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Driving a very big car and learning to take up space

We got a new car last summer. Well, a used car, but new to us. We traded in our zippy Audi A5 Sportback for a hulking Lexus GX460.

We had taken our A5 in for an oil change down the street, and they — of course — did a “complimentary check” and told us we needed new motor mounts. Sounded like a typical sus mechanic thing, because who ever needs new motor mounts? What did we even do to this car for it to need new motor mounts?

In any case, we said thank you, and we planned to get a second opinion. In parallel, we went down a path of “what if we do need to pay thousands of dollars to replace motor mounts? Is it even worth keeping this car?” The short answer: probably not. It was already six or seven years old, and German cars don’t have the best reputation for reliability. They do, however, have a reputation for being expensive to maintain. And so we did a little car shopping. Our next car would be our forever car. Without boring you with all the details of the thought process and the dealership experience, we handed over the keys to the A5 and suddenly were owners of a Lexus GX460. It has a red interior, and I referred to it as “cute” and “a cozy little boat” during the test drive.

It wasn’t meant to be a statement car. It was a practical decision. Reliable Lexus, more comfortable road trips, Colorado things, and hey I felt confident driving this giant car.

A good friend was visiting from out of town recently, and he asked me how I liked driving it. I told him the biggest adjustment wasn’t the size (surprisingly — also, heyo!), or the parking, or the turning radius, or the lack of Apple CarPlay. The biggest difference is that people drive differently around me now. They’re aware of my presence on the road in a way they never were when I was in my Audi. I’m not blending into traffic anymore. I am traffic.

He laughed and said: “Because they know you can end them.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

For most of my life, I’ve been pretty good at making myself small. Not in a self-deprecating way — more in an accommodating way that felt, at the time, like being easy to be around. I was agreeable. I took up only the space I was given. I moved out of the way. I apologized preemptively. I shrank so other people could feel more comfortable, which I told myself was just being polite or considerate, but was probably something else.

A lot of it is my Asian-American upbringing: don’t make waves, don’t rock the boat. That instinct followed me into my career. Early on, I did what I was told. I rarely pushed back. I made sure other voices were heard in meetings without trying to amplify my own — not until later, when I had enough experience and clout to start making waves. But even then, it cost something to get there. I didn’t realize how practiced I had become at disappearing until I had a year to stop and actually look at myself.

This past year — the year of not working full time, the year of pottery and writing and record players and learning how to taste wine with intention — has been a slow process of remembering who I actually am. I’ve written about that in various ways. But I’ve been slower to name the thing underneath it all, the thread that runs through every rediscovery:

I’m learning to take up space.

Not space as in being loud or demanding or difficult. Space as in: my presence is allowed to be felt. My opinions don’t need to be softened before I offer them. My needs don’t need to be minimized to protect someone else’s comfort. I get to exist fully, not just on the sidelines.

And then I look at what I’m driving around in — this big, 5,000-pound, not-subtle SUV — and I think: huh, maybe I already knew that, even before I knew it.

When I drove the A5, I was fast. Nimble. I blended into traffic and drove around my obstacles. When I drive the GX, I am on. the. road. I am aware of how much space I take up, and others are aware too. They move around me. They stop for me. I now fully understand why you see the smallest women climb out of the biggest SUVs. There’s a feeling of presence and power. And safety, honestly. Because they know you can end them.

There’s something interesting about a car as a mirror for identity. We don’t usually think of it that way — a car is a practical object — but we’re aware of what our cars say about us. The stereotypes exist for a reason. When I drove a Honda Fit, I felt practical but cool. When I drove a Subaru Outback, I felt practical and uncool (I hated that car; it was zero joy to drive). When I drove my A5, I felt impractical and very cool, and had a lot of fun.

The GX doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t try to fit in. It’s not sleek or subtle. It rolls up and is unapologetically there. People see it. People accommodate. Not because it’s threatening, but because it’s present.

I want to move through the world like that.

I think I’m somewhere in the middle of a longer recalibration, figuring out what it looks like to take up space without overcorrecting into something that doesn’t feel like me either. It’s a balance I’m still finding.

But I keep coming back to that moment: a friend, a joke, a throwaway line about physics and vehicle mass. What I’m now hearing underneath is something else — an instruction, almost. Exist in a way that can’t be easily overlooked. Take up exactly the amount of space you’re entitled to, and stop apologizing for it.

I called it a cute and cozy little boat on the test drive. But did I really buy something I’d been working toward my whole life?

I’m becoming more like my parents each day

I don’t know if it’s because I suddenly have more “free time,” or if I’m just more present these days — more aware of everything, including myself — but I’ve started to notice something a bit unsettling: I’m becoming just like my parents.

There wasn’t a singular moment where I thought, “oh, this is it.” It’s more that I catch myself in the act, in these small, specific ways, and think something like, “oh my god, I’m becoming my mother.”

Horrifying, I know. Not unexpected, but still.

It wasn’t one big transformation (for some reason I picture a werewolf — unclear what that says about me or how I view my parents). It’s a collection of preferences, habits, and reactions that I used to question or ignore, and now… they just make sense.

This one was probably always true, but feels especially true now: I dress almost exclusively for function. There’s a joke that everyone in Colorado dresses like they’re always prepared in case a spontaneous hike breaks out, and my environment has likely pushed me further in that direction. Post-Covid fashion hasn’t exactly helped. Comfort wins every time — I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn “hard pants” since 2020 — which feels like something I used to judge and now can’t imagine arguing with.

