2025: Chapter 12

August 15th:

With his great concentration, Gautama next explored the river of perceptions which flowed alongside the rivers of body and feelings. The drops in the river of perceptions intermingled and influenced each other in their process of birth, existence, and death. If one’s perceptions were accurate, reality revealed itself with ease; but if one’s perceptions were erroneous, reality was veiled. People were caught in endless suffering because of their erroneous perceptions: they believed that which is impermanent was permanent, that which is without self contains self, that which has no birth and death has birth and death, and they divided that which is inseparable into parts.

Gautama next shone his awareness on the mental states which were the sources of suffering — fear, anger, hatred, arrogance, jealousy, greed, and ignorance. Mindful awareness blazed in him like a bright sun, and he used that sun of awareness to illuminate the nature of all these negative mental states. He saw that they all arose due to ignorance. They were the opposite of mindfulness. They were darkness — the absence of light. He saw that the key to liberation would be to break through ignorance and to enter deeply into the heart of reality and attain a direct experience of it. Such knowledge would not be knowledge of the intellect, but of direct experience.

In the past, Siddhartha had looked for ways to vanquish fear, anger, and greed, but the methods he had used had not borne fruit because they were only attempts to suppress such feelings and emotions. Siddhartha now understood that their cause was ignorance, and that when one was liberated from ignorance, mental obstructions would vanish on their own, like shadows fleeing before the rising sun. Siddhartha’s insight was the fruit of his deep concentration.

— Old Path White Clouds, Thich Nhat Hanh

* * * * *

It’s been over eight months since Niña passed away. Eight months of my life have come and gone and still not a day goes by that I don’t think about her, whether it be a happy memory or a not so happy one — or whether it’s simply remembering that she isn’t here anymore. I keep a stuffed animal on my bed, a smiling little calico cat with its tongue sticking out that Niña got me five or six years ago, propped up on one of my pillows. She’s never far.

August 16th:

In other words, I am still grieving in my own way. It’s just the attention for it that I try to stay away from. I don’t want it and I don’t need it. Even in conversations with Sarah, whom I trust and am more comfortable with than just about anyone, I’ll occasionally drop Niña’s name (in relation to whatever subject matter is at hand) and feel immediately like sorry for it because I don’t want Sarah to think that I’m trying to divert whatever we are talking about and make it about my dead ex-girlfriend. I know Sarah is down for it — to listen, I mean — but I’m not. I’m too self-conscious about expressing my feelings, even with something as important as Niña.

But I do hold onto her in private. Niña, I mean. The stuffed animals, the little trinkets she once bought me on her vacations to Hawaii and Canada that are stuck magnetically to my refrigerator, the T-shirts and pants and assortments of other clothes that she got for me, or that we bought when we were still together, etc. I’m not going to get rid of any of these items in the spirit of ‘getting over’ Niña’s death. Plus, the clothes she bought still fit me, and it’s hard finding clothes that fit.

She always had me in mind, with everything she did and everywhere that she went. It took me a long time even when we were in a relationship to become comfortable with her making me food, or going out to Ross or Marshalls or wherever and picking me up some shorts or a shirt or a jacket. When I surprised her for our first Christmas with a necklace and some perfume, she ended up buying me some really expensive shoes and a bunch of Ralph Lauren shit and I was almost, like, mad that another person would go out of their way to spend so much on me. That was supposed to be my job.

So it’s just hard, you know? That somebody existed who thought so highly of me, and loved me as much as Niña did, and that to so many others she is just a woman they used to work with, or school with, or grew up with in the Philippines, and so on. There are only a precious handful who are capable of doing her memory justice. I still grieve because I was lucky enough to be in her innermost circle.

And probably due to the power dynamics of our relationship, Niña and I’s, both when we were together and after we broke up, I tricked myself into taking her for granted. Into believing that she needed me in her life more than I needed her in mine. In my mind I never thought of it like that, but in retrospect it can’t not be true. I operated both in our relationship and our friendship as if I was in control and could take it or leave it.

