where did I go?

The time is almost here ......my birthday is in 44 days and the reflections of chapter 41 as I head into my 42nd chapter will begin.


​Of note, the only "highs" I can think of is for my advocacy. I went out of my comfort zone and traveled solo - to Florida in November and to D.C. in May. I even got to sit at a panel for the TCHMB summit.  My lows......I haven't written, or submitted, or asked the Universe to send me a muse as I'm prone to do every other month or so. In fact, aside from this blog post, my last recent blog was in March...about my advocacy work. 
I did manage to write 24 poems in 24 hours for the Poetry Marathon, but towards the end, I was absolutely not making any sense and I can't find where I've written those poems down in my early morning musings. 
I miss writing. I miss being in a community of writers and poets. I even started to miss Twitter, excuse me, X. 
I understand that time, teaching, being a mom and wife, are a huge part of why I stopped, but I know several moms, wives, and teachers who are making a go and setting time for their writing. Amidst all the mess and chaos of my own (and family's) creation, there is a story that needs to be told. And I already know the beginning and have a rough framework of the middle and end. 
Perhaps, I am going through this self-reflection tour since I'm listening to Joanna Gaines' The Stories We Tell and she's harping on about well.... stories and how we should both honor them and then speak or write about them. Or the fact that for a lovely 24 hours, I was part of a writing community and we rallied and supported each other during the early morning hours when sleep would have been easier than writing.
It could be looking through this sad website and noting that the last publication was a year ago for a poem I had written in 2021/22. Or my daughter finding my 80 some pages of Asian American poems, doodling all over it and asking why it's dusty. That last poem was also dated in 2022.
Perhaps, it's also my anxiety screaming that in about 21 days, I am going to sit in front of some peers who have written, who are versed in storytelling, and I'm going to be talking about storytelling.... even though I, myself, have not written a single note in almost 2 years. And the last things I wrote was for a 24-hour poetry marathon and those 24 poems were nonsensical. I think I can salvage about 5, but the rest does not need to be seen. 
It is this imposter syndrome that is currently going through a list of "good excuses" to bow out. But I know fear isn't a good reason. I've been asked so many times to be out of my comfort zone and I may not have liked it at the time, but I don't regret it. 
One of my biggest fear is getting lost. Don't ask me why. I was never lost as a kid. But I have this fear of not being able to find my way out and back to home. My commute is the shortest way possible. I do not like "scenic" routes. I stay on the highways and follow the directions most navigations tell me to go. Alternate routes give me anxiety. 
In November, I traveled solo to Orlando and guess what? I got lost somewhere in the airport. I would have had a panic attack, except, my husband was on the phone talking me down, and I was meeting people somewhere in the airport. We all got lost and managed to circle around for 3 hours. At the airport. But we managed to get to our destination.
In May, I flew again, this time to D.C. No one was meeting me at the airport. I just had to get to the hotel on my own. And I got there by myself. During the day when we w were scheduled to meet with Representatives for our State, I had time by myself. I walked down a block and found a peaceful garden not too far from Congress. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't already gotten lost and found my way through.

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I find it sad that brave are the people that helped built this and there are brave people from all around the country that come here to speak about their experiences, truths and use their found voices for change..... and yet, behind these doors are men (and some women) who are cowards.

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I recognized fear in those moments and then I remembered that bravery isn't just flying to cities to meet strangers who have had the same birth experiences or talking to someone about mental health struggles. Bravery is walking towards serenity and recognizing that all these trips, I was finding more and more about myself and that I have stories and poems stored up in all of these walks. I have walked up and down NICU corridors. I have shuffled my feet down emergency rooms.  I have prayed at every turbulent flights from Manila, from D.C. and all the states I have walked on. Stories of guilt, miracles, depression, hope, anxiety, fun tidbits, crushes, love, lost, grief; and in all these stories I have lived, where and who am I, if not the writer penning all these? 
​Fear and overcoming them has led me to today. I wished for my 41 to live authentically. I'm not even sure what that means or if I have lived it this year. Was I "authentic" or true to myself as a mom/teacher/wife/advocate? I haven't written a darn thing and, that in itself, is not authentically me. Anxious, yes. Hyped up and amped up, always. Writing those feelings down so I am not as amped up, hyped up and anxious....I should have been. Instead, I went head down, eyes closed and jumped in. This year, I'm finding that I was living 'fearless,' or 'bold,' or better yet, I was "braver" than I've ever been my whole life.
Bravery looks different, just as fear is different for people. My fear hasn't ever been "will someone like this story?" or "what would I do if I got rejected?" Poetry gives you a thicker skin. So many rejections in so many years. 
Rather, I've always been fearful of "is this the story that is truly what I needed to say?" "Can I do justice to my imagination and heart?" "Would people see my heart here?" ​

Maybe I've just read too many self-help books and romcoms about bold heroines or maybe I've been binge watching too much Bridgerton.....whatever it is, I am still looking through this stack of unpublished poems, looking at the dates and truly wondering where did I go? And my biggest fear is that I am lost, and I don't know who I am or where I went, when I'm sitting still just looking at these old stories and poems. Hopefully, I'll find that I wasn't really lost after all.  
Maybe I got it backwards....in finding bravery this 41st chapter, maybe, just maybe, I'll figure out how to "live authentically," in chapter 42. 
Or and this could just be my very cynical self (but hell, if I'm going to be authentic, might as well start now), I am perhaps looking at the very stirrings of a midlife crisis. 
​Stay tuned.​

we got seperated from the group - my husband and I - and even though we had a person behind us, I could feel anxiety telling me that we were lost and we'd be lost forever to these mountains.