Static

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Free write.

Last night, at Rob and Melissa's, I spouted out bits and pieces of my thoughts and conversations from the past year. I didn't end up asking about what I am currently facing—whether or how to move to Toronto without my parents' support, whether I should move back home for a while to help with Grandpa's situation and whether I should move my card to Seafair when I love Central Park and am not sure how long I will stay in Richmond, etc. Instead, I told them fragments of words and moments that I seem to have not yet gotten over.

But these are true thoughts occupying my mind, and as long as they take up space, they contribute to the fog looming in my brain that hinders my thinking ability. Over and over, I try to sort out the core of each problem and categorize all the emotional data into their respective slots, only for them to interfere with each other. I am constantly turning the tuner dial, and constantly missing every station.

Station #1 - 93.7

Gradnpa had a stroke on Monday night. His left side lost a bit of mobility control; he can still walk, but it is like his right side is dragging his left side to still function as usual. It's heartbreaking—after shocking—to see him any less than healthy, as that's all I've ever seen. It must be infinitely more so for Mum.

Mum wants to go back to China for a month, or two, or few, to be with him and sort out this situation, and next steps. However long it takes. In the time that she is away, Mum and Dad would like me to stay at home with Dad, "take care of him while I'm away," Mum says. I want to help like this. 

Station #2 - 94.5

The only thing hovering in the back of my mind is not knowing how long this might become. Should I move out of GD? If so, that would mean I would have to move out of Central Park. But what if this takes just a few months? Or waht if Mum going to China for a few months will happen multiple times? Then I am just moving back home. What happens to Toronto, to Bethel?

I want to be there to support my Grandpa, my parents, my family. I don't want to get stuck in the same place, not being able to move forward in my goals. It's awful feeling like what family wants for support is at odds with personal opportunities. It's awful realizing I'm a person who feels that. It's painful and selfish at the same time.

But yesterday, Rob and Melissa reminded me: whether I feel stuck is all on me, my perspective. If I am judgmental of my environment, I will always feel stuck, wherever I am. It is not my circumstances or location that stop me from my goals, but my own attitude. Being able to be here for family, this is in line with the reason I have goals at all.

July 7, 2022

Station #3 - 95.3

Going to visit Toronto, visiting anywhere, with parents had become such a burdensome proposition until I thought about why I found it to be so. For the longest time, I thought that when one reaches a certain age in adulthood, the universal and default expectation is that the world should be explored on one's own, independent of parental accompaniment. Conversely, then, if one still "needs" to be accompanied by parents on a trip, it speaks to the lack of independence—and somehow resultant competence, and vice versa—of this fullgrown person. I winced at the thought of being seen in a new city, with parents flanking my sides, either as the underdeveloped recipient of care or as the overgrown tagalong. And beyond all else, I thought my parents were oblivious or this, or see this cultural expectation as dismissable.

But it turns out, they are very aware. And it was I who was grasping at mere semblances of independence. Of all my peers, I was indeed the first to receive the freedom to travel, and far. I did not know why that freedom was being retracted. It turns out, they weren't the ones retracting it, but I was fixated on the concept of it and it inadvertantly glued me to the floor. It had become my overcoat, and I was on the short track to becoming Bashmachkin.