there is no perfect circle

There's always a point in your life where you suddenly realise your parents aren't perfect.

For me, my parents were never perfect. I never thought they were, but thought my maids were. Or some of them anyway. The maid I loved beyond reason when I was 2, I still love unconditionally now, even though I don't remember exactly what her face looks like. I remember her waist-length hair, and the fact that she was terribly tall, slim and (to me) beautiful.

Even though she pressed a hot iron into my hand, the scar still remaining to this day; even though I witnessed my parents discovering her lover in the bedroom drawer. To me, she was still perfect. Sometimes, I still think she is despite all these facts laid in front of me.

When I was 14, I arrived in a strange country, with people I didn't know as legal guardians. After a few years of epic struggle, they won me over. Even as I was still rebelling, spiralling down the drain in my own self-destruction, they used reasoning on me instead of authority. Or rather, a combination of both.

It led me to respect them all the more and by the end of it, I regarded them as my parents more than my own. My parents never brought me up I realised, sure they paid the bills and yelled at me so that I wouldn't listen to that infernal pop music while studying and tried their best to be parents in the mode of what they thought best, but they didn't actually parent.

My maids did. My guardians did. I jokingly used to call one of them (the wife) my mother-supplement.

After my guardians sold the shop I used to help them out at however, I drifted apart. And as I did my final stages of growing up without them, I came to realise that they too, weren't perfect.

I'd long realised it of course, but time apart made me realise that there were many things I didn't agree with. Many reactions that may have made sense, but I realised were not only "not me" but were what I was going to choose not to be. It made sense, and I certainly don't begrudge them that, but because I am far more passive and ammendable, because my psyche doesn't tick the same way, I have to find my own way of doing things, approaching things, viewing the world through slightly different lenses.

It's been 2 years and they're frustrated at me for drifting, but when they don't call (because they used to and after a while got sick of making the effort they say I never reciprocated) and I get anxiety attacks when I try to call them once every few months, I realise that perhaps, I will have to use their own advice on them.

One day, I will have to realise that it's ok not to feel guilty. and one day I will forgive myself. And one day, I will realise that though they were the best thing that ever happened to me, even though they literally saved my life, things change, and I am perhaps better off without them. It's good advice, particularly when you realise they both have degrees in social work/psych/counselling with NLP etc.

And till then, I'll still keep giving myself anxiety attacks, and still keep ringing them, silently half-wishing that they won't pick up the phone so that I can send them emails instead.

Listening to: Foo Fighters- Best of You on replay. Grohl has a heck of a good voice for a drummer.