I've learned to hide everything.
Emotions...
Hopes...
Dreams...
Passions...
All of them.
They're wraped up together in a box and pushed to the farthest corners of my being. After all, they never mattered.
My parents always told me:
"son you can be whatever you want to be."
This gave me so much hope. I watched a lot of anime back in the days and saw how people walked on water, fly, and lift super-heavy objects. I told my parents that I want to be like these individuals. I wanted to be extraordinary; to be special. They laughed of course. I mean, any parent would laugh at this right? Then they told me with a warm and assuring smile:
"sure son."
I grew up with this in mind; that I could be any person I wished to be in life. I studied, played, and was like any other kid. However, reality wasn't so happy of what I was becoming and chose to hit me where it is hardest.
After returning from school one day, I showed one of my quiz results to my parents. Lower than my usual scores, I thought they wouldn't be bothered much about it. I certainly wasn't.
My father, drinking his usual afternoon coffee, took a look at my grades with a smile on his face. But the smile disappeared as quickly as it showed. The mark was, for him, "low." Then he started saying things I never thought he would.
"How can you be a doctor with these grades? How can you be a lawyer? How can you be successful?"
Of course, I didn't know how to answer. After all the only thing I wanted was to be happy, to be who I am. It didn't matter whatever job I would have, so long as I would find fulfillment in that occupation.
I mean, isn't this the only important thing in life? To be happy and satisfied with who and what you are doing? Knowing full well that you are not stepping on any person to stand where you are, and enjoying every moment of your life? Isn't this how life is supposed to be? That is why I didn't understand my father that afternoon.
He was, different...and so was mom.
When I asked her: "Mom...what was dad saying?" She simply shrugged off the question and told me: "just be a good boy and follow daddy."
Suddenly time stopped for me, and I felt like I was already dead; murdered by my own parents because, I understood what they meant. Small as I was that time, my mind wasn't very much of a toddler. I was in fourth grade, but I could understand what adults referred to as "adult stuff." I understood the meaning behind tears, and know when people smile "different." I knew when the atmosphere is heavy, I knew when things weren't getting any happier.
I knew...
I knew...
and that is probably why, that instance, though it never occurred again, left a scar to my being; a wound that never healed. In that moment, I understood that, I can be anything I want so long as it pleases my parents.