The Unconnected Connections (and more)

Eye-Opening Moments are real-life stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. In this episode you will hear about The Unconnected Connections & The Award Not Given.

Website: https://inspiremereads.com
Books: https://amazon.com/author/emily-kay-tan.2021_

Chapters

• 0:21 Introduction
• 1:02 The Unconnected Connections
• 11:47 The Award Not Given
• 19:01 Key Takeaways

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode #185 of Eye-Opening Moments where you’ll hear stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. They are moments that can lift your spirits, give you some food for thought, or move you. For the introspective mind that likes to reflect, discover, and find solutions or meaning in a complex life, this is for you. I’m your host Emily Kay Tan. In this episode, you will hear about The Unconnected Connections & The Award Not Given.

The Unconnected Connections
Sitting on a single-seater chair with a desk attached to it and minding my own business, my quiet solitude was interrupted by Jackson. Soon after getting home from school, I got a phone call from Russ, and it shook my calm and monotonous mood when no one was at home. The twelve-year-old me was annoyed by these two classmates, whom I hardly knew and could care less about. As I sit by the window thinking of yesteryear and junior high, I remember Russ and Jackson. I chuckle because it is strange how I was so annoyed with them in the past, but in the present, I find it amusing and even wish something like it would occur in the present. What caused the shift to make the scenario look different?

Seventh grade was strangely memorable for the open classroom with no walls between classrooms. It was so noisy that I don't remember learning anything that year. There was a lot of noise bouncing from the class to my left and the class to my right. There was also noise from the right and left of their classrooms, spilling over to my classroom, too. No one seemed to pay any attention to the teacher. I wanted to, but it was hard to listen with all the daily commotion. Further, two classmates, who were paying no attention to anything the teacher had to say, pestered me.

Sitting in my seat and looking down at the new carpet in the classroom, I didn't see Jackson charging over to me. With a big smile filled with fun and joy, Jackson tried to squish into my one-seater chair to be close to me. Since the seat had a desk attached, Jackson pushed me against the steel bar connection pipe between the desk and chair. Luckily, Jackson had on a puffy cotton-filled orange parka. On my left side, I felt his soft, cushiony parka; on my right, I felt the cold steel bar. I tried to push Jackson away, but the harder I tried, the harder he pushed back. Jackson said, "I love you; will you marry me?" I was disgusted and speechless. We never had talk with each other or had any interaction other than him intentionally bumping into me whenever he found an opportunity.

I was glad to be relieved from Jackson's advances when I got home. However, the calmness quickly changed into something I never experienced before. Russ, another classmate, called me; I was shocked. "How did you get my phone number?" I asked Russ. He said it was on the teacher's desk on the attendance sheet with everyone's name and phone number. He said he saw and wrote down my phone number before the teacher arrived to our class. Russ was the first boy to call me on the phone. 

It was my first conversation with a boy. He was funny and asked me many questions. "What do you like to eat?" he asked. I don't remember what I said, but I remember what he said! Russ said, "I like spaghetti because I can twirl it around my fork and then slurp it into my mouth. It is fun, you should try it!" I laughed, picturing him eating spaghetti. "What do you like to play?" asked Russ. Again, I don't remember what I said, but I remember what he said. "I like bouncing the basketball, and when I am not playing basketball, I like to jump up and down like a bouncing basketball," said Russ. Again, I laughed. He seemed to have something funny to say in every sentence because I kept laughing for nearly half an hour.   And then my laughter was abruptly brought to a halt when I discovered my uncle was home. I thought I was home alone until he showed up. 

Sitting by the phone in the kitchen and chatting, I stopped smiling and laughing when I saw Uncle Rick. He entered the kitchen and gave me the meanest, ugliest stare, like I had done something horribly wrong. He was only four years older than me, a teenager, so he must have wanted to call someone and discovered I was on the phone. He probably listened in. I was disgusted. My privacy and joy in conversing with Russ came to a screeching halt. Uncle Rick sternly told me it was not okay for me to talk to boys. My first phone conversation with a boy playing and flirting with me over the phone was over. Uncle Rick ruined the little fun I had in my boring seventh-grade life.

Jackson's advances annoyed me. Besides that one phone conversation, Russ tried talking to me during class, and I did not speak to him. I was not yet interested in boys, so I did not enjoy their attention; I wouldn't say I liked it. However, as I recall the scenes, the mature me finds it funny. It is amusing how Jackson tried to show he was attracted to me by squeezing into my seat to be near me. It is interesting how Russ got my phone number to call me since I did not talk to him in class. When uninterested and only twelve, I was annoyed. When I got interested in boys later, I found it amusing and hilarious.

