Dearest readers,
Oh my goodness, it’s been several days since I last wrote to you all! I’m so sorry for falling behind on Blogmas. Never in my life have I skipped so many days of Blogmas consecutively.. it’s been a busy, frenetic past few days. Mostly in the realm of my social life. Because work is slowing down over the holidays, I’ve had a lot more free time to hang out with friends, date, go out dancing, and live it up as the 27 year-old I am. I loved it. But the late nights and degeneracy bled into my quiet, introspective writing time, which is why I low-key disappeared. Again, I apologize.
There’s a lot of ground to cover, and I thought I’d start from today and work backwards.
12/21/25
The day started off in a haze. Last night was magical– I reunited with some former gymnastics teammates who I hadn’t seen since my adolescence, and I found in them a sisterhood I didn’t know I needed. They were the missing puzzle piece to my social life– a group of girls who have endured the same trauma with gymnastics and just… get it. I met up with them in SF and we spent the night at Balboa Cafe, where we drank, chatted, trauma bonded, empathized, reflected, and feasted our eyes on cute guys galore. I didn’t get home until 3am, and I had to be up at 8:45am to teach my breathing and meditation class! So that was sub-six hours of sleep, which is unacceptable. My sleep schedule this past week has been wonky. Late nights, early mornings, having loads of energy the next day… I may be getting a bit hypomanic. It happens like this, sometimes. Especially during the holiday season when there’s a lot going on, daily routines get broken up, there are more places to be, more people to have fun with… at least I’m not depressed, like last year’s Christmas season. But even a few nights of poor sleep can be incredibly dysregulating for me, and now it’s a matter of coming down from the high and getting myself back to a baseline euthymic mood state. Anyway, I taught the meditation class and had 7 people attend, which was great. I went straight back to sleep after and woke up around 12:30pm. Ate some breakfast, got some coffee, then steadied myself for the next two groups: expressive writing and mental health peer support group. Today’s groups were magic. They were a radical display of humanity: strangers joining together to support one another through shared challenges. I am honored to create this space for people to heal together. The mental health group today was especially powerful– enthusiastic participation, sharing self-care strategies and deep thoughts about diagnoses and labels, coping with grief and loss, and many more profound mental health topics. I absolutely loved it and found healing and connection in this group, as well. After my groups were over, I worked out with a guy I’m dating, who is also a fitness trainer! I learned a lot from him, asked a ton of questions, he showed me some new exercises I’ve never tried before (I’ll share some of those exercises with you guys). He’s really handsome, looks exactly like my celebrity crush, actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Turkish version. It’s very new, we’ve only hung out three times, but each time was super fun. This may lead somewhere, or maybe it won’t, but I’m not overthinking it for now. I came back home after working out, took a nice hot shower, and ate homemade dinner: caesar salad, mom’s chicken soup, beef tenderloin, and a protein shake with creatine. I’ve been lowkey starving myself this past week, and now that I see the downsides of the starvation diet– losing muscle tone, not seeing the results I want in my body, shedding pounds but it’s all water weight, metabolism slowed down– I am back to a normal clean eating pattern, and I hav sorely missed the taste of healthy food. The rest of the night I’m just gonna stay in, do some reading, work on content creation for my business.
12/20/25
What a pivotal day in the life of Belicia Tang. So, here’s the back-story. I don’t have a ton of friends. I meet a lot of people through work, have great relationships with my clients and students, am popular in the gyms I work at, but seriously guys, you can be standing at the front of a room in a position of power, and still be the loneliest person in the room. Loneliness is something I have struggled with for a while. My job as a contractor and freelance fitness instructor does not afford me the opportunity to connect deeply within the companies and gyms I work for– I am friendly with fellow trainers, but I don’t hang out with them outside of work. I’m kind of a workaholic, so I don’t have much time for an active social life. Most of my social life amounts to salsa and bachata dancing, but even there, I am a lone wolf. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I am definitely one of the best dancers there (because I have devoted 11 years to training in ballroom), and my skill level garners me a lot of male attention, but I wouldn’t consider these people my friends. The girls at these events tend to be intimidated or even jealous of me, and I stay away from dance cliques. I grew up with more boys than girls, being the only girl in a set of triplets. I tend to connect more easily with men, because I know how they think and behave. Having two brothers who are the same age as you will give you that insight. Most of my few friends are men… and for a while, I’ve longed for a sisterhood. I wanted to be a part of a group of strong, empowered, intelligent women who uplifted each other. I didn’t want any of the catty, gossipy, petty women who saw each other as competition. I used to have a group of female friends, but was left that toxic friend circle earlier this year.
Yesterday was pivotal because I reunited with some former gymnastics teammates. Some of them, I hadn’t seen since my teenage years! We reflected on our gymnastics days… I know I was deeply traumatized by the sport, and it was so healing to hear that they could relate to that. Over the course of the night, we shared deep conversations about the abuse that runs rampant in the sport, how we were deprived of a normal childhood and adolescence, how we were often pitted against each other by our coaches, and how great it was that even after all of that, we could reconnect in adulthood and leave that BS behind us, and rediscover our buried friendship. These are some of the bravest, strongest, most resilient women I have ever met. We gymnasts are a different breed of human, having endured so much in our early years. It was actually amazing to hear one of the girls, Lili Mizuno, say, “Fuck gymnastics. We hate it.” She competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and was one of my childhood idols growing up. Like, hearing her say that was eye-opening. She made it to the highest level of the sport, and still resented it. This is a band of women I want to keep near and dear to me. They have matured so much, it was remarkable to see all the different things we’re all doing now, in young adulthood. Anfisa is a personal trainer like me, and she’s applying to grad school to become a therapist. Lili, the Olympian, is now in college studying Systems Engineering. Arevik, my closest teammate with whom I’d carpool to practice and competitions, is now 24 years old, living in Palo Alto, just finished her Master’s at Oxford where she studied Ancient Languages (so interesting!). She’s also platinum blonde now and towers over me at 5’8” (I used to be a foot taller than her when we were younger).
