The telephone rings around 5 am in the morning. Complaining to myself, “Who’s the heck calling this hour”, I hear my sweet friend- Nicky’s voice on the line, “Happy Birthday krub Tae”. I am half awake but I am so delighted. Then there is a bunch of friends take turn to say Happy Birthday to me. They tell me they are going to celebrate my birthday without me, that’s why they call. That is very sweet, I think. It fills my day with joy when I know someone is still missing me. Friends from everywhere call and send me emails to wish me a very happy 32 year old birthday. Then in the night my friends from NYC and two American friends get together to have a very wonderful dinner. A new friend- a fabulous private party organizer who I danced with on the New Year Eve buys me the very beautiful flowers. Thanks to him, our party is filled with laughs and joys.

Life passes by like a blink of eyes. Some memories are so distant but some are just like happening yesterday. It started on Friday of January 3rd 1975. It was the night when my mom, by herself, had to endure a brutality of a love of her child for 12 hours straight. The story of life struggle has begun. There were times when I wish I would be saved by someone who would put me out of misery. I still remember when I was watching other kids going to the swimming pool while I was with a tray of BBQ pork helping my mom earning extra money in summer. It was the time when I was yearning to see my father who I’d never met since I was born. But I never asked my mom. Perhaps I always knew her grief of being deserted by him. Until one day when I was ten years old, my long lost sister came back home and took me to see him. A year after, he died of cancer. The last moment I was sitting with him without a word or tear, I looked into his eyes. My mind was blank; it was not filled with either anger or grief. I had no questions to ask him to solve my own childhood trauma what I had was the forgiveness. I realized everyone had his/her own reasons to make a choice. I do not know the whole story so who I am to judge other people.

But I promised myself I would one day have my own loving family and I would take the best care of my mom.

Conscious or unconscious, all the stories have imprinted into my mentality and personality. The past experiences have thought me lessons. I learn to seek salvation inside myself instead of waiting for a white knight to save me like when I was young and helpless. The mistreat from our own kin just because we were poor reminded me one day I would prove to them that I would be better and my mom would be proud of me. It also taught me never ever look down or mistreat anyone and I have kept that lesson closed to my heart until today.

Moving to the US by myself for the past seven years, I have been brutally beating myself up in order to achieve my goals. I worked and studied seven days a week. Fortunately, I was working hard enough to receive the scholarship from my school and at the end I did not have any debt to pay off, plus I had saved some money to send back to my family and be able to give my mom monthly ever since. There were times I held my dreams too tight and it drove me to the edge of devastation. I am idealistic and I want to live my life in a way I dream of. I want to excel in life, career, family and relationship. The most important thing in my life is to make my family happy. For the past three years in NYC, even though I play hard, I work even harder. I might go out and dance for 10 hours straight but sometimes I work 12 hours a day. The sudden death of someone I know reminded me of how fragile of life is. I realize life is so short, the present moment is the most precious gift I ever have.

In the relationship front, the more I get older, the more I find myself extremely difficult to like someone. Friends told me I am afraid of rejection and desertion so I erect the high fences around me to protect myself from vulnerability. That might be true but I think I know what kind of person I want in my life so I am seeking combinations of the compatibility of look, brain, personality, ambition and heart. And I find the quality of heart is the most important quality. Good looking but rotten heart will not be able to sustain the relationship. But when I love someone and if it is a mutual feeling, I totally bare my own soul. I do thing beyond my own characters and sacrifice many things I do not think I could. I have tremendously learned from my past relationship. I know what kind of person I want in my life and what kind of life I want to live on. I value myself and, not try to sound too overly self-confident, I do believe I have a lot of things to offer to my baby and the relationship so I will never trade in what I want just for conveniences. I believe one day I will find that one and even if the goddess of luck won’t be on my side, I have already experienced one who has pure love for me the first day we met until now and I know we will still have each other even though not as lovers until the end of the day.

For the past 32 years, Buddhism has helped me get through a lot of hardships. The past two years when my life was in the abyss of turmoil. The book-The Buddha in Daily Life really gives me a new perspective. When I was so negative about life, it makes me realize that the world I am living in is created by my own mind. So to be happy or miserable is up to my mind to choose. Human beings always blame other people of causing them unhappiness. They try so hard to change the environment without realizing that they can actually change the world around them by changing themselves first. To start with mind, change the perspective and the entire action will affect the environment. I also learn that life and its phenomenon is not permanent and life itself is a process of constantly letting go and not being attached. It is not an excuse of being cold. Instead it teaches me to love and be loved to the fullest and when the separation has eventually come, I have to realize the fact of life and letting it go without any regret.

It has been 32 years on the life roller-coaster and I learn how to be a better rider. Two years ago when I found my own little silly problems as big as the universe and my life was diving down to the unseen darkness, I finally decided to pursue my passion of volunteering. The day I went to the orientation with the New York Cares by myself. It was the day that my life was opened to the new adventure. Delivering food to the seniors and the homeless affirms my own belief that to create the ultimate happiness is to make other people happy and to shrink our own self-pity problem is to open our eyes and look around to other people’s life and realize that there are billions of life in this world who are much more suffering than me. I used to think one day when I am rich, I would help a lot of people. But I realize that I do not have to be rich to start sharing because the more I share, the richer I am. Little by little, my own small action has created the ripple effect to friends around me. Some of my friends have become regular volunteers and I am very proud of them.

Also, I have a grand fortune of having a lot of good friends who love me around me. I guess I have a very high tolerance towards people and I am lucky to be able to connect to people very easily. Even though sometimes I was complained by my good friends of allowing too many people to count me as the best friends and caught up by those friends’ drama, I think I should be happy when I know I can help them in some ways.

Life teaches lessons; it’s up to me to learn from it. I am striving for my goal in life and to be a better person. Being self-critical as I am, for the second part of my life, I want to be a happy person who still tries to bring joy to other people’s life in some ways. For the grand scale, I still have a dream and live on my idealism to commit my small individualistic action to contribute to a better world. For the smaller scale, I am looking forward to taking care of my family and someone I love, in particular my ill sister. For my personal goal, I will take good care of myself and develop my compassion. Being far from perfect, I am always aware of my own flaws but I am trying to work on it. I want to tame my own natural tendency of being too worried about future, rushing things and beating myself up. I want to pursue my love of traveling. There is still a bigger world out there waiting for me to explore. Also, I want to open myself more to the possibility of a relationship and be more assertive in term of showing my emotion to someone I like.

If my life is a book, even though there are some stories are pre-written, most of them I have written by myself. The choice I have made, the thing I want to do, a person who I want to be and a life I want to live on. The journey is still on even though I do not know where I am actually going and when will be my grand finale. But I know one thing I will do my best and not regret even a single moment when I still wander on this beautiful world.

For the past 32 years, I have already achieved something that beyond my wildest dream. Therefore, again I will let my own destiny bring me to somewhere, to meet some good people and to new adventures but not without my own freewill.

I will only have faith to be my guiding star and will enjoy whatever will come along and roll with it.

I AM READY TO JUMP!!

Thanks life!!!