A note:
This is a long, deeply personal and honest essay about what I’ve been grappling with this summer and the changes in my life.
Part letter to myself, part personal chronicle, it is also a way for me to remember this pivotal moment in my life.
I share it not only because I want to be honest with all of you, but because writing has long been my way of processing.
Trigger warning: domestic violence; self-harm; parental illness; sexual assault.
On Saturday morning, I went to Lenny’s Bagels on 98th and Broadway.
Although I now live several subway stops away, it has remained my favorite bagel place in the city.
I walked in and as usual, the two owners whom I’ve known since I was 19 years old, cheerfully greeted me and immediately began preparing my usual order (toasted everything bagel with scallion tofu cream cheese and a large decaf coffee, no milk, two stevias).
As I left, they called out, “See you next week!”
I paused, then nodded and waved goodbye.
……..
Music greeted me as I walked into my favorite neighborhood bodega on Sunday night.
The corners of Pablo’s eyes crinkled with humor. “Hola, beautiful!”
He pulled me into a dance, right there in the row between the chips and ramen.
I laughed.
His wife, Rosalina, manned the counter and clapped in glee.
“You need a husband to dance with you like this.” He twirled me into an awkward spin.
“Women don’t need a husband, Pablo.”
“Ahh, but you…” He lifted my arms and dragged me around him. “You should have nice man. You’re a nice woman.”
This was our usual banter. They’d both fuss over me, worrying about the state of my singlehood, and whether I was eating enough.
I managed to disentangle myself before we toppled into the shelf and headed to the back to grab a bottle of water.
I usually didn’t need anything when I stopped by. I just wanted to say hello a few times a week.
“You should meet my nephew!” Rosalina called out. “He’s coming to visit soon.”
“He’s very handsome.” Pablo still swayed to the music. “You’ll like him.”
I returned to the counter. “I’m sure he is —”
“Mira.” Rosalina shoved her phone towards me. The screen displayed a photo of a young man with a broad smile on a sandy beach.
Something about his eyes reminded me of her glow.
“I’m sure he’s wonderful.”
“He’s nice guy,” Rosalina insisted. “Coming at the end of September. You can meet him.”
I hesitated.
Pablo danced his way behind the counter and pulled his wife into an embrace.
I remembered how he’d let me practice my shitty Spanish with him as many times as I wanted. How she’d given me a homemade poundcake at Christmas.
The words wouldn’t come.
“Of course.” I smiled. “Happy to meet him when he gets here.”
They were thrilled.
………………………
“Good morning!”
Peyton ran up to me, his owner, Jay, a few steps behind.
Peyton was a mastiff and rotweiller mix with a goofy smile and gentle demeanor. Out of all the dogs in the neighborhood, he was my favorite.
Jay was a born and bred New Yorker - fast-talking, impatient, and with strong opinions on just about everything.
I first began running into him on my daily coffee walks which happened to coincide with his morning walks with Peyton.
We usually saw each other 4-5 times a week and our morning chats took on an odd, almost small-town quality within the vastness of Manhattan.
We never talked about ourselves or personal details. Just thoughts about the neighborhood, the city, politics, or other random events.
Small talk. He was quite good with restaurant recommendations.
As usual, we spent a few minutes chatting. We were both convinced there was a serial killer running around Brooklyn (PSA: if you go to the Brooklyn Mirage, please be careful).
He described a YouTube video which detailed the insanity of the city housing market.
I told him I avoided certain areas downtown because I didn’t want to run into annoying TikTokers who stopped random people to ask questions.
He ranted about Mayor Adams and how he was the worst thing that had ever happened to the city (this was an ongoing point he made at least twice a week).
“Anyways.” Jay finally paused to take a breath. “You doin’ anything special today?”
I’d almost forgotten it was Labor Day. “Not really. You?”
“Leaving tomorrow to spend time with my brother and his family in Florida.”
“Nice. Is Peyton coming with you?”
“Nah I’m taking him to this doggie camp up in Westchester. He loves it there, being in nature with the other dogs. We’ll be back mid-September.” He patted the top of Peyton’s head. “You’ll have lots of stories to tell Grace when you get back, right buddy?”
