Category Archives: Family

Moving Out

In my culture, there is only two reasons for a girl to be leaving her parents house. One, she is going to marry and she leaves to join her husband’s family. Two, and this one is very unlikely and still hard to see through, she leaves for a better college life.

And the thing is, I don’t fit into any of those categories.

Here is the first thing, I don’t plan on getting married. And this is going to sound contradicting, but I’m not ruling it out either. It’s just that I am not in a place of mind to be thinking about marriage. Marriage, for me, doesn’t mean completion. Marriage, for me, doesn’t mean that life is finally starting. But marriage, for me, doesn’t mean that I am going to be forever stuck as well.

I just haven’t found the person I would like to be forever with, nor do I think it is the time to start looking. When it happens it will happen and I know that there will be no regrets.

Here’s the second thing, I’ve tried college living at home. It doesn’t lead to anything other than depression. The first time I hit depression so hard, it took me months to get over it. The second time I tried my best to not be depressed, but it still came. I have to admit, I’m scared. College scares me. I know I can be good at it, but I know it come with a price as well.

So here is the final question, why am I moving out?

Why am I moving out?

Why?

My parents don’t want me to leave. Honestly, I could live the rest of my life at home and my parents would be okay with it. But do you see the issue with that? I could live THE REST OF MY LIFE at my parents house.

And I know, I know. Who wouldn’t love to live a life full of safety nets? I can buy and do whatever I want, whenever I want, and life would be peachy cause I have parents who takes care of all the bills. Who wouldn’t want that?!

Heck, this is one of the reasons why I waited 24 years before I was pushed into this decision.

Here is another part of this story. I have been conditioned into staying to protect my parents. For over 8 to 9 years all everyone has ever told me was that my parents needed me. And I believed it. My parents relied on me for everything. I had to grow up and I had to change myself over and over again just to satisfy their needs.

But then, you know what happened, my parents mentally and verbally abused me. For years they manipulated their words, and threatened my every thought and action. I couldn’t do anything. All my actions, whether they were purely good or slightly ill intent, were shot down.

I couldn’t even be my own person. I had to be my parents daughter. I had to be the face of my family. I had to be perfect.

That doesn’t sound so bad right? Being perfect.

But perfect is not who I am. I am flawed. And I am perfectly fine with being flawed.

So, what does that have with me moving out? I’ve been wanting to move out since the notion entered my mind when I was 16/17. But I was scared. I’ve been scared of leaving my parents. I’ve been scared of leaving everything I have ever known about my life. My normal was going to be shattered.

My parents need me but don’t want me. My parents want me but don’t need me. It is always one or the other.

They have the need to feel like everything is in their control. So they say things and do stuff that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

And I need to get away from that.

It’s honestly not as bad as it sounds. I’m not in a horrible place. But I don’t feel like I’m really living. I may live in their house, but it isn’t my home. I may have a room, but it really isn’t my room. My parents still feel like they can roam through my junk when they feel like it. And it may just be junk, but it is my junk.

I’m a very private person, other than me writing about my life all the time. But there are limits to my private life. I don’t like knowing that I don’t have a safe spot. And right now, I don’t have a safe spot at all.

So, even though it was my sister’s idea to move out, I am now taking the lead. Even though it was my sister’s plan, I am taking the brute of the aftermath. My parents are acting as if I was the mastermind behind the decision.

My parents know that I am not like any of their other children. I am the one to go out of pattern. The one who may follow their every order but the one to go against every plan they also have.

So, why am I moving out?

I am tired of being pushed and pulled. I am tired of having these expectations without information about what is really going on.

I am tired of not being in control of my life.

