A few weeks ago, I got a request: Your aunt’s birthday dinner is next next Monday. Are you going?-Mom Not thinking much about my busy schedule, I instantly reply, “yes.” After all, it didn’t seem like it’d take too much time away.
A lesson learned from nearly a decade’s worth of relationship
The last thing my ex had said to me at the end of our nearly-a-decade relationship was, “I booked you a ticket back to the States.”
At the time, he had already been seeing someone else and in an effort to facilitate his new relationship, decided to book me a one-way ticket back to the States without warning.
When I first started traveling in Southeast Asia, I’d stop by every Chinatown there was, shop at the largest malls I could find and eat at the highest-rated restaurants. That was what I thought traveling was — adventure and excitement from seeing and eating the same things others before me had done. It was fun, no doubt, but at times I would wonder if there was more I could do.
I’ve been called ‘stupid’ for about a decade — for making trivial mistakes, for being a disappointment, for asking for help — by someone who once cared about me.
And the unimaginable part is, I tried to take it all in. I convinced myself that being told so was a good thing because if anything, it’d be a lesson to not make the same mistake again.
“Brush teeth. Go to work. Come home. Eat dinner. Sleep.
Brush teeth. Go to work. Come home. Eat dinner. Sleep.”These were the words of someone mumbling under his breath as he brushed his teeth in front of the mirror — a mantra he has recited over the years to keep himself sane.