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When I'm not here, you may find me wandering the pages below. (If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference!)

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Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

You're a what?

A contemporary troubadour. Not exactly by choice, but certainly by circumstance. I am pursuing an MFA in nonfiction writing while maintaining a long-distance relationship with my husband of nearly two years and significant other of nearly nine. We will have known each other for a decade this August.

We've been lucky enough to survive as a couple through four years of college and two years of holding down our first jobs, all in separate time zones. In 2005, after getting engaged, we were finally able to be together in the same city (hooray!), and we were married in the summer of 2006. All was well in our little home, and we dreamed of building a future, a family, thankful to be under one roof.

In the name of building that future, I applied to several graduate schools and was admitted to my top choice in Iowa. My husband got an offer too -- but for a dream job in Seattle. And so, last summer, we divided up our belongings and resurrected our commuter relationship of nightly phone calls, lots of e-mail, and frequent flier miles. This itinerant existence, romantic as we've tried to make it, isn't what we ever expected to return to. But I like to think such bends in the road appear for a reason. Here I wander, then, with words for company and tales to tell.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But there's an upside to this commuter story: the chance to travel and you'll never be bored when visiting.

June 2, 2010 at 11:32 AM

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Thursday, March 27, 2008

You're a what?

A contemporary troubadour. Not exactly by choice, but certainly by circumstance. I am pursuing an MFA in nonfiction writing while maintaining a long-distance relationship with my husband of nearly two years and significant other of nearly nine. We will have known each other for a decade this August.

We've been lucky enough to survive as a couple through four years of college and two years of holding down our first jobs, all in separate time zones. In 2005, after getting engaged, we were finally able to be together in the same city (hooray!), and we were married in the summer of 2006. All was well in our little home, and we dreamed of building a future, a family, thankful to be under one roof.

In the name of building that future, I applied to several graduate schools and was admitted to my top choice in Iowa. My husband got an offer too -- but for a dream job in Seattle. And so, last summer, we divided up our belongings and resurrected our commuter relationship of nightly phone calls, lots of e-mail, and frequent flier miles. This itinerant existence, romantic as we've tried to make it, isn't what we ever expected to return to. But I like to think such bends in the road appear for a reason. Here I wander, then, with words for company and tales to tell.

Posted by This Ro(a)mantic Life at 7:11 PM
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But there's an upside to this commuter story: the chance to travel and you'll never be bored when visiting.

June 2, 2010 at 11:32 AM

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