Peyton panted in response, his nose nudging my hand for more love.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Yet again, the words I wanted to say wouldn’t come.
Instead, I crouched down to look into the eyes of that big, goofy dog who’d brought me such joy in the mornings over the past year.
“Have fun at camp! I’ll see you soon, okay?”
I wrapped my arms around his thick neck and closed my eyes, trying to imprint the feeling into my memory.
…………………….
On Tuesday morning, I crossed 54th street, music and rhythm coming through my headphones and setting the tempo for the day.
The lyrics blended with the morning light.
I want you to stay
'Til I'm in the grave
'Til I rot away, dead and buried
'Til I'm in the casket you carry
This was my song for the summer.
A man gestured to me as I neared the curb. I pulled my headphones slightly back.
He had a heavy Bronx accent. “Miss, you’re really cute.”
“I’m old enough to be your mom,” I shot back.
He grinned. “Wouldn’t mind that, mommy.”
Smiling, I pulled my headphones back up and briskly wove through the crowds, music and energy flowing in me, through me.
Life everywhere. Freedom. Anonymity.
Ahead, the trees along Central Park South reached up towards the sky.
My favorite season - my beloved autumn - would soon arrive and I wouldn’t be here to greet it.
August 1 held particular significance for me this year.
It marked one month since the one-year anniversary of Kizuna and all the incredible learnings and alignment that came with it.
Two months since I began exploring creative experiments to follow my curiosity in new directions.
It was also the day I found out my mother's cancer had returned. This is the third time it's come back.
My mother lives alone in Hawaii. She no longer drives and needs help and support to get to doctor appointments and treatments.
We do not have a good relationship. Space and maintaining strong boundaries with her have been a critical part of maintaining my own well-being.
My brother - who does live in Hawaii - also does not have a strong relationship with her (or with me) and has refused to step in and help.
After much soul searching, I made the very difficult decision in mid-August to leave NYC and move back to Hawaii so I can take care of her.
The day after I made my decision, I went on my usual morning coffee walk and sat on my favorite bench at the park.
That bench has been there for me since the start of Kizuna, embracing me through heartbreak, every setback and win, every moment of fear and doubt.
I sat on that bench, under the beautiful sky that had watched over and inspired me daily over the past year, and cried my eyes out.
Grief swallowed me and my body shook with terror.
I’d worked and fought so hard - so fucking hard - to establish myself away from my past, from my family, from the painful memories that haunted me.
I’d done everything to build something of my own, to live on my own terms.
I love New York City with all my heart. My friends, my life are here. It is where I’ve found a sense of freedom and nourishment I've never been able to find anywhere else in the world.
And now I was left grieving the loss of who I thought I was - of what I thought my future might be - in order to re-imagine who I can become.
Since I made the decision, sleep has eluded me for weeks and I have been in a state of massive emotional turmoil.
Rage at the reminder of my mother’s mortality. Fury at my brother’s apathy which meant upending my life to move across the entire country.
Deep fear over so many things, including what will happen to me as boundaries and dynamics change between me and my family.
Tremendous stress that this was all landing on me right as I was in the middle of pivoting with Kizuna and still on financially fragile ground. Moving from NYC to Hawaii is not a small move.
And pain, endless pain, that somehow I was being pulled relentlessly - without any control - back to a place I had spent a lifetime extricating myself from.
I felt discombobulated, raw, off-kilter in a way I had a hard time processing. I couldn’t seem to find my grounding.
Every aspect of me and my life was challenged at once: my sense of identity; my environment; my concept of home; my past and family; the fragility of our lives; the passing of time; my work; and my future.
Control and certainty had been torn away. Although my heart had ultimately made the decision, I still wondered:
Am I doing the right thing?
We were squeezed around a table on the second floor.
Bar Valerie was busy, bustling with the usual Saturday night crowds.
It occurred to me that this year, I wouldn’t see the beautiful Christmas lights on Fifth Avenue or the holiday decor in this bar (it was known for them).
I tried not to think about it.
The alcohol had relaxed everyone. This was always when the real convo started.
