family history

among other silly things that spout out of my mouth throughout my day at work, i mentioned to my coworker that this year marks the year that i turn one year older than the national average age of women getting married for the first time. immediately i felt a little sheepish as she reminded me that will be 4 years over this year =/ oops hehee asian people look so young..

when i got home tonight, i found i'd gotten a larger than usual envelope.. and from my cousin deborah. you see, my cousin deborah is whom i was named after. she's the youngest daughter of my dad's oldest sister. since my dad's the youngest in his family, he'd gotten to see his little niece grow up and found her to be very sweet and gentle. so much that my parents agreed to name their accidental second daughter after her (don't worry, i'm unaffected by this small fact) hoping she'd turn out something similar :D when my family lived in new york, we'd frequently travel down to the city to visit my grandparents and spend weekends with my aunt and cousin deborah. she'd been quite a bit older than me and my siblings.. mas o menos 10 years. my memory of her has always been nothing but sweet, gentle and quiet, super nice all around. she played the piano, rode an old school cruiser bike, used a typewriter, and memorized bible verses in chinese. besides school and work, she lived at home taking care of her aging father and mom.

that was about 15 years ago. since then, my uncle's passed away but life had been pretty much the same for my cousin. last year changed all that.  she'd gone from single and living at home taking care of auntie to married.  if you do the math correctly, you'll find that she's in her late 30s.  it was story woven with years of faithfulness and trust and all that is lovely and pure.  a beautiful story to say the least.  she wrote me a letter (check out the penmanship!!) and included a small keepsake from her wedding.

so why do i share?  certainly not as prophecy of my own life... or maybe.. i dunno.. i guess what i'm finding is that everyone's story is different. it's all nice and stuff to say things like be faithful and god will finally pick up his pen and start writing your long-awaited story.  but then i think that's just another way of saying that you only receive blessings if you do everything right.  which, theologically isn't all that sound.  i cannot use my rationale that reading my bible and listening to cool christian bands like gungor will ensure my good christian-ness, and thus get me what i want.  (which is the same as questioning what i'm doing wrong, to some extent)  my takeaway is just to continue living up to my namesake in trying to be more sweet and gentle rather than mae ploy chili sauce.

in other news, i'm reading a book on birth order that is completely fascinating.  beware, i may be secretly judging you based on what i know of you and comparing it against what i've read.  muhahaa  although, not surprisingly the book skimps a bit on middle children analyses so i ordered another book dedicated to my kind only :D  i feel like i'm always trying to figure out why i am the way i am.. -___-


today i am thankful for:
my box of hefty trash bags from costco.  it's been 2 years now and i'm still on the first of 2 rolls.  it's like the lucky charms pot of gold except in the form of a domestic chest o' polymers.