Quoc’s Web Journal

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This blog is being written not because I feel that I have the time to do it…  Rather, I have had so many amazing experiences, lessons, and just amazing amazing precious stories and epiphanies to share with you!!!  Alas, I haven’t made the time to write out and flesh out each of these wonderful experiences on separate blogs…. They are truly a loss as I even feel these experiences are so beautiful that they MUST be posted and shared with the world…  I am grateful, despite not getting to share them with you on this blog, I can honestly tell you that these experiences have enriched my life so deeply and much more depth and meaning and perspective with the things that are really important in life.

So, Quoc, please start sharing some highlights already!!!  OK!  OK!!!  Here we go, I will just free write about some of the experiences I have had this past weekend… It’s been an incredibly full weekend!!!  I mean literally AN INCREDIBLY FULL WEEKEND! 

Since I am about to type a whole lot about the details of my past week and weekend, I am gonna share with you folks some of the lessons learned and the wise words heard and thought of from these past weeks; at least the ones that come to mind right now:

Monday, January 19, 2009 = Martin Luther King’s Birthday Holiday

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 = Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America: Barrack Hussein Obama

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 = Quoc celebrates and takes chips for 6 months of continuous sobriety

Thursday, January 28, 2009 = Quoc completes the first 1/2 of his defect list on 6th step with sponsor and looks forward to receiving the last 1/2 of the 6th step on Monday evening, February 2, 2009

Saturday, January 31, 2009 = speaker shares that when he was first new, as he was sitting in the bathtub being cleaned by his boyfriend, he was asking the boyfriend to scrub him harder and harder hoping to scrub all the dirt off of him… Unfortunately all the scrubbing couldn’t scrub the dirt that he felt within himself… It took time, work and continuous sobriety to scrub the dirt within oneself and feeling clean from our past… That IS DEEP!!!!

Saturday, January 31, 2009 = speaker topic share is standing on the jumping point of a precipice… One gets to make a decision to give up and throw oneself off the edge of the precipice OR stand on the edge of the precipice and recover and save oneself by throwing the defects over the edge instead…  In doing so, the defects may bop other people on the head further down below, but we get to apologize and affirm not to tie a string to the defect so as not to reel the defects back in and use them again to harm oneself and others! What is my decision?

Argh!!!  I am so full of experiences and thoughts I don’t know where to begin…. What I will do right now is just not worry about the order of the thoughts coming from my head…  I am just gonna type… 

WORK:

Ahem… This past week has been an interesting one to say the least…  The highlight about this whole past week has been about how challenging work has been!!!  I absolutely love my job and know that I am good at what I do.  The challenge is the leadership within the Division and the vision and the way they are going about implementing and realizing these dreams…  I have a boss who I care for very much as a friend.  For whatever reason, this person has lost sight of the essence of what makes for an amazing training and the importance of partnership among trainers.  Furthermore, the way this person has managed me truly has brought me to a place where I have lost all motivation and spark of desire to continue on…  I WANT OUT! 

In the midst of all this insanity at work, I have been able to walk through it with a great deal of serenity and harmony… I am not saying that I haven’t been emotional, disappointed, frustrated and confused.  What I am saying is that I have been able to stay within the eye of the storm of all this transition within this work place.  It’s great that despite all the chaos that circles around me, I manage to stay in the center that is peaceful and quiet and serene and solution oriented…

In the middle of the week, I called my regular circle of friends I get to check in with on a daily basis and I used the following analogy about my work situation… It’s like sitting in a room that is contaminated with some poisonous gas… I am in acceptance and acknowledge that this room has poisons permeating it… It’s not potent enough to kill me instantly, however, the longer I stay in the room, the more symptoms start showing up…  First my eyes start tearing up and burning… Next thing you know I have a hard time breathing…. Then follows the rest of the more chronic and irreversable damages that may lead one to overall poor health… My work place is like this… My surroundings right now are toxic… My job is wonderful, it’s the people around me and the work ethics and the way things are being put into place… There are things that are being done that lead me to question the integrity and quality of the product that will come of his haphazard process… I continue to remind myself that this is not “Quoc’s Healthcare Foundation” and the last check of titles, I have not been named President, Director or even a Program Manager that gets to be a decision maker in this process.  I get to do my job that my company has set forth.  What I get to choose is to stay on board and advocate or exit stage right and get on another bus where the company shared has visions and purpose with mine.  Right in this given moment, I am in the process of investigating and finding other avenues of work… I am not leaving, just seeing what else is out there… In the meanwhile, given the understanding and reasons as to why my company and Division has taken this direction, I continue to eloquently and articulately advocate and defend the company’s position…  It’s like John Adam’s shared, I may not believe what you say, however I will defend you to the death for your right to say it… This is where I am… I understand as an employee for this company and so long as I am on the clock; I will represent the platform this company stands on…

What I am grateful for is my ability and willingness to carry myself with a level of professionalism, grace, compassion and consideration for others as just spiritually sick individuals who make decisions that are based on self and not without consideration of others. I have chosen not to retaliate, sabotage, or act in a way that demonstrates defiance.  Instead, I have acted to be supportive, loving, professional, spirit of generosity, patience and tolerance; all the meanwhile doing so without compromising my own serenity, sobriety or health (be it physical, mental or emotional).

