Even though we were poor, my parents didn’t want me to miss out on North American traditions, such as Halloween and Christmas. For my first Halloween, I dressed as a garbage bag. You see, my parents thought that the point of Halloween was to be as ugly as possible. So they cut out some holes in a garbage bag, smeared my face with something black. and I was off. I was a six year-old girl. I could have been a princess, a fairy, a Disney cartoon character, but no, I was a garbage bag. I didn’t care, I was overjoyed that perfect strangers were giving me candy – for free!

At least my parents got the Santa Claus story right. They told me that I could write a letter to Santa, asking for what I wanted, and on Christmas morning, it would appear in my stocking. Since I had seen with my own eyes that people here give out candy for free, a fat jolly man coming around with free presents didn’t seem like a far stretch either. North Americans sure were generous! So, I wrote a letter to Santa, asking for toys that I never asked my parents for. At that age, I didn’t understand the concept of money, but I did understand the shadow that fell across my parents’ faces on the few occasions when I pointed to something I liked in a store. I was a smart kid, after the first few times, I never ever asked my parents for anything again. But Santa Claus was fair game, right? All the books and commercials seemed to make his generosity seem endless. I saw picture after picture of stockings filled with toys, and I could hardly wait for Christmas Day to check out my own stocking!
Christmas Day came, and I got up extra early. When I ran into the living room, I saw that the stocking was as it had looked the night before, flat. I felt around in it, but it seemed empty. What had happened? Did Santa Claus forget about me?
I woke my parents up and told them that Santa Claus didn’t leave anything for me. “Check again,” my mama said. So, I checked again, more carefully this time. And I found a shiny gemstone ring deep inside the stocking.

I was angry.
How come all I got was this one stupid ring? I thought heatedly to myself. All the pictures I saw showed stockings overfilled with toys. All the other kids must get tons of stuff. How come this was all I got?

I remember that moment vividly. Every time I think about that memory, I want to cry. Because, ten years later, after the Santa Claus myth had been dispelled, my parents told me how they had gone into a big department store to look for a ring for me. They didn’t know what I had asked from Santa, but they knew I liked rings. And I did, I loved rings (I still do). They spent $20 on that ring, which was a lot at that time – $20 could have bought a month’s worth of groceries for our whole family. When I remember how cheated I had felt, how angry I was when I found nothing but a ring in my stocking, I feel so utterly ashamed. I was six, I didn’t understand, I couldn’t know the lengths to which my parents had gone to make Christmas special for me, but I still feel so ashamed to have been ungrateful in that instant.

Our family has come a long, long way from those days. We moved from one room in a house shared with six other tenants to an apartment to a house in the suburbs with two cars and a dog. It’s a typical immigrant story, I’m sure.

I think my life could be a series of novels. And this entry would be the first chapter of the first book. And everything since then, elementary school, high school, and university – my life as a student – would be part of that first book. Now, it’s the summer after graduation, and I’m going to travel and see the world, that could be a second book. And four months from now, when I start my first real job halfway around the world, that will be the beginning of the third book.

So how would I like the first book to end?

I have achieved a lot in the first twenty-one years of my life. I have come a long way, and my future looks very bright. But there is nothing more humbling than to remember my beginnings, to remember how I got here, to remember what it was like to have nothing, absolutely nothing, except the love of your family.

As an infant, I was what one may call a vegan. I disliked meat – it was never tender enough – and I would chew a piece of meat in my little mouth until it was all fiber, and then spit it out. I never swallowed. I also disliked seafood – it was never fresh enough. Basic human instinct should tell us not to eat something that smells like ammonia. I would throw up if I even glimpsed dairy (my parents had to feed me milk when I was asleep).
Food-wise, I was a difficult child to raise, and I have been making up for it in other aspects my whole life.

My father, to his credit, was and is a great cook. When he made something I liked, I loved it. The thing about food is that it always tastes better when prepared with care and love. That is why the best restaurant-food will never beat great home-cooking, and that is why I am so confident that I know what good food tastes like.

As I grew older, I learned about things like respect and obedience, which softened my edges as a picky eater. Nonetheless, I was rarely chastised for not eating a dish I didn’t like, or picking out certain things in my food. For the most part, my taste buds dictated our home-cooking. I was not a spoiled as a kid, but my taste buds were.

