The weight of showing up for people.

February 2025

Happy end of February! I used to write creative non-fiction in college, and this month revisited that self with some of the themes I repeatedly thought about. Read more about my goal to document my monthly thoughts here. Enjoy!

"I'm constantly trying to remember, like

Okay, you have to chase your goals

But you gotta check in with your mom

And you gotta make sure your sisters are okay

You gotta make sure your bills are paid

But you gotta make sure you have fun and time for you

Time for your friends, " and like

I just constantly feel like I'm neglecting parts of my life”

— Doechii (the swamp princess), Bloom

The weight of showing up for people.

I woke up on Wednesday to a searing eye pain. My bookcase, once lined with the titles of 20th-century music history books, Yuval Noah Harari, and business books I’ve been gifted but never read—all disappear into reds, whites, and yellows. I walk down the hall and step into my bathroom, reaching for familiar markers to use for a makeshift eye exam. The label of my Trader Joe’s grapefruit-scented soap, the bold red and blue diamonds of my disinfectant wipes—gone and replaced by a wash of warm, stinging tears.

Still, I put on my pastel blue rain boots and catch the Muni N to work.

In the office, I reach for an effortless smile to greet our Denmark guests, who have flown in for a “war room” session to tackle our next deadline. I ask how their flight was, how they’re feeling in the city, if they’re excited for the dinner I put together that night. I then join my text editor, enlarging each line of code into existence. But the tears keep piling on my cheek. Reluctantly, I put myself in a phone booth and book an emergency eye appointment. Eyes medicated, I rush through the streets in the rain and back to the war room.

Thursday arrives with roaring rain and howling wind. My umbrella is a 'v' more times than an 'n'. My eyes feel better, but I still see the world in bokeh rather than sharpness. I show up to work. I show up to the date I had planned afterward. Funnily, there’s a moment when we step out of the bar, and he points in front of us. I follow his hand, confused—he is watching the raindrops fall where I only see air.

Another sleep doesn’t bring me new eyes, but something new. A pressing awareness. An echoing reminder about the work I didn’t finish. A knotting fear that I wasn’t as present in conversation as I would have wanted to be the night before. I put on my boots and walk to the Muni N.

Today is Valentine’s Day—the day of my dating coach sister’s singles event. She has mentioned to me how she feels more confident knowing that I’m in the room with her. After work, I hop off the J, looking for the event house. I laugh to myself. I can’t see any of the house numbers from the sidewalk. There’s me, creeping up to each doorstep to make out the house numbers. Luckily, I am saved by the beckoning light coming from my destination. I greet my sister with a big hug and shake hands with the guests. I ask them how they heard about my sister. I feel so, so happy as she shines in her well-rehearsed speech that we had gone over nights before. I take candid pictures of the guests to help her build her social media.

After the cleanup and debrief, I go home and start writing cards for each of the guests in my second friend retreat—a two-day trip where I get a group of friends that didn’t previously know each other to stay in a cabin, experience nature, and do introspective writing exercises. I pack groceries and painting supplies, and early the next morning, the five of us drive to a cabin in Guerneville, near Sonoma. In the car ride up, on our paired hike, during downtime in the cabin, I shelve thoughts, memories, worries from the days before and focus on the four people, their energy levels, and their stories.

By Monday, the retreat ended, and for moments on the drive back, I let myself hide and indulge in thought. Once home, I unpack my belongings and await my mom’s arrival. She was driving up to San Francisco for my dad’s conference and planned to meet me at my apartment.

We sit together at my kitchen table, and I hand her a steaming cup of grape oolong tea. She pulls out a red braided rope from her pocket and starts telling me the meaning behind her gift to protect me during my zodiac year. Her hands shake a little as she lifts them, and I notice how the veins in her skin look more prominent than before. A quiet fear grows in my chest, but I focus on her words. I ask her when she got the gift, why she got it, how she thought about the meaning. I thank her for being so thoughtful and put the rope on my keys so I see it every day. I take her around Golden Gate Park to enjoy the best part of San Francisco.

The following evening, after I say my goodbyes to my mom, I wrap myself in blankets, forming a gentle hug. I let myself feel the fear in my chest and the weight of pushing myself to show up for all the people in my life. I notice how I feel alone—to be with so many people I love, yet to not be with myself.

I give myself grace for all the moments I wasn’t as present as I wanted to be and continue to grapple with the weight of it all.

—recess—

You may be reading this and wanting to tell me that I could’ve taken a sick day, canceled my date, told my sister that I couldn’t make it, mentally checked out at the cabin. And, I’m lucky to say that all of these people would’ve been kind and forgiving. But these decisions felt right to me in the moment.

They felt right because I deeply appreciate the people that take their roles in my life seriously, especially those who do consistently, over time. I am my mom’s closest confidant and one of the people she prioritizes most in her life. That’s really special. There’s nothing more valuable in this world to me than someone consistently giving me so much of their time, energy, sacrifice, and attention over decades. She may not be perfect and sometimes says things that feel more hurtful than helpful, but she always chooses to be with me. To have a life full of these relationships is truly winning. To fully appreciate them is to learn the effort, care, and craft that goes into building one.

There are so many things I can choose to dedicate my time to. Building my career, experiencing places with friends, developing taste in arts, music, fashion, focusing on fitness. But of all the things I can do (after prioritizing my health first), I yearn most to be a great daughter, sister, friend, partner. And to me, that means choosing to be with the most important people in my life, day after day, and year after year.

With all the entertainment, services, and material goods that we all have access to in this world, I think the act of being with and appreciating another human is what makes us most valuable. AI might be able to be my therapist, act as a friend, maybe even a lover—all on demand. But AI will never have to make the choice to be with me, to choose to sit next to me on the couch over everything else the world has to offer, and to look at me and appreciate the choice I made to be right there, with them, and nowhere else.

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading my February inner monologue. If you have questions, opinions, experiences about any of these topics, I would love more than to discuss! That’s why I write after all :) You can find me @jjanezhang on X.

A special shoutout to Amy for being my retreat co-host, to Judy for helping me through my eye struggles especially while I was traveling, and to my mom for being everything she is to me :)

Other topics I thought about this month that I didn’t write about:

• Are we missing a place for ethics education?

• The value of being seen by humans versus AI. If Steph Curry tells me I shot a great 3-pointer, that will always hold more weight than an LLM praising a video of me. What about an ophthalmologist who has seen thousands of eyes versus a model that’s seen millions?

• How do you make content creation easier for users while also increasing the chances that others will engage with their content?

• I am thankful to see life in its entirety

Read the original motivation for my this writing project here:

Sharing My Internal Monologue