Remembering the angst

A chance encounter with an outburst of emotion brought me back to the days of my early adulthood angst, sometimes, in my days as a 30-year-old, I wonder if some of it still bury in the deep of my mostly-contented self these days.

I remember in vivid images of my days as a girl with an identity issue. It's something extremely personal but I feel putting these feelings in words will help me put things and issues in perspective. I don't know when and how it started that I was always comparing social status of my family and those of my friends', since a young kid in school. I could try and analyze the cause of my thoughts as a young person but I wouldn't.

...ah, I remember...I was always reminded about the my position as the daughter of someone who is a mere wage earner. I have childhood memories of playing with my father's bosses' daughters and went home feeling all lousy, engraving in my mind that I was a second class little person. My little brain started to form ideas about my lack of importance in the world, simply because the girl I played with was the child of the man who writes my father's pay cheque.

Sometimes my mother told of stories during her poorer days when she and my father had just gotten married and building a young family, making ends meet. Though I wasn't getting all the material things that a young girl can get, I was told that I was the luckiest child among my siblings, born where is plenty on the dining table everyday. My mother said she and father used to receive leftover food from neighbors.

So I grew up believing in wealth equals to power and privileges, well, this is still true am I right? I still live here on this planet of...capitalism. Maybe I realised it much earlier than some other kids, given the background I came from.

Skipped years after my bitter memories of playing with little rich girls. Somehow I continue to somehow, keep staying in social circle of friends from well-off families. During my college years I struggled too with `making my own person' in the capital city, learning to deal with my peculiar insecurities for a rather young person who's not really seen any real hardship in life.

What the hell was my problem? Am not really sure...

Was I ashame that my father couldn't afford to pay me through fancy universities abroad?
Was I ashame that I didn't own a mobile phone while my classmates played with theirs?
Was I ashame that I wasn't excellent academically like my sister?
Was I ashame that I was tall or fair or pretty like other girls in college?
Was I ashame that my mother is not as glamorous like my friends'?

Answers to all the above was No, but there was a strange bug that plagued me through those what I'd call the `angsty' years. You can usually spot when a person is full of angst -- like the world owes her the world.

Well, I guess independence did me lots of good. When I eventually moved out to live on my own and landed myself in jobs that paid for my necessities and vanity, I slowly got to know myself better and think about things a lot. Making friends along the way helped me come out of my limited sense of the world. It was a long time before I could relax with people my age who could all share their experience of their days abroad in the universities, or travelling to many parts of the world, I have none to tell and it doesn't bug me anymore.

I guess without planning it, I have sort of replaced that missing part (the fancy uni days) of my young adult life with other experiences such as going to theatres, befriending activists, reading books of worldly ideas (suppose you could obtain the same by travelling), rehearsing for stage performances and other things that bring me a sense of the well-being.

Of course now having worked for years now and seen some places, I realised what a lucky person I am to be where I am. Having seen and befriended people who lived and died on the streets can make you a very different person. Imagine, how I can gripe about driving a 1984 Nissan Sunny when I recall this homeless man I know who we (friends and I) used to hand out used clothes to. That man was walking on the street in his torn trousers, exposing his left thigh when he walked, a volunteer next to me quickly handed me a pair of used trouser and told me to give it to him. He took the trouser from me without saying a word except an acknowledgment of a nod...my friend and I both turned away hiding tears when we saw this man walked away wiping tears off his face.

Still, it's quite a different life to be with the `normal folks' where conversations can be all about trading mobile phones for the latest models, discussing their next vacation, next investment property...

or when they start to discuss the state of my car.

Basically I think I have come out of my almost life-long insecurity of being the girl whose father is a wage earner, who's never lived overseas, whose parents aren't highly-educated, etc.

Am almost too happy these days that I drive a Nissan Sunny, nearly in a fashion that mocks the middle class...just a bit. But mostly am just really happy to own a car that gets me to places on time, with air con that beats the afternoon heat and low car maintenance.

But sometimes I don't know for sure if those angst have really left me for good.

....but in the meantime, am just happy to be what I am now, today and knowing I have a man who loves me for what I was and I have become now.