So it comes as no surprise that I grew into an amateur food critic. I know what I like and what I don’t like, and on that basis, I know what tastes good and what doesn’t. I have not lost my infant stubbornness – I rarely swallow anything I don’t like. This is what I call the “food critic diet”, I am not restricted by certain ingredients, I am simply restricted by what I deign worthy enough to eat. As such, I will try almost anything once, but after that, I may seek it out or never touch it again.

What worries me is that after I have been to Europe, I will never touch North American food again.

1. This was in China in the late 80s, so supermarkets did not yet exist, and everyone bought their groceries from farmer’s markets. When it came to meat, for example chicken, you had to buy a live chicken and slaughter it yourself at home.

When we were kids, we used to hang out together all the time at my grandma’s, and because of China’s one-child policy, we were treated by our family, and treated each other, like brother and sister. After my family moved to Canada, we fell out of contact, but I returned to China by myself when I was 12 (going on 13) to spend the summer with my grandparents. After a month of living with my grandparents, who never left their apartment and rarely let me leave, I grew restless and bored. So my cousin and their family invited me to stay with them for the rest of the summer. I had a great time with them, and my cousin and I became very close very quickly. He was easy to get along with, and he treated me extremely well. We went on a trip to China’s coast for two weeks with their family friends, and he looked after me and shielded me the whole time (my Chinese was very poor at that time because I had almost completely stopped speaking Chinese in Canada, so many of his friends would make fun of the way I spoke, and I found it hard to join in to their conversations). However, his brotherly affection turned into something else. In hindsight, there were subtle clues along the way, but I was too naive to realize it. I embraced the idea that I had finally found someone resembling a brother – I had always wanted an older brother.

A few days after we returned from the trip, he came into my room one morning and we lay on the bed, just talking about what we were going to do that day. I didn’t make a big deal out of our lying in bed together because I thought of our closeness as if we were siblings, it didn’t occur to me that I needed to be weary of my personal space around him. I had my eyes closed as I lay there, and suddenly, he leaned over and kissed me. I was stunned. I didn’t know how to react, so I didn’t. I lay there, with my eyes closed, still as stone. My lack of reaction confused him, so he kissed me again.

The me today would have reacted violently and reprimanded him immediately. But the 12-slash-13-year-old me didn’t know how wrong it was, and didn’t know how to escape the situation. I was living in his home, and I’d be living there for another few weeks. I didn’t have the courage to reprimand him, even less so the courage to tell his parents. I couldn’t stand the humiliation of letting his family, my grandparents, and eventually my parents, find out about this kind of sibling behaviour. So I let him kiss me.

I suppose this is the classic response of victims to sexual abuse. Their fear compels their silence. I was completely at his mercy in his home, with no safe haven, and terrified of telling my aunt and uncle for fear that they would think this was my fault, that I somehow seduced their son, my cousin – nay, my brother – to develop sexual feelings for me.

For the next few weeks, I felt sick every time he kissed me, but still, I did nothing. At the very least, he never tried to go further. One night, my aunt (his mother) caught us kissing in the dark. I don’t know what she saw, how much she saw, but I think after that, she knew. She didn’t know what to do about it, and she didn’t say a thing. Finally, it was time for me to leave.

When I came back to Canada, I tried to put the whole thing behind me. I didn’t utter a word to anyone, least of all my parents. I had trouble sleeping the first few weeks. Every night when I closed my eyes, I would remember what happened in his home. I couldn’t shake the images, but I tried hard, and eventually, they were buried deep in my memory.

Three years later, I went back to China with my parents and again we stayed with his family. The moment I stepped over the threshold, I was overcome with a high fever. I think my emotional trauma somehow manifested into physical illness. I lay in bed with a high fever the whole time we were there, drifting in and out of consciousness and interacting very little with anyone. When he came into the room, I would pretend to be asleep. One night, my mom came in and asked about what happened between him and I that summer. That was when I knew my aunt had known what was going on, and must have told my parents. I don’t know if they spoke to him, I don’t know if they questioned him, all I know is that, when my mom came into question me, she had decided that it was my fault. That an upstanding boy like him would never cross the line like that if I hadn’t egged him on. My mom was furious, saying things like how I had shamed our family, and how I destroyed my image in front of my relatives.