August 17:

Because she is no longer with us it is now I who has her in mind with everything I do and everywhere I go. It’s usually quiet and with no fanfare or advertisement. It’s when I wake up in the morning, or before I fall asleep at night, when her absence most affects me. It’s after I get off work when I had a good day, or have something noteworthy occur. It’s after I go for a run. And it’s here, while I’m writing.

The way I hurt for her isn’t painful, like a sensation that rushes through my stomach to keep me from eating. It isn’t something that sticks to my brain in such a fashion that makes it harder for me to sleep. It’s rather subtle, actually. I just miss the girl is all. I miss the way I got to share with her both the intimate and mundane details of my life. I miss the way she, in return, expressed herself to me. How excited she would get when she was happy. How she relied on me to explain how okay everything was going to be when she was feeling low. Things like that.

It is thus how this website, Future Bets, is and forever will be dedicated to Niña. It’s a collection of articles and thoughts about the goings-on in my life and the way I see the world, and yet it is also very much my way of keeping Niña’s memory alive and filling her in on everything she’s missed — even though I’m like ninety-nine point a million decimal places percent sure that there is no afterlife. I still want her to know that I’m here for her.

August 18th:

Pursuant to that idea, or fantasy, for the first time in a good while I actually have things worthwhile to tell her. That all those instances when she needed me to go over the letters her bank sent her regarding her debit or credit accounts, or when her car insurance company sent her various documents about a settlement after she got in an accident, or when her sister got a DUI and Niña needed me to parse through what it meant — because for whatever reason, despite her English being sound, she did not understand the type of English that professionals use — were actually, like, practice for what I intend to do for a living.

That sobriety isn’t nearly as boring as I thought it was going to be. That it feels almost like a superpower being able to say No. That one of my former bosses once told me about a book literally titled The Power of No and said I should read it. That I never took him up on it but I’m pretty sure the author is correct about the title’s assertion. That it is a power.

That for many months I have been talking to Sarah about getting a kitten, even though both Sarah and I know that I won’t be getting it myself because it requires me to get in my car and drive somewhere. That Sarah is going to be the one to get me the kitten. That I still think about Niña’s cat, the orange one, because I bet she misses Niña, too. That the cat used to cry when Niña had her door closed, and so Niña would open the door because all that cat wanted to do was sleep with her. That back when Niña used to live with her parents in Palm Desert CA she had two cats — a grey one and an orange one — but Niña called them both Ming-Ming. That only when she had to describe to me something that happened would Niña differentiate between the two: The Grey and The Orange.

That food cooked in an air fryer tastes much better than food cooked in a microwave. That I never, ever, use my oven anymore, and only sparingly use my microwave. That once I purchased the air fryer it rendered almost every other cooking appliance in my kitchen obsolete. That the only food I make with any sort of consistency that is not in the air fryer is spicy ramen, which Niña turned me onto circa 2019.

That walking on grass feels much more pleasant than walking on pavement or asphalt. That I don’t think enough people take the time to appreciate how nice grass feels when it is walked on. That the only reason I realized such a feeling was due to the sprinklers being on and I had to avoid walking on the pavement that leads from the parking lot into my condo. That once I noticed grass felt so much better than pavement I now go out of my way every night to detour onto it because it makes me happy to do so.

That I still have yet to muster the courage of watching Masterchef, or Hell’s Kitchen, or Portlandia, because those shows were for Niña and I only; that they are not for me alone. That the football season is about to start in a couple weeks and one of these years — maybe this year — the Chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl again and it’ll be the first Super Bowl that I won’t be able to share in any capacity with Niña. That she was there in 2020, 2022 and 2023. That it’s going to be bittersweet because I know how happy it made her whenever the Chiefs won, since she knew how happy it made me.

That the darkest 30-day stretch of the calendar year in the Northern Hemisphere typically falls between the first week of December and the first week of January. That Niña died on December 11th, during the darkest stretch of the year. That I didn’t learn about such a naturally occurring period of darkness until after Niña died. That every year until I myself die, I am going to think (so long as my mental faculties allow me) about that when it’s the beginning of December.