And everything is so loud. Places that used to feel normal now feel overstimulating in a way I don’t remember, and I find myself getting irrationally annoyed by background noise that, objectively, is probably fine. And I always find myself extra sensitive to the cold, when it’s supposedly 65 and perfect outside. Maybe this isn’t becoming my parents specifically, but just becoming an old person in general.

I adjust the thermostat to save energy… and money. I’ll turn down the heat and just put on a sweatshirt and a hat. Same with lights. I mean, I do prefer sitting in the dark, but I also like to conserve electricity. Now that I pay my own bills, I understand why my parents scolded us about it.

Every once in a while, something comes out of my mouth and catches me off guard. I’ll ask Kona, “you got out of bed only to lie down on the couch?” which is something I heard constantly as a kid, because I did exactly that while getting ready for school.

“You smell like the sun” is another one. I remember hearing that as a kid and accepting it without question. Now I understand what it means, and I’m the one saying it, as if it’s a completely normal observation to make. Same with describing any dessert I like as “not too sweet.”

I sneeze with my entire body now, like an old Chinese man. To be fair, there are days I feel like an old Chinese man — the whole exercising thing is still a work in progress.

I get excited about buying things in bulk at Costco. There is something satisfying about knowing you’ve made a practical, long-term decision. I eat and drink things not because they’re enjoyable, but because they’re “good for me,” which feels like a personality shift I never saw coming.

And then there are the things that feel more specific, harder to explain unless you already understand them. I think about the Traditional Chinese Medicine concept of ngit hee / yeet hay more seriously now, when I mostly dismissed it as a kid. It’s not just a concept anymore; it’s a consequence. If I’m breaking out, it must be because I ate too many fried foods. Gotta drink some chrysanthemum tea. Or beer. Or eat some watermelon.

I reuse glass jars and takeout containers. After our New Year party, I sent people home with leftovers, and multiple people asked why I have so many plastic deli containers on hand. I save plastic bags — not just shopping bags, but the small produce ones too. I’ve caught myself saying “we have food at home,” sometimes out loud, sometimes just in my head.

I check the weather before I make plans now, because it actually affects what I’ll do and how I’ll feel (why is this such an old person thing?). I’ve also become skeptical of trends — not loudly, just a hesitation that makes me want to wait and see how things play out before buying in.

And there’s this saying: “You’ll understand when you’re older.” 

I used to hate that. It felt like a dismissal, like a way of ending a conversation without really answering the question. But now I understand what they meant, which is not the same as agreeing with it.

It’s not just that I’m picking up their habits, it’s that their reasoning is starting to make sense in a way it never did before. The decisions, the things that felt unnecessary or overly cautious at the time… they weren’t random. They were just based on information I didn’t have yet.

I don’t love that I get it now. That things I used to question are actually kind of reasonable. That if I follow the logic all the way through, it mostly checks out. Which is annoying, because I used to be very confident they were wrong. Ah, youth.

But I can see it now. And I can’t unsee it.

It’s a good thing my husband likes my mother.

One story about two people navigating three surgeries in four months

[Note: If you’re squeamish about eye stuff, maybe skip this one? I don’t get into too much detail, but there are some details about eye surgery.]

I now know too much about eyes and eye surgery. But hey, at least I don’t make as many disgusted faces about it anymore.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, R’s eye was, in his words, “buggin’ out”. He figured he was tired or the Colorado sunshine was messing with his vision, so he shook it off. But there was no improvement Sunday… and we said if he was still seeing funny, he’d try to get seen on Monday.

Well, it was no better on Monday. Our eye doctor was fully booked, surely with the end-of-year-before-my-benefits-reset appointments, but they referred us to a sister office who was able to see R that afternoon. Great! I dropped him off at the doctor’s office and was off to run some errands. After I checked off my to-do list, I called and asked if he was ready to be picked up.

“Uh, I think you should come here and come in. The doc is on the phone with a retina specialist now.” 

Without getting into too much detail, he had two retinal tears that was causing the “buggin’ out” with his vision, and was referred to a retina specialist who recommended surgery. ASAP. (The cause? Likely bad genetics, and it was just time.)

And so the day before Thanksgiving: surgery.

Or as it would turn out to be: the first surgery of many.

He was almost in the clear, after two months of eye drops and pirate jokes. And at his Valentine’s weekend appointment, they discovered his healing process produced too much scar tissue, which was causing new issues, including distorting his lens. Cool. (It happens about 10% of the time, and being younger is a risk factor. Cool cool.)

The last week of February: surgery #2. This one came with an annoying recovery process that required him to be positioned face down for a week. This was because a gas bubble was inserted in his eye to act as a splint holding everything in place, and it needed to remain in a certain place initially. I explained it to people like an air bubble in a snow globe, where in order to move the bubble, you had to rotate the globe. Oh, and changes in altitude could cause it to explode, leading to blindness. Yup.

First follow-up appointment went well. Everything was healing well and looking like it should, after his week of face-down time. The doctor would like to see him again in two weeks to ensure everything was still progressing nicely.

Welp.

Everything was still progressing nicely where the operation was… but the other side of that same eye was showing signs of detachment. So he now needs a third surgery. 

We added a third surgery to the calendar the same way we added the first two. Another mound of e-paperwork, even though nothing significant has changed in four months, besides the surgeries. Another frustrating anticipation period, counting down the days until surgery day. Another stretch of time shaped around waiting rooms and follow-ups and recovery. Another medical bill. And another. It feels almost… routine? Which feels absurd, considering it’s EYE SURGERY.

