AS always it is communication with others which give me inspiration and thoughts worth jotting down. And Jing, after our conversation, I wonder. Do children and parents ever brdige their differences? Does the point when a child becomes a parent eventually means a meeting of point of view, finally a deep reconciliating understanding? Because I still feel resentment against my parents. Quite frankly I dread their coming, although in ways I look forward to it. Expectations, a deadly thing or is it still something that arises out of love. I think a love that does not hold certain expectation degrades into a kind of sloth, a justification to remain in stunted growth. Expectations and challenges pushes people to grow, and it pushes people into new areas, into virgin lands to self explore. And love in whatever form, does exactly that. It forces you to grow and venture.

On the other hand, I hate expectaions, I hate how it always reveals how we are always falling short, always imperfect, always a lack. We will never be beautiful enough, we will never be smart enough, we will never be perfect enough, and there are always things for them to pick on. Our bad skin, our bad attitude, our ways of doing things. And of course there is that imbalanced power structure, where it is perfectly ok for you to brandish out criticisms, but I can never fight back on an equal footing, nor criticize you, simply because we arrived from your womb.

And that is the power they will not give in. They will always reserve the right to be insensitive to your feelings, pour all sorts of cynical comments on your excited plans. Just to remind you that they are still incharge, and when you fight back with anger, remind you once again how you are still a child, so childish to respond in such a emotional way. And no matter how old I am, how far away I am, that string still binds me and still holds me. It catches me when I fall, but tugs me back when I want to fly.

I can feel their anxiety when I mention moving out, as if our separate existence threatens their own. Perhaps being a parent really has its selfish sides, things you do not want to let go off becuase it subtracts from you, your power, your meaning, your life. As your child, yes your blood runs in my veins, and your genes are constantly guiding my hand, moving my face, reeling my thoughts, so that I want to think I am independent and can escape from you, but your voice and your thoughts surface and peeps through although I try to supress them. But from the moment I broke free from the darkness of your womb to the lighted air, and the moment the chord which binds us biologically was cut, I am my own individual and has been. I am distinct from you, although you like to think I am yours, I have my thoughts, and my desires which sometimes might, selfishly, not include you.

And all your years of devotion and care, and worries and slaving away, may see that your offspring wants a life where you are not centrestage, where you are but a sideshow along many others. And suddenly you feel yoruself loosing grasp of the string to the kite, should you smile and let it float with the wind and see new places and visit new adventures, or do you want to hold on to it and save it from the wild wind whcih may ravage yoru handy work?

Whatever your decision, eventually there comes a point when you realize you can't draw the string anymore. And I have become a bird, I will fly back and revisit my nest and once-upon-a-times, the stories you once told at bedtime. But after that short stay, I will fly away again, to a life, somewhere else. And you think how amazing, and how sad, the past slips away.