The things I carry are things unseen. I do not "hump" physical objects but I admit I do "hump" things that are of matterless, massless, and invisible nature yet I believe they weight heavily on my conscious on my course of actions. I guess it all comes down from being born in another country and being raised there. Being from another country limited by social interactions with other kids while I was in elementary school as I did not watch the same shows or listened to the same type of music as they did. Also, sports was another issue as I had zero interest in "football" and basketball; so there goes belonging in that clique. Having non similar upbringing of course related to my foreign sets of virtues and morals from the American kids. Some things were rude to do here that were not rude in Korea and some things were welcomed here that was rude in Korea, so I had to adjust my actions based on where I was: school or home. Although I changed my actions based on where I was and who I was dealing with, the fundamental virtues stayed unchanged and these differences always seemed to make myself different from other people.
Adding on to the "me not being American" part, I also come from an unstable family. Be it unstable relationships between family members or financial instability. Being an Asian family, we don't really have a close relationships with each other as American families would have but on top of being Asian, we're dysfunctional. There was a scam that my Dad was involved in which caused him to be scammed of 100 thousand dollars. This caused us to not be able to continue to live in our first house in America and we had to move to an apartment complex. Also, on top of that, he wasn't able to get a job that was salary pay due to the language barrier despite him being an mechanical engineer. Hourly pay jobs are unstable in hours per month so sometimes we were very tight on bill payments and sometimes we couldn't make them. By the time I was 15, I was paying our bills online and as a consequence of that, I realized how much of a financial burden it was to pay the bills. It caused me to feel the stress and I've always carried the weight with them. As a result, I never bought anything or asked for money from my parents. This resulted in little social life and missed opportunities mainly in highschool so it didn't really matter. By being on the edge financially, my dad established dominance in the house as the man of the house by being unreasonable and critiquing every little thing and almost always, he was contradicting everything he says. This caused me to realize not to listen to anything he says because it was all "bs".
Another thing I carry would be the generation gap. Although I am a first generation immigrant, I've pretty much assimilated to the American culture. I would believe decisons my parents make are wrong and they believe decisions I make are wrong. They think my actions are inappropriate but they're completely normal in America.
Just constant confliction of interest and different ideas of how to act keeps tension between my parents and I.
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I somewhat understand what you're going through because I am asian too. My mother is also very oldschool. She always tries to push old tradition back from Vietnam towards me like women have to do dishes or women have to clean the house and cook. It's completely different in America now. I also understand how there's a lack of "closeness" with the family. From observing my boyfriend's family, who is caucasian, they always tell each other they love one another and always hug and kiss on the cheek. My family has never done that before. Also how if you're parents are wrong there's almost an unsaid "apology" and they never admit to being wrong. It's pretty frustrating. But don't worry things will get better, you are not alone. :)
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