It should have been devastating that the one event that traumatized my childhood would be so misunderstood by my parents, and our close relations, but I wasn’t surprised at all. I had known this would be the case all along. As a teen, I had always been misunderstood by my parents, given less credit than I deserved. The more they suspected and accused me of being “bad”, the more I hid from them, perpetuating the suspicion. So, I never expected my parents to believe that I was the victim in all this. When my mom came into question and accuse me, I barely said a word, I just confirmed the facts. I was too tired to argue with her, too feverish to prove my point when there was a room full of relatives outside saying who-knows-what about me.

As soon as we left their home, my fever disappeared and I was, at least physically, all better. But for a much longer time after that, I did wonder if it was my fault, if my conduct had somehow invited him in, led him on. Perhaps if I had been more conservative around him from the beginning, he never would have treated me like anything but a sister. Perhaps my longing for a sibling that I could confide in was misconstrued by him as flirtatious behaviour from a young girl. So in a way, I did blame myself and I was disgusted with myself.

I know now that I cannot blame myself for what happened, that the worst I ever did was be naive and trusting. I was 13 and he was 18. No matter how I look at it, he should have known better. But I am too embarrassed by the whole affair that I would rather let it be buried in the past than try to clean my slate. So much so that, this time, when we saw him, I tried to be as normal as possible around him. Although it’s been nearly nine years since that summer, and although he is now married, I still wonder how he can act like nothing happened. More curious is how my parents act like nothing happened, and expect me to be nonchalant around him. Other than my mom’s accusations that one night when I was feverish, we never talked about it again. I guess they think that if I brought it on myself, I couldn’t be traumatized by it.

I try to bury these memories, I try to forget them. I want these memories to stay in the past, I do not want them to affect who I am today. I do not want to be haunted by them. So how come I still am?

Dear Mother,

I do not need you to tell me what I look like, that’s what mirrors are for. I do not need you to tell me how much I weigh, that’s what scales are for. I have an eating disorder as it is, so it’s probably not a good idea to tell me I am fat every time you see me. I am in shape. Round is a shape.

Regards,
Your Not Chubby Daughter

—

Dear Professor,

I am not really sure what you want me to write about in this exam since the answers are all pretty much given in the various articles you had us read. I guess I can spend 2000 word giving you a “best of” but shouldn’t you have read these articles before assigning them to us?

Cheers,
A Confused Student

—

Dear PreordainedLoverBoy,

Why have you not texted me in three days? I know you know I’m in The City now, don’t you miss me? Aren’t you going to miss me over the next few weeks? If you don’t contact me, aren’t you afraid that I might give up on you and hook up with someone else over the holidays?

xoxo
Your Preordained Lover Girl

P.S. Feel free to show up at my door with hand-written signs expressing your ardent love for me. My address is…

—

Dear Chocolate,

I love, love, love you. Thank you for being in my life.

Love,
Your Number One Fan

That last one doesn’t count, it’s not a grievance. But seriously, PLB, that’s it? No more texts? We’re just going to go cold turkey for the holidays? That is so anticlimactic.

This year, things have really come together for me. I feel so unbelievably lucky that there is nothing more that I could wish for. The greatest gift that I want to receive this Christmas is love. And it is also the gift I want to give.
All I want this Christmas:

• Enjoy being with family. After this year, I’ll be flying the coup! I want to spend lots of time with my mom and dad, take them out to dim sum, go to see a play or something, help them prepare a Christmas feast and enjoy the Veuve Clicquot I brought back from New York together.
• Actually play with my Wii. I bought a Wii nearly two years ago and have barely used it. I only bought one game on it. Once I start working, I doubt I’ll have any time to play at all. I’m not even sure I’m going to take my Wii to Singapore with me. So this holiday, I’m going to buy a few more games and play Wii!
• Cook again. I have completely lost touch with my cooking skills. These days, everything I make is blah and tasteless. I don’t put heart into cooking anymore. In fact, I’m not even sure I enjoy food anymore (I know, blasphemous!). I really want to enjoy the wonders of food and taste again. Plus, I probably won’t be cooking much at all when I’m in Singapore. So, I definitely want to cook at least one memorable meal this holiday season.
• Reconnect with high school friends. The friendships I made in high school really are lifelong, and after this year, we may be even more scattered than we already are. I want to do the things we always do – karaoke, AYCE sushi (or some outing to an Asian restaurant), shopping, etc. On this note, I don’t know if I should reconnect with MFL. I mean, I know not being close friends with him was a good decision, but if I am leaving soon, I don’t really have to worry about that anymore, right? So should I take this holiday season as an opportunity to re-establish our friendship?
• Reconnect with “satellite friends”. These are the one or two friends I’ve kept in touch with from other places in my life, like Chinese school and summer camp and whatnot. I usually only see them once a year during the holidays, so I definitely won’t miss my chance this Christmas.

