I was visiting a friend in Lucerne, Switzerland when I learned Robin Williams committed suicide. I remember my friend’s response when I relayed the news to her. “What?! Why? That’s just so selfish,” she said. That seemed a little blunt, but she wasn’t completely wrong. The loved ones left behind by the person who commits suicide inherit a great deal of suffering and grief. And it’s a lifetime burden. I always hope anyone who’s suicidal, holds on and lives past that desperate moment to see things can and really do get better.       Robin Williams suffered from depression and anxiety. A while after his death, his wife said he found out that he also had....continue reading

      The seemingly contagious annoying millennial habit of saying “literally” before any declaration hasn’t infiltrated my dialogue exchange yet. A not-so-small mercy as “literally” is the new “like” of colloquial language and that’s depressing. But I have my own overly used terms and phrases that I need to dispense of so I shouldn’t be too judgmental. I definitely need to revamp my response repertoire. “That’s hilarious” or “that is amazing!” or even just “amazing” have been overly played out as my default response to whatever anecdotal retelling someone shares with me. But the one phrase that I say often, whether to someone aloud or in my head, and which I desperately....continue reading

I hesitated too long. Why? Why did I pause like that?! Grab it! I reached my hand out, still tentatively, toward the door knob and the moment my index finger just touched the door handle, it was like out of some movie, I was transported with a surge of memories that raced into my head and took me back to those moments at the clinic. Somewhat unnerved, I pulled my hand back a little. Perhaps this door handle was reminiscent of the one at the clinic all those years back and somewhere my subconscious recognized the familiarity to the clinic’s door handle, so reflexively, I paused before I grabbed the handle. But this wasn’t a clinic. It was a regular office building and it had been a long....continue reading

        “You know, I used to have the same thing. I would think something bad would happen so I would do all these superstitious things to keep it from happening,” my mom was saying, “And then one day I just thought, ‘This is all nonsense. It’s meaningless and I’m sick of doing these things and being superstitious and just always thinking about the bad things that could happen,’ so I just decided to stop! And you know what? It worked. I stopped it,” my mom said.         It was as easy as that, apparently. I had been so silly. I wasted all this time suffering, perpetually in distress when all I had to do was to resolutely psyche myself out of this....continue reading

        I developed my love of Chuck Taylor Converse high top shoes as a boy living in Yemen. My family moved to Yemen when my father was contracted to work with the United States Agency for International Development, to oversee the country’s agriculture development program.         Granted my Yemeni Chuck Taylors were knock-offs, not authentic Converse, but still sufficiently similar to the real thing to yield compliments and make me feel like a rather cool kid. I have many happy childhood memories associated with my Chuck Taylors. One of my all-time favorite photos is of me and my brother on a beach in Cyprus where my family was on vacation. In....continue reading

        It was a stressful day. Not for the usual reasons but because of the absurdities involved in being a personal trainer. That day I arrived to work not knowing we had a “staff meeting” so when I arrived at my normal scheduled time, I was already a half-hour late for the meeting. I was chastised with a disapproving look from the General Manager who then ushered me into the meeting being attended by all the personal trainers. Inside, Fitness Director Mike was standing in front of a whiteboard and leading the meeting. He was asking all the personal trainers what would be an innovative way to improve the interpersonal contact we had with club members during our....continue reading

        It’s a little known fact personal fitness trainers, who may be actively personally training their clients, don’t necessarily have any certification, or training themselves to do so. I learned this when I accidentally became a personal trainer myself.         I had recently moved to Boston from L.A., and after finding an apartment, decided to sign up at a nearby gym. I visited the nearby, gym, a branch of The Boston Sports Club chain, and was put off to learn that this dilapidated facility with outdated equipment charged more than the average competitive rate in Boston. While I wasn’t excited about the exercise establishment near me, I knew....continue reading

        Coming back to Los Angeles after being released from McLean felt like a dream. Not as in it was a dream come true, but meaning I felt like I wasn’t completely back. I was in a dream state of sorts and felt like I was observing myself. I had been to a distant, unimaginable place and did very unusual things among very unique people. After that experience, returning to my old, “normal” life routine felt anything but normal. I guess the best way to describe it is that I now understood what people meant by the inability to readjust back into a normal routine after an extraordinary experience. I understood why soldiers returning from war couldn’t ever just resume....continue reading

        I was just informed that I could leave here within the week. This was meant as good news. It meant I had proven I was sufficiently rehabilitated and could re-enter society. I had conflicting emotions about leaving. I did feel a swelling sense of achievement, real achievement, not the kind I had always pursued. And I was excited about the prospect of homemade food, being able to sleep in a bed with crisp sheets, and taking warm showers in a bathroom that didn’t mimic a dilapidated housing shelter facility. Yet, I also felt trepidation about checking out. I had grown attached to this place, the mental institution. It’s funny; the place I so....continue reading

        The penny made a slow, careful descent. It almost seemed like it was navigating the gooey orange liquid to avoid the other debris already immersed in my container of Dial Body Wash. The oily piece of torn, crumpled newspaper I had fished out of the trash can on one of my excursions to the city, was suspended midway toward the bottom. The penny grazed the newspaper piece’s edge before continuing a measured fall toward the bottom where the other “Artifacts of Fear” rested. I wasn’t sure if these pieces of trash were getting cleaner by being dropped in a container of antibacterial body wash, or if the body wash was being contaminated further with each new dirty....continue reading