pants off dance off

Where do I begin? My father.

I love and respect my father so much, but I do not know how to show vulnerability to him.

He has done so much for the Vietnamese community, and he always lived a bigger life than what his family wanted or needed. He wasn't there for us when we grew up, not in the way that we wanted as children. He provided us with all the means in the world. A full stomache, a home, but no love and compassion. He was, by the archiac definition of a world long gone, a true man.

My father checked all the boxes for being the Patriarch; the Alpha Male. He was a charismatic leader, he brought wealth to the Vietnamese community, he brought joy to people, he welcomed people and made them all feel like family, except for his family. He only consistently treated us well in front of guests.

Who was my father when the guests were not around? The broken man that has been running away from his fears and insecurities since his childhood. I can relate to that, Dad. He, too, feared vulnerability. Feared being weak. Feared the judgmental eyes of his peers that he isn't the perfect man he has always tried to project into the world. It was weird seeing this duality as a child. I guess you can say that this became the root to my discontent and distrust with Authority. I got first hand experience with seeing how one can abuse their Authority, and its all so human.

My father lost his mother when he was at a young age, I want to say between 3-5 years old. He had two siblings at that time. His father remarried and had 8 more children. He was angry, jealous of the love his younger half siblings received. He also didn't feel love. He ran away to Saigon, and based on context clues, likely joined a gang during his younger years. I don't know if it was during his life in Vietnam or his early years in California. Regardless, the world he grew up in nurtured him into a hardened soul.

My father and mother escaped Vietnam thanks to the help of my great-uncle. Our family was lucky enough to have the gold to pay the boats to ship my father, mother, and her three brothers to California. They all worked at sweatshops and other jobs immigrants tend to "steal" when they settled. We were dirt poor until we moved to New Jersey. We grew up in homes with 4-5 families crammed into a house.

It was then, that we began to find wealth. My father was able to spark up partnerships among his friends, expanding nail salons all across northern New Jersey. He brought wealth to my family, my uncles, and other vietnamese families. But none of that came without costs. His past was catching up to him. The stress of keeping this growth was catching up to him. His family deteriorating was catching up to him. He escaped through the bottle like he usually does. His family felt the consequences of how he dealt with his inner demons; anger and violence.

Vietnamese men are taught these tools to survive their community, their world. But we aren't at war anymore. We don't need these tools anymore. It took a lot of tears from our family for my father to finally let his guard down. It took his son almost dieing several times for him to finally accept accountability. He finally admitted to himself, he isn't perfect.

My brother only wanted my father's love, he wasn't weak. The irony of it all is that I feel deeply inside me that my father seeks my love. I've come to terms with my father a long time ago, but I still have a chip on my shoulder on how it affected my brother.

My brother and I stood up to my father in different ways. My brother was loud, combatitive, and very transparent. I closed my mouth and I closed my heart to him. He never saw real emotion from me again for a very long time.

My father is still not perfect but he proved to me that people can change in this world. That you can still learn to improve yourself. I'm proud of my father for breaking through his inner demons and getting closer to finding peace. I'm fighting my own demons now, and it's something I can look to for inspiration and motivation.

Perhaps my purpose is to heal and evolve the generational trauma, hurt, and sadness that resides in the soul of our Cao DNA. My brother and I share many of the strengths and weaknesses of our father, and our father gave us the blueprint and opportunity to heal earlier than he has had.

I guess it's time I show my brother and father love again. I don't know how but I guess it can start with a phone call.

Thursday, April 3, 2025

My Place in Infinity

What is the purpose to life? What is the meaning to life? Is there a meaning or purpose?

It may be cliche, but I suppose I've wrestled with those questions a great deal of my life. Wrestled with ideas like destiny or nihilism. Nitpicked religion and the dogma in science. Came to conclusions like wanting children because they inspire ego death.

I've come to accept it all, or at least I'm trying to. It helped me a lot by recognizing the idea of infinity and my place in it.

Just me and the trees, the forest and the leaves. A piece of the Mandelbrot, and I'm okay with that.

There's going to be people poorer than me, richer than me. Cooler than me, geekier than me. Dumber, smarter, skinnier, fatter, prettier, uglier, meaner, nicer.