As a woman married and divorced now, I almost wish for those innocent days. Jackson liked me and showed his affection by getting near me. Russ liked me, too, and showed it by finding my number and calling me when I wouldn't talk to him in class. The innocence was straightforward. Adults, however, are not always so direct, male or female. 

As a mature adult, I spoke with Everett over the phone twice a week, two hours each time, for three months during the pandemic. He was my language partner because I wanted some practice before moving abroad to a foreign island. That explains why we had the scheduled conversations and how long they lasted. Our talks quickly became deep and meaningful discussions about many things in life. Besides talking about what we liked, what we did for a living, and our hobbies, we asked life questions. What was your most significant success? Failure? What kind of bosses did you have? If you could open a business, what would it be? What would your ideal day look like? What would you do? What kept you going when things were bad, or what did you do when everything seemed to go wrong in a day? 

Sometimes, we'd ask the little trivial questions, too. What is your favorite color? What is your favorite food? What is your astrological sign? What is your favorite season? Are you a morning person or a night owl? It seemed like endless questions to ask and answer. Everett also asked more questions that led me to acknowledge my strengths, which I never appreciated. He even addressed my weaknesses, which the child in me refused to admit but later silently agreed. Suddenly, I saw a beautiful me despite the ugly parts of me. We had to look for things to discuss because we needed to practice the foreign language. Talking so much, we came to understand each other, found many commonalities, and even inspired each other. I fell in love with him. 

It is puzzling, shocking, and tickling because I never met him. He never asked to meet after the social distancing rules were lifted and never expressed any feelings for me. I didn't either. I was unwilling to express myself before he did; call me old-fashioned! Call it puzzling because I never met him, but you'd understand if you listened to our conversations and heard how deep and meaningful they were. He stole my heart because he understood me and knew my character. Only my first boyfriend did that previously. So, it was like I accidentally found a diamond. It was shocking because how can you fall for someone you never met? We didn't ask how the other looked and never knew. It was tickling because that is how you feel when you are in love, like butterflies fluttering or dancing in the air. 

Everett and I didn't express our feelings toward each other. I thought he liked me; he took the time and hours to get to know me. He "prepared" for our conversations to ensure we had plenty to discuss when we agreed on two-hour talks twice a week. We talked mostly about each other and did not talk about the weather or make small talk. So, I thought to myself, how could he not like me? He got to know me well; how could he not gather that I was smitten? Now, I sound like a teenager trapped in a mature woman's body!

Adults are not always so direct, myself included, so I find the innocence of youth refreshing. Recalling Jackson, with whom I did not have many words, it was clear that he was smitten with his actions and few words. Remembering Russ, who stole my phone number and spoke to me flirtatiously, he didn't hide his interest. The mature Everett and I were not direct when talking about feelings toward each other. We didn't mention any feelings about each other. I do wish we got together. I wish we had been straightforward in expressing our emotions. I called him after two years, and he sounded thrilled to hear from me, but he still didn't ask to meet with me. I knew he was single and unattached. It is a mystery why we didn't connect as I would have liked us to; I call him the unconnected connection.

What caused the shift to make that seventh-grade scene of yesteryear look different? As we grow and change with various life experiences, our perceptions change. What was once annoying shifted to amusement and then to nostalgia. I did not appreciate the straightforward approaches of the junior high boys before, but how I long for such straightforwardness now! 

Shifts in perspectives can change with age and experience, but you can also change it in an instant. In this instant, I choose to say that the innocence in my youth did not know to appreciate Jackson and Russ, but the adult me can appreciate it now, especially when it was missing with Everett. However, instead of being sad about the missed connection, I smile in contentment with the difference Everett made in my life. He helped me learn more about myself and acknowledge and appreciate me like never before. My unconnected connection gave me the most beautiful eye-opening gift: I saw the value myself.

The Award Not Given
She sat there waiting for her mom to pick her up, but her mom was frequently late. Her mom put her on an airplane to go live with her grandmother. She wondered when her mother would come for her or visit her. Her mom came infrequently. Unbeknownst to her, she developed an abandonment issue and supposed others to be unreliable. As a teenager, she grew to have dreams of going off to college and gaining freedom from her relatives, which made her emotionally miserable because they told her that she didn’t belong. She imagined working and relying on herself one hundred percent of the time. The time came sooner than expected. No one was going to finance her college education. Feelings of abandonment, loneliness, and the unreliability of others were reinforced and engraved in her that she was on her own; how would she realize her dreams and survive at age seventeen?

