“We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that there is no one for us to love. Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking than no partner at all. What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.” — bell hooks
In my early twenties, I remember reading "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," by Sherman Alexie and feeling something shift in me. A deep, quiet ache settled in my chest. The kind that recognizes truth before your mind can explain it.
He was naming something I had felt but didn’t yet have language for.
In one story, Victor, a Native man, walks into a 7-Eleven to buy a creamsicle. The cashier watches him closely, just in case he needs to describe him to the police. Victor feels it. That silent, heavy suspicion. That othering.
The story flashes back to when he was living in Seattle with his white girlfriend. After a fight, he steps outside and is stopped by the police. They tell him he doesn’t “fit the profile” of the neighborhood. In his mind, he thinks, I don’t fit the profile of the entire country, but he swallows it. He knows better. He knows saying that truth out loud could get him unalived.
And if you really sit with that, it tells you everything.
Especially when Native people were here long before any of us.
What I didn’t understand then, but do now, is that this feeling doesn’t just live in public spaces. Sometimes, it shows up inside our relationships.
I’ve dated women from different backgrounds, but my longest relationships were with white women. And over time, through breakups and a lot of therapy, I had to face something I didn’t want to admit.
Cultural difference isn’t just about food or holidays or music.
It’s about identity.
It’s about how you move through the world.
And how the world responds to you.
There were moments in those relationships that didn’t make sense on the surface. Small misunderstandings would spiral. Little things would turn into big fights, and I couldn’t always explain why something “small” felt so big inside me. But it wasn’t small.
I had already given up so much of my Filipino identity just to survive in this country. And there I was, doing it again, just to stay in love. The truth is, I was already fluent in shrinking. I learned early how to assimilate. People are often surprised when they find out I wasn’t born in the United States. I don’t have an accent. That wasn’t accidental. That was learned. I learned to sound “American.”
And over time, I lost fluency in my first language, Visayan. My mother spoke it until the end of her life. In her final years, she returned to it fully, and I couldn’t keep up. I had to rely on my nephew to translate. And even then, I wasn’t always sure I could trust what was being said.
That kind of loss is hard to name.
Losing a language is more than losing words. It’s losing access. To memory. To intimacy. To your ancestors. It’s losing a part of yourself you can’t easily get back.
And still, I kept trying to make relationships work.
I translated. I softened. I explained. I thought that was love. Bridging the gap. Meeting in the middle. Making myself easier to understand.
But that “middle” was rarely mutual.
More often than not, it was me moving closer to them.
I am a brown person living in a white world who will never be white. And for a long time, I navigated that world by becoming fluent in assimilation.
One therapist told me that when you suppress your emotions, they don’t disappear. They come out sideways.
That’s exactly what was happening.
I didn’t have language for what I was feeling, so it showed up as frustration. As distance. As running. I would hit balls at the batting cages, play sports, run until my body gave out, anything to physically exhaust something that was emotional.
Because for a long time, feelings felt dangerous.
Feelings get you labeled. Too much. Too loud. Too emotional.
And when you are BIPOC in this country, those labels don’t just come with judgment.
Sometimes, they come with consequences.
So I learned to manage my emotions.
Until I couldn’t.
Writing became the place where I finally started telling the truth. Because if you don’t tell your story, someone else will. And more often than not, they will not tell it kindly.
Naming what hurts is where healing begins. That essay gave me a mirror. And what I saw reflected back was this... I had been trading pieces of myself in the name of love. Over and over again.
And here is the truth that took me a long time to say out loud, Loving your colonizer will always lead to heartbreak.
When power dynamics are built into the relationship, love alone cannot undo them. No matter how much care you offer, something will leak through the cracks. Not always all at once. Not always in ways you can easily point to.
But slowly. Quietly.
In the compromises you make.
In the things you don’t say.
In the parts of yourself you soften so the relationship feels easier to hold.
Until one day, you look up and realize you have been disappearing inside something that was supposed to be love.
That doesn’t mean those relationships weren’t real.
It means racism is.
Being a white person who loves a Black or brown person does not automatically make someone anti-racist. Not if they are unwilling to do the work. Not if they are unwilling to confront power, unlearn dominance, and actively participate in decolonizing both heart and mind.
Liberation is not passive.
But there is also this, when we begin to liberate ourselves, we give others permission to do the same.
So can we find love in a hopeless place, like Rihanna asks?
Maybe.
But only if we bring our full selves to the table.
Unapologetically.
Without translation.
Without shrinking.
Only if we learn how to hold onto our identity while we hold someone else’s heart.
