Family is everything. It’s a shelter. It’s a home.

So let me tell you a little bit of a story. Let’s just assume it’s a story about me. But it’s not about me. Just, assume.

I live in a beautiful, caring, loving, warm family with a kind mother, a loves-me-too-much-he-still-gives-me-a-curfew kind of father, a stubborn first brother, and a living-in-his-own-world-he-doesn’t-care-about-anything-else-but-family kind of second brother. So I’m the only daughter in the family. We are living in a happy family. Yes, we’re happy, but we didn’t talk much.

Since I was little, my parents teach us to be strong and brave. Both of my parents were working, so they left us with a sitter. They’d gone in the morning and back at night. They left when we were still sleeping and came home when we already slept. At that time, it wasn’t bothered us about their busyness, in fact, we thought it was cool, until now I still have no idea why we thought it was cool. But don’t get it wrong, even though we rarely saw our parents, they’d still spent weekends at home with us. I didn’t realize that it actually bothered me to not spent enough time with my parents, until now.

We all know that kids always remember what their parents taught them since they were little. They always remember how their parents behave in front of them. I don’t know if they realizes this or not, but my parents taught us to keep everything to ourselves. They taught us there’s no such thing as freedom of speech. They taught us that everything my parents did is for our own good, so we should just accepted their decision. I grew up in such condition.

What did those make me? I’ll make a list:

• I can’t talk in front of people, let alone manage to make a presentation in front of the class. I stuttered when I talk.
• I still am afraid to deal with problems. So I just let them solved by themselves.
• My father scares me.
• I can’t have a heart-to-heart conversation with my own mother. It’s a big problem. Why? Because I honestly need it very much.
• I’m a risk averse. I really want to be a risk taker.
• I can’t show how I feel - love, anger, sad - to anyone, because I hate people see me in my worst self. And I hate it when people see me cry.
• I’m a crier, and since I can’t cry publicly, I cry when no one notice, in my bedroom mostly. And yeah, it really hurts, and sad.
• I’m trying too hard to be strong and brave and independent, and it hurts, sometimes.

And the list goes on..

The most important thing is, I can’t talk about my life to my parents. They even hate my boyfriend. But I date him anyway. Secretly. I still don’t have the guts to tell them. I’m not so brave after all.

I just want to change. I want to be better. I’m a woman. I want to cry when I want to cry, I want to take chances, I want to talk about how I feel to my friends or family, I want to love whoever I want. Most of all, I want to be friends with my parents. I want to share everything with them, not just things they wanted to hear.

I love my family too much I don’t want to hurt them.