It’s been seasonably cold lately here in San Francisco, which is a stark change from the past few years where our winters have been relatively warm and very dry. It’s so cold that even my Asian mom have consented to the use of the central heating, though of course we set the temperature at just enough to be comfortable with two layers on. The dream of walking around with t-shirts and shorts during the winter months will remain a fantasy until I move out of the house.
If I can afford to move out of the house.
The severely unaffordable Bay Area housing market have ceased to be a point of anguish for me, and now I have this content resignation of my current situation of living at home (being Asian is awesome). It isn’t so bad at all: I get to hang out with my parents while helping them out around the house, and furthermore, I’m not spending half my income simply to house myself. Our parents are only as young as they are today - as we all are - so time spent with them is super important and never a “waste”, no matter what society dictates as the stage of life I’m suppose to in given my age.
The people that reflect on life and wish they’d spent more time with their parents? I don’t think I’ll have that problem. If anything, I’m front-loading the majority of it, instead of circling back to it many years later after I’ve established my own family. Besides, in Chinese culture you don’t abandon your parents under any circumstances: my aunt is still taking care of my grandparents to this day, even though she herself have already become a grandmother. The family unit is strong in Chinese culture because we stick together and help each other out.
That’s the story I’m telling myself anyways. I don’t pretend to not want to move out at all: I think the challenge of independence is something worth doing and a necessary learning experience. But the crisis in San Francisco is what it is, so I’ve stop lamenting the impossible housing problem and instead focusing on spending quality time with my family while the opportunity is still here. Hard to say what’s going happen a few years down the road, but focusing on the future isn’t helpful anyways.
It still amazes me I can shoot pictures like this handheld with a phone.