It’s such a fun memory that was burned into my brain. Most of my life, I tried to live according to a plan. In order to pursue a master’s degree, I had to join a lab and publish a paper. To join a lab, I had to take a course that was taught by the professor who was leading the lab and get noticed by him. I had these five-year plans on Notion with to-do lists that I had to accomplish every year. In the back of my mind, I always thought, “When will I finally be happy in the present instead of living for the future?” I don’t have that many memories of just having plain fun without worrying about the future. But that memory, that moment, I wasn’t doing it to show somebody or to leverage it in the future. I was making that website because “why not, it’s fun,” and I had great company while travelling around the Island.

That personal website is now unreachable because I didn’t maintain it. But I had fun making it. I mean, it’s just a great memory to have. Completely useless, but I learned that I could have a little fun while doing things I’m passionate about, instead of doing things because I had to for my future success.

I have a half-removed lettering tattoo on my arm. It’s a book called When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. It’s a pretty well-known book about a neurosurgeon who gets diagnosed with cancer and looks back on his short but impactful life and on his imminent death. What I love about the book is his positive take on life and death. He double majored in biology and English literature in college, and pursued a masters in English literature before getting into a med school and becoming a neurosurgeon. The theme of his life was to understand humans and our lives. Studying English literature was his way of studying how people think and express themselves and becoming a neurosurgeon was his way of trying to learn the physiology of how people think and express themselves. To a lot of people, he was wasting his time doing his master’s when he could have become a surgeon right away. However, to him, he was drawing his dots that would later be connected in his book.

Connect the Dots is a popular puzzle game where you connect the numbered dots and it becomes a meaningful picture. With a number of dots, you can create images and stories behind them. That’s basically what zodiac signs are. But in order to have these stories, you need those dots. Sometimes you carefully craft them like the creators of the Connect the Dots game, and sometimes you’re just a random set of constellations where people decide to attach meanings and stories.

That was a long story just to introduce you to my new custom domain, haha. I believe my twenties and thirties are where I draw the big and small dots, whether it’s curated or random, or even a mistake. I bought the dotsinprogress.com domain a year ago with a lot of meaning, like I just told you. But I didn’t maintain it, and it was just a dot, not connected to any bigger picture. A year later, I’m planning to use it as my custom domain for my blog on Substack. I might or might not be writing on here consistently, but every log here is a tiny dot in my world. And I’m glad to be sharing that with you!

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I don’t need the world to see
That I’ve been the best I can be, but
I don’t think I could stand to be
Where you don’t see me

And listening to that at 3 AM, I cried. I always thought it was a breakup song, but it hit differently this time. I couldn’t easily put my feelings into words, though.

This year, I started asking myself whether I felt whole. The answer was always no. I didn’t even know what it was supposed to mean, because the idea was so foreign. I was always more accustomed to the feeling of not being enough, anxiety that I’m behind, and stress that I have to perform better. I didn’t feel seen, even though I’ve always tried to be the best I could be.

But I think I felt it for the first time, very recently. There are depths to it, but to focus on just the feelings, my heart feels physically light, and I feel content. Nothing is chasing me down the street (literally and figuratively), and I don’t have to perform or hide.

But let’s go back to how I never felt seen before. I’ve always struggled to prove to my parents how hard-working, high-achieving and low-maintenance I am. I was constantly under stress and anxiety, and it felt like this feeling of weight on my heart was never going to disappear. It was quite scary.

I remember when I was in university, I couldn’t sleep because my heart was racing too fast due to stress to perform. I felt like a failure and that it’s all my fault because my parents always provided me with a stable environment financially, tried to provide me with diverse experiences they never got to have as children, and most importantly, they’re loving and supportive. At the time, I was a final-year student in one of the top universities in all of Asia, where I was a student ambassador, a researcher in a leading AI lab, was working two jobs (one as a content creator and the other as a coding bootcamp instructor), and was surrounded by supportive friends whom I deeply cared for. And yet I still felt like a failure.

