My life is a ticking bomb which is not exactly measured in time, but in moments. Those
moments were taken for granted. They were underestimated, trivialized, ignored. I don’t know
who I am anymore because I didn’t take the time to process each moment or identifying the
purpose they served. Well, I’m at the point now where I can’t keep moving blindly. I need to
understand where I’ve been first before I can move forward.
I remember the moment where I realized I deeply resented my parents. I was putting up dishes.
No, I did not resent them because they made me do chores. It was more of the principle of the
thing. My parents were a couple of conservative Vietnamese people. They believed the women
be submissive to the men. They were to obey and respect the men. The men were responsible
to “protecting” the family. Funny, I never felt safe with my dad. I hated him so much but could
you blame me? I found his requests ridiculous. He asked me it was my responsibility to do the
entire family’s laundry as a female. He ridiculed me for in a way he deemed inappropriate. Like
when I used to put m bangs in my face or wear pigtails. I cried watching a Korean drama and
got yelled at for that. I got more than yelled at, though. I got beat, kicked out, choked for doing
all those things. I never believed he loved me because he never did the one basic thing a father
is supposed to do: protect.
My mom encouraged his anger to fester every day by not stopping him. When she was mad, he
