No hot potatoes allowed 🙅♀️
The only ones I make room for are the fat and sweet kind
“Kamu selalu jaga perdamaian, neng. Harus berhenti nih.” I didn’t even properly introduce myself and the Balian opened with that zinger, grinning his toothless smile. His face looked like a typical Encek, with taut shiny wrinkles and palette-shaped moles.
You always play peacemaker. You need to stop.
This was July 2012. I was with my UK travel buddy David somewhere outside of Ubud, around Karangasem Regency in eastern Bali. He was seeking a bit of spiritual guidance and general life direction before returning home, whereas I had only recently recovered from several days of deep wind in my bones while in the northern village of Sudaji.
Aku bikin diriku sendiri masuk angin, Pak. Hanya karena tau orang tua dan adik berantem di rumah.
“I made myself sick, Sir. Simply because I knew my parents and brother were fighting back home.”
I laughed and shook my head. From halfway across the world, I was absorbed in my family’s unhealthy and violent mess of miscommunication; so absorbed that I powerfully internalised my own helplessness and transformed it into acute illness.
I know Bali belly had nothing to do with it. It was my classic Chinese-Indo peacemaking daughter nonsense.
22 steps up 2222 18th Avenue to the goodest boy Ham. San Francisco, 2016.
In 2007, my then-boyfriend Bernie first suggested I see a therapist after I recounted how I “had” to mediate a heated conflict between my parents and brother. “You should think about it,” he offered. But at the age of 20, I didn’t know what therapy was. Quite literally, it wasn’t a part of our immigrant vocabulary.
It’s okay. I can figure it out on my own.
And that’s what I continued to believe for the next decade. Until over time, slowly but surely, the persistent compounding effects of various family interactions, experiences, and confronting self-reflections served as a natural forcing function to wake up and recognise my own agency.
The process to find myself a therapist was intentionally slow and moved, unknowingly to me at the time, at the exact right pace for me to tolerate. Vik and I had been living in Las Vegas for about a full year before I asked two of my friends from my previous SF shelter work if they had any therapist referrals they’d be willing to share.
Word of mouth is so strong. Such a blessing.
In the early days of getting to know my therapist, Kavitha, over Zoom, we dug deep and leaned into the equal pride and discomfort of my family of origin story. Our conversations spanned my personal habits (where my learned tendency to worry comes from, how it can be transformed) to filial piety (my perceptions of duty and responsibility as eldest daughter in a Chinese-Indonesian family living in the States) and my rejection of the status quo (p*ss off, familial dumping ground!).
“Your parents and your brother are accustomed to throwing you their ‘hot potatoes.’ And that’s because you’ve historically risen to the occasion and taken on the burden of internalising your family’s feelings/emotions without anyone explicitly asking you to do so: you’ve been unconsciously conditioning yourself to absorb chaos and position yourself as mediator. No one asked you to do this, but you’ve taken it upon yourself since you were a child,” Kavitha explained.
Two days before my Dad’s 68th birthday dinner reso at the Golden Steer (the old Frank Sinatra and Rat Pack joint my Mom booked a couple months in advance), I noticed my brother’s peculiar behaviour over SMS text message.
He’s escalating into mania.
I could tell from his essays-long convoluted messages and screenshots of conversations with other people.
Aiyah. The familiar spiral.
I didn’t even read past the first sentence of the message before I jumped in to text back, Hey, I’m worried about you. Do you want to go check into the ER and speak with a doctor?
He colourfully and violently shut it down. And in that moment, in real time, I actively told myself I had to set a firm boundary and leave it alone. Something old me would have immediately tried to problem solve like a puzzle, tried my calmest and best to talk some sense into him and be rational, be logical. I could’ve easily let this interaction penetrate my immune system and my psyche.
No hot potatoes for me, mate.
It’s been two months since that exchange and unsurprisingly, my brother hasn’t messaged or called. Several years ago, I wouldn't have been okay with this distance: the idea of our relationship changing would have sent me into that habitual spiral of worry and rumination.
But now? It serves me and serves as a turning point in our adult relationship.
One of the things I didn’t expect from my therapeutic journey is the isolation that comes with growth. In my my recent session with Kavitha, I realized that participating in therapy has naturally created more distance between me and my family. Having awareness of self, of our family history, of the interpersonal challenges we've experienced over decades—it has changed my entire understanding of self in relation to my parents and brother.
"This is typical," Kavitha shared. "It's what often happens when you have a growth mindset versus when others prefer to stay safe."
I feel as if I’ve really come into my own in 2025, like I’ve found that deeply buried superpower and unlocked it within myself. And I attribute this feeling of accomplishment and flourishment to therapy—not just the live sessions with Kavitha, but the time I take afterward to reflect, to be introspective, to process and debrief with Vik, and to put into practice the concepts I’ve learnt.
It’s funny how having a full house of senior doggos can change your perspective so swiftly. The constraint has lent itself to saying, “No, thank you!” to energy-expending activities that would otherwise not fill my cup.
I’m not the same person who gave herself a fever in Bali 10 years ago.
Highlights from the last week of June 2025:
🍠 A week after we adopted Korah from The Animal Foundation, Andrew from FurEver Nevada reached out to ask if we had space and would be interested to foster-to-adopt 8yo Phoebe. “She is blind and was found at a gas station in Henderson, a very sweet chubby girl” he noted. Korah adjusted to our household and routine with the girls quickly in her first two weeks so that put us in a good position to take in Phoebe (big ups to Lucas for being my cheerleader/convincing Vik to say okay, LET’S DO IT!). We swooped up this fat sweet potato from Henderson Animal Shelter on Saturday morning and she had some solid undisturbed sleep that evening. That is, until 5 AM, when she surprised herself (and her sissies) and eliminated a mountain of poo in the bathroom. I’m so happy she had such a good poo poo! I yelped to a startled Vik. Can you open a window, bitte?
🎾 Coach Gordon leads our Summerlin Sunday tennis clinics and he asked the group, “So! What’s everyone been keeping up with?” Berlin! I shouted across the net. “Huh. I didn’t know Germany grew good grass. You know, the salty sea air off the coasts of the UK make it so that they have the best grass. Real nice and firm.” Like in golf! as I bopped a backhand into the net. “Well, I suck at golf but I like their hats.”
😬 I don’t know where dentists in Las Vegas source their hygienists but I get the feeling that at everyone in my dental office is a hygienist by day, bottle service girl by night. “You know, I’m a real nag so I give it to my patients straight. And for not coming in for 15 months, I’m surprised. You have a nice home care routine.” Whew! That’s a relief so thanks, Shannon.
Have a crackin’ week ahead, peeps! Sampai j(h)umpa.
xx tiff