THIS PAST WEEKEND…

I spent the weekend after a very very very rough week at work and with conflicts with some personalities by:

1) Friday evening go to a swing dance club called Memories in Whittier managed by my friend.  I was treated like royalty, getting in for free, getting to sit in the DJ area and seeing the live swing band from San Francisco play live… I had so much fun watching people swing away and change partners every song…  The club was on the 2nd level…   The floor physically dipped with each undulation that the approximately 300 swing dancers.  It was an interesting sensation…  I got to see some old friends, get to support that old friend and have a good time for myself… It was just nice to be out of town and out and about in old town Whittier.  I didn’t stay long, but I had a grand ol’ time!

2) Saturday morning: I got to take some of my sister’s friends college classmates who are in grad school for some psychology project…  I got to share with them my experience strength and hope about being gay, asian, HIV positive, recovering alcoholic/addict…  It was very interesting letting them pick my brain for about an hour and a half after sitting in on a fantastic AA meeting in the City of West Hollywood.  I was rigorously honest about everything about myself.  There seemed to be a very open-minded curiosity from them, so I shared incredibly honest about me.  It was almost like doing an AA share with them… It was really refreshing… I felt safe with him… I hope I didn’t say too much or make them feel uncomfortable.  I certainly had no expectation that they would “understand.”  Part of me would be scared if they understood!  As if they understood, they probably belong…. Hopefully, they could sympathize or empathize with certain parts and find parallels.  It was a good morning experience for me.

3) Saturday afternoon was spent doing laundry before being picked up by my friend… We first went to a memorial for yet another sober friend who past away in the past week.  It was a solemn memorial.  I was there only for the service and didn’t get a chance to stay around for the dinner reception.  It was heart wrenching to hear the testimonies being shared about the loss of yet another beautiful soul… 

I had a narcissistic moment during and shortly after the memorial… I thought about how many people would attend my memorial if I died… Then I thought about which selected individuals would speak at my memorial…  I thought about the music that would be played to fill the church or space with that loving sweet music…  I also thought about the mood of the venue… Definitely not one of sadness of happiness and in celebration of the life I lived… It would be my 2nd sponsor Jay who would speak; then my current sponsor Sam; then of course members of my family… Then I would have my friend Johnny play song on his guitar and serenade me…  People would be sad because they miss me, but people would smile because of the chance to know me… HOPEFULLY there would be funny stories told by all of them of my little idiosyncracies!  HUMOR WOULD HAVE TO BE THE COMMON THREAD AMONG ALL OF THESE STORIES… ONE OF LOVE AND HUMOR!  Golly… Would it be important for one to create some sort of a wish list or plan if one were to suddenly pass to give some direction and guidance for those planning the memorial as to how the memorial would look like?  Or actually, would I leave it alone since a memorial is for those who are living and not the person who is in the casket!  Sheesh…

4) Anyway, I better get off this subject, as it’s getting weird to talk about it…  I wasn’t able to stay for the reception because my friend’s friend was throwing a birthday party for her one year old son.  So, off we drove to Montebello to visit with my friend’s friend and the birthday party for her son… The party was more for the kids and the adults.  The baby could’ve cared less about the party…  LOL…  Anyway, it was just nice to sit in a big back yard of a house full of kids, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and just very close close friends.  I was honored to get to be a token member of that party and just be a part of it.  My friend needed the support…  The truth is we offered each other wonderful support by getting to commiserate about the life that we have.

5) I was taken home at which time I spent the remainder of the evening lounging about and reflecting back on the day…  I got to be of service all day long and the truth is in giving back to those people, I did indeed receive so much more in return.  I got to help out some people who were curious about the life that I get to live so comfortably for the past 6 years or so.  All in one day, I got to attend a memorial and send off a friend to rest in peace as well as attend a family party celebrating the birthday of a child that was just born 1 year ago!  HOW COOL IS THAT?  It’s interesting how memorials can really bring forth great perspective on the things that really matter in life… I mean, the mundane little things we we can magnify and turn into the great challenges and angst of our life really don’t mean a lot when one is faced with mortality and the very essence of what are the things that REALLY matter when we pass away… It really is the messages of the love given and the love received by that individual… The laughter and gifts of service that a person has offered in his/her time on this planet… Very short time at that… I get to appreciate the little things such as the fact that I got to wake up this morning, in a warm bed that is housed in a small studio that is all paid for this month by my hard earned cash… The mere fact that I am healthy and have life saving meds and the little things like not only food to eat but good food that is not only healthy, but yummy to the taste buds… The fact that I have friends I get to call and hang out with and share love and affection with…  I fell asleep watching the last episode of the movie Harry Potter…

6) I awoke late to get ready to go with a friend to see the stage play Bill W and Dr. Bob… Yes I just saw it last weekend… I get to see it again this weekend…  It was alright… I wasn’t too keen on the understudies.  I want the main actors back!  Then went to lunch with the friend and got caught up on life.

7) Then finished my laundry by drying the clothes for the evening… Then headed over to the meeting to support the 6PM HIV Positive AA meeting…  There was some really powerful moments during the meeting.  I can’t share that information as it is PRIVATE!!!  There were moments during meeting that reminded me of when I first came in and couldn’t even share about me being HIV positive, let alone identifying as an alcoholic!  Just trust me that I had some very wonderful moments during that meeting!

Dinner with a friend and comforted him while snacking on a delicious carne asada taco and chips and dip in a wonderfully fun and local mexican restaurant!

What a weekend!!!  It’s been full of distractions from work; full of friendships; full of fun; full of laughter; full of opportunities to be of service… JUST FULL!!!  I couldn’t be more grateful for this!

Until we chat again… There is still so much more to do like facebook update and pictures to be uploaded and more wonderful experiences to share with you.. I hope you enjoyed just a snippet of my weekend!!!  And this is as a result of turning down offers to go to sober parties and other events and functions!!! 

Grateful,

Quoc