The young girl roamed the streets by day and looked for hotel lounges where she could sleep at night because she was short on money while her friends had the comfort of home with family during holidays. Managing to graduate from college, she couldn’t get another job soon enough because she needed to pay rent, get furniture, and buy necessities. Will she survive on her own?

As a young woman, she got married and thought she would finally have the comfort of a home where she belonged with a family of her own. She was woefully wrong. Her husband was anal and controlling. He demeaned and emotionally abused her. She had another home that did not feel like the home she had dreamed of, a place of warmth and comfort. When will she find love and peace at home?

Single and unattached, she moved on. She had a job but decided to quit in pursuit of a business opportunity that made her dream of earning millions. After struggling for five years, she finally made some money, but the global economic crisis hit. Though a mature woman, she failed in business, discovered her boyfriend cheated on her, lost her home, and was on the brink of being penniless simultaneously. Feeling unlucky and doomed, she didn’t know how she would survive such devastation.

After the 2008 global economic crisis came the worldwide pandemic in 2020. Gravely affected by each one, the mature woman wondered how she could still be alive. Jobless and penniless, she stayed with a friend. However, she got a job abroad but could not get there because of travel bans. She had sent most of her belongings by sea mail, but the airlines canceled her plane tickets one after another. Blocked from traveling to where she got a job and most of her belongings were, it was as if she was stuck on an island with no means of escape. How could anyone overcome government-imposed bans on travel? Being trapped and confined indoors because of the COVID-19 virus was like solitary confinement. Feeling alone with little help from anyone was all too familiar.

From a child to a mature woman, was she doomed to a life of adversity? 

Though she endured emotional trauma as she was shipped to go live with her grandmother at age five, her grandmother did take care of her physical needs as well as constantly telling her to study hard and be a good girl. Without help to finance the college education she wanted, she consulted her high school counselor, opened the Yellow Pages to find a lawyer, and with their help, she found a way to pay for tuition with government funds, loans, and jobs. Though she had little money during college, she began recording her expenses and income to manage her money and survive holidays on the road. 

Fresh out of college, she bought furniture from Goodwill, secured a job, and could pay for rent. Married to an emotionally abusive husband, she endured seven years and found the courage to divorce him. Though she went into business and failed miserably to become broke and homeless, she found a solution that brought her to paradise. Having secured a job abroad, she had travel bans that blocked her, but she found a way to pass through.

She had no money for college, but her determination, persistence, and creativity helped her find the funds for college. Rejected and battered hundreds of times in the sales business and failing to make enough for a living, her resilience and determination for five years brought a glimmer of success. She could not move abroad to where her belongings had already been shipped and to a job that would give her stability and security. Still, her tenacity, creativity, and perseverance led her to find a way to pass through the limitations of travel during the worldwide pandemic. Emotionally abused and traumatized by relatives and relationships, she endured to find her way out with courage. 

Her never-give-up attitude led to many ideas, which pulled out the creative juices to help her find solutions to each problem. Believing that the answers were there and that she only needed to see them, she found them. Perceiving that anything was possible because she saw “I am possible” in the word impossible, she found possibilities. Hanging in there, trying different solutions, and ceaselessly hoping everything would improve, she emerged victorious.

She overcame and survived each adversity. Still, writing the words to express and relive the enormous challenges hurts because it is my life. I pause. My heart drops to my stomach. I feel watery eyes. I stop. My eyes flood with tears, and I need to get some tissue. For a moment there, I screamed inside, why is my life filled with so much misery? Am I one of the unluckiest people in the world?

I will not wallow and drown in my sea of tears because I am a fighter. I am a survivor. I stand up to award myself the award I have not been given. I, Emily Kay Tan, award myself with the mightiest character award. This award acknowledges me for having the strength and courage to overcome the many adversities that few could achieve. Please congratulate me as it is an achievement more outstanding than degrees, licenses, possessions acquired, or money earned. As Bo Bennett said, “Success is not what you have, but who you are.” Though my life has been filled with adversity, personal growth, and character development produced a monotonous-free and abundant-filled life, the life of Emily Kay Tan. It can inspire you, move you, or give you some food for thought.

Key Takeaways 
Though I had unwelcomed advances in my youth and didn’t appreciate their straightforwardness, the mature me can understand them now.

Though I have never been given an award for my courage, determination, adaptability, tenacity, resilience, and creativity to overcome my many adversities, I decided to award it to myself.

Next week, you will hear two real-life stories called Forced to be an Adult & A New Start at Twenty-One. If you enjoyed this episode of Eye-Opening Moments, please text someone and ask them what they think about this podcast, or go to www.inspiremereads.com and leave a message. Thank you for listening!