cynosure

Zax was a little boy who wanted a baby chick for Christmas.

Zax wanted it because he just wanted to take care of something else, to know that he wasn’t just a useless little boy who wanted a silly wish to be granted for the holidays. to know he was worth something and could help something else in the world grow up under loving care and devotion. to give something that he never got.

so he wished and he wrote letters to Santa and hinted to God through his prayers, and he told his parents, and his parents chuckled and were amused and said, sure, of course, if he wants a chicken, why not? that was easy enough to get, what with the number of farms around. no problem, they thought.

so the 25th of the last month came, and at the crack of dawn, Zax woke up to a startling smell wafting under his nose. his parents beamed down at him, holding a dish of chicken cordon bleu in front of his face, forcing it under his nostrils.
Zax suddenly felt nauseous as his parents smiled.

“Merry Christmas, son.”

2006

Isn’t it ironic that I left my journal of five years and began again in this one to find how to write again, to start something spectacular… yet oftentimes I stare at the everlong sky of unwritten white and I find I just don’t know how to say it?

Sometimes my heart just feels blocked. Right now, I feel too bothered by my own issues. Help yourself before you help anyone else.

That’s probably why I don’t think to confide in most people about my own problems; if I feel my purpose is to bring joy and love to others, what good would it be if I revealed my own grief?

Well, then people would know I’m human, too, even though I try not to let it show (heh).

Still, sometimes it hits me: I don’t have to be strong all the time? It’s hard to accept, when certain people (the stars of the following drama, actually) keep on telling me I’m useless if I’m weak… but this is it. This is me, trying.

This is how it goes.

I love these two people, who love me incredibly so in return. They mean nothing but the best for me, but their idea of best and my idea of best clash almost always. And it took me almost my entire (admittedly short) life to just learn to love them, to forgive them. But this isn’t the story of a boo-hoo childhood anymore; this is now.

For most of my life I felt like I had to be who they wanted me to be. They want me to be that person because they think it’ll make me happy; they refuse to accept that I can be happy on my terms. When I was younger (and still, to some extent now), they viewed happiness as contingent on utter perfection in life: 100s on every test, that shiny 4.0 I never managed to get, a perfect score on a standardized test. It didn’t matter if someone I knew was a drug addict or simply not a nice person; if they got those wonderful straight As, they were better than me, and I should have been more like them.

Nowadays, their view of my happiness is conditional on these terms: I must be a skinny businesswoman, lawyer, or doctor, who wakes at 6 in the morning every day, makes much more than just six figures per year, and is married to a tall and handsome rich man, living her life exactly according to what they would like.

This story isn’t new or unique, especially to many other children of immigrant families. My struggle isn’t original either. The problem is, unlike many of my peers in a similar situation, I’m not content just fulfilling their idea of what they want me to be, and I have absolutely no interest in the career and life plan they’ve set up for me. I know what it takes for me to be happy, and I simply will not give in.

They want me to study economics; I’m studying literature (gasp! the subject that leads to poverty! “My friend’s daughter went to Harvard for English, and she couldn’t find a job, and she had to go to grad school!”). They want me to work for a corporation; I disagree with corporate values (to put it lightly). They want me to make lots of money to buy a huge house; I neither need nor want loads of cash, nor do I desire the oversized house unnecessary for the simple and carefree life I wish for.

I refuse to settle for a life I don’t want to live. So just do what you want, people tell me. But it isn’t that easy.

I am the first person in my family to grow up in America. For me, it’s choosing between my own happiness and theirs. If I don’t choose their brand of happiness for myself, I face a lifetime of guilt-trips, adversity, loss of respect and support, and “Your poor entire extended family back home expected you, their prime jewel, to be successful, and you chose to be a starving artist instead!?” I haven’t even told them what I’m planning to do after school yet; in fact, they think I’m following their plans for me right now. Yet they’re already telling me not to come home again if I don’t wake up “early enough” and refusing to listen to anything I say, whether it’s to try to update them on my life or otherwise, treating me like (and calling me) a 2-year-old. They want to save face; they don’t want to be known among their friends as the ones who had such a promising young individual with so much potential, and let her become– heavens no!– someone who lives doing what they love.

It’s easy for some people to say that they can live without anyone else’s support, but ironically these are oftentimes the ones who have never had to support themselves. Emotionally, financially, or otherwise.

I don’t need money. I just want real support. To know that my ideas of happiness are respected or at the least heard and not merely thrown away as evidence of my youthful stupidity and immature naivete.

So we’re at a stalemate, and there’s no way to please both parties.

All I ever wanted was to hear that I wasn’t a “bad” child, but I guess it’s too far past that now, isn’t it?

—

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tags: honesty, story

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 22:02 and is filed under article, asterisk, blocked, my story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.