That I never go through my phone and delete any old photos, even though Apple Inc. kicks me notifications damn near every day encouraging me to spend like $4.99 USD to add storage space to my cloud — whatever that means. That I never have and never will do that because it’s stupid and I don’t give a shit. That the overwhelming majority of photos I have on my phone are either of Niña (since she sent so many to me), or photos of Niña and I, or photos related to the era in which Niña and I dated. That almost every day on my iPhone’s dashboard, atop widgets such as stocks that I’m holding, or the weather in Cathedral City CA, or the calendar, etc., is a photo of Niña. That seeing her face nearly every day makes me both happy and sad at the same time.

That I recently bought a starter kit for growing bonsai trees. That I followed the instructions and soaked the seeds in water for 24 hours before I planted them. That it’s been a few days and I can already see little green sprouts waiting to burst through the top the soil. That in addition to the bonsai trees I also bought a few small live indoor plants that are supposed to be good for purifying the air. That I didn’t know that was a thing.

That Niña’s mom texted me yesterday and told me to call her, which made me immediately worry. That when I got on break and called her she told me Niña’s sister, Raven, is getting married next year in Vietnam and that Niña’s mom would really like me to go. That it was funny timing because a few days earlier I was talking to my friend from work, Leslie, about going to China with her next summer because Leslie really wants to find me a wife. That I didn’t say no to Niña’s mom. That odds are stacked against me going, to Vietnam, I mean, but that currently I am kind of in that perfect frame of mind — emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially — to say screw it and leave the country for the first time to take the vacation of a lifetime. That I am sincerely considering it.

That this year has sucked, and that that’s okay. That some years are allowed to suck. That it is possible to still find happiness and joy even when the world isn’t as full, or like complete, as it once was. That dealing with tragedy has strengthened my own personal resolve. That I intend to live as long as I can despite the reality that many more of my loved ones are going to leave me before I leave them. That I will carry with me every one of them and be in some way an embodiment of their legacies.

That I never truly understood the meaning of the word endure, like having to endure something, until such a monumental figure in my life passed away. That the word endure up until that point was, to me, merely the root of endurance. That it requires endurance to run for a really long time, but that to endure something feels like it should mean something else. That simply sounding out the word in my head — endure — connotes a certain and unmistakable weight.

That there is a very reasonable argument to be made that holding hands is the greatest and most intimate expression of love. That almost every adult has lower standards for the people they are willing to kiss and/or have sex with than those with whom they deem worthy of holding hands. That, just as with kissing and/or having sex, some people are bad at holding hands.

That I imagine Niña would have enjoyed learning about the Buddha. That the Four Nobel Truths are suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path to the end of suffering. That Niña, just like everybody else, suffered. That I have written many times about consoling her, and doing my best to alleviate her pain, but that I don’t think I did a good enough job to ease her suffering. That while she was alive I never learned how to confront my own suffering, or find a path to end my suffering, and thus I never would have been able to help her in the way she needed me to.

That it’s kind of the shittiest version of a Catch-22. That Niña had to die to get me to confront my suffering. That if she hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have grieved. That if I never grieved I would have carried on with business as usual. That my so-called business as usual was arrogant and self-serving. That I did not have it in my heart to dedicate the emotional resources necessary to Niña. That I didn’t even realize how much she meant to me until she wasn’t here anymore. That I am going to have to live with that.

That love is everlasting. That I cherish so much the smiles, and the kisses, and the laughter, and the petty arguments, and the showers, and the walks we went on, and the many talks we shared, and the food she made, and the video games we played, and the shows we watched, and the trips we went on, and the late-night fast food trips, and the snacks we had in bed, and the falling asleep together, and the waking up together, and the playing of cards, and the listening to of vinyl records, and so on. That I miss it. That I would trade anything to have Niña back.

That I wish I never had to learn this lesson.