My Secret Savior (and more)

Eye-Opening Moments are real-life stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. In this episode you will hear about My Secret Savior  & It Seemed Unlike Me.

Website: https://inspiremereads.com
Books: https://amazon.com/author/emily-kay-tan.2021_

Chapters

• 0:21 Introduction
• 1:01 My Secret Savior
• 12:00 It Seemed Unlike Me
• 20:04 Key Takeaways

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode #184 of Eye-Opening Moments where you’ll hear stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. They are moments that can lift your spirits, give you some food for thought, or move you. For the introspective mind that likes to reflect, discover, and find solutions or meaning in a complex life, this is for you. I’m your host Emily Kay Tan. In this episode, you will hear about My Secret Savior & It Seemed Unlike Me.

My Secret Savior
Thrust back to live with my biological family at fourteen, I was excited to have siblings to do things with and to have the chance to say I would be having dinner with my parents or having family movie night. I was thrilled to have a carpeted bedroom all to myself and a bathroom of my own. You couldn't understand why I jumped up and down like a silly little girl when I arrived at my parent's new house unless you knew where I had been for the last nine years. 

Mom had tossed me over to live with her mother's family one thousand five hundred miles away. She was an overwhelmed teen mom with three kids then, and her mother, who immigrated to America, offered to take a kid off her hands. The five-year-old me got lost in Grandma's family with five aunties and uncles who were older than me, and they all spoke a language I did not understand. I quickly withdrew into my quiet world as their voices were just mumbo jumbo to me. 

Grandpa slept during the day and worked as a cook in the afternoon and evenings, so I hardly saw or had any relationship with him. Auntie Cassie and Uncle Ray worked all day until dinner time. Aunt Tessa, Uncle Holden, and Uncle Rick were busy with high school work, social get-togethers, and working part-time to help support the family. It was a household of eight but a lonely place for a five-year-old.

Grandma worked hard at a garment factory and often brought fabric pieces home to sew because she was paid by the number of pieces she sewed together rather than the number of hours she worked. With a family of six kids to feed, it must have been a hardship for Grandma. If I weren't going to school, I would be at home helping Grandma sew, cook, and clean.

The time spent with Grandma was when I learned about my ancestry, culture, and language. While Grandma did her sewing homework and I did my school homework, she shared stories of living back home and immigrating to America. She gave me mini-lessons about how to be a good person. My grandmother imparted the values of working hard, getting a good education, being kind to others, and caring for others. She always told me not to waste one morsel of rice and to clean my dinner plate. If I did not, I would grow up to have an ugly husband. Her words took a seat in my memory bank, and I believed her. It wasn't until I married an ugly man that I knew it was her way of making me not waste any hard-earned food. When the whole family sat down for dinner together on Sundays, she informed me that I needed to wait until Grandpa started eating first because he was the eldest. That was how Grandma taught me to respect my elders. I learned to clean up after myself, keep things tidy, and always finish what I started by Grandma's example. 

Two lessons I have never forgotten are to take care and appreciate the things you have and to be grateful to the people who have helped me. Though we lived in near poverty, Grandma was a caring and loving grandmother. My aunties were kind to me, but my uncles always told me I did not belong in their family. I didn't know growing up with them was in stark contrast to the family I left at five.

After Mom and Dad bought a house in the suburbs, they officially moved from a low-income family to a middle-class family. Grandma thought I should return home to enjoy my family's improved life. I had lived in a cramped bedroom with my two aunties where I had a fold-up cot, and Grandma said I would have my own room in Mom's new house. She said I would have five brothers and sisters to play with. Grandma sent me back home, and I was looking forward to the new life with my nuclear family.

The dream life I looked forward to turned into a nightmare. I became the most miserable teenager. My sisters spent a lot of time beautifying themselves. Mom loved shopping and bought a lot of clothes. She spent a lot of time getting all dolled up, too. If there were any issues in the family, she fixed them by buying you something. If she didn't like something, she would buy something. She was a big-spending, materialistic woman, and she was lucky that Dad gave her whatever she wanted. On the other hand, Grandma was poor, did not buy many frivolous things, and was not materialistic.

Mom bought me a portable record player so I could listen to music in the privacy of my bedroom because my older sister complained that she didn't like me listening to foreign language music that she didn't understand. Grandma taught me to appreciate my ancestry, culture, and language. Mom appeared to hide and dismiss it.

