As of today, Phuc and I have been broken up for a month.

But rather than some typical heartbroken post, I think this is a great opportunity to talk about the new love of my life.

I don't say it enough, because I've normally been using this site as a place to just rant about the bad shit going on, but things have just been going really well.  And there's one main reason for that.  As thankful as I am for all the people that have been so caring towards me, and for the many friends that I have made in the last month, "socializing" and me have our hits and misses.  But there's one thing that in my life has been consistently making everyday just amazing for me without fail.  One thing that has just has me head over heels in love for the past two weeks.  That's my lab.

DID I PUNK U? OHOHOHO shut up i'm endearing

But I am just in love with my research lab, and I haven't even started my personal project yet -- although, I finally will be this Monday!  But there's just no time to think about Phuc when I'm thinking about the protein markers in hematopoietic stem cells.  There's no space to wonder about heartbreak when my focus is devoted towards splitting cell culture plates.  When I am looking at those little cells under the microscope, they're just my entire world.  All the love that I put towards Phuc, I am now putting towards this research.

When I applied to the lab, I knew it would be a good experience, and I was hoping that I would at least like it.  But I didn't expect how much I have just fallen in love with it.  The lab and I, we had a shaky start.  I mentioned before that on my first day of lab, no one knew that I was joining the lab.  The principal investigator was out of town, my post-doc was on vacation, but I was still told to come in last Monday.  But no one else was told that I'd be coming.  So, I found out that they thought I was dumped onto them.  They were bitter at my post-doc for leaving me to the rest of them, and it was deflected onto me.  I was just thrown into the lab, and all of the sudden, I was the responsibility of the remaining graduate students.  And training undergraduates is time-consuming and strenuous.  While they were as welcoming as they could be, handling me was a groaner, because I just wasn't their responsibility.  But over the past two weeks, everyone increasingly realized how enthusiastic I am for the lab.  Instead of still thinking of me as their burden, I've been increasingly utilized as a real resource in the lab.  They tell me, "Yeah, we have undergraduates that are clearly just going through the motions," with clear implications that I'm not one of them.  And let me tell you, I am not one of them.  I really want to be there.  I really want to learn everything about everything.  I really want to contribute to the projects, I really want to know that whatever their results are, I made a contribution there.  Someday, there will be groundbreaking discoveries in stem cell research, and whether that's a year from now or after I die, my footprints are being made in the steps towards that discovery.  It's unreal to me.  When I put that lab coat on, I feel like I'm in a fairy tale.  I will admit that for the great majority of my education, I have been going through the motions.  There have been some good classes, but for the most part, I have just been getting the grades and just getting through it.  But when I'm sitting in that tissue culture room, there is no where else in the world that I would rather be.  Except maybe Disneyland.

I hope this feeling never ends.

And it's showing.  I explode with joy every time that one of the lab members tell me, "You're doing a really great job, Christa."  It's not often, but when they tell me, it's real, and it's sincere.  Whenever they tell me, I feel like the world has stopped for a beat.  I've definitely had a lot of great moments in the past month, but there's something just so explosive about learning that they think I'm doing well in the lab.  It really just makes me want to learn more.  And it's so amazing to me.  I want to excel in this lab.  I met their star undergraduate on my second day in the lab.  He had just graduated, and it was his last week in the lab.  He spent his last week teaching me how to plate cells.  And he was just absolutely stellar.  He was amazing.  I want to be him, but better.  I want to be their star undergraduate.  I want to be the best undergraduate that they have ever had, and I want them to exchange stories about my contributions to the lab after I leave.  I don't want to just leave a mark on this lab, I want to use a bulldozer on it.

There's this great balance between the lab members, and they've all just been so nice to me for the last two weeks.  It's not enough to learn the science.  You have to learn the people, because communication is so huge.  I saw my sister this past weekend, and all I could do all weekend was talk about my lab and the people in my lab.  The more I described my research associate to her, the more we realized that I have a Dr. Cox in my life.  YEAH, SCRUBS!  He's really rubbing off on me, and it's hardly been two weeks.  All of his sharp sarcasm, the way that he winks when he's explaining something, the way he nods his head with huge amounts of enthusiasm, the way he complains about everything with a groan that can be heard across the room.  He's been calling me "rookie" and gives me all of these long, fast talks about really random shit that I can never follow but it's all really entertaining.  I've spent a lot of time working with almost everyone in the lab, but he's the only one whose characteristics are being incorporated into daily Christa activities.  And we emulate the people that we're fond of, so I guess I'm a regular J.D.  Hugely critical, arrogant guy, yet he is just really cool and carries himself with a lot of swag.  "God, rookie, what are you doing!!!!"  And each time he gives me some tough love, I'm just really satisfied.  Every time, I just feel like I'm part of the lab.

