UNCERTAIN TIES

I'm kept awake on my last night staying in our new rented room. I don't quite enjoy living here because it turns out, the landlords (who live in the other rooms) allow only light cooking, which means up to instant noodles. They say everything else leaves an oily floor, which really gets my goat because, what is a kitchen for if not to be dirtied by food? I feel like the underlying cause is a little bit of racism, because the family is Chinese. You should see the reddit thread for renting in Singapore, racism is rampant but you'll never find them admitting it. I don't want to live here any longer because eating out everyday is obviously hella expensive, and second, if I were to allow any adult to control my lifestyle, I'd rather it be my mother who at least has a slight reason for it, than random people who don't know me at all. I am lying awake because I think my body knows it and feels it, somewhere deep beneath my conscious. Lucas doesn't want me to move back, of course, he reminded me that he's never seen me as torn and battered as I was on the night I left home, bawling about my mother calling me useless and someone who makes her unhappy, simply for having pink hair (and probably residual repressed anger at my tattoo, that she's never confronted). I feel tense tonight, I've had small, controlled, limited doses of my mother in the months since moving out, and I know moving back could be a step of regression, of moving back to trauma, of returning to a pattern of monthly dramatic battles and mental instability. But I have fought my fight, and I am not in the financial position to choose to rent, not in the position to choose to eat out everyday. Especially not when I'm trying to save for my education in 6 months (also uncertain, given the COVID situation). I move back only in the hopes that I am mentally stronger and healthier to choose my battles, to conserve my energy, and to try and spend more constructive time with my family members like my sisters and my grandmother, before I leave, for good. For good.