tea with a stranger

A few days ago, I was in a cafe by my house studying when a group of teenagers came in and chattered for some time about their stresses: school, church, track, college apps, social status. The slang was new but the stresses they expressed, though none of my business, left me in a state of remembrance for the rest of the day. It has been so long since those were my struggles, and I realized the same issues which once grasped me with equal intensity are over now.

I graduated with my undergraduate degree last month, cross country and track are memories from long ago, and CommonApp is no longer something I have to contend with. I suppose questions about social standing still linger but definitely not in the weighty sense I felt at their age. “At their age”… am I a “back in my day” person now? Yes, I suppose so.

I am now… older. Mature? Somewhat, could be more so. Mature enough to have advice for my younger self uncertain of what her university years ahead would hold for her.

If going back and giving insight was an option, I would say that there is nothing possible to predict from an external point of view. I couldn’t have known about coronavirus and its complications nor the almost mythical appearance of my scholarship even if I had prepared. So, focus on what you can keep within your control regardless of circumstances: study habits, your health, upkeep of many hobbies.

Hobbies’ importance, I can’t stress enough. Side quests have always kept my spirits up when studying got tough or tedious. It is also surprisingly easy to lose a distinctive sense of self and personality without things to do aside from your “main thing.” Both personally and socially, selfhood is important. What makes you you? What makes you happy? These are questions that robots can’t answer.

I would also tell my younger self to worry less. It hurts to first realize this but then it is freeing: most of the people you meet in life will not be your friends in a meaningful sense, and even with the blessing of beautiful friendships, you will spend very significant portions of your life to come quite alone. So spend more time and energy taking comfort in the relationship you have with yourself in solitude. The more at peace you are within yourself, the more that peace will translate interpersonally.

And the last thing I would say is to trust in the universe a little, as esoteric and yielding as that may seem. Childhood and adolescence were times of intense stress for me. Even though I technically experience more stressors now, I don’t process them as nearly as threatening. I’m certainly not going home crying over A- grades and my future the way I used to. I don’t necessarily believe that good things come our way without effort, but in order to wake in the morning and sleep at night, one needs to believe in a certain level of continuity that transcends our contributions. The sun at the beginning of the day and the moon at the end. The comfort of having places to go home to, literally or spiritually. A sense that things will be okay, even if the reality is maybe they won’t be. It’s the sense that matters.

Because the people in the cafe know no better than I do or anyone what lies ahead. We have now, and we might as well enjoy it, no? With a cup of tea at hand and notebooks of thoughts of substance.

Many people can remember a moment from their childhood when they knew they wanted to become something specific. A doctor, an artist, a robber (shoutout to Ivan from second grade, your drawing was iconic) — whatever it may be. 

We were all given worksheets to sketch out ideas, because of careerism, but I don’t think I had a singular idea in a sincere sense. I was always doing random things. I had a YouTube channel about Fantage (kind of like Club Penguin?), a DeviantArt account, and an overpriced plushie business in elementary school. It’s tempting to thread a level of unity into what I was doing, but there was no continuity actually. I just did whatever I wanted to and was free to do so.

Getting older sucked in that sense because it was in my teenage years that I discovered some interests are a lot more prestigious than others, and I didn’t seem to be able to summon sufficient interest to follow the gold, so to speak. I went to a STEM-centric high school, but I did not really enjoy STEM. It’s not like I was awful at the subjects, but nothing lit up in me while making biology flashcards. I studied enough to get an A and forgot everything afterwards.

The subject I really loved in high school was French, to an extent that made my family laugh. Why French? Nobody really speaks French in the Bay Area. But it was a way for me to connect with my aunt in Québec, who was my informal tutor. I could speak with my grandparents, too. I have a fond memory of a long conversation with my grandfather in French about his motorcycle trips while studying engineering in Brest. When the dementia set in, all of his sleep-talking was in French, oddly. But in any case, it became a very personal language for me that has led to lots of wonderful connections since.

I suppose I have invested time in French, but I don’t really feel like I chose to love the subject. The subject picked me, like the “wand chooses the wizard” idea in Harry Potter. However unusual it may be, that’s it.

I have very compelling reasons to not be this interested, actually, but alas, I am at the mercy of my intense attraction to the language. It’s almost like being in love with someone but not like that. But also, very like that.

The new year is coming and it’s tempting to craft a new self. I do love reinventions like a different haircut, but over the years I’ve started to wonder how possible complete personal uprootings are.

Do we ever really get to be anyone other than ourselves, and are those selves fully our own choices or set paths fate guides us by the hand to walk into?

I’m leaning into the possibility that maybe, more is written for us than we may be aware of. Not by elders or others, but some forces beyond us. God? The universe? I’m not sure. However, too many strangely coordinated things have happened in my own life that have made me question how much of my future I can truly write with free will versus step into a prescribed destiny. I have choices, sure. What I wear, what I speak, how I carry myself in this life. And I of course have every intention to present the best self I can in that sense.

But some things don’t feel as securely within the realm of personal choice, more specifically what I’m drawn to and what I see others around me drawn to. Are we really responding to social conditioning, or are calls from the soul real?

I had the opportunity to visit Hanoi this year and see paintings by my great-granduncle. It was the closest thing to a spiritual experience I’ve had in a long while, and I remembered my younger self sketching out similar figures before I even knew his name. Of course not at his level, but I wondered… did he choose? Did I choose? Or were we called to our interests, and our only intentionality came into how we chose to cultivate or stifle those inclinations?

Disappointingly, I don’t know. But I’d love to follow and see what happens.

x, Elizabeth

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. Imagine we are having tea together? Green. Jasmine. Or whatever is your favorite, prepared and poured by me.

I wanted to write again via a personal blog because of a few beautiful experiences in the past year, meeting people I basically only know because of a blog I wrote in high school called “to live la vie en rose.” If you know, you know. If not, it was a wildly unfiltered project I pursued in high school about my suburban life, favorite things, and Amélie-type encounters. I don’t think I registered how many people were reading it, and I definitely overshared.

Yet there was a kind of lasting hilarity to my little blog. It’s now a private archive of thoughts I forgot I once had, but when it was public my old boss saw my potential for writing more professionally from those posts (long story). With encouragement, I pivoted to more polished writing in the past few years; I even changed my college major to reflect that focus. In that intensity, I stopped sharing as much personal writing, concerned about my “brand.”

It’s a valid concern, but I realized… nobody really cares lol. And there is a place for writing in this world that flows more freely and maybe even childishly, just as much as other places call for the controlled messaging of business writing. So, here is my place. I hope to write many more such pieces in the new year.

I look forward to seeing you again then!

x, Elizabeth