*Published on my birthday a couple of weeks ago on FB*
40 years ago I was born this evening at Flushing Hospital in New York City.
40 years later, not only am I glad to be alive, but I genuinely feel I’ve lived such a full and amazing life and am happy enough that even if I died today, I wouldn’t feel bad about it or regret much.
I didn’t always feel this way, but I do today.
I can’t remember my 10th birthday very well at all. But I do remember being a relatively happy 5th grader, having transitioned to my Flushing elementary school from Corona two years before. I can’t remember if bullies were still bothering me then, certainly there were jerks and turncoats here and there, but I had good friends, we went on some good overnight field trips in Long Island. Oregon Trail and Cops and Robbers were fun (end of 6th grade was especially awesome, if you count in Connect Four sessions) and it was still a couple of years until the horrors of JHS.
I can’t remember my 20th birthday either, but I definitely remember the circumstances. I was working in my uncle’s motel in NC cleaning dirty carpets. This was between my sophomore and junior years at Wesleyan, but I was slated to go abroad for a year at Oxford in late September.
It had been an eventful summer, at least for my young life. I had decided to turn down an internship at Wesleyan University Press for a month’s job at the circulation desk of Olin Library because I had already committed to it; probably a bad decision, but one that likely didn’t affect me much in the long term. During this time I continued to develop my relationship with a sweet and beautiful girl I had met that spring at school, my first girlfriend, who lived nearby in CT.
After that month, I came back home, took a job teaching kids at an “elite” tutor academy in Elmhurst, Queens, and was promptly fired a week later because I “couldn’t control the kids” — first and only time I’ve ever been fired from a job, and probably the first and only time I couldn’t control the kids — ha ha.
Anyway, my uncle offered me a job doing odd jobs at his motel, so I took the Amtrak down South and began working for him. Even though the work itself wasn’t too inspiring, I did meet plenty of interesting people this way, and experienced a completely different atmosphere from the North, and continued to write (I had already written a novella, novel and short story collection at this point — all bad, of course — and had won a couple of awards for high school and college kids).
My flight back — I decided to fly — was on the morning of 9/11/01. My uncle dropped me off at the airport. At the ticket counter, the woman processing my ticket told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center (assumably, accidentally). I laughed it off. I thought she was kidding.
When I went inside the gate, I saw the news on the TV, and realized she wasn’t kidding. I can’t remember if I saw the second plane hit live or not, but it became quickly clear this wasn’t an accident, and that I wasn’t going to make it home to NYC.
Somehow I got in touch with my uncle and he drove me back to the motel. I still remember sitting in my motel room, watching people jump out of the towers while my girlfriend, on the phone with me, told me not to watch. I took the train back a week later.
I didn’t sign up for the military, and I didn’t get drafted, since the govt decided not to institute Selective Service. As usual, I decided to follow through on the commitment I had made, for better or worse. I visited Wesleyan briefly and saw my girlfriend and friends for the last time before I went abroad on a flight where even the flight attendant was openly racist towards me.
My year at Oxford was one of the best years of my life. I had tutorials where I could read and learn what I wanted, I wrote over 50 stories and essays, I backpacked Europe extensively, including alone, and had a “trans-chunnel relationship” with my girlfriend, who was studying abroad in Paris during the latter half of the year.
I experienced some racism in Europe, most of which I’ve never written about or even talked about publicly, but compared to my experiences in gang and crime-filled NYC as a teen, it was like nothing, and on the whole, it was a good experience, even though as a person, I remember being neurotic, paranoid, depressed much of the time, and of course insecure. But I had formed great friendships, I had an on-and-off again — but mostly on — gf, and I was physically in the best shape of my life (until, possibly, now).
I do remember my 30th birthday. I was depressed and didn’t do anything special but I did have a lonely meal at a Japanese restaurant and remember complaining to an acquaintance online about my depression.
I honestly felt like a complete failure. Both my long-term romantic relationships with two great girls (sweet, beautiful, brilliant, in love with me and much else) had failed. I blamed myself and frankly, I wasn’t worthy of either of them. While I had earned two masters degrees and had a decent job (maybe not for an Indian-American or whatever, but still, not terrible), I hadn’t gotten anything but rejections for my writing. I hadn’t been published anywhere since college, I hadn’t won any awards, I had no agent, publisher, college teaching gig, or anything else, even as many of my Wesleyan classmates (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jason Pinter, Paul Yoon, to name just a few) had already achieved publication, fame and much else. Since I pretty much judged myself solely on this standard, at least professionally, of course, I felt like a complete failure.
On the social front, I still had strong friendships, and was developing more. I still had a solid family core. I was traveling and making more friends. I was single, and I still lived at home.
Fast forward to today, and I feel completely different. I’ve published four books, albeit independently, but I’m proud of them, and I feel like each book is better than the last. I’ve gotten great reviews, they’ve hit the Amazon bestseller lists, I’ve done solid interviews, been on TV, I’m active on social media.
I’m still single after more than a decade, and I still live with my family, and I still don’t have an agent (ha ha) but so what? I still have great friends, in fact, I have more than ever. I’ve strengthened many of the friendships I had then, even at distances, and made many new ones. I’ve traveled much of the world. I have friends and acquaintances of every race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship and residency.
I live in the greatest city on Earth, where I can eat any type of ethnic cuisine at any time of the day, endlessly explore any type of culture and where I have access to pretty much anything and everything of God’s plenty including art, literature, film, scientific knowledge, and much else. I’m content with my decision not to move to Cali, at least for now. So far I’ve survived the pandemic. I’m in great shape, and I’m better than ever at basketball. I’m happy. What can I really complain about?
That said, I’m hardly done. I haven’t reached anywhere near the literary fame and stature that I’ve wanted for decades. Given the odds, I may never, but I have to keep on trying. I’ve recently won awards and grants, something that never happened to me a decade ago. My next book, Bad Americans, is progressing well.
Having been a pessimist for much of my life, I feel positive and optimistic. I think the next decade is looking up for me, or at least I hope it is. I plan to write and publish many more books, and progress my literary movement The New Wei. There are plenty of other projects in the pipeline too, of various disciplines. I’m planning another road trip across the US and other adventures. Even my dating life is better than it’s been in years. Who knows, maybe marriage and the baby in the baby carriage is on the horizon (yeah right, you wish mom, but hey, anything is possible, right?).
My 40th birthday summer has been amazing. I visited a couple of good friends near Philly. I took my recently retired parents on a fun trip to the South, where we hung out with some of our large and beloved extended family. My parents are happy. My sister, who I rarely ever talk about publicly, is happy. My good friend Bob got married and I was his proud Best Man. We had two karaoke bashes with some Bayside buds. I’m planning on having dinner with some of my closest friends tonight, weather depending. Other close friends I’ll see later. I’m taking a trip to Providence RI over Labor Day Weekend with even more. I’m planning a subway musical reading. Some of my cousins gave me ridiculously thoughtful gifts. I could go on and on.
Life at 40 is amazing. I think it will keep getting more amazing. And even if it doesn’t, so be it. It’s life. There will always be hurdles, and it has to end at some point, right?
