Centering Joy: Light in the Great Dark

Posted on October 27, 2024 by betinahsieh

Having recently moved to Seattle from Southern California, I have been warned about “the great dark.” The great dark, a period between mid-fall (October) and spring (March), is a time when nights are longer, cloud cover is frequent, and seasonal affect disorder peaks.

Friends have offered advice and happy lights, knowing that my family and I may have some adjustment in this transition. They have reminded me to take advantage of the light when we have it, to enjoy the beautiful crisp, clean air and vibrant colors of the fall leaves changing, and to be prepared for the darkness and cold as best I can, reaching out when I’m not sure how to navigate new (to me) situations.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “the great dark” in this season, and how, often, in these times, it feels like a period of much darkness. Amidst ongoing global genocide and warfare, daily exposure to dehumanization, and movements towards more authoritarianism which feel so much like darkness closing in on so many of us, that it can be hard to hold on to hope, to one another’s humanity, and to a belief that light will come again. Feelings of despair can prompt inaction and deep isolation, causing us to be reactive within paradigms of scarcity where we must protect what is ours, instead of operating from generosity where we can make room for shared abundance.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a screening of a documentary called Journey Abroad: An Undocu Story made by Erick Arredondo, a Cultural Leadership Fellow who participated in a travel abroad experience as part of the Scholar Fund Cultural Leadership Fellowship. It was a beautiful film which centered the joy, resilience, beauty, and dreams fulfilled for the cultural leadership fellows who took part in a cultural exchange trip to Japan. While acknowledging the real challenges of leaving the country with DACA status, the overwhelming tone of the film was inspiring and filled with joy, connection, and community. The premiere event was also filled with joy, community, and a spirit of incredible generosity and welcome.

Yesterday, I attended the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice conference where climate justice activist and brilliant Marshallese poet, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner delivered the opening keynote. Through community work with youth, she reminded us that we did not have a right to give up hope, when the people of the Pacific Islands, including youth whose generation will already be irreparably impacted by climate change are continuing to fight to save their islands, their ways of life, and their cultures, amidst devastation that they did not cause. They continue to create beauty, embrace moments of joy, and fight for a better future despite the odds. It was a fitting keynote for a space created in, by, and for community, a beautiful space centered around justice and made for and by educators committed to providing a professional homespace for colleagues working towards justice.

These events reminded me that there is work to be done in the midst of the great dark. We have work to do to come alongside Pasifika youth in their advocacy, alongside undocumented community members to gain freedom from fear of deportation, work to do in our own communities to move towards collective liberation, solidarity, and generous humanizing practices. Whether it is freedom from climate change, from targeted state (and state-sanctioned) violence, or from economic exploitation, these events have reminded me of Fannie Lou Hamer’s words that, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

The great dark reminds me to cherish the light, to center incredible moments of joy, to pause in the must do to give myself permission to embrace rest, that embracing my humanity brings me closer to the humanity of others, and restores me to continue the work to which I am deeply committed.

Onward towards the light, in community, centering beautiful moments of joy.

On Children, Endings, and New Beginnings

Posted on August 17, 2024 by betinahsieh

Today, my son moved into the dorms.

He is beginning Early Autumn Quarter on Monday (classes, technically on Tuesday), but moved into his dorm room today, met one of his roommates, and has officially begun a new phase of his life, as I begin a new phase of mine as his mother.

It has been a deeply emotional day.

My son was born halfway through my teaching career, while I was working my way slowly through graduate school. I did not expect to have a biological child at that point in my life, and quite honestly, I probably wasn’t fully ready for one. Just a few months after his birth, the adoption of his older twin sisters (15 when they moved in with my husband and I, shortly after our marriage, just a few months before I found out I was pregnant) would be finalized, capping an 18 month span of time when I went from engaged to married with three children.

I have likely said before on this blog, and I certainly have said to many people in real life, that my son saved my life in many ways.