The reason why I believe in my potential, the reason I believe that I can work towards an amazingly bright future, the reason why I feel like a total boss in the midst of heartbreak, the reason why I really believe that I have something really good going for me, the reason why life has been feeling just overall awesome, is no doubt hugely because of this lab.  Let me tell you, they just really inflate my ego there.  And I cannot emphasize this enough, but that's really saying something considering how low my self-esteem is.  I used to spend day in and day out just feeling like I'm the most useless, worthless, horrible girl in the entire world.  But, man.  The way that I was assigned to the only post-doc in the lab.  The way that the graduate students are actually competing over having me as their undergraduate.  The way that I'll be one of the few undergraduates in my lab to work with our principal investigator.  The way that I'm going to have an cell culture incubator all to myself.  The way that I'm going to be working with the first cell line of its kind in the entire university.  The way that I've been here only two weeks, but I'm already teaching other undergraduates how to do things in the lab, who have been in this lab for more than a month longer than me.  I mean, I already feel like a total freakin' scientist when I'm in the biosafety cabinet feeding cells, let alone all of this craziness!  Are they actually trusting me with this shit?  Clearly they don't know that I'm a huge klutz!  But I've been here two weeks, and they have such huge expectations and so much belief in me.  And I do wonder, can I really do all of this?  I guess we'll have to see.

I always thought I was unspectacular, I always thought I was just another ordinary average girl, and being in this lab has been one of the first real times that I have realized that I'm actually a pretty smart cookie.  I mean, is it just me, or are these responsibilities that they wouldn't entrust to just any ordinary average girl?  This is the first time in years that I've really wondered: am I actually more than just an ordinary girl?  I always thought that Phuc would leave me for someone less plain than me, because I always thought of myself as just another face in the crowd.  For months, my sister has been telling me that I'm a big deal, but I never believed it for a second, until I became part of this lab.  The way that these lab members really believe in me, the way that they are trusting me to play a role in these huge experiments, could I actually be... spectacular?  

Well, then it would be my pleasure to meet and exceed all expectations.

The university bus system is really screwing with all my plans to be awesome.

I make it through research, and I make it when I’m trying to socialize more, and recently I even make it during my hard days trying to deal with missing Phuc, but then it's time to take the bus and all of the sudden I'm just epic fail. “Oh, I'll leave lab right now and I'll barely make the bus on time!” More like barely miss it and then get stuck sitting in the hot sun for a half hour. Then today, I forgot a binder on the bus and that was more just amazingly epic fail. And sometimes I’m just really bad at reading the bus schedule and then I show up at the bus stop half an hour early because I was looking at the wrong time on the schedule. The schedule is really not that complicated at all, but I still find ways to read it incorrectly. It’s really almost impressive how many different ways I have managed to fail in regards to the bus. Long story short, ihu bus.

But whatevs.  There's my amazing, seamless transition to the next topic.  "But whatevs."

Well, as I described in my last post, I’m trying to realize that missing Phuc and longing for Phuc just has no value anymore. It’s useless, because there’s really nothing on my side that I can do anymore, short of driving up to Sacramento, and I'm weird but I'm not psycho. But every time I have ever tried to reach out to him, it has always been in naught. He never picks up, he never replies, just bullshit like that. There’s really nothing left that can be done on my side. I miss Phuc like hell, like hell, but that just doesn’t yield any progress. Everything that I could possibly do to reach out to Phuc has been done and has been unsuccessful. I’d lie in bed and cry all day about that like I used to, but that’s not bringing him back, and that’s not getting any of my readings done. So I get really pissed off at myself when I just sit around crying over Phuc, because I have a lot of readings to do for research. Lol! “Ho, get off your emo ass and read your textbook!”

Sigh, but whatever, y’know? Break-ups suck, what are you gonna do about it? The ball’s in his court, and it is a very idle ball in a very desolated, dusty, neglected court, but there’s just really nothing that I can do. Honestly, I’ll be real with you, a future together is still a very real future for me. So I’m entrusting myself to the long-forgotten ideals of fate and destiny, and I’m trying to be fairly, “Whatever happens, happens,” about Phuc and me now. Note, trying. It’s hard shit, y’know? I love the guy, I really do. As much as my life is changing, I still love him.  It's hard not to think of a future with him.