I graduated from uni and started working as an engineer at a startup. Years of trying to perform and achieve finally started taking a toll on me, and I started showing symptoms of depression and anxiety. My room was disgusting, and I couldn’t lift a finger. My parents, being conservative Gen Xers, showed disapproval of my life and my career. I couldn’t pick up their calls because my heart would race with anxiety if I saw their names pop up on my phone. I went partying all night with friends because that was my only escape. I don’t think I truly opened up to them about how difficult life was for me; how I was still trying my best not to show this part of myself at work by being a productive member of the team, but I would be too exhausted at home, which was the only part of my life they were witnessing.

When they told me they were disappointed with how I wasn’t doing anything at home, not fulfilling any of my responsibilities at home and avoiding their phone calls, it confirmed what I’ve always been thinking to myself. I’m only loved when I make them proud with achievements and make them comfortable by making myself invisible. And they told me that they couldn’t invest in my master’s programme if I kept behaving that way, and that confirmed that I’m a failure. I wasn’t worth not only their investment but their love and attention. I wasn’t mad at my parents; I was disgusted by myself, and I dug into a hole.

When I started going to therapy this year, the first few weeks were truly disorienting. I would talk to my therapist about life in general, but I would get especially emotional whenever I talked about the relationship with my parents. So we dug deeper. We found out that I’ve been feeling extremely alone growing up, and that I had to be high-achieving but always kind and ever-understanding of others, while making my needs invisible, to be the perfect daughter they deserved. Instead of being confident in myself, I was seeking validation from them, which I wasn’t getting anymore, and it felt terrible. Around this time, I wrote in my journal,

“I’m too grown and big now to fit into their mould, and I feel like they don’t want the parts that peak out of that mould. That’s why I feel so unseen and disapproved of only after I became an adult.”

“I was so proud that I never caused trouble… but now I’m so sad that little me felt that way… children are supposed to make mistakes.”

But when I get home to my parents’ place, my mum would have prepared a warm meal for me, and my dad would buy me a cup of milk tea, and we’d talk about random stuff like life philosophy, politics, or the books we’re reading. That was my family’s way of love, and I knew and felt loved. And that was the disorienting part: I didn’t know whether to feel resentful (what I felt in therapy) or loved (what I always and still felt in their presence). I even felt like I was making up a terrible and lonely childhood that wasn’t based in reality, because I had to blame someone for all the hurt.

So I tried to tell myself not to feel resentful. I knew for a fact they loved me, and I did want to spend more time with them, so there was no reason to feel that way. Also, it felt like a sin to feel so. One of my first breakthroughs in therapy was that two very different feelings could coexist, because the reality is often very nuanced, never black or white. And that my feelings are valid and should be free from judgment. I understood this logically, but I didn’t know how, because I’ve been too used to denying, repressing and intellectualising all my feelings and needs.

I was crying when I said I could never resent my parents because I understood them. I was taught to be the kind girl who could extend her empathy towards everyone, not just to the ones I love, but even those who hurt me. Then my therapist asked me why that empathy never directs inward; why I’m so harsh to myself when I’m such an understanding person. She showed tears while calmly asking me that. Her tears seemed too sincere. I froze. I couldn’t open up anymore and stopped crying.

I went home and thought about what her tears meant and why I froze at that moment. I believed we had a business relationship: I would pay for her to listen to me, and as a professional, she would ask appropriate questions and show appropriate reactions to guide me a certain way. I felt terrible for her because if she takes in all her clients’ trauma and tears with her heart wide open like that, it would take a toll on her. And it meant that she wasn’t a robot performing sympathy; she was human. When I asked her the next week what her tears meant, she told me she was moved by my story. The explanation didn’t really click. But I still trusted her, and we were generally building a great rapport.

Then one day, when I was at home peacefully petting my cat, my parents told me about how the government is planning to generate a thousand AI-related jobs in the biggest companies in Korea, like Samsung and SK, and that I should try applying. I couldn’t respond because it felt like they were invalidating the career I was already building as an ML engineer. My mum expressed that when I go silent like that, she feels like she’s always on edge, not to hurt my feelings, whenever she tries to talk to me about these things. So I opened up to them about how these suggestions make me feel like they are invalidating my career — and that it feels terrible since I’ve always felt like making them proud for my success was the key to their love.

