The American Dream
Mum, I’ve never even gone toilet on a plane before.”
“Well De, just remember that if you’re on a plane or just anywhere, if you need to pee, pee straight away. Don’t hold it in because it will put pressure on your liver.”
Two days ago. When I last saw my mother. That was the only bit of travel advice she imparted before dropping me at Auckland International Airport. 7th January 2014 NZT, the beginning of my trip to America.
I can’t quite express my feelings about this trip. You know, you’ve got the normal feelings of excitement and happiness. But I feel a lot of other weird things too which almost override the good feelings. Fear, anxiety & almost a sense of helplessness.
I’ve never gone traveling before except to Sydney because most of my family live there. So for me to go across the world to America, by myself, feels quite momentous. As a kid I used to feel so different from all the other children. Back then in the early 90’s there were very few Asian students so I would get picked on a lot with the usual “Ching Chong” “You’re disgusting, you eat dogs!” and slanted eyes mockeries. I was an ugly kid too — buck teeth, gangly & with a head too big for my tiny body. And because we were a solo-parent family, it was a struggle getting through day to day let alone having the luxury of traveling. Don’t get me wrong, my mother did an amazing job raising us kids with the resources we had but there’s no denying that we were living on much lesser means than the average New Zealander.
I think my childhood hugely impacted the person I am today. Eager to prove that this ugly, scraggly little Asian kid who was picked on almost on a daily basis, I would dream of the things I one day would do. I was so eager to show them that I wasn’t the below-average girl they believed me to be. That I was going to be exceptional.
This was the beginning of my “Bucket List”.
My eight year old self refused to believe that she would never travel so she started scribbling down all the places she wanted to see and do before she died. Of course, being eight, one destination I wrote down was that I was going to go to Disneyland.
The very first thing on my Bucket List however, that a lot of you know about, was #1. Open a cookie shop. Whilst I am incredibly proud of Moustache & how far we’ve come in our first year of opening, I still feel like he is far from perfect…he’s currently only 2% of my version of perfection. Although I’m known to be incredibly harsh on myself. Despite being my baby and something I love & am proud of, I also feel like Moustache stole my soul and identity. Perhaps because his identity was the only one I had enough time to develop these past two years.
But I’m a sucker for all that airy-fairy shit. All that, wanting to be a better person, wanting to reach your potential and of course, chasing your dreams. Yep, I lap that stuff up because like I said, as a child, I promised myself that I would be exceptional.
After a year of being in Moustache almost everyday and him consuming my every pore, I am tired. Those niggly questions that all twenty-somethings are asking themselves float to the surface; what the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this? But mostly, who am I?
And now, with the start of 2014, I’m working very hard to knock a lot more of my Bucket List out of the park. This is the reason why I am traveling to America. Because, ladies and gents, I am going to Disneyland.
Yes, I’ve knocked the Cookie Shop one out and now it’s time to fulfill more of those dreams.
But almost just as importantly, it’s time to focus on me.
If I look at myself right now, I see somebody who has lost herself. I see someone whose made a lot of mistakes. I see someone whose shut herself off from the world. I see someone who is scared of failure, scared of not being the girl that my eight-year-old self dreamed of.
The focus this 2014 is to be me. Not be Moustache, but to just be me.
To see the world, to be open-minded, to learn, to draw near to people…to feel the fear & do it anyway.
