KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

B and V are my childhood besties. The kind of friends who you grew up with and even though you live in different parts of the country or world at times, when you come together it’s like you’ve never been apart? These two are my long distance, close friends.

Well, both of them are living their best COVID-19 impacted lives. While I was buying my first home and am now settling down during COVID-times, both B and V had fled their homes and haven’t been back since March.

B went on a holiday to Tasmania and when the first wave of Melbourne lockdowns began, decided it was safest to stay in Tassie for the sake of her elderly parents. So while the majority of my Melbourne friends have suffered through a second, long lockdown period, B has spent endless days hiking, biking and adventuring in nature, and eating amazing looking food. Lucky me gets to stalk her private Google Photos feed - she’s one of those peeps who doesn’t mobile phone let alone social media.

V has had nature adventures of a different kind. She’s been living on a boat the past 6 months. It sounds like a dream but she’s working remotely so spends her days ignoring the gorgeous sites outside, tapping away on her laptop in a tiny corner of an already small table on a boat. Still, I imagine finishing work and stepping outside to a sea breeze ain’t all that bad.

I caught up with V in Brisbane as soon as the QLD-NSW borders opened. It was fun to hear about her COVID-19 life, and what’s waiting for her back home. Mainly, a car with a flat battery and perhaps some neighbours who may think she’s dead because she didn’t tell anyone she was going and wasn’t expecting to be away for at least the rest of this year.

2020 has been a write-off in many ways, but it’s awesome to hear the silver lining people have found. If you have any positive outcomes from this wreck of a year, please do share - I’d love to hear it. Email blog@thephamly.com.au

I didn’t enjoy work from home life in a previous role. I got so lonely I started chatting to the spider that lived on my desk, and the two crows that came to perch on the fence. I was also single and didn’t have motivation to take breaks in the evenings, get out of my pyjamas or even shower for that matter. I became quite ill and depressed after six months, and resigned a few months after that.

I am thoroughly enjoying work from home life this time around. After nearly 5 years of long daily commutes, I’m enjoying not wasting hours of my life crawling through traffic. I’ve taken some lessons from my last experience working from home.

This time I make sure I get dressed every day like I would normally for work. In three months, there was one day where I was in gym gear because I did a workout and before I could shower and dress, work exploded in my face. And a second day where I did a morning of meetings in my PJs because I’d slept in, and didn’t get dressed until lunch time.

The gym gear day

Pretty much every older Asian lady in my life wears a jade bracelet, and I’ve come to the realisation that I am now that older Asian lady to my nieces. I broke the cheap jade bracelet Mum Pham gave me a couple of years ago, and I was reluctant to wear the high quality bracelet I inherited from Mum because, well, I broke my last one. Mum’s one is dense and has flecks of black and a swirl of brown on a dominantly green and white band. It’s definitely in a different league to the one I used to wear when it comes to quality.

Towards the end of her time, Mum Pham had become weak and lost blood flow. She stopped wearing her jade bracelet because it was too heavy and cold. She started to carry it around in her money pouch. You know the money pouches that you’re encouraged to use overseas so pickpockets can’t get at your goods while you’re vulnerable in a foreign land? Mum wore that all the time and it was stashed with cash, jewellery, . I’m trying to picture when I first noticed and I think she started wearing it after we got robbed in Australia, and she lost family heirlooms and other valuables.

Anyhoo, back to the bracelet that spent a year or so following Mum around in her money pouch. After she passed away, it spent over 5 years in Mum’s make up / jewellery box that I’d inherited. I recently decided it’s silly not to wear Mum’s bracelet out of fear of breaking it. I’m sure Mum would rather I wear it so I remember her whenever I glimpse it or clang it on something, or whenever I fall asleep on it funny and my wrist aches the next morning, or whenever I hug Boyfriend Pham too tight and it jabs him, and I’m reminded he’s never met Mum but if he did she probably would jab him and tell him to eat more of whatever delicious feast she’s served up. It now lives on my right wrist just like it used to live on Mum’s. This photo is from 2004 on Big Brother Pham's birthday - seafood stir fry noodles with a side of chicken soup.

The world is a weird place right now. Every now and then when I start to feel overwhelmed, I remind myself that my parents had their lives torn apart by war. Their worlds were turned upside down, they lost their homes, their family, friends and everything they’d ever known.

