When "We" Becomes "Me"

During the time not so long ago when providing one’s pronouns started every meeting, I was always tempted to say “we/our/ours,” not to be funny (alright, to be a little funny) but because it most accurately reflected who I was. If you’re from an East Asian culture (and some others), you are never an “I.” You are a “we” from the start, which means you and your family, and later on, you and your children. (The marital relationship in these cultures are subsidiary to these other primary relationships.). Until I had children, I would automatically write “we” whenever I wrote about my childhood, meaning my siblings and me, without a referent. This was a problem; what came naturally to me was befuddling to everyone else: Who’s “we?”

When I had kids, '“we” meant them and me. (I’m aware this is not exclusive to Asian cultures. Once I ran into an old friend, not Asian, who was with some other people, and she and I both explained that “we went to pre-school together.” What we meant was that our children went to pre-school together.) My days were dominated by “we.” We could not go out because one of us was sick. We had to turn right back from a escape to the bookstore because the school called. We made playdates, took road trips, feared for our lives when gale force winds hit while we were sleeping in a treehouse in Volcano, Hawaii.

Often people assume that the hardest thing about being a single parent is emotional. You have no one there. You must be lonely. Well, the boys were good company, so that was rarely the issue. The hardest thing is being a “we” all the time, having to manage not just one life but our collective life, relentlessly being on the clock because there was always something else to do — do I have time to shower? To eat? And during “downtime,” always being on call. I could feel my telomeres shortening by the day.* The only time I truly relaxed was on vacation with the kids in a hotel room ordering room service.

Dropping off the boys at college last week, the mental load was severe. Two different cities, two different schools, two sets of schedules and instructions. Drive up to drop off where? Park the car where? Pick up at the mailroom at what time? Meet for lunch where, and when? I cursed Siri out for not knowing the difference between Pine Ave and Pine Court, made a dozen illegal U-turns, and arrived drenched with sweat an hour later from “parking the car.” (When I gave the boys my orientation before they left, about drugs and alcohol, sexual health, etc., I asked them to give me their orientation as well, now that I won’t be able to rely on them. They immediately said “learn how to follow the GPS!”) The orientation programming for the boys was so intense that I barely had time to say goodbye to them. Maybe they do that so the parents would leave. They whisk them away while entertaining the parents under a huge tent with chips and guacamole. I called my son over and gave him and quick hug and kiss. “You are great, I love you.” What more was there to say?

Figuring that being Dr. Chin rather than mom at this moment might not be a bad thing, I volunteered to do a workshop here in town next week, giving me the excuse not to leave yet. So now I’m in an Airbnb at the South End of Boston, trying to find food and figuring out how to do laundry in a coin-op. At least we still share a time zone and the rain. It occurs to me that somehow, subconsciously, I’ve crafted a life that parallels my kids’, maybe so that I would feel closer to them, maybe so I could hold at bay the emptiness that awaits me in that big house in which only Toby (dog) and I will inhabit. We are now three “I’s,” each pursuing our own interests and lives. My twin boys, sensing the time has come, chose to go to different schools, where they each seem to be finding their own footing. “I met so many people!” they text. Me, three nights in a row I went out to dinner on my own. I was walking around the neighborhood when I spotted a sidewalk cafe that looked like it could have been plucked from the streets of Paris. It was only 4:30, but why not? Turns out it was happy hour, so I ordered oysters for a buck each, grilled octopus, and a margarita — good value. Shortly after an older man sat down at the table next to me, also dining alone. “Would you recommend the oysters?” he asked. I would! Turns out he was a semi-retired professor of cardiology at Harvard, and our conversation lasted the whole meal, ranging from epigenetics to the the war in Gaza. It was full of curiosity and very amicable, even wonderful. The next night, craving sushi, I went to an izakaya down the block and had a conversation with a Northeastern University student from San Antonio, Texas. Let it be known that I’m not one to initiate conversation with strangers. I always bring a book, which I enjoy sometimes more than the company. This was an anomaly, or was the universe launching me too?

I picked up my clothes from the laundromat, slung the bag over my shoulder, and made my way toward home, wherever it may be.

*Telomeres are part of the DNA that are indicators of aging. The more stress you go through, the faster your telomeres shorten. There are studies that show that Black Americans have comparatively shorter telomeres than their same-age White counterparts, the “weathering” studies.