I hope that 2012 comes with the same blessings that has filled this past year.  Because I never want to pass up an opportunity to be a more interesting person.  I am still afraid of so many things that I know I haven’t been all that I could be by now.  This was just a buffer year to help me get ready for what’s to come.

I’ll be more interesting than a San Diego girl transplanted in New York.  I promise.  That’s not a story. 2012 will be a story.

I begged my parents to send me more of my belongings from their house.  I told him that when the box arrived I was not only elated to have two more coats but I taped the box back up and said, “Bam!  A nightstand.”  He laughed at my painful joke.  Then offered some perspective by saying, “You’re better off where you are now.  I mean, which would you rather have: a couch for a bed or a box for a night stand?”  I laughed at how pathetic my choices were but accepted it in all its sad implications.  I answered him, “Isn’t that what it’s all about?  The choice between a couch for a bed or a box for a nightstand?”  He probably didn’t know what I meant but laughed along in cheery support.

I have not owned dishes in four years.  Drawers in three years.  A desk in two years.  A nightstand in almost a year.  And I have never owned a brand new bed.  In the my adult years I have managed to obtain things second-hand by dumpster diving, free-cycles, and renting.  And in the most recent months from July 2010 to February 2011 I have been sleeping on other peoples’ couches (by the way, thank you Megan, Kendall, Andy, Mom, and Mark).  To sleep on my own bed for the first time in months brought the greatest comfort to me.

If you ever lived with me then you probably hated how early I would get up and play music or how annoying it was to hear me in the kitchen.  But for the first time I understand the attraction of sleeping in.  I purposely have classes and a work schedule that allow me to stay in until noon.  The first secret of stability was revealed to me and it was in my 1000 thread count sheets of comfortable accomplishment.

When I did have furniture and an uncomfortable bed (my last one tried to kill me with its pronging springs) I spent a lot of time trying to stay away or stay occupied.  I was always at my desk or just never at home.  The only attraction to the furniture I possessed was to dump my shit.  My room was filled with furniture that held knickknacks, organized trinkets, displayed some novelty, hide whatnots or just kept my shit.  So to go home was to just go home for some of my shit and leave.

Don’t get me wrong, furniture is completely necessary.  I would love to have my shelves of books and dvds in my possession!  But I don’t have possessions, at least not anymore so there is truly no need to put my shit anywhere.  And my possessions never really compelled me to be home, instead they just entertained me while I was there.

And that’s what it’s all about: having a real bed at the expense of a box for a nightstand.  Out of the two pathetic choices I have made the better one by creating something like a stable home.  Because I can be entertained anywhere but I can only sleep in my bed.

-trISH*

I don’t want to say anything corny like: “The world is my address.” But, when they ask me what I did with my life I want to say that I have loved, been loved, been given epic opportunities and had the audacity to turn down epic opportunities for new dreams, I traveled, I suffered, and I never told a boring story.

I spoke to an old lover and I know that I truly cared for him because we did not get into an underhanded debate about who is doing better than the other. Instead, we had a real, organic talk about our lives and where it was headed. Understanding our differences and why we had to split I told him that I sometimes wish for stability. He responded:

This is what you wanted, Trish.  Ever since I met you.  You said you never wanted to stay in one place.  You said you wanted to be poor. And look at you, you’re doing it.

I guess in all the loyal years that I spent with any of the past lovers I always had an affair with myself.  I am selfish and always have been.  There is no one I love more than myself.

12-year-old Trisha said she would go to NYU.  24-year-old Trisha is a graduate student at NYU with a partial scholarship.

16-year-old Trisha said she would go to Paris.  Status pending.

Love life,

Trisha

1. Help break a Guiness Book of World records (by attending the Fremont zombie walk)
2. Attend a 3 day concert (Bumbershoot, next time I’ll be at Sasquatch)
3. Design, paint, and display public art (it’s like I’m an artist! haha)
4. A weekend getaway in a cabin on Mt. Rainier
5. Have brunch with Krishtine (someone I’ve admired as a strong female)
6. Met Jon Wakuda Fischer, an graff artist that I respect
7. Urban Spelunking (illegally climbing rafters alongside a building in Cap Hill)
8. Flash Mobbed at Gasworks and ended up on the cover of Seattle Met Magazine
9. Hobnobbed and schmoozed with important and rich people (like the CEO of Alaska Airlines, Bill Ayer).  It made me a bit sick to my stomach but it was an experience that I never thought I’d have.