My sibling's schedules were filled with after-school classes or activities, but mine were not. I did get my own bedroom, as Grandma told me, but I didn't do things with my siblings as she thought I would. They seemed to have their own lives, and I was not a part of it. I was bored and lonely. Unhappy because I did not enjoy life with this family that had a different set of values from my grandmother and did not respect our ancestry, culture, and language, I often escaped to my bedroom.

Dear Dairy, my brothers and sisters seem to have no interest in me; we seem to have nothing in common. I hate how there are no family discussions. I miss the talks with Grandma, even if they were mostly one-sided. My family only cares about their looks and how they look good to others. Dad bought my big sister a BMW, and she is only sixteen! Mom combs and ties up my younger sister's hair to go to ballet class; she wants to make sure she is beautiful for dance class. My older sister is in charge of one little brother, and my younger sister is in charge of another. Mom couldn't bother with them. I didn't need supervision or care. My youngest sister went to live with Grandma. It appears that there was a switch. Since I left Grandma, Mom replaced me with my youngest sister to stay with Grandma. I guess Mom didn't want to be bothered with her either.

Dear Diary, I hate how materialistic Mom is; she has also made everybody else that way. I did not grow up with that value. She chauffeurs my brothers and sisters to their after-school classes. I don't know why I didn't get any extracurricular activities. I stay home and hide out in my bedroom. You are the only one keeping me company. You are the only one who knows how miserable I am.

Dear Diary, I seriously hate how much importance Mom places on outer beauty. She went and got cosmetic surgery to make her chin and nose pointier. I don't think it made her more beautiful. My older sister went and did the same thing. My younger sister got breast implants. Dad is the only one working, and this is how she spends his money. They are so vain. Mom is a homemaker, yet she doesn't care for the kids other than chauffeuring them around and buying things. I will admit that she does do two things well. She cooks delicious and healthy dinners. When Dad comes home, she gives him a kiss, and dinner is ready soon after he gets home because she timed it well. The second thing she does well is to keep Dad happy and feeling loved; I think it is so because he lets her spend money however she wants.

Dear Diary, my big sister is only one year older than me, but we have nothing in common. My younger sister and I have some commonalities; I think it is because we were both born around the same month. I live in a beautiful big house with a large front and backyard. Everything looks terrific, so why am I not happy? I am miserable. I am alone. Seven people live in this house, and I can't talk to even one of them; no one is my family or friend in this house. I don't fit into this family I longed to be with, and it is my nuclear family! I almost wish to hear my nagging Grandma. At least she cared about me and wanted to make sure I was on track to turn out to be a good girl.

The only one to keep me company is you. The only one who knows what is going on with me is you. The only one to comfort me is you. I feel better now. At least I have my own bedroom. I can lay here writing to you; I can tell you anything. Writing to you makes me feel better. I can express my thoughts and feelings and get some relief. Thank you for being here for me, my dear Diary.

The miserable teenage me found comfort in writing. It was a place to express myself. I unknowingly planted the seed of writing during one of the darkest periods of my life. Though I planted it, and it sprouted some as I filled four notebooks about my misery, its growth stopped. It withered and died, and I forgot about it when I moved back to live with my grandmother. But more than several decades later, something happened.

Jobless and directionless as I returned home from my adventure abroad, I sought comfort by signing up for a writing class. Little did I know, it was the beginning of my becoming a published writer a year later. I thought it was a hobby, but the more I wrote, the more I wanted to write. The more I wrote, the more passionate I became about it. The more I wrote, the more I found it to soothe my injured soul. It brought abundance and meaning to a life wrought with challenges and struggles. It is my secret savior!

It Seemed Unlike Me
Falling in love with Keith was the beginning of many unimaginable escapades. You could say the circumstances led me to do many things that seemed unlike me, but they only brought out the me who was dormant inside. Why did it seem unlike me? Who was that me that hid inside of me for seventeen years? 

Many knew me to be a quiet and shy girl. I thought that was just how I was and was troubled by it because others criticized me for being that way. I knew not how to change myself or rid myself of that label. Self-examination gave me some answers. When I tried to voice my opinions or thoughts as a kid, no one listened. My relatives even told me to be quiet a number of times because they didn’t care to hear what I had to say. So, I shut down and became silent. Why talk when no one would listen? I had the perfect explanation for my quiet way of being. It became a habit, so the label persisted. 

Since expressing myself landed on deaf ears, I began writing a diary to express my feelings and thoughts as a teenager. Getting what was on my mind out of my system was a comfort. I also began communicating with pen pals to practice writing in a foreign language. While writing back and forth, I also shared and expressed myself with them. 

