This is what I do instead of praying after a tiring and difficult day.

This past week, most days felt impossible. Saying goodbye to my externship clinic left me in tears; I wasn’t ready to move on. Then came a group project that needed constant fixing, most of which I quietly ended up handling. On top of that, I’d double-booked myself: the flight ticket I’d already bought was set to depart on the exact hang-out date my friend group spent months planning.

I’m one of those people who needs to control her own life. When things don’t follow the plan I laid out, or start falling out of place, the urge to correct them kicks in fast. Letting go doesn’t come easy, and I feel disappointed when I don’t get what I wanted. People who move through the world without a care, who shrug and flow with whatever life throws at them: I desperately envy that.

Then I’d blame it on God. I’d be like, God, I don’t know what lessons you’re trying to teach me, because I’m not smart enough to see them. But I don’t like what you’re doing. Maybe it’s not even your doing, but the fact that you’re not shielding me from these bad things that keep happening feels like proof that you are NOT THERE FOR ME.

Turns out I’m not the only one who does this. People usually blame it on something out of their control so they don’t have to bear the burden of responsibility and guilt for the shit that happened to them. That shit happened TO them, not because of them.

Healthcare people blame it on the full moon. It’s only on nights of the full moon that a respiratory distress, a hit-by-car, and a seizure case show up all at once, like they’re all buddies walking into a bar.

Vietnamese people blame it on a particular month called tháng cô hồn—ghost month—which falls on the seventh month of the lunar calendar, roughly August-September on our regular calendar (which is right-freakin-now). Traditional folklore says spirits of people who didn’t get a proper burial, or who died a horrible death, roam the earth during this month. People offer food on their altars to appease the wandering souls and ask them not to cause trouble. Some Vietnamese also believe the month itself carries bad luck because of all those restless spirits around. So anything bad that happens, blame it on the month. (Didn’t expect to get culturally educated on a veterinary-centric Substack, did you? Never let them know your next move.)

But blaming God assumes I know which God I’m even blaming. The thing is, I don’t even have one particular one.

I don’t like it when people ask if I’m Christian, just because a lot of my friends are. Or if I’m Buddhist, just because my family is.

I don’t like it because I don’t want to be conformed into a label, when in fact I don’t know the answer myself. I don’t have a clear answer for you, because being in any religion has very different meanings, connotations, and deeply hidden emotional baggage to everyone. I also don’t want to give off the wrong impression. Maybe that’s the people-pleasing trait I’m still trying to fix, but I digress.

You might offer me the label of agnostic. Or pantheist. Or ietsist. Or some word I’ve never heard before. But I’m telling you I want to believe in all of the above. I believe there is a cool wise guy named Jesus who loves the world and would do anything for it, while also believing there is a female goddess named Quan Thế Âm Bồ Tát who protects me when I’m in trouble. I believe in reincarnation, but still worship my ancestors’ altar and pray for their protection as if they’re still up there watching over me. I believe in all these things even when they contradict, but so what? I don’t think humans are wise enough yet to break down the presence of the universe’s divineness into simple terms. They might seem contradicting to us, but in a world outside of our humbling comprehension, contradictions may coexist in their own strange and harmonious ways.

Maybe that’s why it’s easy for me to accept and welcome other people’s religious ideals, and not just out of curiosity. Because if that is the truth to you, who am I to deny that? Who am I to deny your experiences and your existence?

Perhaps these religious figures exist to help us navigate the hardships of life. Perhaps that’s too anthropocentric a way to explain something this divine, wrapping its existence around our existence. Yet no matter how much I cry into my pillow at night, or how many curse words I throw at the sky, life still rolls around, and I still wake up the next morning with sunshine above my eyes. I want to believe that it’s because the Universe and its Gods haven’t given up on me yet. And perhaps that’s reassuring enough to keep going.

You gave me a kiss while I hugged you, wishing the minute could last a little longer.

I drove away, honking at your friend’s car twice. Our way of saying goodbye, or hello. That was the last sound left of the evening.

A few hours earlier the drive had been full of life. Now fragments of it lingered. Your childlike giggle over a rice dog fresh from the store, cheese pulled out with your teeth, your eyes glinting bright while you looked at me. Now just a memory.

