Facebook reminded me about the date that we officially move into our new home. I just got back from Denmark at that time, well, from Denmark to Tanzania and to Vietnam. My parents were waiting for me to come back just to move to the new house. Even the new house is ready, but they just have to wait for me to move. There’s a thing about our family, nobody likes changes except me, when something new happens it must be me who started it.
4 year has passed since that time, so many things happened. My parents turned to A parent. We were all planning to live in that beautiful home for a very long time. My mother in her wildest dream even imagine when each of us kid get married, she will transform each floors to a separate apartment and we all live happily ever after in one single home. Of course I was never a fan of that idea, all I ever wanted is to live separately, have my own space, do my own thing. Mom’s house becoming Home when Dad’s home. When Dad’s not there it’s Mother’s house, not my place. My father used to joke that living in this house, will extend his age by 10 more years, he loves the living room, the space and the light. Well, my Dad was able to enjoy his beautiful home, the thing that he worked for his entire life for almost 2 years.
My father, I adore him, I used to speak about him all the times to my friends, I still do now, as if he’s still alive. In the recent weeks, something happened to me, something because I was stupid enough to let it happen. Then all the memories rushed back to me, my father used to said: if anything happened to you, you bring it back here, you don’t have to be scared, I will take care of it for you. He was this great awesome man that I feel so grateful and so lucky to have been born his daughter.
During this week, I continuously having multiple nightmares everyday. Either my father last moment in different scenario, or my struggles with my mother. In the very challenging relationship with my mother, I was always the suppressed one, the one who got blame for everything. I just get used to it, sometimes I even trust that it’s all my fault. In the most recent one, I was too tired of it, I ran away in the middle of night to get some peace. That’s what I do all the time, I run away. I don’t know what do all these nightmares mean, my subconscious trying to tell me something that I couldn’t figure out what is it. Why suddenly all my fears becoming so vivid and so visualize.
That’s my fear, my irrational fear of life. In any case, I would like to be the person who walk away. I am always prepared for it. In a house party, I would like to attend the party and leave, I don’t want to be the host so that people will leave me. I watched some comedies about the rule of having threesome, is a couple and 1 stranger, I immediately chose to be the stranger, the one who leave. In a relationship, when thing is already a bit settled, when the chase is finished, I already started talking about I’m not sure it’s gonna last. It’s like I’m very hesitate of real connections. When things got a bit more serious, I’m afraid. But deep down, I crave connections but I also afraid of being hurt, so I’d rather sabotage. That’s the irrationality of my fear.
Looking back, there was many times that thing got serious, and then I bailed. When Vinny asked me to move, I repeatedly saying no because of this because of that, I can give multiple reasons for it, but I think the main reason is I’m afraid of being hurt. Just like the relationship with my Mom, I’m afraid of being bullied, I’m afraid of being blamed, I’m afraid of not having a voice, I’m afraid of being yelled at, I’m afraid of silent treatment, I’m afraid of having to say sorry all the time, I’m afraid of me having to run away from the place I called home.
Not only in romantic relationship, but also in friendship, work. I think It have trouble sticking to one thing in all kind of human connections. As I recalled, I changed best friends every 3 months during college. I don’t have anyone at all to call the one best friend that stayed with me for more than 10 years. I’m not able to hold a steady job for more than 2 years even with my own business. Once I started feeling like this is going to get big, I bailed.
That’s the reason that I kept jumping from one relationship to another, and was never able to settled. It’s tiring, I know how to do it well, but it’s tiring. I’d like to go beyond my fear. I’d like to step out of my comfort zone, the zone that I created just enough for myself, the dark corner in the room that I feel safe that nobody can yell at me. I’ve been trying to get out of that dark corner, I believed I did, then I jumped right back in
I guess one of the thing I can do this year is to decide that I will not run away anymore, I will be brave. Everytime that I feel like I’m about to run away, I need to remember the 3 points below
I don’t have to be my mother.
My relationship doesn’t have to be like with my mother.
I have the power to be different, to change all that.
Maybe after all, this is what my nightmares is trying to tell me, that I have to learn to face my fear.