The good(?) news is, for surgery #3, they’ll be inserting an oil layer to act as a splint, and there will be no face-down positioning, and he’ll be able to see through it. The bad news is oil doesn’t dissipate on its own like gas does, so there will be a fourth surgery sometime in the future. Woof.

I think part of what makes this — for lack of a better word — annoying is the constant recalibration. Each time, we believe we understand the scope of it. We’ve set our expectations. We ask questions. We prepare, mentally and practically, for what’s ahead. Then the scope keeps changing, right when we think we’re in the clear. 

This feels ongoing, without a clear end in sight (ha, sight. See what eye did there? I need this to end). 

What’s weird is I think I’m more upset about the whole situation than he is, considering he’s the one going through it. He’s accepted that this is just something that has to happen, and is for the best, and that eye surgeries are now part of routine health maintenance. Which is probably the right attitude to have.

What isn’t obvious is the in-between, the part where nothing is actively wrong, but nothing feels fully settled either. The waiting. The wondering if this is the last thing or just the most recent thing. The mental math of best-and-worst case timelines and recovery logistics and what-ifs. The having to update our friends and family AGAIN. Have I mentioned all the eye drops?

It’s the ongoing-ness of it that is unsettling. The way this timeline stretches. The way we think we’re at the end of something, and then the rug gets pulled out from under us.

I will say: I am grateful that I have enough flexibility in my schedule to show up for him. To drive him to and from surgeries, to take him to all the follow-up appointments. To sit in the waiting rooms. To not have to constantly choose between being a supportive partner and being responsible at work. Because there is so much life and responsibility outside of work. I digress.

Because this isn’t a one-time thing. It just… keeps going. (Yes, I’m talking about eye surgeries, but also not.)

And for now, that mostly looks like more appointments, more eye drops, more patience, and us getting a little better at dealing with all of it.

Small details very often feel grand.

We often leave our front door open (but our storm door closed) so that Kona can sunbathe and fulfill her neighborhood watch responsibilities — her paw patrol shift, if you will. She huffs at any cars parking in front of our house and barks at anyone approaching our door, defending her post like she isn’t a scaredy cat in a dog’s body.

Of course, that includes our mailman, if she happens to be on duty when he arrives.

The other day, he came while Kona was sitting by the door, and despite (or because of?) her enthusiastic defense, he slid a Milk Bone through our mail slot along with the usual stack of junk mail. I happened to catch him doing it, and I smiled and thanked him as he left. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Mail carriers are not required to carry dog treats. I know he bought those treats with his own money, and he carries them in an already heavy mail bag. There’s no post office KPI for canine satisfaction, no training module on dog treat distribution. He just decided to bring joy and sweetness to his job. Maybe it’s partly strategic, to earn goodwill from the neighborhood doggos. In any case, he makes someone’s — or some dog’s — day with his act of kindness.

I often think about the idea of unreasonable hospitality. It’s a concept I first heard at Eleven Madison Park, where they have a role literally called the Dream Weaver: someone whose job is to notice and find ways to surprise and delight guests. (Side note: Unreasonable Hospitality is a book I always recommend when someone asks for one.) Sometimes the gesture is grand — like arranging a sledding trip in Central Park, for the family who had never seen snow — but sometimes the joy lives in the smaller details. For example, they knew we had just returned from a vacation, and they printed out and framed a “Welcome home” sign for our table. So small, but so personal and special. We still display that frame in our home today.

To me, even outside of the context of fine dining, those small details very often feel grand.

A handwritten note tucked into the ceramic mug I bought. A barista remembering my annoying order of a half-caf cortado and checking if I’m down for dairy today. A server including a new side of plain noodles with my leftover ramen broth. A restaurant owner applying a friends-and-family discount to my check, just because. A stranger offering to take our photo when I’m clearly struggling to fit everyone in the frame. A bakery slipping an extra cookie into my bag at closing time.

When I think of small gestures that feel grand, a memory that comes to mind is one set in Florence. I asked our hotel concierge, Matteo, where he recommended we grab lunch. He suggested a popular sandwich — sorry, panini — shop nearby. Then he pulled out a little notepad, scribbled something, and handed it to us. “Give this to Tonny,” he said. 

Tonny per favore

Trattani Mrs Lee con i guanti bianchi

-Matteo

“Tonny, please treat Mrs. Lee with white gloves.” 

We wandered over to the shop, note in hand. I don’t remember if we found Tonny on the first try, but the note eventually made its way to him. Tonny read it and grinned, in a very Italian hospitality kind of way. Suddenly we weren’t just tourists ordering lunch; we were special guests. I can’t even remember what panini he gave us, but I do remember it was delicious and how that whole experience made us feel. All because of a handwritten note from a friend.

None of these gestures are required. They could be skipped entirely, and the world would still turn. Yet someone chooses to do them. Someone takes the time and the effort to make the moment better than it needed to be.

I notice these gestures, remember them, and carry them with me because they are part of a generous human experience. They are proof that the world is still run, at least in part, by people paying attention. By people who care. Not by automated, soulless systems.

Unreasonable hospitality doesn’t need a restaurant or a formal title. It can appear anywhere: a mailbox, a sidewalk, a coffee shop counter, the checkout line at a store, a park bench. A sprinkle of human touch makes the experience feel real, deliberate, and a little special. At this point, it doesn’t even have to be unreasonable — just hospitality.

A Milk Bone in the mail slot. A small discount at the register. A barista remembering exactly how you take your coffee. A handwritten note. These are tiny gestures that cost someone time, effort, or a little money. They are unnecessary. They are fleeting. And they exist and persist, every day.

