When Life Is Out To Get You

“You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” — Amelia Earhart “What do you want to do after high school?” my first boyfriend asked me on one of our early dates. We were both 16 at the time. “Enter university,” I replied almost instantly. It was then we decided for the remaining years at high school, our aim is to study hard and fly off to the United Kingdom. To the same university, if possible. We studied together, went to all the education fairs that popped up in the city, and surveyed our options. That was our romance. When the time came, I was offered a place to study History of Ideas and Philosophy at Warwick University in Coventry, England. Boyfriend was offered to study Engineering at University of Kent in Canterbury. We weren’t about Oxford or Cambridge. We wanted to avoid the high expectations from our families. We were happy we could be together. My father would have rejoiced if I had sent my application to his alma mater — London School of Economics and Political Science. That was the last place I’d apply to. I wanted to live out of my father’s shadow. I was dead set on my decision that I was blinded by what was happening on the home front. There were problems at home and my mother’s anxiety had flared up. It took one call to the living room for my father to announce, “You’re not going to the UK. Your mother needs you. The family needs you.” Years of ambitious planning went down the toilet. I stayed and went to the national university of Malaysia, but I was embittered and filled with angst that could surpass Alanis Morissette and her 1996 studio album ‘Jagged Little Pill’. <a href="https://medium.com/ellemeno/when-life-is-out-to-get-you-4d055d78e558">Website</a>