In the 2 years between completing my dissertation and moving for my first tenure track job (yes, I was on the job market 3 consecutive years before taking a tenure track position), I went through a period of intense struggle and uncertainty. One of older daughters had a very serious health crisis, and because I didn’t know how to “put my own oxygen mask on first,” I also went through a period of extended illness, including a long hospitalization and extensive outpatient treatment. While I was sick and still trying to both financially and emotionally support my family, I was also looking for a new job in academia. People that I thought were friends saw how exhausted and emotionally drained I was, but didn’t know how to help, or thought they were helping, but inadvertently made me feel completely worthless and incapable. It was an extremely dark time.

Through all of this, including periods where I thought the world would be much better without me, I held on, in large part, because of my son. I held on because I knew what it was like to not have my mother there at critical points in my life. I didn’t want him ever to wonder if he could have done something differently that might have led to a different outcome.

It was my battle to fight, but I couldn’t have done it without him there.

My son has been with me on every step of my academic journey.

After getting a tenure track job, for a few months, he and I moved to a different part of the state while my partner stayed in his old job so that we could maintain medical coverage. As I continued to heal and work through the incredible uncertainty of being a junior faculty member, my son was my constant reminder of why I did the work I do, even as I wondered whether this work, that often took me away from him, was worth what it cost in time and energy.

As my son grew older, many of his K-12 experiences were not ideal. I know that having an educator mother didn’t always make them easier. However, I am grateful that we have always had a relationship where he could tell me about what was happening at school and we could talk through if and how I could support him in advocating for himself, or when he wanted or needed me to step in on his behalf (which was rare). I appreciate the ways that, even in the hardest moments throughout his K-12 schooling, he always demonstrated reflectiveness beyond his years and was able to grow from his missteps and learn from his mistakes. He learned a lot about letting go and prioritizing what mattered most to him, even when he was frustrated at situations he wasn’t able to change. I learned a lot from him too.

I have progressed through the ranks of academia from assistant to associate professor, associate to full professor, and then a shift in institutions to where I am now, an endowed professor at a research institution, as he has progressed also, from infant to toddler to child to adolescent to young adult.

We are both at new stages, in the same new place to us, with hope for a brighter future.

I am fortunate that my son is not far from me (in proximity) and never far from me, in my heart.

Today does, however, in real and symbolic ways, mark a notable transition for me, as his mother, one I’ve long been preparing for, but one that I still wasn’t ready for.

After posting on Facebook about my big feelings, my cousin, who not so long ago sent her eldest child off to college, left me this poem by Kahlil Gibran (“On Children”)

Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

So much of this poem deeply resonated with me, but perhaps most in these parts:

My son has never really been my child. He has always been a child of life’s longing for itself in so many ways.

I have always strived to be like him, even (or perhaps especially) in the ways he is not like me.

I have had to be flexible so that my child might fly, in his own direction, and I hope now to be a source of stability, of home.

It’s a big day, another transition, an end to one phase of our relationship as it shifts to the beginning of a new phase. This is a phase that I don’t have a full understanding of, as my mother was gone when I started college (and my older girls didn’t go through dorm housing and 4-year universities), so we will, as we have always done, figure it out as we go.

But as we have always been, we are in this life together, and for that I am exceedingly grateful.

Season Change

Posted on August 14, 2024 by betinahsieh

It has been a season of many transitions.

In the last few days, Seattle has transitioned from clear, sunny skies and 80+ degree temperatures to partly cloudy with rain on the horizon, a lovely, gentle reminder of where I’ve moved to and what’s to come as days continue to get shorter and we move towards autumn, my first autumn fully present to this new environment.

We are nearly two-thirds through a year of transitions for me: new position, new institution, new environment, new home, new opportunities. It has been a year filled with blessings and love, filled with growth and renewal, and also filled with uncertainty and newness.

In the midst of this, I have been navigating a lifelong struggle with boundaries, particularly boundaries in relation to caretaking and relationality itself.

This weekend, we did an activity as part of the family orientation guide for my son, who begins his college transition this week. It was a values card sort activity that had us individually categorize a variety of values into four categories: extremely important to me, important to me, a little important to me, and not very important to me. While the goal of the activity was to talk about shared and (possibly) divergent values, one unexpected takeaway for me was the sheer number of values that I hold as extremely important and important to me. Among them, I classified belonging, love, and care for others as extremely important, which will likely come as no surprise to people who know me.