What do you want for Christmas this year?

If you recall, the day I got my job offer was also the day my father was fired. Since then, my mom has been bringing home the paycheque. Needless to say, this arrangement is not exactly ideal. My father has always been “motivated to succeed” and losing his job deeply hurt his pride. Moreover, there aren’t a lot of jobs out there these days, especially for a man of his seniority and experience. I have been hesitant to ask how the job search is going when my parents call me because I don’t want to give him unnecessary pressure. His own pressure to be the man of the house should be more than enough.
But from what my mom has told me, my father’s pride may be his undoing. He is so convinced of his own value and self-worth that he has been very picky about what jobs he applies to. Obviously, an entry level job would be beneath him, but at the same time, can he really expect to get a high-paying management job when firms are trying to slim down their middle management in this recessionary period?
Due to his own stupid mistake (long story regarding his email settings) the job search has been fruitless and it has already been a month. This weekend, when I got back from New York, I finally broached the subject with my father as we were in the car.

It was clear that there were very limited job opportunities in his industry of expertise, although his IT skills could be applied to other industries as well. He mentioned that he had seen (comparatively) more IT job postings in health care and banking, and I immediately encouraged him to pursue those leads. At first, he was reluctant, as he would essentially have to “start over” as far as domain expertise, but I told him that if he got in early in an infant industry, he could get promoted fairly quickly. He seemed to take my advice, and the more we talked, the more he warmed up to the idea of doing IT-related things for health care (which I convinced him was a recession-proof industry with heavy government subsidies in Canada, and therefore, more stable than banking). He might have to take some time to re-train himself, but he actually seemed excited about having to learn new things and the prospect of a new challenge².

The conversation left a few impressions on me. It made me realize that even my father, who has a PhD, who has worked for over twenty years, has insecurities about his abilities. It made me realize that I have valuable information and insights, particularly because I go to business school, that are applicable to real life and useful for pragmatic decision-making. It made me realize that my parents see me as equals. My voice has always been heard in our household since there’s only three of us, but giving advice to my dad about his career really cemented this feeling.

At the end of the conversation, not only was I able to shed some light on recent trends and give some advice on attractive industries, but I was actually able to make my father feel excited about his career. I could tell he had been dreading fully plunging himself into the job search because it would re-confirm his unemployed status, and it would also make him anxious about his abilities and value to a potential employer. But after this discussion, he was infected with some of my “the world is your oyster” talk. Even though he is much older than me, I really do believe that he can start a new career, that he can find a job that he actually wants to get up in the morning for, and that it can totally be worth it to start over.

So, Dad, here’s to starting over. Cheers.

1. I have yet to write about what I bought, which I plan to as soon as I have time to take some pictures. So yes, more materialism to come.
2. As opposed to finding another job doing exactly the same thing, particularly a management job with few technical challenges and more HR challenges. My father is not really a people-person.

So this morning, they called again. Even though I was working on my take-home exam, I picked up, like promised.
“We’re going back to China.”
What? Is this a joke? Is this just to spite me because I didn’t want to talk yesterday?

My parents, unlike the parents of some of my friends, are not the kind to suddenly decide to go back to China. They are not impulsive, they love their home here, and they hate change. Sometimes, these attributes can be quite frustrating, but more often than not, I appreciate that I have the most dependable parents in the world. Until now.

“What do you mean you’re going back to China? Both of you?”
“Well, your grandmothers (mom and dad’s side) are feeling ill. Plus, both our companies are very unstable right now. We might as well use up our vacation before they fire us.”
“So, you are planning to come back?”
“Well, yes, at the moment. But your father’s company can’t get financing and my company is all over the news with its recall, so if it seems like we won’t have jobs when we come back, then we might stay in China a little longer.”
Well, at least I know it’s not my fault. It’s the fault of the economy. The economy is literally driving them away. If they do both lose their jobs, I will be screwed. Law school costs are ridiculously high, there are no such things as full scholarships, I don’t even think there are such things as scholarships for international students, and I have no guarantor in the U.S. so it will be difficult to get a loan that large.

