6. my story - differences

So what went wrong with me and X?

We did have one major problem. We came from families with different ethnic backgrounds, different religions too. And the one thing our families had in common was the one thing that kept them apart: they were both pretty traditional.

We knew it mattered greatly to our parents. So we kept it a secret from them.

The question of how much it mattered to us was more difficult to answer.

I was a sad in-between product of a world that was shrinking, but not fast enough. Poised between East and West. Stretched thin more like it.

Already, by the time I was 15, I had traveled around more than most. I was beginning to understand (and am still struggling with) my need to carve out my own set of values. I had to pick and choose from all the mixed messages I’d been given along the way. And when all those failed, propose new ones. Maybe everyone does the same to some extent, but I had a bigger confusion to deal with I felt.

I stood alone because I had to, questioning every boundary set my way. I had little courage though to show it, to stand up to everyone, to stand up to my parents. I needed more time anyways to figure out what I chose to believe in, before I could fight for it.

His was less a question of courage, though certainly he was frightened of how his family would deal with us. He seemed less prone to question his background than me, more inclined to stick to what he’d been taught, what his family had given him.

Would we make it together, despite the differences?

To me, it was clear that we could not call our differences our problem. We had to ask the right questions, because no matter how difficult, we could make it work, if our relationship was strong enough.

The real question became then, was it strong enough?

I didn’t know.

Certainly we seemed to do just fine together.

X and I saw each other every day, so I had a lot more to go on, but like with T, I questioned our reality. How much of it was real? How much of us was going to apply in the real world? When we got out of university? When our families interfered? When we tried to lead an actual life together, as opposed to these transitory scattered existences we led, inside the protective force field created by the walls of academia?

I thought about it non-stop.

The secret part of our relationship put a strain on me. My parents lived abroad but he lived with his. Maybe it was fun at first, but I quickly grew sick of the sneaking around, grew paranoid of ‘getting caught’. Two years was a long time to be keeping a relationship like ours a secret.

I was in my 20s, I felt too old for this silly adolescent secrecy.

But if we revealed our relationship, fought for it, then in some ways, we were stuck with it

Or at least there would have been a huge wasted cost of energy and pain to abandon it after that point .

And then I felt too young to be thinking about if I wanted to marry him or not .