I braced myself, body hardening as if expecting a punch.
It was a conversation I wanted to avoid which was why I didn’t tell them about the move until one week prior to my flight.
I forced my mouth to work. “I’ll be back soon.”
The words felt like a lie. The last time I’d said them, it’d taken me another two years to actually move to the city.
Thankfully, no one mentioned that.
Sam gave a soft smile. I’d miss his smile.
“Of course.” He chose his words carefully. “It’s just…honey, why are you always the one that has to change your life for them? Why do you have to move all the way back? Can’t they handle this on their own?”
Kristi pointed her fork at me. “This.”
I really didn’t want to have this convo. “She’s sick. She needs help.”
Sam frowned. “Can’t she find another way to get help? From neighbors or friends or someone - I mean your brother actually lives there.”
“You know how he is,” I said. “He barely speaks to her and doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
Jon finally spoke. “That shouldn’t be your problem.”
Irritation seeped from his pores. He’d been quiet throughout dinner and in the days since I’d told him about the move.
“It’s okay. You can say it.”
He shook his head.
I tried again. “Jon-”
“You’ve done enough, Grace.” His voice was harsh. “How many times you gotta keep bailing them out? You have to walk away. This is bullshit.”
All of them had at one point or another either visited me in Hawaii or lived there for a period of time for work.
They knew.
Kristi touched my hand. “We’re worried. We don’t want to see you hurt.”
I nodded, wishing the rawness in my throat, the tightness in my chest, this never-ending need to cry would stop already.
It made me feel weak. Ashamed. I didn’t want them to worry. I wanted to handle this on my own.
“This is all so sudden and you…” She paused. “I know it’s a lot but is this what you really want to do?”
“I need to-”
"Uh-uh.” Sam shook his head. “There’s no need to.”
He was right of course. “I want to. I don’t want to have regrets.”
Kristi put her fork down. She hadn’t eaten much. “Remember what she did after your father broke your wrist?”
“That was a long time ago and she was traumatized -”
“She left you alone for days while your wrist turned black,” Jon snapped. “You were a kid and she was supposed to protect you. Just like she was supposed to protect you all those other times.”
It was always so much harder when others threw your truths back at you.
My therapist used to do this all the time, reminding me of past incidents I tended to bury and file away deep in my mind.
I’ve only been able to find that level of honesty in NYC.
Maybe that’s why I loved this city - and them - so much. Because their directness (and often brutal reminders) acted as a mirror that allowed me to see my reflection, see myself, in ways circumventing my denial and excuses.
Maybe because my friends, not my family, were the ones who had always protected me and made me feel safe.
“She didn’t call an ambulance or get help when you tried to take your own life,” Kristi continued as if neither Jon nor I had spoken. “She left you there to die and went back to work.”
I looked away.
“You remember what she was like while you were married? After your divorce? With every relationship you’ve had? And don’t get me started on your brother…”
She cut herself off and sipped her drink. Jon picked up his phone and began scrolling. Sam loudly ordered another scotch.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the table.
Of course I hadn’t forgotten. It always lingered somewhere in my subconscious.
My therapist once told me I needed to keep a specific journal and list every time my family did or said something terrible so I would remember.
I’d argued with him. How cold and inhuman to do that as if I were keeping track of every mistake they made.
He corrected my use of the word “mistake”. Patterns, he explained, are not a mistake.
He said I was so desperate for their love in a way I had never received that I would put aside everything they do - excuse, deny, forget, turn a blind eye - in order to fix it.
All of it in the hopes I could change things and would finally - someday - have the family I’d always needed.
Every cell in my body protested. How he perceived me left me feeling powerless, embarrassed, and vulnerable.
So of course, I chose to completely ignore what he said.
What he pointed out reminded me too much of how my mother excused or pretended or denied…and I refused to believe I was like her.
After all - I’d tell myself - look at everything I’ve done.
The ways I’ve challenged myself, done the excruciating work to heal, walked away from abusive relationships, drove myself hard, lived all over the world, pushed and fought to own my life …to fight in a way she (and my brother) never did for themselves.
I wasn’t like her. Was I?
