It's Not Like It's a Secret

And I remember that hiding the truth doesn’t stop things from being true. Not talking about things doesn’t stop them from happening. Pretending that a thing is something else doesn’t change its true nature.

I become like a boulder on the beach in a time-lapse video. The sun and moon and stars cross the sky again and again, shadows lengthen and shrink, the tide rushes in and out. The sea heaves in the background, crabs and seabirds flicker in and out of view. Meanwhile, the boulder sits there, stolid, unmoving, all alone, as life whizzes past.

We are who we are, and we shouldn't have to suffer for it, or prove anything to anyone.

But different is okay in America, even though I forget sometimes. You are okay, even though you are different.

The sun slides across the sky, the moon waxes and wanes, and I endure. I survive.

Asking for acceptance and equal rights isn’t selfish. It wouldn’t be an issue at all if other people accepted them instead of thinking of them as freaks.

Gaman isn’t just about enduring hardship in silence—and it’s not about backing down. It’s about stepping up and choosing which hardship you endure. And enduring it with grace because of something important, like honor, or family. Or someone important. Like Jamie.

It's sad to think of loneliness being the habit of a house, like you can't escape it.

She hands me dish after dish and I load them into the dishwasher without a word, like she wants, the same way we stow away our secrets in this family, shutting the door on them and locking them away from sight until we come up with a version clean and respectable enough for all to see.

You know how if a drowning person can’t swim, the best thing they can do is stop trying to swim, and just float? But instead they panic and flail, and the more they flail the worse it gets, and the worse it gets the more they flail?

You should know better than to listen. And you should also know better than to think you have to be skinny to be pretty. Anyone who cares what size you are is any asshole.

When we're done, the kitchen is neat and clean and shiny. Meanwhile our secrets whirl around us and obscure us from each other like a cloud of dust.

Sometimes I say things I don't mean, just so I don't have to say the things I do mean. Or sometimes I say exactly what I mean, and it still comes out all wrong. So sometimes I don't say anything at all.

Gaman. I'm sick of Gaman. But I don't have to stand still as life splashes and churns around me, the way I used to. I don't have to be the rocks and the sand on the beach - I can be the wave.

You are stronger and more independent than I was prepared for. I suppose that’s what happens when you grow up in America. Perhaps I need to give you more room to grow.” She smiles ruefully. “Sometimes the parents have to run to catch up with their children, instead of the other way around.

Gaman. I've fought my whole life against it, but looking back, it's all I know how to do. I used gammon when I saw that first text to Dad when I was twelve. I used gammon with Trish when she got popular and made all those new, popular friends. I used gaman when I had a crush on her. I thought I'd changed when we moved to California and I finally made real friends, finally kissed Jamie, finally started to live a little. I thought I was done with gaman. But I was wrong. I tried to do something about Dad, and I failed. I tried to tell Mom the truth about me, and I chickened out. I tried to take action when I thought Jamie might leave me, and I screwed up. So I've resigned myself to my fate like a good Japanese girl, and I'm doing my best to pull myself together, squelch the complaints, and endure, endure, endure. Gaman. This is what Mom has been training me for since I was born, and it's clearly what I'm best at.

a cute jean miniskirt, a fitted scoop-neck white tee, and gladiator sandals that Mom almost refused to buy. (“Why do you want to look like Roman soldier?”) I twist my hair into a loose bun, with a few strands poking out artfully here and there. Putting it up makes room for a silk cord necklace with multicolored glass beads that look good against my skin.

You are too young for the dream,” she says. (See?) I want to remind her that she just said Dad’s start-up job was a teenage dream. But she has a conveniently short memory about things she’s just said that contradict other things she’s just said,

I am teaching you to see the world the way it is, not the way you want it to be.

I am teaching you to see the world the way it is, not

Sometimes the parents have to run to catch up with their children, instead of the other way around.

You'd think that as a Person of Color, I would feel some kinship here, some bond. But I don't, no exactly. Why is that? Is it really race or ethnicity or whatever, thats making me feel like I'm not in the club, or am I making it all up and it's just a personal thing? Or something else entirely? If I don't think it's about race does that make me a racist? If I do think it's about race doe that make me a racist?

If you're Nobody together with someone, doesn't that make you Somebody? At least to each other? That can't be bad, right?

I sometimes used to feel like I was nobody. Like no one cared about me.

Endure. Bear it without complaining. Her life's motto and my life's bane.

I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just – how can your friends expect people to treat them like individuals if they dress like stereotypes? The same reason you expect to be treated like an individual even though you look like a stereotype.

My mom says I’m fat. Well, my grandmother does. Asian moms live to say shit like that. It’s what they do. You should know better than to listen. And you should also know better than to think you have to be skinny to be pretty. Anyone who cares what size you are is an asshole.