First, I have to admit that I look down upon dependence. Especially when someone does have the potential at independence. Now that we have that out of the way…

In middle school, my best friend’s mom did not drive. She said that she was afraid of driving. As a stay-at-home mom, she relied on her husband to drive everywhere. And worse off, the act of not driving especially in the suburbia of California meant she was trapped.

I can’t be trapped. Yesterday at my friend’s friend, I allowed my aunt (originally from Hong Kong) to escort me to my friend’s house for the festivities. But I refused her to come pick me up after the reception. It was silly having her to take a taxi to pick me up and then take a taxi back. I insisted that I could survive in the city, having had navigated around domestically and perhaps once in Thailand/Cambodia. In almost an act of defiance, I didn’t pay attention to the cell phone (plus I still couldn’t recognize the ringtone). And as the reception wrapped up, I walked outside, flagged down a taxi and showed the address my aunt wrote down in my book. “I understand,” the driver said and then tried to figure out the directions to the building.

I was surprised when my aunt opened her door who greeted me with repeated statements “You so smart! So smart!”