This weekend, I will go back to The City to see my parents, then next week they will abandon me and our dog, and fly halfway around the world. Stupid economy.

As for what I said earlier about them being the most dependable parents in the world. Once every decade or so, they do make drastic changes. I don’t know if it’s because of hormones, mid-life crises, alignment of the stars, or what have you. About ten years ago, I came home one day to a living room filled with technological gadgets. They had suddenly decided they needed to keep up with the times and replaced every piece of technology in our house for fear that it was going to be obsolete. Five years ago, I came home one day to a living room covered in floor plans. They had suddenly decided they wanted to buy a new home, and not just any new home, a new home the size of a mansion. They argued that my future husband and I, and our imaginary baby, would each need rooms. “I will never, ever live with you when I get married,” I told them flatly.
So yes, once in a blue moon, my mother and father will actually agree wholeheartedly with each other on some major, drastic change, even though they can fight for hours over the most insignificant decisions.

Thus is married life I suppose.

My parents stayed at my apartment in University Town for the weekend (because it was near the provincial parks), but my roommate had moved out of my apartment, so I had no furniture (except the furniture in my bedroom), no internet, and no TV. My parents slept on the floor on an air mattress. We made makeshift tables out of cardboard boxes, we listened to the radio, we drank wine out of plastic cups, and I cooked with a rice spatula because my roommate accidentally took my stir-fry spatula. It was ghetto living, but it was fun. My parents laughed more this weekend than I’ve seen them do in a long time. And when they drove away on Monday, I cried.

I’ve never been close to my parents. I think the last time I felt emotionally attached to them was when I was 11. When I was 12, I spent three months away from my parents and I didn’t miss them once. I have never cried out of homesickness. And yet, after a mere weekend together, my 21-year-old self bawled cried as I watched my parents drive away and I was left, literally, in an empty apartment.

I cried because I finally realized the importance of family. No matter what, my parents will always love me, put me first, care for me, worry about me. They would die for me, but more importantly, they live for me. They are utterly devoted to me whether I recognize it or not, whether I thank them for it or not. A few months ago, I resented them for being emotionally closed off. They never said things like “I’m proud of you” or “You did good,” and I resented them for making me feel like I wasn’t good enough. Be that as it may, there were a lot of things I never said to them either. “Thank you,” “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” Perhaps my inability to open up emotionally is still “their fault,” perhaps I am very much the product of my upbringing, but all I could think was “I should have known better.” Knowing them, knowing myself, I should have known they were proud of me even if they never said it. I should have known they loved me even if they never told me.

I am so silly.

I was so focused on finding someone who cared about me, when I had two people who lived and breathed for me right beside me. Instead of embracing them, I was pushing them away and then desperately looking for a relationship (or friendship) to fill the gap.

I have so much growing up to do.

Speaking of filling the gap. in my last entry, I mentioned how the MFL situation made me want to run away. Apparently, I’m not the only one. I heard through a mutual friend that MFL had been staying in University Town this past week for no reason¹. He has no business here; in fact, he’s supposed to be in The City for job training. I guess he needed to run away, too.
I don’t know how this information makes me feel. Happy, that this is not easy for him either. Confused, because what does it mean if he feels the need to get away? Unhappy, for feeling anything at all.

I wish I could say all the things I say on this blog to the people who actually need to hear it. I think my life would be a lot less complicated that way. I’d tell my parents I love them, I’m grateful for them, and I’m sorry for the times when I made them think otherwise. I’d tell MFL a whole slew of things, but most importantly, that I need him to either love me openly or give me up completely. And I’d tell all my friends I’m sorry, for being inconstant in my emotions and in my commitment to them.
But it seems I’m incapable of frankness when it comes to my emotions.

Baby steps, I’m taking baby steps.

1. It’s ironic that in our rush to get away, we both chose to get away to the same place. But apparently he is supposed to be back in The City by now, so I doubt I’ll be running into him.