And finally:

10. Practically everyday that I have spent in Seattle never had a plan but it did have a flow.

Things I never thought I’d do but did came from the idea that “this is happening and it’s happening now.”  I went with the flow of things and tried not to lose my head.  For someone as prudish as I can walk away from this and feel great.  I just don’t want to lose that spirit.  I hope I’ll end up scaling the sides of buildings in San Diego and taking pointless bus/subway rides in New York.  Don’t let me become boring or fail to squeeze the most out of everyday life.  Seattle, I love your flow and I’m taking it with me.

-ish*

I came out here in order to grow because I felt that life was so stagnant in San Diego.  As much as I love my hometown truth is, I was just complacent.  I’m finding now that the ones who stayed until the very end shared similar feelings.  I’m lucky to have met so many people who taught me about compassion, courage, and respect.  They taught me how to be a better person just by being who they were.  And that’s real.  And that’s authentic.  Thank you, my SEAtown folk.

At this point, it feels like a terrible break-up.  Loneliness fills the empty seats in my car.  I laid out on Regina’s floor for a bit and memories of her consoling me swelled my heart.  Sublime’s “Boss DJ” is put on repeat to lull me to sleep.  I’m just awkward, sad, and not quite sure what to do with myself.  I contemplate about what went wrong and how could it have been better.  I love Seattle and the good folks I have here but it’s just time to go.

I think I already knew in my head that I was leaving but needed some validation.  After many late night talks I made my decision.  I am the biggest coward there is and when I applied to NYU, I kept it a secret because I honestly only did it for shits and giggles.  But now, I’m going.  I even turned down a great career opportunity to be a poor student in New York.  I was hoping they would lose interest in me to make the decision to leave easier on me.  And if you heard me a week ago, I told my friends that I never make goals for myself because if it doesn’t come easy to me then I just don’t try.  Told you I’m a coward but I want to be like the people I met out here.  I want to have a certain air of arrogance and brazen self-regard all the while having a heart of gold and self-awareness.  Maybe one day but baby steps.  For now, I’ve got to move on to the next step.

I love you all.  I’ll be back, trust.

w/all my joys and tears,
-ish* aka TRISHA

Now I got 6 months ahead of me.  I’ll definitely be in Seattle until July when my lease is up but where I’ll go next is completely questionable.  Yet, people keep asking so here it is “the plan:”

1. Finding a job wherever that may be (soCal or SEAtown)
2. Taking the GREs and applying to Grad School at SDSU, Antioch – Santa Barbara, Syracuse, NYU, CSUF, UCI, UCSD.
3. Take another year and a half or two years in school by start of Fall 2011 wherever I’m accepted me.
4. Get a damn job.
5. Get paid.
6. figure it out from there.

A pretty broad plan, I know.  But whatever, it’s my life.  And if anything, this might not even happen.  I got a lot of things to take care of right now.  This is just what I aspire to do.  We’ll really figure it out come May/June.

Gross, I’m almost 24.

-Trisha

It has always been a love/hate relationship with San Diego and home.  I never thought I’d ever return.  Ideally, I was supposed to move out of the house by 18.  Check.  But then I moved back after I graduated (and I graduated early).  2 steps back.  So, I impulsively made the move to be here in Seattle.  1 step forward.  In time, I desire to move to New York then, hopefully another country and even the PI.  But that’s far in the future.  I have to figure out what I’m doing here right now.

Service is great and everything.  I’ve volunteered my time a lot throughout the years but this time I’ve given up a whole year, a “City Year.”  So 45hrs+ a week for crap pay, a pair of timbs, pants I can’t breathe in, a phone that doesn’t have minutes, a dope jacket, and a nice education award.  So why did I honestly choose to do this: to leave San Diego.

What did I leave behind?  A promotion with my old job.  My fam of FilAmFest.  The good set of friends that I’ve only had the pleasure of knowing for 3yrs.  My level-headed females.  My wise godsisters.  As well as my parents who have instilled within me lakas loob.  And my brothers, sister, niece, and nephews who knew how to make me smile on such dreary days.  Plus, my best friend, my love who knows every ugly detail but still brings out the best.

