I am well

My sudden moment of insanity has passed. I am okay now. I think I just panicked a few weeks ago when I had to be confined in the hospital due to health reasons. I'm doing much better now, and I had a lot of chances to think about a lot of things. Honestly, it's not so bad to be where I am right now. I'm not saying this is the forever kind of thing, but it will do for the meantime. I just wish God would tell me where to go next. I get signs along the way, but I just can't seem to make sense of all the clues.

Hopefully, things will be clearer within this year.

The Insane Rambling Post

Again I find myself facing a familiar pattern in my life...

Anyway, I made my choice months ago and I don't regret it. I knew back then it was the wrong decision for me personally, but the right decision for a whole lot of other people involved.

But then, there are limits to selflessnes. Hmm....come to think of it, that doesn't really make sense.

This post is me trying to make sense of the millions of thoughts running through my head right now...

Where to live? Where to work? What to do? Where is the old risk-taking me who wasn't afraid of the unknown? Did motherhood change me? Did marriage change me?

I can no longer make decisions without having to negotitiate with the other party who will be affected in a deeply profound way. I never let his decisions affect mine, but why does he react differently when I make my decisions? To him, everything is a conjunction. To me, I'm still living a separate life that just happened to get hooked up to someone else's life.... Probably the reasons why we've had clashes for about a week now.

Nothing to worry about though. I'm not breaking up with my husband. I think we're just going through the natural progression of growing up as people. We don't love each other less, we're just trying our best to understand where each one is coming from. We're talking about it. I have to learn how to give a little more. I have to learn that my life is no longer made up of 1 piece of luggage and 1 shelf of books.

Who I am I to say what he has to learn. I don't want to assume I know what is right or wrong. I guess he's figuring that out himself as well.....

It's clear to me. I want to continue working. I just don't want to continue working in the same place. I can't move on though unless I let go. Where I am right now represents security. I can't open myself up to possibilities unless I let go of the dry ground I'm hanging on to. That's why I'm leaving. I don't think a vacation will fix this because I already did that and when I came back the same problems were still there. I stayed as long as I could, fixed as much as I could. But then, someone should carry on and I think I've done as much as I could already...

Sorry if this post doesn't make sense....In a few days, things will get clearer and I'll post something saner...

Choices

I have long wanted to write a post about choices. I guess I've been reading my other friend's blogs and a lot of them are in the same stage as I am right now where they are starting a family, raising a young child and trying to find the balance between having a career and keeping a marriage together. It's interesting to see the dynamics of how each family works.

I admit that my life is not the typical setup. Let me go out and say it. I am the sort of person whom you would hate to work with in the office. I am competitive and will do almost anything to get to the top of the pack. Honestly, I don't know where that came from. I used to be so nice back in high school and college. Then when I started working, ambition consumed me. In my early 20's, I was always the youngest in whatever job I was doing.

Then as most of you know, at 26 I got burned out. I took a break and went back to work only when it became necessary. I thought that by then I had changed. For some reason though, I fell into the same pattern and starting rushing through life again and pushing people along the way.

Then at 28, out of the blue, I had a kid. It was never a priority, but when it came, I was happy and didn't regret a single moment of it. The doctors I went to, told me I was lucky I had a baby when technically, it should have been difficult for me to conceive. For me, it was a greater miracle that I gave birth to her normally and that she turned out to be such a happy, smart baby considering the environment I was in and the schedule I kept was not conducive at all to conceiving.

After I gave birth, I made sort of a decision to slow down. I decided not to try out for a higher position because like what I told my husband, my current job already gave me very little time as it was for the family, what more if I had decided at that point to pursue that next role.

Today, my daughter is 2 years old. I am still working weird hours. In fact, my life is even crazier now because I have expanded my responsibility. When we eventually recover from this fucked up financial crisis, I know I will be ready to look for another opportunity to grow in my career.

Do I want to go for the next big thing? I would be honest and say yes. Do I realize what I am giving up? I know. How do I feel about it? Honestly, I am confused. Am I ready to give up everything I built up in the last 8 years for the sake of having a normal family life? Not quite yet.

