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| 28th Dec 2025 |
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from doing absolutely nothing for eight hours. It is a heavy, boneless feeling, where your limbs feel like jelly and your mind feels like a blank sheet of paper.
That is how I spent my birthday: Dissolving.
Most birthdays demand noise. They ask for cake, candles, and the forced laughter of a crowd. But this year, I gifted myself the opposite. I arrived at Suoi May Onsen before 10:00 AM, checking my shoes and my stress at the door. I had nothing to lose and everything to heal.
For the next eight hours, I was not a traveler, a daughter, or a tourist. I was just a body in water.
I drifted through fourteen different mineral baths, letting the heat soak into bones that had grown weary from climbing Da Lat’s hills. I sat in the steam room, inhaling the scent of crushed herbs, sweating out the cold mountain air. I ate lunch in silence, staring at the pine trees, feeling a luxury I rarely allow myself: the luxury of being completely alone.
By 4:00 PM, after massages, facials, and hair washes, I walked out feeling physically perfect. My skin was glowing. My muscles were loose. I was ready for a celebratory dinner.
But the universe had other plans.
The Divine Cancellation
The church lady I met yesterday—the one who offered me the warmth of a home-cooked meal—texted to reschedule. I missed the message. By the time I saw it, the timing was dead. We canceled.
A younger me would have felt rejected. Eating alone on my birthday?
But the me who turned a year older today just smiled. It felt like a divine nudge. Not tonight, the universe seemed to say. Tonight is not for small talk. Tonight is for the truth.
The Ambush in the Pew
I grabbed a quick dinner and walked to Thanh Tam Church for the 7:00 PM English Mass. I sat in the pew, physically light from the spa, ready to offer a polite prayer of thanks for my life.
But God didn't want my politeness. He wanted my tears.
The reading was about the Holy Family. Then, the choir began to sing. The lyrics weren't about birthdays or celebrations; they were about parents. They sang about sacrifice, about the weight of raising a child, about the silent, breaking labor of love.
The melody bypassed my brain and went straight to my throat.
I sat there, surrounded by strangers, and felt a sudden, crushing wave of guilt.
I have always wanted the best for my parents. I work hard. I try to be a "good daughter." But sitting in that church in Vietnam, thousands of miles from home, the truth whispered to me:
I don't know how to love them.
Not really. Not in the way they need.
Like so many of us, I am trapped in the "Asian Silence"—that awkward cultural box where love is felt deeply but never spoken. I want to hug them, but I freeze. I want to say "I love you," but I buy them things instead. I use money as a language because words feel too dangerous.
I walked out of the church trembling. My body had been pampered for eight hours, but my soul had just been stripped bare.
I ended the night with a cup of coffee and light xiao mai (shu mai)—my comfort food. I sat in my hotel room, packing my bags for Hoi An, checking my pedometer.
13,450 steps.
Even on the day I promised to rest, I kept moving. Perhaps I am running away from the silence. Or perhaps, I am finally walking toward it.
Reflection: The Labor Day
We spend our birthdays waiting for wishes. We want the notifications to pile up; we want to feel seen.
But today, listening to that choir, I realized I have it backward. My birthday isn't my day. It is my mother's Labor Day. It is the anniversary of the day she broke her body to give me the world. It is the anniversary of my father's first day of lifelong worry.
I don't need wishes from people who don't know my name. I need to learn how to speak to the people who gave me my name.
Today, I am grateful for the life they gave me. My birthday wish is simple: Next year, I hope I don't just feel the love. I hope I find the courage to speak it.
Date: December 28, 2025 (My Birthday)
Location: Da Lat
State: Body like water, Heart like stone.
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