How fast time goes.

***

9:32pm.

I finished the dishes, fed the cats, cleaned the litter box. Chores I’d usually complain about after a long day of work, while you helped me pick them up. Tonight I did them all by myself, without a single word.

This whole week I’ve been living with you for the first time, with both of us in the house every night. It’s the first time I’ve spent every single evening with you.

For most of those nights, I was exhausted. I was impatient. I was overstimulated. I would get mad at you over things that didn’t go my way, even when you were trying to help, like doing the dishes but not unloading them the way I wanted. I felt overwhelmed, bit by bit, by those nit-picky things stacking up.

We had a lot of those hard moments, but also a lot of fun ones. Like belting Put Your Records On and Unwritten in the shower at 10pm. Or laughing our asses off in bed after someone said something stupid. There was good woven in with the bad, but I only saw the bad. While you were grounded enough to see both.

Now you just left for a rotation in a different city. Away for two weeks.

The second you were gone, the entire world went quiet. I was uncomfortable with the silence. I felt alone, for the first time in a while.

But I have all this time to myself now! Time to do things I haven’t done while you were around. Like playing Hogwarts Legacy almost every night! Like watching movies and shows you don’t like! All the reasons I should be glad about this. Instead I just feel sad. I feel like a piece of myself is missing.

Now moments feel unlived without you. Like eating a really, really good meal with no one to share it with. Like watching Mun do a flip in the air for her toy, but you aren't here to witness it too. Like cuddling with Luna, her little legs sprawling freely across your side of the bed.

***

10:09pm.

I’m writing this with a soft love songs playlist on. It hasn’t even been a full day yet and I’m already missing you. Have I been too deep in work, too busy, to actually notice you were there? I’m just finally getting used to living with you, and you’re gone again.

I know what you would say. You’d say something along the lines of “Two weeks will fly by just like that, and we’ll see each other again!” or “It’s okay baby, I’ll be home before you know it.” I need that optimism in my life. You are the sunshine I need to balance my blue hues.

Please be home soon. I’ll be anxiously waiting.

Much love,

S <3

since when has writing become a chore? writing used to be my escape. it used to be a nook where i could run to, hide from my daily responsibilities, put aside my studying, and where i could truly be free. free to be creative.

yet now, the more i write, the more i fix my writing, the less my writing sounds like…me. paragraphs don’t flow anymore. sentences don’t form into a concrete thought anymore. words are spread apart like puzzle pieces, from someone carrying 3 boxes of them then trips and pieces skid everywhere.

i’ve been dying to finish my book - The Book Eaters - for the past 30 minutes. yet i’m trying to hit my milestone of writing an article per week. since when has writing become a thing to check off on my list? another thing put on my plate? another task i gotta finish before telling myself that i can finally sleep?

writing without soul irks me so much. this book i’m reading, i love the creative world building, but all characters talk the same way. maybe all of them are supposed to be british, but repeating the same phrasing? it gets boring fast. it feels lazy, and characters get monotone (this is not an official book review but i’d give this book a solid 7.8; haven’t finished it yet though).

i don’t want my writing to be so. i don’t want to read it and be like “what the heck did i write just now?”. but i also don’t want to judge my writing so much that it creates pressure that drives me away from a hobby i’m just starting to love. i don’t want to depend on whether my audience will appreciate my writing. that can’t be my sole reason to write. it’s a cage that i’m putting myself into.

in the next few months, there will be a big fish on my plate called the NAVLE1, which i already have an intense schedule to study for. i don’t want writing to be another fish on the plate. i can’t take all of them, along with working 8+ hours a day. i’d rather let writing be the occasional dessert, the tiramisu of my meals, that i can eat whenever i want to. tastes much better when there’s the freedom to choose.

anyway, i have no more words so i’m putting my pen down (and shutting my laptop). i’m gonna let myself finish this book now. goodnight substack!

love,

sue

I was writing a list of things I’m good at and things I still suck at in vet med. Just a rare moment of self-review to self-improve (I was feeling a little too ambitious).

The list looks like this. Feel free to move on to the next section if you’d like. I’m about to get real personal and it might be boring.