Almost a week after the car incident, my mom spontaneously comes up to me and accuses me of trying to cover up the accident.
“That’s absurd! It’s a huge dent. What did I think, oh, ‘If I don’t say anything, my mom is not going to notice this huge dent’? I’m not that stupid!”
“Well, I don’t know what you were thinking! Why didn’t you say something right away?”
“Because I came home after you went to bed and you left for work before I woke up! By the time you came home, you’d already formulated your own theory about how your car got hit in the parking lot. And I was the one who pointed out that that was impossible because the dent was below the bumper and no car hits that low. Why would I say that if I were trying to cover it up?”
But I already knew, this argument was not really about the car. We’d already put aside the car issue days ago. This was about something else.
“You’re always lying to us, we can’t trust you at all. I mean, you don’t trust us to tell us the truth. We’re family! You’re supposed to trust family!”
“Well if you don’t trust me, why would I trust you? You’re the parents, you should be the ones taking a leap of faith first.”
Clearly, she did not agree with me. The who-trusts-who-first was like a catch 22 in our relationship.

That night, I had trouble sleeping. There were some parts of the conversation that were stuck in my head.
You’re always lying to us…
We thought you would get better as you got older…
You don’t tell us anything…

As a teenager, I barely spoke to my parents, and it was no secret that I wanted to move out as soon as possible. Once I was in university, my relationship with my parents improved vastly (something my mom did not give me any credit for in our fight). Since our relationship was limited to phone calls and the occasional weekend visit, it was a lot easier for me to control what they knew about my life based on what I told them. This meant I lied a lot less, and they seemed to trust me more.
But the more I spend time at home, the more I am suffocated by their boundaries and judgments, and the more I start lying again to be able to do the things I want. If my mom wanted frank and open communication, did that mean I should tell her I wanted to go clubbing on Friday night, drink with my friends, and come home at 3 in the morning? I wanted to be a good daughter, which by my parents’ definition precluded drinking and clubbing. Did wanting these things make me irresponsible? What is so wrong about a 20-year-old who wants a girls night out with her friends? How would I make my parents understand without being judged as irresponsible? Did lying about this sort of thing to protect my reputation as far as my parents mean I was immature or was there something more to it?

Why did I systematically lie to them? Why did I withhold so much information? Clearly, my parents only knew half of the person I was, the half I wanted them to see. But why did I compartmentalize myself? When did I start?
I started searching online, although I wasn’t sure exactly what i was looking for. One result jumped out at me, and I read the article with keen interest.

It starts very young. Indeed, bright kids—those who do better on other academic indicators—are able to start lying at 2 or 3. [...] Although we think of truthfulness as a young child’s paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn’t require. [...] And it’s the smart, savvy kid who’s most at risk of becoming a habitual liar.

So I know I started lying very early, and I know that I was a smart kid. Now that I have connected the two, I guess I can understand how I became a habitual liar. It’s nice to know that it isn’t just me, that I wasn’t somehow “born bad,” but it doesn’t explain why I continue to do it.

Many kids begin lying to their peers as a coping mechanism, as a way to vent frustration or get attention. Any sudden spate of lying, or dramatic increase in lying, is a danger sign: Something has changed in that child’s life, in a way that troubles him. “Lying is a symptom—often of a bigger problem behavior,” explains Talwar. “It’s a strategy to keep themselves afloat.”
[...] if lying has become a successful strategy for handling difficult social situations, a child will stick with it.

“A strategy to keep themselves afloat.” This certainly seems like a plausible explanation. I definitely used lying in the playground to manipulate my social standing. I once came up with a fantastic story about how my cousin was a beautician and her apartment had one room with walls and walls of make-up. I suddenly became more popular.

Most parents hear their child lie and assume he’s too young to understand what lies are or that lying’s wrong. They presume their child will stop when he gets older and learns those distinctions. Talwar has found the opposite to be true—kids who grasp early the nuances between lies and truth use this knowledge to their advantage, making them more prone to lie when given the chance.
Many parenting Websites and books advise parents to just let lies go—they’ll grow out of it. The truth [...] is that kids grow into it.

So this proves the fallacy in my parents’ logic about expecting me to “grow out of it.” The fact that I didn’t does not mean I am immature, irresponsible, or that my moral conscience did not take hold in my adult self. It just means that I am normal – that in weighing the risk of being caught and getting away with it, I became so good at lying that the risk of getting caught was barely a concern. This is certainly true of many secrets that I’ve kept from my parents, such as the fact that I drove around all Christmas while they were on vacation and I had no driver’s license. Or the fact that I came back to The City several times last summer without them knowing so I could go partying with friends. Sure, if I had gotten into an accident and had to call them, they would have felt embarrassed and foolish as parents who didn’t even know where their child was, but bar that sort of event, they were completely in the dark and I had no problems getting away with it.
But these are more examples of withholding information than lying.