Care is, and has always been, a guiding value in my walk and my work. I’ve seen (and begun to acknowledge) how that care has often not been extended to myself, and how it can be overextended to others. Part of this is systemic. There is an expectation for mothers, women, and particularly women of color, to do forms of labor classified as “care work.” This work, systematically undervalued, is pivotal to keep institutions (including families, schools, and universities) functioning, and it is, as I’ve noted, expected by society and those around us.

Part of this, however, is individual. I like the communities I’m a part of to function through mutual care. I am a caring person. I want the people in my life to be joyful and successful. If I can help and support them, I want to do that, even if it comes at some cost to me, and without an expectation of return. This is who I am, and I don’t think fundamentally this is something I want to or can change.

However, what I’m working towards is trusting others to care for themselves and being less reactive to their responses as our relationships evolve. In the past, I have spent months (maybe even years) reflecting on choices (and mistakes) I’ve made that may have hurt others, including boundaries I’ve set, but also including things I would have done so differently in retrospect, with little grace or honor for my own intentions and/or humanity. I replay scenarios, in anguish, considering what I should have done. Or, I compromise boundaries that are set for important reasons. In some of these cases, even after apologizing and working towards repair, the relationships have lost a certain proximity that may never be regained. I have been deeply saddened when once close relationships have become more distant even as I know (intellectually) that some relationships are meant to be for a season, and that those relationships are not any less important or less real, even if they may be time, place or situationally bound.

This is a pretty big thing for me to be working through.

Given the depth of my care for the people in my life, it’s actually impossible for me to maintain the level of care that I’d like to have in each of my relationships with all of my people. When I try to do this, the people to whom I’m closest do not get my best self. I am seeing the boundaries of my relationships as my networks expand. I have come to realize that not everyone I’m connected with will be my people and am okay with that.

What I’m coming to greater peace around is that it’s ALSO okay that some people will always be my people in my heart, even if our relationships evolve and we are no longer as close as we once were. Others will be my people for a brief (or long) beautiful time, and then we will evolve in different ways, life will lead us down different paths, and that does not take away, even in the slightest, the gift of our time in deep community, nor does it diminish the deep love that we may have for one another.

I am learning to grow through seasons.

This is not easy, but it feels so important, and key to the freedom to be and to develop new relationships without taking away from those I’ve held and continue to hold so dear.

It is a season of so many changes, but I am grateful for the ways I continue to evolve.

Reframing my Relationship to Work

Posted on August 9, 2024 by betinahsieh

This week and next, in lieu of actual “vacation” time, I have been trying to adopt a “work light” mode. “Work light” in my world is about declining non-essential work meetings, choosing to focus on projects that I haven’t had time for (e.g. my syllabus, unpacking my office) and e-mail for no more than a few hours per day total, and spending the rest of the time doing something of my choosing that brings me joy.

This experience has turned into a reflection on forms of labor and a reframing of my relationship with work. My friend and colleague Gwen calls my “work light” mode “working regularly” and posits that what we’ve (as a society) come to accept as a “regular” load is actually unhealthily unsustainable… something I’ve been pondering a lot. I am reading Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe (in my “free” time, which is in quotes because part of my research actually looks at the ways in which labor is constructed/ invisibilized for teachers under discourses of love and care) and realizing how much of my time is spent in various forms of (paid and unpaid) labor, whether at home or in relation to my professional life.

While I love the people both at home and at work (and in the other areas of my life), the failure to acknowledge all of the labor that I engage in has led to resentment, exhaustion, and very poor boundary setting. I’ve come to realize that because I so deeply value relationships and relationality in my life, anything involving others has an importance (sometimes a disproportionately amplified one) that leads to a sense of deep obligation. This has led to me neglecting myself or pushing myself beyond healthy limits to serve others, to serve institutions, and to serve goals that aren’t necessarily aligned with who I am.