Bryan and I talk about these questions almost everyday. I work because I want our family to have a comfortable life. I work because I want both of us to have the ability to help our original families without question. I work because I don't want to place all the burden on him. Yeah, I know men are supposed to be the provider, blah, blah, blah. But I think the reason why I am happy in my marriage is that we both believe in equal rights and responsibilties. He's so liberal and forward-thinking which is why I respect him. When we first met, my career was way ahead of his, but it was never an issue. He's never asked me to give up my career and I don't think he ever will, which is cool. Right now though, he's asking me to just make 1 change in my life, which is my schedule. It's hard not to see each other for 2 days straight sometimes because both of our schedule.

Eventually I will make that change. I just don't know when. Until then, we have to make the most of what we have for now.

I should have

The past 2 days have been hard for me. I found out the other day that my daughter was rushed to the hospital because she had a very high fever and had a convulsion. Of course, being half-way across the world. all I could wait was for some news about how she was doing.

She's fine, but the in the last few days, I was thinking, I should have been there for her. I should have been the one bringing her to the hospital. Maybe it's time I went home, but then, it would still take me 2 days to get back.

Then on the flip-side, I thought about it and said to myself, that if I weren't working, she wouldn't have the medical coverage that would allow her to get the best medical care possible.

Continuing Adventures in Middle America

I've been here in Minnesotta for a week now. I can't sleep so I've decided to tell you about how I spent Holloween here.

Our strategic planning conference ended at noon. Everybody was eager to go home because they all wanted to prepare for their Holloween celebrations. One of my colleagues offered to adopt me for the day. She invited me to go trick or treating with her daughters in her hometown called Shakopee. We got there early enough though. I helped them carve a pumpkin and babysit 3 kids. We had pizza from Papa Murphy's. At around 6 PM, her parents arrive in their ranger which is like a revved up golf cart. Then we started the trick or treat. It was a relatively small neighborhood, but the houses were so far away from each other, we had to pile up in the Ranger and go house to house. From where we were, my hosts pointed out to me the lights of the casino which is run by Native American Indians.

On Saturday, I went shopping with an officemate in this outlet mall in Albertville. I'm really not comfortable shopping with other people, but I am helpless without a car here. I bought Mika a Minnie Mouse dress set from this generic American clothes shop. I got a nice blazer from this this place called Dress Barn. I bought Bryan a very metrosexual outfit from Gap. Then I also bought myself 2 pairs of shoes from Rockport. I wish I could have gone around more, but my companion was in a bit of a hurry. It was a weekend and I told her I didn't want to impose on her, so we went home early.

I'm just going to hibernate at home tomorrow. I already did my laundry so I'll probably sleep for the rest of the day.

Day 3 - 4

Yesterday after work, my boss, his wife and I went to PF Changs which is a popular Chinese restaurant in Edina. They were raving about this place because they said the food tastes so good. Duh?!!! It's the blandest American food. I didn't know it was possible to make that happen for Chinese food. We had good red wine though.

Today after our 1st day at the conference center, we went to Jake O' Connors which is an Irish pub. I had a glass of Guiness, fish and chips and a bottle of red wine. I love dark beer.

Got home a little bit late which is 9:30. Have to sleep a little bit earlier today. Tomorrow, one of my colleagues Brady is coming to pick me up from my hotel so we can have an early start for Chaska, which is where the conference center is located.

Funny, but I think I am beginning to like this place.... I don't think I'll be able to adapt to the NASCAR, gun-toting, red state culture, but I think overall, it's been a good trip.

Day 2

Busy, busy, busy. This time around, I have much more to do on my trip. Thank God the weather got better tonight so it was actually possible for me to go out without freezing. I like Fall in general.

My bosses took me to this restaurant in St. Paul. I wish I could've taken pictures because that area we went to had all the old mansions that we usually see in American movies. Minneapolis is more modern and fast-paced, but St. Paul is charming because it has more character to it.

I went to this pub called the Happy Gnome and had 1 of the dark beers. Then we went to this Italian restaurant which served pretty good food. I had chicken cacciatore and ravioli with lamb. Then I had a bottle of Tuscany wine. Great thing about the people I work with, they all like going home early, so by 9 PM, I was back in my hotel.

I love travelling. I guess there's always going to be this part of me that will want to get out and see the world alone every once in a while. I still want to go home though, but short trips are fine. I'm beginning to like this place. It's nice, clean and quiet. Anyway, I have to be back here by May for a conference. If the weather stays like this through the weekend, I'm actually going to Target to do some shopping.