New Beginnings

For awhile now, I have been trying to make things work with my family. The family that I am talking about is my immediate family which includes my father, mother, and my two sisters. It has been a journey that I did not want to go on. I wish that I could have had a normal family life, but many things happen that we don’t expect to happen. In some ways, I am glad that I went through what I did because I feel a lot stronger now than before. However, in other ways, I wish that I didn’t have to go through so much of the hurt and pain that I had gone through.

I know that they won’t be reading this because they don’t support my writing. They’ve always known about my blog. I used to share my posts directly on my facebook page. And I know that they never clicked on them. It’s alright, I don’t really need their support for my writing. I will continue to pursue writing nevertheless.

Speaking of supporting my blog, I want to share a story about what happened when I initially wanted to start my blog four years ago. I’ve written about this story before, but it’s a good glimpse into the mindset of how my family thinks.

When I first wanted to set up my blog, I had asked a family member for advice. She told me that it wasn’t within her expertise even though she had created an entire website from scratch. I was stunned because it didn’t make sense to me that she couldn’t help me even though she has a ton of website creation experience. I initially wanted to create a website without a blogging platform. My plan was to write on the website and to own it. She told me straight that she was not able to help me create a website (despite having created a website a week ago) and that blogging is a waste of time. As I stood there speechless, I didn’t know how to act. Should I be mad at her for not wanting to help me or should I just give up on my creating a website entirely? I was honestly standing there with no words. She then asked me what I was planning on calling my website. I had Pocketfuloflearning in my mind and I told her that. She started looking it up as if she was looking for the website. At that moment, I felt so stupid and torn. I thought that I was naive for wanting to do something like this and that I would never be able to make anything from my writing. I left the room feeling like my dreams were crushed.

Fast forward a week later after the encounter, I found out that she had started her own blog. And she was posting on there occasionally. Many things were in my mind. She had placed her blog link on her instagram, so she wanted people to find her blog. Another thing was that she knew how to start a blog and it was evident that she didn’t want to help me. Her posts were about her day or her goals, and these are many of the common things that bloggers usually write about. I knew in that moment that she just didn’t want me to pursue blogging. She told me that it was a waste of time and that I will never get anything from it. If it was such a waste of time, why did she have her own blog? I told myself that I will continue to pursue blogging with even more passion than I had before. I wanted to prove her wrong and I was right. I ended up creating multiple blogs and I had success with it. Blogging changed my life for the better. And I gained a lot from writing. It has brought security, motivation, and monetary value to my life. I am forever grateful for blogging. I also learned that starting a blog was not difficult at all. She told me that it would be kinda difficult. And that was very far from the truth.

I hope the blogging story makes sense. It has definitely been awhile since the story occurred, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had listened to her. I spent so much of my time listening to everything that my family told me to do. I was brainwashing myself to believe what they were telling me. When I was in my freshmen year of college, I brainwashed myself that I wanted to go to medical school. I knew in my heart that I didn’t want to go, but my mother told me that she would cry every night if I didn’t go. Four years later, she told me that I should go to law school instead. I was hesitant. My boyfriend-now-husband told me that I should just continue teaching piano instead. I brainwashed myself again into thinking that I wanted to go to law school. I ended up crying a lot of the time throughout this entire experience. I wasted thousands of dollars and seven years of my life that I will never get back. The reason why they never gave me a chance to do what I wanted was because they looked down on me for being a teacher. A teacher is a respectable career choice. They wanted me to make a lot of money and they believed that teachers can’t make enough to meet their standards. It’s entirely false. Teachers can make a lot of money and probably more than other careers. If I had continued with where I was with my teaching, I would have made a lot more. I had a full studio of 40+ students and I was thriving. I gave all of it up just to be brainwashed and to lose more money.

Now that I look back on how much I lost, I am infuriated. I was hurt before, but writing my experience on to here has shown me that the situation is actually a lot worse than I thought it was. And that leads us to where we are now. I am going to continue writing about my experience on medium and here. This is my life and I don’t want them to control me anymore.

I am almost completely estranged from my family. The only thing left is the phone bill that I am not sure if I can cancel without talking to them. My husband and I are going to try to figure it out. I haven’t been living with them for four years now. And I am just beginning to rebuild my life again. I had lost so much from this entire experience. I was devastated for months after breaking ties with them. For the first time in awhile, I am hopeful again. I didn’t want things to be how they are now, but I am so much happier now.

If you are in a similar situation, I would encourage you to try to build your own life. It gets better and it is not hopeless.

I am also going to write more on my medium account. If you want to read more of my articles, you can click here: medium.com/@Liachenhwang.

We’re on Buy Me a Coffee! If you want to buy me a coffee, I would really appreciate it. Click here for my link.

Thank you so much for reading. Remember, you are important. And you matter.