When I am up close in these moments, I cannot distinguish between the transactional and the relational. I often struggle to prioritize as every thing (except for my own well-being) feels urgent. I also struggle to delegate because I feel that not doing something myself is “letting down” someone else (or the team). Everything has to get done and it has to get done as quickly (and perfectly) as possible. And, because I am in a field (and have always been) where there is always more to do, never enough time to do it in, and the stakes feel incredibly high (because, children), I always feel behind which causes me to be angry at myself and very hard to live with. I see this sometimes, and I see how this models for my own children a form of unhealthy sacrificial love that gets so caught up in the doing, it forgets how to be. I see all of this, but I struggle to take a step back.

This week has been many steps back.

And/or perhaps, many steps forward.

It has been about acknowledging when stress and urgency come up in my body and checking in about why I might be reacting in ways that I can see don’t honor my own humanity or the humanity of people that I love. It has been about trusting that things will get done in their time and that imperfection can be good enough. It has been about remembering that I also deserve grace and that the grace I show myself is amplified by the way I am able to hold greater space for others.

It has also been about boundaries, about not forcing myself to take on others’ urgency, about moving at my own pace and allowing for others to move at theirs without (or with less, I’m still working on this in my personal life!) judgment. It has been about acknowledging that I cannot do all the things and being okay with that, asking for help, and leaning into the love that is around me.

All of this is (the) work too, in some ways. Sustainability and joy as forms of resistance are (the) work in that they don’t come naturally in a productivity driven society. The work will be there or it will move on, but there will always be plenty to do. I am better doing it when I am truest to myself (and not trying to do all of it). That is the best service to community I can bring.

I recommend “work light” or perhaps “work regular” or perhaps simply “work agency” or perhaps simply “human agency,” stepping into spaces truly meant for us, graciously acknowledging when we need space to regroup, and spending more time present in our bodies which hold more knowledge than our minds sometimes lead us to believe.

Looking forward to what I will learn next week.

What Would It Be Like to Trust Myself?

Posted on July 25, 2024 by betinahsieh

A few days ago, I wrote about being more patient with myself when I make mistakes. I am still working on this, but also with a slight reframe.

Yesterday, I prioritized self-care and community-care. I connected with people; I ate well; I walked; I listened to my body later in the day when I was working past my limits. I had a few wonderful conversations with wonderful humans. When I get the chance to be in community with others that I have a deep resonance with, it feels replenishing. I did small and big things that bring me joy. When I do this, my body (eventually) feels a sense of deep peace. It’s something I expected to find here, in my new home, easily, but something that has been elusive since the move.

Initially, likely because I am out of practice, the self-prioritization didn’t sit well with me. I had decided early in the day to pivot a proposal I was working on, but because I had scheduled multiple care activities during the day (and was prioritizing things like preparing and eating good food), I didn’t get to my proposal until later in the afternoon. I caught myself at multiple times moving towards anxiety that it wasn’t going to get done or that it would push into other times that I had carefully cultivated for other things. I noticed how much stress sits in my body when I have an unwavering commitment to time looking and going a certain way.

I chose to lean into trusting myself and reminded myself that time expands and contracts if and as we allow it to, particularly when it is time in relation to writing and thinking. I often worry, as someone who spends a lot of time thinking and writing, that the “right” thought or words will be there only in a moment and then gone the next. I worry that if things don’t get done in this moment, they will be forgotten and never get done. I worry a lot about the disappointment that might bring to others.

I am remembering in my body, now that I have given myself permission to breathe, however, that I can trust myself, that I can choose to value my time and my energy and to bound it in ways that allow me to continue in community. Sustainability, at this stage, is a choice that is within my reach. Choosing it is as powerful as anything I can produce in any given moment.

I am reminded that what is meant to be mine will find its way to me and what is not for me may be a blessing to someone else.

I am reassured that mistakes are human and that my humanity and humility are held in community.

All the power of my foremothers, my other mothers, my siblings, and all they have contributed and continue to contribute to me have brought me to this point. Their power, our power, rests within me. It is mine to claim.

I know these things. They sit with me when I sit with myself.

But sometimes, it can only be felt in the stillness.

Sometimes, it can only be felt when I trust myself to embody it.