And maybe that’s where it begins.
Not with finding the right person.
But with refusing to leave yourself behind in the process.
Because love that lasts requires truth.
The kind that lets you show up fully.
The kind that does not ask you to become smaller to be held.
And maybe, just maybe, that is what makes love possible at all.
Lenten Reflection: Standing in Truth
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” – John 8:32 (NRSV)
Lent is a season that asks us to tell the truth.
Not the polished version. Not the version that makes other people comfortable. The real one.
The truth about where we’ve been quiet.
The truth about where we’ve made ourselves smaller.
The truth about what we’ve carried just to be loved.
And the hard part is, truth-telling isn’t just about what has been done to us. It’s also about what we’ve done to ourselves to survive.
Where have I quieted my voice to be accepted?
Where have I traded parts of myself in the name of love?
What truth about myself or my story am I still avoiding?
Lent is not about shame. It’s about liberation.
Because the truth doesn’t just expose what hurts.
It also shows us what’s still ours to reclaim.
This season invites us to gather the pieces we’ve buried. To name them. To hold them. To bring them back into the light, even if our hands shake when we do it.
Healing doesn’t begin when we become perfect.
It begins when we become honest.
Take care of yourselves.
Take care of each other.
***
Disclaimer:
Sherman Alexie has been accused of sexual misconduct, and those allegations are real. He has publicly acknowledged harm and offered apologies. That matters. And at the same time, it does not excuse or erase the impact of that harm.
I’m not lifting him up as a person. I’m engaging with a piece of writing that impacted me at a specific point in my life.
Two things can be true at once: harm can exist, and so can meaning. Naming one does not cancel out the other.
It has been six years since my mom passed away. For my siblings and me, that means both our parents are gone. It’s a strange club to belong to.
My dad died in 2009 from lung cancer. When he was diagnosed in 2007, the first thing I did was what most people do... I looked up the prognosis. Doctor Googles estimated two to five years. Instead of coming to the United States for a family reunion and his 70th birthday, my dad canceled the trip, returned the plane tickets, and checked himself into a hospital in Cebu. A doctor promised to save his life by removing 80% of his left lung.
My sister, an oncology nurse, begged him to return to the States so she could help guide his treatment. But my dad, being my dad, believed the surgeon’s promise. He chose hope, maybe even false hope, because sometimes hope feels easier than facing harder truths.
That’s the thing about being human. We make decisions with the options we’re given, and sometimes none of those options feel good. Sometimes we cling to the possibility that things will work out, even when the prognosis is uncertain…or even certain.
I miss my mom every day. Even when we lived 5,000 miles apart, I always knew I could get on a plane and see her if I needed to. Now that option is gone.
In the years since losing both of my parents, my life has taken some unexpected turns. Turning fifty and deciding to go to law school was one of them. I had put it off for years, not because I feared the LSAT, but because I wasn’t sure I was smart enough. I’m still not entirely sure. But on the first day, our professors reminded us that we deserved to be there. We had earned our place. Faculty and staff were there to provide resources and guidance to ensure our success. From that point forward, what happened next would depend on the work we were willing to put in.
In the meantime, I work part-time at a gas station.
On paper, it doesn’t make much sense. I have decades of experience working in nonprofits and leadership roles. I’m more than qualified for jobs with bigger titles and bigger paychecks.
But this job offers something I need right now, flexibility while I’m in law school, health benefits even at part-time hours, and the ability to clock in, do the work, and clock out. No emails waiting at midnight. No grant deadlines keeping me up at night. Just law school homework.
And maybe more importantly, it puts me face to face with the general public. Ick, people.
For years I worked in spaces where we talked about communities and systems and impact. Now I stand behind a counter and see how people actually live their lives. Some days that means selling coffee to unhoused folks at seven in the morning. Other times it’s someone who just needs a quick human interaction in the middle of a hard day.
It’s not glamorous work. But it’s honest work.
A friend once gave me advice that has stuck with me since my early twenties. I told her I often felt like I was just trying to keep my head above water.
She asked a simple question, “Have you ever thought about swimming to shore?”
I hadn’t. Until that moment.
I was using all my energy just to stay afloat. I hadn’t considered that I might actually be able to move toward something better.
My life was a bit of a dumpster fire for a few years. I needed a break from my regularly programmed existence. But I also know even in all my mess my mom and dad would still be proud of me. And for any Asian that's kind of a big deal.
