Being a BBC - British Born Chinese - I always created a bit of identity confusion. My looks defined how the British perceived me. As a kid, when I went back to Hong Kong, my dad's birthplace, my broken Cantonese raised eyebrows amongst the locals. I was neither here or there. In case you're bracing yourself for a tearful story about a kid growing up on a foreign country, how she struggled to fit in and got bullied and abused at school, well, I'm not going down that route. Racial abuse wasn't a big part of my growing up. Maybe I was lucky, I grew up in a small town. Or maybe I was quite thick skin, I'm quite insensitive to words. (You got to be on Hive.) I had as good a childhood as any normal kid would.
To be specific this includes me up to the point I graduated from university, 22 in my case. A lot of kids had great ambitions when they were young. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a teacher. I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a policeman. The I probably being the parent. Occasionally you'd get a kid saying I want to be a binman, and you'd know the kid really said that himself because 99% of parents don't want their kid to go round picking up people's rubbish. Big mistake, they have no idea how important binman are. Anyway, I digress.
I had no flipping idea who or what I wanted to be when I was growing up. I had no aspirations to do something great, no talent to become an artist, singer or actress, and certainly no looks to become the next Miss Universe to bring peace and prosperity to the world. All I knew was I wanted to dress up smartly and work in an office.
Source : Unsplash
We all go through phases in life. After graduation, working, and getting married, the next natural phase was parenthood. I'm sure being a mum changes you into a different person. Your priorities, your outlook in life, your financial situation, your temper and your patience. The phase came and went. I never went through that change. I was neither desperate nor upset. I remained who I am throughout the years. Content with the bundles of joy from all my little nieces and nephews.
Ultimately what matters in life is Are you who YOU want to be? Not who your parents, your friends, your children, or your other half wants you to be.
I was fortunate that my parents never gave me any pressure when I was growing up. All they demanded was that I finish university, not an unreasonable demand from an Asian parent or most parents for that matter. Not being a parent meant I had a lot more freedom with my life. My holiday schedule didn't revolve around school term times. I was never tied to a location because I had to consider a child's education, and I certainly didn't have to worry about saving up for tuition and university fees for my kids. All I had to consider was myself. Ok, there's my other half as well, but that's lot easier to negotiate and manage.
Now I do as I please and go where I like. I don't settle on where life takes me, I take myself to where I want my life to be. And that's all that matters.
I am Me.
This post is in response to Ladies of Hive latest community contest. Am tagging 
Are you who you want to be? Did you dream of being something else,
or settle down into a life that just took you along...?