Maybe Kristi was right and I was forgetting. Willingly.
“It’ll be different this time.” My cheerful voice sounded fake and I despised myself for it. “I’m not the same person as I was when I left two years ago."
No one responded.
I suddenly wondered how many times they’d heard me say that sentence:
“It’ll be different this time.”
That night, I got home and texted my best friend. It was already morning in Norway.
“Do you think I’m making a mistake going back?”
His response was immediate.
I’ll support whatever decision you make.
fwiw, I think this is honest to you.
(nyc ain’t going no where)
I went to bed but sleep yet again wouldn’t come.
I first started cooking for my family when I was six years old. I taught myself from a Disney cookbook for kids that I checked out of the library.
I painstakingly copied the recipes I liked by hand on to index cards so I could reference them after I returned the book.
That was how I learned to cook meat for the first time, to make scrambled eggs and pancakes, and peanut butter and apple snacks for lunch. Through trial and error, I figured out how the oven worked and how I was supposed to use oil or butter in a pan.
I learned out of necessity because by that point, my mother had completely checked out.
When we went grocery shopping, she asked me what we needed. If I hadn’t written down the ingredients for the meals I’d make, my brother and I would not have eaten.
By the time I was six years old, she’d already gotten into the habit of relying on me for most of our daily life whether it was doing the family taxes and finances, family meals, parenting my brother, handling my father, and being the family spokesperson because I spoke English well.
This was in addition to being on stage as “Grace”… and everything that entailed.
A few years back, we were estranged while I worked through the mess that was our relationship. We have since come to an uneasy peace.
Our home had been a nightmare and her response to her trauma was to disassociate, to cope by retreating deep within to a numb, unseeing place.
To this day, she has blocked out what happened with me, my brother, and my father. The main memories she holds on to are the ones of my achievements in which she is the proud mother who raised a “child genius”.
Having a conversation with her about the past is impossible because she will vehemently deny or lie about events that occurred.
Her endless gaslighting was what initially led to our estrangement. Although I’ve now allowed her back into my life, for my own peace, I no longer talk to her about anything personal.
Rather than face and address her own life, it was far easier for my mother to have me step into the person she could not be and live vicariously through my life.
She first had cancer when I was 20 years old. Just as I do now, I felt enormous guilt…as though somehow my inability to protect her had caused her to turn it onto herself, into a disease in which her body attacked itself.
Because she was so sick, I worked 18-20 hours a day (working multiple jobs while going to school and practicing / concertizing) as a young artist in New York City to not only support myself but to also send her money while putting myself and my brother through college.
This was not possible alone. I learned to network, fake smile, be nauseatingly pleasant, kiss everyone’s ass, and suppress every part of me so that scholarships and sponsors / patrons covered most of my costs for Columbia and Juilliard. My brother had also managed to secure substantial financial aid.
Friends helped me endlessly with food and other daily expenses because I would’ve literally starved without their care and support.
Everything I did was for my family. For them to survive.
That was the time in my life when I spent countless sleepless nights having a recurring nightmare of a massive tsunami engulfing the city while I desperately tried to find my mother and brother so I could save them.
What about me? What about my life and what I want? When do they support and protect me?
I write that and am fully aware how selfish or callous that may come across.
But I want to be honest and it has been the refrain that has been echoing inside me over these past few weeks.
Perhaps from an outsider’s view it is selfish. After all, I’ve had the enormous privilege and fortune to pursue my passions, to realize my talents and do what I love for work.
But I’ve never been able to shed an indescribable guilt that has always haunted me.
The gifts I was born with happened purely by random chance - a combination of genetics and psychological qualities, as well as the fortune to have been born in a privileged, developed nation with access to opportunity.
Why was I able to survive but my mother and brother could not? Why was I - not my family - gifted with my talents?
This guilt has long fueled my overwhelming sense of responsibility for them and their lives. I remember feeling this as far back as when I was 3 years old.
I know what my brother and mother went through under my father’s fists.
I know it wasn’t easy for my brother to grow up with a sibling like me, the constant comparisons and snide comments.