However, they did have plenty of commentary about how I lived my life when they were alive. Not about me being gay. They worried more about me being alone. Being able to take care of myself. Instead of giving me relationship advice (not really taking relationship advice from my parents anyways), they taught me how to be fiercely independent. How to balance a checkbook, change a tire, darn a sock, cook, and clean.
I appreciated their thoughtfulness and thoroughness. But I also wondered… why didn’t they think I could maintain a long-term relationship?
I’m fine. Really. My life is full. I’ve lived many different lives, taken plenty of adventures, and now I’m on another one. Diving into the unknown of higher education and a terminal degree.
No matter how many career milestones or achievements I reach, it sometimes still feels like it won’t be enough. Not because I lack intelligence, but because systems exist that quietly train people like me to believe that.
Erasing that broken record of doubt is its own lifelong quest.
But I persist. As we all should.
Lenten Reflection: Good and Weary
“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9
Lent is a season where we sit with the hard realities of life: grief, doubt, mistakes, and the consequences of our choices. But it is also a reminder that we are not meant to stay stranded in the water forever… or wandering endlessly in the wilderness.
Sometimes the path forward isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’s simply the choice that lets us keep moving. And as in golf, forward progression no matter how ugly is always good.
Galatians reminds us not to grow weary in doing good. That doesn’t mean life will be easy or that every decision will feel clear. It simply means that persistence matters.
So if you feel like you’re barely staying afloat right now, take heart. Maybe the next step isn’t just surviving the waves.
Maybe it’s time to start just keep swimming toward shore.
Take care of yourself.
And take care of each other. 🧡
Human connection is essential to survival.
Even the most introverted among us still need community, belonging, and people who know our stories. Friends. Family. Chosen family. People who show up.
I have no biological family in Rochester, yet somehow I’ve built a wide network of people here. Within that circle is a much smaller group of close friends who are family in every meaningful sense of the word. That community is one of the reasons I’ve been able to thrive here.
For many queer people, chosen family isn’t just nice to have. It’s necessary.
Too many people are pushed out of their families simply for living honestly. That kind of rejection has always felt deeply un-Jesus-like to me. I somehow missed the part of Christianity where cruelty toward others became holy.
The version of the Gospel I grew up holding onto sounded more like this:
Love your neighbor.
Care for the vulnerable.
Let the one without sin throw the first stone.
Not condemnation. Not exclusion.
And yet cruelty shows up everywhere.
People twist scripture to justify domination, oppression, and exclusion. Entire systems of power have been built on convincing people that cruelty is righteousness.
It makes you wonder how human beings can become so detached from empathy.
Researchers have studied this question for years. Psychologists talk about how cruelty often grows out of a breakdown in empathy, the ability to see another person as fully human.
When empathy disappears, cruelty becomes easy.
And cruelty doesn’t always look like the villains we imagine.
Sometimes it looks like someone who is charming. Loving. Magnetic.
Which brings up the complicated conversations people had about "It Ends With Us," both the book and the movie.
Some people argue the story glamorizes abuse. Others say it captures an uncomfortable truth, that abusers aren’t always obvious monsters.
Sometimes cruelty hides behind affection.
Sometimes it begins with love that slowly becomes possessive.
Sometimes it sounds like an apology wrapped in promises that never quite hold.
Sometimes it’s a comment you excuse.
A shove you minimize.
A slap you tell yourself wasn’t “that bad.”
And sometimes it never touches your body at all.
It just slowly erodes who you are until you forget who you were before the relationship began.
I understand cruelty more personally than I would like.
I grew up with an abusive father, mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically.
I never saw him hit my mother, but I saw the way he controlled her life. The finances. The decisions. The power.
And I felt the violence directly.
When I was thirteen, I found out about my father’s infidelity, and I asked my mom why she didn’t leave.
She said something that has stayed with me my entire life.
“How could I? I had four kids and no money. I stayed because I had to. Aren't you happy I stayed?”
Part of me understood.
Part of me wished she had run.
Both of those truths lived inside me at the same time.
The strange thing about growing up in a house like that is you don’t actually know it’s different from other families.
When you’re a kid, you think your life is normal because it’s the only life you know. It wasn’t until I started watching TV and spending time at my friends’ houses that I began to realize… wait, this isn’t how other families work.
Not everyone grows up hiding from their father.
Not everyone learns how to read someone’s moods and reactions just to know when they’re about to get hit.
Abuse shouldn’t be normal. But when you grow up inside it, it becomes the fog you live in.
My father wasn’t an evil man. He was a complicated man. He struggled with bipolar disorder and narcissism, and he carried a lot of damage from his own childhood. His father was an alcoholic and violent. Trauma has a way of traveling through generations when nobody knows how to stop it.