Most systems we live in are designed to be efficient, transactional, even sterile. And yet people keep sneaking humanity back into them. They remind you that life doesn’t have to be purely functional. It can be — and I say this with the risk of sounding cliche or cheesy — whimsical. Things can be better than what is required or expected.

Sometimes you notice it. Sometimes you don’t. But when you do, the world feels lighter. More human. A little brighter. And for a few seconds, it makes you realize someone is weaving a little dream of kindness into the day.

and how small things can completely change how we experience something unpleasant

I went to the dentist last week for a routine cleaning.

The whole time I was in the chair, I closed my eyes behind the office-issued sunglasses and was trying very hard to focus on literally anything other than the fact that someone was scraping around inside my mouth. When you’re stuck like that — staring at the bright ceiling lights, unable to talk, slightly dissociating — you have a lot of time to think.

I’ve been trying to be more intentional about capturing my thoughts. The challenge for me is I have the best thoughts at the most random and inconvenient times. Even when I physically can “write it down”, pulling out my phone to type into my Notes app is often too much of a chore in the moment. I’ve been playing with the idea of leaving myself voice notes, but that has felt awkward and inconvenient for different reasons. I gave it another shot though. When I got in my car, I ramble-recorded whatever thoughts I could remember during my drive home.

I ended up recording three separate thoughts. On the surface, they were about completely different things: burnout, dentist office playlists, and my dental hygienist Shelby. But I think they were actually about the same thing: how small things can completely change how we experience something unpleasant.

—

The right perspective

There was a time when I used to think going to the dentist was a break. And back then, I was getting a lot of intense dental work done: deep cleanings, the kind where they numb half your mouth and spend an hour poking and scraping and doing things that feel like medieval torture methods.

And during those appointments I would think, “At least I’m not at work.” Which, in hindsight, should have been a sign. A bright red flag.

Because if you would rather be lying in a dentist chair, your mouth being prodded by sharp instruments, than sitting at your desk… something might be wrong.

But I didn’t question it at the time. I just assumed that was part of life. Work sucks. Everyone complains about it. Sometimes you’d rather be anywhere else. Even if that anywhere is the dentist.

Last week, I didn’t feel that same sense of relief in the dentist chair. I wasn’t secretly grateful for the forced hour away from my Slack notifications. It was just the dentist, not a break from the stress of work bullshit. 

I realized this might actually be a decent barometer. If the next time you’re at the dentist you find yourself thinking, “this is better than being at my shitty job,” it might be time to rethink your shitty job. Because the dentist should not be the highlight of your day.

The right playlist

The playlist at my dentist office is pretty incredible. I’m not sure if this is the case at all dentist offices, but I distinctly remember thinking how great the playlist is, every time I’m at the dentist.

I don’t know how to describe the exact vibe. It’s not Top 40, but it might be Top 40 from yesteryear (but not too far into yesteryear), mixed in with some recent stuff? And it wasn’t too poppy and upbeat, but wasn’t too indie or melancholy either.

The only one I could remember when I recorded my voice note was “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims. At the time of this writing, I remembered “Waves” by Mr. Probz (I had to google the lyrics I knew to find the title and artist, because I don’t think I ever knew this artist’s name??). I knew most, if not all, the words to every song I heard that day. 

I should have asked if someone curated that playlist or if it was an algorithmically selected “radio station”. Next time. But if the playlist was curated by a human, bravo. They hit the mark. Because if you’re mentally belting out the chorus, you’re probably thinking less about the metal instrument picking at your gum line.

Maybe dentist playlists are actually a carefully engineered distraction system. If so, I respect the craft.

If you’ve been here for a bit, you already know how important the right soundtrack is to me. 

The right people

About halfway through the appointment I told Shelby, my new dental hygienist, that she was doing a great job, just in case nobody had told her that lately. Going to the dentist kinda sucks, and the people who work there are the ones making it suck less. 

Shelby was particularly good at it. She gave really clear instructions — which way to turn my head, when to close, when to rinse. It sounds small, but in a particularly unpleasant situation, clarity helps.

She also explained what she was seeing as she went. “There’s a little pocket there, that spot might feel a bit sensitive.” And that clarity helped too. If I felt a little twinge of pain and she immediately explained why, it made the whole experience feel less mysterious. It was weirdly validating.

The attention to detail and explanation made the whole thing easier and more tolerable.

I think my compliment made her day suck less too. She agreed — not many people compliment the job their dental hygienist is doing. And she really appreciated being validated herself. (Not to sound preachy, but if you have something nice to say, say it!)

—

Nothing about the routine dental cleaning itself had really changed. It was still the same chair, the same bright lights (and sunglasses!), the same water flosser thingy and sharp tools.

But the experience this time felt different.

Part of that was perspective. I wasn’t using the dentist as an escape from a job I hated. Part of it was the music, giving my brain something to grab onto (ok, that part was the same as usual). And part of it was Shelby, calmly explaining what was happening so it didn’t feel strange or alarming.

The procedure was the same, but the difference was the details around it. It made me wonder how many other things in life are like that. The “thing” itself doesn’t change, but the experience does — because of the people, the music, and whether or not you’re secretly wishing you were somewhere else.

Finally got around to my (Chinese) new year’s reflection

We threw a new year’s party to ring in the Year of the Fire Horse. We invited a mishmash of people, and most of them came! There were about 40 people roaming around our house. The organized chaos of adults balancing eating and drinking and socializing. Kids playing Mario Kart and coloring in the basement. Shoes piled up at the door (I wish I took a photo!). 

We held our party on New Year’s Eve, which is the traditional family reunion night. It’s the evening meant for family, for returning home, for starting the year together instead of alone.

