Baggage and Going Back Home

This blog is quite literally about Baggage or Luggage. Perhaps it's also metaphorically symbolizing a power struggle between me and my parents and perhaps just perhaps, me growing up and being obedient. I'm venting and struggling to put aside my own opinions act like a fool and obey my parents. Okay, perhaps I'm being a little melodramatic, I'm not a fool and I don't always act like a fool. Most of the time if I am acting like a fool, it has nothing to do with my parents but entirely of my own doing.

My parents' only request is for me to bring home these 2 ancient luggages. You know the ones that are a rectangular horizontal beast on 4 squiggly, squeaky wheels. The ones that look like colorful boxy St. Bernards (the dog) even including the "leash" for you to pull and tug it in the direction of choice. And I'm struggling real hard with this request. I don't want to lug the beast--one luggage semi-filled with clothes, books, shoes inside another luggage--I could just imagine myself tripping over myself just to get it safely to my destination. I guess I don't want to look like a fool. Yes, I'm self-conscious at times--especially when I'm returning home to the one place and with those people that criticize me directly and indirectly all of those 17 years. And why would they want those 2 obsolete beasts one would ask? Why, it's because of storage. The stereotypical Asian in them, cannot let anything go to waste and must surely recycle and find some use for obsolete items. So what are the luggages going to convert into? Storage. I'm sorry, WHAT!?! Wouldn't plastic containers serve better for storage than luggages? I don't understand their logic, and if I don't understand their logic, I don't know why I should endure the--maximum of 1 hour of pain--for them. Okay, I'll admit it, I'm being an ungrateful brat. I should just do what they say regardless of how I'll look, if I love them, that means sometimes risking looking like a fool to obey them. Love means lugging luggage, no, love means making a fool out of yourself to make the other happy.

So I'm going back home, first time in 2 years. And before I even depart from SLC, I'm starting to feel like my old self again. The same old 17 year old that left the island all stoic--not hugging or no exchanges of "I-Love-You's" to her family--only to cry on the entirely plane right to Utah. I'm feel like that girl all over again, when I know that I've grown and change and I've become more of a lady. Someone who's more certain of who she is, what she wants, and what's truly important. Yet, most of the time, when it comes to my parents especially when we're just talking about me and them, I feel as if I'm back to that girl all over again. *Sigh* And I don't want to be that girl. I don't want to be insecure about the way I look, the things I do and say. I don't want to feel as if I'll never be good enough and measure up to my sister or anyone else. I don't want to be that girl!

And I'm not that girl, it's just that sometimes, they bring it out in me. I have a theory that we are different version of oursevles around different people. For example: The Boy brings out the best in me, the best in the cynic, the best in the optimistic romantic, the best in the intellect, the best in everything. Whereas the parents on the other hand, well that's another story, but most of the time, it's the worst in me. Unless, they're venting to me and wanting me to theorize about my teenage brother's horrid habits. Sometimes, I wonder despite how much one changes, can one truly change who they are or how they are perceive or how they might act around a certain people? Because sometimes, I really do feel like that 17 year old girl again.