I cannot remember crying after my mother died. Not immediately, although I’m sure I did, because I remember thinking that if I did not, people would wonder what was wrong with me.

But it was so surreal.

My mother, who had dropped me off the night before at my friend’s house, died the next morning crossing the street from our house to the bus stop.

She was alive.

And then she was dead.

For weeks, I could not fully understand it. Maybe for months. I did not miss a day of school. There is a photo of a small smile at her funeral (where I did not speak).

I do not remember much, but these fleeting moments.

I have spent the subsequent 26 years crying on and off about the death of my mother.

Grief is strange that way.

And her survival instinct, passed down to me, is also strong.

In the months and years after her death, when I would grieve, I was called “dramatic.” No one could understand why, at that moment, I was so overcome with emotion.

I didn’t really understand it either.

I am so worried about my sister and her mother. I am so frightened for the people of Burma, who had their hope so cruelly taken from them and now must live in fear and hope for survival. I am so angry that there is no attention, no outrage, nothing I can do for them right now. But wait.

I am so deeply, deeply saddened by the killing of 8 people in Atlanta on Tuesday. I am so devastated for their families. I am so deeply moved by the first stories we are hearing from their children (Randy Park, HyunJung Kim’s son and Jami Webb, Xiaojie Tan’s daughter). I am more devastated to know that both these women were single mothers, that these children were so close to their mothers, who were there and then gone, taken from them so suddenly. I hate that these women, like so many other migrant Asian women who worked so hard to support their children, died in an act of hate-filled violence. These women who spent their lives serving others.

I have been scrolling Twitter during most of my waking hours since I heard about the shootings. Something about the community and the wisdom there brings me some comfort. Many people have had words that I do not have, shared resources that I could not share, responded with knowledge and connections that see the teachable moment in this tragedy.

I started to feel badly that I could not do more. I also cannot feel the grief, although my body is breaking down which means that, despite myself, it is making me grieve.

I am literally sick to my stomach.

My head hurts.

My heart hurts.

Tonight, there were many community gatherings. The one I chose to attend was put on by Red Canary Song. It centered the voices of massage parlor workers, sex workers, Asian migrant women, community members. It was not a “call to action,” it was a vigil to hold space for those lost, to honor their lives and their work, and their humanity. It was beautiful, and if anything, I thought that being in community at this vigil would bring forth my tears.

But they would not come, even then.

So many tears around me, even from my friends who do not usually cry.

Why not me?

I know that for some people, even for me in my past, my solution to grief was action, to do something productive, to do something to help others, to do something that reminded me that life must go on, to use my privilege to do better.

I feel all of the weight of all of my privilege. I am, while vulnerable, far less vulnerable than so many.  I feel the guilt of survival and of “relative safety” at this moment. I have been taught to decenter myself. Always. It is selfish to do otherwise.

And I have so much, why wouldn’t I give, while I am still here?

This is harming me.

I am literally sick to my stomach.

My head hurts.

My heart hurts.

And yet, I feel nothing. Because I am in survival mode, a mode I have carried so long and so well.

There are people who have shown up for me, who have asked what they can do, how they can help. I do not know. Because I am not fully feeling the things, I do not know what I need.

I have spent most of my life not present to what I need, but to the needs of others.

I have spent my life in service.

I am literally sick to my stomach.

My head hurts.

My heart hurts.

Because my body tells me what my brain cannot fully process. That life is so fragile. My life. Your life. Their lives. Our lives.

I am so tired.

I just want to be able to cry.

There was a time when I cried all the time. It was cathartic and healing. It was freeing.

It is strange to wish for such unrestrained sorrow, but it reminds me I am alive.

I keep writing in the hopes that I will be able to cry.

I keep writing because it reminds me that I am alive.

I keep writing so that maybe I can write myself to understanding.

But I am out of words.

I am sick to my stomach.

My head hurts.

My heart hurts.