UGH, I feel like I spend every post trying to articulate my attitude towards Phuc now, but you know, women are complicated. And I'm horrible with words, Phuc would know.  God, trying tap into my feelings accurately and articulately has been like trying to find the Higgs boson. </nerd>

But it’s definitely not, “I hate life I miss Phuc so much the only thing I want in life is to have Phuc back” anymore. I guess, a semi-adequate explanation is, I’m finally starting to let time and fate do their job, but I’m not going down without a fight, nor am I going to just go crawling back to him like a super sad sloth. After all, I’ve got my entire life ahead of me. There’s just no time to slow down to miss a boy if it’s not going to do anything. All I can really do is keep bossin' and keep swaggin' until Phuc finally decides to reach out to me.  But oh, how I miss that boy.

Basically, there’s just a lot of things that go into being awesome.

"I know what you're going through, it took me four years to get over my first break-up."
Finally, a realistic timeframe.
fml 

UGH.  I'm so mad at myself.  I'm so so so so mad at myself right now.

I really miss Phuc right now, like heartbroken longing, can't get him out of my head type of bullshit.  And that just makes me so angry at myself.  

Christa, why are you wasting your time like this?  I'm trying to forget him, because I just don't need this anymore.  I don't need to sit here in the middle of the night, missing Phuc.  I don't need to be heartbroken anymore.  I have all of these memories and all of these questions and it is so frustrating, because I am just above this.  I'm so above this.  I don't know why I'm still letting it drag me down like this.  I don't know why I'm still sad in the middle of the night, why I still keep missing Phuc.  I wish I never let my walls down, I wish I never let Phuc into my heart, because in spite of everything, I just can't stop missing him.  Why am I letting moments of weakness slip through the cracks like this?  It's so frustrating.

I'm so mad at myself.

Because I am so much more than this.  I am so much more than this sad little girl that just mopes and whines.  I am so much more than this girl that just sits in her room crying.  I'm just so fucking amazing and I don't need anymore of it.  All this heartbreak, all this longing, all this sadness.  It's a joke, and I just don't need it anymore.  I don't need it.

I know that I am so much stronger than this.  Not in that, "boo-hoo i'm sad so i need to tell myself encouraging phrases" kind of way, but I'm very earnestly just so much stronger than this.  

I get out of bed in the morning, and I am just a star.  I am this new, fantastic person.  I look in the mirror and it's like I'm meeting myself again.  I can smile without faking it again.  The sparkle in my eyes is coming back again.  I have so much going for me.  I have so many bright hopes for the future, I have so much ambition and so many ideals.  And it's all attainable to me.  The more that I work, the more that I surpass everyone around me, the more I realize that I have so much potential.  It's all within my reach, and the only reason it's true is because I am Christa.  If I keep up my hard work, if I keep pushing forward, then I will  create a nearly limitless future for myself.  If I want to change the world, then I will change the world.

I look back at all my sorrows, at all my paranoia about people not liking me, driving me into so much anxiety that I would just break down and cry for hours.  And today, it's not a situation of, "But I have friends that do like me," or "But they don't even know me!"  It's nothing conditional, even though both statements are probably true.  I just don't care about it anymore because it's just honestly beneath me.  It's not fear, it's not being self-conscious, it's not anxiety.  It's not ignorance, and it's not self-deception.  It's really just not worth my time.  I'm just so far above that.  I am the star of the story, and it's not worth wasting my time on such miniature things.  This break-up?  Honestly, compared to my growth, compared to my change, compared to my new perspectives, it's such a miniature thing.  This is why I am so frustrated with myself for even entertaining my longing for Phuc.  If Phuc is part of my future, then life will make it so.  But otherwise, it's just not worth my time.

I see myself, and my confidence is increasingly becoming effortless.  I'm getting less tired, during what has been nothing less than transforming myself.  It's slowly getting easier.  Sometimes, I still get the same shyness, the same nervous anxiety, the same fears, until I see the way that your expression just brightens when I walk into the room.  I would see each laugh, each smile, each moment of enthusiasm that happens because of me, and it just becomes so worth it, it's worth all of the hard work that I've been putting towards bettering myself.  And it's only been a month, yet it's already growing into second-nature: Just be awesome all day.

Someday, I'll finally be rid of these troublesome thoughts, that I now consider an irritating burden.  I don't need to mourn this break-up, because it's just not worth my time.  If we're meant to end up back together, then it'll happen.  Otherwise...  Either way, life will take me where I'm supposed to go.