When I started, I couldn’t stop. I told them I felt lonely growing up, that they were never around, at work during the day and playing badminton in the evening. I thought they would get defensive and tell me how great they were at parenting, providing me with everything I needed and more (that was my projection since I’ve always put them on a pedestal). But instead, they apologised and admitted that we might not have had enough bonding time together in my childhood. My dad said he was still in his 30s when I was young, and grabbing drinks with friends was his way of alleviating stress, and that he regrets not spending enough quality time with me.

I felt like I burdened my parents with guilt, and that was never my intention. So I hurriedly told him that he didn’t have to apologise because I understood how difficult it must have been to spend quality time with me, as working parents, when a double-income was the only way in our society to provide financial security. Especially now as an adult with a job myself, I understood how essential it is for everyone to spend time with friends and have hobbies, and parents are no exception. I added that I know they must have done the best they could. My dad’s response was very unexpected, but strangely healing. He said he loves me, but he doesn’t think that he did his absolute best. It was healing because it made me realise that my parents are human. I didn’t have to put them on a pedestal anymore. The burden from the idea that I caused everything, all my distress and failures, somehow got alleviated. Not because I was putting the burden of blame on them, but because I got to see their human side, and I wasn’t blaming myself.

I could finally understand why I’ve felt so lonely, under constant stress, and constantly seeking validation, given the circumstances. My being broken wasn’t solely on me: it was on the society that didn’t let working-class parents spend quality time with their children; it was also on my parents, who loved me but still had to go to work, meet friends, and play badminton (which they had to and deserved); it was also on little me who learned that minimising my need and showing my parents a perfect report card was the only way I could be seen by them (and I don’t blame myself for it). I could finally extend my empathy not just to my loved ones, not just to those who hurt me, but finally even to myself. I know how painful and inhumane it is to always do my best and be my best self, so I was glad my dad didn’t “do his best” and slowly burn himself out. I’m glad my parents didn’t put in their 200% in raising me, giving up on friendships and hobbies, because that would have crushed their souls and made them resent me, just like how I crushed my soul and hated myself.

The hours-long conversation ended with my parents reassuring me that all they want from me is for me to live a happy, balanced life, and that they are always there to support me. I felt truly seen and understood by them for the first time, and I was also seeing my parents as human beings trying to live their best lives. Sometimes struggling and failing, but with constant, steady love and the best of intentions.

And I told my therapist in the next session how that conversation was the missing piece I was looking for, and how it healed me a little from the inside. She asked me what my takeaway was. I had to give it a little thought, and realised that I’ve always felt unseen and misunderstood because I was too scared of being vulnerable that I never gave my parents a chance to hear where I’m coming from. People who loved and cared for me were willing to listen to me and understand me if I had just let them by opening up. But despite their willingness, if I don’t speak my truth and express my needs and hurt, they wouldn’t know, since they’re not psychic.

I suddenly had more courage to open up after that realisation, so I told my therapist about how I felt about her tears in the previous sessions. How her tears made her suddenly human, and that seeing her as a person with emotions made it uncomfortable for me to open up as freely as I did before, because I thought she would carry those emotions back home and be burdened by my tears. Then, after talking to my parents, it was easier to open up to her again somehow. She asked me why a conversation with my parents made it easier to talk to her. She always asks the simplest yet toughest questions.

I told her that opening up to my parents was extremely difficult, and when I did, the emotions that I had denied and repressed my entire life came flooding in, so I couldn’t help but cry my eyes out. But despite that, my parents were chill. They calmly accepted that there was a lack of quality time spent together and emotional openness in our family. They expressed their sincere love and support for me and thanked me for opening up. Then they seemed to have a good night’s sleep and continued with their lives the next morning. My mum went to work, and my dad had an off day, so he worked out in the morning and suggested we go for lunch. Even when I poured out my emotions and was completely vulnerable in front of them, it didn’t seem to burden them too much.

It felt like my emotions weren’t too burdensome to others. That felt fucking great to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around me, that people can hold space for others while keeping their lives unaffected. And I told my therapist that’s why talking to my parents made it easier for me to open up to her again. There were tears in her eyes again, and this time, I understood why. I was carrying the emotional burden that I assumed she could have had as a therapist and was caring for her, worrying that I was burdening her, like I worried I could burden my parents with guilt when I opened up about how I felt lonely. Probably her tears meant she felt understood and cared for by me, even if it was unexpected and even unnecessary.

