When I wrote the episode Please Don't Ask Me if I'm Okay, it came as a response to the amount of people asking me and many of my black friends about their mental state without fully understanding what they were asking for. I followed up that episode with What Not to Say When You Don't Know What to Say. That was a totally practical interview with Oliver Ip, pastoral scholar and psychologist in training. In that episode, Ollie and I went over things one should avoid saying to a friend that is grieving or in pain. I asked Ollie, how do you tell someone that you don't see them as 'safe.' That they are not who you would like to give access to your grief or pain for the sake of your mental stability or because you're not looking for advice or whatever. So listen to hear his response.

If you've listened to the last season of this podcast, you'll know that my husband lost his job here in Hong Kong and with two kids and two sets of student loan debt, we have to be a two income household. Paying US$2400 for our 600 sq ft flat doesn't help either. But we were hopeful, optimistic. We believe that after 10 years of working for the same company, it was time for David to find something new, something better, that this was a chance to flex these skills elsewhere. That was back in March. And here we are in September. And 6 months of rejections has really taken its toll on us, on him. So with the money we have left and our daughters by our side, we prepare to leave.

On last week’s episode, I shared some thoughts on grief and how you and I can support our loved ones while they are grieving some sort of loss. And that reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, let’s call her Yvette.* Yvette and her husband are a black couple living in Asia. Her husband is a pilot, well actually a captain, and often has to travel away from her and their two boys for weeks at a time.

We had a conversation a few months ago, when the virus first hit Hong Kong. What I really liked about our talk was how Moon defined her “otherness” and how she was able to learn more about herself by moving to the other side of the world.

I was disciplining my daughter in public and some woman decided (maybe just in my head) that I was being too mean to this little girl and just had to do something (albeit a very small something) but that set me off. And I want to (HAVE TO) talk about it.