Since I was young, I’ve always wanted to marry a Hmong man and enter a Hmong family–I’ve never really questioned otherwise. Although many have the misconception that I always wanted to marry someone Korean, due to being able to speak the language. But honestly, that was only coincidental–my mom intentionally raised us with Korean media as she disapproved of American media. So naturally, I picked up the language from age 7.

Currently, my partner happens to be Korean, and this is his 86-year-old grandma, whom we call “Halmoni.” And she and I have this little special relationship.

After my first heartbreak at 21, I thought it would be like the movies. Where the good guy always appears after the bad guy, and that if I just got my heartbreak over with, I would finally find true love and be happy.

But I’ve come to learn that there are things in life that you can give your all to, and yet it will still not result in the way you want.

I received the best message this morning, and it couldn’t be more timely with what I’ve been focusing on lately.

It was a question from a fellow artist, who often experiences years of hiatus from their craft. And they shared, that it was because they were afraid of being imperfect and did not create because they were always waiting until they were ready. And so they wanted to ask one of the most beautiful questions I could’ve ever been asked.

When I was in high school, I always thought adults had it all figured out. And I thought that when I became one, I would too. I would listen to the guest speakers that came, and be in awe of the way they spoke about what they do or want to do. And it felt like everyone but me was just so sure of themselves. As if they all woke up one day, with a clear vision of who they are.

I didn’t expect to cry as much as I did. More than the other wins we’ve seen, probably because this was such a personal one. Being a kpop star was my biggest teenage dream. Something I fell in love with, never because I wanted to be Korean, but because mainstream media didn’t have anyone that looked like me. And kpop was the closest thing to imagining what a world with mainstream industries all being Hmong would look like. I even auditioned for kpop agencies,  and I trained by myself through YouTube because that’s all I knew how to do. But it didn’t seem like a reachable dream to me, and I guess somewhere along the way I just accepted that it was just something like make-believe. Something I wish Hmong people had, along with all the other many things. 

We all grew up watching and rooting for other Asian ethnicities—any Asian that felt like the next best representation of us. But, the time has finally come where we are again and again, seeing us, exactly as ourselves—actual Hmong representation on large platforms. And it shows just how long we’ve lived without ever seeking acknowledgement because we’ve only had the goal to survive. But now that we know that we’re capable, just as deserving, as intelligent and as talented, we are now truly taking up space in our fullest form.

I received a post in my private group, from a Hmong sister who was left by the man she devoted herself to for many years. She went on to list all the amazing things about herself–accomplishments, skills, assets that she spent her whole life honing so that she could be the perfect wife and daughter. Both in and outside of the home–personal and professional. And yet, she was here, defeated, exhausted, and at loss on how much more she needed to be, and why she was still not enough to be chosen.

Her words, trembled my heart. I could just feel her whole world like it was mine.

Because for the longest time, even as ambitious and achieving as I always was, all I wanted was to become a good Hmong wife, and a good Hmong daughter.

I know every relationship and situation is different. I know different things work for different people. I know both sides of a relationship are not perfect. But I also know how big of a difference Nakita at 15 was, from Nakita at 19, and even Nakita at 21.

So I write this, hoping it would reach a younger me out there somewhere too.

To the older men dating a teen, more than shaming, this would be my deepest plea:

To know the power of the influence you have on her and how that could change her life forever.

And that is also my biggest fear—that that is precisely what you know and you know it well.

You are not her savior and the most heroic thing you can do is to stand aside and let her grow at her own pace at her fullest capacity without the influence of you.

As our newsfeed, hearts, and minds have been filled with happiness from Sunisa’s win, she ignites a fire of hope and inspiration in us all. But at the same time, I know it can cause many of us to feel a sense of pressure, rush or confusion on what role we can play in our people’s greatness, or what next big thing we can achieve too. Some of us resent our dreams that were cut before they could even blossom. And some, heartbroken that it is too late for us to start.

But I hope to remind you today, that you don’t need to be the next Sunisa.

You don’t even need a title, a medal, or a role.

Because even if you might not be the first to do something, you just need to be the first you, and the greatest you. Starting now.

It took a recent message from my past, to really click to me just how far I’ve grown.

