Black Thumb?

I bought an easy-maintenance fern when I moved into my apartment last February. By November it was dead. In August, as a wedding favor, I received a small bamboo plant. I managed to keep it alive till Christmas. Both very easy plants to take care of, both dead within months.

To console me, my friend Marta gave me a small pot of what she claims to be the unkillable plant in January. I made sure it had plenty of sunshine and just the right amount of water. To my chagrin, I came home yesterday to find that it, too, had died at a record speed of 1 1/2 months.

Self and Identity

*warning: long Psychological post. This is the stuff I think about at least 13 out of the 17 hours I'm awake on a given day*

I've been thinking a lot about identity and the self these days, partly because that's one of the main lines of research I'm interested in, and partly because lately I've been reading a lot of journal articles and conversing with a lot of researchers about the self.

It is widely accepted in Psychology research that we, as humans, construe our identity from our social relationships and interactions. This mechanism comes in handy as experiences and research reveal that often our self-evaluations can be grossly inaccurate depending on different factors. So instead we turn to "objective" things to confirm our own evaluations such as success in performance or others' evaluations. We then adjust our self-evaluation accordingly to the feedback we receive. This mechanism, albeit helpful at times, can go awry.

As I was working on my research relating basing self-esteem on romantic relationships to body shame, I came across an interesting tidbit: men and women often overestimate how much the opposite sex is looking for thinner women or more muscular men (Lamb et al., 1993; Rozin & Fallon, 1988; Pope et al, 2000). Part of the reason body shame and symptoms of disordered eating may be so prevalent for women who urgently desire romantic relationships is that women try to conform their body to attract men based on assumptions about men's standards rather than actual feedback they get from men.

This got me thinking: how often we do or say things to please others based on assumptions about their reactions rather than their actual reactions? And do we let our assumptions lead us to distrust reactions that are contrary to what we expect? And how often do we change our own evaluations to conform to what we assume others are thinking or feeling rather than what they actually express to us? Basically, do we construe our identity based on false assumptions??

To illustrate this, I will share with you a story from my life. I have a hard time inviting long-distance friends to my church. Not the church I've been going to in particular, but any church that I've attended in the past. But let's take my church now as an example. I love, love, love the teaching at my church, and I love that my pastor is a vivid storyteller. I also love the order of worship at my church and all its components including the liturgy. But when I invite a friend to my church, I'm suddenly edgy and critical of everything. Is the musical that good? (darn, I feel this week the music is a little off) Is the preaching organized? (maybe the talk is less organized and theologically based this week) Is the service too long and serious? (why, oh, why is the liturgical portion so dry this week) Is my pastor too comical when he preaches? In short, all the things I love become the things I hate just because I fear my friend won't like it. And even if they say they enjoyed the service, I'm doubtful, because I was not able to enjoy the service myself. In fact, I start questioning whether I can pick a good church or not. In retrospect I wish I had enough confidence to trust that others will see what I see.

Can we get to the point of having enough confidence in ourselves to trust others will see what we see? Or are we going to keep reacting to our assumptions of what people think? As for a long answer, or an answer that can be published in a Psych journal, I have none at this time. Short answer, though, is if we base our identity in Christ alone, if we seek perfecting ourselves while accepting His grace, if we trust the feedback we're given and accept our shortcomings as human, we can get to that point. Okay, I admit this is a cop-out ending to a long post. More to come on this topic, I promise.

Addiction

I cannot stop listening to this video. I have it on eternal repeat while I'm at work. It's not super well sung since she's singing at her good friend's memorial and trying too hard not to cry, but the song is just so beautiful!

Loss and Relationships

A few weeks ago I ran into an old boyfriend on my way home from work. We had broken up 13 months earlier after a close friendship followed by a short, volatile relationship. The break-up was messy and hurtful due to his inability to communicate and my inability to let go. Scarring words were exchanged through the whole ordeal, cutting deep to the core. The break-up changed who I was as a person, and I spent months wondering if I would ever recover from it.

Yet I did recover. And so did he. And when we ran into each other we were able to carry on a genial conversation. No false promises were made to meet up for coffee sometime, no phone numbers were exchanged. We stayed true to ourselves, and I knew that I had finally gotten over my anger and shame. After everything that happened, I can think of him as a decent person, and see him for who he is: someone with a good heart and good intentions, but nevertheless human. I left the encounter with a smile on my face.

Time really does heal a broken heart, I know that well. 13 months later, I'm again dealing with the aftermaths of a failed relationship. And as today we are going through the obligatory ritual of returning paraphernalia, I've started thinking about what it is that is so hard for me to let go of in relationships.

This break-up was different. Incompatibility was the biggest issue. We were two people that had fun together, but were headed in two different directions. And as this was apparent to me, along with the knowledge that hearts heal, I was able to quickly mourn the loss of the relationship itself and move on. What I find hard to let go of, however, is the loss of all the investment and emotion I poured into the relationship. As Carrie from Sex and the City asks in one episode, at the end of a relationship, where does the love go?

When you're in a relationship, that person becomes one of the most important people in your life. You think about him constantly, can't wait to share with him about your day, and he's the first to come to mind when you want to share a funny story or a profound idea. You invest your time in that person, spending it with him, calling him, emailing him. Yet when a relationship ends, poof, that person disappears. Where does all that emotional investment go? How can one person go from being so important to you to being nonexistent in your immediate life?

Unlike the law of conservation of mass, emotional investment is created when a relationship is built, and it becomes a memory when the relationship ends. And sometimes after recovery from a relationship, the memories become so fuzzy that they fade from your life completely. It's tough to accept this, that you've given a piece of your heart and have nothing to show for it.

There are lessons to be learned at the end of every relationship, but with each relationship I'm beginning to question whether the lesson was worth the experience. I'm still an optimist when it comes to relationships, but I'm learning to be more careful. After all, the heart does heal, but the emotional investment you will never get back.

Hair Dye

I've always wanted to be one of those girls who could change their hair color to whatever they want and still have it look natural. Being Asian, I can't exactly go from having black hair to red hair to blonde, then dark brown and look good each time.

Still, I make do with what I have. I usually go darker - auburn or mahogany with red tints. I've been dying my hair since I was 17 so I actually don't know what my natural hair color is anymore. Recently, I dyed my hair jet black, hoping it's closer to my natural hair color. This morning I found roots.

My hair is naturally brown, not black. Does that classify me as a brunette?

You've Got to be Kidding Me!!

It is 1 degree Fahrenheit outside - negative 13 degrees with windchill. According to Fox News Detroit, it could get as cold as negative 23 degrees with the wind today. All public schools are closed today! Even Novi public schools, my alma mater, is closed today, which is saying a lot (we were always the last school in the state, it seemed, to have a snow day). Lucky for them, since Fox news did this whole segment on how the cold impairs you, both mentally and physically.

For those of us who take public transportation to work, it was a bitter and literally painful commute today. By the time I got to work, I could no longer feel my legs. Thank goodness this is my last Michigan winter for at least the next 5 years!!

Dream within a Dream

or is it "dweam wiffin a dweam"...

I had one of those naps where I kept dreaming that people were walking in and out of my bedroom... I also kept waking up and falling back asleep and dreaming...during my dream. I think my phone rang 3 times in the dream (turns out it only rang twice) and my alarm kept going off. Pretty restless, I'd say, for a 20 minute nap.

On another note, I thought I'd like to take a moment and acknowledge to taitcha that I owe him a letter. I just realized that yesterday. Or was it during my nap that I thought of that?

I also owe like 8 people phone calls. You know who you are and I'm sorry for that.

Luckily I only owe 1 email. Turns out I'm better at those. =)