As I was just telling my mini-mum...

Parenting is tough.

I wonder if my mum ever thought that this will happen to her. You invest so much in your child's education and for the first chunk of his/her life it turned out brilliantly with awards and prizes and achievements but someway somehow somewhere in this journey, life, education, friends and people taught her too. Suddenly, you are not her only teacher anymore. Suddenly, she doesn't listen to your words anymore. And at the end of the day you guys hold totally different perspectives and world views and dreams. She ends up in this job you don't like at all. You pay for her first ocip and then she ends up going for more and more overseas experience that you disapprove of. India, Tioman, Cambodia, Philippines... until one day, your words don't matter anymore. Because she unhooked herself from your control and she don't give a f LOL basically she's just an ass who doesn't seek your approval anymore. Now all she does is purely informing you. Like how she's going for advanced diving. Like how she's going to Cambodia again.

It's sad. Things don't work out the way you planned it to be.

What just happened?

Life.
Life happened.

Can you imagine what will it be like if I didn't go onto this elite education pathway and learn all these things in school? We would probably be discussing about 4D together every wed/sat/sun, we would be smoking our cigarettes together, we would probably talk so much more because of all these common perspectives and hobbies. I wonder if I'll respect you so much more. I wonder if we will be happier together that way.

Such a tough trade-off. Your child's happiness or your happiness or a mixture of both?

Sad to find myself on the extreme end of the spectrum. 100% my happiness and 0% happiness with parents. Today this wave of sadness just hit me hard but I'm not regretting my decisions in life. I know waves are waves which means it'll subside eventually. But I'm feeling sorry to my mum, a whole lot. Sorry I didn't turn out the ideal way. I mean it, I'm sorry for your loss. Worse, I'm even more sorry that sorry is the only thing I can say.