By withholding details about their lives, adolescents carve out a social domain and identity that are theirs alone, independent from their parents or other adult authority figures. To seek out a parent for help is, from a teen’s perspective, a tacit admission that he’s not mature enough to handle it alone. Having to tell parents about it can be psychologically emasculating, whether the confession is forced out of him or he volunteers it on his own. It’s essential for some things to be “none of your business.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. I never sought help from my parents because I was always trying to prove that I was mature enough to handle it. To this day, my parents still don’t know about my credit card fiasco. Since it wasn’t my fault, I could have easily told my parents, gotten them to help me out in a time of financial crisis, and I wouldn’t have gotten so stressed out. But I didn’t, because in some twisted way, it was exhilarating to have such an “adult problem.” Having to deal with the travel company and the credit card company – I wanted to be able to say I did that all on my own, without sending my parents out to deal with it like a coward, like a child.
In fact, this applies to a broader domain. I do not seek out help period, because I am always trying to prove that I can handle it, whatever it may be. And that may lead to breakdowns, it may not, but for the most part, I am incredibly independent. Unnecessarily so, as I’ve come to realize.

When Nancy Darling’s researchers interviewed the teenagers from Pennsylvania, they also asked the teens when and why they told the truth to their parents about things they knew their parents disapproved of. [...] many teens told their parents the truth when they were planning on doing something that was against the rules—in hopes their parents might give in and say it was okay. Usually, this meant an argument ensued, but it was worth it if a parent might budge.
The average Pennsylvania teen was 244 percent more likely to lie than to protest a rule. In the families where there was less deception, however, there was a much higher ratio of arguing and complaining. The argument enabled the child to speak honestly. Certain types of fighting, despite the acrimony, were ultimately signs of respect—not of disrespect.

I respect my parents. Let’s just get that on the record. More often than not, they have good reasons for their rules, and they sometimes even share those reasons with me. And when they do, if they’ve persuaded me, I will cooperate. When I cooperate, it means I’ve adopted their reason, and what makes me cooperate is not coercion but agreement. For example, when we were arguing about my use of the car, my parents said they wished I wouldn’t go out late at night in bad weather. And that makes perfect sense to me. So next time, if I’m driving and it’s snowing or raining, I may reschedule whatever plans I had with friends. I have adopted this reasoning, which means I’ll continue to make it even if my parents didn’t say anything or weren’t present.
I also respect my parents because, for the most part, they treat me and my opinion with respect. Ever since I was 12, I have had a “say” in family decision-making. Things like whether I need a cell phone, where we should go vacation, even whether we should buy a new car (even though at that time, cars had nothing to do with me). My parents weren’t too bad at listening to me,
But what my parents were bad at doing was being flexible with their rules. Maybe it’s an Asian thing. Asian parents pride themselves on their strictness. It’s like a measure of their parenting skills, except in this case, it failed them. Because by being inflexible, that encouraged me to go around them rather than through them. If I asked them whether I could go to a party, even though their standard response would be “No,” it probably means I have already rejected five other party invitations and I have thought this one through for a long before I even brought it up with my parents. And if, after our argument, they still say ‘No,’ next time there’s a party I really want to go to, I will just lie to them.

If I were a fictional character in a book or a movie, the next day, I would have sat my parents down and told them all this. I would have had a calm conversation where no one raised their voice, and I would lay out everything I’ve discovered in a logical manner. I would not point fingers, blame them for their parenting mistakes, but I would make them understand that my lying and withholding information is not because I’m immature and childish, but because I have gotten reinforcement throughout my life that these behaviours work. They allow me to smooth out the contradicting demands of being a good daughter and a good friend and a good student and a good employee. I am a one-woman play, trying to play parts to please everyone, and ultimately, lying and withholding information are tools for me to control this play. And I have just gotten really, really good at it.
Ultimately, the conversation would end with my parents realizing that I was putting on this charade to project myself into the daughter they wanted me to be, but they could see that she wasn’t real. And they would agree to try to accept me for the person I am, all of me, so that at least I don’t have to put on the charade in front of them. And we might cry a little, and hug. And then we would prepare dinner together, and I would eat at the dinner table as me, nobody else.

