spinning

In the car ride back from Seremban a little over a week ago, i overheard a conversation between my parents. Draped across the backseat with my eyes closed, they must have thought I was sleeping. My father spoke in low undertones, blatantly speaking about his fears & troubles without so much as a hint of hesitation. Soft confessions were spun, blending into the background noise of passing cars, my mom leaning back in her seat just listening, nodding every once in awhile.

Every single of us in our family tend to want to act macho by nature. We're not ones for big extravagant shows of affection or being any sort of vulnerable in public. (It comes in the package of being raised in a family that hunts wild boars for breakfast.) More so than anyone else my father, who's face turns pale at the mention of a heart-to-heart talk. This stolen moment between them might seem small, but hearing him open up to my mom like that really came as a shock to me. And from the way the heavy topics were being traded gently back and forth, I knew that this conversation wasn't the first of it's kind, nor would it be the last.

It felt like I was allowed a peephole into how their relationship outside their roles as parents really was, the aftermath of all the stories I have heard, what their lives was like behind their room door. Whenever my sister and I ask them about their courtship they speak facts, dates and names and events, but they never once bragged about their struggles or of the things they have done for each other. It was silly of me to miss the fact that their history is just as real as my present.

Soaking in the picture perfect moments of movies, relishing the one liners of a romantic book, feeling the bite of jealousy of a friend's seemingly perfect relationship, these are the fantasies that kill. we only taste the glory moments that shape us to believe that if it isn't how we have tricked ourselves to think it should be, it isn't right. Even the low points we see are over-romantiscised, the kind that a perfect phrase or gift can fix. The words we borrow from these stories really do carry less weight. My parents' story isn't the stuff of legends, there were no star crossed clashes, no viral video worthy proposals. What they have is each other. 25 years down the road, they understand each other in ways that I can't begin to phantom and still steal private moments to confide in one another, without pretentious. The way that we are supposed to coexist with our loved ones; as partners.