Growing up, New Year was food. Family. Noise. Obligation. Elders at the table. More food. Respect. Abundance. 

Now, in my own home, hosting 40 people — friends, family, neighbors, kids, dogs — it felt different. It felt chosen, not like an obligation. It was rooted in tradition, yes, but we chose to make it a big deal this year. It finally felt right. Aside from kicking off the new year with community and abundance and celebration, I reflected on what I’m bringing into this year. I don’t really do new year’s resolutions, but this is pretty close.

—

Clearing the old energy

Before new year, we cleaned. Not just the surface-level, “shove our mess in the closet” kind of cleaning, but a thorough cleaning and purging. It’s tradition to clean and get your house in order to welcome in the new year, but we took it to another level this year. Not only because we were hosting our first big party ever, but because — two years into living here — we finally feel settled in our home. And maybe because, symbolically, I knew this year especially needed it.

Last year, the Year of the Wood Snake was about shedding. Closing things out, old skins falling away. Snakes molt in private, and it feels like an introspective type of energy.

In contrast, this year is the Year of the Fire Horse, and nothing feels private and introspective about that. Fire doesn’t shed; it consumes. A horse doesn’t coil inward; it runs.

The Fire Horse is momentum, and momentum can be dangerous if you haven’t cleared the path. The mental image of a fire horse screams swiftness and acceleration, and whatever is in place before the sprint is what’s getting pulled forward. Whether it’s aligned or not, positive or not, self-serving or not.

So we cleared the house, which included clearing some emotional baggage — weird how physical stuff can carry so much energy, right? Not just to have a clean and presentable house for guests, but to prepare for the velocity of whatever is next (good fortune!). I didn’t want to carry last year’s clutter into a year that moves fast. And now that the path is clear, my intention this year is to maintain it.

Taking care of my body

I’ve made this “resolution” before, many times. And historically, once I fall off the workout wagon, I don’t climb back on. Well, here I am, trying once again. And it feels like I’ve never exercised a day in my life.

I regret to inform everyone that the workout people are right: I do feel better after I move my body. So I’ve been doing it, even when I don’t want to (which is almost always), even when it’s short (ten minutes of light weights absolutely counts), even when I’m embarrassingly winded (I live at altitude; that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

But the real reason I’m trying again, now, is this: It feels wrong to ask for momentum and ignore the body carrying it. The Fire Horse is physical energy. It’s movement, stamina, force, long flowing locks gracefully bouncing in the wind. I can’t ask for speed in my work, expansion in my creativity, and boldness in my life… and then neglect the body expected to sustain it.

Strength isn’t aesthetic (I mean, the look of nice toned arms certainly don’t hurt). It’s capacity to carry more and recover faster. Wanting to carry more sounds counter-intuitive to how I’ve been trying to live lately, but the distinction is I want to carry more of what fills me up.

My Peloton instructors have become part of this ritual of letting go of everything that doesn’t serve me. There is something disarming about a stranger on a screen enthusiastically celebrating you for “just showing up.” It has softened the self-sabotaging beliefs I didn’t realize I was carrying — that if it’s not impressive, it doesn’t count; if it’s not consistent, it doesn’t matter; if it’s not perfect, I’ve already failed.

I think that’s the practice this year. It’s not about intensity, or punishment, or proving anything, but just showing up authentically and letting the world meet me where I am.

Setting the pace

For a long time, I’ve been very good at responding — responding to what’s needed, to what’s urgent, to who expects what from me. That’s created a dependability I’m proud of. (Culturally, too, there’s something familiar in that, and it’s sooooo much to unpack. For another time.)

But it’s still reactive. I no longer want to live at the speed of other people’s expectations. I want to set the pace and rhythm myself. That might mean saying no sooner, letting something be uncomfortable or letting it fail, choosing myself instead of obligation. Sure, horses can sprint, but they can also run far when they manage their energy and pacing. I need to do that in my own life to prevent another burnout episode, because I never want to burn out again.

Focusing on what matters

If last year was about shedding what no longer serves me, this year is about focusing on the things that made the cut. 

The Fire Horse runs with purpose and determination. But speed without focus is just noise. So this year isn’t about adding more lanes: it’s about choosing depth. I’m choosing the few things that truly light me up and running toward them unapologetically. It’s about letting the rest fall away instead of clutter the runway. 

—

If the Fire Horse is momentum, this was our starting line. And I’m really happy with our baseline! A house cleared of clutter, a body being asked to carry more (but only what fills it up), a conscious decision to set the pace, and a commitment to spend my energy on what matters.

The path is clear, and the pace is mine to set. Let’s run.

What my dog knows about life

“Hi, can I pet your dog?”

“Sure, if she lets you. She’s shy, and everything is on her terms.”

The guy crouched down, his hand extended. Kona paused a few feet away, assessing, stranger danger mode activated. Slowly, she stepped forward and stretched out her neck. The smallest of sniffs and an accidental nose boop. She backed away, signaling that was all she was willing to give.

“That’s the most anyone really gets from her,” I sigh.

“It’s ok, it was enough. Thanks, Kona!” they say, as we walk away from the stranger danger.

This is a common scenario. Kona catches the attention of almost everyone walking by… and very few get more than a tentative sniff.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what we tell people: “Everything is on her terms.” We say it lightly, but I don’t think we mean it lightly.

Kona doesn’t do things out of obligation. She is a typical shiba with no desire to please her owner. She is cat-like and does what she wants, for the most part, and not because we are laissez-faire pet parents. She moves when she’s ready, stops when she’s done, and engages only when it feels right — usually only if there’s something in it for her.

