June 7, 2010

• 28 Days…

  Hmm. It’s been quiet recently, and although some of you have been blogging a little, I haven’t been receiving it in my e-mail as a daily digest as I’ve set it. So today was the first time I’ve read any blogs from 5/12/10 till now since I wanted to update. 

  As you can see from the title of my blog, I have 28 days till we make our Mile High move  This hasn’t entirely hit me yet as I haven’t thought about or even planned on when I’ll begin packing and what I’ll be packing. We haven’t even completely decided which stops we’re going to make on our move. However, we have reserved a U-Haul and a car trailer. I also bought a new bike – Dahon’s Mu P24. It’s a folding bike, and I love it. I’ll be riding that to school each day. This isn’t want I wanted to update about though.

  I can tell my mom is sad about us leaving, but excited for our big move.  This move is the next big phase in our life when we eventually buy a house or condo and have kids. My mom can’t wait to have grandchildren, of course. So last night during dinner, she told me that I have a chance to make different choices from what she made. As many of you know, my parents came to this country with no education and very little money. The only option they thought they had was to work in a Chinese restaurant. They worked long hours and wouldn’t really see the kids that often.  Growing up, I considered my oldest sister as my second mother because that is what she was like to me. That was normal for me though, and I didn’t think much of it. I just knew that my parents worked hard so that I wouldn’t have to work as hard some day when I grew up. My mother plans to retire in a couple of years. She said that she’s had a good life and doesn’t really regret that much except for one thing. She said to me in a mixture of Chinese and English, “I didn’t miss much, but one second you’re little kids and now you’re all grown up. I missed your childhood because I had to work all the time. I’m telling you because now, you have a chance.” My sister then responded, “Basically, she’s saying you should be a stay-at-home mom…at least till the kids go to school.” My mom continued to tell us a story of how they found someone to babysit my brother when he was a baby. When my mom took my brother to the doctor’s for a check-up, the doctor asked if my brother had been crying a lot because his voice seemed horse. My mom didn’t know how to respond since she wasn’t around during the day to know if he had been crying, but she suspected that the babysitter must’ve let him cry and cry.  I feel sad that my mom feels this way…that she wished she could’ve been there to take care of us and to see us grow up. My parents believed having a babysitter was the only way for them to earn enough money for the family since that was their circumstance. Now, she’s telling me that I have a chance to make choices. My mom doesn’t often bestow advice involving a reflection of her life and the decisions she has made, so this is something I must really think hard about. I don’t want to feel the way she feels. I always played around with the idea of being a stay-at-home mom as a joke with Roger. However, I started thinking that maybe I could find something where I could work from home, work part-time somewhere, or maybe we’ll need to rethink our finances for at least till the kids start going to school. At the same time, it’s hard to think about not working. We have some time to think about this though….

  As for now, I have 28 more days till the next phase of my life begins. I can tell these next 5 years of my life will be crazy, and I can’t wait for it all to begin.

  • 9:26 am
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