That is what would happen if I were a fictional character.
But I am not. And I can’t get over the petty grievances. I can’t forgive my parents for things that I still resent. I can’t be the bigger person because I still believe that my parents, as parents, should be the bigger people, and I shouldn’t have to carry that psychological burden of parenting my parents.
That is the only childish thought I have, and it prevents me from having the conversation that might fix our relationship.

I know our parents are not infallible. They are not all-knowing, even though we think they are, and even though they act like they are. Every person’s weaknesses or mistakes can, in some way, be traced back to how they were brought up, and for that, we all need to forgive our parents for not being perfect.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to forgive my parents and have that conversation. For now, I am leaving. I am going back to University Town, and I am taking my thoughts and my grievances and my disappointment in my parents with me. Because I am not ready to parent my parents. That is too grown-up for me.

After two hours of feasting on pasta and strawberry shortcake, I decided it was time to go home. My mom was still being a bitch extraordinaire due to work-related stress plus menopause, so I did not want to stay out too late and give her something to bitch about. As I backed out of OBF‘s driveway, I heard a loud thud. I whipped my head around to look out the back window, but I couldn’t see anything. It was dark and raining. I got out of the car and checked the rear bumper. It was hard to see anything, but I ran my head along the bumper and didn’t feel any scratches.

Phew, I thought. My mom would kill me if I scratched her car. I mean, a few weeks ago, I had accidentally scratched the front bumper when I was trying to squeeze into a parking space, and she’d flipped out when she noticed. That was barely a mark. Ever since, I had been extra careful, always parking far away from other cars in wide open areas. And I’d always check the car doors before and after I parked to make sure no one had banged into them.

As I drove home, I stopped at a 24-hour grocery store on a whim and decided to buy my mom some flowers. She’s been extra cranky lately, mostly due to menopause but partly due to stress at work. I certainly didn’t help the situation when I told her we couldn’t go fishing this weekend because of the wedding I had to attend. The fishing thing was a two-week walleye migration and this weekend would be our last opportunity to go. I shouldn’t have felt guilty considering she knew I had this wedding months ago, but when my mother looked so unhappy every morning, how could I not feel guilty?
So I bought her some flowers and took the opportunity to check the car’s rear under better lighting in the parking lot. Still, I did not see a single scratch. This was weird, considering how loud the noise was when I backed out. Maybe God is giving me a break, I thought. Because I really don’t need another reason for my mother to be upset with me. Besides, I am a good daughter. I do want my mother to be happy. I mean, her unhappiness has been on my mind for two days, and now I am getting her flowers in the middle of the night. I am not thoughtless. And I don’t deserve this guilt-trip.

On Friday, my mom came home from work and called me out of the house to look at the car. And there it was. An enormous scratch on the rear bumper. It was hidden on the side, below the part of the bumper that sticks out, but it was still a huge, obvious dent. Oh fuck.

So now my parents think I am a bad driver, despite the fact that I had not gotten a single scratch on her car since I started driving. Oh, another secret I have kept from my parents. They think I started driving last August, when I got my license. Actually, I started driving the Christmas before that, because they were on vacation and I was stuck in a house in the middle of nowhere. And although it had been two years since my driving lessons, and I had no license, I drove anyway. I even drove on the highway, by myself, for the first time, at midnight. No biggie.
I’ll admit that it wasn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made, and I was a far better driver once I’d actually gotten my license than that one Christmas I spent terrorizing the streets, but even then, I did not get a scratch on the car.
And all of a sudden, in a span of two weeks, I scratch the car twice?
Is it really because I’ve suddenly become a worse driver, or is my luck just running this way?

I’m not religious, but sometimes I feel like some higher power or fate or something is deciding arbitrarily whether my life is in a rut. I mean, I have had ridiculous bad luck streaks before. The decision to throw my life in the shits, once made, cannot be reversed no matter how hard I try. It’s only over when “they” say it’s over. When it’s high, everything is going my way. I might as well have angels clearing paths for me. I could go to an interview in a Kool-Aid costume and still get the job. When it’s low, everything is in the shit. I can’t get a job. I can’t get a scholarship. My mom is constantly screaming at me. And I am constantly getting into situations where she has a right to scream at me.

So, in conclusion, the night I spent at my friend’s house for dinner in order to save $10 on parking and $30 on dinner ended up costing $1500 in car repairs.