A Bird in a Cage is Worth 2 in the Hand

Last night was possibly the worst holiday I've ever had in my entire life.

My mom asked me to take her to her friend's house in the early evening, claiming that the swelling in her limbs was especially severe. I conceded like the "good" daughter I am and spent an awkward 2 hours at the home of a woman whom, to my recollection, had not spoken more than 2 hours worth of words to me in the 18 years she's known my mom.

Towards the end of the night, I sensed something awry in the air.

My intuition never deceives me

I had been speaking very briefly with a girl my age when my mom sat down beside me. A few moments later I overheard my mother and the girl talking.

Girl: [in Korean] So this is whom Mrs. ___ was trying to set up with my brother.

They thought I didn't understand what they were saying.

Moments later Mrs. ___ and an awkardly quiet gentleman proceed to saunter into the small den.

I couldn't believe them.

I walked out of the room to go read in quiet, Mrs. ___ grabbing my arm to try and stop me.

I could here them whispering and talking. My mom trying her best to excuse my behavior with her charm.

I was fuming. But I had no place to go.

I felt trapped.

A caged bird with no place to go.

I put on my sneakers and went out for air. And as walked around this foreign neighborhood, an overwhelming sense of frustration filled me, suffocated me. I tried desperately to breathe in the cold air, but anger boiled within me.

How could these people try to manipulate me? How dare they try to force my hand or think they know what's best for my life!

I began to understand the turmoil of all those ill-fated heroines of 19th-century literature. Here and now, I had been thrown into my own 21st-century Edith Wharton tale.

I returned to that unwelcoming home and, glaring at my mother, stated we were leaving. And as we drove back, my mother began to lecture me about how she worried so for my future well-being. That, if she were to die, I'd have no one to take care of me. That I needed to find a man to watch over me.

I stared straight ahead at the road.



Later that evening we drove to my aunt's home (a woman notorious for getting under my skin with her unending nosiness and pointless, irrelevant "advice").

We were able to sit for all of 20 minutes before my mother and aunt started up again about the awkward gentleman they'd tried to force me to meet an hour prior.

Aunt: Sister, you should have dressed her up better and made her put some make-up on... What is that!

I felt the noose around me.

Thinking me to be some deaf and ignorant child, they continued to talk, to whisper, to scheme.

The noose tightened. And I heard the the door of the cage close behind me.

I asked them to stop. They wouln't.

Angrily and loudly I reasoned my case. My hostile disposition concealing my desperate pleas to stop, to let me be. To let me be. To preserve what little amiability was left.

They would not. And, again, I went out into the darkness.

Realizing I had no place to go and no one to call upon, I began to cry in desperation.

They say an animal will chew its own leg off in hopes of freedom.

Last night, I was that trapped creature - staring down at my leg, wondering if I have it in me to do it... to break free.


I'm counting down the days, fearful that it may never come, but pleading with God to make the days run faster.