These are the moments that I hope to hold on to.

Cultivating Patience

Posted on July 20, 2024 by betinahsieh

I am learning to be patient with myself.

In the process of transition, I find myself making many mistakes out of haste. Costly mistakes that I literally catch minutes (maybe even seconds) after I’ve already committed money to them, which then leads me to invest more time, energy and money to redo/ undo them.

When I make these careless mistakes, I get deeply upset with myself.

This is a part of my humanity that I have never been able to embrace.

It is a part of me that I try to hide away by frantically seeking to erase any record of it.

It is a part of me that causes me deep shame.

But in reality, it is one of the most human parts of me: imperfection.

Intellectually, I know that no one can get it right 100% of the time, that as hard as we work or try or strive, we are bound to make mistakes. I also know that these mistakes hit hard for those who care deeply (about everything), and that these mistakes are more likely in exactly these times: times of transition, times of exhaustion, and times where I am devoting all of my energy to supporting others and neglecting time to pause and care for myself.

In these times, my energy and rhythm becomes frantic. I am not my best self. Then, I berate myself for not being my best self when I feel like I “most” need to be.

I am realizing that this self-flagellation has a deep impact on those who love me the most. My family and closest friends have been on a campaign (noticeably recently, but likely for years) urging me to be kinder to myself, and allow myself the grace of my humanity. They constantly remind me that who I am is enough, that what I do is a lot and that my own brand of quirky humanity is one of the things they love most about me.

I have a hard time listening to them even though I know they’re right. It’s hard when I’m part of a society and a profession that has socialized me to expect perfection from myself. I find it easier to challenge that expectation when it comes to holding space for others, but it is so hard when it comes to holding space for myself.

There isn’t a happy ending or resolution to this particular blog post. This is very much still a work in progress. I know from my therapist that my ability to give grace and show patience towards others is limited by my ability to do so for myself. I even feel badly about not making progress “fast enough” in this area. I know it’s all related, and perhaps seeing it in writing can be a step in moving past it.

If you’re like me, I hope we can learn to be more patient with ourselves together. If you hear me beating up on myself, remind me of my humanity, and of my contributions and the beauty in the imperfections of both.

Adjusting

Posted on July 5, 2024 by betinahsieh

This picture of my dog sleeping is emblematic of my exhaustion over the past few days and weeks.

But/and, this picture is also a metaphor for the comfort I’ve found being in my new home — that even amidst the boxes and chaos of adjusting to a new era of my life and new circumstances, I find respite in the familiar (that which we’ve brought along) and in our community ties; the somewhat familiar (places I’ve visited in the last 6 months and people I’ve been building with, as I’ve been transitioning on my own); and moments of peace (which not having regular access to wifi at home brings).

It’s been a time of feelings.

For the month prior to move, friends I would meet with would often ask me how I was feeling about the move. Though feelings then would come and go, as we’ve made the journey to our new home in Seattle and begun to settle in, the feelings are coming, fast and furious, amplified by physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. It is forcing me to let go of perfectionism in real time, to breathe and slow down, to give myself grace and make space, to hold on through the winds of change.

I am moved deeply by the generosity of friends and community — those who sent us on our way with gift cards to help us set up our new home, those who sent housewarming joy and pastries upon our arrival, those who have offered to help us with the move on both ends. It is in these times of transition that I am most likely to retreat internally, even when I know I need support externally, but I’ve been trying to push past this to graciously accept your love and generosity as it is offered, when I can. I’ve also been grateful to those who have waved from a distance, trusting I’ll reach out when I have the mental capacity to do so, which is not quite yet.

I am slowly finding a little bit of footing, some solid ground, and creating space to do the things that feel the most “me.” It is slow and it is hard to unlearn the inner critique that pushes me to push through it all, but I am working on it. It can also be challenging my conceptualization of myself is constantly evolving.

Evolution is good, as a personal and academic project, and I trust that the exhaustion will subside, that stability will come again, that community will go from bud to blossom. This is a journey, ever a journey. Grateful for this step.

The End of an Era

Posted on June 28, 2024 by betinahsieh

It is nearly time to say goodbye to the first house that I thought might be my forever home.

