Unpacking the Baggage

Life doesn’t come with a manual and sometimes the course of action doesn’t feel aligned with the expectations we may have. I follow this great little blob on Instagram called Itslennie, who’s messages are always of an uplifting, “you got this” nature. I need that. So often we display a portrait of ourselves of what we want the world to see; social media is a perfect example of this. I admit that I carefully curate the images of my life in a fashion to portray joyful and triumphant times. That is what I want the world to know of me. It is not 100% accurate though.

As a child I had a wonderful family. That is not to say however that there weren’t a few shady and even dangerous characters peppered through my upbringing. We all have those. Somehow the short stint of being physically abused by my mother’s one mistake did not wreck me, nor did the sexual abuse from a neighbor when I was five. Those were events that I was somehow prepared to handle at a young age. Perhaps that’s because the deepest-rooted pain of my life that surfaces to this day stems from never knowing my father.

In 1974 my mother, a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl living on Whitehall drive on what is today FSU campus, met a beautiful man from Thailand at the video arcade at the end of her street. He was with a group of Thai exchange students who were also friends with my mom’s brother Tommy, who had recently returned from Vietnam. His name was Surasac but he went by Nikki. He was a student at FSU studying English. He came from Bangkok and his mother owned schools there. He was a Muay Thai kickboxer who fought competitively when he was here in Florida. He played guitar. “And I Love Her” by the Beatles was their song. He played it for my mother and it brings her to her knees to this day. At age seven I crushed his guitar while horsing around with a friend. My mother didn’t speak to me for nearly a week. Surasac wore a Buddha encased in resin around his neck which bore the story of the death of his father. Those are the facts I know of him. The photos I have of him combined with my mother’s stories depict young love, excitement, and a notion that the world was their oyster with new stories to unfold. The reality was not that.

In 1975 as the Khmer Rouge invaded Cambodia, any students from Southeast Asia in the Florida State University system were asked to return home. Surasac managed to stay in the country for a few months, and it was especially risky as his visa had run out. At this phase of the political status of communism in Southeast Asia, and the Florida university system’s view on students from the region, he was running out of options. He and his friends hid out at my mother’s parents’ home until U.S. Immigration officials showed up and everyone scattered. My father hid in a car down the street for a day. My grandmother cut his long hair as though that might alter his dark-skinned Asian appearance. I laugh whenever I say that part out loud. I have his hair no doubt- big, wild, and long. This next part isn’t so funny. My mother’s last memories of him are of the harsh reality that love does have borders and that he was not able to stay here with her. He eventually turned himself into U.S Immigration officials and was deported back to Thailand. After he left in April the two corresponded via letters. For my mother, this is all a bit of a blur. She was sixteen years old and little did she know, she was not alone in that sixteen-year-old body.

Shortly after the two began writing back and forth, my mother realized she was pregnant. At first, his family was very much against the idea of me being born. Within a few months the sentiment changed when a woman claiming to be Surasac’s sister wrote my mother indicating he had been killed. It was then that the request to send me to Thailand as a newborn was initiated. I cannot speak for the feelings my mother endured during that time, or in reading that letter. I can say that she does not speak openly of it. The letters may have been a contribution to this story, but they were burned just after I was born. For many years, I held resentment in that action but today I understand that I know nothing of what my mother felt and for that I can only forgive.

Growing up wasn’t easy when it came to identity. I am grateful to say that I was blessed with an outward personality and big spirit that afforded me a sort of independent freedom in my early childhood development. In those years I lived in a trailer park with my mom. It was about a mile from the elementary school I went to and I began walking home from school at age five. Many children from the trailer park walked home together. It was the way things were in the 80s. Most of my friends were black and I remember one girl, Kafia who was mixed like me. She was mixed black and white. I was mixed yellow and white. I knew we were similar. I very clearly remember the day that Kafia got jumped by other children. At this point we were in 2nd grade. She got beat up because she was not black and she was not white. It was as though there was no place for kids like us. None of us knew an Asian person, so when kids would ask, “What are you”? My response would be “I’m an Indian”. I knew that my mother had Creek in her blood, and because there was never a point of reference for my father, I played it safe by just being an Indian.

Those early years of shaping an identity from scraps of stories with no tangible reference prepared me for all the things I’d set out to do through life, though all those accomplishments have been nothing more than rubble burying the secret of never truly feeling okay in my own skin. I remember asking my mother once how I was made, and I very clearly remember her answer. She explained I was made from a love of herself and my father. I love that response; but the mere fact that he has always been a ghost creates a character of him that is both romantic, and worthy of resentment. I often asked of him, particularly at any cultural event at school. Mom talked about Thai food and how he would teach her of ingredients. He would eat food so spicy, he would sweat, yet it did not phase him. I am the same in that regard. Some say I have no gauge for spicy food. I agree. It is in my blood, my DNA, that part of who I am that I never knew- that ghost. Sometimes the sensation of a hot pepper calms the pain of his absence.

In school I excelled early on. There were a few hiccups due to aforementioned events, but in the end I somehow managed to wear a mask of contentment and self-pride throughout my years. I have never had trouble making friends. I have always been the life of the party, and I have never really allowed too many people close enough to me to understand the guise of it all. I later came to know that behavior as part of what therapists refer to as “abandonment issues.”

Over the years I’ve understood the layers of those issues and how they present themselves, though I can say with certainty it is a process and I am continually learning how his absence has shaped my worldview, particularly regarding relationships with others.

Unpacking the baggage we each carry generally takes time and often times there are items folded so tightly within, they may take years, even decades to unpack. As a child I had anger issues, a frustration of feeling misunderstood, perhaps because I never really knew how to understand my own identity. A few years ago, I went through the process of earning my certification in integrative nutrition and wellness coaching. In that process, the practice of active listening became a skill that I found to be incredibly useful in my professional and personal life. Honestly, I naturally enjoy listening to people as they work through their own processes and if by simply listening, I can help, so be it. I also know that when it comes to conflict, the instant I feel dismissed, taken for granted, or as though my voice is irrelevant, I explode. Sometimes my words are loud and I will bulldoze over whomever has made me feel that way. Other times, I react with cutting, condescending words. I am not passive aggressive, rather overtly aggressive. In fact, I react negatively to those who are passive aggressive, as I see it as non-productive in resolution. I know that aggressive tactics are also non-productive. The unpacking of why those responses occur is where I am today. I am not blaming anyone for it, instead I am working toward understanding why I do it and how to work away from doing it. Circumstances shape who we are, reckoning with who we are and how we work among others is our own responsibility. Acknowledging our faults and working toward fixing them is on us as individuals.

I know that sense of being misunderstood is at the root of what triggers anger in me today. Sometimes I feel I should just adopt that Gen X attitude of not giving a fuck, but that’s just the sarcasm in me. I do have to acknowledge though the Gen X factor. Being raised as our generation was, it is of no surprise really that any of this exists in my behavior. We did not live in an era of safety, nor did we live in a time when anyone gave a damn about our “feelings”. I guess as I unpack all this, I’m just grateful I find comfort in expressing it through my heavy weight punching bag, painting, and writing, oh yeah and time on the water. Thanks for reading.