The rebuilding of me

This year has been a year of appreciating the fruits of life, no matter how bitter or sweet.
As with every new year, I started 2018 full of hope and excitement. This was going to be my year of being 90% happy, ensuring work didn’t emotionally takeover my life, and practicing the art of forgiveness (thanks to “The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck”). I promised myself I wasn’t going to be frustrated by people who were ignorant about their privilege or power. Instead, I was going to step up to the plate and try to patiently educate people as best as I could, dust my hands, and walk away.
The universe had another plan for me.
At the end of January, Dad was in a gnarly car accident in San Diego. His recovery would take about three and half months and it entailed my sister and I alternating weekends of going down to Joshua Tree to relieve Mom in Dad’s recovery process. My sister would work the system (i.e. dealing with health and car insurance, the police, and the doctors) and I would be the emotional crutch and key communicator with the family (thank you WhatsApp!)
Work wasn’t getting any easier either. Just as I thought things couldn’t get worse, they would.
Driving 16 hours every other weekend back and forth between Milpitas and Joshua Tree, only to come to work to deal with chaos was over-exhausting. With my family, I was dealing with the effects of trauma and personalities that debilitated healthy conversation because of angered flare-ups. At work, our fearless leaders threw tantrums by publicly humiliating male colleagues, let sexual harassment be admissed, and constantly monitored digital communication.
By April, my health had deteriorated. Bloody noses, a bruised tailbone, missed periods, colds and fevers, a back spasm, and plenty of sleep deprivation.
As soon as Dad was back on his feet and driving again, I felt that was one crisis managed. Next crisis to tackle — what was I going to do for a living, and as a single woman, should I walk away from a dysfunctional organization with no new job lined up?
The anxiety was real.

This was the first time in my life that I was so indecisive about everything…what to eat, what I wanted to accomplish on a daily basis at work, what I wanted to do in my spare time, or whether I should get out of bed or not. I’d officially gone into full hermit mode to avoid any decision-making responsibilities.
Thanks to my awesome therapist, Angie, I slowly started getting my life back in order (side note: Angie is a WOC and the greatest gift to my life, if you need an introduction, holla at me).
The first decision I needed to make was about my job, which was the most destructive part of my life. After a lot of thought and guidance, I decided that if I didn’t have a new job lined up by August 1, I was going to walk away and live off my savings for some time. To deal with my emotional exhaustion I was going to restart writing and take time away from all things familiar (this post was written in Rome and Proceno).
Through my sessions with Angie, I was able to see and appreciate the positives I was experiencing through all the challenging and painful situations. I was able to move towards healing and getting my groove back.
I was able to see beauty again.
- Dad’s accident was emotionally and mentally painful. He wasn’t the first parent who’d been in the hospital, but he was the first where we had so much uncertainty around health outcomes. Would he be able to walk again? Would he have pain for the rest of his life? How long would his recovery take? As painful as it was to see Dad suffer and be scared, it was a beautiful opportunity for us to connect. This was the first time in my life that Dad and I really bonded. We cried listening to Rabindra Sangeet, we laughed at his corny jokes, we played chess, and for the first time I really listened to his stories about our family history — which in turn explained so much about why I am the way I am. These stories gave me pause to reflect on life and take even more pride in who I’ve become.
- I found a new job! Although it’s far from perfect, it’s a much healthier place to work. They were kind enough to let me take a 6-week vacation (yes, you read that correctly). One of my favorite highlights — I get to work in San Francisco!
- I realized the value of friends and family and how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. For the first time I genuinely felt love (something that I’d always thought I wasn’t capable of feeling).
- I’m lucky to live in the great state of California! On all those long drives back and forth, I saw so much beauty — from almond trees in bloom to an evaporating sea.
My journey to get my life back on track is ongoing.

As I travel around Italy, one of the biggest questions I’m pondering is — do I want to continue my professional career in the nonprofit sector? The pattern of poor leadership is real and although poor leadership exists in every sector, I feel in the non-profit sector, poor leadership reaches every corner of the office and impacts every staff member (I’ve worked at organizations that have no more than 30 staff. Unfortunately my role and my team have to have high interaction with leadership, so there’s no hiding).
Health-wise I’m giving my body a rest. I still wake up between 4:30am and 5:30am, but by 12pm, I’m more or less chillaxing somewhere. I’ve been swimming as much as I possibly can to physically release stress and exhaustion. I’ve been watching movies, TV shows, and reading books to help rebalance my mind. It’s been about 3 weeks of vacation and I’ve almost forgotten the name of the organization I work for — I’ve been spending my time enjoying thunderstorms, getting over my anxiety of being alone, people-watching, and prioritizing the rebuilding of me.
I want to give a special thank you to Lisa for introducing me to the ever-wonderful Angie.
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My gadgets won’t let me add photo captions. Captioning photos here. First photo: California mountain range from Joshua Tree National Park; second photo: sunrise in Firebaugh, Ca with blooming almond trees; third photo: farmhouse Airbnb in Proceno, Italy.
