If I could go back, in all the unhappy marriages of time, in all the marriages of our Hmong generations, I would tell you:

Don’t marry her. Please don’t marry her.

Don’t marry her, if all that she embodies will only be a life sentence, and not a life blessing.

Don’t marry her, if she is not the beginning and only the end.

Don’t marry her, if years and children down later, you believe you would’ve lived a better life without her.

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.

I think all our lives our parents have reminded us that part of “success” meant finding the one and settling down, and with the help (or not help) of relatives, we’ve heard a million renditions of what constitutes as “the one” even though often times, neither our parents nor relatives have really reached their own relationship idealisms, or more so, their idealisms do not match the standards of our new generation.

Because many of us were raised on relationship expectations that put us into boxes as “man and woman,” and as “dictating and submissive.”

And despite us running as far from it as we can, it still takes us a lifetime to shake off the examples we’ve seen in marriage and relationships.

Causing us to perhaps wonder if what we are asking for is too much, too unrealistic, and too rare.