It's almost laughable.  Phuc still thinks I'm this piece of baggage that will only get dragged around for the rest of my life, and he really just has no idea.  Fine, I don't know much about Phuc these days.  But he really just has no idea about me either.  He has no idea who I've become and what I've already achieved.  He really has no idea what he is missing out on.  He has the opportunity to meet one of the most extraordinary women that he can ever dream to meet, a Christa that is so unlike the Christa that he thought he knew, and he really just has no idea what he is missing.

Someday, Phuc will hear the rumors about the wonderful person that I've become. He'll wonder about me until he can't get me out of his head, until I'm the only thing he can think about.  It's not hope, it's not just some flimsy hypothetical.  No, I guarantee it.  Someday, he'll see just how amazing I am, and he'll just want to know more about this fantastic girl.  He'll miss me, long for me, and want nothing else but me.  

And to that, I will simply say: Phuc, eat your heart out.

I got lost today.

In contrast to my recent posts about being metaphorically lost since Phuc broke up with me, I mean it very literally today.  I just finished a refreshing Independence Day weekend in San Jose, and when I was on the way back to Merced, I was completely lost.  

Ever since I got my driver's license, I've had a reputation for being bad with directions.  Even after going somewhere a million times together, I would always still need Phuc to give me directions whenever I was behind the wheel.  For some reason, despite four years of knowing firsthand that I am really bad with directions, I never seem to learn my lesson.  Today was no exception.  I printed out the wrong directions to get back to Merced, but I thought, "I drive this all the time, I'm sure I can remember my way back."  Guess what?  I was wrong.  I got on quite a few incorrect freeways, and had to circle back to my starting point as a IRL reset button.  But after I finally gained some momentum, it wasn't long before I screwed up again: I was on the wrong freeway for an hour before I realized that I was on the wrong freeway.  A trip that normally took two hours, ended up taking double the time.

I have no GPS, no smartphone, none of that fancy stuff.  I just had a Google Maps printout... of the wrong directions.  Luckily, I called my sister and Pat, and they helped point me where I should go to get back to Merced.  But I was on a road that I have never crossed in my life, in the middle of the night.  Or as I like to call it, "When all the crazies come out." And all I had was my bad sense of direction and my stuffed frog in the passenger seat.  I was terrified.  For the entire hour-long stretch of road, I was the only car on the road.  The cell phone reception was patchy, and I wasn't sure how long my gas levels would last me.  I was also extra afraid because of that insurance commercial informing me that July 4th is the single most dangerous day to drive in the entire year.  But the realization was essentially this: if anything happened to me, then no one would help me. My sister and Pat gave me directions, but the entire evening just reminded me of how bad I am with directions -- I kept missing turns and taking the wrong turns.  I was so afraid that I was driving for another hour down the wrong street, that I was sincerely wondering if I would make it back to Merced.

It was windy, and I kept hearing random sounds from outside my car, unsure if it was animal or machinery.  Basically, I was scared out of my pants.  So at one point, I pulled over where it was was no less than nothing but fields and darkness as far as the eye could see.  I was so stressed out by all my fear and worries that I pulled over, and took a break to just handle myself.  I gently banged my head against the steering wheel in frustration, when I looked up through my windshield, and realized that I could see the stars really well.  My car was off, and the entire horizon was dark.  Then I realized that with zero light pollution, the stars could illuminate the entire sky.  I got out, and I just looked up.  And I was amazed.  It was the most I have ever seen the stars in the night sky in my entire life, and I was just amazed.  I grew up loving fireworks.  Every fourth of July, there was nothing I loved more than seeing fireworks illuminate the dark sky.  But for a moment, I saw a sky just amazingly saturated with stars, with faint clouds of light throughout, and it was a show like no other.

And in that instant, I felt like life just happened to me.  By a complete accident, by a total mistake, I discovered absolute beauty.  In a moment of fear, worry, and distress, I still somehow discovered something that was really just beautiful.  So I just moved forward.  I trusted myself, and I drove, and drove, and drove.  

I felt like I learned a lesson, other than double-check my goddamn google map before I print it out.  But as long as I keep moving forward, then life will just happen to me.  It's inevitable.  I'll go through fear and anxiety the whole time, but I still have to keep moving forward.  Shit will happen, like getting lost for two hours, but then amazing things will happen too, like a huge fireworks show courtesy of nature.  But either way, the only way I can experience any of it is by moving forward, or else life will just pass me by.  And I have no doubt in my mind that I am capable.

And I'm excited.

I can't wait to see what else life has in store for me.

So spoiler alert: I got home safely.

