When I was teaching reading privately, I met a passage where it discusses boomerang kid problems. Just imagine a boomerang that can change the condition into its initial position. So does Boomerang kid.
Boomerang kid is a term to label students who studied outside the city, usually to pursue greater quality education, and came back home to find a career but also have lower living costs as they still live together with their parents. This phenomenon was a high trend when the pandemic hit. Many adults came back home to be socially distant. As things back to normal, I saw a number of my peers start leaving their homes for bigger cities to pursue careers or higher degrees.
As per the definition, I am not a boomerang kid. The better way to say my condition is I never leave home. I never leave my parents and family. I pursue both my education and career in my hometown. Yet growing up as an adult with parents opened me to so many life "lessons" a.k.a. dilemma.
#1 Dilemma: better is not yet to come, so is it better to postpone my marriage?
From being my mother's caretaker, I got a lot of insights about marriage life. The hardest battle from my mother's lens is to keep up with finance. How with a small amount of money can provide the care of children whether they are food, shelter, and quality of life amenities. My mother is such an example who has gone through a real mental battle but remained strong. She can make herself empowered by building a small enterprise shop to make a living and is so grateful for my father's salary. Second of all, the problem with anger and emotional management is also crucial in living with main core family members.
Observing those circumstances firsthand made me think of a greater responsibility: to be a wife and mother myself later on. How will I come up? Am I capable? Have I been financially free? I am afraid that I would make my future generation be mentally drowned as I have not been so smart in managing my anger. Jungling as a firstborn in charge of taking care of my mother whose health condition is a bit worsening and as a full-time probation teacher has already been very challenging. Will I be a full-time mother or a working mom, then?
After all of the ideal narratives during university, living together with my parents woke up my reality. So, I intend to postpone my marriage. I thought that there would be a lot to learn from living alone still or partly I would meet hurdles that were able to prepare me as a wife and mother. Just to say the least, I am not yet ready for the marriage storm mentally.
#2 Dilemma: Are You Only Live Once (YOLO) or having fun every weekend not for me?
Financial spending for a firstborn living with her parents can be different compared to adults leaving their home completely. I start getting money monthly, and my parents start to be paid less. The business was not as successful as when I was young. My father will be retiring in several years.
Therefore, I start thinking about how I can give to my parents. At least, I try to find ways to help them pay for electricity, water, or gas for food. I would like to say my gratitude for bringing forth me this far. They still have the same steady level, even better, in rising me to be a good girl. Furthermore, I also want to spend my off-time with them such as chit-chatting together, spending quality time, taking them to public health services, or having vacations together.
So the dilemma is: can I have more time to spend with my friends just like during high school? However, we can never turn back time, right? I guess this scene brought me to another lesson of adulthood: to maintain my energy focus. I have to think more mindfully about financial priority spending now. It is not about fancy coffee, branded bags, or gorgeous concerts again now.
#3 Dilemma: Are these domestic errands or just empowered woman's skills?
The younger version of myself never knew the idea why my mother always did everything alone. If she had been able to pay for a personal assistant, why would she have cared about cooking, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, and managing the business herself? I always had an idea in mind to pursue high-paying jobs that is able me to pay a personal assistant. Just before I knew the skills and experiences I should have acquired to get high-paying jobs and still be able to maintain mental health at the same time.
So, I always avoided household chores for 20 years of my life. I had a very dedicated mother and family helper. I always thought only of myself. As long as my room was neat, I had done my part in taking care of the house. Now with better financial narratives, I knew why my mother learned how to cook and take care of the house. After all, the natural course of our life obligates us to be dependent on ourselves. We could ask for help, but there is none such as 24-hour support. I am grateful for this life dilemma. I began to learn how to do household chores, and I added it to my time management strategies.
To close this 'essay of myself', I sum up that we need to shallow with time. God has given us the right time to heal. Like what I read on Zhafiwrites earlier, "The inner child in me did not need a hero or a savior. What she needed was time, and only the natural course of life was able to give me the time I needed to heal."
My Rabb, I don't ask for the problem to be smaller in the future, but I ask You to make me stronger and stronger.
With love,
Fanaya
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