Things I know I am good at:

• Surgery: Anything involving my hands comes naturally. At least when I’m not too nervous thinking about the consequences of a bursted pedicle (ANXIETY ATTACK!)

• Diagnostic Imaging: About 70% confident and 30% humbled. Totaled up to be 100% a love-hate relationship.

• Big picture/Systemic thinking: Systemic Pathology was THE HARDEST course in third year. I thought I would crumble under the mountain of information there was to know. But I didn’t, and ended up in the 80s! After all, the course was less about details and more about general concepts, which is how my brain works.

• Emergency treatments: Working at an emergency clinic taught me how to stabilize (the patient and myself) in chaos, and I’m grateful for that.

• Communication (AVM for OVC alumni): I found the course useful, especially the scenarios provided. I did well, except for euthanasia conversations.

Things I need improvements:

• Dermatology: The amount of vocabulary I learned in one year was immense. It was another language entirely! Slowly getting better.

• Orthopedics: You need to fix different fractures of different conformations with different stabilization, different bandaging, and different surgical procedures—you get the point. Not to mention the species difference. Very interesting, but I still need more time and practice.

• Ophthalmology: There are just too many layers and too many diseases per layer! And I really want to get better at diagnosing eye stuff, since it’s a large part of GP. Bottom line: I’m still a noob and eyes are dope.

• Memorization: Not my strongest suit. Unlike my boyfriend, who can recall a line from slide 74 of lecture 6 from swine medicine like remembering what he ate for dinner last night.

• Multiple choice reasoning: MCQs send me spiraling into thousands of possibilities, while with short answer I just spill words like Eminem rapping. I’m probably so f**ked for the NAVLE.

• Keeping my composure: Still working on that customer-service poker face. A client once said something unexpected during history taking and I went full *pikachu face* in real time. Luckily the veterinarian was there to drive the conversation.

That’s it, for now. I sat with it for a while, fully absorbing the pride. Then came the embarrassment and disappointment. Which certainly didn’t feel good.

So I started scrolling on Instagram instead (what a way to deal with your emotions!) I saw a post about Sabrina Carpenter’s tour, and my mind immediately went: “Why do all her songs have to be about guys and love? Didn’t she learn after the whole Barry Keoghan situation?” That’s when I finally realized one thing.

I am a hypocrite.

I judged Sabrina Carpenter for very publicly getting into and immediately moving on from a relationship, as if I've never ignored a red flag the size of a barn1. I judged my walk-in doctor for diagnosing me with stomach ulcers instead of ordering a fecal sample when I had cryptosporidium2, yet I’ve forgotten to take a heart rate while examining a patient. I judged my boyfriend for not watering his plants, yet I’ve owned two plants in my entire life. Both dead.

I’m a hypocrite with a huge ego. And now I’m judging myself for it!

It is extremely easy to see what other people are doing wrong. It is much harder to sit with a list of your own shortcomings for ten minutes and not wanting to throw the laptop out of the window.

I already know how humiliating it is to admit I’m bad at something. I wouldn’t want anyone judging me for it. So being good at something else doesn’t give me the right to judge someone else for being bad at that.

Here’s an example. Look at Jesus. Arguably the one person with the most right to judge every single one of us, and he’s just there being a chill guy, forgiving everyone, even when they’re spending every possible effort trying to murder him. Meanwhile I’m over here, struggling and imperfect, but somehow still finding the audacity to judge Sabrina Carpenter, who’s a stranger on the Internet that only bits and pieces of her life are available for me to examine.

Anyway, this exercise reminds me that I’m only human. There’s nothing I’m 100% perfect at, and that’s okay. Sure, I can be frustrated at the walk-in doctor overlooking my history; but in the end, they’re also humans, trying to treat humans. I can’t blame them for trying their best with what they have in that moment. That’s the mentality I want to carry for myself, for any vet colleagues, any healthcare professionals, literally anyone I’ll be tempted to judge.

I’m not going to pretend I can throw grace around freely like Oprah with the cars. I’m not at that level yet. But I need to be conscious of when my thoughts enter the judge’s bench. I can’t just let my hypercritical mind run without realizing I might have just made someone’s day worse—or my own, for spending the energy judging someone and mulling it over and over in my head.