I know their regrets and pain and shame, the ghosts they battle within themselves.
But for how long do they get to wear the title of victim?
How long must I continue to sacrifice myself for them? For the rest of my life?
All I know is that I’ve never stopped loving them even as I tried to come to terms with my own neglect and abuse, and grappled with a complicated mixture of grief and guilt and despair for a family that wasn’t…but could’ve been.
My friend Alex grew up with a horribly abusive, alcoholic father. His father passed when Alex was 25, a result of years of self-loathing and self-inflicted damage to his own body.
Until the very end, he tormented his son. Peace was never realized between them.
I attended the funeral and hugged my friend, words failing me.
There is no language for such inexplicable pain.
“I’m finally free,” Alex whispered in my ear.
I hugged him harder, absorbing his truth, wanting to protect him, shield him so that no one else would hear him having to utter those words about his father.
Does it make you a terrible person? Does it make you ungrateful when so many others wish their parent was still alive or wish they’d had parents to begin with?
Is it a terrible thing to want to be free of your family when they have never been a family to you in the first place?
How can we reconcile the deep, complicated love and understanding we may have for someone when they have consistently inflicted immeasurable pain on to us?
Although my family never dictated what I should do, it doesn’t change the fact that almost everything I did for the majority of my life - in some form or another - was for them.
It was as if I could never escape their grip.
I often look back on my marriage - in which I moved to Europe, as far from Hawaii as I could - and wonder if it was my attempt to put more distance between me and them, my way of desperately trying to get them to stand on their own without me.
Unfortunately, as has been the case many times in my life, I’d simply left one cage to put myself into another. My marriage was the loneliest period of my life.
But this time, after my divorce and the years it took me to come back to NYC, I thought I’d finally done it.
I’d finally escaped on my own terms.
I was free.
But life doesn’t allow us to skip steps.
When I was 24, a good friend I deeply trusted took me to another person’s apartment and raped me.
It was a very physically violent incident. The initial plan was for both he and his friend to rape me, but due to an argument, the final perpetrator was my friend.
The trauma of the event led to me having dissociative amnesia for seven years…very much like my mother’s memory blockage around her abuse.
I’ve spent many years working through and healing from that trauma and much of my volunteer work has centered on helping survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
For years, I felt a visceral terror whenever I was confronted with anything related to that moment.
Any time a work opportunity or personal event came up in Connecticut (where my rapist is from) or Astoria, Queens (which is where the rape occurred), I immediately turned it down or found an excuse to not participate.
But I no longer wanted to be ruled by fear. I didn’t want him to have power over where I chose to go in the world.
Over Memorial Day weekend, I took a trip to Connecticut, to the very city where my rapist still lives with his family to this day.
It was the first time I’d entered the state since the event happened.
In July, I went to Astoria (again, the first time since it happened) to reclaim that location for myself as well.
Both trips were done with clammy hands, constant dizziness in which I felt as if I were about to blackout, and a profound anxiety and fear verging on extreme panic attacks.
But I did it.
I faced the setting of my nightmares, confronted that violent past, and took those places back for myself.
And now I must do so again.
We cannot skip steps.
That which is not addressed will inevitably catch up to us.
And the unusual nature of my past meant I skipped my entire childhood.
Recently, on my podcast, Peter Atwater gently corrected me when I described myself as someone who had been a “terrible” judge of character in my early twenties (a reference to my sexual assault). Peter’s gesture was such an instinctive, compassionate response and deeply moved me.
After we finished recording, he returned to that idea and his intuitive sensitivity - the beautiful care - he extended to me in that moment was a kindness and understanding I haven’t experienced much of in my life.
He said:
You had no choice but to trust others at a young age, not appreciating that their interests and your interests weren’t the same.
His words were in relation to my years as a child performer. At the time, he was not aware of the personal meaning his words held for me as well.
It took every ounce of concentration I had to not burst into tears.
To come to terms with our past is one of the hardest acts any of us can ever do…to find some semblance of internal peace towards those you trusted who were supposed to - but didn’t - protect you.
To grasp some kind of perspective around those who may have hurt you so profoundly, you have spent years addressing and healing from those wounds.
