Road Trips

I travelled a lot from a young age.
From China to Canada.
From Vancouver Canada to Ontario, Canada
From Hamilton to Windsor to Waterloo to Toronto
From Waterloo to China
From Toronto to London,UK
From London back to Toronto
From Toronto to Novi,USA
A total of countless schools, beds, houses, cities.
Those are just the places I've lived not including the places I've visited.
I've been to numerous cities including the road trip from Vancouver to Seattle across northern USA to Ontario Canada passing through yellowstone from west to east. From Detroit to Miami from north to south. In China from XinZhou to TianJin. In china xinzhou, taiyuan, beijing, shanghai, tianjin, xian, nanjing, hangzhou. In Korea seoul, DMZ and gyeonju. In europe london, bath, cotswold, oxford, cambridge, cardiff, edinburgh, highlands, stonehenge, paris, rome, berlin, vatican city, vienna, iceland, amsterdam, brugge, barcelona. In South America la paz, uyuni, cusco, aquas caliente, manu parc amazon. In western carribeans cozumel, cayman island, jamaica.

I am going to be going on another road trip soon with mom from Detroit to Northampton. This will be an interesting experience Of all the beautiful places I've been I wished I could have shared more of these memories with a loved one. Money can't be exchanged for lost time. This time I'm travelling with a purpose to attend my cousins college commencement. It's been 4 years since she has been studying in the US and how I wished to have made a trip to visit her.

Of all the future travels and friends I wish I could have treasured them and set a clear intention and purpose. I am just a small fish swimming in a big ocean hoping that I could join a tribe I could belong to. Because I couldn't feel a close tie to where I am from, I couldn't feel support and I couldn't feel deep connection to the different people I met. Looking at my friends with a good support group, people from each area stick together. Dong Bei's. Beijing's, Guangdongs. They lived in a city and decided on a city and stuck by that city. But I have no emotional attachment to any place. I have no emotional attachment to people. I felt strange when people tell me they miss me or they are thinking about me the first couple of time. Maybe it's because I moved so much as a child that I can't form close friendships because they just disappear.

I have to stop pretending like this mom daughter situation is ever going to work the way I wish. Not every mom is capable of showing love in the way you want. Not every mom knows how to be respectful. Not every mom knows how to reason. It's a lose-lose situation in arguments during the heat of the moment. So minimize the damage on yourself when things become heated. Detach yourself, because she isn't capable of being supportive, positive like you envision at this moment. Haven't you learnt the idea of a healthy respectful discussion is not always possible. Because honesty and self reflection and apologizing doesn't exist in this household. Where did we learn all this from? The anger, the negativity, the insults, the abuse. Mother is not a person that simply does good, she does good so others can feel grateful and be indebted to her. She doesn't like owing other people so she must know the feeling of being owed. I'll be gone when Hope enters college. I wish her college grad gift can be a trip to africa.

The closer the relationship, the more I fight. Need to break this pattern.

Road trips are exhausting when you spend way too much time in the car. The trip there was broken into two days. Started off rushed and ill prepared. After driving for almost an hour in the car, we realized we forgot something and had to turn back. Two hours wasted. That two hours trying to get up early to get a head start gone. Since mom refuses and is afraid of taking on the responsibility of navigating and planning. That was left for me to do, planning rest stops, finding places to eat while keeping close to the highway, booking accommodations. We made great time and arrived earlier than intended. However there was arguments about dinner and feeling tired and hungry worsened the fight. It brought back memories of abandonment and dismissal of my needs. It brought out the worst in my mother. And despite apologies after the fact, I don't know how many times I can take the lashing out. My repeated need to be heard and understood completely dismissed may have signalled to me that communication doesn't matter. And speaking out was futile.

Second day of the trip was smooth despite the continuous rain. Arriving at our motel we settled down. We met up with my cousin and her family. Northampton is a small new England town. And it is very much similar to most american towns. The landscape is a little more hilly than the midwest.

The next morning I got up extra early to attend convocation. And when I couldn't find a comb, it became so frustrating. Because I don't usually misplace things. Travelling with another person means communicating a set schedule and not finding things always slows down the progress. I depend on my companion to help out when things don't work out. To step in and say a few comforting words. To  show they care with their actions.

Due to rain, the ceremony was moved indoors. As a saw roll upon rolls of college students graduating, I couldn't help but think back on my own graduation. Of the arguments and unpleasant state of mind I was in. College was really like a sanction for me. And graduation left me un protected from emotional turmoil. Graduation didn't seem so long ago. And as I saw the students walking up to receive their diploma, I could see the hopeful look in their eyes for what is ahead, and some the look of uncertainty. I thought the speeches of the students and speaker had snippets of extreme thoughts. Where being politically right wasn't a concern and voicing a controversial opinion was okay. But I had a feeling there was not enough opposing voices to justify a balanced view points for students to explore. And a graduating class donating to their school before stepping out of campus was strange to me, but maybe this is common practice among private colleges.

Chinese food was pretty good in the town of Northampton. We headed in early to have an early start for the drive home the following day. The morning started off at 5am and continued till 7pm. With 15min breaks every 2 hours and 1 hr break for lunch. Mom had an episode of cramping during one of the rest breaks and couldn't walk for awhile. This is what happens when you spend too long in the car. I was exhausted when we finally arrived back and stayed in the car while mom attended sister's orchestra concert. I felt a little proud of driving for such an extended amount of time, but also a little saddened by the poor relationship b/w mother and daughter.