“

As I sit behind the steering wheel once again on the same highway where my dad gave me the tips I would use while driving for the rest of my life, I can’t help but think about my journey as a driver.

“

We are told, over and over again, that no one will ever love you like your mother. That there is no love like a mother’s love. So what do you do when your mother doesn’t love you enough?

“

There was a time in which I found myself grieving the loss of someone I loved with every single beat of my heart: my mother. That was the moment when I realized that pain, in every shape or form, is inevitable. 

“

I was never happier anywhere in my life than I was floating around the pool with my cousins.

“

I want you to know that each day is just that—one day out of thousands to come.

“

We are about one week out from our 27th birthday. Ten years from where you are now. And my love, what a decade it has been. 

“

It has taken me five years in my journey with grief to acknowledge that I can be grieving and grateful at the same time, a paradox I have never understood until now.

“

I was raised by a dad who gives zero fucks. He came to the US from Singapore, refused to play into any behavioral expectations of Asian immigrants, and is hilariously unapologetic.