My Rants of Today

back home and nothing feels real. it’s a thing i go through. is there a word for this? it’s like after repetition everyday and then going through some crazy adventure, you miss the adventure and the everyday lifestyle is not enough.

the trip was good though. i guess i have been craving to be feeling like a part of something. i have never truly felt American and i have never truly felt Hmong, because i am both. and it was good to be part of that Hmong community again.

when i was young i was disappointed in my people and wanted nothing to do with them, but when i mentally grew up, i realized that i could never throw it away. even if i can never be wholly part of the Hmong community, i can at least fit in the way i want to.

also, i have known for a long time that there are going to be people who are negative about everything. they can’t help but put in their thoughts. in the past i would let them get away with it. if they want to continue with their thoughts, go right ahead, i can’t do anything about it.

but i have changed again. if they have a right to their thoughts, i also have a right to my thoughts. and i have a right to put them down if i have to, no matter who they are.

i hold grudges, i hold them for a long time. even if you don’t remember, i will. i will let you get away with things the first time and if it is only about me. but if you decide to attack me again and it is about someone who i support or love, then it is your fault for not being able to just stay silent and support me.

so yes, i can hold back, but don’t taunt me or i will be angered. also don’t make assumptions about people you don’t even know.

A Little Something I Wanted to Share

I wrote this to a friend and thought it would be cool to post it here. I do mention references to my story I am writing, which is what sparked this conversation.

Have a little of my past 🙂

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personally, why I don’t agree to forced marriage and fear it, is because I don’t want to lose my freedom. I had to struggle just to be the person that I am right now. When I was growing up, I was “the pretty one with white skin” that all the old ladies doted on. I grew up with expectations to do well, to marry well, and to have a good looking boyfriend/husband, all because the fact of me having “a pretty face.”
I was basically told what to expect out of life. But having all these words thrown at me didn’t make my feel any better. My sisters, and cousins had to witness it too. They were being compared to me, but I didn’t like to be the china doll that everyone showed off. Honestly, as a young girl, I didn’t think there was much about me that was charming. I blinked too much, I was empty minded, and filled with
imaginations.
It should have made me a bitch, and maybe it did, but since I was so different, I secluded myself. I didn’t want to stand out as “the pretty one.” It got to the point that if any guy talked to me, I would turn my back to them, honestly I was an ice princess during my middle and high school years. It was something that I never noticed till just last year..
I never allowed myself to grow to my full potential, I was scared to be ‘me’. So while I still worked hard, I pulled back in the department of social skills and love life.
For awhile I did find ‘me’, and I thought I was finally going to go somewhere in life, but things aren’t always that dandy and great. I had a conflict with my sisters. I had other life ambitions and they were worried about their love lives. We weren’t seeing eye to eye in anything. They were the closes people to me in my family, and in matter of months we hated each other with a passion…
But they were still my family, and with time we slowly became family again, but never as close as we once were.
I still lost myself though, and I was lost for so long too. I closed myself off again. My best friend could see it, but she didn’t know how to deal with it. She didn’t know what I had to grow up with. For years I would put on a mask with a smile, but I was basically dying on the inside.
It was just two years ago that I started on my life journey to be happy and to be ‘me’. I feel like I took three big steps in my life. If I were to be married, I would be taking four steps back.
Plus, I tend to think that my dreams carry heavy messages that I am afraid to admit, and I had dreams about forced marriages. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was thinking consistently about my story, but it showed me what my darkest fears were about forced marriage. People kept trying to get into my bubble, trying to control everything for me. Just like Luna, everyone was making mistakes for her and she had to deal with the mess. Nobody would let me grow as a person, and nothing would be mine anymore.
That is another thing, while growing up, my sister’s would claim things as theirs and I would step back and let them. I had nothing to claim as mine. Now that I do have something that is mine, I am scared that someone is going to take it away from me.
And yeah, I lost a lot of my sisters while I was young. They were never really sister figures though, or at least I felt like they never were. They never tried to understand me as a human being, even though I tried with every last tear to understand what was going on in their minds. I tried so hard with my younger sisters too, and it only left me hurt even more. I love them to pieces, but no one really understands me.. So yea, I do have a silent promise with myself to not let my younger sisters go through what I went through when all my married sisters left. Because honestly, when my family was already under scrutiny, it hurt that my sisters were finding love and I was stuck to deal with all the drama and gossip.
Rather than focusing on others, my main goal in life is to focus on me. As greedy as that sounds, it’s something that I owe to myself, to my kid self who worried too much about what other’s thought about themselves and about me.
When I write a stories, my characters are their own people, but I tend to leave a bit of me with my them. And that may seem greedy too, but I can’t help but leave part of myself in places that my family would never think to look.
I can’t seem to make my stories short…. I had to share my whole life story… (and why would i share my whole life story? i don’t fear my flaws or horrible past.)