For the longest time, perhaps my whole life, (and largely because of society’s conditioning) I have always been longing for, waiting for, and racing to finally “get there,” wherever “there” even meant. I’m not so sure I ever stopped to really dissect that question and ask myself where on earth I was trying to “get” to and why I was in such a rush or felt so far away.

I feel like I kept making up answers along the way. That “there” was “happiness,” and “there” would be when I finally enjoyed life. At first, I thought it would be when I got accepted into college. But when I got there, I still wasn’t “there.” So then, I told myself, I’d finally be happy when I graduated college--it still wasn’t it. I thought it was a job, and that for sure wasn’t it. I truly believed it was a boyfriend, and that couldn’t be more off.

So now I was left with nothing. I had nowhere else to run to. No more rocks to turn over. I was just still. And that’s probably the exact place I finally found it.

I love celebrating holidays and achievements, and after being a girlfriend for 5 years of my adult life, I think I started getting really caught up on anniversaries. Almost as if somewhere along the way, I started believing that having an anniversary to celebrate, meant it was another year I was chosen, another year I was still someone’s person, another year I didn’t have to be alone.

But I realize we don’t often celebrate being on our own, especially after being in relationships. We don’t celebrate it as a new chapter like we do marriage, even though it really is. If anything, I realize it is now the most important chapter I could’ve had, but almost missed.

I am so blessed to have had a full year to myself. This week marks that year. The first year I spent as a single woman since 17, and as a whole person for the first time in my life.

I’ve done a lot of reflection and learning on relationships in the past year. Probably because I wasn’t so sure why I had been seeking one anymore and what it meant for me. I’ve come to realize that even as deeply broken as I’ve been, that I’ve never properly loved or been loved. And all that I knew of “love” was just based on movies, what I had seen growing up, or on social media. And that much of our experiences isn’t anyone’s fault, because we are human, so young in retrospect to the universe. It is impossible to expect us to know everything from the start. Yet, at times I can’t believe I was ever in a relationship. I can’t believe how much I didn’t know, because I truly thought I knew love best. But I realize, I didn’t know it at all and I am starting from scratch and redefining it.

It’s officially a little over a year since I left my full-time advertising agency job, to dive into self-employment in social media management and content creation.

August was my official anniversary but I was so busy I didn’t get to fully process it nor celebrate.

With the fall season calming down a little now, it was a perfect chance to really reflect and maybe even share some things I’ve learned along the way.

After all, it’s not everyday we get to leave stability, and somehow still survive a year later.

For as long as I remember, I always aimed to live life as I thought it should be. Most of that means, living it and achieving what a perfect and successful Hmong woman would achieve. Go to school, have a career, get married before 30, be good to my in-laws and have kids. I almost obsessively lined up all the pieces in my life to match this road map, even sabotaging myself to hold onto it.

The first time I truly recall becoming conscious of intergenerational trauma, was listening to my Pog (grandmother) talk about all the things she could never forgive her mother for; for abusing her, for marrying her off at such a young age and taking the whole family and leaving to another village without a word, and for not treating her grandson like her own blood. “How could she do those things as a mom? My mom never knew how to love us. I can never forgive her. I will never be like her.”

Toxicity, something our refugee parents have never had the luxury to reflect on, learn, and teach us. For their generation’s assignment was survival and rehoming.

As I have been diving deep into my own mental health journey of healing in the midst of a global pandemic…I have come to realize just how much more complex and human “toxicity” is than it is credited to be in self-help blogs and Instagram feeds.

And just how easily the word “toxic” is thrown around as a means to stay clear of someone, blame someone, or make sense of pain.

I have always wondered what true love would look like--what it would feel like. Real love, one that survives reality and is not based on fairytales and honeymoon phases.

I have been stumped in a dead-end every time. I could never find the answers or picture it.

It wasn’t until a recent epiphany, that I had realized I had been living in it all my life. Not in an ungrateful sense, and not in a boasting sense, but more-so, realizing that my familial love had been teaching me and exemplifying true love all along.

In the movies, the one after the “bad guy” is supposed to be the happily-ever-after. That’s where the movie ends, and so we assume, that’s how life is too.

How do you know when it’s time to break up?

We spend countless hours and days drowning in these thoughts.

Running the same pros and cons over and over.

