Learning to stay inside the lines.

Around Asian women,
obedience wasn’t taught.
It was absorbed.

My sister and I grew up in the same house.
Two years apart.
Same rules.

We came out nothing alike.

She challenged.
I adjusted.

During our “rebellious” years,
our parents suddenly encouraged honesty.
Open communication.

She believed them.

She told my dad she wanted to go to nightclubs with her friends.

It was the first time I saw him get physical with any of us.
He pushed her onto the bed.

The bedroom door shut.
Then there was shouting.

No one talked about it after.
We just carried on like nothing happened.

I watched what happened to her.
That wouldn’t be me.

I remember my mom venting to me about how difficult my sister was.
Too rebellious. Too much.

There wasn’t space for girls like her.

I took it to heart.
I became the easy one.

She kept pushing boundaries.
I learned where the line was.
I stayed on my side of it. 

My mom carried the house.
Everything bent around her moods.

My dad would say,
 “Let her be.”

She didn’t explode.
She leaked.

Small, steady resentment.
I was where it landed.

It was never physical.

But it was cold shoulders.
Silences that stretched too long.
Plates set down just hard enough to feel it.

Nothing you could point to.
But you felt it.

I missed her.
I wanted her attention.

So I learned to read the room
before I entered it.

And got good at it.

My dad wasn’t faithful.
It was always there.

Suspected.
Never spoken.

I made it my job to protect my mom.

Find something.
Proof.
Something she couldn’t ignore.

I remember snooping through his second phone.
Heart racing.

The door opened before I found anything.

Just a feeling that wouldn’t settle.

Until university.

First year away from home.

My mom called me, crying.

She got an STI from my dad.
From a work trip to Manila.

I had just finished dinner with friends.
We were laughing.
The room was loud.

I didn’t react.

I stayed where I was.
Smiling. Nodding.

Like nothing had happened.

I was more focused on her disappointment
than what he had done.

I was the one who held it.

I still am.

I haven’t told anyone in my family.
Not to this day.

I learned this early:

Marriage isn’t something you question.
It’s something you endure.

I spent school holidays at my aunt’s.
Long stretches.

They were more comfortable than us.
Everything had its place.

I learned how to fit.

Quieter.
Neater.
Presentable to their friends.
Polite. Easy to introduce.

Trying to be one of them.

My sister fought it.
My mom carried it.
My aunt perfected it.

Emotions.
Tension.
Silence.

The way words were chosen.
The way they were held back.

Affection measured.
Disagreement softened before it landed.

I didn’t question it.
I copied it.

I carried it.

The shifting.
The constant adjusting.

Now I see it.

Not as one moment.
But as a pattern.

Passed down
without permission
and without language.

And sometimes,
I catch it in real time.

That instinct to soften.
To stay inside the lines.
To make things easier
before anyone asks.

I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

And I’m still unlearning it.

Unlearning the people pleasing.