So I’m putting this here to remind myself that Sue, you already said it: YOU SHALL NOT JUDGE. You know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of that. Next time you get on your high horse, let this whoop yo ass.

If you’re reading this and have felt judged by me recently, please be patient and vulnerable enough to shove this article in my face. I’m notoriously forgetful. I will forever keep you in my mind (not in a creepy way) for it.

Now…sit down, be humble.

Mom would always peel the mangoes and cut the flesh into finger-sized pieces. But instead of munching on those juicy mango slices, she loved to nibble on the mango seed. I always wondered why, even though it’s the least meaty part of the mango. It’s sometimes even stringy and fibrous.

Now, think of the story of Bambi, the famous Disney white-tailed deer.

My Mom is a bit similar to Bambi’s mother. While being chased by hunters, Mother tells Bambi to run, run, and not look back. “Faster, Bambi! Don’t look back!” she says. It was heartbreaking to see Bambi’s happy face when he arrived home, unaware of the danger and the tragic outcome of what Mother had told him to do.

Although much less dreadful, just like Bambi, I was unaware of Mom’s preference for mango seeds. One day, when I was older, I came across a comic strip on social media. In it, a mother peeled and cut a mango, then picked only the seed to eat. Her children, puzzled, questioned why she would choose the worst part of the mango. She looked at them, beaming with love, and gently said, “It’s my favourite part.”

My Mom has sacrificed a lot for our family. There’s a chair in our dining room that’s too high compared to the table, so one has to crouch to eat while sitting on it. She would always choose that chair, the worst chair in the dining room, and wave away our offers to switch. “Oh, don’t be silly, I like sitting on this chair,” she would say. Those are just a few of the countless things she did for us, from small to big, such as leaving her comfortable life in Vietnam to travel halfway across the world and settle in Canada so we could have a better future.

So always remind yourself: people who truly love you will do their best to sacrifice their convenience for you, even in the smallest ways. They would never want you to feel bad or suffer.

I realized that making others feel loved can be so easy yet subtle. Saying, “I’ve eaten enough, you take the last piece,” choosing the uncomfortable chair, giving them my favourite sweater to wear, or eating the worse piece of food.

From then on, I never questioned Mom for making those choices.

I started to sit on the bad chair as well.

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The moment you read those words, it immediately clicks—
you know what that smells like.
And yet, not all of us remember it the same.

Everyone, at some point in their life,
has experienced this in their own kitchen,
or their grandma’s, or their mom’s kitchen,
paired with the encouragement: “eat as much as you can”,
to grow up strong, to become someone important,
to travel far away from home.

Just so one day you crave
those cookies, baked with adoration,
that take you back to the time when you felt at peace,
surrounded by people who care.

It is a symbol of love. Of home.

Clean laundry, still warm from being dried.

The moment you read those words, it immediately clicks—
you know what that smells like.
And yet, not all of us remember it the same.

Everyone washes and dries their clothes differently.
Some hand-washed, by their mom’s callused hands,
gently hung on lines, baked by the power of the sun.
Some machine washed and machine dried.
Some entangled with their cat’s fur,
still lingering in the dryer,
left untouched since she passed away.

It is a symbol of love. Of home.

The ground after the first rain.

The moment you read those words, it immediately clicks—
you know what that smells like.
And yet, not all of us remember it the same.

It rains everywhere in the world,
on windowsills,
on cemented roads,
on open soil.

In Viet Nam, it rains almost every day during the wet season,
around May to October.
Sometimes, it rises,
flooding houses, roads, and schools,
parents driving children home on motorbikes
with water up to their shins,
motorbikes shielded by cars
through windy, stormy bridges,
country-wide donations of books and supplies
pour into Central Viet Nam, where flood hits the hardest.

It is a symbol of love. Of home.

But your smell,
not as sweet as chocolate chip cookies,
not as crisp as sun-warmed laundry,
not as deep as rain-soaked earth,

and yet,
warmer, gentler, closer.

you smell like love,
like home.

-may 7th, 2026. for my love-