Et tu, Demi

I'm sitting in my car waiting for the green light. I'm on my way home from the office when the traffic light at the intersection of EDSA and Ayala delayed.

I looked at the digital clock of the car. 10:50pm Boy, am I tired!

When I'm driving alone, only a portion of my mind is on my driving. Especially when i'm on my way home. The rest of it wanders about in the ether. It flutters from topic to topic, no conscious path. I just let my mind wander where it will. I guess, without really thinking about it too much, it's been a way for me to process things that are happening to me and in me.

Tonight, I found myself going over the conversation I had with my friend, China. I saw her earlier, and as usual, we talked as if we talk everyday, except that the topic is a catching up. We don't do details too much. When we talk we zero in on what lies beneath the details.

And so, just like always, she dove right in and said, in the middle of my update, "You're afraid your mom might be right."

BAM! Slamdunk!

Yes, my mom and i do not really have an easy time with each other. I cannot blame her. I'm not exactly her idea of a perfect child. And I know she's hard on me because she worried for me being single.

But sometimes, she hurts me real bad. When she questions my career decisions, the hours i keep, when she's indifferent to my friends (why do you think i hardly bring friends home?), when she complains about me or shows how she favors all my sisters before me, she wounds me.

And now i'm at a point where i'm deciding whether I should look at the possibility of working in another country. I know that whatever experience I will have, it will teach me how to be my own person. Because despite my advanced age, I do not feel like a complete person.

It's not an easy decision to make. Despite people's impression of me, I'm actually plagued with major insecurities, too many fears. And this decision-making time is riling them all up like the shaking of a snow globe.

China's right on the money. I'm afraid that my mom is right about me. And i'm afraid of proving her even more right, by uprooting myself only to fail. It would be devastating to me. And will condemn me further into this fear-laden cycle i'm trying to get out of.

What I need right now is to believe. In myself, in a cause, in something, anything that will propel me to move and alter the course that my life is on.

Everyone (almost) is encouraging me to pursue it, see where it will take me. And by everyone, I mean my friends, and even my own mind. It's my heart which says to slow down. But is it my heart or my insecurities?

I passed by 4 more traffic lights before I got home. But still no answers.

Maybe working abroad is not the answer, although I keep thinking it's the only way to force myself to get out of the rut I'm in. What I want really want is to get out of this fear-ridden hole i dug for myself.

But I don't know how. Or where to look for answers.