Nothing is Wrong with Loving Your Culture

it hurts me to write this…

i’ve always been an open minded person. i have always wanted to know MORE. i have this guilty pleasure of knowledge. and not only that, but i have this guilty pleasure of broadening my mind to different cultures.

i am Hmong, born in America. i am a Hmong American girl.

i grew up with TWO cultures. there are times when something from BOTH cultures don’t make sense to me. it is hard, to be made fun of for not understanding something from someone who was more exposed to that culture. it is hard, to be made fun of for liking something that another person does not take time to try and understand.

it is even harder when my Hmong siblings make fun of me, a Hmong girl, for liking Hmong music.

judgement on me, on who i am.

as a Hmong girl trying to make a name for myself, is it wrong to enjoy and encourage other Hmong artists that are on the same path as me, as all of us are?

because of this judgement, this sneer that would come my way, the disagreement of what is “good” and “bad”, i have been lost.

i am a lost Hmong American girl.

i love music and it makes me who i am.

yet i can’t even enjoy it when my family, my peers are judging me about it…

in this moment where i am lost, i have given in to the guilty pleasure of Hmong music and i have not regret it at all.

i can finally connect to something. relate to other Hmong communities, like finding a little lost piece of myself.

these past few days have been filled with nothing but good. i can finally write, write and write without worries. i can finally write what is deep in my heart. what bothers me and what makes me, me.

so don’t suppress yourself just for the sake of others. find out who you are, find all your little missing puzzle pieces. take a stand for what makes you, you.

Childhood Dreams

I sat there, listening to music, that carried my childhood in them. This particular night was like any other night of my life. Nothing special was going on. Other than procrastinating on homework, life was a yawn.

I closed my eyes and thought back to when I was a child. Back in California. When days were much simpler. When the only thing I had to worry about was coming home with bruises on my knees from playing with the boys at recess.

The days when my siblings and I didn’t get yelled at for playing in the sprinklers after school,  making our uniforms soaking wet. When all I had to do was read books after books.

And of course, that smile of my best friend.

I had missed a few days from spraining my ankle (jumping off my roof). And when I returned, she had greeted me with her big smile and told me that everyone missed me. We were inseparable.

But that was back in California.

My parents moved us to the great midwest, to the state of Wisconsin. Everything I ever knew changed. People were different there, my friends new. It was difficult to accept the change. Despite my difficulties, day after day, month after month, even though I yearned for my home in California, I was moving on.

I lost connection with my childhood friends, I lost what it was to be a Cali girl.

What did I become? A girl stuck in reality. Dreaming at night but forgetting to have dreams while I walked the grounds of Earth.

a girl sits in front of her computer screen

a girl sits in front of her computer screen

unaware of who she is

unaware of how she is supposed to

tell the world how she came to be

where she came from

why she does the things she does

days turn to weeks

weeks into years

but there is only

confusion after confusion

Hard to be Happy

It is hard to be happy.

I should just stop trying.

But there is a reputation to uphold!

Who the fuck cares about a reputation!

But wait, who am I really doing this for?

Why the hell do I even try to be so nice to everybody for?

Oh yea…

Those people who conceived, birthed, and took care of me till now.

They are the only reason why I am still living at home, why I still act nice to our other family members, the only reason why I haven’t fallen back into my deep hole of depression.