She doesn’t wake up wondering if her day will be meaningful or productive. She doesn’t scan a mental to-do list or stress about her calendar. She doesn’t have the Sunday Scaries. She gets out of bed every morning — thankfully, only after we do — stretches, and makes her way upstairs for her morning walk and breakfast. She doesn’t care what’s going on that day, she’s gotta meet her needs first: fresh air and food.

The other day, it was nearly 70 degrees F and sunny — in Denver, in February. We had to take advantage of the spring-like day, and we headed to Golden and walked along Clear Creek Trail. With Kona, of course.

The sun beamed on our faces, the creek babbled beside us, and we couldn’t get over how gorgeous of a day it was. Kona trotted along happily, occasionally stopping to investigate something deeply important that we could not see or smell. She set the pace. When she moved, we moved (just like that).

Everything is on her terms.

She eats when she wants to. If she isn’t in the mood for breakfast at breakfast time, she saves it for lunch.

She stops to smell the flowers, literally, even if we have somewhere to be. Satisfying her curiosity is worth the side quest, even if it’s not “useful”.

She finds sunny patches and sunbathes because she likes to. And she’ll move not because the sun wants her to move, but because she wants to move with the sun.

Kona doesn’t need to have a productive morning to deserve an afternoon walk. Joy isn’t a reward; it’s just part of being alive. There’s no internal ledger keeping track of whether she’s done enough to justify rest. She rests all the time, and purely because she wants to loaf around on the couch.

This way of being is deeply uncomfortable if you have a brain trained in systems, efficiency, and tradeoffs. I’m very good at making cases for things. Dogs do not care about your business case. They care about whether the sun is out and whether they get to be outside. Their tradeoffs involve napping on the bed away from their people vs. napping on the couch next to their people.

Kona also doesn’t care about progress. We weren’t going anywhere that day in Golden. There was no destination, no milestone, no desired outcome besides going on a walk. The wandering itself was the point. How much of our dissatisfaction comes from insisting that everything must be in service of forward motion, of achieving goals?

And Kona knows when enough is enough. When she’s tired, she stops. She plops herself on the ground to take a break. She listens to her body and acts accordingly. This isn’t the most convenient when we’re still a half mile away from the parking lot, but I let her rest for bit, cheerlead her while she pushes through, and carry her for small stretches if needed (ok, so Husband usually carries her, but I do sometimes).

Everything is on her terms. Maybe that’s the whole point. 

Be more like Kona.

I unintentionally learned a lot of skills from video games, of all things.

I recently started listening to video game music while creating at the studio. I didn’t think much of it other than life is better with a soundtrack, and that it was probably a good choice because it’s meant to be background music while you’re doing other things… like pottery. 

Some of the tracks brought me back to where and when I was when I played those games. The town music was relaxing. The dungeon or temple music put my brain into problem-solving mode. The battle music spiked my cortisol (and was immediately skipped). And it made me think about how much video games were such a big part of my life, until they weren’t.

I actually don’t remember a time before video games. I was only a toddler, yet I vaguely remember playing my Atari (I guess it was my dad’s Atari), with its joystick-and-single-button controller. I also kinda remember the Christmas I got the OG chunky gray Game Boy with a huge carrying case that included slots for the game cartridges and a Lightboy, an attachable light and magnifier! I definitely remember playing games on our original Nintendo console, hooked up to the boxy TV. My favorite Nintendo game was Chip N Dale, Rescue Rangers. I always played as Chip, and my little brother played as Dale (side note: I think as adults, he’s more of a Chip and I’m more of a Dale now!).

The consoles changed over the years. What we didn’t have at home, we played every weekend at our cousins’ houses. Super Nintendo. PlayStation. Sega Genesis. Sega Saturn. New versions of the Game Boy. New versions of the PlayStation. N64. Wii. My brother and I were mostly PlayStation kids, and I think I’ve touched an Xbox exactly once. Controllers got sleeker, graphics improved, sounds and music got crisper — but the play stayed the same. Sit down. Focus (or as the kids say, “lock in”). Destroy some monsters. Solve some puzzles. Die. Try again.

At some point, I stopped playing.

It wasn’t a dramatic decision. I didn’t renounce games or declare them a waste of time. They just fell away, right around the time I started working full time, which feels telling in retrospect. Adulthood crowded out play, and I didn’t really question it. That’s just what happens, right?

I’ve always told my parents that video games taught me some of the most foundational skills. Admittedly, I was reaching for reasons to stay up late playing games, or spend hours in front of the TV instead of playing outside. Doesn’t make it any less true. 

What I didn’t realize until later: I was learning how to learn.

I played Japanese RPGs (role-playing games where you assume the role of a character progressing through a storyline) before voice acting was standard, which meant reading was mandatory. Dialogue boxes, item descriptions, weapons classes, menus, lore. If you didn’t read, if you didn’t pay attention, if you didn’t know how to put two and two together, you didn’t progress. There was no way around it. There were plenty of times I got stuck for hours because I read a map wrong, or I couldn’t defeat a boss because I wasn’t paying attention to the random town villager telling me a very key detail about what his weakness was.

This kind of reading wasn’t passive. You had to infer meaning, remember details (or write them down — was it just me?), connect threads, and realize patterns. You learned through context and repetition. After watching an unskippable cutscene for the fifth time, oh, you learn. You learned that understanding came gradually, not all at once. And you learned to be OK with not fully understanding something the first (or fifth, or fifteenth) time. Looking back, that feels like an early lesson in navigating complexity without panicking.

