Mom

I had started to read "My Sister Keeper" by Jodi Picoult after hearing so much of good recommendation from many bloggers and colleagues. So far, i'm 1/3 through the book, and the message which strike me hard at the moment is that how selfish yet sacrificial a mother's love can be. As contradicting it may sound, it's true.

Anyway, I will reserve my comments until i finish reading the whole book.

I had an 'adult' conversation with my mom last Sunday, not the 18sx 'Adult' type (NO WAY i'm gonna talk to my mom with regards to THOSE topic), but more of the topics related to the adulthood a.k.a. paying bills, owning assets, house renovation etc.

Believe it or not, i seldom talk to my mom with regards to worries and difficulties i faced in my life. Its not that we are not close or i dont trust her enough to share my personal feelings. Its just that i dont want her to be anxious thinking that her daughter is 'suffering' and 'tormenting' at the foreign land 外地 (according to her definition, any place away from home is considered as foreign). It was unnecessary for her to bear my burden as there is nothing much to do when there is a great South China Sea between us.

She always felt that out of her three children, i am the one farthest away from her, hence she felt deeply insecure when she sense the slightest indication of me in depressive mood. In order for her to not fret too much, for years, blogging has been my only outlet to release my true feelings as my mom is a complete Internet noob. Trust me, my mom is good at fishing information from my close friends.

In my mom's eyes, i have ceased to grow since the day i left my family to embark on further studies, that's when i was 17. And to be fair, its really hard to accept your child is a grown up when she was hardly at home. And it doesn't help much either when she only 'heard' from once a week call that i'm had my final examination, i've graduated, i have fallen in love and out of love, i'm flying to UK, i've graduated again, i've found a job, i've bought a car, Peter had proposed to me and i'm getting married soon.

"Eat well, dont take too much of oily food"
"Dont work too hard, sleep early"
"Be careful while crossing the road"..... That's what my mom always told me, in every call, without failed, for 10 years.

And the funny thing is, the more she look at me as a 17 years old hormone ranging teenage, the more i wanted to prove to her that i'm an adult now, by age, by emotional maturity and by financial capability. In short, she don't have to worry because i have everything under control.

"yeah, yeah, am fine, my boss is a headache but i'm dealing with him fine"
"House reno was a mess but peter and I are working on it fine"
EVERYTHING is fine ......... That's what i've always told my mom.

Thats why the tele conversation which we had that night was completely incomprehensible. I dunno what had gotten into my brain but for the first time i was frank with her that i'm fed up with all the adult worries. I've admitted that things are not fine and its not easy to become an adult. And funny thing is, instead of getting all tense up like what i would expected, my mom suddenly talked to me like i'm an adult.

"That's a road where every adult need to go through, your dad and myself were there once, although its frustrating, but its fine, thats all part of the process." She said.

Her words soothes my nerves and frustration almost immediately. I would never expected that my mom is cool enough to talk to me in that way. Finally we are talking at the same level and it really felt like a conversation with a friend.

This bring a whole new meaning to the definition of my adulthood-being an adult means that you can talk to your mom like a friend.