But it is so hard…

When they can’t let go of the past.

When they can’t stop caring about how everybody else views them.

It makes it hard for them to be a happy person.

Thus, making it hard for me to be a happy person.

Deeper Than Just a Body Image

Recently I got my sixth and seventh ear piercings. I know it isn’t real big news, but to me it is. For a Hmong girl who is supposed to be a good girl, it is big.

When I got my first three piercings, other than my first “normal ones”, a lot of people were disappointed in me. At that time I could see why. I was supposed to be the good girl.

I still am a good girl. Compared to all of the other girls my age, I think I am doing pretty well. It’s not like I am out every night with my “gangster friends” (I have one best friend and she is the daughter of a very respected man in our town, she isn’t perfect, but compared to other girls, she is the best of the bunch), I don’t get shit face drunk every weekend, there is no cigarette hanging off my mouth, and I don’t even have a boyfriend.

I’ve come to realize that there is no reason to be disappointed in the way I want my body to look. I am not trying to impress them, I am not trying to impress boys, and I would not go that desperate for attention.

The earrings are there to represent things. Things I have overcome and the goals I have yet to reach. They have a reason and I don’t think I should have to explain them to anyone.

I want people to like me for me. Not for my body or what I do with my body. I want someone to notice how weird I am and still decide to stay by my side.

Honestly, these are not the last piercings I will be doing. I still have goals of at least three to five more. I’m sure more people will be disappointed to hear that I plan on getting tattoos too. (Yeah, they have reasons too.) It won’t change me. It’s not like I will be a different girl at the end of the day.

I will still be Lucy.

 

Another Honest Topic

My family makes me mad. Which is kind of childish but when it deals with my personal life
of happiness than it is a big deal.

This does not have to do with my parents or my siblings. They are a different story which I
have yet to write out.

My aunts, uncles, and cousins. All of them drive me up the wall. The last time all of us
saw each other we all left on a bad note. Everybody went their own ways with no
intentions of fixing things up with the people who they twisted.

I’m not sure how everybody else did after those events but it left me in a dark hole. So
dark I could not see any light. Of course I don’t live that way anymore, but
there is still a veil to reminding me of what passed and can never be healed.

It’s been almost over two years now, which should make the situation better and less
annoying. Time heals and I feel ready for another family reunion where things
can go well. I want it to happen, because despite all the horrible things in
the past, I miss those idiots.

I feel as if even though I try to make progress to overcome my fears there are still those
who are clinging on to the past. Which has become apparent to me after these
past few weeks.

The family in question. I love them to death and truth be told they stuck with me through all
my hard times. I never made them uncomfortable though and made sure they had a
way out when others were being uncontrollable.

At this moment I cannot help but be uncomfortable in the position they are putting me
in. My cousin is getting married, to someone who is not Hmong, so I assume they
will be doing a formal American wedding. I am happy for her and her decisions.

But…

Here it is. The big deal breaker for me. They must need phone numbers to contact family
members to tell them of the news. Plus on top of that, needing addresses to
send out invites.

I can understand. BUT! Do they have to ask me for addresses and phone numbers which
do not belong to me?

Is the internet not right there in the face? Is Facebook not working on their computer? Are my
cousins not able to write a simple letter to the certain people they want to
contact?

Is it so hard to overcome this hate for a happy situation?

I may be putting things out of content. Seriously though…

Why do they have to make it harder than it seems to ask for those things? We are all family
and should accept family requiring that information at times. But get those
information from the person in question themselves and not from someone else.

I seriously had to go and ask the family members myself for their info for my cousin…
Which is what got me mad. Something so simple but they make it so hard and have
to nag me for.

I gave them all the info the first time and they had to lose it. Hence asking me a second
time. Why is it they don’t learn from their mistakes…?

When family ask of me for my own information I give it to them freely. Sure I would wonder
but I give them full confidence to not use it against me.

No more of this. I am done with it. I will continue my silence for my own happiness.