One of my pen pals was Keith. Like all the others, I thought we would sometimes write letters to each other and share a few things. I did not think much would come from writing letters to each other. I was wrong. Keith wrote to me again and again over months and months. Keith asked many questions about me, and I answered all of them. He listened with interest, shared ideas, and gave advice and comfort. I shared more about myself with him than anyone else in my life. As a sixteen-year-old, he was there for me in my darkest times and was my greatest emotional support. He was the one person who listened to my words and cared to get to know me as a human being. My family certainly didn’t care about my thoughts and feelings.

Six months later, we started communicating by phone, and one year later, he flew from the West Coast to the East Coast to visit me. That was the beginning of me doing the unexpected things a quiet and shy girl wouldn’t do.

The seventeen-year-old me left a note on the kitchen table to tell Grandma I would stay at my friend’s house for a week or two since we were on summer vacation. I did it many times before since I had a group of gal pals that Grandma knew about, but this time, I was not telling the truth. I stayed with Keith, and no one knew or questioned where I was going. It was unlike me to lie and do such a thing, but I was in love!

Soon after summer vacation, I was off to college. Keith and I continued a long-distance relationship for two more years before I transferred schools and moved from the East to the West Coast. My friends were shocked to learn I moved across the country just to be with my boyfriend. It seemed so unlike me, but I was in love!

During the last two years of college, I hitchhiked to explore new places, traveled out of the country, stayed in a log cabin in the forest with strangers, got a waitressing job that needed mastery of a foreign language I had not yet perfected, slept in hotel lounges and roamed the streets during school breaks because I refused to go home to uncaring relatives, and more. Many said it was unlike me, but was it really unlike me?

After college, I studied more and simultaneously enjoyed seventeen years of a steady and successful career. Others said it was good and it was like me. I appeared quiet, shy, and reserved, so doing something “normal,” like staying in one career, seemed like me. I suppose I didn’t look like I would do anything risky to others.

Getting married seemed “normal,” but when I divorced, everyone I knew said, “How could you do that, Emily?” I shocked myself and others for what I did, but I have zero regrets and am no longer ashamed or embarrassed by it. Free from a controlling and anal husband, I was relieved from the suppression and restrictions. I was free to be me. Suddenly, I noticed the me inside of me. 

Though I appeared to be that quiet, shy, and reserved girl all my life, the me that lived inside of me was the me that was always dying to come outside. I call it the real me. The real me takes risks. The real me likes adventure. The real me loved to do things I hadn’t done before and was always up for new things. The real me thrived on challenges; if you said I couldn’t do something, you could bet I would do it. I hated when people could only see the outside of me and not realize the incredible me that lived inside me.

The divorced me, who was free from the shackles, took more risks and went on incredible adventures. Skydiving, bungy-jumping, and ziplining were exhilarating freedom and joy to be in mid-air.

Something I wanted to do but was not “allowed” to do while I was married was to quit my safe and secure job to go into business and be an entrepreneur. My husband said it was too risky; I was restricted and didn’t do it. However, after the divorce, I did it! The me inside had the urge suppressed long enough! It was an enormous risk, and I failed miserably. Though I lost my home and bank accounts, it was an adventure of a lifetime. Had I not done it, I was sure to live a boring and uneventful existence. Still, having endured a financial meltdown, you’d think I wouldn’t take any more risks, but I took another soon afterward.

Jobless and homeless, drastic measures were needed. I had never imagined moving abroad to an unknown territory, but I got a job there. I would surely be in more dire straits if I had not done it. Still, it was like jumping into a black hole and not knowing if you would survive. Fortunately, I found paradise and enjoyed years of a carefree and worry-free life.

While abroad, talking to many strangers and engaging in many solo travels to different countries or places no longer felt odd but typical of me as I got more comfortable under my skin or as more of the real me emerged outside me. Uncaged from the quiet, shy, and reserved label, I soar.

Divorce, going into business, doing extreme sports, moving abroad, and globetrotting didn’t seem like me to others, but it was me. Though I appear quiet, shy, and reserved, I am independent, daring, and resilient. And the me who is the real me began when I met Keith. Unbeknownst to me, the heart of me or the center of who I am came out when I first fell in love.

Key Takeaways                                            
Though some of my teen years were miserable, my secret savior of a diary allowed me to express all my thoughts and feelings.

Though some things seemed unlike me, it was only because others didn’t know me well.

Next week, you will hear two real-life stories called The Unconnected Connection & The Award Not Given. If you enjoyed this episode of Eye-Opening Moments, please text someone and ask them what they think about this podcast, or go to www.inspiremereads.com and leave a message. Thank you for listening!