A pandemic where we’re asked to stay in the comfort of our home, and only venture out to buy groceries from supermarkets that would be fully stocked if people hadn’t panic bought supplies? If this is the worst event I’ve been through in my life then I am lucky.

I’ve learned two main things from the pandemic so far.

One: I didn’t need to stock up on any high-demand items because, as it turns out, I’ve been panic buying my whole life - I just didn’t know the official term for it so I called it ‘hoarding.’ You see, Mum Pham taught us to bulk buy items on sale to save money in the long-term. Buying full price is for chumps! I have at least 1-2 extra cans, bottles, packets, bags of… well, everything. When items started disappearing from shelves I still had at least a month’s supply of most things. Thanks Mum Pham.

Two: Humanity can work together to manage global issues. Sure, it has been hit and miss as governments and health experts figure out how best to respond to a super-infectious, fast-spreading virus. But entire countries are putting the economy and society on pause to save as many people’s lives as we can. Imagine what we can do when we work together to tackle other global issues like ocean plastic, air pollution, and destructive energy? That, of course, would require politicians to listen to other scientists the way they’ve listened to medical experts. While I don’t hold much hope that current governing powers will backflip on climate change, I have hope the future generations are seeing what we can do together, and when they’re in power they’ll make the tough decisions our current leaders aren’t making.

It’s hard to be the first person to say ‘I love you,’ which is why I recommend you tell people ‘you love me’ instead. It makes things way easier so long as you’re comfortable coming across like an arrogant jerk.

It works well in situations with your partner. Whenever I do anything annoying to Boyfriend Pham like squeezing his arm non-stop and aggressively because it’s a habit from my childhood to adulthood with Mum Pham’s arms, and he looks exasperated and is about to tell me to stop. I remind him ‘You love me!’ To which he sighs and says in defeated tones, ‘I know.’

I’m not the only arm-obsessive, Little Sissy Pham has the same arm squishing habit I do. You guys don’t understand, Mum Pham’s arms were the best to squeeze affectionately and sometimes aggressively. So satisfying!

‘You love me’ also works well with siblings. I’m constantly reminding Little Sissy Pham that she loves me just in case she forgets, especially while I’m doing my big sister duties and birth right to poke fun at her every chance that I get. Like that time I teased her lisp relentlessly until she learned how to pronounce ‘crocodile’ and ‘smile’ properly. Or that time pigeon-toed me made fun of her funny, out-turned waddle walk until she trained herself to walk with her feet pointed straight ahead. Ah, she loves me.

Back in the day at an old workplace, I got myself a posse of interns and found a rare gem I wanted to hire. So I did. She was young, jumped into the workforce straight out of high school, and hadn’t bothered with a degree. I admired her go-getter attitude.

She was looking for regular, paid work that would complement her true passion to become a full-time DJ when she applied for an internship in the fashion company I was in, which led to a full-time, permanent role. At the time I described to management my reason for wanting to hire her was a spark that I saw in her. A spark I identified with because I had that same hunger to succeed despite little to no experience when I was her age.

Now I have nearly two decades of workplace experience, I recognise that spark is the difference between someone who has cares about what they commit to doing, and someone who is looking for their next suitable position description to adhere to.

We’ve stayed in touch over the years, and it’s been a blessing to watch her grow into the successful person she is today. She credited me for giving her a break into a professional field, proper training and the foundation for a better life. While I did give her a chance at the beginning of her, I can’t take credit for the strong, independent woman she is now.

I’ve watched her DJ adventures in club circuits, at festivals, overseas in exotic party places like the Maldives. Makes me want to get in touch with people who gave me a go over the course of my career - catch them up on some of the highlights they helped make happen either directly or indirectly. How about you? Have you had any people in your life you want to credit with boosting your career or improving your personal life? Consider reaching out and sharing the love or paying forward their kindness by helping a young up and comer get a leg up.

I love you. I was talking to my girlfriends about this heavily weighted sentence. Some of them are in long-term relationships, others are in new relationships or dating.

The first time Boyfriend Pham told me he loved me was in the car as I was dropping him off at home on his last day in our office. We were both upset and spent the car ride talking about our next chapter and what we should do. The first thing I had to do, however, was to go back to work so when I pulled up outside his place, I anticipated him saying bye and hopping out. Instead he said those words. I was so surprised I thought I’d misheard him so my response was, ‘Huh?’ (I know, facepalm, Jade!) He repeated himself and I told him, ‘I love you, too.’