Then there were the puzzles. The actual puzzles. (The temple puzzles in Final Fantasy X are what I’m thinking about right now, because they were especially grueling for me.)

Games didn’t really explain themselves back then. There weren’t always glowing arrows telling you where to go. You tried things, and sometimes they worked, and sometimes you found yourself free-falling down an abyss (cue Mario failure music here). If you were really stuck, maybe you asked a friend. Maybe you begged your parents to buy you a “strategy guide” from GameStop (before they were widely available online) because how the hell do you get out of this maze?

What games taught me here was patience with being stuck. Not everything is immediately solvable. Not knowing is not a failure state. Sometimes progress looks like circling the problem until your brain catches up. Sometimes you just have to walk away from a problem and come back to it later. That lesson has aged surprisingly well.

And then there was failure — constant, expected, unremarkable failure. You died. A lot. You respawned at a save point, sometimes — oftentimes? — way before you’d like it to be. You tried again. (If I’m not mistaken, Super Mario World on SNES allowed you to save only very infrequently.) 

Failure wasn’t personal. It just meant you mistimed a jump, or chose the wrong move, or hadn’t understood the pattern yet, or just didn’t have enough experience. What that built was grit. Not the hustle culture kind, but the calm, boring kind, lol. The kind where you don’t spiral when something doesn’t work the first time. The kind where iteration is normal and persistence is rewarding. The kind you build when you realize that picking Charmander as your starter Pokemon maybe wasn’t the best choice against the Rock Gym and Water Gym. In a lot of adult environments, failure feels high-stakes and shame-laced. In games, it was just part of the loop, part of the fun that sometimes didn’t feel like fun.

I also played a lot of racing and fighting games, which trained a different set of skills.

Racing games taught timing and spatial awareness, and how to drive at high speeds (which may or may not have translated directly to real life…).

Fighting games taught pattern recognition, anticipation, adaptation, and muscle memory.

Both taught me how to compete. Most of the cousins I spent time with growing up were the boys, and I learned how to take a virtual beating — and what to do to fight back and win. (They learned how not to be sore losers for losing to a girl!)

Video games taught me that mastery isn’t talent — it’s repetition and iteration. It’s showing up again and again until something clicks. There’s no shortcut. There’s just time and attention.

At some point, the games changed. They moved online. They became more social, more optimized, and more monetized (you want me to buy a monthly subscription to play a game?!). Play became performative. You weren’t just playing — you were being watched, ranked, and compared. Fun started to feel like work. That made me lose interest. This isn’t a critique of online gaming so much as a recognition of what I personally lost: solitary play. Offline focus. The freedom to be bad at something in private, with low stakes.

What I’m still unpacking is what it would look like to reclaim some of those early lessons — iteration without shame, patience with complexity, joy without optimization — in a world that increasingly treats every activity as something to measure, share, or monetize (yuck).

This reflection somehow led to “ugh! these systems and society we live in!” but hey, that’s the beauty of writing, right?

By the way, after many years of not gaming, I do have a gaming console in my house once again: a Nintendo Switch we bought a few years ago. We bought it because The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was supposed to be the new hotness, but I played it and got really stuck and never picked it up again, ha. We mostly play Mario Kart now, but I might have just inspired myself to properly game again.

What I mean when I say I want work flexibility / a list of benefits I actually want

I found a note in my phone listing the benefits of remote work. I don’t remember why I started it, but it feels relevant to surface now — especially with return-to-office mandates making their latest comeback tour.

I keep seeing the same argument recycled: spontaneous collaboration leads to innovation. Sure, fine, whatever.

That argument falls apart pretty quickly when you’re forced back into the office only to sit on Zoom calls with teammates in other locations. But I digress.

Let’s say requiring people to report to a physical office does occasionally result in spontaneous collaboration and innovation. What does it cost?

Time and energy, for sure. Physical and emotional well-being. Freedom.

We proved in 2020 that a lot of work could be done remotely. Workers were productive — in many cases, more productive — and we sent shareholder value to the moon. And now employers are clawing those remote policies back for… reasons. Control. Real estate. Optics.

Besides the more obvious benefits of remote work — like skipping the commute (and all the time, stress, and maintenance that come with it), or wearing your comfiest sweats — I want to name the underrated benefits. The ones that never make it into a benefits presentation, but matter just as much.

Here’s a list of benefits HR teams at remote-friendly companies should be proud of:

• Knowing your bathroom is clean, available, and not half a city block away
• Being in control of the temperature (no more office-wide thermostat wars)
• Full environmental control: light, sound, seating, silence, smells (have you ever lit a scented candle while working? It’s great.)
• Being able to enjoy your “stinky” lunch — kimchi! fish! most delicious food, really — without judgment or complaints
• Spending more time with your pets, including the kind of pet cuddling that improves your mood and lowers your blood pressure
• Throwing in a load of laundry between meetings so weekends stay… weekends
• Avoiding the office stomach bug that somehow takes down half the floor
• The luxury of being able to lie down between meetings — or during an all-hands. To lie down, period.
• The freedom to fidget, pace, stretch, or sit like a pretzel
• Choosing your own desk and chair instead of suffering through corporate-issue furniture
• Choosing where to work — no more envying the desks at the sunlit corners of the office
• Less pressure to mask — emotionally, socially, neurologically
• Being able to walk away when you need a moment
• Having your notes visible to you, but not everyone else (soooo helpful for presentations)
• Wearing comfy clothes that don’t drain your will to live
• Taking care of minor health things without an explanation
• Transitioning between meetings without sprinting down a hallway
• Not having to hover awkwardly outside a conference room you booked, wondering when it’s socially acceptable to kick people out
• Regulating your energy instead of performing productivity (thinking is working, even when an executive is doing laps around the floor.)