She told me that she sometimes brings emotional residue back home from work, even if she wishes she didn’t. But she does, since she’s human. However, those emotional residues are whether she’s done her job as a therapist right, and if that was the best she could do, and it’s not the same as carrying all the weight of her clients’ stories and emotions. And she said with sincerity and certainty, “Your opening up doesn’t burden me. I thank you for being open because it makes me proud that I’ve done a good job as a therapist. And I’m proud of you for making so much progress.” My therapist and I were seeing each other human to human, even if it was in a professional setting, and that’s why she cried, not because my emotions were too much for her to handle. It made me understand that I didn’t have to make myself invisible and low-maintenance to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good person in general, or even a good client to a therapist.

And circling back to how I started this story, I woke up the next day feeling whole. Nothing too special, just content, with a huge weight lifted off my chest. And somehow I felt confident. I had support and care from my parents, my friends, and now my therapist. All along, there was a safety net that I never asked for, but it was just invisible because I never vocalised that I felt scared and in need of it. And it felt great to feel seen by my parents, not because of an achievement or how kind I was to others, but because I’m ... well, me. I am loved, and they have my back even if I fail. What I needed from my parents wasn’t validation, it was support, understanding and trust. And I realised my confidence was still there, I had built it brick by brick by working hard, in school, in my career, in working on myself, and in being a good person to those around me. Those bricks seemed like ruins when I couldn’t even see my own worth, but they were still there.

I don’t know how I’ll feel next week, next month, next year, or even in a new chapter of life. But currently, I feel like I can give that trust and validation to myself, because even at my worst, I’ve been making baby steps, but steps nevertheless, forward. FUCK YEAH, NEW BRICK. It’s not that I don’t feel lost. I don’t feel like I’ve figured it all out, but I feel confident enough to give it another try.

And I think I’ve rarely said this, although I’ve always felt it, but Mum, Dad, you were there from day one, and I love you from the bottom of my heart. I feel like a tall child who still needs you to trust me, but I know you’ll be there. You let go of my bicycle a little too early because you trusted me more than I did myself, so I’ll keep looking back if you’re still there until I feel stable, and I carefully ask you to keep waving that you’re still there.

When the world is just “nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada,” the old bartender resorts to a clean well-lighted café, where he felt at peace with himself.

I was recently reading my old diary, and there was an entry about a friend, and I wrote that he is my clean, well-lighted place. At the time, I was going through a rough patch, and that made it really difficult for me to be at peace with myself.

When we first met, I had just moved to Seoul from Hong Kong after graduation, and he had just moved here from New York for work. We had this conversation about how everything felt so overwhelming before leaving, and how it felt like it was really time to leave everything behind for a fresh start. Ever since we left, we started to miss that place — the connections we made there, the life we had there, and how it felt like an integral part of ourselves was built there. But we knew we wouldn’t go back, because we had moved on.

After that conversation, I felt weirdly drawn to him. Talking to him felt like talking to an old friend. Or like looking into a mirror. So, when something difficult happened in life, I thought I could talk to him about it. And so I did. When I did, he didn’t say much. He just hugged me and held my hand while I cried. It felt warm. I felt like I showed him my worst and he accepted me for who I was. In my journal, I wrote, “Maybe a clean well-lighted place is a person, because I don’t think a place could have that effect on me.”

I suddenly felt scared, because I was planning to move to London soon, and leaving Seoul meant I would be leaving that person who became a clean, well-lighted place for me. Because although we’re just friends, I felt a real connection. I was scared of what the older waiter called nada — the uncertainty, confusion, and meaninglessness — that leaving “the place” behind would bring again. And I also wanted to be there for him; I didn’t want to leave, because I felt like he was afraid of the same thing. I always felt an overwhelming sympathy and compassion for him because I saw myself — my hurt inner child — in him.

And I’m not a very spiritual person, but I think I was manifesting my fear in some way, because he disappeared. Now I really had to let go. It was even more difficult to let go, because as much as I resented him for disappearing, I understood exactly why he had to retreat: the overwhelming feeling of having to prove himself to others, and even to himself.

