At twenty three, I moved back into my parent’s house on the corner of Western and Nebraska with a greater appreciation of the hard work and sacrifices my parents made just to feed and clothe me (and a greater appreciation of home cooked Vietnamese food). Not sure how long I was going to stay, I started working for a temp agency. My first assignment was as a receptionist at a heart valve manufacturing company in the suburbs where I shuffled mail in slots and shamelessly surfed the Internet. My favorite job was as an operator at an agricultural bank where I wasn’t required to have physical contact with anyone and they actually gave me an electric typewriter to type my poems on. I even boned up on my Art History between calls and paged through the large art books I checked out from the local public library. But the saddest thing about that time, besides the excruciating winter, is that I realized that I could make more money picking up a phone and alphabetizing mail than I could as a high school English teacher.

When I moved back to the Bay Area eight months later, I got my first full-time, salaried job with benefits as a receptionist at an architecture firm in San Francisco. My family was finally relieved, at least for a little while. I was amazed at my ability to wake up at 6:30 a.m. to get to work by 8 a.m.—this from someone who never took a class that started before 10 a.m. Even though I tolerated slaving mindlessly away as a receptionist all day, I still tried to conceptualize artist books and write poetry on the side.

A year later I went on to an even more demanding job as an Executive Assistant/Office Manager for a commercial real estate firm in Oakland that offered me more money. But little by little the day-to-day grind and greed of the dot-com boom began to wear on me. I found myself feeling more and more like a completely different person at work. I was tired of having to be tough and invulnerable and I felt isolated. I even started drinking and grinding my teeth from the stress. I realized that even though I had a little more financial freedom and was eating at fancier restaurants, I was starving for the emotional freedom to write. I was suffocating. After insistent encouragement from my best friend, I started researching graduate programs in Creative Writing and eventually found myself back at Mills College as an employee and later as an MFA student.

When I began my MFA program part-time, I went in knowing that what I was really doing was buying time. I knew that a master’s degree in no way guaranteed me a job or any sure success, notoriety or financial security. That was one of the main reasons I went to work for Mills—so that I could get one free class a semester and try to save myself a little money and give myself more time to write. Although I later ended up getting laid off, going to school full-time, having to take out loans and work three part-time jobs, I still felt a greater sense of freedom than when I was working only one full-time job. I didn’t feel as much pressure to walk the oh-so-tenuous line of being a “good” employee or fear getting fired as much since, if I lost one of my three jobs, it wasn’t as detrimental as losing the one job that provided me with everything. It’s not that I am a bad worker or not a hard worker; it’s just that I always end up getting bored and start writing poetry on the job instead.

Even though I’m still not entirely sure that going to an MFA program was the only way for me to become a better writer, I will say that I definitely appreciate some of the things it did provide me. I was able, for the first time in my life, to find a community of people (not just one person)—of poets and writers that I felt akin to who shared my quirkiness and obsession for writing. I learned that being in an MFA program is a privilege in itself, and that many of my classmates were willingly ignorant of their privilege. I became even more aware that there really aren’t that many people of color in MFA programs, let alone Vietnamese women, and that my diaspora is a young one without much representation. I came to value the fact that, as a Vietnamese woman, I even had a choice to become a writer, unlike my mother who was forced to marry my father at 19 and had seven children by the time she was 30, and that I am, for the most part, free to express my feelings and opinions without the censorship of a communist regime.

It has been a little over a year now since I graduated from my MFA program, and unfortunately the challenges I faced before going into it are almost the same as what I am facing now: the pressure from my family to have a stable, well-paying job (even more so now that I have a higher educational degree), the pressure to pay off my student loans and credit cards, despite the fact that I would rather be spending my time attending artist residencies or traveling on a Fulbright, the ever so daunting reality and demands of being a “professional” writer—the strain of essentially juggling two jobs—the one I do for money and the one I can’t help doing for love; having to constantly submit work to journals and presses to rack up publications on my resume, all the researching for grants and awards, trying to apply to residencies, teaching positions, literary art venues, going to readings, performing at readings, keeping up on other writers, not to mention the time and energy it takes to actually write and get a book published.

The choice to become a writer or artist was not a one time occurrence. There have been a series of choices and confrontations, such as whether to ever get married, have children or even a steady boyfriend. I have faced pivotal turning points and uncertain paths that somehow veered and met again. There have been small recognitions won and large sacrifices made. Like living in a studio for eight years and feeling guilty every time I buy a new pair of shoes. It takes a lot of strength to face the expectations of the ones I love and choose to disappoint them; to risk the shame of exposing them, and the fear of exposing myself to the world.

Still, no matter how painful and lonely my life as an artist sometimes seems, I wake up every morning and am grateful for this love. This love of language, of beauty, of friendship, and of family whom I miss and honor with all of my heart. Grateful for my life, grateful for this gift and grateful for the freedom to write.

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