I aim to wake up with love and not violence. I aim to find balance.

I forget what podcast I was listening to, and whether the guest was Gabor Mate or Jordan Peterson, but they made a statement that was so powerful to me. "A person who dealt with trauma lives in a landscape of good and evil."

After I almost lost my brother to heroin, my world was consumed by good and evil. Actions spoke louder than words to me; it's either you do or you don't. All the words used to define why you "don't" was bullshit to me. You do or you don't. My life became black and white..

Watching our family dynamic devolve my brother to such dependency on heroin destroyed my soul. Being manipulated and gaslighted by my brother destroyed my soul. Watching the bright and joyous face of my brother love bombing me and realizing it was hollow because the heroin he injected finally kicked in destroyed my soul. Seeing the brightness from my brothers face transform before my eyes into a crying and agonizing sadness begging me to drive him to Newark to help him pick up drugs or else he might kill himself because he doesn't feel loved, it became Tuesday.

It became a joke to me. It wasn't. It fucked me up. I didn't offer my trust to people so freely anymore. I recognize that now.

Life isn't black and white. I knew that but I lost track of it. I took a back seat and chose the path of least resistance. I simplified the world to 1s and 0s. But the scale you choose is the scale you live by.

I'm unbinding the knot I shackled my soul behind, but it's hard for me to approach. I built a lot of "protective" measures without realizing it, and I think it'll be a while for me to recognize and find them all. But I find that the more I deal in the memories that hurt me so much, the more I'm able to find peace again.

And recognize my place in infinity.

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Where are the fireworks?

I'll ramble on in this one.

I have a coworker who deals with deep depression. He's been through shit. We've shared our war stories. We were both born into traumatic homes. We both came to the conclusion that if you experience enough fucked up shit in your life, you're content with having very little when you come out of it.

The silence was enough.

I was content.

But...

Did it ever get silent, though? Where did the fireworks go? When you're raised around fireworks, I guess you grow up looking for them.

Fuck it; let's do talk therapy.

I think around 7-8 years ago, I was having dinner with Wendy, Jenny and Shelley. I remember bragging that I was able to cry on command. In retrospect, I shoulda figured out I had issues then and there.

The problem, though, was that I never used that simple trick again... that is, until I used it on my therapist.

What's the trick you ask?

To be continued...

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Monday, October 7, 2024

Mountains out of Molehills, Pt. 1

I really hate the act of complaining. I despise it. I refuse it. I drown it out. I dismiss it. I marginalize it. I do not empathize with it. Unless a progressive thought or plan is put into play to remedy the problem, I don't want to hear a fucking word of it. The aura of discontent without a course of action was a dagger to my soul.

But why?
Why is it that I hate it so fucking much. Why do I view mountains and molehills all the same? I never want to spend an iota of time on the feelings one experiences when dealing with a problem, I only want the focus placed on the solution.

For a substantial part of my life, I lived by the words "Act or forget, complaining is silly." I lived by those words, truly. I chose to forget a lot.

I've started Couples Therapy with my wife recently.
It started because of our fights that I deemed as molehills.
I marginalized the problems. I didn't view them as problems.
They were hiccups. Like dust in the wind.
I marginalized the problems. I marginalized my Wife's feelings.
Why are we fighting over dust? What's the fucking point?
Can't we sweep this under the rug?
Can't we let the wind blow it away?
Can't we forget about it and move on?

While talking to our therapist, it made me remember how little value I put on my own life, my own feelings. It wasn't a choice that I made, maybe it was, but it was a persistent feeling that was bound to my soul at a young age. The feeling and emotion of having no value? It grew up into a man. Dropped into an ever-growing, internet driven, and over-exposed world.

I was able to falsely feel validated that my life wasn't so bad. My feelings didn't matter. The scale that my trauma weighs on seemed to be pretty light next to the killing fields of Cambodia... and if I couldn't convince myself enough that I was okay, there were plenty of vices that can occupy my overthinking, overworking, over-analyzing mind.

Was TV not enough to drown my thoughts? Let me put music on top. Was the music and TV not enough? Let me play some sensory overloaded video game. When the trauma was "light", those solutions were enough. They weren't always enough. They were never enough for my brother.