We’re thinking of doing a bigger gymnastics reunion with more teammates. Maybe rent out an event venue, like a bar, for the evening, and drink/dance/do gymnastics while bonding and reconnecting and sharing old memories from the sport. My heart is full, having found my tribe.
12/19/25
A busy day, indeed. I had an OBGYN appointment in the morning, which overlapped with my dance class, so I had to sub out my class and get my lady parts checked out. Nothing too wild going on down there, which is good. I taught a pilates class at 11:30am, then zoomed over to the country club to train a client, and that was actually her last session with me, as she’s leaving the gym after this year. I will miss training her, but we’re good pals now, and she invited me to be her guest to Filoli Gardens, which is a beautiful 16-acred garden in Redwood City that is a popular place to visit over the holidays. Apparently the decorations and Christmas trees are spectacular. I’m looking forward to seeing the grounds with my client in January.
After training, I filmed another podcast episode with this girl named Mary, who has the same mental health diagnosis as me. She is only three years into her recovery post-diagnosis, and she’s absolutely crushing it in her healing journey. I was deeply inspire by her words of wisdom, especially when she emphasized the importance of setting healthy boundaries with the people in her life. We agreed that in order to successfully manage our mood disorder, we must be ruthless about cutting out toxic people and keeping only the kind, compassionate, sensitive, loving, and emotionally intelligent individuals in our lives. It’s not mean to cut out people who drag us down– it’s necessary for our survival. She’s a multi-hyphenate creative: a painter, writer, videographer. It was an honor to hear her story.
After the podcast filming was over, I taught a new wedding couple in my living room. I haven’t had much business in wedding dance choreography this year, so it was great to get back into choreographing wedding dances. Their wedding is coming up in less than a month, so I really pushed them hard over the course of 90 minutes. We finished the choreography, figured out the musicality, cleaned up moves and embellished them with minute details, and I’ll be seeing them one more time after Christmas before their wedding.
To cap off an eventful Friday, I went out salsa dancing at my favorite place, Space 550, in San Francisco! It was funny, I ran into a guy I used to date at the venue, and he was holding hands with another girl. Yikes. That kind of thing would used to send me into a spiral (even though I was the one who broke it off and blocked his number). But now when I see old flames moving on with new people, I think to myself, “Eh. It’s his loss. I hope she’s half as good as I am. Good luck to this next girl, I hope he’s better to her.” It sounds arrogant for me to say that, but it helps me transcend the sting of rejection and move on faster. On a more positive note, I reunited with a dear friend of mine, Hunt, who I actually had a big crush on for a while. He turned down my advances to date him, and it really was just a timing thing. When he first asked me out, I rejected him. I was going through trauma and felt fundamentally unlovable because of bipolar, and thus was turned off to the whole idea of opening up to anyone. A few months later, I had a change of heart, and asked if he wanted to revisit the idea of us dating. At the time, he told me he was going through some personal things and wasn’t dating anyone. So we stayed friends. He moved to San Diego and we fell out of touch for a while, but last night, we reconnected in SF, and boy was it great dancing with him. He’s a very special dancer– he bridges many different partner dance styles (salsa, bachata, West Coast Swing, zouk) into one and every time I dance with him, we tell an original story. I never know what to expect from him, and that’s what makes dancing with him so thrilling. He really is my favorite dance partner of all time. He walked me to my car at the end of the night and we continued to talk while standing in the rain (I probably should have invited him to sit in my car). And then, we said goodbye. I don’t know when I will see him again, but I do know that we will remain friends for a long time. And who knows? Maybe one day, the timing will be right for both of us and we’ll reconnect on an intimate level.
12/18/25
Thursday was a heavy-duty teaching day. I taught clients from morning to afternoon, and then had dinner with some family friends who we hadn’t seen in many years. I was devastating to hear Michelle, the daughter of Auntie Theresa and Uncle Ken, who has down syndrome, was diagnosed with schizophrenia a couple years ago. Auntie Theresa came up to me and said, “Michelle is like a totally different person now. She is on medication and sees a therapist. But I really wanted to ask if you could help her. I listen to your podcast… please try to talk to her.” My heart broke for Auntie Theresa in that moment, because I understand how painful mental illness can be for all involved, especially for parents of a child who is suffering. I truly believe I was put on this Earth to help others who have faced similar mental health challenges as I have. That’s my purpose, that’s my calling. I tried my best to be there for Michelle. I could tell she was paranoid, dissociated from reality, depressed, lonely, and scared. I told her that she should see me as her sister, that I’d always be there for her, and I’d come over to her house any time to watch movies with her so she wouldn’t feel as alone in her pain. I asked her what movie she wanted to watch, and she replied, “Ella Enchanted.” I, too, love that movie. I realized that you couldn’t reason with someone who is actively experiencing psychosis… their delusions are so deeply ingrained in their brains, that is their new reality. You just have to listen and make them feel seen and heard.
And that, my friends, concludes this conglomerate Blogmas quadruple-whammy! Thank you for coming along this journey with me… we only have 10 more days of Blogmas, and I promise I’ll be more consistent about posting regularly. I’m gonna be house-sitting for one of my clients in Atherton starting tomorrow until the 28th, and I’m looking forward to that “staycation”. Total body and mental reset. Quitting alcohol and tobacco. Spend the day reading and writing, meditating and swimming, taking nature walks, enjoying their beautiful home. This is exactly what I need following a frenetic month, and an even more chaotic year.
Talk to you guys tomorrow!
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