My daughter said to me on the walk to summer camp this morning, “I’m going to miss this house. It’s the only house I’ve ever known.”

She’s repeated these words at least twice today.

It is a big move for her. It is the house we brought her home to from the hospital. It is the house that my son has known for the longest period of his life. I, in fact, have lived in this house for more years of my adult life than any other place. I’ve only ever lived in one other place longer– the house I grew up in.

So it is a big move for all of us.

I am exhausted.

In the last few weeks, there have been many hours of late night packing and preparation for staging, selling, moving. As I have probably said before on this blog, it is impossible to do and to think (or to feel) simultaneously and there has been a lot of doing (while trying also to work which took most of my thinking brain) and not a lot of time to think, at least not reflectively, nor to feel.

I continue to be exhausted, but I know that this is a moment that I will regret not capturing if I don’t take time to reflect, to feel, to be with. Even if it is disjointed. Even if I am tired. I am reminding myself that time to feel and be in the moment is a powerful form of resisting urges to forever do and never be.

This last 2 weeks has been a beautiful time of celebrating community. This past 11 years has been a time of healing, rebuilding, and finding belonging in a place where I wasn’t sure I could ever be my full self, in a career where the odds were stacked against me. I could not have had the last two weeks without the past 11 years and I could not have come out of the last 11 years who I am today without the beautiful community that has come to be my chosen family.

It is the end of an era and the start of a new adventure.

Tomorrow, we will say a few last goodbyes. We will drive with our dog (who does not travel well) 1800 miles through places with people who are dear to us. We will leave one home for another.

My daughter says, “Mommy, wherever you go, you have friends.”

It is true, and so I feel so much less alone these days.

I am sad to leave these friends and this place, but I know they will never leave me, that I am carrying these moments and people and places with me. I am holding them in my heart. I know they will come see me, that my home will always be open to welcome them.

I am less exhausted now. I am breathing deeply. I am tired, but I am grateful. I will miss this place, but I see many beautiful people and places on the horizon.

It is a big move.

I have done so much to prepare for this move, and now, I am ready for it, as ready as I can possibly be.

After one last sleep.

Moving, Movement, (E)Motion

Posted on June 2, 2024 by betinahsieh

It is a time, my friends.

This week, in preparation for selling our home, there has been a lot of disarray, a lot of movement, a lot of sorting.

Keep, give-away, recycle, throw away.

It is simple but never easy.

At least for me.

My two children sorted through things with much greater ease than I did. They have been blessed with much, so their attachment is much less to things than to people. It is easy for them to recognize when they’ve moved past things.

I grew up without a lot so everything seemed so valuable.

Then when I lost my mom at 16, time seemed to stopp. For a long time, I couldn’t throw away anything from the before times. In my series of moves after my mother’s death, in high school, throughout college, in my early career and first house, back down to Southern California and into this house, there have been boxes I have refused to look through. The boxes that follow me, like ghosts from eras past, from place to place, because I refuse to see them. Memories of the before times and of the year my mother died and the end of high school. I have perhaps held on to all of these things because it was too painful to remember a before time, a rupture. It was too hard to revisit that time and losing the most important person in the world to me.

But, somehow, now is the time.

Today, after beginning my day sorting through some of my college memories and a few childhood memory boxes, I left to give a keynote to a sizable cohort of teacher residents earning their Masters of Arts in Education. In my keynote, I said these words:

“When we spend time talking at one another instead of talking to one another, when we are bombarded with information at such a rate that it’s overwhelming and we don’t know what to believe, we begin to lose connection with our own humanity and the humanity of others. In these moments, we must hold onto our why and hold on to our humanity.

I’d like for all of us, whether you are a graduate, faculty member or guest to take a moment right now and think about your why and I’d urge you to reach out to the people who are your why and to tell them how much they mean to you. When challenging times arise in teaching, these are the people that ground us.

