be the quiet week.
Thank you for all who wished me a happy birthday. My first in a new home, a new town, with my new car and, now, my new job.
I’ve been applying for a lot of jobs lately and I have noticed two patterns:
1. Everyone is looking for people who have a lot of experience
2. Everyone only hires ‘the best and the brightest’
Seriously, if you owned a company and were trying to hire people, would you claim to hire ‘the so-so’?
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want out of a job. Some days I feel like taking any job so I can have the money to pay for my rent. Other days, I feel like holding out. I try to remind myself that life is too short and that I deserve a job I love, a job that I would actually enjoy doing.
My requirements aren’t that complicated: I want to work with people who’re happy to be there and I want to be learning about something new often. The something new doesn’t have to be technical. I could work in a new industry and learn about that or I could work with a new programming language and learn that but if I’m not learning, I will quickly get bored and disillusioned.
You’ll notice money isn’t in my list of requirements. Assuming I did get a job I loved, I am willing to work for much less money than the guy next door. I don’t really care if I can’t afford a yearly vacation to Maui if it means I get up every morning and am thrilled to go to work.
Maybe I’m asking for too much?
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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