Many people agonise over the right time and place to say this to someone new in their life. Me? I hadn’t thought about it before this moment because I don’t know how to relationship, as BF likes to remind me when I do some oddball thing people apparently don’t do in relationships. Boyfriend Pham? He felt it so he said it, which is a very him thing to do.

Other people are not so matter-of-fact about it. One friend wasn’t sure how to bring it up and for months wondered if now was the right time to say something. And when that time came and went and they didn’t have the nerve to say it in person, they wrote a lovely letter instead.

Some people don’t struggle to say I love you, but don’t know when to keep their mouth shut. A Tinder date who, after being broken up with, came to visit my friend at her place of work. Red flag! She again had to tell him things were over, yet he proceeded to casually call out ‘Love you!’ to her back as she was walking away. Red flag! Had never said it to her before then, and for good reason: They’d only been on a handful of dates and barely knew one another.

When you don’t know someone well, maybe don’t tell them you love them because it’s probably infatuation and you haven’t seen them in a rough patch yet. When you know someone and you adore the way they conduct themselves in good and bad situations, then you’re probably in love. And if you’re in love, there isn’t a bad time to tell your beloved. The sooner, the better. Love is special. Don’t keep it to yourself. We need to share it more with the world.

When I first moved in with Boyfriend Pham he was persistent to the point of being annoying that I keep up with my weekly dinner with the girls. Why was he so desperate to get me out of the house? What was he doing without me? Eating family packs of potato chips? Watching porn? He is supportive of Girls Night because he knows and has dated girls who didn’t have a close-knit friendship with other women so their worlds revolved, a little unhealthily, around their boyfriends.

Girls Night in practicality is a night in at one of our humble abodes where we wear cute Peter Alexander PJs (not me - too lazy to pack PJs), drink wine (except me - too allergic to alcohol), and order-in dinner. Girls Night in actuality is a sanctuary. A place where we feel safe to talk about anything and everything going on in our lives. We support one another whether it’s through sympathising and sharing a similar experience so our friends don’t feel alone in what they’re going through, or giving some tough love and sharing advice we know they won’t want to hear but need to.

There is no such thing as oversharing at Girls Night. We talk about bodily functions, our relationships and dating, growing or failing friendships, our career development and changes at work, our living situations, pets, parents, and family. Whatever is on our minds, gets aired at Girls Night to a room of supportive, loving friends.

While I call mine Girls Night, yours can take any shape or form. It could be a social sport, or nights out on the town, or a book club. If it’s frequent enough to be called a regular thing, then you’ve got yourself a Girls/Boys/Friends Night. A time to look forward to, somewhere to socialise, have fun and share whatever’s going on in your life with people who matter and care.

Mum Pham was always a little fragile even in my early memories with her. Once upon a time, according to old photos she was young and - well, ‘fit’ might be an exaggeration. I suppose she was more ‘physically able’ because she was slimmer, but she preferred to walk and sit rather than run and jump. She kept her figure when Big Brother Pham was born but when I happened, she ballooned and couldn’t drop her pregnancy weight. Yup, I ruined Mum’s body with my pho cravings from inside her belly.

Dad Pham was always invincible from as early as I can remember. Dad has always been super fit because he was active as a kid - his favourite past time was swimming and playing at the beach, even when it meant a good beating when he got home because he’d skipped all his meals and curfew to stay in the water. Dad had a black belt in taekwondo, and could never sit still for long when we were growing up - he’d pace up and down the hallway while Mum and kids watched TV on the couch. And did I mention he was in the navy for most of his young to adult life?

On one of my Sunday visits with Dad this year, I noticed he was struggling to open a glass Moccona coffee jar. His fitness is finally fading in his mid-70s, though I think if Mum Pham was still around he’d be fighting fit because he needed to take care of her. Since the heartbreak of losing her, he’s aged dramatically. It’s like love kept him young in a very real way.

It’s jarring to see Dad Pham is now old and frail; it feels like it happened overnight. Luckily Little Sissy Pham and I are better equipped to aid him having learned from our experience with Mum’s ailing health. I replaced his glass coffee jar with one that has a plastic lid so it’s easy to open and close. It’s the little changes in what he’s capable of that remind me he’s not invincible anymore.