The Phoenix Flies West
Leaving the trauma I called home
When I was a kid, I spent summers in New York City’s Chinatown with my brother, cousins, and grandmother. Every tall building, the sirens of the fire station across the street, authentic food in the crannies of avenues — it all felt so big. And it is… the Big Apple. On TV, media showed me this city is where all dreams could come true. What every iteration failed to show me, or maybe I didn’t see it, is what it looks like when those dreams become nightmares that cast a shadow over favorite spots and each sweet memory.
When I was a kid, the candy store on the corner of Mott and Broome was my destination treat for good behavior. It’s not there anymore.
I’ve overstayed my welcome here. In every endeavor, something or someone has broken me. For a long while, I thought that it was me, but it’s not me. I never asked to be sexually assaulted and falsely imprisoned by a coworker, sexually harassed by another coworker at a different workspace, gang raped by a supposed friend when I went to comfort him after his father’s funeral, drugged by some rando guy who followed me from bar to bar trying to get me to go home with him, raped by another supposed friend who threatened to kill himself if I didn’t love him back, and bullied by large organizations who know they have more coin and connections than I can fight.
My heart, while hurt, was always in the right place. I tried to do good, immersed myself in the arts, and lived within the culture of seven different neighborhoods. I did those things but not without cost. As welcoming as a big city can be, it can also have claws that dig into you and drain your resources. You can also feel so alone in a city of 8.5 million people.
In 2016, I came here with big plans and big sights on writing a young adult novel and a poetry collection and working in the publishing industry. I worked up to three jobs at one time while going to graduate school full-time. I stole muffins from one internship and debated nightly whether or not I could afford $1 pizza at 2 Bros right before class. I loved it. The starving artist mixed with the urban grind. I graduated with my MFA with a 4.0 GPA and zero publishing offers after two years of largely unpaid internships at the best publishing companies.
Because I need to pay rent and feed a dog and myself, I had to pivot after a year-and-a-half of searching for my place in that world. Thus, I taught in schools in underserved communities and discovered that I love it. I thought I could do so much to improve the system, but the system bit back. I can’t say that being the only Asian person was not a factor. I was forced out of my first full-time position as a teacher because of the aforementioned sexual assault and imprisonment in a room that luckily didn’t turn into a rape. Soon after, I left because I had panic attacks every day and weekly breakdowns until my body collapsed, paralyzed with fear. He still works there, while I had to relearn that a man’s feeling of entitlement to my body is not my fault. In 2020, I got kicked out of my program but graduated with my master’s with a 4.0 GPA, though without state certification.
During COVID and the protests, I thought hard. How can I work with the same community and in a similar capacity to ease the pain of polarized pain? Libraries! Third degree’s the charm, right? Within a year, I got a job as a Young Adult Librarian, and I was soaring. I was exceeding every expectation in record times and advocating for teens and harm reduction. I implemented a more diverse book collection for young adults, systematically paying attention to all areas of marginalization. This was fucking it! I thought. I was using the system to better the system. Then it happened. The person I was dating came into work late, screamed in the middle of the library, and ran to HR to break up with me. Don’t make your breakdown my breakdown. But he did because HR sided with him without once hearing me, possibly because I suffer from PTSD and was the only Asian person in the conversation, and the woman’s voice (for all intents and purposes) is supposed to be silent. The man who said he would always champion me, destroyed my career in NYC with one 40-year-old tantrum. The library pressured my mental health team and I to give up all my medical records and what I talk about in therapy, a huge violation of HIPAA and ADA rights. They said, in an email I still have, that if I didn’t do so, they would fire me. I finished my MLS with a 4.0 GPA that semester, in a year and a half. I’d gotten so good at education that I was graduating at lightning speed. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t work in any of the three library systems in NYC, rendering this degree useless. I had three master’s degrees and zero job prospects. Again.
There was only one thing to do. Take a deep breath. And step into a school for the first time in three years. Only to be consistently sexually harassed for a month and a half, and I can’t talk about the rest at the moment, but he still works there. I don’t. Connect the dots.
I cannot control what men do to me. I can’t control their vice grip and jealousy. I can’t control large organizations with power and deep pockets. But I can control me. I can go to therapy once or twice a week. I can decide my next step. I can learn all I can about non-profits so I can build a recreation center in the Bronx because I love that community. Or I can pack up strength, empathy, and virtue; leave behind pity, hopelessness, and desperation.
My employment record may be tarnished, but my value isn’t. And maybe New York never deserved my kindness to begin with. Maybe all along, the thing I dreamt of most was a warning. I always wanted to visit the west coast, run into the Pacific when winters are like east’s springtime, and explore the other side of the country. Well, let’s go hard and live there. Whether California, Portland, or Seattle, I can work again and have purpose again. I can be happy.
That is not to say I am trying to outrun my trauma because that is next to impossible even for Usain Bolt. I will continue therapy to work on myself. I can spread my wings a little bit, knowing there’s next to nothing and no one I’m leaving behind. There is no family I’m bound to anymore, only my best friend who promises to visit.
I cannot leave my demons behind. I cannot throw them away or be a “new me.” I will always walk with weights, but right now, the journey seems a little less scary.
This is also not to say my six-and-a-half years in NYC have been awful and full of negativity. I’ve met some amazing people here. I dated some amazing people here. I got to embrace my sexuality and identity here. I know who I am more than I did when I step foot into that shitty, unfinished Bushwick apartment.
I have memories I want to keep forever: homemade pancakes on Sunday mornings, Rinkles at the dog park, coming home after 16-hour days to a homecooked meal on the stove, rocking climbing and going to France, buying half-priced books at The Strand, eating all the ramen in the city, the willow tree and bad poetry, late nights at the Nuyorican Cafe, reading my own work and captivating an entire audience into silence, driving to South Carolina to see the solar eclipse, ziplining down a mountain next to a quaint little town, marching for every cause and seeing thousands of people already in front of me, each Pride Parade that showered me with love, not knowing what to do for a first date with a girl, eating a tub of ice cream when said girl ghosted me, going on a date with my high-school boyfriend and learning he had a son, writing about him and having it be my most read blog, reuniting with someone else from my past, realizing he’s The One, being cared for and shown what a non-abusive relationship is, and Rinkles in my arms until he wasn’t but I know he’ll always be with me.
New York isn’t all bad, but it’s not my Great Escape either. Moving west isn’t an escape, but it is a chance. I can only control what I do. I make the moves. It feels like flying, and it feels right. It feels like fear and safety all at once. The unknown. Most things aren’t permanent, and there’s some comfort in that. The safety net of trying again to find home. A real home.
