The glass cage

Today, I poached the subject of furthering my study in Australia with mum.

The usual arguments surface.

“You can’t just leave me here alone.”

“What about your job? You said how much you liked it when you first started. When you left the bank and I objected, you told me how much you like job. Aiyah, should have listened to me and stay in the bank.”

“Don’t you want to get married? People your age have children of their own already. In fact, so and so have more than one already, etc.”

There were a few more irrevelant attempts.

After that, long silence and she just walked away and laid down on her bed.

I hate the whole situation. I can see all too clearly the glass cage that I am trapped in. It has always been the same scenario over and over again. Why does being an only child deprive me of the right to live my own life and the right to pursue my dream?

I will love to just walk away and leave her to adapt. But, I can’t. I can’t because my mum is not someone who can adapt. She is not someone who can take on a broad perspective. She is not someone who can understand. In her mind, my mention of oversea study equates my intention to desert her. And, that is all that she can see. She can never understand why I deemed it necessary to remove myself from my current life and pursue something different. She does not understand all my explaination of why at different part of our lives, we need and pursue different things in life. 

In this moment, I have never feel so stagnant before in my life and I really want to move out of my comfort zone. I really want to try being independent in a completely different environment and just enjoy being myself and trying my best in what I do. I want to expand my horizon in a world outside Singapore. This place that makes me feel stifled. I do not want to climb corporate ladder and sell myself to higher and higher expectation of monetary gains. I just want to pursue my little dream now while I can still afford to. Before I settle down and have my own commitments.

Is that being selfish? I have been putting off my plans all these years for your sake. I am thirty now. If I don’t do it now, I will probably regret it. Why can’t you just give in to me for 2 years? I will come back. Am I the one being selfish or are you?