What happened to all of the things that I gave Phuc?

The day he broke up with me, he gave me back my shirt.  But during the school year, I mailed him literally every two days.  The last time I visited him, he had a huge pile of just letters from me.  I wonder what happened to them.  Are they still there?  Did he re-read them after breaking up with me, remembering a past life?  Did he throw them all away, or did he tuck them into a box somewhere in his closet?  Did he burn them as the remnants of a girl that he never wants to think about anymore, or are they retained as fond memories of the girl that he used to hold tenderly by the waist?  I gave him a "music box" -- it was a musical carousel with a globe as a centerpiece, that I gave him as a promise that we would travel the world together someday.  It was huge, and last I saw, it was on his desk.  Is it still there, or is it in the garbage bin outside his apartment complex now?  Is my huge bag of food still in his pantry closet?  Will I see that bag of food again before it all expires?  Are my gloves from senior ball still in his car?  Is that little sticker still there, where I put it on his dashboard?  Is Toast still under his bed, the loaf of bread made of felt that I handmade for him?  Does he still have all those DVDs and PS1 games that I loaned him?  Is my Metropolitan Museum of Art cup still on his desk, serving its previous duties as a coin bank?  Am I still "Pretty McPretty" on his phone, and is his netbook log-in name still "Handsome McFine?"  Am I anywhere anymore?  Did I ever exist?

I've seen it on television, I've seen it in high school, where ex-couples exchange boxes full of thing that the other person gave them.  Is he going to give me all this stuff back?  Because of course what I really want most in the world is to keep all the things that will just remind me even more about him after he dumped me and broke my heart.  ...Obviously.

Ever since he broke up with me, I know literally nothing about his life.  I don't think seeing his random-ass pictures count.  So I know nothing.  I say this often because it befuddles me often.  It befuddles me just how much I don't know who Phuc is anymore.  I don't know if he misses me or or if I'm yesterday's news now.  I don't know if he's moved on to all the girls waiting in line for five years or if he's single.  I don't know if he's on a huge "Things I Could Never Do Because Christa Held Me Down All These Years" bender, or if he's just been low-key since that day.  I don't know anything.  I don't know if he thinks about me, if he thinks about my day, or if I'm just a blur now.  I don't know if he remembers my voice.  I don't know if he remembers the fragrance of my perfume, I don't know if he remembers my face.  My eyes.  My smile.  I don't know if he's still the same boy whose hand I held a month ago, or if he's a different person, like me.  I don't know anything about his days.  I don't know anything about him anymore.  It's like he's a stranger now.  Even though I just want to give him the world, he's just a stranger now.  It's this stranger that keeps on stealing my heart and keeps making me laugh without ever knowing.  

My situation, it's as if my heart is longing for a stranger.  I just want to catch the moon and put a bow on it for him.  I want to plant daffodils as far as the eye can see outside his bedroom window, just so his heart would flutter when he looked outside.  I want to have so many conversations with him, a thousand more conversations with him, until our hearts grow old and weary.  All of this, for a stranger.

Does he know me?  He is a stranger to me, but am I a stranger to him?  The occasional rejected call from me during my moments of weakness.  The heart that keeps being thrown on virtual pages, nearly everyday since the day that he broke up with me.  I don't know anything about him, even though I have so many things to tell him.  I just want to tell him about my lab, about all my new friends, about my life.  Sometimes, it still doesn't sink in that we don't have that kind of relationship anymore.  "I really want to give you closure..."  Closure.  He said the word "closure," and I felt my heart rip apart, and I broke down right in front of his eyes.  I sat there, crying my heart out, unable to look at him.  "When you leave, I'm never going to see you again, you're going to leave and that's going to be it, I'm never going to see you again, and I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready Phuc, I'm just not ready, I don't want you to leave, please don't leave, because when you leave I'm never going to see you again."  Closure.  And I really wonder, will I ever have closure?  Is there some phrase that he can magically say, then poof, I'll move on?  Will there really be a day where I'll stop missing him?  Will there really be a day where I'll just fall out of love with him, the way that he fell out of love with me?  Closure.

The doorbell rang the other day, and for some reason, I thought it was Phuc.  I knew I gave him my address before he broke up with me.  It was stupid.  It was so stupid, but I really thought it was Phuc.  And my heart broke when it wasn't.

"When you leave, I'm never going to see you again."  Everyday that passes, everyday that I know less and less about Phuc, I keep feeling like I had it right all along.  I say it everyday, I say it every bleeding moment that I think of him: I miss Phuc so much.

All for a stranger.