30

Growing up I was certain that I wouldn’t make it past my 30th birthday. Okay, not that I “wouldn’t”, more like I didn’t want to, or care to.

I’ve had suicide ideologies since I was 5. I’ve always been fascinated with death since I was quite little. I wondered what it was like to be dead, I was comfortable with the idea of being dead. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I didn’t like pain – like most people. Growing up in Hong Kong was suffocating, to say the least. Between high expectations from parents, and societal competition, there was no room to be carefree and childlike.

We moved into our second house when I was 5. It was around then I had thought about how living on the 5th floor wasn’t high enough, if I were to jump out of the window. That I would only be mortally wounded, and death wasn’t a guarantee.

When I entered high school in the states, it was the first time I tasted freedom. My parents wouldn’t let me get my driver license. But that didn’t stop me, all my friends had theirs. Those were some turbulent years. The fight for my agency, my independence, to live my life the way I wanted to. For far too long I lived by archaic rules handed down by my parents. I never got to “live”. I was just going through the motions of living. Wake up, school, Kumon, piano, homework, house work – every day. I loved to dance since I could remember, but my parents never liked it. My mom enrolled my (younger) sister into ballet before letting me enroll. I never forgave her for that. I only got to do ballet for 4 ~ 5 years before we moved to the states and she never bothered enrolling us anywhere for it. But you bet cha that she made sure we were still doing Kumon and piano.

I wanted to die. Was an understatement. All I did every day were things I hated. There was nothing to live for.

I was good at track, I joined the track team in middle school. At the end of the year there was a jamboree for all the schools to get together and have fun, I was not allowed to go. Any time there was anything that I had an actual interest in, I was not allowed to do it. Everything I liked was a waste of time to them.

So imagine the nuclear bomb that went off when I entered high school. Where I wasn’t dependent on my parents driving me anywhere anymore. I started sneaking out at night to hang out with my friends. I started skipping school, because it was the only time I was “allowed” to not be home. I started going to raves. I was trying to find myself when I found a group of people who accepted me for who I was and understood how I felt. I wanted to “live”, to feel alive for once. I wanted to spend my days doing things I like and love. Not just doing something so I wouldn’t get beat, or yelled at.

I met Wzrd when I was 19. About 3 years after my “liberation”. We had the same group of friends but never met until my 19th birthday. Everything changed since that night we met.

It is my 40th revolution around the sun this year. Something I never counted on. Some times I feel like I’m living on borrowed time. Because I wasn’t met to be here still. Seeing Wzrd work so hard every day reminds me that I am no longer just “here”, just living through the motions of life. This IS my life, our life, that we’ve built together in the past 20 years. I haven’t had thoughts of leaving earth anymore. I try to live every day with intention, and gratitude.

I’m grateful for the last 10 bonus years I got. Every day was more than I had bargained for. But I’m excited to begin the 5th decade of my life. I’m going to own it. I’m not longer a victim of my past, my trauma. It’s what made me who I am, but I won’t let it define me.