I think I’ll never forget that feeling of being completely understood without judgment. And every time I read this short story, I’ll think of him. But I think what Hemingway really wanted to say is that you should find that in yourself. You should learn to be that clean, well-lighted place for yourself. That’s what it means to feel whole. Being there for yourself even if nobody fully sees you. And it might sound nihilistic, but nobody can fully see you, even the ones who love you the most, even with mutual respect and good communication, because at the end of the day, you’re two different people.

Hemingway writes, “What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.”

Providing that cleanness and order for yourself when you’re met with fear or dread is when you finally feel whole. And after I’m whole, I would finally be able to be provide the same cleanness and order, something warm and gentle, for the ones I love, fully, with consistency and no judgment.

People have told me I’m charismatic, funny, sarcastic, self-aware, and someone they want to be friends with. I’m not trying to brag, but I’m generally well-loved. Well, at least until very recently when that perfect girl image started to glitch. And underneath it, I finally saw my real self. Honestly? I hated her. I am too lazy, burn out too easily, too sensitive, desparately want to be loved by everyone, and not a good daughter to my parents. I decided to go to therapy to fix that part of myself that I couldn’t love. Because surely there’s something wrong with me, right?

Besides, people have told me I’m pretty attractive. I don’t easily believe them, but on good days, if I put on enough makeup and lose a few kilograms, I can kind of see what they see. But most of the times, especially when someone is disapproving of me, I think it’s all because I’m fat and my nose too big, and my eyes too hooded. I have tried starving, training in the gym, going to pilates and running a half marathon. Because surely if they didn’t love me back, it must’ve been because I was too fat, right?

Until last year, I lived in that illusion of being that perfect girl in a skinny body and I was proud of myself for that. Because I really worked hard to earn that. I was an overachiever, spoke two languages fluently, went to one of the top universities in Asia, did my first internship only after completing year one, studied data science in university but still loved learning about politics and human psychology. But I was kind of shy and socially awkward, and not really conventionally pretty. So I learned how to dress nicely, put on makeup that looked good on me. I adopted this new shiny persona of being this happy, perfect girl with no insecurities and was never hurt by anyone. And I started to feel like I’m really fitting in, being well-loved. But I was never happy, and I felt like I had to move out of the country and get a fancy job and earn a shit ton of money to be happier.

I graduated from university, left Hong Kong and got into a tech startup in Korea as an engineer. I moved in with my parents after living apart for 8 years to stay closer to them and save money. I liked that I was learning a lot from my new job, but my parents didn’t love it because it wasn’t one of the biggest companies in the country. I developed a crush on a friend who didn’t like me back, although I was the skinniest in my whole life at the time. So I went on a lot of dates, and I got a lot of attention, but from people I don’t want attention from. That’s when that illusion of the perfect girl in a skinny body started to glitch and crash. Once it started, there was no going back.

I was depressed. I gained weight and went back to normal weight. Work and commute was too much so I was burnt out. My parents didn’t approve of my career anyway. So I applied to master’s programmes to turn things around. I got into most of the programmes I applied to, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue a master’s because I wanted to learn more or because I wanted to escape the current situation. My parents weren’t sure if I was worthy enough to make this big investment with all my depressive symptoms. I decided not to pursue the master’s, because both mine and my parents’ uncertainties in me were valid. So instead I switched my job from full time to part time.

I moved out of my parents place, and I had a lot more time outside of work and commute. I started going to Timeleft dinners to widen my social circle. I started keeping a journal. I started going to therapy. I reached back out to that friend who didn’t like me back and I confessed my feelings anyway. I told him about the resentment I carried from all the signs he gave without ever saying the words. And at first, I started to hate myself even more, because I was finally seeing myself under bright light for the first time through therapy and introspection. Instead of putting my parents on a pedestal, I started to resent them for not raising me into this secure adult. Instead of feeling like I was crazy, I started to resent that friend for not giving me clarity and making me feel like I was crazy (in hindsight, he had an avoidant attachment style, considering how he reached out to me after almost a year of no contact saying I might be his soulmate).

