And so it is, just like you said it would be.
Life goes easy on me
most of the time.

- Damien Rice, The Blower's Daughter 

-+-

"I believe in good karma, so I'm sure you've must have done something really excellent to have deserved this."
"No, Christa, I'm just an asshole."
"Ha! Well, in that case, then at least this will still be a good adventure."

I faced my demon.

Somehow, I walked away unscathed.  Rather, as we drove along the freeway, drinking our Peppermint Mochas and singing along as Relient K blasted from my speakers, I felt... fulfilled.  I decided to take a leap of naivete, bracing myself for heartbreak, ready to create an enemy.  But instead, animosity turned into good company.  Instead, it turned into a memorable evening, full of song and laughter.

When we arrived at the BART station, we hugged each other goodbye and wished each other a merry Christmas, and I finally got my closure.

And my cardigan.

-+-

Everyday is a lesson.

Yesterday, I finally wrapped my arms around the saying, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

That famous quote never truly struck a chord with me, because it used to be very black and white for me -- I only recognized it in regards to being in love.  I used to only recognize it in the warmth of Phuc's feet tangled in mine, in those years before our foundation started crashing down.  I remember how Phuc and I would play our songs and just slow dance in his room, with my head resting on his shoulder.  We would close our eyes and just sway to the music.  Those moments were wonderful, but they became the only times that I could recognize love.  

I thought that over the years with Phuc, I learned everything there is to know about that legendary phrase.  I thought I knew every crevice of it like the back of my hand.

But now, when fear is finally beginning to fade into the background, and I am driven by love and love alone, I know that I never really knew a damn thing.

Because that thing they talk about in love songs is not the only kind of love that exists.  I was so blind to the rest of the world, that I never stepped outside to see that there's so much love everywhere.

There is love in academia, when I look through the microscope and see my insulinomas form islets with perfect morphology.  There is love in family, when every single conversation with my sister is riddled with inside jokes, from W'sup Walruses to Chimichanga Mountains.  There is love in compassion, when you sacrifice without blinking an eye, and you lose the capacity to waste a single thought on yourself.  There is love in friendship, in that warmth of belonging, in the smiles and laughter that you exchange, in the way that you get to carry each other.  There is love in hope, hard work, and kindness.

Aha! There it is.  I've been trying to summarize all my values in a concise, tact fashion, and there it is! 

Hope, hard work, and kindness. That's Christa in a nutshell, if you ignore "spaztastic" for a second.

And that is the greatest thing I've ever learned.  Well, there's that, and there's also the architecture of respiratory complex I of the electron transport chain, of course.  And also that one really wicked recipe for pigs in a blanket.

I feel inclined to add that someday, I actually do believe that I'll even feel that love again, the thing that they talk about in love songs.  I admit that right now, I'm still filled with cynicism when it comes to manners of the heart, but I wield the wholehearted hope that my wounds are reparable.  I've recovered in every other facet of my life, so there is no reason to believe that I won't recover from this repeatedly shattered heart.  I've listened to love songs in a gesture of idealism, with the words underlined with, "Someday, this song will be about me, because I am going to get better."

It's a blurry thought, but I can imagine it now. Whoever "we" may be, we won't be the only two people on earth.  Instead, we'll be on top of the world, handing out flowers to every passerby.  We'll be on a cloud, getting lost in each other's laughter, all the while letting our joy trickle down to the rest of the earth like raindrops, as our ceaseless sparks refract into countless rainbows.  We'll make wishes come true.

Or at least an optimist can dream.  Ha!

Until then, I've got hope, hard work, and kindness.  And that'll always be enough for me.

We do it for love.