Exercise #3/ creative writing

 Write about a challenge you faced and your reaction to it. 

I could write about so many challenges I face. Life is suffering. Managing to stay and feel alive every day is challenging. However, the writing block was like a rock in front of me. Nothing came out. 

Then I decided to come inward and listen to my heart. I knew I always felt something there if I tried to listen. 

Since the last few days I have been unpacking my past and writing about my memory of my brother and sister. I miss them so badly. My anxiety is high. My mood is down. Feeling and emotion are mixed up and out of control. 

I got home from work and texted my sister. I asked if the three of us could take a trip together so we could spread our mother’s ashes. My sister said, “Mother‘s urn is at the pagoda. Let Mother be there to listen to every Buddhist chanting and pray is a good thing.” 

I said, “I just want the three of us to spend time together for a couple days."

She said this year won’t work because the children will be busy preparing for school exams. 

Yes, I remember they mentioned that my nephew will go to university and two nieces will take entry exams to high schools. 

She then told me that 2025 would be better when they will have more free time. The conversation ended. It always ends like that but today, it left me with a hole inside my heart. My eyes teared up. 

Can I say my challenge was I miss them very much and I could not say so. I could not say that I was crying, because they would ask why. They would be worried about me. 

I took my notebook out and started writing while shaking and crying. I found myself in the middle of my dinner alone, eating, crying, writing, drinking, and listening to Pitbull’s 3 to tango, it takes three to tango. The music helped to remind me that I am not in the past anymore. But the lyrics make sense at this moment. It takes three to tango. For some reason, I did not know why.

My husband was not home so I had the freedom to cry and yell out loud. I was pleased that I was alone. No one would want to see me like that last night. 

Things came out as I wrote. 

I miss the time we were all together when we were little. When my mother was hospitalized for straight 6 months because of her leukemia, we stayed at home by ourselves. 

At night, I slept with my sister and brother side by side. My sister was barely two years old. She was tiny. She was sick a lot.   She was supposed to sleep with my mother, and she could not. She was supposed to be taken care of by her parents and she was not. 

She slept with me and had to touch my arm so she could fall to sleep. I was a 12-year-old. I was a child myself. I remember that many times I got sick and tired of it. I wanted to stay up a little bit later to do homework. 

She called me from the bed, “Chau, please come to bed. I cannot sleep.” 

I felt sick and tired of it. But I had to go to bed so she could sleep. 

In my mind, I wished I was not a big sister. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to have no adult responsibility to take care of my two little siblings. 

 I did. I moved to the US so I could live my own life. 

Guilt is what I have over time. I left my mother, sister, and brother in Vietnam. 

After my mother died, I could not come back home for the funeral because I could not afford the ticket at the time. 

Guilt! 

A few weeks after she passed away, I had a dream. In the dream I saw my mother in her 40s with her short curly hair. Her shirt was brown. She wore wooden shoes. She loved to wear high heels with flare pants. She was with my 7-year-old brother and 2- year- old sister. My brother wore a short T shirt and a short same dark purple color. My sister wore a white dress that my mother sewn for her. Both of my siblings wore brown sandals. Three of them stood there looking at me. The background appeared from the dream was a vast ground of white snow with no horizon. I thought their clothes were not good for this snowy weather. Then I heard my mother say, "We are waiting for you,  Chau.” 

I heard myself answer, “I love to come with you mom. I am sorry I have to come back to class. I have to go to school.” 

Then I woke up, and cried my eyes out for the rest of the night. 

Guilt! 

Guilt has been eating my soul up! 

Guilt cut a big hole inside my chest! 

Guilt makes me feel so sad! 

Overcoming my inappropriate guilt is my challenge. Writing it out crying is my reaction to it.