Taking Wings, Plunging Ahead

I'm 24 already and to some this is a ripe-enough age to be independent.

Technically, I am sort of independent, by circumstance I mean. Emotionally I am already since my Dad told me that no one is responsible for myself by me alone. So, one time when I was younger and my Dad sorta told me that my younger bro is my responsibility, I objected. Why the double standard? Up to now, I am sticking to that principle. I barely helped him through his college years and when, in high school, I noticed that he was gravitating towards my interests such as writing and painting (he had gotten into the same school paper and joined the same Arts Club in high school and joined the Glee Club) I told him: "Choose your own path. Decide for yourself what you really want out of this life. Don't use my life as your template. So you will not have to blame me if you will not like what you get."

So he enrolled in a course very different from mine (which is Journalism): Agricultural Engineering. I think he got the message.

It's a pretty selfish philosophy: Mind your own business.

Lately, I've been meaning to uproot myself from my family. Too many familial obligations which I think are unreasonably imposed on me. Fine, I'm like the eldest in the family but do I have to do all the work? I have my father's gravelot to pay and all that. I committed myself to that thinking OTs from my salary will do it but things are not in order recently. So my Mom's been bugging me. And I hate it. I would love a little understanding but nothing's coming my way.

So I've been thinking of severing myself from my family. Live alone here. And never initiate contact with them at all. Leave the country eventually, in like five years when I have enough money to pay for my Master's Degree in Film or Foreign Policy (or whatever I feel like taking during that time). Live in Madrid or Mexico. Write a book. Do a documentary.Fly. Escape. Hide.