Home Bound

Graduating and getting ready to finally move home has been a touchy subject for me.  More so than usual because the impending date is in 3 weeks?  Or was it 4?  I'm not ready to pack and go home and restart to a 8-5 job.  When am I ever going to have a period of complete rest and do whatever the hell I want before all of this?  I don't have that.  I desperately want a break without knowing that I have a deadline to meet or some appointment I have to show up for.  I just want to sit and curl up to a good book.

Is it bad that I sort of want to suggest for my family to just back off and not vacation down here for a week after I graduate so I can get some breathing room?  I'm feeling suffocated.  I even tried to subtly drop hints to my mom today about needing a place of my own.  All I asked for my own space, in our house, and we don't have room to squeeze me back in.  So if not my own room, why not my own place when I'm financially stable?  I brought up one of my friends to my mom.  My friend's staying in Berkeley after she graduates because she found a job there and my mom asked, "Doesn't she love her parents anymore?  Why would she want to be on her own?  Can't she rent out a bigger apartment for her parents to be there with her?"

It was like pulling teeth, with a pair of tweezers.  This Asian image of a family always being one unit bothered me.  Because I am blood related, I am obligated to put living with family under the same roof first before anything else.  I know my mom knows this well because she came from a family of 10 kids and 2 parents.  They lived in a 3 bedroom country home when they moved to the States.  If that wasn't cramped, I don't know what is.  I would need that escape.  Didn't she?

My parents are not losing me, I'll still be around.  I assure you my relationship with them would be a lot healthier with this physical space.  They can't expect me to enjoy being on my own for all these years and then suck me back in to high school mode.  I'm not 17 anymore and I don't want to be treated like one.  I'm not a form of compensation to start over because it was so hard trying to raise my other siblings when I wasn't around.  I'm 21 now and don't want to be living at home when I'm 30.

I tried to emphasize that independence was a good thing, that it had nothing to do with not loving your family.  I have learned to accept their form of love and support in many ways over the years, a lot of it was when they weren't around.  Now they want to smother me with it to make sure I haven't missed anything.  I have already told my dad my fears about moving back a week ago that I was never going to grow in my career or education if I lived at home.  It's a legitimate phobia, not being able to succeed and just settling.  I wasn't exaggerating.  I know it's true and my dad didn''t even try to be rational about what I said.  I was trying to be an adult, instead I was being childish and unloving.