***
Back in primary school, back when girls needed an entire parade with them to visit the loo, I was pretty independent. Or at least I am in my own mind. I did not think so at the time, but after I met Melissa and Pearl, and we became best friends, I realized how different the life I used to live was from the life after I made best friends.
I didn't know that you were supposed to get a girlfriend to be with you wherever and whenever. I didn't know that standing alone, waiting for your transport, while your friends are only a few feet away, means you're a loner. I didn't understand why you must have a friend with you before you join a club or society.
We had a camp in school. I ended up in the same group as Pearl, but I don't remember actually spending a lot of time with her much. She stuck by me, but most of the time she was talking to some of the other members of the group, including the group leader, who was a popular girl from another class. Otherwise, when translocating, she'd be right beside me. But I don't remember a lot of talking. Perhaps it was because I kept quiet.
At night, while the other girls were worrying about who they were going to wake to accompany them to the loo in the middle of the night, I was already setting up my sleeping bag. I remember enjoying their conversations, because I felt superior, not being afraid of the dark and of being alone. They soon found out that I wasn't scared at all, so instead of struggling to figure out the chain reactions (they're rather strange. if this girl goes, then this other girl must go, but then that girl will have to go too for goodness knows why, & there was a limit on the number of girls per loo-visit group), they started asking my permission to wake me up.
It has been many, many times, people asking me what I am doing alone. I can go to the movies alone, wander about town alone, study alone, stay back at school alone, play basketball alone. If I can play badminton alone, I would.
It's not so much that I am so capable, I can be alone, than the fact that I like being alone. I
And when I get so accustomed to doing my own thing, I seclude myself from the other things around me. So I don't learn. When I am forced to step out, I fumble. Therefore it seems as though I am horribly incapable. I can't cross the road properly, I can't make the right decisions, I can't buy the right things at the right price, I am naive & trust strangers too easily, I fail at frying nuggets, I don't know how to manage my time.
So certain people, seeing all that, limit me to protect me. They don't want me to get hurt. They show me how to do this, they tell me what to do. They set boundaries. They scold me and again, tell me what to do. In fact, they tell me that they are sick of having to tell me what to do over and over again.
The thing is, I didn't ask them to.
I argue with myself. Hey, if they don't do all that, you might end up in very, very bad situations. They love you. That's why they do all that, even though you say you need your own space to learn, to think for yourself, to figure out what's right and what's wrong for yourself. By the time you figure things out, you might already have made some very bad, irreversible decisions.
They'd rather you live a mediocre, but safe life, than let you try to get a more wonderful, exciting, fuller life by risking your everything.
***
I suppose my parents are doing a pretty good job. They trust me, but to a certain extent. I am thankful for that. A lot of the rules they'd set unconsciously are negligible, and I know better than to push it. Or at least, I knew.
Recently I'd been asking my parents to let me take up this part-time job, teaching at a home tuition center nearby. Mum isn't very happy about the whole thing. She keeps on about why I want to quit my prefect duties, and at the same time, take up another commitment. On, and on. Not saying no, but making it very clear that she doesn't want to say yes at the same time. Finally, just now, she lashed out, "So you think you're very independent already lah?"
I think it's an issue for the both of my rents, my independence, ever since I got my P license. They don't talk about it, not in front of me and not with me, but I can feel it. Dad is being more lenient with my outings, bedtimes and curfews, but his short lectures are becoming more frequent as well. Mum, on the other hand, lets dad make most of the decisions, but lets out her worry and concern by nagging and putting me down.
"Why can't I go?"
"Why must you go, hah?"
"I really don't get it, it's an event, on a Saturday."
"You have to teach at 12, then go straight at 4, then come home at 8? You're wasting the whole day away! I thought you resigned as a prefect because you wanted to focus on your studies? What are you doing now?"
"I already told you, I canceled my classes for this Saturday! I'm only going out at 4, then coming back at 8!"
"...Why must you go? Hah?"
I felt like cursing right then. "Why must I go? I don't have to go, but I want to!"
"Oh, so now it's because you WANT to."
Of course because I WANT to, it's not a responsibility, it's because I WANT to, for fun, for myself. She can't think of a reason to say no, because the only reason she doesn't want me going out, she doesn't want to tell me; she'll make herself sound as biased as she really is. She'd let slip a few times, so I know.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that they don't trust me, because I don't even trust myself.
