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Synthesizing Disintegration

One of the first questions my therapist, Dr. T, ever asked me to consider revolved around my identity. Something about how my becoming a Stay At Home Mom after a decade of working and being an adult affected me. At the time, I dismissed it. The observation didn’t ring true. But more and more, I’m thinking Dr. T might be onto something. Not specifically about being a SAHM, but more in the general sense of identity and my own conflict at integrating disparate parts of who I think I am, who I want to be, who I think I should be, and who I really am underneath all these divergent selves.

It seems daunting, but really, I’ve done this before. Or at the very least, shed old aspects of me that no longer fit my new narrative.

For example, I used to speed and drive recklessly all the time. In high school, with my car full of friends, I was passing someone on a one lane road when a semi-truck was barreling down head-on at us. Instead of going back to my side of the road, I ignored the truck’s frantic flashing headlights and sped up, stubbornly determined to pass the car to my right. My friends were terrified but didn’t say anything. I felt exhilarated, as if I somehow proved my prowess as a driver.

I would avoid turning on my headlights or windshield wipers until absolutely necessary, as if giving into the forces of nature made me a lesser person. That my eyesight or skills as a driver were bolstered or that I was showing undue weakness by admitting I couldn’t see in the dark or through sheets of rain.

In college, I took extreme pride in once getting from LA to the Bay Area in four hours (that’s 350 miles in 4 hours) and knowing that my old 1996 Avalon didn’t start shuddering until I went past 125mph. Again, my car was full of friends (who were asleep and totally unaware).

When Hapa Papa and I first started dating, I recall feeling so badass and smug when flying down the 10 freeway in the middle of the night on the way to Laughlin, NV and zooming past Hapa Papa’s fraternity brothers, as if that somehow made me cool instead of heedlessly endangering lives.

But then, sometime about ten years ago, I got my second speeding ticket ever on the Grapevine (all my speeding tickets have been on that blasted stretch of road) and I had an epiphany. Was decreasing travel time by at most thirty minutes worth the monetary outlay (over $350 ticket), traffic school, and subsequent eighteen months of Grandma-like driving due to trying to avoid a point on my license worth it? Wouldn’t it just be easier to leave earlier? Or not care how long it takes?

Gradually, I realized that turning on headlights wouldn’t diminish my worth or abilities. That not only was it safer for me and easier to see, I was actually helping other people see me on the road. Or when I used the windshield wipers, I wasn’t wasting RainX or being Grandma-like. I was being responsible. And RainX is cheaper than an accident or death.

Then, once I had kids, I had precious cargo that was my responsibility and duty to keep safe. So I became the kind of driver I used to mock. I was far more careful and rarely ever sped. I try to avoid talking or texting on the phone (admittedly, a very difficult task that I’ve enlisted Cookie Monster’s help in keeping me accountable). I try to ask myself if speeding/texting/whatever is worth injuring/killing my children, myself, or someone else’s child or parent.

Sure, I still take a ridiculous amount of pride in my parallel parking abilities (old habits die hard), but many of my other silly notions of what being a more than competent driver have been stripped away by time, tickets, and reality. This identifying marker of being a “badass” driver morphed into being a cautious driver, a detail that fit my new narrative of a SAHM.

And ultimately, who cares? (I have to say, I absorbed way too many of my father’s stupid ideas about driving, always trying to impress him with my abilities. It’s funny how I only just now realized this.)

I have so many out-moded ideas of who I think I am. Whether shaped by pop-culture, my parents, my peers, or my own brokenness. I cling to these outer markers as if they make up who I am; these images make me valuable and worthy as a person.

I thought I had gotten over so many of my self-worth problems in college and right after. I guess I didn’t. (Or had to dig deeper.)

Dr. T suggested that I pommel my kids and myself with expectations that whether realistic or not, I use as an armor to protect myself from this horrible feeling that perhaps who I am underneath all the characteristics I find valuable (eg: driving competently, attending UCLA, being educated, being cultured, playing piano, etc.), I am ultimately unworthy or unlovable. (Another gem from Dr. T that I initially found jarring with my personal concept of who I was but now think is spot on. Dr. T seems to be worth every penny, folks!)

I still have to ponder over this concept some more because although the concept itself isn’t new to me (and I have dealt with this before), the idea of this being my current reality still is. Particularly since I seem to have a huge personal blind spot.

I feel embarrassed because logically, I know the things in which I judge myself wanting are silly and ridiculous and not the makings of a worthy human being. And yet, the possibility of my children not having these qualities alarms me.

I grieve the possibility of me passing these warped ideas of worth and value onto my children. They are still small, so perhaps I have yet to break them too much yet.

This whole long post is just to say this: I’ve changed and adjusted my identity before. I can do it again. And this time, perhaps I can be more compassionate on myself (and therefore, others), and maybe, just maybe, see myself as human.

 

Author

Virginia Duan is the entertainment editor for "Mochi Magazine," a freelance writer, and an Asian American author who writes stories full of rage and grief with biting humor and glimpses of grace. She spends most of her days plotting her next book or article, shuttling her children about, participating in more group chats than humanly possible, and daydreaming about BTS a totally normal amount.

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