But then I had this epiphany. Therapy wasn’t making me hate myself and my parents and the guy I liked. It was teaching me to hold both truths at once. I am imperfect, but I deserve to be loved. My parents were imperfect, but they’ve done their best to love me and be themselves at the same time. That friend could show their love to me and not have the ability to go through with their feelings because they’re insecurely attached, like I am too.

Therapy and introspection weren’t hurting me more, they were building muscles in me and that process fucking hurt. According to the NHS website, muscle building hurts due to Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), a common and normal response to strenuous or unaccustomed exercise that involves microscopic tears in muscle fibers. Big word (scary acronym), medical bullshit blah blah blah. I just quoted that to sound cool. The point is, I was building muscles in my mental health, understanding what happened to me, healing my inner child, and learning the ability to stay strong when I face similar obstacles in the future. And holy shit, maybe they’re not even obstacles, they are just those scary looking exercise machines that will make my muscles sore in the short term but stronger and bigger in the long term.

And it’s funny because I think most people understand the “muscle building and becoming healthy” part a lot easier than “going to therapy and introspecting to having a healthy mind”. But for me, I could understand how physical health and building physical muscles is important only after I made the analogy for my mental health, because I’m this big nerd with a weak and tiny body (haha). Now, insert the NHS quote again. Big word (scary acronym), medical bullshit blah blah blah. The point is, physical muscle building is also important and it fucking hurts when you’re new to it.

I started understanding how the perfect overachieving well-loved girl mask was the hard shell I needed to put on because I was so soft and vulnerable with no muscles to support myself without the hard shell. Like a crab. I was an arthropod with an exoskeleton. But I’m human, and humans don’t need exoskeletons because we have bones and muscles to support that soft skin from within. I didn’t open up to people with my vulnerabilities, because I had no mental muscle to still love myself if they see and judge the real me. Olympic-level mental gymnastics, good job, little me. But really, I didn’t know better, I was just a kid trying to be loved. So really, therapy and journaling and introspection are slowly peeling my exoskeleton and revealing my soft skin, while building stronger muscles from within. And the first step was to peek through my crab shell look at my weak naked body and hating it. Then trying not to hate it (I’m at this stage). Then accepting it (hopefully soon in the future), right?

And the same goes for my physical body. My exoskeleton was my thin appearance. I sometimes starved myself and I sometimes worked out (I’d tell people it’s for health but really it was to lose weight). But like my mental health, I should try to reveal my soft skin while building stronger muscles from within. And we all know how important it is to have strong muscles, but we often ignore how important it is to have that soft skin, that little flap of fat around your belly. I’m gonna insert another fun fact because I like to be pretentious. If you have a cat, you probably noticed your cat has a flap around its belly, and you probably love your cat regardless, or even more for it because it adds cuteness. (If you don’t think you can love your cat regardless, please reconsider getting one because if it’s a cat, it WILL have a belly flap.) That belly flap is called primordial pouch and it serves three main purposes: protection of organs, flexibility for stretching, and food storage. Another big biology word, cats are cute, and blah blah blah. Basically, it might not look pretty but you need that shit to survive. And people who love you will love you regardless of it. So I’m trying to keep the healthy amount of flap around my belly through eating well and enough, while growing muscles from within through exercise (probably running because I started to quite like it).

It’s really hard to hold all the truths and nuances about myself. But I understand that’s the only way to having a healthy mind in a healthy body. And I believe in myself that I have the strength to endure that “Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness” to grow my muscles and embrace my “primordial pouch” (soft skin / belly flap). I’m going to come back to this cringey entry when my muscles are too sore that I end up crying at 3AM. But I want to tell myself that I’m loveable, I’m strong, I’m kind, and I’m beautiful. You, the reader, are too. You are loveable, you’re strong, you’re kind, and you’re beautiful.

It’s getting a little cringe now, and I haven’t healed enough to own all my cringe yet. So this is where this entry ends. Plese know that I’m working on myself. I want to be better. I’m getting better. I’m learning how to get better for the first time without losing myself in the process. And learning that was so difficult I needed three psychology books, hundreds of dollars spent on therapy, 100K+ words in my journal and two biology metaphors in this entry. And I’m proud to have invested my time, money and a lot of fucking effort for that lesson. So if you know me, please be kind to me. And whether or not you know me, please be kind to yourself.