And what do I carry with me?  Nothing.  Right before I left I had so much animosity towards everything about home.  And I’m not going to say that “you never know what you got ’til it’s gone.”  Because I knew what I had which is why I had to break ties to home.  I was, and still am, dead-set on growing which I didn’t feel I was doing in such a stifling place.  But I don’t even feel like I’m growing now.  Instead, I feel so alien to myself right now.  So what do I do now?

I don’t know.  I’m highly considering a quick weekend trip to San Diego sometime just to get centered.  Maybe I should start carrying these things to feel more comfortable here.  Bahala na!

• Tossed: drunk to the sweet-spot point, where you just barely lose control of your limbs http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tossed
• Butt-hurt: some one who doesnt know how to take a joke, and they take the joke like they just took it to the ass http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=butt-hurt
• foodie call/date: When a guy or girl calls you only for food, no strings attached. Not an invite to a movie and dinner, not a casual or formal get-together, just a plain old-fashioned “let’s eat” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=foodie+call
• schadenfreude: The joy one feels when bad things happen to other people http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schadenfreude

Words I’ve heard here but just can’t get myself to start using it -

• clutch: Great, Essential, and Potent rolled into a single word. Clutch is also used to describe something that is done, not something that is. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clutch

ADD YOUR OWN! I’LL BE ADDING MORE TO THIS AS THE YEAR GOES ON

-trISH*

It’s not that I want to go home but damn, I miss familiarity.  I really don’t drink this much.  I don’t curse this much.  I don’t smoke this much.  I didn’t think I was outside my comfort zone but now I know, I am beyond comfort.  And because I have a hard time admitting to weakness I try to make everything a joke, one big sarcastic joke.  I’d rather laugh than cry. Thanks to Justin, who told me that crying shouldn’t be seen as a weakness, I’ve been trying to recollect.  I admit it: I sorely miss Kevin, my family, my T1zzz, my godsisters, and my girls.

But it’s not that I want to go home.  For City Year we had to dedicate our jacket to a person or persons.  I chose my whole community back home.  My high school that was denounced as one of the worst schools  in the district and my middle school that just never had the funding for much of anything.  My second-rate education, my low-income neighborhood, my peers who were pretty much told that if we couldn’t get into college then join the military.  Always fighting a harder fight for the things that should be readily available and always needing to prove our worth.  So I don’t want to go home because that would be admitting weakness.

San Diego is always on my mind.  I live in a house with the most beautiful view of the Seattle skyline.  I sat on the roof the other day with my fellow 619er, Darryl.  After a long talk, I’ve decided that the most beautiful part of that view is the freeway.  It’s not preferable to have constant traffic noise but it’s very homely.  I can see the Interstate-5 South and I know that’s the way home.  I’ll see you San Diego.

w/<3,
trISH

I just spent the past 2 days in racism training.  I have sat through similar trainings before throughout my life.  And I’m glad that we had it because it gave the opportunity for people from all across the states to be in this safe space and talk about how they feel about this topic.  We tackled questions such as: How have we been exposed to racism?  How have we contributed to it?  What do we do about it now?

Thank you to the two “facilitators.”  However, if you facilitate then I believe you must remain in that neutral role.  But it is human flaw to have your own agenda and to force it upon your audience.  There were times were I felt we were led to an answer rather than coming up with our own.  Other times I saw my peers being unfairly attacked.  But yes, they were attacked too.  Overall, what did I understand from 2 days (8hours each) of racism training?  I believe I was being taught to be desensitized to race.

Yet, I cannot ignore that there are distinct differences between me, my housemates, and the rest of the corps.  How can I when they are so evident in the way we speak, what we believe, and how we look (overall not limited to skin color).  My way of dealing with racism?  Celebrating difference and variety of the human race.

And that’s it.  Come talk to me and have an intelligent conversation about what it means for me to be a Filipino-American.  Do you have your preconceived notions about me?  Great!  Let’s talk about it.  But don’t ignore what means so much to me.  We can’t walk on eggshells being careful about everything we say and/or do around people who are unlike ourselves or even like ourselves.

But you know what?  I won’t knock it ’til I try it.  For the next week I’m going to be politically correct 24/7 (because I do have a vulgar mouth).  Let’s see how this goes.

-trISH*