I also sometimes think of how my parents are the only ones I feel safe sharing certain things with, although I keep huge chunks of myself away from their sight. They see the sides of me that are less dark, which I am not afraid to reveal. As acceptable as these opinions of things are, and therefore things I should be able to tell everyone else, I only say it to them. Like issues of the world, or people, or families, or love, or the country. Because they are wise enough to tell me answers and I do not have to be engaged in discussion where friends expect me to. I think friends want your opinion in return, where my family allows me to let whatever thoughts I have simmer in my mind, or on the pages I write. I think they wish I would share more with them, but they love me nonetheless.

There are no other people where I can call "family". Wait, my relatives share the same grandparents' blood I hold. But I do not understand that kind of love much, because I see them only once a year. As much as I know they care for me, I don't feel that love much. My 'nuclear family' is the kind of family I am talking about here. My husband, if he exists, will be someone I love so dearly and would do everything for, but his blood is not in me. We can bond in all ways possible, but there will not be a single scarlet drop of our liquid in each others' bodies.

When I think of family, and love, I think of my mother. She irritated me today by insisting on giving me a massage. Now, I do not want to let it be misunderstood that I'm an ungrateful person. At that moment it felt like she was offering, or stuffing, something I do not need into my hands, and would not accept "later" or "no" as an answer. I was not irritated by her concern for me, only her insistence on doing "what is right" irregardless of what I needed at the moment. But when I finally relented, and felt her effort in every stroke of her slim hands between some ungrateful requests of mine to not pull the elastic band of my shirt too much (being the ocd person I am), I realised how much she loved me with her silence, not throwing aside that want to help me. Despite the somehow lack of communication before. And of course, how incapable I am of loving someone or considering someone else's needs compared to her.

I think I'd want to be able to shower someone with the kind of sacrificial love she has for me, or the kind all mothers have for their children. I would love my other half with more effort, simply because there is no natural bond to cement us together. Many of us grow old to the realisation that our parents' love for us are so great, despite the arguments and misunderstandings we've had, and we come to find that bond and mend any gaps. But it is different when we are to love a stranger, our to-be-other half. There is more effort to be put in, and I will imitate my mother's love for me.

I think being able to meet someone like that is very difficult, and just now I had the stupid thought of having a baby and loving my own product so much, without having to make it with someone I might not even be lucky enough to meet. There should be a new species of humans, like asexual plants, and I might want to be one if my lousy communication skills and tendency to be lost in my own world scares people away.

The point of writing this is to remind myself that even though a lucky me might experience love in the future, or provide it, there will be nothing quite the same as the blood bond I have with the people who created me, or my brother whom the same couple have created. Last night, my mother woke up in the middle of the night as usual to remind us to go to bed, and I saw the wrinkles in her face, the squint in her usually large eyes. I feel the signs of my parents growing old when they take their frequent afternoon naps.

And I think of what I've written in the first paragraph, that they're the people who have shaped me and answered my questions and accepted me. I heard myself saying, "I do not want to lose them", amidst my frequent desires to break free from the strong hold they have over me, the desires of freedom. I can have both, and show them I love them in return. I thought of this and felt something cold down the corners of my eyes, and this paragraph is evidence of how much I want to remember that moment.