Tag Archives: life

lifestyle, Personal, relationships

“like” this.

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Scroll, scroll, scroll. Like, like, like. Tweet, repost, share.

Pressing my thumbprint onto the home button of my iPhone and waiting for the screen to illuminate, I never felt that my desire for connectivity on social media or phone to be abnormal. Because it’s not. I’ll sit in a friend’s living room where everyone else’s eyes scan their screens, I’ll sit in a café and more than half the faces are turned downward to their phones. I’ll be at a party and people are Snapchatting or taking selfies left and right, unembarrassed and filtered.

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Personal, Uncategorized

Reminder.

Brushing it off and saying “it’s just one of those days” is a disservice to yourself. It’s a cheat out of giving yourself permission to experience real pain, real emotions, real sadness. Whether or not you understand where it’s coming from doesn’t necessarily matter- and it doesn’t make it any less.

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Family, Personal, relationships

Selves.

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Sometimes in a moment alone after a thread of days spent around people for extended periods of time I’ll feel a very distinct feeling of hollowness. For sanity, I require time to just be quiet and still- maybe scrolling through websites, paging through a book, or staring out the window. Although necessary and mostly tenderly enjoyable, there’s a barrenness to the space around me when instead of clattering around in the kitchen or chatter from across the room I hear only the mechanic purr of the heater and cruel tick of the clock.

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Art, Cambodia, Expat, Family, Fashion, Food, lifestyle, Music, Personal, Phnom Penh, relationships, Travel, United States

Whirlwind.

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Layers of ugliness and masterpiece.

It has been 13 days since soaring into the air towards Phnom Penh, Cambodia and two full back home, in Washington- in Tacoma, That Quiet Little Mountain Town. The amount of breaths, thoughts, experiences…stuff… that has happened in these past two weeks: in the world, in America, in my heart: vast. I am exhausted, fatigued to the bone and only able to process scraps at a time, little scintilla of memories as my mind rests and wanders, wakes and tremors.

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Beauty, Cambodia, Expat, Family, lifestyle, Personal, Phnom Penh, relationships, Travel, United States

Stranger.

Throughout the thirteen hour plane ride to Taipei, I could not stop watching the woman in front of me. Between bouts of sleep and finding myself staring at the ceiling, I would notice faintly but strongly her presence in a plane full of people. Forty years old or sixty, it was difficult to gauge. Her high, gaunt cheekbones battled against full, tanned cheeks and her hair flecked with dove grey stranded elegantly through inky black. I never quite got a strong, clear look at her eyes or mouth, only glimpses through the space between the seat and the window as I sat behind.

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Expat, Family, lifestyle, Personal, real estate, relationships

Nook.

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This week I shared drinks on the sunlit porch of Hank’s conversing about life, work, projects and everything in between. When my home came up in conversation, my friend jokingly but truthfully mentioned that I’d never invited him over to hang out. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel bad about my lack of hospitality at all.

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lifestyle, Personal, real estate, United States, Work

Open house.

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Take one look at my planner and you’ll understand why I’d like to schedule my coffee with you two weeks in advance (three weeks if it’s dinner), why my kitchen looks the way it does (horrible), and the reason I have to hit up the gas station every few days (thank the Lord for low petrol prices).

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Cambodia, Expat, lifestyle, Personal, Phnom Penh, Travel, United States

Twinge.

As Mad Men comes to it’s final season, I’ve been brushing up on past episodes, remembering the times I laughed, cried, and wrung my hands at the characters who so deftly mirror us in so many ways. Pride, lust, anger, fear, love (?), self loathing, understanding- it’s all there. Just as it is in life past the television screen.

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Cambodia, Expat, Food, Personal, Phnom Penh, Travel, United States

Cold hands, warm heart.

It had been almost two and a half years since I had last set eyes on the Seattle city lights, gleaming like a forest full of little animal eyes in an inky night. I sat bundled up, peering out the window as my plane landed onto Washington ground on December 20th, 2014. The air may have been what felt close to freezing, but it was as if I could feel my blood warm as soon as the wheels hit the tarmac.

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Cambodia, Expat, lifestyle, Personal, Phnom Penh

End of the honeymoon phase.

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We all get to this point during some time of the year (week, month, even day at times) when you feel like you’ve lost a lot, or all, interest in that around you. Well kids, here I am at that point. It’s like the honeymoon phase of a relationship is over and now it’s down to brass tacks and really deciding whether you want to be in it or not: ultimately though it’s between me and a country. Instead of champagne fueled dates and moonlit kissing it’s the showcasing of gross habits, farting in front of each other, arguing over dinner, and bickering over finances and chores phase.

Rarely do I have those blissed out moments of here I am Cambodia, you charming place you! Now take me wherever you please. It’s more like please take out the trash asshole I’m tired and bored and we aren’t having date night this week. It’s not to say that there aren’t good things happening in my life: I should be grateful, and generally I am. This week though has felt like walking through molasses or Groundhog Day where everything seems to be on repeat with little changing from the day to day- which can be a slow torturous way of life unless I either take my mind out of its current state or change my situation.

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