Trauma isn't a sticker that you can scratch off or hide. It doesn't come in one size. It's not a flavor of the week. Trauma doesn't come with a label for everyone to understand. It's not a television program that you can turn off because it was too traumatic. The show goes on.

Some trauma can appear like a form of mold. Slowly infecting and latching on to every form, thought, and feeling without showing any signs of presence. Some trauma doesn't go away. Some trauma is perpetual. An elephant in the room that you grew up with and dare not speak about to a member of a Nuclear family. The violent alcoholic with an illogical, fascist, dictatorial, fear-driven grip that deposed its own will on the people. Is the alcoholic happy? The people must be happy. Is the alcoholic sad? The people must be sad.

What are the options that a boy can take when their hero becomes a fearmongering tyrant? When he can feel the fear and sadness in the hearts of his family? When he can feel the anger, sorrow, anxiety, shame, frustration, doubt and disappointment in the tyrant, himself? To empathize with the devil? How does the boy scale his problems against his father's?

Am I making mountains over molehills?
I must be.

When I was around 7 or 8 years old, my father brought me and my siblings to a construction yard. Being the young dumb immortal turd that I was back then, I kept running around throwing caution to the wind. Of course the wind leads my foot to a wooden plank with a nail sticking out, through the soles of my shoe and through my foot. I remember very clearly how scared I was. It wasn't the pain I was scared of or how much blood there was. I was scared of my father.

To be continued.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Limited Time

It's cliche for me to say your time on earth is limited. But sometimes we get so caught up in the moment or get sidetracked that we don't make the most of our time while we are here. I know that I am definitely guilty, since I like spending a lot of my free time doing nothing.

However, sometimes we are reminded that our time is limited. Unfortunately for me, I was reminded recently with the passing of an acquaintance. I took Vietnamese for my foreign language in college since I wanted an easy A and plus my Spanish sucks. I was paired up with a group that included 2 girls. I can't say I talked to her much or we got super close. We just simply worked on it and I had 2-3 more quarters of Vietnamese with her. That was around 2008? 2009?

Well, I saw on Facebook a few weeks back that this girl I sort of knew got the flu and it took her life. It's just weird to see someone so young pass away. And from the flu as well. I was sad hearing the news and from what I remember she was a super hard working girl.

I was going through my contacts today deleting people from my phonebook and I saw her name.. I had forgotten I ever had it and it was such a reality check. One moment you're here and the next you're not. And I need to do more with the time I am here. Rest in peace My Tran.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

11:11

11:11 am.. 11:11 pm.. As I type this - it is one minute before 11:11.. Which means it's time to make a wish. 11:11? Make a wish, I'm sure you've heard it before. And it's not like it means anything or that I seriously believe my wish will come true. It's just a silly habit of mine that I still do when I see those magic numbers. But 11:11 also reminds me of her. I always texted and reminded her when it was time to make a wish. Not only did I want my wish to come true, but hers as well. Eventually, I even got her to remind me when the clock hit 11:11. And so what began as a silly gesture became a reminder of what I once had.

I am reminded every day. Some days are better than others, and some worse. My wishes were silly and farfetched. Become a celebrity, win the lottery, teach my dog Merlin how to drive a car. And before I knew it my farfetched wishes became more serious. I wished for a time machine, a reset button, a way of undoing how things turned out. Something I always did for fun wasn't fun anymore.

Through the process I have grown, I have cried, and I have faced inner demons. And it kills me that I can't move on. My inability to forget the past haunts me daily. The best part of dating is having someone to share everything with, which is also the worst part of dating when it ends. You share your passions, your favorite donut, intimacy. A simple thing such as a song on the radio can ruin your day.

And life goes on. You feel like shit but in the morning you still have to get out of bed. You feel like there's no hope but hope is what keeps you going. Days turn into months, months turns into years and slowly getting out of bed isn't as bad. You're feeling great and then out of the corner of your eye you see it.. 11:11. Fuck. Life goes on.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Reminders

It's hard to forget when the little reminders are everywhere. I've been trying to move on, yet I am reminded daily of the one that I lost. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look. I am trying but it's unavoidable and I just have to take it and keep going no matter how I feel. That's what sucks.

pants off dance off

Friday, April 4, 2025

Mountains out of Molehills, Pt. 2