i am choking on nothing. i am breathing through everything.

this is my first blog post in a while.

this is my first blog post since reconnecting with my therapist.

this is the first blog post since i've quit smoking nicotine/tobacco.

there is a blessing, in jewish practice, over firsts - it expresses gratitude and thanks to hashem (way to refer to G-d in jewish faith) for receiving the new or unusual experience or possession.

i love judaism, i do. though the intersections of my identity sometimes put me with odds with a large portion of my fellow jews (ashkenazi…[yt european]) - the practices and traditions are what helped structure my understanding of the world. whether or not i would have chosen it for myself, judaism has been one of the first lenses that i viewed and experienced this existence with. i remember every year going to celebrate the High Holy Days in synagogue, sitting next to my father wrapped in his old talit (jewish prayer shawl). when i was small he'd let me play with the tzitzit (the knotted fringes on the edges). i remember spending purims at the purim carnival, lobbing ping pong balls into unsuspecting (undeserving) gold fish bowls, hanukkah market - running around to look at the menagerie of stuff and things that folks were parting with. i remember summers spent at day camp, eating (and eventually making) sandwiches and running through fields and competing in color war. most of all i love the bonds built, the relationships fostered. the mentors i've met and that have helped cultivate my growth. those who helped guide my way and continue to do so .

i am here to speak of gratitude, and growth, and the acceptance of the things i cannot change.

i cannot change my jewish heritage, upbringing, or identity any more than i can change my chinese roots. the identity that will always be at the forefront of folks first impressions of me and the person they assume i will be.

i was raised without a foundational understanding of how race would operate, and impact me.

last week, michelle alyssa go was killed in times square station.

last week was also the first time i'd experienced direct racially motivated harassment on my commute.

i was on my way from the heights to lower manhattan on the A line, when a maskless masc person gets on the train, smoking a vape, sitting themself down diagonally from me. a little while later, they started speaking, and by their body language i could kind of tell that their words were directed at me.

thankfully i had my headphones on and they protected me from whatever negativity they was trying to spew my way. being trans with bright hair means that i learned how to become impervious to strangers projecting their own insecurities and discomforts onto me.

when they got off, they came back to stand in the doorway and shouted at me, but again, i had no idea what they was trying to convey. it wasn't until after i had gotten off and was walking along the street when someone who was also on the subway car spoke to me, telling me about how they were sorry that i experienced what i did and that if the person had laid hands on me that they'd have stopped them. it wasn't until this interaction that i realized that the attention and attempted interaction was racially motivated and i felt lucky to have paid them no mind/tuned them out successfully because i don't know how it may have escalated had i become invested in the interaction.

i also felt guilty that i allowed them to vocalize their hateful rhetoric, and not done more to speak out against anti-asian violence.

i am grateful for every day. i am grateful for every moment.

i haven't written in a while because i haven't been proud of what i have to say. i have been slacking in all the areas of my life. i get hung up on things i can't change, and get lost trying to figure out what i can. when i try to sort through, i end up back at the same spot i began, sometimes further back.

i spoke to my therapist today for the first time since november today.

it was nice to catch up with her, and she rattled off a list of ways to say she was proud of me when i told her about the growth and healing i'd been doing in our time apart. she also gave me resources that callen lorde offered for groups and i'm excited to meet more of folks with shared identity points!

i went back to the basics and have been focusing and channeling my energy on my relationships with my mother and sister, because what supports a tall tree is it's intricate roots. without my roots i am doomed to never flourish. my roots include my judaism, my chinese heritage, and my understanding of mySelf.

i'm not going to make grand proclamations about healing and fixing and discovering who i am because i am slowly learning to accept those cliches about life being the continuous journey to find yourself and all that.

what i can and will say is that i am figuring out what and who to say no to, and learning how to honor the power i remind myself i possess.

i never know how to wrap these posts up, i recently saw that someone i connected with professionally also had a wix blog and i got very excited because it meant they were also accustomed to these familiar fonts and the cathartic release of written words no longer floating around aimlessly and untethered in our heads and hearts.

here's to a happy healthy hump day to everyone reading, and continued growth and exploration in the days to come.

<3