Old Habits Die Hard

Old Habits Die Hard

So I’m back in Taiwan this week… I have to say, the entire week prior to my trip, I always feel a sense of dread. Friends and people at work never seem to get it: they always say, “Oh, that’s so wonderful you get to see your family. You’ll have a great time!” How weird it is for other people to just assume that family relationships are awesome. (This is why you can’t support abortion legislation that requires parental notification: you just can’t assume every daughter has a functional relationship with her parents!! I digress.) Anyway, I always feel anxious before I’m about to see my family, because the whole meet up just triggers a ton of bad habits.

I’m traveling solo again this trip– same as last year. I scored some flyer points and managed a freebie round trip ticket. But cost isn’t the reason I’m here solo. Bubs is still swamped at work, and he has only two weeks of vacay per year, so he gets pretty stingy with it. Anyway, I traveled for almost 24 hrs. via Seoul, arrived in TPE, and then took a bus/metro to finally arrive at my parents’ house late Sunday night. On Monday morning, my parents and I hopped on the high speed rail and headed south for my grandfather’s house. Seriously, just like clockwork, less than 24 hrs. after landing, my relatives began their usual harassment campaign. It didn’t help that my cousin, who just had a son 18 months ago also popped out a second one two weeks ago. Look, I’m not opposed to other people choosing to become parents; I just don’t want to be one myself. Blah, blah, three aunts later, I’m still getting a talking to. Details in a bit.

So on Sunday, my brother gave me a book: The Power of Habit. I’m reading about the habit loop– and how there’s a cue, a routine, and a reward; and I’m realizing that my interactions with my family are part of this habit loop. Every visit involves some kind of discussion surrounding expectation, potential, happiness, and disappointment. Yeah, I spoke with Bubs this morning via Skype, and I was relaying my conversation I had with my eldest aunt last night. He agreed that shit always gets heavy when I see my family. So my body and mind just can’t help but feel stressed from these visits. And yet, I HAVE to visit. Grandfather is 91; my parents and aunts are getting older… I want to see them while I can, and yet I don’t. Do you see the conflict? Every time, John just tries to chock it up to different cultures and different generations. All of that is true, but do you know how hard it is to be asked:

Do you know how happy your parents would be to have a grandchild? How can you deny your parents’ happiness? Do you know that in Taiwan, if a child were told how important this is to the parents, she would never deny them this opportunity?

And apparently, my grandfather is beside himself over just how American my brother and I are. I mean, there’s my father– Mr. Perfect Son– and in just one generation, there are two freak kids: one doesn’t believe in marriage (committing to one person the rest of his life) and the other one doesn’t want kids.

Sure, it’s easy to say I adopt the “American” ideal of living my own, independent life. But at the end of the day, I’m grateful for all that my parents have done for me and I want them to be proud and happy with who I am. Already, I have issues about where I am on the “life success” scale, so to just feel like they don’t understand or respect or honor my choice to nix parenthood and furthermore, they hinge their happiness supposedly on this one thing alone, it’s a tremendous amount of pressure and stress.

I constantly grapple with feeling inadequate and feeling not good enough. I try to live my life with principle; I try to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good wife, a good citizen. But there are demons that I can never seem to escape– when I travel alone, I suddenly grow overwhelmed thinking of all the dreams I had for myself to become a certain person. And then sadly, I realize that I still haven’t become that hope for myself; I still have so many places where I am lacking and now, I’m 36.

Life doesn’t stop for anyone, and what am I doing? I swear, this is like some self-destructive crisis I go through over and over again. And it certainly gets triggered every time I see my family.

I feel unsettled and anxious. And I just keep chasing something with a sense of urgency… I don’t know exactly what it is that I’m chasing, but I just feel like I still haven’t found it yet.

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