Dear PiePie,
The title for this piece came from Thi Bui’s book of the same title. It’s an illustrated memoir, so an easy and quick read – I recommend it.
The book talks about the author’s family’s journey from Vietnam to America and how the unfolding macro events in Vietnam shaped her parents and ultimately herself, leaving psychological imprints that remain long after the tumultuous times have ended.
The one thing that struck me as I read it was how the author’s parents, first shown as hunkered-down refugee-immigrants who raised their children in America on minimum wage, had such similar dreams and aspirations to my university peers and myself, despite being in a much different time and place (early 1960s Vietnam), and in much more trying circumstances.
In high school, the author’s mother “can’t picture” ever marrying, just wanting to “study all her life, become a doctor if she can, and help people”. And while that dream dimmed after high school, the mom continued longing to “study abroad; do something meaningful”, as the Vietnamese society at that time was “too confining and limiting”. The author’s father, at 17, thought his “reality was uninteresting, so became a dreamer”, imagining how his life would be if he was James Dean in a movie, and dressed like a “star” with undone buttons, long hair, and tight pants. He read Sartre and de Beauvoir and listened to Presley.
Perhaps it is the strata of society that the author’s parents occupied, since they were comparatively well-off and well-educated, but this was how many of my peers in high school and college were as well. Dreams of studying abroad, of breaking free from the existing confines of life, of venturing beyond to search for a meaning to life. I had assumed these were cliches of millennials, but it might have been more universal than I imagined.
I thus suppose that you would be feeling this way as well when you are reading this, with “the world’s mine oyster” mentality. And if you should be bristling with ideals and optimism, with dreams of what can be, with hopes of making a dent in this universe, I shall be content. Part of this contentment stems from my belief that those ideals and optimism tend to be built on not having to worry about necessities and survival (and I do hope you don’t have to). But it also means that I have been sufficiently encouraging to not have quashed those dreams.
So if you are indeed dreaming big, I simply have one more quote to bring up. Perhaps a harsh one, but one that many older people think – that “youth is wasted on the young”.
It will seem that the years stretch endlessly before you, that there will always be time to get to something. That’s not true. The years accelerate the older you are – Christmas seems to come around more quickly and catch-ups with friends become more and more infrequent. You are at the age where you will have the most energy you will ever have, with a keen enough understanding of how the world works, but without the cynicism and jadedness that comes from experiencing it too fully. Treasure this unique set of attributes. It won’t be forever. Carpe Diem.
Mom and I will support you, the best we could do.
Love, Dad