Rambling

My mother killed herself when she was 28 and I was 1; with that, she took away a lot more than just her life. I was robbed of any chance of any normalcy in my childhood; the chance of growing up with my parents; the opportunity of growing up in this country albeit being born here; the chance of ever speaking English without an accent; the side effects of growing up as a single child with my grandparents; a father that I barely knew and now I hate; and many other events in my life that I can or cannot tie directly to her death.

I lack a sense of security. The more I am emtionally attached to certain things, the more afraid I am to lose it. For the most part, I don't get too attached to materialistic goods. I desire a lot of them; but I don't get overly attached to them after I obtained them, probably a side-effect of all the relocations in my life and the lost of materialistic goods associated with those relocations. I have my quirks. I am irresistable to knickknacks. I don't do much more with them than to buy them and bring them home; then I put them away. When I particularly like certain items; I buy more than one of them.

Now all that is fine until I met my husband. We've been happily married for almost three years now, and the more time I spent with him, the more I love him. The more I love him, the more I dread his demise. Not mine, his. I think about it everyday, obssessively, uncontrollably.

I grew up with my grandparents. My grandmother is a traditional Asian woman. She believed that the ultimate goal in a woman's life is to marry a man whom can support her (love is entirely optional, or maybe even unnecessary) and the ultimate goal of a man's life is to get married and have kids. Hey, that's what her entire world was about, can I blame her?

I think of being a housewife (or househusband) as a very brave career. Of course, everybody believes that their marriage will last forever when they get married. Okay, forget about the argument that there is a possibility that one day things will turn sour, he might have a change of heart and decided to go for a different woman, a different life style. What if he (or her, whoever the breadwinner is) dies in an accident? What is the wife (or husband) going to do? How is she/he going to support their children? Okay, to be less melodramatic. What if he/she is diabled in an accident? Okay, even less dramatic and something that majority of us can relate to, what if he/she gets laid off and became unemployed? I don't know. I cannot live with that kind of uncertainty. Without knowing that there is a contingency plan, such as a second income.

Lately, I have realized that despite of my grandmother's brainwashing for so many years, I do not wish to be the dependent to my husband, (granted, I prefer that the portion of my income is predominantely optional) I would rather be an independent individual. Instead of a dependent, I'd rather be his partner in life in its truest sense - not a burden but someone who stands by his side, as his equal, emtionally and intellectually, supported and supporting. After all, isn't that why I chose someone who has an appreciation for my intelligence to begin with? :)