None of this shows up on a company’s list of benefits and perks. It’s all folded into a single line item called “remote work”.

There’s no KPI for “never crying in a bathroom stall” or “not losing half your day to fluorescent lights and overstimulation” (seriously, why the Big Lights?)

But collectively, these things add up to something that does matter: more autonomy, and more room to be human.

So yes, we can debate office attendance policies. I do understand why some people prefer working in an office (couldn’t be me, but you do you!). But we should also be honest about what people are actually being asked to give up.

The cognitive dissonance of celebrating small joys while the world falls apart.

How do I celebrate my husband’s birthday the day after we all witnessed ICE murder Renee Good in broad daylight?

How do we carry on with our days after such atrocities occur? How are we still answering emails, joining Zoom meetings, and going grocery shopping when the world is burning around us? When Israel is committing genocide? When there is a mass shooting in America nearly every day? When ICE is dragging people out of their homes or kidnapping people at school? When people with so-called authority are shooting people in the head for… sitting in their car? 

It felt really weird to be baking a birthday cake last week. We had to keep telling ourselves, and each other, to avoid social media. Was it the “right” thing to do? Unsure, but it protected our mental health, on a day that should have been full of joy. A birthday! A day to celebrate another revolution around the sun!

It’s felt weird for a while. On the medium screen, the endless barrage of bad news: looming war (WWIII or Civil War II, which will be first?), political chaos, climate collapse, economic downturn, bad, bad, bad. On the tiny screen, personal moments of joy: birthday celebrations, milestone achievements, good meals, cooking tutorials, pottery content, dog videos. 

Both screens show reality. And holding those distinctly different versions of reality at the same time is exhausting.

I think what a lot of us are experiencing right now isn’t only stress or burnout — it’s cognitive dissonance. The mental strain of trying to reconcile two realities that don’t sit neatly together: a world that feels like it’s on fire, and a personal life that keeps… happening.

I’ll feel happy about something small and almost immediately feel disoriented. Like “am I allowed to feel this?” Like joy requires a footnote. Like celebration needs context. Like happiness is somehow irresponsible. Like if I am posting dog photos, I don’t care about the truly horrible shit happening in the world. 

This dissonance shows up everywhere. We’re expected to be informed but not overwhelmed. Engaged but not consumed. Compassionate but still productive. To care deeply about the state of the world while continuing to function inside systems that feel increasingly broken. To hold grief and normalcy in the same body, sometimes in the same hour.

We keep reaching for the word “balance”, but balance implies two sides evenly weighted. What we’re dealing with feels much more volatile than that. It’s not balance; it’s constant reconciliation. A daily attempt to make incompatible truths coexist without tearing ourselves apart.

One of the ways people cope with this is compartmentalization, a word that tends to sound colder than it actually is. It’s often framed as avoidance or denial, but I’m not convinced that’s fair. I don’t think compartmentalization always means pretending the house isn’t burning. I think sometimes it means stepping out of the smoke long enough to breathe.

There’s a version of awareness that’s clarifying, and another that’s paralyzing. When we’re exposed to suffering constantly, our nervous systems don’t magically rise to the occasion; they shut down. So we scroll. We numb ourselves. Or we swing the other direction and try to perform constant seriousness, as if joy is something we should temporarily suspend until the world improves.

That’s where I really feel the dissonance: the idea that personal joy and global suffering are mutually exclusive. That to be ethical or awake or compassionate, we must flatten our own lives. That small wins don’t count right now. That happiness is, at best, a distraction — and at worst, a moral failure. But refusing joy doesn’t actually resolve the contradiction. It just adds another layer of loss.

The world doesn’t get better simply because we suppress happiness in the name of taking the world seriously. All that really happens is that our own lives become smaller, more brittle, easier to break. At the same time, I don’t fully buy the counter-narrative either — the idea that joy is inherently radical or that happiness alone is a form of resistance. That framing feels too clear-cut for something so complicated.

Joy doesn’t fix the world, but despair doesn’t either. This isn’t about disengaging or sticking my head in the sand — it’s about surviving long enough to stay human.

Coping with cognitive dissonance isn’t about choosing one reality over the other. It’s about learning how to let them coexist without demanding resolution.

That might look like:

• Staying informed, but setting real boundaries around how much you consume
• Allowing yourself to feel joy without immediately qualifying it
• Letting grief be present without insisting it dominate every moment
• Accepting that some days you’ll feel okay, and other days you won’t, and neither is a failure of character

None of this feels elegant. If you are an empathetic human being, the discomfort doesn’t go away. The dissonance doesn’t resolve; it just becomes something you learn to carry with more awareness and care.

Perhaps the goal isn’t to eliminate the tension (it sure would be nice though), but to stop letting it convince us that we’re doing something wrong by continuing to live.

The world is on fire. That’s real. And we’re still here, making dinner, learning new skills, celebrating birthdays, creating things that don’t solve anything but make life feel inhabitable.

Holding both is uncomfortable, but pretending one cancels out the other somehow feels even worse.

So this is me, trying to cope — not by resolving the contradiction, but by acknowledging it. I’m letting the dissonance exist without letting it erase my humanity.

I don’t have a better answer than that. I don’t have advice to make life feel less heavy. My coping mechanisms are just that: coping mechanisms, and not a panacea. I don’t even know why I started writing this, but if this makes you feel seen, that’s my tidbit of joy today.