2. Letting go of my egoic self ( continued)

I’d like to continue and further discussing about the egoic self in point number 2 that I have discussed. I’ve been thinking about this point since yesterday and realize that there’s another angle that I’ve never touched. My father complex and especially my mother complex. The father complex and the mother complex has everything to do with my father and mother, but also has nothing to do with them. It’s my own internalization of what love is, how to treat the one you love, and how to react certain way. My egoic self has evolved, and so does my father and father complex.
a. The outburst – My very first serious boyfriend, Marlon, has told me one thing that followed me till this day: “When we’re arguing, it seems like you are dropping atomic bomb. You’re gathering the materials here and there ( things that I disagree with, things that I don’t like to do to me), like you are gathering the Uranium and out of nowhere, the bomb dropped like Hiroshima all over” . Well this is not his exact word, I’m adding the images for you to visualize it better. Ever since that boyfriend, I guess, I’m pretty much going through the same vicious circle ⭕️, I kept the thing that bothers me and dropped it like an atomic bomb. The bomb 💣 became much powerful as I grow older. The outburst that dropped on Camel at 11:00 AM in Tan Son Nhat airport is by far the deadliest attack that I’ve strike. These attacks goes exactly the same big or small it’s usually consists of the 3 factors:
– Logics: A logical explanation from point A to point B. There’s no place for any emotions whatsoever present.
– Accusation: What’s the other did wrong, how many times, when did it happen
– Righteousness: That all of my arguments will lead to only one truth that I’m right and you are completely in the wrong.

Gosh, 😅 , by writing this all out, you can see how terribly in the wrong I was and how I deeply hurt 😔 the person that I hold dear to my heart. I’ve treated my loved one exactly the way I treated my mother and how she treated me. She doesn’t understand what love is, and consequently so am I. The silence, the holding onto many facts, and then the outbursts is exactly what she did to me. Throughout my childhood, when father’s away, every single time I did something wrong, she will yell at me for a bit. But then she kept all of that in her pocket, waiting for father to come home. Then at one lovely dinner, she would spill out the fact that I left the gate opened, I lost my key etc, … my Dad would come in rage, his face would turn red and then the dinner became a disaster. I can still feel the scared, the pain, and the sadness that little Mai has gone through her childhood.

What has changed: By letting go of my mother, I mean completely out of my life. In one year, I’ve slowly started to remove the negativity that she weighed down on my over the years. I learned to love myself that way it should be love. It’s not about spoiling self, but it’s about taking care of myself not working myself to death. Camel has told me repeatedly that I don’t know how to do so, and it’s so true. The Bible said: ” God only help those who help themselves”, which is another way to say that there’s no God but only you can make the different to your life. So I did. I’ve built a healthy lifestyle, I exercise every morning, I went to bed early at night. I create a home out of the house that I was looking forward to go back everyday, sometimes I love it so much I don’t even want to leave. I no longer suffered from Insomnia, it’s gone, forever. I am embracing every aspect of my life and I have nothing to complain at this point in time.
There’s no longer any outburst, I can talk and confront the thing that upsets me. I can express my feelings, and I don’t let Lorki – my emotional monster friend took the lead any longer. I believe that I will never “lost my shit” again.
To Anh: I’d like to say sorry. Sorry for being a child, sorry for not being able to express my feelings, sorry for hurting you, sorry for everything. I’ve loved you deeply and I still love you madly.

b. The running away: If the outburst is stemming from my mother complex, the culprit for always try to escape is nothing more than my father complex. With all the relationship that I’ve been in, there’s none that I was completely all in. Imagine a guest that coming to your home, but always stay at the living room, with her shoes still on her feet and her bags still on her shoulders. It was as if, she’s ready to live anytime, any minutes now. Sometimes, it’s even worst, I’m just standing right outside of the door, refuse to walk into the house of love, to let the love nourish me. That was me in a relationship, someone who’s ready to run away the minute the house started to burn down. Besides mimicking my mother’s behavior, I’m also the exact copy of my father.
My father, who’s trapped in a loveless marriage, and who’s also heavily influenced by Confucius teaching has chosen a path like no other. He chose to stay in the marriage but living a separate life. He can’t stand to stay with my mother more than 5 days at a time, I know how it feel. He can put his smile up for 5 days, but after that he’s tired, just like I am. I can only fake for a short period of time then I need a bit of recharge. He chose to run away, never really engage in the family life. He chose to live half a life, not having the happiness he’s deserved and not giving the happiness that I deserved. I’ve incorporated his life values into my life values for the better half of my life. I’ve also chose to live half a life.
Camel told me: Em không bao giờ nói về chuyện tương lai cả. What he meant was I never talked about our future, the future that includes me and him while I was with him. I immediately strike back saying that because he told me he’s going to move back to Ha Noi, and I don’t know how to bring this conversation forward. Well, part of that is true, I don’t know how to bring the conversation forward, but the main thing is because I was scared. I was afraid of confrontation, how can I explain that I’m so afraid that I won’t survive in Ha Noi, how can I explain that I’m afraid of this big commitment, how can I explain that I’m afraid of the idea of leaving everything behind to move in an aggressive, scary land? But most of all, how can I explain my fear of abandonment, and fear of commitment. What if we moved to a strange land, and then you decided to leave me, then I will be dead ( of course I will not die, but that’s just my fear at the time talking).
It’s my fear of abandonment that drive everything to the end. In the past, I just left, so that people don’t have the chance to leave me. That strategy has been working for awhile until it wasn’t anymore. It’s because as I age, my heart became more mellow, and I crashed when someone actually left me for good.
What has changed: The concept of ownership has enlightened me, how to be with someone else while still remains the same old me? This question has followed me for awhile. I wanted to learn, I wanted to be with someone fully, to love fiercely, to open my heart completely. I think it’s like “breathing” , the movement has to go in pairs. On one hand, I breath in, to keep the person near, so I can feel the love the “oxygen” to my soul. On the other hand, I breath out, to give space for my self, for a new wave of love to come. I know it’s hard to explain by words, but I thinks it’s a parallel movement that cannot live without each other. By letting go of my father, completely letting go of my father I have also let my father complex go, and give space for a different thing to grow. That “new” person, the Aria is growing fast, she’s took the first step to confessed her love, to tỏ tình với 1 người the thing that she hasn’t done in her entire life and it makes her feel so soft, so tender, so full of life. She still has lots to learn, one step at a time but she’s there and I know her existence.

To be continued…