When I was younger, I idolized him. As a child he seemed larger than life. But by the time I was thirteen, I had learned to love and hate him at the same time. It wasn’t constant violence, but I grew up walking on eggshells, as people say. He knew where to hit too. Places teachers wouldn’t see. Places neighbors wouldn’t notice. Bruises and welts hidden under clothing.
One fateful night, so very long ago, there was a disturbance in the force.
My sister had climbed out her bedroom window to meet friends. Just normal dumb teenage behavior. When my father realized she wasn’t in bed, he was furious.
He turned to me and asked, point-blank, “Where’s your sister?”
I knew exactly where she was.
But I wasn’t going to tell him.
Part of it was teenage stubbornness. But part of it was protection. I knew the kind of trouble my sister would get from my dad.
I said, "I don't know."
And in that moment I saw it and could feel his rage about to explode. It was in his eyes. I knew he was going to hit me.
So before he could raise his fist, I hit him first.
One punch. Right into his stomach.
Thirteen years old. Furious. Terrified. All of it at the same time.
And then chaos. We were brawling.
My memory of that moment, with age and time, is blurry. But I remember my mom yelling. My brother scared and confused. And my oldest sister suddenly appeared like the only reasonable adult in the room.
And then something strange happened.
Instead of the night turning into more violence, my oldest sister made all of us step back, calm down, and sit in the living room.
We talked.
For an immigrant Asian family, that was strange and almost unheard of. Families like ours didn’t talk about conflict. We absorbed it. We endured it. We pretended it didn’t happen.
But that night we talked.
I don’t remember every word that was said. But I remember saying something very clearly.
If he ever hit me again, I would call child protective services.
And none of us wanted that.
Something shifted that night.
My father never laid a hand on me again.
Or on my siblings.
I don’t recommend violence as a solution. A thirteen-year-old punching her father is not exactly a model for healthy conflict resolution.
But in that moment it was the only way I knew how to take some power back. Because if we’re honest, cruelty is often about power.
Who has it.
Who loses it.
And what happens when someone refuses to give it away anymore.
In some strange way, that night changed the trajectory of our family.
The cycle stopped.
My siblings never raised their children the way we were raised. The hurt we experienced didn’t get passed down to another generation.
That doesn’t erase what happened.
But it does mean the story didn’t end the same way it began.
Many families don’t get a moment where the balance of power suddenly flips. More often those stories end quietly, or tragically, in ways that never make headlines until it’s too late.
And even as an adult, I’ve found myself in emotionally abusive relationships too.
Those moments where you step back and ask yourself a painful question... "How did I let this happen?"
Love doesn’t always make good choices.
Sometimes it’s trauma bonding.
Sometimes it’s familiarity.
Sometimes it’s a version of ourselves we haven’t healed yet.
Cruelty thrives in those spaces where empathy breaks down and control replaces care.
And yet, despite everything I’ve seen and experienced, cruelty still feels foreign to me.
I’ve been angry. Hurt. Betrayed.
But the idea of intentionally destroying another human being simply because I could is so far outside my emotional wiring that it’s difficult for me to comprehend.
Even ostracizing someone from a community feels harsh to me.
If a situation becomes toxic, my instinct is to walk away, not erase a person from existence.
Which brings me back to Lent.
Lenten Reflection: Choosing Love in a Cruel World
The letter of First Epistle of Peter reminds us:
“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing.”
That can sound almost impossible when you’ve experienced cruelty up close.
Choosing love does not mean ignoring injustice.
It does not mean tolerating abuse.
And it certainly does not mean allowing cruelty to continue unchecked.
What it means is refusing to let cruelty reshape who we become.
It means standing up for people who are vulnerable.
Holding others accountable when harm is done.
Protecting ourselves when necessary.
But doing those things without allowing bitterness, hatred, or revenge to turn us into the very thing we are trying to resist.
Cruelty spreads easily in the world. It multiplies when people stop seeing each other as human.
Empathy takes intention.
Compassion takes effort.
Love, real love, takes courage.
Every time we choose empathy over cruelty, we interrupt that cycle just a little bit.
Sometimes the resistance is loud. Sometimes it’s public.
But more often it’s quiet. It’s the decision to remain human in situations that try very hard to strip that humanity away.
And sometimes that quiet resistance is the most powerful thing we can do.
Take care of yourselves.
And take care of each other. 💛
** If you or someone you know is living with domestic violence, you don’t have to face it alone. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or at thehotline.org for confidential support.