Just to conclude that even in your misery, fear of the unknown makes it worth staying.

I spent 7 months in therapy and took a break with the unforeseen pandemic. But truthfully, it feels as if I’ve been in therapy for 8 months now. For how hard I’ve been working internally, to finally walk towards being the person I want to be--perhaps the person I always was underneath all the hurt.

If you’re considering therapy...I just wanted to share my journey. Because often times, we think we only need therapy if we have diagnosed mental illnesses, or if we’ve had huge life-changing traumatic experiences. We don’t realize, that we carry all sorts of trauma throughout our lives, living without never having dealt with them—but suffering regardless.

We live in a time where we are constantly working on how to better ourselves and the world. And as someone who has a habit of wanting to fix things, wanting to share ideas to lessen the world’s hurt, there is one thing I cannot change, I could never change, now matter how hard I would want to try.

I truly wish I could change the way we died.

We say it all the time but what does it even look like, what does it feel like, and how do we even do it?

As I am getting older, my understanding and experience with self-love and doing inner work deepens, it broadens, and it teaches me everyday. It’s always evolving and for that, self-love and inner work will never be overrated.

And the more I understand about therapy and mental health, the more I realize that even though we have different pain points, narratives, and situations, ultimately many of us seek help because we are struggling to learn how to love and accept ourselves. We no longer know how to cope on auto pilot like we’ve done up until now. We don’t know how to make sense of our lives or the way we are. We’re tired. And the only way out is to dig from within.

I used to think that people only break up because one person was bad--that was the black and white world of young me. Because why would two good people who cared for each other, ever need to give up on each other?  Why be alone, when you could just be together? And if you’re both good, then what could be so bad?

25 years old and two long term relationships later, I’m blessed enough to know that, that is possible. That love and relationships are so complex and so dynamic, that any scenario you could think of and never think of, can happen. 

Over the years, I’ve heard friends and family tell me they didn’t believe in therapy, they didn’t believe in someone who didn’t know them—just talking at them and telling them what to do.

Firstly, a good therapist wouldn’t do those things, but mostly, the right therapist for you would be exactly what you needed and how you needed them. 

So I guess this is my letter to the high school grad wondering what they want to do, to the psychology student ready to give up, and the college grads that aren’t sure where they will fit. And this is a thank you to all our amazing Hmong therapists, who are already out there practicing.

You hear this all the time, but I think it’s important to say it again: Rejection is Redirection.

Because it never gets easier—rejection always hurts and if not, stings a little.

Whether it’s the rejection of a job, an opportunity, a friend, or a relationship, each door that closes, another surely opens. Because if every door stayed closed forever, life would just be static, it wouldn’t exist. Looking back, you will see how everything that has ever happened—good or bad— built you up for this moment in some way, shape, or form.

I was lost the entirety of my undergrad years, weighing two ideas of either becoming an event planner, or doing something in the marketing/advertising world. I graduated, and within a few years, burnt out from event planning. I moved across the world to teach English in South Korea. And when you’re in a foreign country alone, you learn that you have a lot of time. So I gave myself the year to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, so I could see what I am naturally drawn to. I came home with a lot of clarity, seeing that I could stay up and write until the AM, create photos, graphics, and edit videos without anyone telling me to do so. I took on various jobs that allowed me to do these things, but found spaces outside of work that let me be my full potential. That’s how I began to plant the seeds of freelance without knowing it—I just did what I liked, people saw, and those that needed me, found me.

When articles and posts about “Gender Equity” and “Hmong Feminism” arises, there is always a handful of defensive comments that plaster those concepts as “White Washed,” “Hating Hmong Men,” “Perpetuating Hmong Men as Bad,” etc. 

But it’s not about those things at all. At least, that’s not what I mean. Hear me out brothers, this one's for you too.

Gymnastic fanatics and non-fanatics alike, have seen Hmong-American gymnast Sunisa Lee, making waves with her recent win at the 2019 U.S. National Gymnastics Championships. 

And ever since, it seems our social media feeds, and hearts, have been raving her name across all platforms. 

We’ve been seeing a lot of firsts from our Hmong community in the past few years….first Gerber baby, first judge, first female firefighter, first dancer, first…

But, Sunisa’s first Hmong gymnast win brought on a different feeling from the rest and I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.