We have to hold onto our why, to know and embrace all of our humanity as educators because our humanity will be tested within and beyond educational institutions. When it is tested, if we do not hold on to our humanity and our integrity, our reason for being here, if we lose ourselves, it is a huge loss to those who love us, to our students & their families, and to the difference we are committed to making. We must stay committed to listening and learning from our communities, from those most impacted by violence and inequities, and to using our privilege and position to amplify their voices.”

When I asked the audience to think about their why, I thought about mine — that my why has always been to honor the legacy and sacrifice of my mother, and to be a good future ancestor for my children. My why is about making a difference in the lives of others, seeing them, because when we are seen, we can fully be, in ways not otherwise possible.

Somehow, in holding onto my why, the what suddenly became less important — that is to say that, suddenly I was able to revisit a time that I couldn’t be in before and let go of the things I carried from home to home, from year to year. I left the ceremony and went to pay my respects to the elders in my family (my aunt, uncle, mom and grandmother) then came home and sorted through the box (it happened, perhaps not coincidentally, to be the box that was next to be sorted through) that had my letters from high school and all of the cards we received when my mother passed away.

I read through them and kept a few but let the majority of them go.

It was time.

It is time.

I am finally in a place where letting go of that time, letting go of those things, does not mean letting go of my mother.

I can never let go of her.

She has sourced so much of the good in me.

It is a time. It is a time to hold those we love dear to us in our hearts, to sort through the clutter to get to the essence. To heal so that the next generation doesn’t carry forth our burdens.

It is a time.

A Letter to my Son — Graduation

Posted on May 22, 2024 by betinahsieh

Dear Son,

Last night was your high school graduation.

We made it.

While I am always aware that the obstacles you and we have overcome may pale in comparison with some, it has not been an easy 6 years of secondary school. Punctuated with a semi-colon by the pandemic, with the pick-up not ever quite right, followed subsequently by an incredibly academically challenging year and this year, which was both academically and personally challenging in different ways (including our family’s gradual transition), it has been a lot.

It has particularly been a lot for a mother-son duo that tends towards harsh self-critique, perfectionism, and comparing ourselves to those around us (usually finding ourselves on the short end of the stick compared to someone in some context).

I want you to know how much I love you and how much I value you. I know that you know, but I can never say it enough.

When I couldn’t sleep last night, my mind kept returning to this thought: they say that when you have a child, it is (they are) your heart (or at least a big part of it) walking separately from your body (okay, this is probably a less poetic version than what they actually say, but it’s the best I can do on very little sleep). I felt that way yesterday when I watched you cross the stage.

There you were, suddenly grown. It seemed like yesterday that you entered this world. I blinked and you are a young man, a high school graduate, someone who has so much character, brilliance, and agency, someone I admire and who sometimes frustrates me, but much more often reminds me to be compassionate to myself and makes me smile or laugh.

We’re entering this new phase of life. I know you’ll stay close, but you’ll also have much more independence as you move forward in your adult life.

I don’t know how to mother you through this phase of life. Even though I’ve been through this part with your older sisters, because I didn’t raise them as babies, it somehow seems different. I mean, of course, it’s different. You each are different people with different life experiences and different paths forward. I suppose that even in this difference (or maybe because of it), I felt and feel unsure at this point. There have been a lot of moments of uncertainty in my mothering since your sisters became adults, times when I’ve wondered how to be a better mother and worried that I haven’t been enough.

So, I worry now.

We are the same in that we always want to do our best, in everything we do, but especially when things are important to us, and being a mom is the most important thing to me.

You said to your father and me the other day that you’re worried too, that life will not get better, that after 6 hard years of secondary school, college will not bring the friends and experiences you hope for. We tried to reassure you, sharing from our own experiences and you said that you trusted us, knew that we were probably right, and yet it was hard to truly believe because you haven’t lived these things yet.

Same. I know in my heart that you are going to be great. You were great the day you were born. I trust you. And, in spite of everything, I trust myself, at least insofar as your mother, because I know you and I see you. While I worry about the world continuing not to see you, I hold hope that being seen and held by even a few is not insignificant.

While the path forward is not clear, it is one we will navigate both separately and together. I am gingerly embracing this. And I am hoping for many more family car rides and foodie adventures as you journey forward.

I love you.

Mom

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