But I have to try.
I have to try.
Perhaps that makes me foolish.
Perhaps by going back I’m simply returning to the very patterns I have spent years trying to free myself from.
Perhaps my therapist is right and I’m yet again unconsciously trying to “save” my mother and brother in an attempt to change a past that cannot be changed.
There may be no resolution or closure. There may be (will likely be) far more pain than healing.
Maybe, like Alex, there will never be true freedom for me until the aftermath.
But I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t want to be left wondering “What if” or “I should’ve”.
My mother’s health is a symptom of a life that is on the final leg of its journey.
There may not be another opportunity to try again.
In doing so, what I find could very well be an ending in which there is no understanding, no progression, no clean conclusion.
It could be that my closure exists in messy, painful realizations that I need to finally grasp to close this door at last.
Regardless of how things unfold with my mother’s health and with my brother, this time in Hawaii will be very hard.
So why would I willingly walk into pain?
My friends and I stood on West 45th, waiting for our Ubers at the end of that night, our voices wafting through the warm summer air.
There was something forced about our laughter, an odd choking that bordered on a sob none of us wanted to fully release.
We all sensed it.
We were on the cusp of a moment in which everything would change again.
The overwhelming feeling that life had been stripped out of my control wasn’t just limited to me. It’d affected all of us.
Jon hugged me - drunk, half-crying, half-laughing - and murmured, “I still don’t understand why the fuck you’re doing this.”
I didn’t answer him then, but I will answer him now.
It’s because I know what I didn’t know before.
I must be willing to face and confront disappointment and pain if I want beauty and joy to come into my life.
We cannot have one without the other.
I can no longer shut down that part of me from fear of pain or heartache if I want to find what it is I’m truly looking for.
Despite the world spinning off its axis and the universe slamming every possible change into my life at once this summer - despite my inability to control what is happening - I still have a choice.
And the choice I’m making is not about New York or Hawaii, friends or family, running or staying.
It is about who I want to be.
I don’t want to be a coward. I don’t want fear to rule my life.
I want to be a person who can face her monsters regardless of the results, of whether I win or lose, of how bloody and difficult the process may be.
I want to trust that I can move through it, no matter how hard it is.
I want to live by embracing the full breadth of who I am.
I don’t have answers for what is happening (God, I wish I did ). I don’t think the choices we make are ever truly right or wrong in our lives.
There are only different paths we choose to walk down.
What I can say is that everything precious and worthy never comes easily.
If it did, we wouldn’t value it as much as we do.
Love - at once infinitely complex, indefinable, and extraordinary - is what we fight for.
Living (loving) is a continual process of understanding and accepting what has happened while moving forward into the unknown of what is to come.
We cannot skip steps.
Yes, I am scared. Terrified, to be honest.
I am stepping through a door I had walked away from with no idea of what may await.
But I also leave New York with something I didn’t have when I first arrived.
Something that has become my anchor in the midst of all this destabilizing uncertainty (thank you, Gabriel, for this beautiful concept).
Kizuna (絆) - the beautiful, untranslatable word that has flowed through every part of my life - is not bound to a place or a plan or a job or in someone else.
It is in me.
It is in all of us.
It is in the connection that remains.
In a few hours, I’ll depart for the airport to begin the long journey home.
For now, I bid my beloved city - and a part of myself and who I was - goodbye.
Not with regret or sadness, but with gratitude…and a bittersweet ache from the understanding that what is to come must be accompanied by the pain of letting go.
Foolishness. Grief. Love.
And hope. Always hope.
Life is calling.
Whatever the future may hold, it’s time for me to say farewell so I can say hello.
-G
Limited spots available for the “Kizuna Writing: Mastering Emotional Resonance” program.
Grace, I read this yesterday as soon as you posted it and it had such an impact. i have been struggling with what to say because this was powerful. all i can say is this: i wish you good, i wish you well. ❤️❤️
I struggle to find the words after reading this. Your bravery throughout all of this is outstanding, Grace. And whatever the outcome, you will know you faced it and tried. A testament to your drive to live, grow, be, and become everything you're and you'll be.