Burden of expectations

I never asked to be a cultural bridge for anyone.

I also feel like the ramifications of the history of China has manifested itself in me. Sometimes I feel like a wounded animal, protecting myself in its shell after this many years. The result of not doing things normally within the constraints of that time.

Did they know that, every time I was made to say goodbye to my grandparents, another layer of damage was done? And when my parents divorced another layer was set inside.

I feel like I have been through famine and war and criminality, some of them on the outside and some of them within.

I can list the moments of when I was a six year-old when I felt like my world had ended.

-When one of my grandparents died when I was 16.

-When I got married and my grandpa wasn’t there.

But sometimes I feel as if my family love me too much, like this was something that had affected everything in my life this far, if not wholly affecting my life.